date:20090815

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Gurevich  wrote:
>
> Hi,
> Thank you to everyone who responded with suggestions.  I will check out
> Verizon and US Cellular.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mike
>

Hey, Mike, are you from or do you have any relatives in Mississippi?

I ask because I think I knew a Gurevich from there.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

2009-08-15 Thread bob_brigante


> Once again, the lobbyists got the gold mine, the public got the shaft.
>

*

The public deserves the shaft:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_drastically_scales_back

[FairfieldLife] +Re: Cell phones in FF?

2009-08-15 Thread Michael Gurevich

Hi,
Thank you to everyone who responded with suggestions.  I will check out
Verizon and US Cellular.

Cheers,
Mike

[FairfieldLife] Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

"I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the 
President what is probably the most important question of what passes for 
debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?

On June 22, President Obama said he'd reached agreement with big drug companies 
to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big 
Pharma for the deal that would, "reduce the punishing inflation in health care 
costs."

Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?

I checked out the government's health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries 
in my calculator and totted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by 
the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.

In other words, Obama's big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a 
total $3.6 trillion. That's 2%.

Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from 
these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!
ALERT

Now it's Let's Make a Deal with hospital lobbyists.

First, the President was caught with his principles down, cutting a scuzzy 
back-room deal with pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin to limit drug price 
savings to just 2% over 10 years (see attached, "Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?"), 
the New York Times today reports that another deal was sealed by lobbyist Chip 
Kahn of the American Hospital Association.

Here are the numbers they don't want you to see: Hospitals will be allowed to 
hike their prices and revenues by six trillion dollars ($5,853 billion) over 
the next ten years, only $155 billion less than they had projected before the 
Obama "reform."

In all, the Obama back-room deal will "reduce" our $26 trillion total hospital 
bill over the next decade by one-half of one percent.

Once again, the lobbyists got the gold mine, the public got the shaft.

Say it ain't so, Mr. President.

For perspective: Imagine you are in a Wal-Mart and there's a sign over a flat 
screen TV, "BIG SAVINGS!" So, you break every promise you made never to buy 
from that union-busting big box - and snatch up the $500 television. And when 
you're caught by your spouse, you say, "But, honey, look at the deal I got! It 
was TWO-PERCENT OFF! I saved us $10!"

But 2% is better than nothing, I suppose. Or is it?

The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their 
promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, 
over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise 
drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of 
drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter 
trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the 
increase.

And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? Chief drug lobbyist Billy 
Tauzin crowed that Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down 
prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama's promise that we could buy 
cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

What did that cost us? The New England Journal of Medicine notes that 13 
European nations successfully regulate the price of drugs, reducing the average 
cost of name-brand prescription medicines by 35% to 55%. Obama gave that up for 
his 2%.

The Veterans Administration is able to push down the price it pays for patent 
medicine by 40% through bargaining power. George Bush stopped Medicare from 
bargaining for similar discounts, an insane ban that Obama said he'd overturn. 
But, once within Tauzin's hypnotic gaze, Obama agreed to lock in Bush's crazy 
and costly no-bargaining ban for the next decade.

What else went down in Obama's drug deal? To find out, I called C-SPAN to get a 
copy of the videotape of the meeting with the drug companies. I was surprised 
to find they didn't have such a tape despite the President's campaign promise, 
right there on CNN in January 2008, "These negotiations will be on C-SPAN."

This puzzled me. When Dick Cheney was caught having secret meetings with oil 
companies to discuss Bush's Energy Bill, we denounced the hugger-muggers as a 
case of foxes in the henhouse.

Cheney's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were creepy and 
nasty and evil.

But the Obama crew's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were, 
the President assures us, in the public interest.

We know Cheney's secret confabs were shady and corrupt because Cheney scowled 
out the side of his mouth.

Obama grins in your face.

See the difference?

The difference is 2%.

http://www.gregpalast.com/obama-on-drugs-98-cheney/

ALERT:

"Now it's Let's Make a Deal with hospital lobbyists.

First, the President was caught with his principals down, cutting a scuzzy 
back-room deal with pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin to limit drug price 
savings to just 2% over 10 year

[FairfieldLife] Proof of Global Heating of Shemp's Brain.

2009-08-15 Thread off_world_beings



--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
wrote:
>
> Al Gore is thinking of having town hall meetings on global warming!
>
> http://greenhellblog.com/2009/08/13/townhalls-with-al-gore-bringem-on/
>
> Of course, I thought "the debate is over". Apparently it isn't now and
this is the best news I've heard in a long, long time. Finally we can
have a REAL debate over global warming.
>
> Let's see if the Brown Shirts will stop us from talking there...
>

Proof of Global Heating of Shemp's Brain.

OffWorld

[FairfieldLife] What we have learned about healthcare in the USA

2009-08-15 Thread off_world_beings


  What we have learned about healthcare in the USA:

1. In the WHO rankings, the USA is 37th in quality of health systems,
with Slovenia, just below them.

2. In 2005 the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons reported that as
many 500,000 people sought care overseas. The expected figure by 2010 is
in the millions.

3. The talking point that people come to America for care: Eg.  A rich
person from Saudi comes to US and gets treatment, while 47 million
Americans are uninsured, and millions go bankrupt due to medical bills.
This is unacceptable in most civilized countries.

4. Millions of Americans buy safe, high quality prescription drugs from
outside the US for a small fraction of the cost.

5. The talking point that cancer survival rates are highest in America
is false: The American Cancer Society said that the higher survival
statistic in the U.S. may simply reflect more aggressive diagnosing of
non-lethal cancers.


6. 60% of bankruptcies in US are due to medical bills. The mere thought
of this situation in most civilized countries is beyond outrage.

7. The private hospitals are funded from between 50 and 70% by Federal,
State, and local government (ie. taxpayers money.) The US is among the
top 10 most socialized health care systems among UN member countries.
Except that in the US, greedy people are profiting from sickness by
stealing taxpayers money.

8. There are humanitarian missions to the US, like its a third world
country, due to the terrible state of care for the uninsured. The
socialized countries do not get these humanitarian missions.



OffWorld

[FairfieldLife] 50 Years of Black Helicopters


"One of the things that annoys me about the healthcare circus is the
claim by the White House that conservative opposition is based in
racism. Yes, that is a White House claim, carefully and covertly fed to
friendly media outlets: hence the spate of articles and blog posts
simultaneously sounding the same note.

It bothers me, first of all, because it's wrong. I don't like
wrong things. They chafe. Opposition to healthcare reform is as old as
the concept of healthcare reform, and unless Harry Truman was a black
man, it has nothing to do with racism. It's part of the rightwing
proletarian fear of government  a fear that is cynically stoked by
rightwing elites who rely on control of that same government for their
own power and profit. (Caveat: no doubt there are some racists involved
in the town hall disturbances, just as there are racists everywhere in
America. But to claim that racism is the driving factor behind these
demonstrations is absurd.)

Rick Perlstein's essay in the Washington Post, In America, Crazy Is
a Preexisting Condition
 , recaps the last 50 years of rightwing panic. Read it;
it will give you a better perspective on what's going on right now
than a thousand hysterical blog posts from the Obama noise machine.

Which brings me to the other reason the racist meme bothers me.  Last
year the Obama team used false accusations of racism
  to discredit Hillary supporters and Hillary herself
(and Bill).  From "fairy tale" to the doctored Mickey Kantor
tape to the RFK smear
 , it was perhaps the ugliest
aspect of the campaign  well, apart from the sexism and the caucus
fraud. And it was one the Obama camp reached for again and again. How
many people, even now, believe that Hillary Clinton engaged in
race-baiting? How many believe that PUMAs were motivated not by feminist
or democratic indignation, but by racism? Probably at least as many as
believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and that Al Gore said he
invented the internet. If you want a lie to become the truth, just
repeat it a million times.

Now the racist claim is being trotted out again. It worked against
Hillary Clinton; will it work against the town hall protestors? And if
it does, should we be glad about that? "We," of course, being
those of us who are passionately on the side of healthcare reform.

You can guess what my answer is.

Ezra Klein
  said the other day that what's really at stake in
the healthcare debate is our democracy. He's correct that the
rightwing agitators are awash in propaganda and madness, but if he's
implying that the Obama camp represents rational political discourse, I
beg to differ. Anybody who went through 2008 with their eyes open should
know better. Klein may be mourning American democracy now, but
that's what I was doing a year ago. My mantra throughout much of
2008 was that if we elected Obama, we'd have the equivalent of two
GOPs. Different policies (sometimes), but identical tactics.

Black helicopters all around."


Reclusive Leftist


Violet Socks

http://snipurl.com/pz1dv 

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2009/08/15/fifty-years-of-black-helicopt\
ers/

[FairfieldLife] Proof of Global Hesting of Shemp's Brain.

2009-08-15 Thread off_world_beings



--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
wrote:
>
> Al Gore is thinking of having town hall meetings on global warming!
>
> http://greenhellblog.com/2009/08/13/townhalls-with-al-gore-bringem-on/
>
> Of course, I thought "the debate is over". Apparently it isn't now and
this is the best news I've heard in a long, long time. Finally we can
have a REAL debate over global warming.
>
> Let's see if the Brown Shirts will stop us from talking there...
>

Proof of Global Hesting of Shemp's Brain.

OffWorld

[FairfieldLife] Post Count

2009-08-15 Thread FFL PostCount

Fairfield Life Post Counter
===
Start Date (UTC): Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 2009
End Date (UTC): Sat Aug 22 00:00:00 2009
51 messages as of (UTC) Sat Aug 15 23:50:24 2009

10 shempmcgurk 
 6 Bhairitu 
 5 raunchydog 
 5 It's just a ride 
 5 "do.rflex" 
 4 Alex Stanley 
 3 TurquoiseB 
 3 Rick Archer 
 1 shukra69 
 1 guyfawkes91 
 1 gullible fool 
 1 cardemaister 
 1 bob_brigante 
 1 wle...@aol.com
 1 Vaj 
 1 Sal Sunshine 
 1 Mike 
 1 Ghanesh PV 

Posters: 18
Saturday Morning 00:00 UTC Rollover Times
=
Daylight Saving Time (Summer):
US Friday evening: PDT 5 PM - MDT 6 PM - CDT 7 PM - EDT 8 PM
Europe Saturday: BST 1 AM CEST 2 AM EEST 3 AM
Standard Time (Winter):
US Friday evening: PST 4 PM - MST 5 PM - CST 6 PM - EST 7 PM
Europe Saturday: GMT 12 AM CET 1 AM EET 2 AM
For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> shempmcgurk wrote:
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
> >   
> >> From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com]
> >> On Behalf Of It's just a ride
> >> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM
> >> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
> >> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom
> >> Line-
> >>  
> >>   
> >> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflex >>  > wrote:
> >> 
> >>> "I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The
> >>>   
> >> minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a
> >> year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're
> >> saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
> >> 
> >>> -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care
> >>>   
> >> reform effort
> >> 
> >> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti
> >> san.cfm
> >>
> >> And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
> >> creep, leading up to a single payer option.
> >> Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who 
> >> argue
> >> that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would
> >> that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition?
> >>
> >> 
> >
> > Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage.
> >
> > Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is 
> > funded by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think 
> > $99,000 of Adjusted Gross Income.  The portion is about 20% that is a 
> > contribution to Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security).  
> > Lowering the age would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean 
> > that the funding would have to be increased.
> 
> How about a 1% tax on stock sales?  Let Wall Street foot the bill. 
> Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
>

How about a 5% minimum tax on the income of everyone in the lower 50% of all 
taxpayers who pay less than 3% of all income tax collected?

Leave the poor, downtrodden, exploited, and overtaxed Wall Street millionaires 
and billionaires alone, please.

[FairfieldLife] Re: No Money for Health Care but Plenty for Troops in Columbia?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:

[snip]


...while people in the US die from lack of health 
> care.  Time for revolt.

[snip]


Who's dying from lack of health care in the United States?

Some specifics, please.

Boy, you are sounding like a spokesman on a DEATH PANEL.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Whole Wallet's CEO talks about health care

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> And he quotes Margaret Thatcher?

Yes, isn't it wonderful?

>  Does he have any idea who his 
> customers are?

Apparently not.  On the HuffingtonPost, many commenters are talking about 
boycotting his store.

I, on the other hand, will go out of my way to try and GIVE Whole Foods my 
business for his wonderful insights.  However, that will be hard because almost 
everything is SO overpriced there.

>  Michael Finney, San Francisco radio talk show consumer 
> host opened his show about this.  He couldn't believe that Mackey would 
> make such as comment.  He bet you could hear a pin drop at the San Mateo 
> Whole Foods or Marin one.  Undoubtedly parking will be easy to find when 
> it often isn't at the Berkeley store.
> 
> http://fwix.com/share/7_8284e955bc
>

[FairfieldLife] Whole Wallet's CEO talks about health care

And he quotes Margaret Thatcher?  Does he have any idea who his 
customers are?  Michael Finney, San Francisco radio talk show consumer 
host opened his show about this.  He couldn't believe that Mackey would 
make such as comment.  He bet you could hear a pin drop at the San Mateo 
Whole Foods or Marin one.  Undoubtedly parking will be easy to find when 
it often isn't at the Berkeley store.

http://fwix.com/share/7_8284e955bc

[FairfieldLife] Interesting Podcast about Les Paul

Angie Coiro hosts a show on the local progressive talk station here in
the Bay Area and last night she had a very interesting show on the late
Les Paul.  She interviewed people who had worked with him.  I suspect
that many folks here might enjoy the show:
http://www.angiecoiro.com/live/podcasts.html

It is the August 14th show hour 2.  Right click to download.

Les Paul was truly and innovator and active right up to his death at age
94.  We should all be so lucky.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meditation: The Dark Side

2009-08-15 Thread Vaj

On Aug 14, 2009, at 4:29 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:

The "dark side" of FFL draws me back in. :-)

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Marek Reavis"  
 wrote:

>
> A concession is not the same as a contention, which I believe
> you understand quite well, or else you would not have segued
> at the end of your post from arguing that I made a contention
> to that I had made a concession to Vaj.

To "concede" means to "lose," Marek, to admit
that you don't know the truth of something.
Judy is just kindly pointing out that you are
a loser and she has never been because she has
never conceded anything. :-)

I guess the funny thing is how easy Judy and Raunch fall for the bait.

I fully expected naive TM bots to confound the yogic 'closing and  
opening of the eye of shiva' with MMY's pathetically implemented "dye  
the cloth lie" analogy and his inward and outward stroke sales pitch  
for mantra sales as the same thing. I too once believed it, I have to  
admit. We all have our romantic sides, I hope. But at a certain point  
in your development you learn that certain things were correct and  
other were lies (or deliberate exaggerations, thereby hooking you). In  
retrospect, it's easy, effortless :-)--to see the folly, really a  
danse macabre--of what's being parroted. But a macrabre dance- 
sequence, repeated robot-like, over and over, eventually just becomes  
sad, as a kind of new-age naivete...despite an enactment with serious  
affect or even enwrapped in venomous activistic spew.

[FairfieldLife] Obama Weekly Address - Health Care Reform

2009-08-15 Thread Rick Archer

Very clear and coherent: http://www.whitehouse.gov/weekly_address/

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

shempmcgurk wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
>   
>> From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com]
>> On Behalf Of It's just a ride
>> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM
>> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom
>> Line-
>>  
>>   
>> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflex>  > wrote:
>> 
>>> "I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The
>>>   
>> minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a
>> year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're
>> saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
>> 
>>> -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care
>>>   
>> reform effort
>> 
>> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti
>> san.cfm
>>
>> And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
>> creep, leading up to a single payer option.
>> Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue
>> that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would
>> that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition?
>>
>> 
>
> Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage.
>
> Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded 
> by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 
> of Adjusted Gross Income.  The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to 
> Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security).  Lowering the age 
> would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding 
> would have to be increased.

How about a 1% tax on stock sales?  Let Wall Street foot the bill. 
Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[FairfieldLife] No Money for Health Care but Plenty for Troops in Columbia?

Let South America fight it's own battles.  The US is bankrupt and can't 
be spending money to expand US hegemony.   The military industrial 
complex lines its pockets while people in the US die from lack of health 
care.  Time for revolt.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/15/deal-united-states-soldiers-will-deploy-to-colombia/

[FairfieldLife] How to Hold a Town Meeting and Respect Free Speech

"Joe Sestak, Congressional Representative from Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional 
District, and Senatorial candidate 2010,  held a town hall meeting on the issue 
of Healthcare reform.  Joe is one of the few Congresscritters who has read the 
entire bill; but more importantly, he understands the fear, anger, and 
frustration of his constituents over this issue enough to treat them with 
dignity and respect and respond to their questions.  Yes, the "angry mob" 
showed up.  However, watch how Joe refuses to take on the cloak of arrogance 
we've witnessed from some of the Congressional Dems during these meetings.  
(These videos are apparently homemade although I watched it on PCN)

First, here is one of the "angry, racist, birther, lunatic, neocon, 
astroturfers" going on the offensive:
http://snipurl.com/py9nj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoG_d7OXTLE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Friverdaughter.wordpress.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

and here's one "whacko, brownshirt, terrorist" that they tried to throw outbut 
Joe told them to leave him alone so he could answer his question:
http://snipurl.com/py9ra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVst1Hfpoj0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Friverdaughter.wordpress.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

Now, here's the other "Democratic" candidate for Senator in Pennsylvania 
handling the same angry mob:
http://snipurl.com/py9u2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcFHwYguMuk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Friverdaughter.wordpress.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

There are a total of 21 videos of Representative Sestak's town hall available 
on YouTube; and in each one, and with each question regardless of the 
questioner's demeanor or political philosophy, Joe gives the attendees the 
deference a constituent deserves.  Whether you agree with his assessment of the 
quality of the bill or not, he demonstrates a clear understanding of the health 
care legislation he is endorsing.  He even has a copy of the bill on hand and 
staff available to provide attendees with the portions of the bill applicable 
to their questions.

See how it's done?

But more importantly,

Can someone please explain to me why Obama, Biden, and Rendell are backing 
Specter and not Sestak??"

http://snipurl.com/py9xd
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/dealing-with-angry-mobs-101/

[FairfieldLife] Re: Gates foundation sold off all healthcare and pharma holdings 6/30/09

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "It's just a ride" 
 wrote:
>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 12:14 PM, shempmcgurk wrote:
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "It's just a ride" 
> >  wrote:
> >>
> >> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html
> >>
> >
> >
> > From the last line of the story:
> >
> > "The foundation had total assets valued at $7.5 billion as of June 30, down 
> > roughly $1 billion from the end of March."
> >
> > What about Warren Buffet's gift of about $37 billion to the Gates 
> > Foundation?  I suppose that that is given over time or something, for tax 
> > reasons?
> >
> > And how about the initial seed money from Microsoft stock that Gates gave?  
> > Wasn't that about $20 billion?  Is that given over time or is that already 
> > spent on the good works he has done?
> >
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundation
> 
> Gates is spending a pittance of the foundation's money.



My understanding is that a recognized charity must spend at least 5% of the 
value of the net assets of a company in each year.  If the Foundation is worth 
$7.5 billion, as indicated above, that means that this year they had to have 
spent at least $375 million.

That's hardly a "pittance."





>  A few million
> to fund research into alternate food production in Africa, for
> example.
> 
> The Buffet contribution must be given over time because Warren doesn't
> have overdraft protection in his checking account for $37 billion.  He
> needs to slowly liquidate his holdings.  Buffet is figuring out how
> much longer he'll live and is selling off and giving so there's no
> estate to speak of left.  Kind of like Obama and most other presidents
> proposing and signing bills which go into full effect 2 years after
> they leave office, if they serve yet another term.
> 
> Berkshire Hathaway Holdings has been depressed for a long time because
> there's a lot of belief that the Buffet magic is just that and not
> just an exercise in finding an undervalued but sound company, which
> Buffet says his successors can do.  If it were that easy everyone who
> buys stocks would be a billionaire.
>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 1:32 PM, shempmcgurk wrote:
>
> Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded 
> by a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 
> of Adjusted Gross Income.  The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to 
> Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security).  Lowering the age 
> would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding 
> would have to be increased.
>

The Medicare tax rate is 2.9% for the employee and the employer. You
will withhold 1.45% of an employee's wages and pay a matching amount
for Medicare tax. There is no wage base for the Medicare portion of
the FICA tax. Both the employer and the employee continue to pay
Medicare tax, no matter how much is earned.

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "It's just a ride" 
 wrote:

[snip]

> No one but the
> inexperienced Obama, who got his experience doing community action
> work, would have tried to do so many things at once, and I give him
> credit for whatever he gets out. 

[snip]

I want to throw up when I read stuff like that.

Firstly, he wasn't a very successful community organiser.

Secondly, his type of community organising consisted mostly of knocking on the 
doors of various levels of government with his hand outstretched asking for 
money.  I can only imagine that after years of this and the frustration of NOT 
getting the money he asked for was that the main thought left in his head was: 
"Boy, just you wait until I'm on the other side of that door...I'm never going 
to deny anyone the money they're asking for."

And now we've got as of the end of July 2009 (half of the year gone) a deficit 
of $1.3 trillion.

Do you have any idea what kind of money that is? I suggest you take out your 
calculator and divide 300 million -- the number of people in the United States 
-- into that figure.  The only problem is, your calculator won't GO that high 
(seriously)!

This guy is spending like a drunken sailor. He and his Democratic Congress are 
spending us into a debt that we probably will never get out of.  And don't tell 
me that Bush got us into this mess...we voted for Obama, NOT Bush or McCain.  
And he told us it would be change we could believe in, not DEBT we could 
believe in.

[FairfieldLife] Black Agenda Report: A Comprehensive Betrayal

"Obama's health care plan is so full of concessions to drug companies, so
crammed with a constantly growing list of bailouts and exceptions for insurance
companies that the White House is deliberately withholding information on it
from Obama' own supporters. Organizing For America, the remnant of the Obama
campaign and inheritor of its 13 million strong email and phone list, is
calling supporters to canvass and turn out for health care "town meetings," but
dares not tell people exactly what they are supporting. For a while it was
something called "the public option," which would compete with and keep the
insurance companies honest. Now it's something even cloudier, called a health
co-op. Among the known

No less a progressive stalwart than Detroit's Rep. John Conyers announced his
deep disappointment with Barack Obama before a crowd of progressives last month
in Washington's Busboys and Poets restaurant. Obama, he opined, could be a
one-term president if he doesn't manage to deliver on health care.

Conyers is the sponsor of HR 676, the Enhanced Medicare For All Act, which
proposes the expansion of the highly successful Medicare program, along with
enhancements such as dental coverage to all Americans. President Obama has
admitted many times in recent months that Medicare For All, also called single
payer, is the only way, and the least expensive way to cover the uninsured
while at the same time bringing costs down. But with few exceptions, leading
Democrats, themselves in the pay of health insurance companies and Big Pharma,
have declared that Medicare For All is "politically infeasible."

With corporate media shutting off all points of view to the left of the
president, and Republicans fighting even the hopelessly compromised Democratic
plans as if they were single payer, the public is presented with an utterly
distorted picture of the health care debate --- pro-Obama legislators being
shouted down by right wing white seniors on Medicare worried about government
coming between them and their doctors, and liberal Democrats pleading for
civility. It's worth remembering that the same people calling for amiable and
civil discourse on health care have ruthlessly censored any mention of single
payer from the broadcast airwaves. Even the White House has disinvited the
president's own family doctor for his single payer sentiments, and removed the
testimony of single payer advocates from White House transcripts and video.

For the moment, argues Dave Lindorff, single payer advocates have more in
common with some of the deluded Republican protesters at public health town
meetings than they have with Democratic legislators at the front of the room.
They know they're being lied to and they know that the proceedings are sham and
theatre and they are acting accordingly. Maybe we ought to be doing the same.
We ought to insist on a floor vote on HR 676, and demand that our
representatives support it. We also have to demand that states be free to
pursue their own single payer experiments.

It's time to stop listening to Democrats who say Medicare For All is
"politically infeasible" despite its being the democratic will of most of the
American people. On their lips, political feasibility is just another name for
whether it can pass the legislature this session. Political feasibility is not
even in the language of movements for social change. The activists of the 1950s
and 60s Freedom Movement knew very well that their demands were not politically
feasible. Should they have shut up until Congress and the Supreme Court caught
up with them?

Barack Obama may well make himself a one-term president by adding health care
to the growing list of his betrayals, and he might come close to handing the
Congress back to Republicans as soon as next year. Those are the wages of
comprehensive betrayal. If that's what they want to do, we can't stop them.
We've got our own work to do, going forward, and regardless of what they
Democratic leaders and corporate media imagine is politically feasible."

Black Agenda Report: "A Comprehensive Betrayal"
http://snipurl.com/py94y
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-comprehensive-betrayal-%E2%80%93-where-do-we-go-here

Black Agenda Report: "Top Ten Ways To Tell Your President & His Party Aren't
Fighting For Health Care For Everybody"
http://snipurl.com/py9a7
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/top-ten-ways-tell-your-president-his-party-arent-fighting-health-care-everybody

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
>
> From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com]
> On Behalf Of It's just a ride
> Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM
> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom
> Line-
>  
>   
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflex  > wrote:
> >
> >
> > "I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The
> minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a
> year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're
> saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
> >
> > -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care
> reform effort
> >
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti
> san.cfm
> 
> And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
> creep, leading up to a single payer option.
> Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue
> that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would
> that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition?
>

Depends upon how we would have paid for the additional coverage.

Right now the 80% that Medicare pays of a senior's healthcare bill is funded by 
a portion of payroll taxes, which is 15.3% of the first, I think $99,000 of 
Adjusted Gross Income.  The portion is about 20% that is a contribution to 
Medicare (the rest is a contribution to Social Security).  Lowering the age 
would mean coverage for millions more and that would mean that the funding 
would have to be increased.

Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 12:12 PM, Rick Archer wrote:
>

> And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
> creep, leading up to a single payer option.
>
> Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue
> that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would
> that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition?
>

Frankly I don't know what would work.  We are so fractious.  The two
party/bicameral Congress is looking more like a European coalition
government.

I think it would be a great idea to lower the Medicare age to 55,
considering everyone puts 1% of their income into it already and there
are no deductibles, no limits on how much you put in each year.
Medicare is very cost effective.  The problem is that there's still
the problem of what to do about insurance company dropping people or
denying based on pre-existing conditions.  And there are so many
people under 55 who just can't afford insurance.  No one but the
inexperienced Obama, who got his experience doing community action
work, would have tried to do so many things at once, and I give him
credit for whatever he gets out.  I wish he would lower the Medicare
age because then we could creep that age every session of Congress.

The militia are getting angry and Drudge keeps flashing red that
Obama's life is at risk.  There were many who thought that Obama would
not make it alive this far.  But if Obama were to be killed, would
there be the frenzy there was after JFK was killed and would Joe Biden
be another LBJ, able to capitalize on the national tragedy?

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

2009-08-15 Thread Sal Sunshine


On Aug 15, 2009, at 11:56 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:


"I don't care how low they drive support for this with
misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill,
his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good
things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying
will happen don't happen, approval will explode."

-- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President 
Obama's health care reform effort


Finally, someone who understands.

And, when you think about it, why shouldn't he?
He consigned his hopes for health care reform
to Hillary, and she went into it in full balls-
out confrontation mode, spoiling for a fight,
and the result was that health care reform died
for eight years.


Actually, more like 16.
Also killing it was the fact that nobody
could understand what the bleep was
in the humongous document she produced
describing it.



Compromise is inevitable. The Obama-haters on
the left who keep accusing him of "selling out"
and "watering down" the proposed bill are, IMO,
cut from the same cloth as Hillary was. She, for
whatever reason, was happy with being "right"
and refusing to compromise and ending up with no
health care reform as a result. Saints preserve
us from such moral absolutists.


Do you get the feeling that people like
raunchy, like Rushbo, really hope Obama
fails?  I clearly get that feeling.  She keeps
saying he's failed even though this whole
project is clearly in the beginning stages.

Sal

RE: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

2009-08-15 Thread Rick Archer

From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of It's just a ride
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:35 AM
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom
Line-
 
  
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflexmailto:do.rflex%40yahoo.com> > wrote:
>
>
> "I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The
minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a
year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're
saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
>
> -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care
reform effort
>
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_parti
san.cfm

And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
creep, leading up to a single payer option.
Do you think that will happen? I hope so. What do you say to those who argue
that Obama should have just started lowing the Medicare entry age? Would
that have worked, or would he have stirred up even greater opposition?

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Gates foundation sold off all healthcare and pharma holdings 6/30/09

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 12:14 PM, shempmcgurk wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "It's just a ride" 
>  wrote:
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html
>>
>
>
> From the last line of the story:
>
> "The foundation had total assets valued at $7.5 billion as of June 30, down 
> roughly $1 billion from the end of March."
>
> What about Warren Buffet's gift of about $37 billion to the Gates Foundation? 
>  I suppose that that is given over time or something, for tax reasons?
>
> And how about the initial seed money from Microsoft stock that Gates gave?  
> Wasn't that about $20 billion?  Is that given over time or is that already 
> spent on the good works he has done?
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

Gates is spending a pittance of the foundation's money.  A few million
to fund research into alternate food production in Africa, for
example.

The Buffet contribution must be given over time because Warren doesn't
have overdraft protection in his checking account for $37 billion.  He
needs to slowly liquidate his holdings.  Buffet is figuring out how
much longer he'll live and is selling off and giving so there's no
estate to speak of left.  Kind of like Obama and most other presidents
proposing and signing bills which go into full effect 2 years after
they leave office, if they serve yet another term.

Berkshire Hathaway Holdings has been depressed for a long time because
there's a lot of belief that the Buffet magic is just that and not
just an exercise in finding an undervalued but sound company, which
Buffet says his successors can do.  If it were that easy everyone who
buys stocks would be a billionaire.

[FairfieldLife] Very interesting - Food Inc Movie

2009-08-15 Thread Rick Archer

Food Inc is now appearing in small theaters across the nation.  Together we
can help get the word out, pack the small theaters to the point this
documentary ends up in large theaters with the Fast Food crowd waking up to
the insanity of Monsanto and the Industrial Food MONSTER and what they're
consuming on a daily basis!
 Here's the trailer:  2:16 minutes long but incredibly on-point!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2sgaO44_1c
 
Find where it's showing near you -  Fill your theaters!!
 
 
The greatest exercise for the heart is reaching down and lifting people up.
The power to change tomorrow is held in the decision we make today
to head down a different path.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Gates foundation sold off all healthcare and pharma holdings 6/30/09

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "It's just a ride" 
 wrote:
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html
>

>From the last line of the story:

"The foundation had total assets valued at $7.5 billion as of June 30, down 
roughly $1 billion from the end of March."

What about Warren Buffet's gift of about $37 billion to the Gates Foundation?  
I suppose that that is given over time or something, for tax reasons?

And how about the initial seed money from Microsoft stock that Gates gave?  
Wasn't that about $20 billion?  Is that given over time or is that already 
spent on the good works he has done?

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

2009-08-15 Thread TurquoiseB

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
>
> "I don't care how low they drive support for this with 
> misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, 
> his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good 
> things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying 
> will happen don't happen, approval will explode." 
> 
> -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President 
> Obama's health care reform effort 

Finally, someone who understands.

And, when you think about it, why shouldn't he?
He consigned his hopes for health care reform
to Hillary, and she went into it in full balls-
out confrontation mode, spoiling for a fight, 
and the result was that health care reform died 
for eight years.

Compromise is inevitable. The Obama-haters on
the left who keep accusing him of "selling out"
and "watering down" the proposed bill are, IMO,
cut from the same cloth as Hillary was. She, for
whatever reason, was happy with being "right"
and refusing to compromise and ending up with no 
health care reform as a result. Saints preserve 
us from such moral absolutists.

Obama seems to understand that the real task is
to somehow fight through the obfuscation and the
lies and the *monumentally funded* opposition to
health care reform and get *something* passed,
something to "start the ball rolling" and show
people that things *can* be different. Once that
happens the details will start to fall into place
and inequities caused by the first compromises
can be addressed.

My take on the man is that he cares less about
how history will see him personally than he does
about *doing something* with the time he's been
given as president that will actually help some
people. 

As far as I can tell, the left-wing Obama-haters 
want real health care reform even less than the
right-wingers do. They criticize him for not going
in with "guns blazing," waving his dick and refus-
ing to even think about compromise. 

To them, that is just the way one does things. But
that way of doing things has been the very thing
that has prevented health care reform from happen-
ing. Bill Clinton understands this. It's just a 
pity that Hillary didn't, or we might have seen
health care reform eight years ago.

Re: [FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:25 AM, do.rflex wrote:
>
>
> "I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The 
> minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, 
> when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will 
> happen don't happen, approval will explode."
>
> -- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care 
> reform effort
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_partisan.cfm

And after that with future sessions of Congress we can get feature
creep, leading up to a single payer option.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_England   The Brits also
have private health care options in addition to NHS.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Satya Yuga dawns 2004-2017"

2009-08-15 Thread Ghanesh PV

Thanks for sharing. Add 4 + 1 and put three zeros on right, its at this time
all Bakthas(spiritual people) in world unite
4+1 = 5, and 3 zeros to right is 000, this is 5000. how this becomes time?

A good puzzle to work on.

Am waiting for the Unification of all Spiritual souls, that Coherence
can permanently create massive peace.

Jai guru dev

Wish you wonderful day
Ghanesh

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 8:54 PM, shukra69  wrote:

>
>
> This is more from the Achyuta Parampara, which has no connection with
> Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's
>
> http://www.garoiashram.org/english/birth-of-achyuta.html
>
>  
>

[FairfieldLife] Gates foundation sold off all healthcare and pharma holdings 6/30/09

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html

[FairfieldLife] The Big Dawg on Health Care Reform's -Bottom Line-

2009-08-15 Thread do.rflex



"I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The 
minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, 
when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will 
happen don't happen, approval will explode." 

-- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care 
reform effort 
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/bill_clinton_partisan.cfm

Re: [FairfieldLife] A Tech MUM? Your acceptance letter to Singularity University

TurquoiseB wrote:
> As some of you know, Ray Kurzweil (author of 
> "The Singularity Is Near" and Peter Diamandis
> (author of "X Prize"), both gurus of the tech
> "future think" crowd, have announced their own
> university, where people can learn to think
> cool like they do. They propose "Singularity 
> University," where you can hobnob with eminent 
> theorists and business leaders to study gene-
> tics, artificial intelligence, and engineering, 
> all to enable you to be all you can tech-be.
>
> I've heard about this for some time, and always
> had a funny feeling about it, largely because 
> of MUM. My feeling was, "Start a university that
> is based on everyone buying into a set of group
> dogma and beliefs, and no matter how lofty your
> ugly in a very short time."
>
> Well, it seems that I'm not the only one who had
> this feeling. Wired magazine did their own really
> funny sendup of the whole Singularity University
> thang by writing an "acceptance letter" congrat-
> ulating new students for being admitted:
>
> http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-07/st_singularity
>
> It's very funny. If Kurzweil and Diamantes are as
> hip as they make themselves out to be, they will
> laugh at this letter and then learn from it. If
> they get mad, the letter may someday be seen as
> prophetic.

They'll probably get mad.  Kurzweil is a bit of a tech fascist and 
definitely an egotist.  A relative gave me his book "The Singularity is 
Near" but I really  couldn't stand to read much of it.  He's a very 
creative but confused guy.

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg speaks to the Nutroots

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley"  
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Clinton Interrupted at Netroots Nation; answers on DADT & DOMA
> > > > http://tinyurl.com/py9b4h
> > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uciy6G_1t0w
> > > >
> > > 
> > > Would you call the person who interrupted Clinton a "shouter"?
> > 
> > Momentarily, yes. However, unlike the birther/deather wingnuts
> > at the recent town hall meetings, he quickly sat down, shut up,
> > and let the person at the podium actually respond.
> >
> 
> 
> I see.
> 
> So interrupting a meeting is okay as long as after you've
> interrupted the speaker, shouted out your question, and promptly
> sit down, then it's okay?

No, IMO, it was not ok. 

> Also: How are you so sure that the birther/deather wingnuts,
> as you call them, didn't do the same?

>From the videos I've seen online, the birther/deather wingnuts set out to 
>completely disrupt the town hall meetings and basically shut them down.

[FairfieldLife] Practical Wisdom

2009-08-15 Thread do.rflex




  [funny pictures of cats with captions]

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg speaks to the Nutroots

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
> > >
> > > Clinton Interrupted at Netroots Nation; answers on DADT & DOMA
> > > http://tinyurl.com/py9b4h
> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uciy6G_1t0w
> > >
> > 
> > Would you call the person who interrupted Clinton a "shouter"?
> 
> Momentarily, yes. However, unlike the birther/deather wingnuts at the recent 
> town hall meetings, he quickly sat down, shut up, and let the person at the 
> podium actually respond.
>


I see.

So interrupting a meeting is okay as long as after you've interrupted the 
speaker, shouted out your question, and promptly sit down, then it's okay?

Also: How are you so sure that the birther/deather wingnuts, as you call them, 
didn't do the same?

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg speaks to the Nutroots

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
> >
> > Clinton Interrupted at Netroots Nation; answers on DADT & DOMA
> > http://tinyurl.com/py9b4h
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uciy6G_1t0w
> >
> 
> Would you call the person who interrupted Clinton a "shouter"?

Momentarily, yes. However, unlike the birther/deather wingnuts at the recent 
town hall meetings, he quickly sat down, shut up, and let the person at the 
podium actually respond.

[FairfieldLife] Wile E. Coyote gets what he wants

2009-08-15 Thread do.rflex



Sometimes getting what you have always wanted isn't always best... 

Watch video: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d19_1250213504&c=1

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg speaks to the Nutroots

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
>
> Clinton Interrupted at Netroots Nation; answers on DADT & DOMA
> http://tinyurl.com/py9b4h
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uciy6G_1t0w
>



Would you call the person who interrupted Clinton a "shouter"?

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big Dawg speaks to the Nutroots

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
>
> Clinton Interrupted at Netroots Nation; answers on DADT & DOMA
> http://tinyurl.com/py9b4h
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uciy6G_1t0w

Lane Hudson explains why he interrupted The Big Dawg:

http://is.gd/2i8lE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lane-hudson/why-i-interrupted-bill-cl_b_259347.html

[FairfieldLife] Re: A Tech MUM? Your acceptance letter to Singularity University

2009-08-15 Thread TurquoiseB

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>
> I've heard about this for some time, and always
> had a funny feeling about it, largely because
> of MUM. My feeling was, "Start a university that
> is based on everyone buying into a set of group
> dogma and beliefs, and no matter how lofty your
> ugly in a very short time."

Sorry about that. A line got deleted.

I've heard about this for some time, and always
had a funny feeling about it, largely because
of MUM. My feeling was, "Start a university that
is based on everyone buying into a set of group
dogma and beliefs, and no matter how lofty your
goals and noble your intentions, things will get
ugly in a very short time."

[FairfieldLife] A Tech MUM? Your acceptance letter to Singularity University

2009-08-15 Thread TurquoiseB

As some of you know, Ray Kurzweil (author of 
"The Singularity Is Near" and Peter Diamandis
(author of "X Prize"), both gurus of the tech
"future think" crowd, have announced their own
university, where people can learn to think
cool like they do. They propose "Singularity 
University," where you can hobnob with eminent 
theorists and business leaders to study gene-
tics, artificial intelligence, and engineering, 
all to enable you to be all you can tech-be.

I've heard about this for some time, and always
had a funny feeling about it, largely because 
of MUM. My feeling was, "Start a university that
is based on everyone buying into a set of group
dogma and beliefs, and no matter how lofty your
ugly in a very short time."

Well, it seems that I'm not the only one who had
this feeling. Wired magazine did their own really
funny sendup of the whole Singularity University
thang by writing an "acceptance letter" congrat-
ulating new students for being admitted:

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-07/st_singularity

It's very funny. If Kurzweil and Diamantes are as
hip as they make themselves out to be, they will
laugh at this letter and then learn from it. If
they get mad, the letter may someday be seen as
prophetic.

[FairfieldLife] Satya Yuga dawns 2004-2017"

2009-08-15 Thread shukra69

This is more from the Achyuta Parampara, which has no connection with Maharishi 
Mahesh Yogi's

http://www.garoiashram.org/english/birth-of-achyuta.html

[FairfieldLife] Re: Cell phones in FF?