Forgive and Forget?

Because the Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman, says it so much better than I can, I am posting his editorial from the New York Times.

It really galls me to think that the worst administration in history can calmly slink out of town and not fear any repercussion for their actions.

Where is the justice? If an adolescent can be sent to jail for having an illegal drug in his/her possession, how can the most powerful men in the U.S. get away with crimes against humanity (torture) and crimes against our Constitution? How can they subvert the rule of law and not pay a price? How can they ruin our economy and not feel some heat for that? How can they abuse the political system by using the Cabinet posts to twist the law to further their ideological beliefs?

How can Dick Cheney, with arrogant mien, blithely lie about all they did? How can Cheney still maintain that Saddam Hussein and al Quada had ties that went back years, as he did in his recent TV interview Sunday morning? Every expert who has written on the subject confirms that Bin Laden and Saddam were bitter enemies. Is Cheney brain dead, in denial or just the most consummate liar ever to hold office?

They must be held accountable. Please write Obama, your Congressmen, and your Senators and express your outrage that they might not be investigated for their heinous crimes.

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Forgive and Forget?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.

At the Justice Department, for example, political appointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for “right-thinking Americans” — their term, not mine — and there’s strong evidence that officials used their positions both to undermine the protection of minority voting rights and to persecute Democratic politicians.

The hiring process at Justice echoed the hiring process during the occupation of Iraq — an occupation whose success was supposedly essential to national security — in which applicants were judged by their politics, their personal loyalty to President Bush and, according to some reports, by their views on Roe v. Wade, rather than by their ability to do the job.

Speaking of Iraq, let’s also not forget that country’s failed reconstruction: the Bush administration handed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to politically connected companies, companies that then failed to deliver. And why should they have bothered to do their jobs? Any government official who tried to enforce accountability on, say, Halliburton quickly found his or her career derailed.

There’s much, much more. By my count, at least six important government agencies experienced major scandals over the past eight years — in most cases, scandals that were never properly investigated. And then there was the biggest scandal of all: Does anyone seriously doubt that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into invading Iraq?

Why, then, shouldn’t we have an official inquiry into abuses during the Bush years?

One answer you hear is that pursuing the truth would be divisive, that it would exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible, shouldn’t there be some penalty for the Bush administration’s politicization of every aspect of government?

Alternatively, we’re told that we don’t have to dwell on past abuses, because we won’t repeat them. But no important figure in the Bush administration, or among that administration’s political allies, has expressed remorse for breaking the law. What makes anyone think that they or their political heirs won’t do it all over again, given the chance?

In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clinton the same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sure enough, the second Bush administration picked up right where the Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we’ll guarantee that they will happen again.

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.

Health Care Redux

I know, I know. You are getting sick of this subject on my blog. I promise you that I will try to restrain myself. but I am posting this for two reasons. One: I have been gone all day, I am tired and it's so easy to cut and paste. Reason two; it's my soapbox issue. Please forgive me.

I still think the subject needs to be stressed, so I will copy another article on this over emphasized subject. The time to strike is while the iron is hot.

My step-daughter, Lynne, is coming to spend next week with me so I will not be very active on the Internet. I will try to check in now and then and hope you will do so also.

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Public opinion surveys show most Obama voters knew the Illinois senator is a progressive when they cast their ballots - and those votes for him weren't just anti-Bush protests, they were ideological. According to a post-election poll by my colleagues at the Campaign for America's Future, 70 percent of Americans say they want conservatives to help this progressive president enact his decidedly progressive agenda.

Sensing the enormity of these numbers, Obama seems ready to back a "big bang" of far-reaching initiatives. "We can't afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign," he said in his first radio address as president-elect.

Based on advertisements, Obama identified no more important priority than guaranteeing health care for all citizens. As the Campaign Media Analysis Group reported, he devoted more than two-thirds of his total television budget to ads that included health care themes. Consequently, a Pew poll found 77 percent of Americans said health care would be a decisive concern in their presidential vote.

The moral case for universal health care is obvious. In the world's richest country - in a country that builds lavish sports stadiums and showers Wall Street with trillion-dollar bailouts - 18,000 people die each year because they lack health insurance. We permit this annual massacre while our wasteful system exacerbates our debt and saps our economic competitiveness by forcing us to spend more money per capita on health care than any other nation. The problem would have been addressed long ago. Overcoming inertia on such a thorny issue requires budget pressure - which Obama definitely faces. While some claim the deficit should preclude bold health care legislation, it's the other way around. The Congressional Budget Office says America's fiscal gap is "driven primarily by rising health care costs," meaning a fix is an imperative. "People ask whether (Obama) has the fiscal breathing room to push health-care reform," economist Jared Bernstein told the Washington Post. "He doesn't have the fiscal breathing room not to do health-care reform."

Additionally, as with everything in Washington, a political motive is needed for action - and even conservatives acknowledge Democrats have such a motive when it comes to health care.

Fifteen years ago, Republican strategist William Kristol warned that the Clinton administration's universal health care proposals represented "a serious political threat to the Republican Party" because, if passed, they "will revive the reputation" of Democrats as "the generous protector of middle-class interests."

As we all remember, Democrats failed to capitalize on the health care opportunity. But Kristol's prophecy was correct then, as it is now. With huge Democratic majorities in Congress come 2009, only the Braindead Megaphone is in Obama's way.---------

David Sirota is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network - both nonpartisan organizations.

Awards

Monday, January 12, 2009

Awards

For my family and friends who may be reading this (but do not comment) I want to report that I am ever so much better.

The swelling in my feet and legs that plagued me so much is nearly gone. I think I will be able to give up the diuretic soon. (I certainly hope so before I wear a path in the new carpet between the loo and the rest of the house.) I still use my walker, but it's more for safety purposes than need. However, by late afternoon my legs do get weak and the walker is necessary to propel me around the house.

I am sleeping through the night now - no more getting up in the middle of it for my hot chocolate and cookie fix. Hmmm - maybe that's why I gained five pounds. ;)

I have an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow and will find out what I am allowed to do. I hope he okays bending over soon as I am tired of doing dishes by hand.

And that's the medical update for now.

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Joy, of The Joy of Six gave me The first award I have ever received, The Van Gogh's Ear Award.

Because Joy said it so much better than I ever could I have taken the liberty of copying her text explaining the award.

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"Ears To You"......

The Van Gogh's Ear Award was created by Roger of Idaho Photo; and she in turn passed it on to several of her blogging friends....and I was one of them.

Inspiration of the Van Gogh's Ear Award

"You may know the story of Vincent Van Gogh a well known artist in history. Although a brilliant painter in his later years went quite insane he received the nickname of fou roux ("the redheaded madman"). The most bazaar of Vincent's behavior is when he cut off the lower part of his own left ear lobe, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide July 29, 1890 he was 37 years old. His works of art are priceless."

The point of this award

"We are all artists in our own way be it art, photography, writing, philosophy, comedy, blogging and we all go a little crazy sometimes. But if you ever feel so crazy to cut off your ear and give it to a prostitute 'Seek Help'!"

Always remember you're unique.
Just like everyone else.

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I'd like to share The Van Gogh's Ear Award with my following blogging friends:

Sylvia from Sylvia Over the Hill
Lilalia from Yum Yum Cafe
Ernestine from My Journey to Mindfulness
Ugich Konitari from Gappa
Beverly from Beverly Use Your Words
Brenda of Rinkly Rimes
Mort of Octogenarian

All of my friends have shown artistic ability in one way or another; photography, poetry, essays, collages and other ways of expression.

It is always nice to be recognized for what we do. Few will get the Congressional Medal of Honor or even a Purple Heart, but we can all make our blogging friends feel special with recognition for a job well done by giving them with an award. I am not sure I deserve this one, but I am mighty pleased to get it. Thank you again, Joy.

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The Sunset of Life

One word that many try to avoid is DEATH. While it is not something that we often talk about, it is something that lurks in the background as we enter the sunset of life.

Recently there have been many stories published on the Story Telling Place on Ronni's blog, TGB, recounting deaths in the family and it started me thinking about the subject.

My first thought was of the famous quote by Clive James: "Nobody gets out of this world alive." Death comes to all in it's own time.

Why the fear of death? I suppose it's the unknown. Earliest man feared what happened after we die and superstitious beliefs were created to take away the fear with stories of an afterlife. Man doesn't want to leave this beautiful world or our loved ones, so there has to be something better that makes it worthwhile. Mythology is full of stories about a better life after death. The concept of heaven and hell were borrowed from Greek Mythology.

Death is a major factor in all religions. Historians state that the Resurrection story is the biggest reason that Christianity survived. Different religions have a different concept of what happens after we die, but they all share the central belief that the next world will be better. (At least for the good people; sinners go to Hades or Hell.) It brings comfort to the bereaved to think that their loved ones have gone to a better place and are reunited with their dead ancestors.

My Great Aunt was a member of a sect called Unity and they believed in reincarnation. Other religions share this belief and for some time I wanted to believe in that. (Of course, I wanted to come back into a family of rich, loving parents and I would be beautiful and talented next time around.) I gave up that belief when my daughter pointed out that there were an awful lot of extra people on Earth. (As I constantly remind people, I am pragmatic. Therefore, her analysis made good sense.)

Whatever your belief or religion, it takes a leap of faith to believe. If Houdini wasn't able to come back and tell us about it, I doubt that we will ever know the answer of whether there is an afterlife or not until we die.

If any of you believe in ghosts or amorphous beings floating around and it comforts you, please continue to do so. I am too skeptical by nature and have never felt the presence of one who has gone before. Believe me, I would like to think I have a guardian Angel who is looking after me. I just can't get over the feeling that this is a wish and not a reality.

When I broke my hip and was sitting on the floor I was afraid I would be there for days before anyone missed me. The thought came unbidden, "I wonder how long it takes to die." At that point I knew I didn't want to die yet and so I started trying to figure out how to get myself out of the pickle I was in. Obviously, I was successful.

Now I wonder if I will ever be ready to die. I do not want to be the oldest woman alive (Did you see the story on the Canadian woman who is 117 years old?), but I do want to keep enjoying life as long as I am able to care for myself. I do not fear death but, borrowing from Robert Frost, "I have miles to go and promises to keep before I sleep".

The word 'sleep' in that quote is an example of the euphemisms we use to avoid the word DEATH. Many say "he passed on" or simply "he passed". Obituaries state that the deceased went to be with his Lord. Why is it so hard to say, "He died."? I think that using the word death makes it final and harder to deal with. DEATH is a frightening word to many.

David Brooks wrote an editorial on this theme and told of a near death experience that Neuhaus wrote about. His great theme was the way death has a backward influence back onto life: “We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already under way.”

When I was in my seventh month of pregnancy my husband was in the center of an explosion that demolished the house he was working in. He later told me of a near death experience he had when his heart stopped in the Emergency Room for a minute. I will recount it here: "He was walking down a long hall that had no doors, but caskets were lined up along the wall with cadavers in them. He was in no hurry - there was no feeling of time - and as he strolled along he would look in the caskets and, finding no one he knew, he continued toward a great light at the end of the hall." He believed that if he had made it to the light he would have died. I was horrified when he told his story because I was young. Now I try to explain it and I can't. Was he aware that he was near death and his mind made a dream of what he thought death would be? Are near death experiences real or just a product of the most emotional experience we will ever have?

I have come full circle on my thoughts on the subject and am anxious to read your comments. I realize I have written about a very touchy theme. Politics and religion are dangerous subjects, but since I have tackled the first I guess I may as well live dangerously and tackle the second.

P. S. The sunset photo was in my camera when I fell and I just uploaded it. I did not enhance the color; if anything, the sunset was even redder than the photo. It's all that dust in the air.

Mark, and an article on Leon Panetta

Because I posted photos of my daughter yesterday I think it only fair to give my son equal time. Mark was three months old when the photo of him as a baby was taken and the other photo was taken last month when he was home helping me at Christmas. I'm sure he won't be pleased to see the change that 57 years has made, but he is still my pride and joy.

After the sour grapes that Diane Feinstein had to say about the appointment of Leon Panetta to head the C.I.A I think another viewpoint is important. Following is an editorial by Mark Shields that is more accurate and fair than Diane's words coming from her 'poor little hurt ego'.

Leon Panetta, Public Servant

I first met Leon Panetta in 1966. We were both working as legislative assistants in the U.S. Senate — Leon for progressive Republican Sen. Tom Kuchel of California and I for maverick Democratic Sen. Bill Proxmire of Wisconsin.

Washington really was a more civil place in 1966. Republicans and Democrats could and did like each other. I liked Leon — the son of Italian immigrant parents, an alumnus of Santa Clara University and its law school, and an Army veteran — then, and I have liked him ever since. In well over four decades of living and working in the nation's capital, I have never known a better public servant than Leon Panetta.

You don't have to take just my word for it. No one in American political history has polled for the campaigns of more U.S. senators and governors than Democrat Peter D. Hart and the public opinion firm that bears his name. Of his fellow Californian, Hart says, "Leon has always been a missionary, never a mercenary." That might explain why, according to individuals who prefer to remain unnamed but in a position to know, Leon Panetta, happy working with his wife and partner of 46 years, Sylvia, and barely five months short of his 71st birthday, once again answered the call and chose public service over private profit.

That call — to lead the wounded, but vitally important Central Intelligence Agency — came from President-elect Barack Obama, who to his credit has mastered an elusive truth: When the culture of any institution (in this case, the CIA) has to be changed, people who are often most resistant to that change are the very people who are the products of that culture. It does sometimes take an outsider — obviously an outsider with ability, leadership, experience and judgment like Panetta has — to make real change in an organization.

Not surprised by Panetta's willingness to accept the tough challenge of rehabilitating the CIA was his former congressional colleague, retired 10-term House Republican from Minnesota Bill Frenzel.

When Frenzel, like Panetta an authentic hawk on federal deficits, was ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Democrat Panetta was the committee chairman. He quoted his fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey to me to explain Panetta's affirmative response to Obama's insistent overture: "When the president asks you to do something, it's not a request. It is a draft call." To Frenzel, confident that his former colleague is up to the CIA challenge, Panetta has always been "a splendid public servant."

In my Washington years, no member of Congress has inspired more loyalty and devotion from his staff members than Dick Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who served from 1976 to 2004 and was an elected leader of his party in the House for 15 years. Dick Gephardt, not given to the use of superlatives, was uncharacteristically effusive in speaking of Panetta: "There is nobody I have ever known for whom I have more respect. Leon is smart and experienced. He understands government. But, most importantly, he has the highest character and integrity of anyone you will ever meet."

But what about the critics' charge that, except for his time in the Army and during his stint as White House chief of staff, Panetta has not had real experience with the gathering of intelligence? To Gephardt, Panetta "will come to the CIA (leadership) with fresh eyes" and "with the exceptional leadership" needed "to ensure civilian control — with necessary transparency — to protect the nation and still enable Congress to meet its obligations of oversight. ... Leon Panetta is the perfect choice."

I agree. Panetta has always had the rare and valuable ability to laugh at himself. He is the sworn enemy of pomp and pretense. He always takes his public assignments seriously, but never himself. He personifies integrity. It says something good about Barack Obama that he, in his brief exposure, recognized the quality of Leon Panetta. It says something good and reassuring about America that we still do produce Americans like Leon Panetta.

Happy Birthday Gail and an article

Gail - one day old.

Happy Birthday, Gail

To be honest, my daughter's birthday was the 8th, but since I forgot to add it to yesterday's post I am a day late. Sorry, Honey. I hope it was a great day.

Once more I am going to make an excuse for not writing my own post. I am still playing 'catch up' from being so inactive for so long. My house has suffered from lack of care and I really need to remedy that situation.

The good news is that I finally feel good. I am no longer weak and shaky and, with the exception of bending over, I can do much the needs to be done (Providing it's above the waist.) The things that have to be tended to by bending over will be done by a cleaning lady who is coming tomorrow.

You are aware that all housewives clean their house before the cleaning lady comes in order to preserve their image? I am no exception. Today I must dust and start putting things away that I hadn't gotten to before breaking my hip. I know just how ridiculous this may seem, but it's the way I function.

With no further apologies, I am posting an article that I found to be very interesting. I am so sick of hearing Bush and Cheney trying to rewrite history and one of the things that Bush has always bragged about is that there were no more 9/11's on his watch. Since he could have avoided the first 9/11 if he had paid attention to his intelligence reports I find this claim to be repulsive.

Read on for the truth.

(Arrgh! No matter how many times I edit the text size, blog spot does it their way. I have tried to make the print consistent, but it's hopeless. I wish I could tell whoever designed this site what I think of the glitches we have to endure.)

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President Bush Saved US Lives? That's Only More Karl Rove-Style Spin

Thursday 08 January 2009

by: Richard Clarke, The New York Daily News

George Bush, still President, is engaging in a legacy tour of media outlets. This comes despite his earlier having said he did not know how history would judge the Iraq war "because we'll all be dead."

Actually, many people are already dead because of Bush, and that is the point to keep in mind when he talks about his legacy.

Among the themes Bush is striking are that through action at home and fighting "them" over there, not over here, his administration stopped terrorist attacks and prevented another 9/11. There is a surface plausibility to those claims, as there has often been with the messaging served up by the Karl Rove spin machine. But let's look beneath the surface of the assertions.

Bush stopped terrorist attacks? Yes, some of the many alleged plots cited by the White House probably would have matured into attacks had not the U.S. intelligence community acted. Many were more aspirational than operational, and others were the pure inventions of FBI informants. (In the Miami Liberty City case, an FBI informant apparently bribed people who previously had no interest in Al Qaeda. When they swore the oath to Osama Bin Laden, they were then arrested for doing so.)

But even if taken on its face as true, should having stopped terrorist attacks earn this President a Harry Truman-like reassessment down the road? I can attest from firsthand knowledge that the Clinton administration stopped numerous terrorist operations that would have resulted in American deaths. Yet I don't hear Bill Clinton running around boasting about that. Clinton has other things to lay claim to - a balanced budget, huge job growth and eight years without a major war. If you don't think the Clinton administration stopped a major terrorist attack in New York City, you might want to talk with the blind sheik, who was involved in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building housing the FBI. But that would be tough to do because Omar Abdel-Rahman is in solitary in a federal prison in Colorado.

There wasn't a second 9/11? That's obviously true, but it misses the point. First, we must remember that Al Qaeda terrorists are patient, deliberate planners who often wait years between strikes. Second, there was the first 9/11 - and it happened on Bush's watch. Without rehashing the entire 9/11 Commission Report, the historical record is pretty clear by now that Bush did virtually nothing about the repeated warnings to him that those cataclysmic attacks were coming. Unfortunately, I can personally attest to that as well.

Bush saved American lives? Tell that to the families of the 4,200 U.S. military personnel who have perished in the needless war in Iraq. While they served heroically and deserve the great thanks of the American people, the tragic truth is that they were engaged in a war we should not have been fighting and which was sold to the Congress, the media and American people with exaggerated and even false claims.

Beyond the needless American deaths that are Bush's legacy, there are the Iraqis we almost never think about. Iraq Body Count is an ongoing human security project that claims to maintain "the world's largest public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion." They say their data "encompasses noncombatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion." Currently, their estimate - conservative when put alongside other totals - is that between 90,253 and 98,521 Iraqis were killed because George Bush invaded that country. That's thirty 9/11s.

Let George Bush keep pushing the buttons on the spin machine. That cannot change the facts. His administration's actions on terrorism, including Iraq, killed many more Americans than U.S. intelligence agencies saved in the past eight years.

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Clarke was a counterterrorism adviser to former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is the author of "Against All Enemies" and "Your Government Failed You."

My most recent photo of Gail holding her youngest daughter, Sarah.

Under the Radar

I have spent hours with my virus scanner isolating a Trojan Horse that invaded my entire system. I hope I have finally eliminated the sucker. As a result I am out of time. Therefore, I am just going to post an interesting article I read today and see what you think about this? It sounds like George Orwell wasn't far off about the future.

Obama's Black Widow

Tuesday 23 December 2008

by: Nat Hentoff, The Village Voice

Obama voted for FISA in July. (Photo: Getty Images)

Thanks to Bush and Obama, the National Security Agency now knows more about you.

Barack Obama will be in charge of the biggest domestic and international spying operation in history. Its prime engine is the National Security Agency (NSA)-located and guarded at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 10 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. A brief glimpse of its ever-expanding capacity was provided on October 26 by The Baltimore Sun's national security correspondent, David Wood: "The NSA's colossal Cray supercomputer, code-named the 'Black Widow,' scans millions of domestic and international phone calls and e-mails every hour.... The Black Widow, performing hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, searches through and reassembles key words and patterns, across many languages."

In July, George W. Bush signed into law the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which gives the NSA even more power to look for patterns that suggest terrorism links in Americans' telephone and Internet communications.

The ACLU immediately filed a lawsuit on free speech and privacy grounds. The new Bush law provides farcical judicial supervision over the NSA and other government trackers and databasers. Although Senator Barack Obama voted for this law, dig this from the ACLU: "The government [is now permitted] to conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to spy on, what phone lines and e-mail addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, why it's conducting the surveillance or whether it suspects any party to the communication of wrongdoing."

This gives the word "dragnet" an especially chilling new meaning.

The ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, director of its National Security Project, adds that the new statute, warming the cold hearts of the NSA, "implicates all kinds of communications that have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activity of any kind."

Why did Obama vote for this eye-that-never-blinks? He's a bright, informed guy, but he wasn't yet the President-Elect. The cool pragmatist wanted to indicate he wasn't radically unmindful of national security-and that his previous vow to filibuster such a bill may have been a lapse in judgment. It was.

What particularly outraged civil libertarians across the political divide was that the FISA Amendments Act gave immunity to the telecommunications corporations-which, for seven years, have been a vital part of the Bush administration's secret wiretapping program-thereby dismissing the many court cases brought by citizens suing those companies for violating their individual constitutional liberties. This gives AT&T, Verizon, and the rest a hearty signal to go on pimping for the government.

That's OK with the Obama administration? Please tell us, Mr. President.

Some of us began to see how deeply and intricately the telecoms were involved in the NSA's spying when-as part of an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit-it was revealed by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, that he had found a secret AT&T room in which the NSA was tapping into the telecom giant's fiber-optic cables. On National Public Radio on November 7, 2007, he disclosed: "It's not just AT&T's traffic going through these cables, because these cables connected AT&T's network with other networks like Sprint, Qwest [the one firm that refused to play ball with the government], Global Crossing, UUNet, etc."

What you should know is that these fruitful cables go through "a splitter" that, as Klein describes, "just copies the entire data without any selection going on. So it's a complete copy of the data stream."

Under the new FISA Amendments Act, there are no limits on where this stream of data can be disseminated. As in the past, but now with "legal" protection under the 2008 statute, your suspicious "patterns" can go to the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and state and local police that are also involved in "fusion centers" with the FBI.

Consider the enormous and bottomless databases that the government-and its NSA-can have a ball with. In James Bamford's The Shadow Factory (Doubleday)-a new book that leads you as far as anyone has gone into the bowels of the NSA-he notes: "For decades, AT&T and much of the rest of the telecommunications industry have had a very secret, very cozy relationship with the NSA." In AT&T's case, he points out, "its international voice service carried more than 18 billion minutes per year, reaching 240 countries, linking 400 carriers, and offering remote access via 19,500 points of presence in 149 countries around the globe."

Voilá! Also, he notes: "Much of those communications passed through that secret AT&T room that Klein found on Folsom Street in downtown San Francisco."

There's a lot more to come that we don't know about. Yet. In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford quotes Bush's Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell as saying that this wiretapping program was and is "only one program of many highly secret programs approved by Bush following the attacks on 9/11" (emphasis added). McConnell also said of the NSA's nonstop wiretapping: "This is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has officially been acknowledged."

Come on, Mike. Bush acknowledged the NSA's flagrant contempt of the First and Fourth amendments only after The New York Times broke the story in December 2005. When the Times executive editor, Bill Keller, first decided to hold the explosive story for a year, General Michael Hayden-the former head of the NSA who is currently running the CIA-was relieved because he didn't want the news to get out that "most international communications pass through [these telecommunications] 'switching,'" Bamford reports. It would blow the cover off those corporate communicators. Now, AT&T, Verizon, et al., don't have to worry, thanks to the new law.

There are increasing calls, inside and outside of Congress, for President Obama to urge investigations by an independently bipartisan commission-akin to the 9/11 Commission-to get deeply into the many American and international laws so regally broken by Bush and his strutting team.

But there is so much still to find out about the NSA's "many highly secret programs" that a separate commission is sorely needed to probe exclusively into the past and ongoing actions of the Black Widow and other NSA lawless intrusions into our privacy and ideas.

President Obama could atone for his vote that supported the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 by appointing such a bipartisan commission composed of technology experts who are also familiar with the Constitution.

Bamford says that the insatiable NSA is "developing an artificial intelligence system designed to know what people are thinking." Here come the thought police!

Telephone Trivia

The following is a brief summary of the history of the development of the telephone:

Copy of the original phone of Graham Bell at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris

• 1667: Robert Hooke invented a string telephone that conveyed sounds over an extended wire by mechanical vibrations.
• 1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first mooted the idea of a “speaking telegraph” (telephone).
• 1854: Charles Bourseul writes a memorandum on the principles of the telephone.(See the article : "Transmission électrique de la parole", L'Illustration, Paris, 26 August 1854).
• 1854: Antonio Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York; it is not clear what kind of device he demonstrated.
• 1861: Philipp Reis constructs the first speech-transmitting telephone
• 1872: Elisha Gray establishes Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
• July 1, 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "voicelike sounds", but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
• 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and in November builds an electro-dynamic receiver, but does not exploit it.
• 1875: Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (the inventor of telephone exchange) arrived to USA.
• April 6, 1875: Bell's U.S. Patent 161,739 "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs" is granted. This uses multiple vibrating steel reeds in make-break circuits, and the concept of multiplexed frequencies.
• February 11, 1876: Elisha Gray designs a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but does not build one.
• March 7, 1876: Bell's U.S. patent 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
• March 10, 1876: Bell transmits the sentence "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" using a liquid transmitter and an electromagnetic receiver.
• January 30, 1877: Bell's U.S. patent 186,787 is granted for an electro-magnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
• April 27, 1877: Edison files for a patent on a carbon (graphite) transmitter. The patent 474,230 was granted May 3, 1892, after a 15-year delay because of litigation. Edison was granted patent 222,390 for a carbon granules transmitter in 1879.
• 1877: First long-distance telephone line

My telephone History

Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By had a link to a funny article about rotary dial telephones and that got me thinking about all the changes in phones that have occurred in my lifetime.

When I was a toddler most phones were hung on the wall with a receiver on a hook next to the speaker. You removed the receiver and put it to your ear to hear. My great-aunt thought I was very clever when I listened on the phone for the first time. I said one word, "Ouch", but pronounced it Owk. That just shows what a dull child I must have been if this was the only clever (?) thing I ever said. The story was repeated so often that I was old enough to remember hearing it before it died down. So much for being a witty girl.

The wall phones were followed by a desk phone with the receiver in a cradle. You had to get the operator to ring your number. A funnier family story than my "Owk" occurred when a Norwegian man wanted to use our phone. He pronounced his J's as Yays. In those days the four numbers were followed by a letter. One day Mr. Jorgensen wanted to use our phone to make a call. The number was something like 2345 J. He told the operater he wanted 2345 Yay. She didn't understand and after three or four tries, he got exasperated and yelled, "Yay, Yay, Yay as in Yump".

As telephones became standard equipment in most homes a prefix had to be added to the numbers to make more numbers available. Remember Glenn Miller's popular number, Pennsylvania 6500?

In those days party lines were an option. The monthly fee was less for people sharing the line. There were two party and four party lines. If you lifted the receiver and heard conversation you had to hang up and keep trying until the other party on your line finished the conversation. This led to some very hard feelings when one party hogged the line. This feature died a merciful death.

Eventually you no longer needed to talk to an operator to ring your number. You could dial it yourself. This meant you could no longer blame someone else when you got a wrong number. The improved phone now had the dial on the front. You stuck your finger in a hole with the corresponding number and moved it to the end; then you repeated this action until you had finished dialing. The result was often a sore finger or a ruined manicure when the dial automatically returned to the first position. The users quickly learned to use a pencil in the hole to dial the number. This phone, too, died a slow death to be replaced by the touch-pad that we are now familiar with.

Most phones were black, except in movies, when a stylish white phone was filmed. Hollywood has led so many fads that I think Tinsel City led to the advent of colored phones. Whether this is true or not, color did appear and you could select a hue that matched your decor.

Finally, the touch pad phone appeared that we still use. Phones could be wall hung and many homes had several telephones.

About the time of this evolution of the telephone I began losing my hearing. You could see the progression of my loss by the telephones in my house. My first phone to help me hear was the Princess phone. It was smaller but featured an amplified hand set.

As my hearing worsened I bought a desk phone with a separate receiver that had stronger amplification. This was followed by a speaker phone. More phones with stronger amplification followed until I now have a captioned phone. The latter isn't a phone at all, but is a computer designed to look like a telephone.

My latest telephone is a cordless phone that was purchased because I found getting to a telephone with a walker slow going. Actually, I think I must look like a spastic turtle as I lurch forward across the floor. Haste is not an option these days and my callers quite often would hang up before I could reach the phone. Now I carry it with me.

Most of you now consider a cell phone the size of a credit card a necessity. Cell Phones multitask and I am not that proficient with tiny buttons, so they can keep their Blackberries and other electronic gadgets. Include me out!!!

What will come next? Stay tuned.

Five Myths

Readers who have followed my rants on the health care system and the drive for Universal coverage know that I will never give up. I have already voiced my strong views on this subject and really cannot add much more on my own.

There is another statement that you often see on my posts. FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS. I like dealing with facts on all subjects and am rarely swayed by myths. I am, by nature, very pragmatic. The following article uses facts to dispel the myths floating around.

Even though the following facts undercut some of the assumptions I made on the previous post, they are worth reading. According to the editorial the administrative cost of health care is not as important as I had assumed.

This article helps to confirm my belief that we must simplify our dysfunctional medial system or it will continue to spiral out of control until no one will be able to afford coverage.

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Five Myths About Our Ailing Health Care System

by: Shannon Brownlee and Ezekiel Emanuel, The Washington Post

Are Americans ready to pay to overhaul the health-care system? It may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how health care works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach.

1. America has the best health care in the world.

Let's bury this one once and for all. The United States is No. 1 in only one sense: the amount we shell out for health care. We have the most expensive system in the world per capita, but we lag behind many developed countries on virtually every health statistic you can name. Life expectancy at birth? We rank near the bottom of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, just ahead of Cuba and way behind Japan, France, Italy, Sweden and Canada, countries whose governments (gasp!) pay for the lion's share of health care. Infant mortality in the United States is 6.8 per 1,000 births, more than twice as high as in Japan, Norway and Sweden and worse than in Poland and Hungary. We're doing a better job than most on reducing smoking rates, but our obesity epidemic is out of control, our death rate from prostate cancer is only slightly lower than the United Kingdom's, and in at least one study, American heart attack patients did no better than Swedish patients, even though the Americans got twice as many high-tech treatments.

Moreover, the quality of health care is different in different parts of the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have issued a list of 26 measures of quality, such as making sure that heart-attack patients being discharged from the hospital get a prescription for a beta blocker or aspirin to help reduce the risk of a second attack. It turns out that quality is all over the map, and it isn't necessarily better in the places we might expect, such as academic medical centers. Worse still, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), there appears to be no connection between how much Medicare and other payers spend on patients in different parts of the country and the quality of the care the patients receive. You are no more likely to get that beta blocker or aspirin in Los Angeles than in Portland, even though Medicare spends twice as much per beneficiary in Los Angeles.

2. Somebody else is paying for your health insurance.

Nope. Even when your employer offers coverage, he isn't reaching into his own pocket to cover you and your fellow employees; he's reaching into your pocket, paying you lower wages than he would if he didn't have to pay for your health insurance.

Rising health-care costs are partly to blame for stagnant wages. Over the past five years, health insurance premiums have risen 5.5 times faster on average than inflation, 2.3 times faster than business income and four times faster than workers' earnings. Four times. That's why wages have been nearly flat since the 1980s, even as U.S. productivity has been going up. In effect, about half the money you should be earning for being more productive is being sucked up by ever more expensive health-insurance premiums.

If you pay taxes, you're also paying for the health care provided through state and federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration and the military. All told, the average family of four is coughing up $29,000 a year for health care through taxes, lower wages and out-of-pocket medical expenses.

3. We could save a lot if we could cut the cost of administrative expenses.

The idea that we could wring billions of dollars in savings this way is seductive, but it wouldn't really accomplish that much. For one thing, some administrative costs are not only necessary but beneficial. Following heart-attack or cancer patients to see which interventions work best is an administrative cost, but it's also invaluable if you want to improve care. Tracking the rate of heart attacks from drugs such as Avandia is key to ensuring safe pharmaceuticals. (There goes my argument in my previous rant.)

Let's just say that we could wave a magic wand and cut private insurers' overhead by half, to what the Canadian government spends on administering its health-care system - 15 percent. How much would we save? Not as much as you may think. Private insurers pay a little more than a third of what we spend on health care, which means that we'd cut a little more than 5 percent from our total budget, or about $124 billion. That's not peanuts, but it's not even enough to cover everybody who's currently uninsured.

More to the point, we only get to save it once. That's because administrative waste isn't what's driving health-care costs up faster than inflation. Most of the relentless rise can be attributed to the expansion of hospitals and other health-care sectors and the rapid adoption of expensive new technologies - new drugs, devices, tests and procedures. Unfortunately, only a fraction of all that new stuff offers dramatically better outcomes. If we're worried about costs, we have to ask whether a $55,000 drug that prolongs the lives of lung cancer patients for an average of a few weeks is really worth it. Unless we find a cure for our addiction to the new but not necessarily improved, our national medical bill will continue to skyrocket, regardless of how efficient insurance companies become.

4. Health-care reform is going to cost a bundle.

Only if you think that covering the uninsured is our only priority. Yes, making health care available to all citizens is the right thing to do. But it isn't the only thing to do. We also have to fix the spectacularly wasteful and expensive way doctors and hospitals deliver care.

Our physicians are working within a truly dysfunctional, often chaotic system that prevents them from caring for us properly. Between 50,000 and 100,000 patients die each year from preventable medical errors. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1.7 million Americans acquire an infection while in the hospital and nearly 100,000 of them die from it. Laboratory imaging tests are routinely repeated because the originals can't be found. Patients with such chronic illnesses as heart failure and diabetes land in the hospital because their physicians fail to monitor their condition. When patients have multiple doctors, there's often nobody keeping track of the different medications, tests and treatments each one prescribes.

Our doctors and hospitals are failing to provide us with care we need while delivering a staggering amount that we don't need. Current estimates suggest that as much as 20 to 30 percent of what we spend, or about $500 billion, goes toward useless, potentially harmful care.

There are two bright spots. One: We can improve the quality of care and cut costs without rationing. There are models out there for how to do it right - the Mayo Clinic, the Geisinger Clinic in Pennsylvania, the Cleveland Clinic and California's Kaiser Permanente are just a few of the organized group practices that are doing a better job for less. Their doctors are better than average at using the best medical evidence available. They're more likely to be using electronic medical records, which can help keep track of patients who have multiple physicians and need complex care. And they're less likely to provide unnecessary care.

Two: Even moderate reform of the delivery system would improve care and save money. The Lewin Group's analysis shows that a bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, calling for a more comprehensive overhaul of the health-care system than either McCain's plan or Obama's could actually insure everyone and save $1.4 trillion over 10 years. More reform is cheaper.

5. Americans aren't ready for a major overhaul of the health-care system.

We may be readier than you think. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 7 percent of Americans rate our health-care system excellent. Nearly 40 percent consider it poor. A whopping 70 percent believe it needs major changes, if not a complete overhaul.

Now is not the time to think small, to cover a few million Americans and leave the bigger job of controlling costs and improving quality for another day. We can't afford not to reform the delivery system as soon as possible. At 17 percent of gross domestic product, health care is the biggest single sector of the economy, and it's consuming a larger and larger proportion every year. According to CBO projections, health care will account for 25 percent of GDP by 2025 and 49 percent by 2082. That's simply unsustainable. Any plan that reforms health care has to do more than simply cover the uninsured. The nation's health and wealth depend on it.

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Shannon Brownlee, a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, is the author of "Overtreated." Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and author of "Healthcare, Guaranteed," is chairman of the center's Department of Bioethics.

My Medical Experience

On a previous rant I wrote about a fall that resulted in my ending up in Urgent Care on Thanksgiving day. Some of my followers told me to stay upright this Thanksgiving. Oh, if only I had heeded their wish. I am beginning to think that the holiday is jinxed for me. Next year I think I will sit Thanksgiving out because I ended up in the hospital for surgery this time.

I am sure that a recap of my hospitalization and rehab would bore even the most medically interested person. I will try to avoid being too graphic and only hit the salient points that apply to my soapbox issue on changing the medical system.

The first thing that impressed me was the reams of paper that crossed my bed. I cannot begin to remember all of the many, many forms I had to sign. They were followed by enough information pages to keep me occupied for a week. Dull, legal garbage designed to protect the providers from lawsuits and to inform me of my rights should I feel that I had been treated unfairly. I had a file folder bulging with these papers.

How many lawyers, secretaries, administrators, and other office help do you think it took to compile this huge amount of paper work? When you realize that this was for just one illness and you multiply it by millions you begin to get a picture of the expense that helps drive up the cost of our medical system. My illness only involved one insurance company, one hospital, and one rehab center. When you think about how many insurance companies have their own set of papers to distribute, you begin to realize how the administrative cost of each illness adds up.

Since returning home my mail box has been stuffed with additional papers from my HMO pertaining to my hospitalization. It’s enough to make your head swim.

A single payer system would have one universal set of rules and an information packet that would apply to all medical needs. There would be no need to repeat the dissemination of information each time the patient needed treatment.

Another flaw in the system is the lack of communication. There are so many people involved in your care and they each have their job and often don’t have a clue as to what the others are doing for you or what your needs might be. Years ago when you were hospitalized a chart hung at the foot of your bed with information on your medication, vital signs, and other necessary information. I don’t know where the information on my care was kept, but the floor people didn’t read it.

An example: for a week the care givers pricked my finger for blood. I finally asked what this test was for and was told it was to check my blood sugar level. I told them I was not diabetic, but the test continued until my doctor stopped it after I told him about it. (Remember, I was lucky to have my doctor see me since he had not been notified that I had broken my hip.) This is only one example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing.

I had a great deal of trouble getting to sleep. When I finally achieved the deep REM stage of sleep I would be awakened to take my blood pressure and temperature. After they took my vitals I was wide awake and unable to return to sleep. I complained to four nurses who left four orders before the floor aid finally stopped waking me up. I was getting very irritated by the fourth night. When I inquired about the reason for doing this in the middle of the night I was told that it was because the day people were busy and the night people had more time. Therefore, some tasks were assigned to them. What about the patient’s needs? I guess if we didn’t complain it was fine.

I believe my biggest complaint with the system is the shortage of floor personnel. I realize this is probably universal and we must live with it, but when you have to wait two hours to have a pain pill brought to you, as I did, or two hours to be helped to the commode it does not make for a pleasant recovery.

In all fairness I have to admit that my care was, on the whole, excellent. The food at the rehab center was worthy of a gourmet restaurant. I really miss those delicious trays that appeared three times daily. I was fortunate that I was transferred from the hospital to one of the best rehab centers in Tucson. It was a combination rehab center and assisted living facility and was, therefore, a very pleasant place.

I advise anyone that has to be hospitalized to designate an advocate to speak for you. When you are in pain and highly medicated you need someone to oversee your care. When my children were here for a few days they were vocal about my care, but when they left after seeing me settled in rehab I was on my own. Good friends filled the gap and provided the outside help I needed, but for my personal care I had to speak up.

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Can someone please tell me why, if I compose a draft somewhere else and then copy it to my blog, I end up with underlining? I cannot eliminate it without retyping the whole post. Arrrgh!!!

2009

Happy New Year Everyone

We are fortunate that we will be starting 2009 with a new administration headed by the most intelligent and charismatic president since JFK. I have high hopes for the coming year in spite of the gloomy forecasts.

• My wish for the world is peace and the end to turmoil.

• My wish for my family is good fortune and health.

• My wish for my friends is a year of happy times and shared pleasures.

• My wish for all of you is happiness, peace, good health and joy.

May all good things come your way.

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