Monday, May 25, 2009

Disgusted with Barack Obama? - Bill Maher's Says It All!

Disgusted With Obama and the Democrats? - Bill Maher Says It All!


Bill Maher's Show “Real Time” on May 22, 2009 was quite interesting, especially if you feel let down by Barack Obama. His panel was intelligence personified, including professor Simon Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham and economist Muhammad Yunus, whose latest book is, “Creating a World Without Poverty” I like Bill Maher’s show but it has been a long time since he had such an exceptional array of thought provoking guests. Thanks Bill, I was about to give up on your show. Here's a Bill Statement of honest truth! ‘Real Time's Bill Maher calls Harry Reid (if the shoe fits wear it Harry) a ‘DUSTY OLD DUMBASS!’ Watch this interesting show and judge for yourself. http://www.thinkingblue.blogspot.com/


PANEL SEGMENT ONE
PANEL SEGMENT TWO

PANEL SEGMENT THREE

PANEL SEGMENT FOUR
HBO's Friday night political and social chatter show starring
host and moderator Bill Maher featured a smart panel and an
interesting interview with Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A., who held her
own despite Maher's pregnancy weight and Octomom references and
constant interruptions about American's woeful geographical knowledge.

Maher laid into President Obama, The British, Superhero" worship in politics, liberals, the
financial "sector" and Dick Cheney.

Maher took a big swipe at Senate majority leader Harry Reid,
calling him a "dusty old dumbass" who perhaps had seen
too many Hollywood movies, and the Democrats "pussies"
when discussing the Guantanamo detainee conundrum being debated
in Washington. (This entire exchange can be found in Panel 2)
Maher's panel included professor Simon Johnson, Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Jon Meacham and economist Muhammad
Yunus. Musician M.I.A. was a separate interview guest.

Last night's show also revealed Maher's ire with President
Obama, and his comments and satirical segments lampooning the
president earned him some booing from his audience, which
normally skews left. The show last night had Maher take
Obama to task for his mishandling, in Maher's estimation, of the
financial crisis that "favored his Ivy league buddies" on Wall Street.

The entire show is embedded below, thanks to Tullycast, who tracks the show for YouTube.
Other HBO playdates: May 24 (1:00 p.m., 12:55 a.m.), 5 (10:30 p.m.) and 27 (11:00 p.m.)

HBO2 playdates: May 22 (2:30 a.m.), 23 (10:00 a.m., 12:15 a.m.), 24 (7:00 p.m.), 25 (8:00 p.m.) and 26 (10:30 p.m.)


Read more: "Real Time's Bill Maher calls Harry Reid a 'dusty old dumbass' VIDEOS - Monsters and Critics"
- Watch Entire Show At This Link:


Real_Times_Bill_Maher_calls_Harry_Reid_a_dusty_old_dumbass__VIDEOS



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Friday, May 22, 2009

How absurd is this; A patent on a human gene?

PATENT LAW

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable. In many countries, certain subject areas are excluded from patents, such as business methods and mental acts. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission.
----

How absurd is this; A patent on a human gene? I believe the patent law is way out of line. You would not believe what has been patented, from seeds, conventional plant varieties and ANIMAL SPECIES to herbs, spices, oils and sugarcane, they never got around to PATENTING marijuana for entertainment or medicinal purposes, they just outlawed that altogether. It wouldn't surprise me that sometime in the future the air we breathe will have a patent owned by some corporation who can thus charge a fee for BREATHING. I've got a good idea, why don't some big corporation take out a patent on GREED, they would own the whole GD world if they could do that. Please watch the video and sign a message of support to stop BIG PHARMA from taking patents out on human genes. thinkingblue.

There is something fundamentally wrong with companies being able to own the rights to pieces of the human genome. Yet more than 20% of the human genetic code has been patented.


Last Tuesday, the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT)
filed a groundbreaking lawsuit charging that patents on two human
genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) associated with breast and ovarian cancer
are unconstitutional and invalid. These two genes, the patents on
which are controlled by Myriad Genetics, a private biotechnology
company based in Utah, are responsible for most cases of
hereditary breast and ovarian cancers.

For the past 20 years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has
been issuing patents on human genes -- the segments of DNA that
we all have in our cells -- giving private corporations,
individuals, and universities the exclusive rights to those
genetic sequences, their usage, and their chemical composition.
There is something fundamentally wrong with companies being able
to own the rights to pieces of the human genome.

This raises serious civil liberties concerns because the
government is essentially giving patent holders a monopoly over
these genes and all the information contained within them. Patent
holders have the right to prevent anyone else from testing,
studying, or even looking at the genes. The ACLU believes this is
a gross violation of First Amendment rights: individuals’
rights to know about their own genetic makeup, doctors’
rights to provide their patients with crucial medical
information, and scientists’ rights to study the human
genome and develop new treatments and genetic tests.

As a result of the U.S. Patent Office granting patents on the
BRCA genes to Myriad Genetics, Myriad's lab is the only place in
the country where diagnostic testing can be performed. And,
because only Myriad can test for the BRCA gene mutations, others
are prevented from testing these genes or developing alternative tests.

Myriad's monopoly on the BRCA genes also makes it impossible for
women to access other tests or get a second opinion about their
results and allows Myriad to charge a high rate for their tests
-- over $3,000, which is too expensive for many women to afford.

"Patents are meant to protect inventions, not things that
exist in nature like genes in the human body," said Chris
Hansen, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "Genes isolated from
the human body are no more patentable than gold extracted from a mountain."

Learn more about the case and the plaintiffs.

Watch the video and learn why it is important that we stop the
government from allowing companies like Myriad to own our genes.

Take Action: Sign a message of support.

-----

Crazy Patents! For the USPTO to issue a patent, the invention must be novel, non-obvious, and "useful." The standard for usefulness is certainly the weakest of the three -- any possible utility, no matter how small, will suffice. And, useful does not necessarily mean commercially viable. In other words, you can get a patent on some crazy things that will never make it to the shelves of your local store. (But at least these patents aren't on pieces of your body! TB)

For instance:




























Click Here





Click Here



Patents in a genetic age

Debate continues over whether DNA sequences can be claimed to be part of an invention.

In helping to develop many discoveries into clinically useful
products, the patent system has been a force for good. It has
encouraged innovation and sensible risk taking, stimulated
investment in research and development, and delivered drugs and
devices that have changed the face of modern medicine.

But can the patent system maintain this positive influence in the
future? As we stand on the brink of one of biomedical science's
greatest achievements — the complete sequencing of the human
genome — this question becomes extremely pertinent. The
issue of how and when to assign patent rights to all manner of
DNA sequences threatens to throw the patent system into disarray.

The patenting system should help people to channel their energy
towards inventions of genuine therapeutic or diagnostic value and
discourage the frenetic cataloguing of DNA sequences that are a
long way from being a final, useful product. But as it stands,
the system is in danger of not fulfilling these functions. It can
be slow, and prohibitively expensive to navigate. Moreover,
patenting is increasingly being seen by some as rewarding luck
rather than enterprise. More here



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

A THINKING MIND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!

Abortion clouds Obama event at Notre Dame

~~~~~~~~

THINKING MIND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!

WHY ARE RELIGIONS SO HELL BENT ON FORCING OTHERS TO OBEY THEIR MYTHICAL LAWS AND DOGMA? Especially, on the right to choose to have a legal (or illegal if some religions were to have their way) abortion? I don't even want to think about the RELIGIOUS STANCE against medical or any other scientific research that would better educate us on understanding our existence. Why do religions want to keep the intelligent and inquisitive human brain in the dark? Are they afraid that enlightenment would cause their numbers to shrink? If that's the case then they are fighting a losing battle. Because no matter how hard, this one track mindset, will try to keep knowledge under wraps; it WILL escape and wrap its beautiful arms around
all. Then, all mankind will be awarded the magnificent beauty to “THINK” to Infinity and Beyond! ATTENTION ALL RELIGIONS: THIS IS ONE THINKING MIND WHO WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!
Sorry for all the clichés and the buoyant language.
thinkingblue



A YAHOO NEWS Video here:



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Tell Congress- Put Single Payer Health Care On America's Table

Demand Single Payer Health Care Be Put Back On
The AMERICAN Table!


ACTION PAGE

Why Is The Senate Not Even Considering The Only Health Care Plan
That Really Works?



WHEN WE THE PEOPLE CAN SEE

Friends, there are rare moments of clarity through the veil of illusion designed to condition us into docile inaction. For that reason this may be the MOST important alert we will ever send.


There was such a moment this week, when Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, having already preemptively excluded any participation of a credible spokesperson for single payer health care, laughingly joked "we need more police", when one qualified doctor and lawyer after another stood up to protest their exclusion from the debate.


THAT was the real Max Baucus, a contemptuous corporatist, who is as likely to voluntarily bring forward a real people's health program as Dick Cheney is likely to voluntarily testify under oath. Perhaps you have already seen the video clip (it is on the action page below), of him trying to laugh off consideration of single payer health care.

But you can force Max Baucus to do it anyway, by submitting this
action page.

Single Payer Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum982.php


And it is not just Baucus, the whole Senate panel erupted into riotous laughter. Even the so-called "liberals", like John
Kerry
, who was anxious to get in his own wisecrack about "Is there
anybody in the audience who didn't ... uh ... come to ..." [3:35 on video], before it finally dawned on Baucus how incredibly bad this would look on video, as he interrupted Kerry, to try to resume projecting the usual phony concern and compassion. READ MORE HERE

-----
Twitter Activism Step-By-Step: http://tcxs.net/step_by_step.php

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are
supposed to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

------

My (thinkingblue) submission to PUT SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE ON THE TABLE:

I am so dismayed by what is happening (or not happening) in our
country about health care reform. Hasn't this important issue sat
on the back burner for far too long? Single Payer Health Care
(Medicare) is the only insurance program that can reach ALL THE
PEOPLE not just the ones who were lucky enough to be born to a
family who could afford giving their offspring the tools to earn
a LIVING WAGE. These are hard times but for low income people
there is nothing new here. “Hard Times” is a lifestyle.

President Bush once told us we already have a form of socialized
medicine it's called the EMERGENCY ROOM. What a cruel and LET
‘EM EAT CAKE statement that was. Exclusion from a decent
life because your income isn't enough to allow you the basic
needs of life should have been buried in the past long ago. Yet
here we are 2009 and there are many people, too many, who are
deprived from having the peace of mind knowing, they and their
families are covered in case of a real Emergency. Must I live the
rest of my days in a sad, angry state because I care about those
who can’t afford good health care? If we don’t give a
damn about our neighbor’s plight, we as a country will never
survive; history has proved this over and over. There’s a
Youtube entry that says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stye6heTPNE

Please Sign petition below: thinkingblue



PETITION TO PUT SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE BACK ON TABLE:

http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum982.php

Click For Nasty "R" People In Politics



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch

THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ed Schultz Show - Single Payer Health Insurance



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch

THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!



Why don't "R" People like Single Payer Health Insurance?



~~~~Click Here To See Ed's Show May 12, 2009~~~~


I get so confused, I listen to the "R" pundits on TV and I think to myself... Why are people listening to them? They make no sense at all! I came across an article in Common Dreams and I've come to the conclusion that only a small percentage of the "R" people are listening to them. I feel better now. I just could not believe that people were that
delusional. Why would our fellow Americans go so totally against their own self-interest or against the interests of their peers when it makes so much sense to not only love thy neighbor but also help thy neighbor... I'm talking about single payer health insurance... That's right Medicare for all who want it or more importantly Need it. Anyway, my apologies to the "R" people and thanks to the article entitled:
Standing Against Single Payer

thinkingblue

STANDING AGAINST SINGLE PAYER

My Ron Pollack Problem — and Yours

by Russell Mokhiber

Karen Ignagni is not the problem.

As president of America's Health Insurance Plans, Karen Ignagni
represents the health insurance industry.

The same health insurance industry that would be wiped out by a
single payer national health insurance system.

We know where Karen Ignagni stands.

She stands with the health insurance industry.

Against the will of the American people.

If she stood with the will of the American people, she would effectively be asking her member insurance companies to commit suicide.

Not going to happen.

Ron Pollack is executive director of Families USA.

Ron Pollack identifies himself as a consumer advocate.

Or more precisely as an advocate for health care consumers.

The majority of the American people stand with single payer.

And against the health insurance industry.

And against the pharmaceutical industry.

But Ron Pollack stands against single payer.

Against the will of the American people.

With the health insurance industry.

And with the pharmaceutical industry.

Think we're kidding?

MORE HERE

My original Rant Below:


Why are the "R" people so easily frightened? Why are "R’s" non-thinkers? Why are "R's" selfish? Don't they realize, we are all in the same boat? Ed
Schultz show had an “R” talk show host on and his statement said it all, referring to Single Payer health insurance... Medved said, "Ed, would you like to pay for your neighbor's health care?" Ed said, "Of course, just like I pay for his public ed., Defense, Police, Fire.” watch?v=stye6heTPNE thinkingblue

Let's join together, all of us against the Insurance Industries that are pushing for their Status Quo so they can make more money hand over fist off the backs of the ill and dying. Sign petition here: http://ga1.org/campaign/singlepayer



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Obama Big Hit (and funny) at Reporters' Dinner

This is such an amusing write, I had to share it. Our President's wit is to be admired. What can I say...? He's got the timing...! To brighten up your day, read the whole article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090510/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_correspondents See video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0GwZFAV1Lw

Happy Mother's Day. thinkingblue

Click to go to articleObama the star at reporters' annual dinner

WASHINGTON – It was the hottest ticket in town, a black-tie dinner gathering of Washington's political and media elite but Dick Cheney couldn't make it.

The former vice president was busy, President Barack Obama joked, working on his memoir "tentatively titled, How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People."

As the star attraction of Saturday night's star-studded annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Obama enjoyed poking fun at his critics and the Republican Party. But his own administration, in power for just over 100 days, was also a target of the president's playful digs and one-liners.

"I believe my next hundred days will be so successful that I
will be able to complete them in 72 days," he said to a roar
of laughter. "And on my 73rd day, I will rest."

His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Obama observed, always has a
hard time on Mother's Day.

"He's not used to saying the word 'day' after
'mother,'" Obama said.

The chairman of Republican National Committee, Michael Steele,
was "in the house tonight," Obama noted. "Or as he
would say, 'In the heezy.'"

"Michael for the last time, the Republican Party does not
qualify for a bailout," Obama told Steele. "Rush
Limbaugh does not count as a troubled asset, I'm sorry."

Obama made light of his frequent use of a teleprompter and poked
fun at Vice President Joe Biden's habit of speaking off the cuff.
And about the Democratic Party, Obama said his administration has
helped in "bringing in fresh, young faces — like Arlen
Specter." The 79-year-old Pennsylvania senator, a former
Republican, switched parties last month.

Obama noted that he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
had once been political rivals. "These days," he
assured the gathering at the Washington Hilton ballroom, "we
could not be closer."

"In fact the second she got back from Mexico, she pulled me
into a hug and said I should go down there myself."

Near the end of his talk, Obama turned serious and spoke of the
financially struggling media industry, praising journalists for
holding government officials accountable. "A government
without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant
media of all sorts is not an option for the United States of
America," he said.

The president was the night's big draw, but not the only comedian.

Comic actress Wanda Sykes, the dinner's entertainer, teased Obama
for giving the Queen of England an iPhone during a recent visit.
And she mocked first lady Michelle Obama for patting the queen on
the back "like she just slid into home plate — way to go, queen!"

Along with the reporters, the $200-per-ticket dinner attracted
plenty of VIPs from outside the Beltway.

Among those attending were Eva Longoria Parker, Ashton Kutcher,
Christian Slater, Natalie Portman, Sting, Mariska Hargitay,
Steven Spielberg and Jon Bon Jovi. Also there was Richard
Phillips, who was held hostage by Somali pirates after his cargo
ship was attacked.

Proceeds from the gala, including donations from several major
media organizations, totaled $98,000 and go toward feeding the
hungry and funding journalism scholarships.
___
President Obama at the White House Correspondent's Dinner




Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Is the GOP out to lunch?

The GOP is "out to lunch" as in porch light on-nobody's home. The GOP has not been mentally there, for some time now. Strange how it could hold so many minds captive with its utterly insane propaganda. What is wrong with people? The GOP should have been laughed off the world stage at the beginning of the Bush reign of nincompoopery. But no, people embraced the blunders, starting with the preemptive Invasion of Iraq and the GOP’s cooked intelligence to launch this phony war. Then, the Terri Schiavo debacle when the GOP joined the religious right to interfere in a local matter. Also, The Marriage amendment, the GOP stuck its nose where it doesn't belong. The GOP JUSTICE SUNDAY frenzy, The GOP hurricane KATRINA incompetence The GOP Bush strut on the deck of the USS Abe Lincoln declaring "Mission Accomplished."Insanity all the way. The GOP lives in fantasy but maybe, since people are growing up, the unhinged, hateful world of the GOP might be fading away. But don't hold your breath. thinkingblue
------------------------------
Out of Touch
BOB HERBERT
Published: May 1, 2009
The incredibly clueless stewards of the incredibly shrinking Republican Party would do well to recall that it was supposedly Abe Lincoln, a Republican, who said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Not only has the G.O.P. spent years trying to fool everybody in sight with its phony-baloney, dime-store philosophies, it’s now trapped in the patently pathetic phase of fooling itself.

The economy has imploded, the auto industry is in danger of being vaporized and more than half of all working Americans are worried that they may lose their jobs in the next year. So what’s the Republican response? To build a wall of obstruction in front of efforts to get the economy moving again, and then to stand in front of that wall chanting gibberish about smaller government, lower taxes, spending cuts and Ronald Reagan.

It’s not a party; it’s a cult. I’m no fan of Arlen Specter, but if I were a Republican, I wouldn’t be shoving him out the door and waving good riddance. This is the party of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Newt (“I’m trying to rise from the ashes”) Gingrich, and the dark force who can’t seem to exit the public stage or modify his medieval ways, Dick Cheney.

It is losing all credibility with the public because it is not offering anything — anything at all — that could be viewed as helpful or constructive in a time of national crisis. And it has been unwilling to take responsibility for its role in bringing that crisis about.

Americans are aghast at what happened to the country while the G.O.P. was in charge. Iraq and Katrina come to mind, not to mention the transmutation of the Clinton surpluses into the Bush budget deficits and the collapse of the entire economy.

Trickle down. Weapons of mass destruction. Torture. Deregulation. You name it. The Republican-conservative know-it-alls of the past several years (all-too-frequently with feckless Democrats following closely behind) brought destruction and heartbreak to just about everything they touched.

And yet the G.O.P. behaves as though nothing has changed. Even in the face of a national economic nightmare, the party is offering nothing in the way of policies or new ideas that might give a bit of hope or comfort to families wrestling with joblessness, housing foreclosures and bankruptcies.

It’s a party that doesn’t seem to care about anything other than devotion to a set of so-called principles that never amounted to more than cult-like rhetoric. Waging unwarranted warfare while radically cutting taxes for the wealthy and turning the national economy into the equivalent of a Ponzi scheme may be evidence of many things, but none of them have to do with the so-called conservative principles the G.O.P. is always braying about.

When it came to looking out for the interests of ordinary working Americans, the party of just-say-no could hardly have cared less. Referring to the catastrophic ordeal of Detroit’s automakers, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, told us last November, “The financial situation facing the Big Three is not a national problem but their problem.”

And Phil Gramm, John McCain’s top financial adviser during the presidential campaign, was enshrined in the foot-in-mouth hall of fame last summer when he said the country was experiencing “a mental recession.”

After awhile, it became all but impossible to overlook the madness of these true believers and the incalculable damage they had done to the country. Voters who hadn’t sipped from the Kool-Aid themselves couldn’t help but recognize that the G.O.P. was bizarrely detached from the real world.

It still is. In the place of constructive alternatives to Obama administration policies, it has offered increasingly hysterical rhetoric. Mr. Gingrich warned on television that the Democrats’ moves to stem the banking crisis “gives them the potential to basically create the equivalent of a dictatorship.”

Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, described President Obama as “the world’s best salesman of socialism.” And Mike Huckabee, a former Republican governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate, said of the administration’s economic policies: “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”

This is not a party that can be trusted with the leadership of the country. John McCain was ready to have Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and reportedly wanted Phil Gramm to be his Treasury secretary. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has the strategic sense and attention span that you’d expect to find in a frat house on Saturday night.

“I love the Oscars,” he told GQ. “I’m looking for who’s got what dress on, you know?”

All the talk about the permanent marginalization of the Republican Party is silly. It will be back. Someday. But first it will have to stop fooling itself and re-engage with the real world.



Let's keep our heads, while we continue to
watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!