WHAT DOES DEPRESSION FEEL LIKE?

If it’s the disease “major depression” it feels just like THIS:

http://anothernobody.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/more-badd-rantings-anti-depressants

HE’S A BETTER SPOKESMAN FOR MY POLITICS THAN I AM!

Not only is he clearly very  smart — of course! because he agrees with me — he’s also handsome:

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

HEARTBREAK NUMBER 1

Herewith the song of my very first heartbreak.

At age 16 it was devastating.

Please ignore the lame stagecraft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSAvVRgHzl8

BEYOND THE MAGIBON SCHOOL

Just as cute, and she is also funny, and getting funnier every day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oplx7rNG7do

ONE ANACHRONISTIC WEAPON DOWN…

AND THOUSANDS TO GO!

The story of the recent cancellation of the F-22 fighter plane:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215825?from=rss

This weapons system was conceived in the 1980s during the Cold War to go up against the finest fighters the militaristic Soviet Union could create. It was a plane built to achieve air supremacy in a major conventional war between large, technologically-sophisticated nations with huge military budgets.

The Soviet Union went away in 1991. We took delivery on the first of these planes in 2003. Congress recently capped procurement of the planes at 187 units after a big fight.

Here’s how much the F-22 cost the USA, all told:

“By the time all 183 fighters have been purchased, $34 billion will have been spent on actual procurement, resulting in a total program cost of $62 billion or about $339 million per aircraft. The incremental cost for one additional F-22 is around $138 million;^[18] decreasing with larger volumes.^[16]”

Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor

Who needs universal health care? We have super-duper fighter planes!

NUTRITION INFORMATION THAT’S EASY TO SWALLOW

LLLLLLLL

This is such an important subject, but like anything that’s “good for you” it’s hard to concentrate on. You guys out there should find it easy to concentrate on THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZlVpthaYEs&feature=channel_page

LLLLLLLL

AN EASY WAY TO DO SOME GOOD

Hello, Honored Reader of My Blog,

If you or someone you care about has had a brush with one of the many disasters that can be caused by our current health care system*, then you know it needs to be changed. Here’s any easy way to try to get it changed. Go to the site given below and sign a letter that will be sent to your representatives in Washington in your name.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hcsignon/?returnlink=false

There’s a place there to add your own personal comment to be sent the the Representative or Senator. Here’s what I wrote:

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to give US citizens something EVERY OTHER FIRST WORLD COUNTRY provides for its citizens. I recently heard in a radio discussion that even the Czech Republic has national health care! I am an old guy, and I know how much a person can find to regret at this time of life. I truly believe that if you successfully oppose President Obama’s health care plan you will come to regret it when you’re in your 60s like me. A lot of people will suffer and die** for want of medical care they can’t afford if things go on unchanged.”

But you say whatever you want. It’s a chance to be heard — maybe even a way to counter all those ridiculous excesses we saw at some congresspersons’ town meetings over the summer.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

*Bankruptcy caused by uninsured doctors’ bills may be the most common. How many sad notes requesting a donation to help pay for, say, a battle against cancer have you seen in your workplace over the years? I’ve seen plenty. Why should people fighting a terrible disease have to fight with insurers and bill collectors at the same time?

•• See, for example, THIS: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13kristof.html

DECEPTION ON THE HORIZON

Conservatives haven’t given up trying to kill the remnants of the New Deal and the Great Society–i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare (what’s left of it), Food Stamps, and maybe even unemployment compensation.

In the coming 20 or so years, as the baby boomers (one of whom I am) age and die, Conservatives can be expected to step up that struggle, since only people boomer age and older remember the kinder world America was before the Reagan Age.

And when we consider that everyone who turned, say, 15, in 1980 when Regan was elected is 44 now, those conservatives might succeed handily. I believe that most people absorb their basic political assumptions around the time they develop favorite songs — and then remain loyal to them for a lifetime.

The best way to kill all those New Deal and Great Society programs, of course, is to pretend to be a pragmatist and declare that we can’t afford them. Here’s one of the first such  shots over the New Deal’s bow:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/opinion/08brooks.html

And here are the three liberal arguments in response (which ought to work but may not, given the aforementioned loyalty humans have to stuff imbibed as teenagers):

1. It’s Republicans — largely that last, most inept President — who have been the most wasteful:

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/opinion/08brooks.html?permid=3#comment3

and

http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

2. Hey, why don’t  we cut that huge military budget first?

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/opinion/08brooks.html?permid=6#comment6

(The US military budget is now about 1/2 of all the military spending in the world combined.)

and, finally, liberals should make the following point, which would be unanswerable but for the existence of the strange doctrine of American exceptionalism:

3. How come all the major European countries can have lots more benefits for their people then the USA does, and they don’t build up huge deficits?

See my earlier post, “Is it True What They Say About Sweden”, here:

https://nightman1.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/is-it-true-what-they-say-about-sweden/

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The answer to liberals’ question number 3 is implied in question number 2, about our mad continuation of the military spending that our government, and especially conservatives, justified during the Cold War as necessary to deter the Evil Empire…

…and then just kept up, unabated, for some strange reason, indefinitely.

Even if we need a strong army to fight in Afghanistan and future similar places full of Muslims who hate us, we don’t need all those super weapons we bought to deter the Soviet Union from launching a nuclear war or a conventional State v. State war. These are two very different kinds of war, requiring different approaches. Fighting irregular troops like the Taliban requires boots on the ground, and only enough air power to maintain control of the air, which is pretty easy when dealing with folks who don’t have an airforce. We don’t need a new line up of super-duper and super-expensive airplanes, missiles, etc., every few years.

But hey, we need to keep those defense contractors fat and happy, right?