Shampoo Science

Despite my lack of hair, I found this interesting:

..if you do a quick survey of a few shampoo ingredients labels, you’ll quickly see how the top 10 list looks nearly the same on all of them. But what are those ingredients, and what do they do? We broke down the ingredients on the back of the bottle.

1. Water. Up to 80 percent of shampoo is this basic element. Without enough of it, the lathering liquid wouldn’t pour from the bottle.

2. Surfactant. Basically a detergent, this additive does the bulk of the work. Surfates clean by surrounding dirt and oil so water can rinse them away. Ingredients like ammonium lauryl sulfate and ammonium laureth sulfate tend to be easier on sensitive scalps than sodium lauryl sulfate.[snip]

3. Foaming agents. Ingredients like cocamide or cocamidopropyl betaine provide the satisfying suds that complete the hair-washing experience. Lather, however, is purely aesthetic. “Lather doesn’t have anything to do with how well a shampoo works,” says Ni’Kita Wilson, a cosmetics chemist for Cosmetech Laboratories. “Manufacturers put lathering agents in shampoos because it’s what consumers expect.”

4. An acidic ingredient. Items like sodium citrate or citric acid on your shampoo label are added to keep shampoo at the right pH level. The acidic pH interacts with the hair's slightly negative charge to help the cuticle, the outer layer of the hair, maintain a smooth, flat surface.

5. Silicones like dimethicone, or anything ending in 'one.' These are polymers that deposit a lightweight coating on the hair. They help create smoothness and add shine.

6. Polyquaternium. Much like a fabric softener, it helps make hair more manageable by depositing a fatty conditioner and fighting static. It also thickens the shampoo formula so it’s easier to pour.

7. Panthenol, fatty alcohols, and nut oils. These common additives moisturize and lock in hydration.

8. Midazolidinyl urea, iodopropynyl, isothiazolinone, and sodium benzoate. [snip] Since many of the other ingredients are made from organic materials, they can grow mold and bacteria. These additives keep your shampoo from turning into a science project.

I've long suspected this:

Natural extracts and other additives that manufacturers brag about on the label don’t do much for your hair..

This, of course, begs the obvious question: If all of these ingredients are basically the same and "botanical extracts" do nothing, then why pay $8 (or $20) for a bottle of shampoo?

Exactly.

Republicans Say the Darndest Things

Man, I love living in the Internet age. When you say something stupid on TV, it comes back to haunt you.



Remind me why we continue to listen to these people?

Choose Your Own Health Insurance Adventure

Do Your Part to Support the Public Option

After months of delay, the full Senate is about to debate and vote on landmark health care legislation. But first, Senator Harry Reid and Democratic leaders have a big decision to make:

Will the Senate consider real health care reform with a robust public health insurance option, or a watered-down compromise full of giveaways to the insurance companies?

This is a hugely important decision. Progressive champions in Congress are standing strong for the public option and Sen. Reid himself has expressed support—but he's under immense pressure from a few conservative obstructionists who oppose it.

Please sign Moveon.org's petition here. They will present it to Sen. Harry Reid and Democratic leaders.

Also, please call/email President Obama and your Congressional leaders. You can find their contact info here. The two minutes this takes can make a huge difference.

What does Earth look like when viewed from Mars?

The Mars Orbiter Camera snapped the pic below (larger pics here). In addition, an alignment of Earth and Jupiter allowed the camera to acquire an image of both planets (Earth is in the top half of the pic and Jupiter is in the bottom half). Mars and the orbiting camera were 86 million miles from Earth and almost nearly 600 million miles from Jupiter. That's far.



This reminds me of the pic called the "Pale Blue Dot" and the insightful words of the late Astronomer Carl Sagan:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Fly Art

Weird, but kinda cool at the same time:







More pics here.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “I’m the cow on the tracks”

Health care reform cleared a significant hurdle yesterday, with the Senate Finance Committee voting to approve the Baucus bill. Only one Republican had the sense to vote for it. Although this bill does not have a public option in it, three House and a Senate Committees have already passed bills with a public option. Negotiations over the final bill will now move to the full House and Senate. We need to keep the pressure on them to include a public option. Needless to say, the insurance lobby and the Republicans will fight tooth and nail against it. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, in particular, will be a tough obstacle to overcome:

Olbermann: "The insurance companies are at war with America."

In case you haven't seen it yet, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann points out that there is no higher human priority than health and therefore no more basic government responsibility than ensuring the care of its citizens. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is something you are going to want to watch from heart rending start to sobering finish:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Most Trusted Name in News?

The Daily Show skewers CNN for letting blatant lies and propaganda go unchallenged all day long on their network. Simply brilliant:

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No matter how many times it happens, I'm still amazed at the fact that it's a comedy show that provides some of the best media analysis around. This clip also reminded me why I barely watch CNN anymore. I'm gonna have to leave it there.

A Dose of Facts About Health Care Reform

Health care reform has dominated the news for the last several months. Despite this, the media has done a terrible job explaining why we need reform. I've compiled a few key facts:

1. Americans spend more on health care than any other nation and yet we don’t live longer or have better health outcomes (we rank 50th in life expectancy; 33rd or 46th in infant mortality, depending on whether you ask the UN or CIA; and the worst in preventable deaths due to treatable conditions out of 19 leading industrialized nations). In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the US health care system as the 37th best in the world.

2. Over the last decade, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased 131%. Employees have seen their share of job-based coverage premiums increase at nearly the same rate during this period, jumping from $1,543 to $3,515. As a result, people are being forced to cut back on health care costs by putting off doctors' visits (28% of patients surveyed) or procedures (22%), declining tests (20%), skipping filling prescriptions (20%), and taking expired meds (15%) or skipping doses (15%). Without reform, the average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade.

3. Nearly one million Americans go bankrupt every year because of medical expenses. According to a study in the American Journal of Medicine, 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were partly the result of medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80% had health insurance. According to another study, about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs. That's right, people who have health insurance are losing their homes and life savings because they cannot afford medical care for themselves or their children.

4. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care. The Census Bureau estimated that 45.7 million Americans under age 65 did not have insurance in 2007. Without reform, at least 6.9 million more Americans will be uninsured in 2010. Another 25 million are underinsured. Considering the millions who have lost their jobs during the recession, these figures are surely higher now. The result? According to a Harvard study, 45,000 Americans die every year (one person every 12 minutes) because of a lack of health insurance coverage. That means if you don't have insurance you have a 40% higher risk of death than someone who does. What does this say about our society?

5. In 45 states across the country, insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage to people with a pre-existing medical condition. In fact, 21% of people who apply for non-employer-based health insurance get turned down, charged a higher price or offered a plan that excludes coverage for their pre-existing condition. Relatively minor conditions like hay fever, asthma, previous sports injuries, and even a history of domestic violence or if your 2 month old baby is overweight, can trigger high premiums or denials of coverage. Further, people with insurance are currently subject to rescission if they become ill. That means they can drop your coverage on the grounds that you had an undisclosed pre-existing condition (often for bullshit reasons).

6. If you have private insurance you like, you can keep it - and your costs will go down. What if you lose your job or don't get coverage from your employer? Reform will allow access to affordable care through a public option (a government-run insurance program like Medicare). Although I would much rather have a single-payer (universal health care) system, the public option is the best plan under debate to increase access to health care and reduce costs. Because a public option would not seek to earn profits and would compete with private insurers, its creation will put pressure on insurance companies to reduce their prices.

7. Poll after poll has shown that a large majority of Americans want health care reform with a public option. Doctors are in favor of the public option. So what's the hold up? The insurance and pharma companies are spending $1.4 million a day to spread misinformation and lies about health care reform. Shockingly, there are 6 insurance company lobbyists for every member of Congress. Additionally, the key members (which includes Democrats and Republicans) drafting the legislation are the ones getting the most "campaign donations" (read: bribes) from insurers and pharma.

We can't let insurance companies, Big Pharma, Republicans and others with a vested interest in the status quo use misinformation to derail efforts to lower healthcare costs for all Americans. They did it before. The stakes are simply too high to let them succeed again.

What can you do? Call or email your elected officials and demand that they vote for health insurance reform with a public option (anyone can spare the 2 min it takes to do this). Sign petitions (here, here and here). Attend rallies. Talk to your friends, families and neighbors. Support Keith Olbermann's call to put a free clinic every week in the cities of the states of the six shameful senators who are blocking reform. Please do something. Time is running out.

Telling It Like It Is

I recently told you about Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who declared on the House floor that the Republicans’ health-care plan amounted to “Don’t get sick,” and “If you do get sick, die quickly.” He's fast becoming my favorite member of Congress:

A Right Delayed is a Right Denied

President Obama will be addressing the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, tomorrow night. Bill Maher hilariously explains why it's time for President Obama to overturn "don't ask, don't tell":

One, because it's the right thing to do and two, because it will throw the conservative base into such a frenzied, pants-shitting panic that they'll drop all that BS about death panels and socialism and let us all get some actual work done.

Because here's the thing about today's conservatives: they're not bright. They can't keep a lot of ideas in their head at once. And by "a lot" I mean "two." If we can get them all worked up about fighting the gay menace, it will siphon away all that crazy, right wing, town-hall energy from all the other big issues they've been fighting. The tea-baggers don't know what the word "socialism" means. But they do know what the word "gay" means, because their hairdresser explained it to them once, and they don't like it. They will be drawn to it like a moth to a flamer. Bush was practically re-elected on a promise to keep boys from kissing. Which is ridiculous, because if you want to stop gays from having sex, wouldn't you let them get married?

Besides, as Lewis Black said, "we needs boots on the ground and if some of the boots are Prada, then FABULOUS!"

And the kicker from Maher:

And when they get out there on Sunday [gay rights march on Washington DC], Gay Nation also needs to do everything in their power to scare the hell out of right-wing homophobes. I want to see you guys rollerblading down the Mall in nothing but a speedo and a nun's habit, holding a sparkler in one hand and a penis popsicle in the other.

Time To Crack Some Heads

I can only hope this is true:



First Alan Grayson calls out the Republicans, now this. Is it possible that the Dems are finally playing hardball? Be still, my beating heart.

How Times Have Changed

George W Bush's policies (pre-emptive war waged on false pretenses, disregard for the Geneva conventions regarding torture, arrogant unilateralism, world-wide economic crisis, denial of climate change, etc) did extensive damage to America's reputation around the world. The election of President Obama seems to have changed that:

The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll.

It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index (NBI).

"What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009," said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year.

And now the big news this morning:

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” a honor that came less than nine months after he made United States history by becoming the country’s first African-American president.

The award, announced in Oslo by the Nobel Committee while much of official Washington — including the president — was still asleep, cited in particular the president’s efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

Of course, his detractors will say that he hasn't done anything to deserve this award (including one jackass who suggested that he got it because of affirmative action). Andrew Sullivan makes this important point, though:

If any person has done more to advance some measure of calm, reason and peace in this troubled word lately, it's President Obama. I think the Cairo speech and the Wright speech alone merited this both bridging ancient rifts even while they remain, of course, deep and intractable. He has already done more to heal the open wound between the West and Islam than anyone else on the planet.

Although these accolades are nice and all, there's much to be done.

Doing Nothing Is Not An Option

As the richest country on earth (and the ONLY industrialized country that doesn't offer universal health care to its citizens), we should be embarrassed that we allow this to go on.

Faces of American Health Care, Part 1 from austin considine on Vimeo.

Pretty Cool

Two things I love: baseball and Rachel Maddow.

The Republican Strategy: Label Everything They Don't Like 'Socialist'

..no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Nonsense from Republican Congressman Steve King:

So in the end this is something that has to come with a, if there's a push for a socialist society, a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together, living collectively off of one pot of resources earned by everyone. That is, this is one of the goals they have to go to is same-sex marriage because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. They want public affirmation. They want access to public funds and resources. Eventually all those resources will be pooled because that's the direction we're going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis.

The Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan breaks it down:

You realize that King must have no understanding of the word, or that the word has now become synonymous in Foxland with "anything that scares me." How on earth is allowing 2 percent of people the right to marry the person they love a path to redistribution of wealth or government ownership of the means of production?

Marriage is an institution that helps people be independent of the state. If one spouse gets sick, it is his or her spouse's first responsibility to care for him or her. Without the spouse, the government would have to step in. Marriage encourages responsibility, long-term commitment, and leads to better health. All of that too helps people remain independent of the state. In fact every single argument that social conservatives make about marriage for straights - and rightly so - also applies to marriage for gays.

Where's the Beef (Inspection)?

The New York Times tells a horrifying story about the shoddy beef inspection practices in our country. Although for any one who has read/seen Fast Food Nation, none of this should come as a surprise:

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”

Here's something to think about next time you ask for your burger to be cooked medium rare:

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states.

In fact, the USDA only tests 0.05% of the nation's ground beef for bacteria that could kill you. Like so many other things happening in our country today, this is another chilling example of how powerful corporations have become and how little our elected officials can (or will) do to regulate them. It's all about profit. Public health be damned.

By the way, if you still insist on eating ground beef (and I occasionally do), it's best that you have the butcher or supermarket grind the beef for you. For more info on this, I suggest you check out books like "The Omnivores Dilemma" and "Fast Food Nation."

Doc: "Access to Appropriate Health Care is a Human Right"

Dr. Paul Hochfeld of Mad As Hell Doctors makes a strong case for health care reform:



"I think this is the civil rights issue of our generation and we need to start every discussion with 'access to appropriate health care is a human right.'"

Indeed.

The Moral Argument for Health Care Reform

I have to make it a point to read Marty Peretz's blog at The New Republic more often:

I do not pretend that any of the health care formulas now being trumpeted around Washington are even near-perfect. But I do know that what we have now is ethically deficient. Any reality that counts the emergency room as routine health care is ethically deficient. And it is time that the nation deal with this. President Obama has tried, and he is being undermined.

...What the president is trying to do is to style a system that is non-exclusionary. There is no plausible moral argument against that. Unless you think that economically marginal folk should be excluded.

Darwin's Rottweiler

A disturbing Gallup poll conducted earlier this year found that only 39% of Americans accept the theory evolution. I see two key reasons for this. First, our education system has done a miserable job in explaining evolution to students (by not devoting sufficient time to it. After all, we're talking about a fairly complex scientific concept here and we all know how science savvy Americans are), mostly due to reason #2: Evangelical Christians. These people have railed against evolution since Darwin's time, spreading misinformation and lies. Apparently, they must really believe that there is a conspiracy by hundreds of scientists from all over the world to fool the public into thinking that life evolved from lower forms. And the planned celebrations surrounding the 150 year anniversary of the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of the Species" has only stirred up the hornet's nest. For example, former teen idol Kirk Cameron recently unveiled his plan to distribute thousands of altered copies of Darwin's book to college students.

How were they altered you ask? Darwin's masterpiece will include a 50-page introduction that slams evolution and paints Darwin as both racist and misogynistic and explicitly highlights "Adolph Hitler's undeniable connection to the theory." (this awesome YouTube video addresses many of Cameron's ridiculous points, one by one)

Thankfully, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins answers back with a book of his own:

In "The Greatest Show on Earth", Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of 'Intelligent Design' and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the 'time clocks' of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics. All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution. "The Greatest Show on Earth" comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense.

Unpatriotic

Get this. Republicans actually cheered Obama's failure to bring the Olympics to Chicago. Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head:

So what did we learn from this [Cheering at Chicago's lost Olympic bid] moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

Can you imagine what the Republicans would have said/done if the Dems had cheered a failed bid by W to have Dallas host the Olympics?

WIll It Be A Pop-up Book?

Redonkulous:

Sarah Palin's upcoming memoir is already the top bestselling book on the shopping sites of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, a month and a half before the book goes on sale.

At least one Republican isn't cheering.

Be Sure to Get Your Zs

Don't sleep on this:

Studies have demonstrated that poor sleep and susceptibility to colds go hand in hand, and scientists think it could be a reflection of the role sleep plays in maintaining the body’s defenses.

In a recent study for The Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists followed 153 men and women for two weeks, keeping track of their quality and duration of sleep. Then, during a five-day period, they quarantined the subjects and exposed them to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of fewer than seven hours a night, it turned out, were three times as likely to get sick as those who averaged at least eight hours.

Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce greater levels of disease-fighting white blood cells.

They're Still Milking It

Haven't we learned our lesson? Why are we still ignoring this?

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You Got A Better Idea?

Finally. Some spunk. I like it:

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) warned Americans that "Republicans want you to die quickly" during an after-hours House floor speech Tuesday night.

His remarks, which drew angry and immediate calls for an apology from Republicans, were highlighted by a sign reading "The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly."

Veteran Tennessee Republican Jimmy Duncan abandoned customary reticence to chastise Grayson. "That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor, and I, for one, don't appreciate it," Duncan said. "It's fully appropriate that the gentleman return to the floor and apologize," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another Tennessee Republican.

But none was forthcoming from Grayson — a freshman Democrat from a competitive district — who said the first part of the GOP approach to health care is: Don't get sick. "If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly," he said.

Well, it's either that or beg, as Republican House Minority Whip Eric Cantor recently told a constituent with cancer who had no insurance.

Here's the full video:



The fact is he's right. The Republicans have not offered a plan. They know that there are tens of millions of Americans without health insurance and millions more who are underinsured. They know that 45,000 Americans die every year because of lack of health coverage. They know that premiums have risen 131% over the last 10 years. They know that U.S. businesses cannot remain globally competitive when health care spending consumes 17% of our economy (versus 10% for France, which the World Health Organization rated the best health care system in the world; we're #37, by the way). They know all these things. They just don't care.

Apologize for that? Hell no.

Swoon

Truth be told, I'm a big Apple fan, especially the iPhone. I have successfully converted many of those around me. Imagine my delight when I heard about this:



No, that's not a big iPhone. It's a tablet computer! The "iTablet" will feature a 10-inch touchscreen, and both Wi-Fi and 3G data. The rumored cost is between $500-$700.

Via the tech site, Gizmodo:

Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a "new device." The R&D labs have long worked on versions of the paper meant to be navigated without a keyboard or mouse, showing up on Windows tablets and on multiple formats using Adobe Air.

A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes.

The big question is when will it be available? According to a number of sources, it will launch in early 2010 (possibly February). Needless to say, I'm starting to save my pennies!

The Return of McCarthyism?

Scary parallels.


Find more videos like this on DramaTube

The Death of Common Sense

Man, if Republicans weren't so good at politics and Fox News weren't the #1 news channel on cable, I'd laugh this kind of stuff off. But these guys are fucking relentless. Obama is brainwashing your kids!? They will stop at nothing to tear Obama down.

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Insurance Companies 1, American People 0

As I mentioned last week, the Senate Finance Committee, which is currently working on one of the health care reform bills (often called the Baucus bill, after the committee chairman), held a long debate on amendments which would add a public health insurance option to the bill. I'm disappointed to report that these amendments failed 10-13 (3 Dems voted with the Republicans).

That's right. Even though all the Republicans on the committee voted against the public option amendments, it was the Democrats who killed it. Someone needs to show these "scum-sucking, insurance industry-loving weasels" (as the Daily Kos has appropriately labeled them) that their constituents support the public option:

Put into words: although the Senate Finance Committee defeated the public option, nearly 6 million more Americans voted for the 10 senators who supported it than the 13 senators who opposed it.

Another way of saying it: anyone who claims the public option doesn't have public support is full of bull.

Senator Tom Harkin isn't deterred:



So what's next?

A public health insurance option has been passed by four out of five committees in Congress dealing with health care. The next time the public health insurance option will come up for consideration is when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid merges the Baucus bill with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill.

If a public option is not added on the Senate floor, it could also wind up in the bill once the Congress merges the Senate and the House bills. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated her assurance that the House bill will have a public option.

It's still early in the game, and as Yogi said, it ain't over 'til it's over.

Some Things Never Change

Rock Out to Science

Kudos to They Might Be Giants for making science kid-friendly. You can get the full album (which is a CD/DVD with animated videos) for your kids here.

Poll: 65% of Americans Support Goverment Health Insurance Option

Findings from the latest New York Times/CBS poll:

By a margin of 52 percent to 27 percent, Americans said Mr. Obama has better ideas about overhauling health care than Republicans. And the percentage of Americans who approve of how Mr. Obama has handled health care has gone from 40 percent in August to 47 percent, about equal to where it was earlier in the summer.

On one of the most contentious issues in the health care debate — whether to establish a government-run health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers — nearly two-thirds of the country continues to favor the proposal, which is backed by Mr. Obama but has drawn intense fire from most Republicans and some moderate Democrats.

Even though these "moderate" Dems (those from conservative districts) have put up some resistance, another poll found that their constituents support the public option.

What do docs want? A survey of more than 5,000 docs of various specialties found that they:

..overwhelmingly support either a public option or a public system. Indeed, when you add the two groups together, it's more than 70 percent of respondents.

Ok, let's tally the score. A large majority of Americans want the public option. Docs want the public option. Obama and (most) Dems want the public option. Amazingly, even Bill O'Reilly wants a public option. The only ones against the public option are Republicans, a diminishing number of conservative Dems, and of course, the insurance companies.

Amendments related to the public option are scheduled to be debated by the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. Are they listening?

What About Insurance Company Execs?

Who's looking out for them? (other than BOTH political parties, that is)

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Kinda Catchy

Porn Makes You Gay

Witness Michael Schwartz, staffer for far-right Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, tell the folks at the Value Voters Summit how pornography will make you gay:



What is wrong with these people?

Obama's Health Care Plan in 4 Minutes

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that many people still don't understand how the Dems intend to reform health care or why it's important (even if you already have health insurance). If you are one of these people, this is for you:

American Psychos

Videos like this really disturb me. Of course, I should note that Glenn Beck and Fox News played a key role in publicizing this event. In fact, Fox producer Heidi Noonan was caught riling up the crowd for the cameras. Fail.



My question is: what are they so pissed about? What, exactly, has Obama done during his 8 months in office that has so radically changed the country? Salon's Glenn Greenwald provides some interesting insight:

Some argued that Obama's race has caused the Right's hostility towards him to be both unique and unprecedentedly intense. That some people react with particular animus towards the first black President is obvious. But there is nothing new about the character of the American Right or their concerted efforts to destroy the legitimacy of Obama's presidency.

To see that, just look at what that movement's leading figures said and did during the Clinton years. In 1994, Jesse Helms, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "just about every military man" believes Clinton is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief and then warned/threatened him not to venture onto military bases in the South: "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard." The Wall St. Journal called for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the possible "murder" of Vince Foster. Clinton was relentlessly accused by leading right-wing voices of being a murderer, a serial rapist, and a drug trafficker. Tens of millions of dollars and barrels of media ink were expended investigating "Whitewater," a "scandal" which, to this day, virtually nobody can even define. When Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden, they accused him of "wagging the dog" -- trying to distract the country from the truly important matters at hand (his sex scandal). And, of course, the GOP ultimately impeached him over that sex scandal -- in the process issuing a lengthy legal brief with footnotes detailing his sex acts (cigars and sex talk), publicly speculating about (and demanding examinations of) the unique "distinguishing" spots on his penis, and using leading right-wing organs to disseminate innuendo that he had an abandoned, out-of-wedlock child. More intense and constant attacks on a President's "legitimacy" are difficult to imagine.

..Nothing that the GOP is doing to Obama should be the slightest bit surprising because this is the true face of the American Right -- and that's been true for a very long time now. It didn't just become true in the last few months or in the last two years. Recent months is just the time period when the media began noticing and acknowledging what they are: a pack of crazed, primitive radicals who don't really believe in the country's core founding values and don't merely disagree with, but contest the legitimacy of, any elected political officials who aren't part of their movement.

PSG is Back!

I hope you all had a good Summer. A lot has happened during the past couple of months, but the focus continues to be on health care reform. So where are we? The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn explains what has happened over the past month or so:

The August recess began with critics attacking health care reform because of its high price tag. It ended with critics attacking health care reform because of how reformers proposed to reduce that high price tag. The intervening weeks were nightmarish: Instead of using August to showcase what reform could do for the average American, the White House spent most of its time knocking down rumors of death panels for the sick and elderly. And as the right became energized, the left grew disillusioned, as much by the administration’s backroom deals as by its ineffectual messaging. Eventually, the shift showed up in the polls. First people grew more wary of reform. Then they grew more wary of the president. It was if everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

Somehow, though, health reform is not dead. Despite all of the setbacks and all of the missed opportunities--despite this train wreck of a month--the situation remains remarkably similar to what it was before the recess.

Last week, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (which is the last of five congressional committees that need to approve health care legislation before the topic can be taken up by both the full Senate and the full House of Representatives), Max Baucus, unveiled his long-awaited plan to remake the nation’s health care system and insure millions of Americans. The bill is generally in line with what President Obama requested, except that it does not include a new government insurance plan (the so-called public option) to compete with private insurers.

The full Senate Finance Committee now gets to offer their requested amendments to the bill. Senators have offered 564 amendments, and of course the Republican proposals generally gut the bill. However, one Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, is signaling that she may be willing to vote for the bill. Naturally, the Dems and the White House are wooing her.

In most polls, Americans are divided on whether to reform health care (although I'd guess most people have no idea what's in the bill). With support somewhat slipping (GOP scare tactics have been effective), Obama is currently on a media blitz to increase public support.

Many questions still remain. Will there be a public option in the final bill? Should employers be required to offer coverage? Should individuals be forced to buy it? And what should be the consequences if they don't?

We'll soon find out.

Healthcare Reform: Fact vs Fiction

If you have been watching the news lately, you know that the Republicans are working really hard to kill healthcare reform. They've even taken to hiring lobbying firms to bring in people to disrupt debate at town hall meetings being held by Dems around the country. They will do anything to stop them from fixing our broken healthcare system. Contrary to what the Republicans are saying, Obama is not out to create a single-payer (government) healthcare system. His key goal is to offer an affordable public OPTION for Americans. If you like your insurance, keep it. How hard is this for people to understand? Anyway, I decided to take a brief respite from my hiatus to bring you this important info (numbers in parentheses represent sources, which are listed below):

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."(4) What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.(5)

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.(6) Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.(7)

If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.(8) But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.

Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.(9) And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.(10) Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.(11)

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.

Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.(12) The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade (13)—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.(14) Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.(15)

And of course, the Daily Show smartly weighs in:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Sources:

1. "More 'Town Halls Gone Wild': Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With 'Incomprehensible' Yelling," Think Progress, August 4, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51733&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=2

2. "Fight the smears," Health Care for America NOW, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=3

3. "Palin Paints Picture of 'Obama Death Panel' Giving Thumbs Down to Trig," ABC News, August 7, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51728&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=4

4. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51747&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=5

5. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51730&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=6

6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1

7. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51737&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=7

8. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51736&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=8

9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1

10. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51748&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=9

11. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#s1

12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1

13. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51667&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=10

14. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51735&id=16782-10309825-IiLBXwx&t=11

15. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1



I now return you to your regularly scheduled program..