Nobel Prize - continued

I also wanted to comment about the allegations by the conservatives that the Nobel Prize has become a politicized award. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican that won the award while he was in office, was it a liberal award then? He negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese war, which at the time was a great feat of international leadership and was the beginning of the US exerting its growing global influence. We'll give the Republicans a break that the treaty eventually led to the Bolshevik Revolution, but that is besides the point. The overall point that needs to be realized is that conservatives do not stand for peaceful achievements. It seems fairly obvious that at least a part of the award being given to the President was due to the committee wanting it to serve as a repudiation of the Bush administration. Let that sink in for a minute, the Bush Administration was such a threat to world peace that the election of Obama by the American people signified such a change that it was the most important movement towards peace of 2008. Conservatives can complain about the award being politicized, but until they actually embrace the tenets of peace they will always be on the sidelines complaining that only Democrats win the Nobel Prize.

This might be a little too simplistic but the whole debate by the conservative side seems to be akin to a bunch of basketball players complaining that only football players win the Heisman Trophy... Sphere: Related Content

The Nobel Prize

First, I want to congratulate President Obama on being only the third sitting President in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When the votes were calculated, during the first month of the Presidency, I remember the feelings of hope that inspired me and the enthusiasm that I felt for the future of the country. This is the framework in which our President won this award, not for any of his actions (or perceived inactions) since.

While I probably should not be, I am shocked at the reaction of the conservations to this award. Should we not be proud that not only a fellow American won this prestigious award, but that OUR sitting President won it? This lends cred to the idea that the conservatives wish to demean everything Obama does, and I for one feel it is time to start to echo their cries of "unpatriotism" that were levied on the Left during Bush's presidency. Could you imagine the response from the Right if Democrats said they wished the Olympics went to Rio De Janeiro instead of Chicago?? We would all be told to move down to Venezuela while we are at it and live under Chavez. Imagine the calls of unpatriotism if the chairman of the DNC said it was "unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights." All of the Liberals that said this would be told to move to Europe, since we obviously are too un-American to want our President to win the award. It is the height of hypocrisy in my opinion and we need to start calling them out on it! This is my very small part of doing so and I hope others help out as well...

In a final note, there needs to be a call to influence anyone that supports RedState.com monetary. Erick Erickson's comment that "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news," Erickson wrote. "There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period." is extremely racist and offensive - which I fear is the root of all the blind hatred towards our President. Sphere: Related Content

Conservative comments

I promised several days ago to post some actual debates I have with conservatives on message boards and whatnot, but this has proven extremely hard to do. It seems that if you actually put an argument together against them they never respond, or the response is a short diatribe of profanity laced insults. I even got banned from FreeRepublic just by asking a question of a poster, what kind of website censors debate!?! I was actually quite civil in my questioning of a poster that put forth the language of a declaration for a state to secede from the union... I'm going to keep trying, but actual debate seems hard to document! Sphere: Related Content

Bible Too Liberal? Conservatives Say Yes

Bible Too Liberal? Conservatives Say Yes

Shared via AddThis

Maybe this is just too easy of a target to pick on, it almost hurts my head to think about!!

A lot of what I probably would have said or at least eluded to is stated pretty well in the Czech, check out the post here:

http://theczech.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/thank-god-liberal-bias-to-be-removed-from-bible/ Sphere: Related Content

Actual Conservative comments

Reading web stories, looking at message boards, and just generally hearing people talk about the Health Care debate has made me painfully aware of the amount of misinformation that is out there. In the coming days I will be posting some of these interactions with conservatives who think that Health Care reform is the worst thing since Nazi Germany...If you have any snippets of a debate that you've had online that you want to share post it in the comments section and I might add it to the main page. Sphere: Related Content

Cigna's treatment of Dawn Smith

I find it extremely heartbreaking to hear the struggles of Dawn Smith to have Cigna cover needed tests for her brain tumor. This, I'm sure, echos the sentiments of many like my parents who have had to go through this for seemingly decades now. If you haven't heard the story, here is an excerpt:

"I have a brain tumor. Doctors are ready to help me. But CIGNA has been blocking me from getting testing and treatment for two years, while almost doubling my premiums.

Then, this week was the kicker. CIGNA's pharmacy called to say that the co-pay on the medicine that helps control my debilitating head pain is skyrocketing from $10 to $1,115. That's not a typo. They're making me pay one hundred times what I'm paying now, in addition to my $753/month premium.

I can't afford that. So when the pain comes, I won't have any defense. I'll spend hours in the fetal position, out of my mind with pain.

When my story went public a couple of weeks ago—with the help of over 100,000 MoveOn members—CIGNA said they would pay for a test I'd been asking for at Cleveland Clinic. It was a step in the right direction. But after two years of denials, and with a long course of treatment ahead of me, I knew better than to just take them at their word.

So I asked questions. But they wouldn't offer any explanation for why they denied my coverage for so long, or any assurance that they had changed their procedures so I wouldn't face the same unjust denials again. And I began to wonder if they were more interested in just sweeping my story under the rug than actually helping me."

Sign on to MoveOn's website to sign on to a letter that is going to Cigna's CEO, it might also be a good thing to forward to congress to ensure that whatever bill they pass would help solve Dawn's issues. It is unacceptable that we allow these companies to put our health in jeopardy in exchange for shareholder profits. Sphere: Related Content

I'm back!!

I'm back from a short hiatus due to vacation and work picking up, sorry to everyone who has been looking for updated posts. I am still fairly pessimistic about the tone of the healthcare debate and the misconceptions of the program, and have resigned myself (for now) to just letting the debate run it's course before getting myself too worked up about it. What I am really thinking about now is the nature of work, which is the subject of a in depth posting I plan on making in the coming months. I am approaching the post as if it's a research project, something I hope will change some minds.

As for this post, I was sitting in a meeting and of all topics the EFCA (employee free choice act) came up. Being a corporate employee who is fairly well taken care of, we don't hear much about unions and the company's "anti-union" policy - but this was indeed not the case yesterday during this meeting. I'm not going to get into the debate about EFCA here, because I think there are definitely some positives and negatives to the legislation that are worked out before it's passed. What I want to talk about is the nature of companies and how we would be potentially better off without Wall Street.

An example was brought up about pharmaceutical manufacturers and their practice of increasing the prices of their branded drugs on a fairly regular cycle. This has to be done largely because companies like Pfizer have products that go generic and with too few new drugs in the pipeline they have to sell their existing products for more just to maintain previous levels of profit. So bottom line here, the people who buy pharmaceuticals end up paying more so that stockholders of Pfizer can make money. They may not even make money, they may just maintain the status quo - but nonetheless consumers pay more. Companies also pay dividends to investors to give investors value, all out of money that could go to hiring employees, offering wages, and more. It seems frustrating to me on the surface, and it looks like something I am going to do some digging in on...just wanted to keep everyone posted on what I was thinking ;)

More (regular) posts to come! Sphere: Related Content