Category: News and Views
Obama has just passed an executive order for behavior modification for helth and lifestyle changes. This means the feds will have a say in what we eat drink and how we exercise. This legislation is designed to get people to stop smoking, it targets a sedintary lifestyle along with neutrition modification. I could be wrong but this sounds a lot like North Korea. I don't want a nice man in a suit knocking on my door asking me if I've exercised or what I ate today. What next, they'll tell you what you can buy at the grocery store? There's a lot more to this. Bruce just read the important parts of the article to me. It was too important not to say anything. Tiffany
I've heard of this too, but it was posted on a friend's page in Facebook, and I don't often trust his news sources. But if this really is true, then it's a sick and disturbing use of power. Whether I smoke (and I do thanks), whether I exercise, the foods that I eat and the things that I drink are no one's concern but mine. The only good thing that I've heard about this bill are that they're trying to stop drug abuse and to monitor for domestic violence.
Yes, there will be screenings of some sort to monitor for abuse. Just do a google search and you'll get all you need. Where can we go where this blatant abuse of power doesn't happen? And how can you screen someone for domestic violence anyway? Psych evaluations would be the only thing I could think of. And then whose your target group? Young white males? Young black males? Because we all know women never hurt their children or berate and harm their husbands. It doesn't take a brute to be violent. My mother can still reduce my father to a crying man under the kitchen table. Abuse comes in all forms, a black eye is just one.Sorry for the rant but this isn't who I voted for. If Mcane hadn't turned in to a stuge with that halfwit for vp I'd have voted for him. Oh well. Who wants to see our good friend Arnold in the white house? Oh yeah, you have to be born here. But they'll change that because the constitution is outdated you know. Tiffany
Let me guess. You're another Libertarian who thinks that The Constitution should be followed letter by letter with absolutely no changes... That's the type of person who originally posted this to Facebook. No offence to you if you are, but I can't agree with the politics of that party. Normally, I don't even follow American politics but this is ridiculous!
Where are your sources? Call me Snape or the cranky demanding old bastard ... but sources other than a news source: is there a copy on the web? After all it is public information if in fact it exists. We all ought first read the document, then decide eh?
That or at least a nonpartial news source, a place with a nonpolitical agenda. That would be a nice start I think.
The executive order itself would be precise.
If this were as big a deal as everyone's claiming it'd be on slashdot by now and it hasn't been.
Hmm, just searched it, and can't find a thing. I wonder what rag this article was in...Not anything even on CNN that I can find. Oh, I've seen something from a Jewish site, but no others.
I don't support any of Obamacare because I don't support government in healthcare and because the vast majority of people like small business owners who were polled, when asked would they support a free public health option, responded 'no'. I worked at a V A hospital for 18 months, and I can attest to how bad a job government does providing care for this one element of society. One poor lady was homeless by the time her data was entered into the system. Is this what people want private medicine to become?
And I might as well use this post, since the original poster stated her opinion of Sarah Palin to state mine: I don't like the woman. And not because I think she lacks intelligence, but I think the whole campaign of trying to make her look like the average woman who can relate to their concerns is hogwash. The average woman isn't a former beauty queen with 5 stupidly named kids, and she didn't go to work 3 days after the birth of a Downs' Syndrome baby, nursing the poor thing in a sling with both males and females in the room. No the average woman doesn't fit this description. The average woman probably doesn't have a husband whose work is one week on, one off, or however Todd Palin's schedule worked, to have him doing the majority of the parenting & childcare. An online friend of mine thought he was a stay at home dad and got creeped out as this lady was virtually bankrupted by a husband who wouldn't work due to migraines. I have that, I work.
And while I'm at it when did the Conservative movement become such a puppet for feminists? I swear the mindset of these feminists, both liberal and conservative, is the same as this ridiculous Nirvana song I had to sit through with a boyfriend some years ago, 'My Detachable Penis'. They seem to fancy the roles of parent and breadwinner as interchangeable, the roles of mother and father interchangeable. I have known young women in Bristol Palin's situation, young with high powered moms working jobs that kept 'em on call or 2 or 3 jobs while dad stayed home or worked just one, and guess what? These young women wound up in stupidly named Bristol's shoes, young, unwed and pregnant. It has got to be awkward for a father to explain to his daughter the function of parts he doesn't possess, the menstrual cycle he doesn't have, you get the picture. This, as well as any religious teaching on the sexual relation, is probably best explained by the parent of the same sex, unless it's not possible because of death or divorce, even then it's probably best to find a trusted adult of the same sex. When it isn't taught by the parents, the kid doesn't learn, and there they are with kids they can't afford and are ill prepared to care for. I think it's very deceptive to teach high school and college age women you can have whatever career you want, no matter how much time it takes you away from home, AND whatever size family you want, sacrificing nothing. Like the original poster, I think if McCain had nominated someone else as his V P, we wouldn't be stuck with this (expletive) whose in office now, who doesn't care what the vast majority of Americans want, as evidenced by the passage of Obummercare.
I can't give my opinion of Sarah Palin, since I don't know anything about her. But I see no problems nursing a baby in front of men or women. It's a natural thing and people need to stop treating it as if it's some kind of discusting and horrible thing to be shunned and hidden. Women aren't doing it for attention. They're feeding their babies! As for going to work three days after having any child, let alone a child with Downs Syndrome, I'm completely in agreement with you that this is a terrible thing. If you choose to have a child like that then you need to take care of him/her and be there. But in general, I can't see any issues, other than losing the ability to breastfeed, with women working and men staying at home, particularly if the woman makes more money than the man. It's not like men are incapable of loving and caring for their children. Gods know there are wonderful single dads who do it, so why not a dad with a woman who lives with him? It's not as if she can't explain these things to her daughter at some point. And since when is it bad for men to learn about the reproductive cycle? But if we're to agree that separation in sex education is a good thing, then I'm sure it's just as difficult for a mother to explain voice changing, erections, cleaning the foreskin etc. because, after all, she doesn't have to do these things. I do agree that parents need to teach their children about safe sex. However, I also think that the school should play a role, since they might be able to explain things in a way that a parent might not, because he or she may not have the knowledge to do so. If it's deceptive to teach women that they can't have whatever carreer they want due to being taken away from home, then the same should apply to men. Too many children grow up without really having their fathers in their lives because they're always away at meetings or at work. But I do think that sizes of families should be limited to what the parents can actually afford and that this should be taught in schools.
Interesting points of view, not going to debate any of them as I've read through the contract legislation which is the new health care reform bill, less expensive than that put forth in 2003 by George W. Bush which increased entitlements.
But, still no source from the peanut gallery on the executive order. This stuff is all out in PDF now, so let's have it. None of us do a design change without a design / blueprint, now. Perhaps I would find the whole thing so riddled with holes it would make a sieve look like smooth glass, but without the real deal, a copy of the order, we are left with naught but the capacity to opine on something we haven't read yet. I believe even modern school systems, even those of an allegedly higher standard, would still call for reading the work before opining upon it?
Agree on some points disagree on others. Some careers are not family friendly,and they should not be taught as such, to male and female students. One of Dr Laura Schlessinger's listeners was a man with a wife and 6 kids whose wife threatened to throw him out if he didn't get a lower paying job that was strictly 40 hours a week and would allow him to be home more for family. He got that 40 hour a week job, and even w a salary cut saved his marriage and didn't go for any public assistance. Agree that no one should have more kids than they have time or $$ for. I don't know how people can be so naive about this. Salary limits are posted in every OBGYN & pediatric practice for WIC, probably online for other programs. Schools need to teach that if people are within or under the limits for public assistance, they probably should not have a/another child. Also if someone needs a 3 job marriage, this is not compatible for a/another child.
However, I am not for nursing in the open unless the woman has a towel or blanket to cover herself and the baby with, and I fail to see anything liberating about women working while men stay at home. Women go through the physical process of childbirth, which requires 6-8 weeks leave, and a study years ago compared traditional working dads with stay at home dads. Five years later, of those remaining in the study, the stay at home dads had more risk factors for heart disease than the traditional full time working dads. Also I fail to see anything liberating about a co-worker of mine's situation. This lady gave birth to 6 kids and underwent treatment for bladder cancer, and SHE'S ?! the one working two jobs. Huh? Her husband is really kind of useless. He works days, and she has had to leave her night job to discipline kids or deal with a security alarm problem in their rental house. This is liberating how?! She physiologically bears the kids, and gets more of the work?! These folks had more kids than they had time or money for, and one girl had an out of wedlock baby last year. I guess parenting by cell phone while you're at your night job doesn't teach 'em what they should know, & speaking of not having what you can't afford, this girl was mad not because she got pregnant with no income, but because the state of Florida gave them a hard time getting food stamps.
Re any health care reform the only reform I would actually support is for private charities...secular and religious...to take charge of indigent health care. They did so with organizations like Judeo Christian Health, ElderMed, and the Red Crescent Clinic in the part of Florida I'm from, and they did it very well. The public health clinic here, except for asthma treatment, is bad enough, I don't want government run health care.
Now, my last post was only a statement about the data, or lack thereof, but what follows is opinion, and that about Sarah Palin:
Whatever you think of her politics, or how you especially as a woman feel about her family situation, she was the most public figure to be identity-robbed, and the data exploited.
In summation, what happened was she made the common mistake of using Secret Question data that could be searched on Wikipedia. That is not a crime. Manageably ignorant, yes, I would not say stupid because many users are grossly undereducated and overly fearful about their data. In other words, they act more like rabbits than like intelligent people on the subject.
However, it wasn't her fault that her account was broken into by an overweaning young sport in need of some smackdown. I won't dignify what he did with the term 'hack' because there was hardly anything clever about it.
Now, imagine he had walked in her unlocked backdoor in Wasilla, kicked over cupboards, smashed through closets, threw her possessions around rather like monkeys throw their own waste, made off with pictures and memorabilia and proceeded to post this on Youtube / Flickr and sell what was saleable.
The tough-on-crime right would have rightly responded with a renunciation he would have certainly been jailed.
Truth: we actually don't know yet to what level this was taken because it takes up to seven years for the fruits of identity theft to be fully realized in some cases. What was committed was actually rather a high crime, not against some religious movement or the GOP but against Sarah Palin and perhaps acquantances / friends / family, depending on the data in her possession. Your data is your property, just like your clothes, wallet and everything else.
Yet where are these supposed tough on crime people in this situation? I don't have the specifics of the charge but they did not include identity theft, a crime which for we won't know the results for a few years yet.
The GOP should have taken immediate action, set a monitor on her credit report for her, and helped her in all other respects that surround this crime. Where are the supposed victims' interest groups? Conspicuously absent they were.
And yet, identity theft has long-term effects that in many ways parallel rape. A financial and / or criminal reputation once destroyed unknowingly and on paper, is near impossible to recover.
What I say isn't political: in fact though I'm no softfoot, Palin and I are different enough that our common ground would be that between the two of us, we could grant credence to the Parallel Universe theory. However, the way this identity theft business was handled ought to make the Right who were in charge of her hang their heads in shame, the yellowbellies!
I'm not finding it either. Do certain sites just make this stuff up? I'm pretty sure Bruce can locate the order itself. No I'm not a libertarian but I do think Sarah Palin is an idiot. How can a 17 year old who went to public school be ignorant of the facts. We were taught the basics in fourth grade. Come on now. I think she was just being willfull and disregarded the consequences and her mothers very public life just made things worse. She isn't the average single mom by any means. She will never need to file for food stamps wic or medicaid. The fact is libs and dems feel pretty screwed by the present administration. I'm no feminist. If you want a career don't get married. If you want a big family learn all you can about food prep budgeting frugal living etc. There's no shame in getting help if you need it. The church fails mightily in this respect and is just as prone to feminism as any large organization.To make themselves seeker friendly they look like the world. I'm proconscious choice and pro-gun and pro-gay marriage. There are conservative glbt folks who do right by themselves and other people. If this was all a flap over nothin I'm sorry. The internet can be a dicy thing when it comes to facts. I still think these reforms will have a devastating impact, exec order or no. And yeah the handling of the identity theft sounds pretty bad. Sorry guys. Tiffany
Well we all do it, and hey, you're in the 1% who actually owned it.
I just think in education now we need to teach kids how to research and sort data. I forget this being a SW developer myself for which research and data gathering is crucial to making all decisions. But we've got to put together a way to teach that skill to the average population. It's just a skill like learning to tie your shoes: Nobody's born knowing how.
I would submit we blinks are potentially better at fact-finding / research because when you think about it, almost everything you do means you must check / double check data, whether it's how close you got the spout of the teapot to your cup, to figuring out ahead of time how you're going to get from point A to point B on a trip, since we all can't see to do it on the fly. It's just a matter of applying it to online content: work stuff down to the lowest common denominator and the like.
You know I love research, and it was infuriating that all I could find were sites promoting a political agenda. It's funny you mensioned the spout vs cup bit. I can't tell you how often I think my aim is right and I still end up with a puddle of coffee or tea on my counter and I could have sworn the spout was right in the center. I never thought about how much we really do look in to every move we make especially when we're striving to be as independent as possible. Oh and let me explain myself a bit here. I said career not job. There's nothing wrong with needing to work to feed your children or pay medical bills etc. There's a huge difference between needing to work and wanting to work. Feminism sold us a bill of goods crating an emotional coefficient of self-fulfillment that fed ego and lust for power. Women are not angelic. We've got predatory and compeditive tendencies just like men do. The real tragedy here is there are influincial people men and women alike trying to get men to accept there new position of inferiority. Because of our emotional nature power hunger and conquest take on a much more damaging guise.We've become intoxicated by a freedom that fails in the end. And no the situation described above doesn't sound at all liberating. I have great respect for single moms who hold there standard and do the best they can for their kids. Motherhood is a fulltime job. If you want children make them number one. Work from home if you can when there small. Even if your busy your presence still counts. Tiffany
I can't say that I understand the bit about the spout as I've never really had that problem. I also don't get the hatred of feminism seen on this board, though I myself am not a feminist and think some of them get way to carried away with themselves. I don't see men, women or ts/tg people as inferior. I see them as equal. That said, I do agree with you about the career bit. I think people need to think before they decide on whether they want a child or a career. At least one parent should be home with the child until he/she is about five, sometimes older. But at that age, he/she is in school, so a job can be taken outside the home. But it should never be the case that the parents, be they one or two, are so busy that they can't take care of their children, that they're constantly away from them and only see them when their schedules allow. That's why so many children are growing up without parental guidence and later having problems as adults.
Robozork, good point about the identity theft. I had a colleague whose Social Security # was accessed by someone with the same surname. She didn't find out her credit had been shot to hell in a bucket until she applied for a homebuyer loan and was told 'no' because of bad credit, which she totally didn't know she had. When she asked for an investigation, she was asked if she knew someone by the name of Jane Q Smith. The difference in name was something like June L Smith. When 'June' replied she didn't, she was told that individual had accessed her SSN and used it to open up a # of accounts, all of which went unpaid after a series of charges. It really does rob you of your life, and it's a shame the GOP didn't stand up for its member, regardless of anyone's opinion of her. I also think it's a shame there isn't a viable alternative in the U S to the GOP or the 'Democratic' party.
The hatred of feminism on this board, at least on my end of it, has to do with feminism teaching women that they could have everything and sacrifice nothing, which proved to be total hogwash and leave many kids alienated from one or both parents. Tiffany made good points about making choices, like marriage or family unfriendly career? Learning to budget and sacrifice based on the family size you do want. It has also created a false equality. For example, before about the 1960's, it was greatly stigmatized in the U S for women to be drinkers, at least more than moderate drinkers. That change around the 1960's, with a "What's good for the goose is good for the gander' mindset taking over. Native American tribes started to self destruct with any # of babies being born with fetal alcohol disorder. The late Michael Dorris encountered pregnant women drinking in bars, and, having adopted a fetal alcohol child, he would remind them of this condition, to be told "It's just like a MAN to tell me what's good for my body." My lunch friend very recently encountered a very pregnant woman next to him in a bar, and as a toxicology tech was about to say something, but her husband soon sauntered over. He feels visibly pregnant women shouldn't be served. Agreed on parents being a presence in their children's lives, but still am not supporting any of Obummercare.