Usa Thread

[Steve]

Chinese close to stealth plane capability

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808704576061674166905408.html?mod=yhoofront

[Bangkoktraveler]

The USA doesn't need a strong military but needs a government the people love and respect.

 

With people talking about cutting Medicare, Social Security, raising taxes on the poor and middle class while lowering taxes for the upper class has a lot of people not happy with our government.

 

What our government did to Medicare and Social Security is one of the all time nasties that a government has done to its own people.

[Steve]

The USA doesn't need a strong military but needs a government the people love and respect.

 

With people talking about cutting Medicare, Social Security, raising taxes on the poor and middle class while lowering taxes for the upper class has a lot of people not happy with our government.

 

What our government did to Medicare and Social Security is one of the all time nasties that a government has done to its own people.

 

What I find disgusting is are the pols that makes these cuts, speak ill of people getting this and that and give themselves packages that only CEOs would not be envious of.

[Flashermac]

19 Democrats vote against Nancy Pelosi

 

 

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s head was on a swivel as the judgment of her Democratic peers came down, one voice at a time, Wednesday.

 

Seated at a table a few rows back on the Democratic side of the House chamber, Pelosi flashed grateful smiles at those who loudly shouted her name as their vote for speaker. Her “Aw†was audible when Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) called out “Pelosi. Proudly!†and then spelled it, “P-E-L-O-S-I.†[color:red]But about 10 percent of her colleagues rejected her decision to stay on as their leader after they were tossed out of the majority in the midterm elections[/color], carefully pronouncing the names of folks who weren’t even in the running for the job destined to go to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio).

 

Eighteen of the 193 Democrats voted for someone other than Pelosi, with Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, who also opposed her, voting present and Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a frequent critic, skipping the roll call altogether to attend a local town hall meeting on saving a veterans hospital.

 

[color:orange]It was a scene unlike any other in recent House history and, as a public repudiation of a party leader by so many lawmakers, one that won’t soon be forgotten. The roll call resulted in the most votes against a party’s own speaker candidate in nearly 90 years, according to the House historian’s office.[/color]

 

Twenty-three Republicans voted against Massachusetts GOP Rep. Frederick Gillett’s candidacy for speaker in 1923, although he eventually won the gavel on the ninth vote. When Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) teetered on the edge of rejection by his own party in 1997, only nine Republicans denied him their votes.

 

Pelosi brushed off the votes against her in a brief exchange with POLITICO after the roll call.

 

“[color:orange]We’re[/color] excited about the votes [color:orange]I[/color] got,†said the California congresswoman, who handed over the speaker’s gavel to Boehner at a ceremony after the roll call.

 

Some Democratic aides said the number of votes against Pelosi might have been higher but for this: Committee assignments for the 112th Congress have not yet been made, and lawmakers fear they could be denied a spot on the panel of their choice  particularly as rosters are shrinking  if they anger the person who controls the panel making those decisions.

 

Still, that wasn’t enough to dissuade a large bloc of the Democratic Caucus from making its dissatisfaction with Pelosi public. She gritted through it, a broad smile pasted on her face for most of the proceedings.

 

Jason Altmire from western Pennsylvania was the first to break ranks. He stood, from behind Pelosi and to her left, and called out his vote: “Heath Shuler!†Reporters scribbled down his name  and Shuler’s  and waited for the next one. John Barrow of Georgia, several names down in the ledger of lawmakers, rose to vote for home-state colleague John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement.

 

“I was really embarrassed, really, that someone would vote for me,†Lewis said. “I don’t have any desire to be speaker. I didn’t campaign for the job.â€Â

 

...

 

More

 

 

[Flashermac]

Furore over 'censored' edition of Huckleberry Finn

 

 

 

A new edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is causing controversy because of the removal of a racially offensive word.

 

Twain scholar Alan Gribben says the use of the word "nigger" had prompted many US schools to stop teaching the classic.

 

In his edition, Professor Gribben replaces the word with "slave" and also changes "injun" to "Indian".

 

But the publisher says hundreds of people have complained about the edits.

 

First published in 1884, Huckleberry Finn is considered one of the great American novels.

 

While telling the story of a boy's journey down the Mississippi River some time between 1835 and 1845, the novel satirises Southern attitudes on race and slavery.

 

 

History of controversy

 

 

[color:red]"The book is an anti-racist book and to change the language changes the power of the book," said Cindy Lovell, executive director of The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri.

 

"He wrote to make us squirm and to poke us with a sharp stick. That was the purpose," she told Reuters news agency.[/color]

 

The novel has often been criticised for its language and characterisations and it is reported to be the fourth most banned book in US schools.

 

The "N-word" appears 219 times in the story.

 

Professor Gribben, who teaches English at Auburn University in Alabama, said he had given many public readings of Twain's books - and that when he replaced the word with "slave", audiences were more comfortable.

 

He said he wanted more people, especially younger people, to be encouraged to read the novel.

 

"It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvellous reading experience and a lot of readers," he said.

 

But the idea has been condemned by other scholars, teachers, writers and rights activists.

 

"Trying to erase the word from our culture is profoundly, profoundly wrong," said Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor.

 

[color:red]Dr Sarah Churchwell, a lecturer on American literature, told the BBC that it made a mockery of the story.

 

"It's about a boy growing up a racist in a racist society who learns to reject that racism, and it makes no sense if the book isn't racist," she told BBC World Service's Newshour programme. "You can't make the history of racism in America go away."[/color]

 

 

Power of words

 

Twain himself was very particular about his words.

 

He is quoted as saying that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter".

 

And when a printer made punctuation changes to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain wrote later that he had "given orders for the typesetter to be shot without giving him time to pray".

 

The publisher of this new edition of Huckleberry Finn, New South Books, says dozens of people have telephoned to complain and hundreds have sent e-mails.

 

The press have also weighed in to the debate, generally in defence of the original version.

 

"What makes Huckleberry Finn so important in American literature isn't just the story, it's the richness, the detail, the unprecedented accuracy of its spoken language," the New York Times said in an editorial. "There is no way to 'clean up' Twain without doing irreparable harm to the truth of his work."

 

In the UK, an editorial in The Times called the new edition "a well-intentioned act of cultural vandalism and obscurantism that constricts rather than expands the life of the mind".

 

The sanitised version will be published on 15 February, in a joint reissue with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which also has the offensive epithets replaced.

 

 

 

The Story of Mr. Jim, the Runaway African American Gentleman in Involuntary Servitude

 

 

 

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

I guess the Republicans in Congress are going to do the right thing and turn in their health care as a prelude for their desire to get rid of Obama Care.

 

 

[Flashermac]

Their are copying the Dems, who are donating their wealth to the poor and following Jesus.

 

 

[cavanami]

I guess the Republicans in Congress are going to do the right thing and turn in their health care as a prelude for their desire to get rid of Obama Care.

 

55555555555555555555

 

here's the reality of things!

 

2nd person denied Ariz. transplant coverage dies

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_transplant_coverage_death

 

A second person denied transplant coverage by Arizona under a state budget cut has died, with this death "most likely" resulting from the coverage reduction, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday.

 

University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28 at another medical facility after earlier being removed from UMC's list for a liver transplant needed because of hepatitis C.

 

Gellerman cited medical privacy requirements in declining to release any information about the patient.

 

Arizona reduced Medicaid coverage for transplants on Oct. 1 under cuts included to help close a shortfall in the state budget enacted last spring.

 

Officials at the Tucson, Ariz., hospital said the patient's death "most likely" resulted from Arizona's scaling back coverage for transplants, she said...

[Bangkoktraveler]

Arizona's Republican govenor is whipping everybody into shape. She wants to eliminate Medicaid and wants no part of ObamaCare.

 

I guess the Republicans were right about the death list, we already have them in Arizona.

[Hugh_Hoy]

Shit happens There is no way...repeat, no way-- the average wage earner can save for all of the possible bad luck one can have health-wise over the course of +/- 70 years. Organ transplants, joint replacements, cancers, various "by-pass" procedures...the list goes on and on. Then you have those who want to be hooked up to machines that will keep blood flowing and oxygen going to the lungs while they are essentially dead already. IF everybody needed to have these types of care, the piggy bank (U.S. Treasury) would probably be bankrupt in 6 months. (Wait, it already is.)

 

Nobody promised us a life free of health problems. And nobody, including good-doers, should promise that your neighbor will be forced to pay for your problems. A person's health is not addressed in the Bill of Rights.

 

Don't get me wrong. I feel sorry for those noted in the article. But, I don't see the country able to address everything from a hang-nail to a brain transplant. We can not all be a Six Million Dollar Man.

 

HH