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‎"Along with the 45,000 dead, we allowed 700,000 patients and their
families to go belly-up financially in 2009. In the U.S., medical crisis
leads to more than 50 percent of the personal bankruptcies (and of
those patients, 75 percent had health insurance)."

-Donna Smith National
Nurses United

‎"Along with the 45,000 dead, we allowed 700,000 patients and their
families to go belly-up financially in 2009. In the U.S., medical crisis
leads to more than 50 percent of the personal bankruptcies (and of
those patients, 75 percent had health insurance)."

-Donna Smith National
Nurses United

Inside insides

me-
these images are just awesome!

I consider myself a “call ‘em like I see ‘em” kind of guy, so now that Bissonnette is using his departure from Twitter as a way to raise money for the homeless, I feel the need to write about that, too.

After 10 years in office, Sean Logan (D-Allegheny/Westmoreland) has announced he will leave the Pennsylvania State Senate to become Vice President of Community Relations for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
Logan says the decision to leave the Senate effective August 24 was not an easy one...

“I have been presented with a great opportunity to build on a decade’s worth of work in the Senate. Whether it was addressing the needs of our emergency responders and their families or expanding access to health care for children, I always tried to bring the needs of the individual in the community to the political maze that is Harrisburg."

Prior to his election to the Senate, Logan served as the mayor of Monroeville.

Two men who might have worked with Logan in the future praised his efforts in the Senate. Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett said he had the pleasure of knowing Logan prior to and during his tenure in the legislature..... “He has served the citizens of Monroeville and all of Pennsylvania well and will continue to do so as he embarks on this new phase of his career.”

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato said Logan has been a valuable asset to Allegheny County........“He was very effective in Harrisburg and secured vital state funds for important projects here in the county.”

Among Logan's legislative accomplishments, Logan pushed for passage of a bill to ensure that the survivors of police, firefighters, and EMTs killed in the line of duty receive 100 percent of their loved one’s monthly salary.
“It was years in the making and serves as a shining example of how working together in a bipartisan way can bring tangible benefits to Pennsylvania families now and in years to come.”

Logan co-authored bills to make the legislative process more transparent including one that mandates that each vote taken in the House or Senate be posted on-line. The journal of each legislative session day is now posted as well.

I grew up in the idyllic suburb of Hampton Township, recently named one of America's best towns for families by Family Circle Magazine. And yeah, it's a nice place to live. Green lawns. A nice park. Small schools.

I recently attended a networking event put on by Power of 32, which is encouraging a more regional vision than what is the norm in western PA. Hampton, like many municipalities where things are going well, has declared that it doesn't want to join with any other local governments. There are over 2,000 governing bodies in this region! People like local control here. But we could save a lot of money by merging public services.

But if you need another reason for a regional approach to government, regulation and development, you should watch this. If you live in this region, some of your neighbors are making deals with the gas man right now.

posted by gyma Perhaps they should have considered Bud Lite Lime. Buried in Wikileaks' Afghanistan documents is a largely ignored 2007 warning that Pakistani spies were planning to poison booze intended for American soldiers using sulfuric acid. It sounds a...

posted by gyma This retired Brigadier General (listen to the audio) claims we are spending $20bn annually to air condition tents in Iran and Afghanistan for the troops. That's more than NASA's annual budget. In addition, at least 1,000 troops...

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With Neil Young (R.I.P. Ben Keith) | Late Nite Music Club

IBS Physically Changes the Brains of Sufferers

More than 200 physicians and scientists from around the world will come to Pittsburgh July 29-31 to discuss the latest finding in pancreatic research. Dr. David Whitcomb, chief of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, says PancreasFest 2010 is the 6th annual gathering of pancreas researchers who are working together to improve patient care...."there are many factors that come together in a perfect storm causing one person to have severe pancreatic disease where their relatives and neighbors don't."
Dr. Whitcomb says researchers at 20 centers around the world are looking at different parts of the pancreas and they will link that information and use computer modeling to come up with predictions to know which patients will need intervention.

Dr. Whitcomb says they are trying to determine why some people develop diabetes and others do not..."It appears that the cells that make insulin can grow back after injury in some cases and not others. Is that the reason why some people develop diabetes because their beta cells that make insulin don't grow back, and what is the reason? If we could understand that, perhaps we could have everyone's beta cells grow back and help cure diabetes."

Whitcomb says another group of researchers is working on injuries to the pancreas and why some of those people develop cancer and others don't This is particularly important because early warning of pancreatic cancer is very difficult because currently the "early warning signs are the cancer has developed or spread."
Whitcomb says he remains optimistic..."a large group of people working together over a number of years and we can solve these problems."

The g'mara on today's daf presents several laws that areall derived from the command to keep far from a false matter. Theyinclude:

• A disciple sitting before his master (who is judging a case) whosees that the poor man is right and the wealthy man is wrong must speak up.
• A man who has a claim of 100 zuzim against his neighbor may notsue for 200 zuzim with the expectation of being bargained down.
• A judge should not hear the words of one litigant before the otherarrives.
• If two come to court, one dressed in rags and the other in finegarments, they should say to the rich one: either dress like him ordress him like you.

(31a)

Discovercard.comwww.Discovercard.com Discover Card is issued a credit card, especially in the USA. Originally introduced as the Sears Discover Credit Cards: Cashback credit cards, reward cards www.Discovercard.com

The 100 year old 'company town' of Presston is located in isolated corner of Stowe Township. There is only one way in and one way out. It is situated beyond an industrial area about two miles from the McKees Rocks Bridge. The community was filled with charming and well kept homes and people proud of their very tight knit historical community. When the row houses are situated 14 inches apart in

I have still been mulling over the Shirley Sherrod incident in the back of my mind, and in doing so have come to a new theory of how Obama wants to be remembered as President. To get there, I have to repeat a story I have related here at least once before (I believe during the campaign) and probably other places as well.

When Obama was Prez of the Harvard Law Review, at least one conservative professor relates the story that when he submitted an article to the Law Review, Obama gave him not only grammatical edits (as Law Review Prez's are supposed to do) but also suggestions on how to strengthen his conservative arguments. I have come to believe that Obama did that because, as the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review, Obama decided he did *not* want to make waves, rather Obama wanted to be remembered as a competent but conventional LR Prez. After all, if Obama made radical changes as LR Prez, the next African American candidate would be viewed not as just any other candidate, but as a candidate that might make radical changes.

So, back to the present, I was confused when the Obama administration fired Shirley Sherrod so quickly. I wondered why they didn't seem to consider the source of the video, but that's not important to the rest of my argument. Did the administration think that by firing her so fast (and asking so quickly for the resignation of Van Jones last fall) they would score points with conservatives? Perhaps (although they didn't), but I now think the idea that was uppermost in Obama's mind is that he wants to be seen as so even handed that if he finds an African American employee who is racist towards whites (or holds political views outside the mainstream) then Obama will ask immediately for the resignation of that employee. That is so the the next time an African American runs for President, if people say "Do we want another Barack Obama?" it will be a positive question, not a negative one. I think the passage of a health care reform bill shows Obama wants to stand out (in history), but the passage of the most conservative HCR model possible shows that Obama does not want to stand out (in history) as particularly radical.

ANNNNDDD... that's all, folks! Super Haters is going on hiatus while I devote my full weekly comics attention to Time Log, debuting in this same exact time slot next Thursday. So thx for reading Super Haters for the past year. And don't forget to check out the Morbid variant on Drunk Duck, Super Haters #56d!!!

Now paper receipts can kill us. I'm going to assume that legislation to more tightly regulate environmental chemicals has little chance of passing in any effective form. We spend a great amount of time and money trying to make our...

In today's "Thursday Wrap" we find this:

As the Obama administration continues to insist only "the rich" will face tax increases, Americans for Tax Reform says a majority of the small-business sector will see higher taxes. Fifty-five percent of S corporations and partnerships will see a tax hike, it says. More "progress" from the "progressives."

But when you take a look at what they're actually quoting at the (Richard Mellon Scaife controlled foundations supported) Americans for Tax Reform, you'll see the whole holes in their argument.

Some definitions from ATR:

• Unlike corporations, small businesses usually don’t pay their own taxes. Rather, business profits flow through to the business owner. The business owner pays taxes on her small business by adding the profits to her income tax form. Therefore, personal income taxes are the same thing as small business taxes.
• According to the IRS, most small business profits pay taxes in households making more than $200,000 per year. The IRS keeps track of two types of small business income: sole proprietors, and “pass-through” entities like partnerships and S-corporations.

The so called S-Corporations. I was wondering about what those were. They're businesses where the profits are not paid by the corporation but paid to the owners who then treat those profits as income and that's where the taxes are paid. Got it.

Finally we have:

• S-corporations and partnerships. There were 8 million partners and S-corporation shareholders in 2008. On net (profits reduced by losses), these owners reported business profits of $367 billion. Virtually all of this profit faced taxation in households making more than $200,000 per year. Aggregate pass-through entity profits will almost entirely fall in households making more than $200,000 per year. [Emphasis in original]

Looks to me like there's a bit of a sleight of hand going on at the Trib.

The first batch of hitherto unreleased documents belonging to FDR's secretary, Grace Tully, includes a "congratulatory note from Mussolini after Roosevelt’s 1932 election": ...Mussolini expressed admiration for Roosevelt and hope that they might meet to “discuss the outstanding world problems...

If you can't toll one interstate, why not try to toll them all. That idea was brought forth Wednesday in the second in a series of hearings by the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee on filling a $492 million hole in the transportation budget. That shortfall is due in large part to the federal government's rejection of a plan by Pennsylvania to toll Interstate 80.
However, Turnpike Commission CEO Joe Brimmeier told the committee that in a recent newsletter, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that allowing states to toll interstates might be necessary to provide the funding states need for highway construction and maintenance.
State Senator Richard Kasunic, Democrat from Fayette County and a member of the committee, says he agrees with Brimmeier....
"He pointed out that the Federal Highway Administration is talking about the need to replace and rebuild many of those interstates and the money just isn't there to do it right now, and nobody wants to vote for a tax increase. So, the other alternative would be to toll the interstate system throughout America."

Kasunic says if Pennsylvania would be allowed to toll the interstates and use those revenues to maintain those highways, then state transportation funds earmarked for the interstates could be shifted to "maintain local highways and bridges that are in desperate need of repair."

Kasunic believes Pennsylvania residents are opposed to higher gasoline taxes and increases in license and registration fees.
In addition to the immediate $492 million hole, a recent study indicated that Pennsylvania is about $3.5 billion short annually to fund needed repairs to bridges and roads.

By Matt DeReno On the FFD PITTSBURGH – So I have won again on the FFD even though I showed a slight gain in weight the past two days. How then could I be rewarded? Because I am still under my average weight for last week. This built-in forgiveness is feature that is really nice [...]

Server space is back up and The Midwest Beat have put out a new LP entitled At The Gates which you can purchase here: Dusty Medical Records ALSO I will not be posting music until I get DNS issues figured out with my FTP because supposedly the links work for everyone yet I cannot connect [...]

EJ Dionne: Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid? No. .

Again, the Constitution is little more than a bill of goods: The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if...

This is a short film about the T Don Hutto "Residential Center." It's a family prison located in Texas.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the children; read more here.

This is close to the kind of scenario I was writing about last Fall, when Ciavarella, then a judge, got busted pimping out juveniles to the prison industrial complex (PIC). The post was titled, Juvenile Offenders - Supreme Court Injustices?  Here's an excerpt:

"These privatized prisons need inmates in order to make a profit. Do they not? And what better way to secure futures to be publicly traded than to get your resources in line as early as possible. In other words, long term incarceration begun at an early age is best for business. 

Thinking about immigration yet? Are you now? How might the plight of immigrants relate to any of this? For this, we'll take a quick look to the past. Yes, history, that durned and determined little teacher. Not so long ago, the US stole people from faraway lands to work for free to advance the nation. Then when it became evident that that was a no go, the US tricked people to come here to work dangerous jobs for cheap; sometimes just to fight a war and die. These days people are still tricked into coming here by false promises of the good life, freedom, liberty and justice, but what we really need them for is hotel cleaning, nannying, dish washing, fruit picking, and factory working.

Hey, we sure could use 'em to fill some prison cells! Seeing as though there is a disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated anyway, who would even take notice or care? When immigration reform happens, you'll see this scenario unfold. There will be even more individuals incarcerated."

Remember the ENRON "scandal?"  How about Reganomics, the Savings and Loan bailout, the mortgage crisis? No, not the current crisis. I'm talking about the 80s, man.