' how could it be wrong if the feeling is right and so strong '
Description
"it is not how much love we have received that would count, but how much love we have given and how much more we are willing to give even without the promise of earning back..."
I hope oneday i finally show you this, or atleast write it to you for you to understand... see its been over a year now and your still in my thoughts, my "what if" mind still wanders and my heart still wishes.
Theres no one like you, no one that makes me feel as you do, you touch me and i'm in tingles, you look at me and my heart skips... you muddle up my words... my confidence falls through the floor, my personality disappears and for some reason i'm so nervous of being myself around you as i feel i'm not enough for you...
When we were last together everything went badly, my words were lost, i couldn't think on my feet, my conversation skills were gone, my heart was racing, my life disappeared and i became 16 again... your presense effected me terribly and i lost myself in you...
I fear that i don't tell you enough, or i tell you too much that you don't see the truth, the truth is you make me want to cry, laugh, dance, sing, shout, fight, love... everything at once... my heart gets confused, my head loses control and suddenly... suddenly i'm this quiet mouse that can't put two sentences together... and i lose myself in you...
Theres no doubt that i want us to be together, the thought of not having you in my life hurts more than ever...
i'm sitting here tonight thinking of death and loss. Many people write of the joys and heartbreak of love, however death is never a common issue spoken of highly. i went to the theatre tonight and saw the Cementry Club, humour and quick wit based souly around death and the entire loss of love.
many people devote their lives to someone, even after they are no longer together one person always tries to hold n for a period of time, the other usually goes on their own way eventually and some of out most famous poems and songs are written entirely around the love lost not through death but mistakes.
My heart goes out to all those that love, and i say that as many are still in love, with their partner long after they have passed on. Even if the love between the two was over there is still a mourning stage that the alive person suffers.
What a cruel world we live in not to express our sympathy to those who needed us most until after they have deceased. why do we fill our lives with gossip, meaningless fights, and squabbles when the facts are right in front of us, life purely is black and white. When you are alive life should be cherish to its maxium so when the time comes your impact on others lives helps them to deal with you crossing over.
Many times i have stopped to wonder what happens when the last person that remembers you dies? your memory is lost forever and you become nothing more than a stastic.
It makes me sad that when someone dies everyone flocks to their funeral, all those that judged them, all those that despised them, all those that were never there when that person needed it and all those that refused to give that one person a shoulder to lean on. I often wonder if the small funerals are the best, the people that were always caring and forgiving should be able to attend, the random lady that sold coffee to the person BUT always put a smile on their face. The crazy neighbour down stairs that always had tea and an ear for listening and mostly the people that contributed to that persons life unconditionally regardless of the connection.
I live my life in the most simplest format. I love unconditionally, i get hurt alot and heal, i'm there for anyone that needs someone to talk to, i support everyones dreams, i laugh whole heartidly, i try to avoid gossip, i speak the truth to who ever asks, i don't listen to everyone elses comments about me, i dance in a way that i enjoy, i drink till i know i've had enough, i eat what i feel like and i live like anyone can. My friends always know they can call anytime and i'll listen and help, i would give anything to anyone that truely needs it. an somedays i wish there were less shallow people in the world, less critical, less judgemental because at the end of the day when my funeral is being spoken i don't want to be remembered for that awful outfit back in spring 2001, i want to be remembered as the person i am, the person i aspire to be and the person that i was all those years ago.
Death brings reflection, makes people set goals and start to live again, it helps people to grow and to aspire to becoming better people. Many people find death a hard concept however its simple, you are here for a time you give it everything you've got and when you die you leave those memories and lessons for someone else to grow from and pass on.
havent been writing for too long. my baby is now approaching her 3rd month birthday. she's been very talkative lately. always trying to talk to other people though its full of gurgles only.
Sen.Obama's huge win in Mississippi eliminated the popular vote gain Hillary Clinton made in Texas. He again leads by some 700,000 votes. He again proved capable of a huge win in a smaller state that swamped Clinton's victory margin in a larger state. Had the Clinton team had the money and strategic smarts to hold their defeats in the Potomac Primaries to margins of even 15%, this would be an entirely different campaign. However, when Obama wins states, Clinton also often loses them. Should Sen. Obama win this nomination, the Potomac Primaries will be remembered as the turning point.
The question, now, is whether Sen. Clinton can make up that 700,000 popular vote deficit, in order to have any credible claim to the nomination. The polls in Pennsylvania continue to give her a wide lead, and the state is even more demographically favorable to her than was Ohio; and given that, her ten-point win in Ohio was worth a popular vote gain of nearly 230,000 votes, a similar win in Pennsylvania would be worth even more. A margin of 300,000 seems very possible. Her only chance of overcoming that final 400,000 would seem to reside in her breaking roughly even in the remaining scheduled states, while winning big in Florida and Michigan revotes. As has been clear for some time, her only chance to take a credible popular vote lead depends on Florida and Michigan. The previous votes in those states will never be considered credible. Revotes are the only answer.
The Obama camp is hedging on revotes. In fact, they are now resorting to legal arguments, and very understandably would prefer that the delegate slates be simply split between the two candidates. The latter will not happen. The Clinton camp would prefer the previous elections be validated, but they are open to revotes, as an alternative. The former will not happen. So, the only fair resolution being revotes, we now see the campaigns articulating clear stances: Clinton would prefer that there be no revotes, but is open to the idea; Obama would prefer that there be no revotes, and seems willing to try to block them. As Big Tent Democrat makes clear, that position will be hard to defend. Were I as manipulative as some big name bloggers on some big name sites, I would claim that Obama doesn't think Florida and Michigan voters are relevant; but of course, he does think they're relevant, he's just worried about the results of their votes. This is nothing more than politics-as-usual, and it should not be spun as anything else.
Should Florida revote, it is likely that Clinton will match or beat her previous victory margin, thus slicing Obama's popular vote lead to roughly 100,000 votes. The question would then be whether she could win Michigan by that much. Her huge margin in the previous vote cannot be taken as measure, and the only recent poll, by Rasmussen, shows Clinton and Obama tied. Many, however, feel the demographics would favor Clinton. Nevertheless, would they favor her enough to give her a margin that would put her over the top, in total popular votes? There is only one way to find out.
Of course, none of this may matter. Clinton may win by such large margins in Pennsylvania and Florida that all she will need is a slight win in Michigan. Obama may close in those two states, and make it impossible for the Michigan margin to matter. He might clean up in Indiana and some of the other remaining states, also making his popular vote lead unassailable. On the other hand, she might do well in the remaining states. However, what is still clear and obvious is the necessity of resolving Florida and Michigan. Clinton is not going to get the current delegate slates. Obama cannot block revotes without blowing his chances of winning in November. A revote plan is being developed, and it should be implemented.
I just would like to inform my colleagues at Journal Home and all visitors that I have improved my website with new software. First from Sunlight Labs, I have added Popup Politicians™. You may notice after a politician’s name you will see a sun logo if you bring your cursor over it a small popup with the congressperson's or Senator’s bio and you will have links that will provide a wealth of information on that particular politician mentioned. I just thought it was a useful tool to help my visitors be well informed on political candidates and better able to have valuable information on a particular candidate they plan to vote for.
Here is an example Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama Where you see the Sun Logo Rep. Nancy Pelosi just put your cursor over it.
The second feature I added is from answers.com if you doubleclick on any word it will open a mini popup box and provide spelling, meaning and word etmology, for a proper place or thing or famous person it will provide a bio.
In any event I hope you enjoy the newly added features to make visiting my site a rewarding and pleasant experience. Also I added many interesting interactive features on the right side of my blog site please feel free to enjoy and comment on them if you so choose.
Barack Obama speaks eloquently of change. Nowhere is change more needed than in healthcare. By 2017, one dollar out of every five spent in America will go toward healthcare costs according to a report in Health Affairs.
For this high cost, surely Americans are getting excellent quality, are they not? Sadly, the answer is no. By any one of many measures of quality, the US healthcare system is not performing well. A recent study from the Commonwealth Foundation found,
"The US healthcare system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives."
This wildly expanding cost is unsustainable. Likewise, it is an international embarrassment to spend so much and yet perform so poorly on basic health scores. Everyone agrees that something has to be done but the real question is what?
One wonders what Barack Obama might do to meet this crisis. He claims that his plan will increase quality; provide coverage for everyone, and save money. Sounds like a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too. Looking closer, maybe he has uncovered some previously overlooked principles that might be used to untie this Gordian knot. So what specifically is he proposing to do?
Unfortunately, his healthcare plan is strong on vision but light on specific details. The best that can be discerned is a general outline that offers much promise but does not deal with any prickly details that might offend voters. By connecting the dots we can start to see what Obama is likely to do for healthcare. Looking at the different components of his plan, we can postulate an answer to the feasibility of his plan.
The one element of Obama's plan that is crystal clear is his call for major expansion of the government's role in controlling healthcare. The central proposition he makes is that the government can intervene to improve the quality of healthcare provided in the US. Clearly, quality improvement should be a major goal for healthcare reform. Obama's plan does not disappoint on this promise. He claims that he will improve patient care by requiring doctors and hospitals to prove they provide quality care. His plan would link payment with reported quality. This implies that poor quality must be the provider's fault.
To implement this plan, an army of new bureaucrats must be hired by the government to keep a watchful eye on the doctors and hospitals to ensure quality. Healthcare providers will have to hire larger staffs to collect and report this data adding more cost to the system. As these new structures evolve, the law of averages will prevail and the actual care will migrate to a median level of quality. The net result will be little improvement in care, and significant increase in the cost. High administrative overhead already is a major problem in our current system. A New England Journal of Medicinearticle stated that U.S. healthcare administrative overhead is twice that of the Canadian system. These researchers found that 31% of health care expenditures in the US went for administrative costs. Obama advocates that we increase this overhead further with no clear indication that quality will improve.
Obama's plan also calls for a ten billion dollar federal investment in healthcare information technology over five years. He purports this will improve quality and save money. Will it? The data suggests otherwise. A study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine showed information technology did not make a quality difference. Comparing practices that used an electronic medical record with those that did not, investigators found no difference in 14 quality measures, improvement in 2 outcome measures, and a worse outcome on 1 measure. This is hardly a sweeping endorsement. Incorporating such expensive and unproven methods within his plan is flippant. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the issue at hand.
The Obama healthcare plan also calls for expansion of the number of American people with health insurance coverage. While certainly a laudable goal, he does not explain how to pay for this. He also claims to offer solutions to the broken health insurance industry by limiting catastrophic losses and lowering insurance costs through competition. To quote Obama's website:
"His plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. His new National Health Exchange will help increase competition by insurers."
To sum up this part of Obama's plan, he intends to create another bureaucracy to regulate the health insurance industry. The language used here is particularly interesting. He will force insurance companies to use more premiums for patient care. How will a for-profit corporation respond to such heavy-handed coercion from the federal government?
Barack Obama talks a lot about change in his campaign. Healthcare reform offers him the chance to put that rhetoric into action. Unfortunately, all his plan does is offer empty talk and shallow ideas. Senator Obama, are you serious about change? If so, please show us some substance in your healthcare plan
After watching debates, hearing his speeches, and reading Obama's policy visions, many questions remain about how he'd change America. We'd like to see some shot-from-the-hip questions with a few straight answers before we commit to all that hope from a mere mortal, and all that hazy change. Here are just six questions for Obama we hope the MSM will ask him, for a change.
Issue 1: New Brand of Politics
Senator Obama, you promise a new brand of politics to replace the old politics of special interests and lobbyists. One step to fulfill that pledge would be to complete the 2008 Political Courage Test offered by Project Vote Smart, a lengthy questionnaire that asks you to formally state your precise positions on many national issues of the utmost concern to voters. Yet, according to the Project Vote Smart website,
"Senator Barack H. Obama Jr. repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff."
Project Vote Smart and its Political Courage Test exemplify the type of bipartisan effort that you claim to support. According to the organization's history:
"We are scrupulously non-partisan -- our founding board, headed by former presidents Carter and [until his death] Ford, is carefully balanced, and we do not lobby, support or oppose any candidate, issue or cause. To protect the independence and integrity of this Voter's Self-Defense System of information, Project Vote Smart does not accept funding from government or corporate sources, or any special interest group that lobbies. Our sources of support are entirely individual memberships and foundation grants."
Question:
Why would Americans trust someone who promises "change," but who does not trust Americans enough to tell them exactly to what kind of change he is committed?
Issue 2: Education
One goal of your comprehensive education plan for Pre-K to 12 is to "recruit, support, and reward teachers and principals to ensure that every school in America is filled with outstanding educators." You advocate "paying teachers as professionals." According to the National Education Association (NEA) the average teacher's salary in 2005-2006 was $49,026; California has the highest pay at $59,825.
Questions:
What will be the role, and cost, of the Federal Government's new direct and indirect involvement in recruiting teachers?
What do you propose be the new, elevated national average teacher's salary?
What will be the proportional funding of that increase as sustained by local, country, state, and federal taxing entities?
What will be the expected increase in federal employment headcount required to establish and maintain the new educational initiatives you propose?
Issue 3: National Defense
Senator Obama, as you know, providing for the common defense of the United States is one of the very few Constitutional requirements placed upon the federal government. Yet, in your Blueprint for Change, out of a list of 15 separate campaign pledges, you list "foreign policy" and "veterans" at the very bottom of the list. At the top of your list, you include "ethics," "healthcare," "seniors," "women," "poverty," and "service," among others. Yet, none of these items can be found in our Constitution.
Questions:
Do you intend, if you are elected President, to protect and defend these United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic?
If your answer is, "yes," will you conscientiously follow your own Blueprint, which implies that you sincerely believe diplomacy to be the best tool for our national defense?
You have said, "The United States is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don't like. Not talking doesn't make us look tough - it makes us look arrogant." Is it your contention, Senator Obama, that the only possible valid reason our current President could have for not sitting down and talking with the Iranians is that we don't like them?
Issue 4: Afghanistan
In the Ohio debate, you stated , "I have been very clear in talking to the American people about what I would do with respect to Afghanistan. I think we have to have more troops there to bolster the NATO effort." You also stated that, "...Secretary Gates, our current Defense secretary, indicated that we are getting resistance from our allies to put more troops into Afghanistan because they continue to believe that we made a blunder in Iraq." Yet, in a January 19, 2007 speech, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking about the NATO mission in Afghanistan, said,
"The Afghan National Army is doing better and better. As we speak four million refugees have gone back to Afghanistan. Health care is up. Child mortality is down. Two-thirds of the villages in Afghanistan have received development projects worth up to $50,000. The average income of the Afghan has doubled since 2001. The currency is stable. Fourteen new banks are competing with each other. Three million Afghans have mobile phones. Forty percent of the Afghan land seeded with mines has been brought back into use. In other words, if you look at 2001 and if you look at the beginning of 2008 a lot has happened and a lot of progress has been made...The problem is that we, the international community, we have no patience."
In addition, Scheffer recently noted that NATO sent an additional 8,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2007. In fact, France and Norway are reported preparing to send troops to participate more aggressively in the NATO mission.
Questions:
If you're elected President, how may more U.S. troops will you send to Afghanistan?
At the tactical level, you were against the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq. Today, though, you favor a surge in Afghanistan for a similar tactical mission. Is this a contradiction?
In the Ohio debate you acknowledged that, as chairman of Senate subcommittee dealing with Afghanistan since the beginning of 2007, you have not yet called an oversight hearing. If this issue is so important, how do you justify that?
Issue 5: Abortion
Senator Obama, you've told church audiences that you're personally opposed to abortion on religious grounds, but that you feel the necessity, within a pluralistic society, of supporting the legality of a "woman's right to choose." However, on the 35th anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision, you issued a statement, which seems to promise more enthusiastic action regarding abortion. In this statement, you boast that you have been a "consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL."
You call a woman's access to abortion-on-demand, including partial-birth abortions, a "fundamental right" that is part and parcel of your plans for "justice." And, you promise that as President, you will "pass the Freedom of Choice Act," which enshrines into law absolute access to all abortions up to the moment of live delivery. You've even opposed Infants Born Alive legislation in Illinois that would protect the life of an infant born breathing, despite the efforts to murder him.
Questions:
Do you not consider Planned Parenthood, the number one provider of abortions in the United States, and also a recipient of millions of tax dollars every year, to be a "special-interest lobby" of the very kind which you consistently denounce?
If you are personally opposed to abortion, why do you feel it necessary to promise to bolster and fight for what you term, "reproductive justice"?
How does our failure as a society to protect the life of an innocent, even one born "inadvertently," define any sort of justice at all?
Issue 6: Poverty
Part of your Plan to Combat Poverty is to "create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in cities across the nation that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement." You cite the Harlem's Children's Zone (HCZ) as the model. In a 2006 interview aired on CBS News, HCZ's founder, Geoffrey Canada (watch his Oprah interview here) described how the HCZ educates 10,000 children on an annual budget of $36 million, of which a third comes from government and the rest from private donations. In the CBS interview, Canada stated that, "We could not run a school under the current rules and regulations with the unions. It's impossible. It's just impossible. You can't fire teachers. Look, we fired three teachers last year. We fired more teachers than the whole island of Manhattan in all the public schools." Clearly, the HCZ is an example of what one highly-motivated entrepreneur can accomplish with private donations supplemented by government assistance.
Questions:
Your plan calls for the federal government to initiate similar "zones" and provide half of the funding, with the rest coming from philanthropies and businesses. Isn't this a fundamentally different model than the HCZ?
Canada is outspoken about how teacher unions are a hindrance to the type of inner city approach to education that makes the HCZ successful. How would you overcome that hindrance?
How would your administration convince philanthropies and businesses that investing in a government social program would be as cost effective and offer the same accountability as investing in a NGO?
Conclusion
It's time to ratchet up the intensity level of media questions to Senator Obama. The MSM inquiry has, to date, been more like a Miss America Contest interview than the thorough vetting of a presidential candidate. His puffy responses to debate questions have been accepted at face value. And, among the remaining presidential candidates, he has been the least accessible to the press corps. It's time, now, for reporters to start asking Obama serious questions, as befits serious journalists. I am so outta here...later! Feel free to comment if you so desire.
A couple days ago, I wrote over at SG about the Women's Campaign Foundation study (.pdf) that found that women donate 25% of the political money that men do. You can see what I had to say about it over there: the upshot was GET OUT THE CHECKBOOKS, CHICKS.
I hereby pledge to shoot at least $300 towards women's PACs or women candidates this year. Probably I'll donate more than that. Next year I'll chunk another bunch of money at women's PACs, the Democratic candidate, and local/state stuff.
Today's SG post explains one good reason why. Here it is. The statements by Bush's former Surgeon General deserve to be front-page news all over the country: Carmona said Bush administration political appointees censored his speeches and kept him from talking out publicly about certain issues, including the science on embryonic stem cell research, contraceptives and his misgivings about the administration’s embrace of “abstinence-only” sex education. . . . He said most of the public debate over the matter has been driven by political, ideological or theological motivations. Yep. But try to point this out and you get accused of discriminating against Christians, being intolerant of religious freedom, hating men, or being "too ideological" your own damn self. Gaaaaah.
You can see video of part of Carmona's testimony here:
Watch it: it's just breathtaking how appalling his admissions are. We have never seen it as partisan, as malicious, as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today. [By the way, this video is from Nancy Pelosi's YouTube channel, which is worth keeping an eye on.]
There really truly is an executive office and Republican party conspiracy to control women's reproductive decision-making. That they're also trying to control a bunch of other things do not change that fact. That so few people are willing to stand up and say that this is so is part of a broader problem with folks not seeing women's rights, specifically women's reproductive rights, as an important and fundamental civil liberties issue for Americans as a whole.
Which it darn well is, not only because women are slightly more than half of all Americans, but also because women are the mothers of every American, are the un- or underpaid labor force that does the vast majority of the important work that upholds the social and public health of the country, and because our rights (or lack thereof) can and will serve as wedges to limit the rights of you men. Wait and see.
Or, if you'd rather not, again: send some money to Emily's List. Because it should be *obvious* that supporting pro-choice women candidates is one of the most direct and most effective ways of getting these boneheads out of power.
Addendum: If Emily's List isn't your style--which I personally think is nuts, but hey--there's also the Women's Campaign Fund, which supports women candidates without the "pro-choice" requirement, or NOW PACs. Or feel free to link to your favorite women's PACs or candidates in comments
