There are many here who value our neighbors to the north, and consider you as friend, not as oppressive marxist converts.  The staunch support as an in country ally is also much appreciated both Iraq and Afghanistan (Not Exactly Popular).

You have a system that works, and that the people like (Bravo) and you even managed to reduce the stresses of healthcare and going through a healthcare crisis. We know your system is not perfect (Perfect World).

It is kind of funny (Not Really) hearing about the Women with brain cancer.

Nothing wrong with a good dose of the Truth.

Here its all about deception, fear, and belief in deception, and if you dont tow the line they will scream or bully you into line. Amazing I know

Anyway bravo on defending your point of view, you have been through some nasty threads hear on the subject.

newgirl wrote: Here's another topic that kind of overwhelms me.  I don't even really know where to begin to look to get an understanding of it.  Does this mean people with no insurance now (me) would have insurance?  Because that seems like it would be a good thing.... ?

From the moment Walter and Anna take possession of the house, it quickly begins to fall apart. The entire front door frame rips out of the wall, the main staircase collapses, the plumbing is found to be full of gunk, the electrical system catches fire, the bathtub crashes through the floor (this causes Walter to laugh vehemently), the chimney collapses, and a raccoon has invaded the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbwaiter - dumbwaiter .

Contractors Art ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Mantegna - Joe Mantegna ) and Brad Shirk ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_Caridi - Carmine Caridi ) are called in, work permits are issued, and the job is originally estimated to take two weeks. This is because the original intent was to demolish the house. Still, the estimate of two weeks is a running gag throughout the movie. (When asked how long a process will take, the answer is always "two weeks"). Walter is increasingly frustrated by the delays and increasing cost and dubs the house “the money pit".

The repair work ends up taking four months. Anna attempts to secure more funds from Max by selling him some artwork she received in their divorce. Max doesn't care about the artwork, but gives her the money anyway. He wines and dines her, and she ends up in a compromising situation. (The morning after he agrees to buy the paintings from Anna, Max allows her to believe her assumption — having woken up in Max's bed — that she has cheated on Walter, but in reality she has not). Walter later asks Anna point-blank if she slept with Max, but Anna hastily denies it. Walter's suspicions push Anna to admit that she slept with Max, but the damage is done. Anna later confides in Max that, "He (Walter) can't forgive me, and I can't forgive him for that."

Due to Walter and Anna’s stubbornness, their relationship becomes more and more hostile, and in a rare moment of agreement, vow to sell the house once it is restored and split the proceeds. This nearly happens, but Walter misses Anna and says he loves her anyway, even if she did sleep with Max. Anna happily states that she didn’t sleep with Max, and the two reconcile. In the end, they are married in front of their new house.

The movie ends with a cutaway to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_De_Janeiro - Rio De Janeiro , where Estelle and Carlos ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_van_Dreelen - John van Dreelen ) — now revealed to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con_artist - con artists — are taking a cash-filled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briefcase - briefcase from Walter's father, who is thrilled to be getting such a great deal for a house.

Q: Would a new bill in Congress make my backyard organic garden illegal?

A: A House bill proposes to split the Food & Drug Administration, creating a separate entity to oversee food safety. Its aimed at food sold in supermarkets and doesn’t say anything about organic gardening, pesticides, farmers markets or that tomato plant in your backyard.

FULL QUESTION

This one keeps hitting my inbox.

Hello friends and fellow citizens,

javascript:expand%28document.getElementById%28eet1006047972%29%29 - ⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full text ⬏

< = =text/>expand(document.getElementById('eet1006047972'));expand(document.getElementById('eetlink1006047972')) BEWARE THE FOOD POLICE! HR 875/S425
IT WOULD NATIONALIZE FARMING- DESTROY ORGANICS- EVEN ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE
GARDEN!

I just stumbled on some pretty disturbing legislation coming out of the Congress of the United States. The bill is HR 875 and it’s labeled as the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. At first glance it didn’t seem like much. However, there are several, including exposing some pretty scary legislation enclosed in the bill.
In the midst of the financial crisis, it seems that these initiatives are sliding in under the radar. Many people are not even aware of them-
It is imperative that you look into this immediately and with extreme scrutiny as our heath and well-being are threatened!!! If this bill passes, you can say goodbye to organic produce, your Local Farmer’s market and very possibly, the GARDEN IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!!!!!
Things we are finding in the bill:
* Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
* Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
* Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
* Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
* Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
* Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
* Section 207 requires that the state’s agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

I encourage you to look into this immediately and help remove this bizarre piece of legislation.

FULL ANSWER

Talk about Internet hysteria. This bill, H.R. 875, introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), has sparked chain e-mails, blog postings and other exclamation-point-filled rants (like the one above), claiming that the legislation targets organic farmers, benefits manufacturers of genetically engineered seeds, and threatens to uproot backyard vegetable gardens across the country. It doesn’t.

DeLauro introduced http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h875ih.txt.pdf - H.R. 875 , called the Food Safety Modernization Act, on Feb. 4, and it was promptly referred to House committees. There’s no indication as to when it may be brought to the floor for consideration, despite what some blog posts maintain. The stated purpose of the bill is “to establish an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to be known as the ‘Food Safety Administration,’ " which would oversee food safety and labeling in the U.S., creating a single government entity in charge of preventing food-borne illnesses. DeLauro’s http://delauro.house.gov/release.cfm?id=1469 - press release announcing the legislation , introduced after the peanut butter salmonella outbreak in the U.S., said that “FDA would be split into an agency responsible for food safety (the Food Safety Administration) and another responsible for regulation of drugs and devices. This move creates an agency solely focused on protecting the public through better regulation of the food supply.”

The bill has 41 cosponsors and has been endorsed by major food and consumer safety organizations, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit organization that advocates for clean water and safe food and is headed by a woman who used to work for Public Citizen, the consumer group founded by Ralph Nader. It has posted http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodsafety/background-on-h-r-875 - a fact sheet on H.R. 875 on its site, disputing rumors about "food police."

The legislation stipulates that the new FSA (Food Safety Administration) would set safety regulations for food establishments and "food production facilities" and would be able to inspect such facilities. Its regulations also would pertain to imported foods. The e-mail posted above and others say that the definition of "food production facility" is so broad that it could include backyard gardens. The bill says: "The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation." It seems quite a stretch to think that anyone’s personal vegetable patch would be considered a "farm, ranch or orchard." First Lady Michelle Obama showed no signs of concern last week as she http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html - broke ground on a sizable 1,100-foot garden plot on the White House lawn. Organic, of course.

The e-mail above argues that DeLauro’s bill "[e]ffectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic." We’re not sure how exactly a bill would criminalize something it doesn’t mention, but the e-mail is correct in that the word "organic" is nowhere to be found. Another Internet posting more alarmingly claims: "Bill will require organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to ‘make sure there is no danger to the public food supply.’ " But the quoted phrase isn’t in this bill. Nor is there any mention of chemical versus organic fertilizers or "poisonous insect sprays," or, for that matter, pesticides in general.

The only mention of fertilizers we could find was this, requiring that the FSA create regulations to: "include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water." The idea that "fertilizer use" would not include organic fertilizers is pure speculation well beyond what the legislation calls for.

Also, organic farming is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under its " http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&acct=nop - National Organic Program ," not the FDA.

And It Gets Even More Hysterical

E-mails and blog postings claim that the agricultural giant Monsanto will benefit greatly from the bill; some say the often-protested company was the main lobbyist, and still others say DeLauro’s husband "works for Monsanto." He doesn’t.

DeLauro’s spouse, http://www.greenbergresearch.com/index.php - Stanley Greenberg , is chairman and CEO of Greenberg-Quinlan Research Inc., a public issues research and polling firm. The company does surveys. And public relations work. Monsanto was http://www.greenbergresearch.com/index.php?ID=408 - one of the firm’s clients . Greenberg is a pollster, not a lobbyist or a Monsanto employee, and he http://www.greenbergresearch.com/index.php?ID=2321 - just released a memoir on his life as a pollster to five world leaders, including Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.

Also, there is nothing in the bill about "GPS tracking" of animals, as the e-mail above states, and not a peep about "seed banking."

Small Farm Concern

Small farmers, however, may well have concerns about this bill. Food & Water Watch’s fact sheet acknowledges that there’s always a worry that government regulation of food production will adversely affect small farms, which can’t absorb the possible costs of abiding by regulation as easily as big food producers can. "The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn’t wipe out small diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved," the site says. It goes on to say that other bills, not H.R. 875, that have been introduced could create problems for small operations, such as one that requires electronic record-keeping and registration fees with the FDA.

Another group called the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which supports "sustainable farming and direct farm-to-consumer transactions," http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-02mar2009.htm - raises several concerns about DeLauro’s legislation and how it could affect small farms and in particular, producers of raw milk, which the FDA http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~ear/milksafe/milksa3.htm - has declared to be unfit for consumption . But the group http://www.ftcldf.org/aa/aa-14mar2009.htm - states that "much of what has circulated the internet is not accurate," and nowhere in its criticism of the legislation does it say organic farming would be outlawed or home gardeners would face regulations.

We suppose in the grand realm of all that’s possible, or more likely a futuristic B movie, federal bureaucrats could decide that public safety calls for inspections of every backyard garden in the nation, leading everyday citizens to surreptitiously cultivate tomato plants in a closet with a sunlamp, lest they get busted by the cops. But we kinda doubt it.

– by Lori Robertson

Full disclosure: The author has an organic vegetable garden.

reality check wrote: If the FDA wants to get on top of this maybe they could look at Salmonella and E. Coli rates in eggs and meat and get that problem fixed first. JMHO.  They don't have enough people to work on the big issues. Thanks for listening! D

According to numerous published stories and reports, Taubenberger stated that he and his team utilized super-computers to map the complex RNA and DNA structures of the 1918 killer virus, then utilized human plasmids to successfully re-create the 1918 killer. Taubenberger completed his work in early 2005, then immediately left the employment of the U.S. Army at Ft. Detrick to take a much more lucrative position with the National Institutes of Health. His new focus was to create a VACCINE against the very same 1918 killer flu that he and his team had, just months earlier, successfully “reverse engineered” and created.

The so-called “Swine Flu” grabbing headlines today is actually a recombinant, or “split-influenza” virus consisting of A-strain Bird-Flu (H5N1), Swine Flu (H1N1) and multiple strains of human flu (H3N2). Likewise, the 1918 Killer Flu that killed untold millions of people was a recombinant or “split-influenza” virus composed of Bird flu, Swine Flu, and multiple strains of human flu.

Med

What is relevant? This is. Good to see you back. We estimated a significant change on the 25th August and then some pattern formation by August 31st through September. Watch the news - R.C.

Good to know..Med..btw glad to see everyone including me being a tad more respectful. RC

Some members of Congress, mindful that small businesses employ the majority of Americans and lots of their constituents, are pushing for programs that will let small businesses join cooperatives that could use their size to spread risk and negotiate costs down, like bigger businesses.

Turboguy

Exactly what are you saying. Are you insinuating the Republican party does not have fulltime paid organizers. And if so (That’s Laughable). Of course each side will organize in support of what they believe, that’s called being involved. And if you are doing the work fulltime, you should be paid for it (Right or Left). How many people can afford to take 3 months off without pay (Anyone)?

What your really saying is if anyone organizes in anyway that disagrees with your views you want to start a civil war

Is that about right

Sounds like your advocating a Dictatorship (My Way Or The Highway)

Health Records On Line Full Steam Ahead
..........................................................................

I know some people don't like it...  But Doc's need to get on line and share knowledge...
if my patient has xyz...  I haven't seen this... I'll check what they are doing to help other
patients... not a bad idea... have you ever heard a Doc say?   "I don't do internet."  ?

I sounded odd to me ...   :)    (not my Doc)

the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

announced details of two programs that will provide $1.2 billion in grant funding to

encourage the adoption and use of health information technology (HIT) systems and

promote health information exchange (HIE).

The two programs announced by ONC yesterday, authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, will:
Fund the establishment and development of an estimated 70 HIT Regional Extension Centers across the country. The HIT Regional Extension Centers will be responsible for providing technical assistance and guidance to hospitals and other health care providers to achieve “meaningful use” of HIT.

Provide funding to states and/or state-designated entities to promote widespread and sustained HIE. New York’s designated entity, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) has been working to develop policies and procedures governing New York State’s HIE infrastructure, the Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY).

Contact: Kevin Krawiecki
Published August 21, 2009

http://www.hanys.org/news/index.cfm?storyid=1147 - http://www.hanys.org/news/index.cfm?storyid=1147

I know some people don't like it...  But Doc's need to get on line and share knowledge...
if my patient has xyz...  I haven't seen this... I'll check what they are doing to help other
patients... not a bad idea... have you ever heard a Doc say?   "I don't do internet."  ?

What do we Americans Not Understand about...

A Govt. Takeover Of Health Care  ....    Will Not Cost LESS   ...   ?

Take it from our friends in the UK-

From The Times

September 3, 2009

Tim Glanfield: Behind the story

(UK National Health Care System)

The NHS is enormous, expensive and still growing

 excerpt-

In 1948 the service had a budget of £437million, about £9billion today. Each year since,

The NHS, with its 1.5million employees, has become the largest employer in the world after

article in full here-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6819259.ece - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6819259.ece