Giffords, an American reality check

Notes 31

American Optimism vs. reality.Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world and in the inequities of our own country. Typical of media dishonesty.
The front part of her skull is missing. One eye is gone. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and her brain can't move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality of prognosis for her rehabilitation.

HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.

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Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens

A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
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Unlimited budget for war. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.

23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
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No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.

Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey

Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
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A reader writes

The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.

"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
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Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is at risk

According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
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The American Way. Nothing is sacred

A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum

Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?

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