OK, I will be the first to say it – in print.  There are limited possibilities as an outcome of the November election.

Obama will be nominated and elected President.  Hillary will have several choices:
1. She can be Vice-President.  That is, assuming her petty nonsense has not lead to Obama, possibly wisely, not wanting to be associated with her.  Of course, Obama might decide he wants a popular attack dog on the ticket – in which case Hilary has it locked.
2.  Hilary can assume she will run in 2012.  But that assumes one of two things: a)  that Obama will fail, and that the people will break with the tradition of granting the Oval Office to the party whose leadership did not fail; or b) that Obama dies in office – in which case the office will probably go to his Vice President in 2012 and 2016.  If (a) it is clear that Hilary will never achieve the Oval Office, and her failure to be on an Obama ticket reflects that she was never serious in her quest; if (b) Hilary will be 74 years old.
3.  Hilary can expect to gain the 2016 nomination from an incumbent Vice President when she is 70.

Clearly, Hilary is either going to be Vice President in the Obama administration, or she is out of the game and must admit – or let history deduce – her political ambitions were, in reality, a myth and hoax.  Senator Clinton is likely the new Senator Kennedy, having symbolically, driven herself off that bridge.

As for McCain?  The race he is going to run will be about his Vice President, and the views or positions of that Vice President.  The election will not be about a man from a career military family.  It might be about a possibly unstable personality – an individual who is possibly suffering from PTSD as a result of six years in a Vietnam tiger cage.  It certainly will be about a man who wishes to condemn tens of thousands of America’s youth to disabilities; a man who wishes to spend the next hundred years wasting the wealth and talent of America; a man who clearly is willing to continue the deficit – debt supported – extravagances associated with Reagan, Bush and Bush.

But more import, it will be about the Vice President.  It will be about America electing a man whose age – regardless of the longevity of his mother – implies, almost dictates, that he will die in office before his first term is completed.

Of course, it is possible that Hilary is betting on a McCain victory.  It is possible that she assumes he will complete his first term – and that it will be marked by deficits and economic collapse – thus she may well be assuming that she will be the one to lead the other party which succeeds to replace a failed administration.  But here too, she assumes that Obama will lose by such an extraordinary margin that any hope of a rerun will be crushed.  A lot of assumptions.

We have a reality.  The Democrats will take the Whitehouse because the American people, for all the right-wing rhetoric, really do want this nation to survive.  The American people – at least a majority of those who will vote – really want an end to GOP Borrow and Spend voodoo economics.  The American people do not wish to see their lifestyles reduced to third world status; and they do not wish to see their children maimed, or killed, in the crossfire associated with fourteen hundred years of Shiite-Sunni hostilities over whose line is heir to the Prophet.

More important, there are Americans – possibly an electoral majority – who want America to have safe and clean energy; a majority which understand that oil is running out and that protecting what little we have is a matter of national defense.  A majority who know that those who have oil can maintain a modern army and air force; a majority which understand that we cannot buy from the enemy – no mare than Hitler could buy fuel when those he attacked decided to turn off the pumps.

November will be interesting.  The issues will be interesting.  And the biggest issue – that which will determine the continuation of this nation – will be whether or not the media can ask more probative questions that “why don’t you wear a flag on your lapel”, or “why don’t you challenge the rhetoric of a preacher, when your opponent is so quiet about his significantly more inflammatory “white” preacher?”

Yep – the future of the nation rests on the color of a necktie, or the type of jewelry worn, or not warn.   It rests on the ability of people to misrepresent the words of a scripture that they willfully, and proudly, violate while they make a living out of killing others.

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    Date Line April 17, 2008

Today, Jim Hightower (Free Speech News) commented on American supplied surveillance equipment being installed by China for the Olympics.  Seems there will be a camera in every nook and corner, every house of worship and public, or private, spot.

Our best and biggest firms are tripping over themselves in an effort to develop hi-tech computer analysis systems which can spot  individuals, or individual actions.  The analysis software will ensure that anyone who does something the State does not like – from chewing gum and dropping paper on the sidewalk, to the more anti-social behavior most people would abhor, even if tolerated as consistent with freedom and personal rights.  

Yep!  Going to the Olympics in China will result in a database of facts on everyone, of every nation foolish enough to want to see athletes do their thing.

That Americans are setting up the Orwellian Big Brother spy network  for China is going to slip under the wire.  But think “Homeland Security” and the domestic spying the GOP has promoted to date.

Think about the problems associated with testing new software and equipment.  Think about the cost.  Now imagine there is someone – a government. Shall we say – who is willing to foot the bill and provide a military to investigate anything flagged by the software.  Not only investigate, but give detailed reports and background data on the people identified as “problem makers”.

Hum.  Do you think that would make development of a spy system harder or easier, or ...?

What is developed in China will be applicable at home.  Cameras will appear in corporate offices – in the ladies WC and someplace near the water cooler.  Bosses will be able to tell when an employee is planning to leave the firm, or when the are stealing paper clips.  OR ... well they will know everything.  The government offices will, quite naturally, see these newly perfected devices installed.  Then they will go into the streets – replacing, upgrading, traffic cameras to the point where nobody can speak, or move, freely.

Big Brother has arrived.  China is footing the initial, and probably subsequent, development costs – the GOP is waiting to utilize what China has bought.  FREEDOM?  Wave goodbye.

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    Date Line April 14, 2008

1. The year 2012 will prove significant in more ways than the current discussions foresee for any year in the next decade.

2.  An asteroid will strike the earth in 2036 (plus or minus two years).  The damage will be compounded by a shortage of liquid fossil fuels and might well cause significant global cooling – sufficient to cause massive death, and widespread disease.    Earth’s  population is, quite literally, decimated.   (A new religious age will begin.)

3.  The twenty-five years between the two events could be marked by major warfare – the determining factor will be events within the next twelve to eighteen months (and how our leaders respond to them).

Let’s have a round of
DOOM & GLOOM
for one and all.
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    Date Line April 14, 2008

FOR THE RECORD: Prediction –

When Bush leaves office he will receive multi-millions in “consulting fees” from The Saudis.  Diligent research on the part of an interested party will show  money came Bin Laden Construction Company or its affiliates.  Same bribery that senior got for the Gulf War.  NOTE: This will be from new firms – not the ones currently being investigated in Canada for bribery of public officials.

NEXT: Concurrently, or subsequently, OPEC will re-denominate the price of a barrel of oil – no longer will it be in dollars, the Euro is the new Dollar.

FINALLY: The housing crisis will be recognized as a result of the baby-boomer babies having reached maturity and the beginnings of a fall in population which can only be abated by allowing immigrants to enter upon our shores in records numbers sufficient to dwarf that seen at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of twentieth.  Xenophobic Right-Wingers will block creation of a sound immigration policy, and housing, construction, and numerous other aspects of economy will collapse – followed by a resurgence of religious zeal and REAL war (against an identifiably & quantifiable enemy).

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    Date Line April 11, 2008

New York Times: “In fact, Mrs. Clinton was accurately repeating the story as it was told to her — and it turns out that while some of the details were slightly off, the essentials of her story were correct. After all the fuss, The Washington Post eventually conceded that “Bachtel’s medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence” of Mrs. Clinton’s account.”

The story was, of course, the one which Hillary Clinton was lambasted for repeating – that of a pregnant woman named Trina Bachtel who was told she needed to begin making payments on her past hospital bill prior to receiving a new course of treatment related to her pregnancy.

Idiots – mostly mainstream media big mouths (Rush Limbaugh types)  who make more noise than sense – attacked Hillary when they should have checked the story.  Basically, the hospital administrators lied,  when asked if they denied care until an outstanding bill was paid.

Well DUH!  You would be hard pressed to find a hospital which can afford to run an open tab on a patient who refuses to pay.

Now!  Yep!  You will find other idiots who will talk about medicaid  and coverage for the poor.  Get real!  There is none – except for those who have nothing.

If you own any assets – you need to sell them before the Government will step in.  If you try to sell and nobody buys, in theory you get coverage.  But that is just theory.  Reality is you will be denied coverage – and in one case I know well, you will be denied coverage because someone else owns the property and, based upon court order, because they have not appeared, you are its administrator.

Remember, this is the same governmental structure which says the family of soldier who dies from wounds sustained in Iraq must PROVE the cause of death was service related.  If you are disabled in Iraq, or Afghanistan, you must also PROVE service related cause.  That is, being shot, or blown up while serving your nation is not sufficient proof that your injuries are service relate.

A pregnant women getting medical care?  Gee, when she is at death’s door – and can prove it with the medical records she has yet to obtain because she has been denied treatment – she can get emergency room treatment.

As Bush has stated, and McCain apparently supports, “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”  If you have the sniffles, you can go to the emergency room; if a cough, the emergency room; if a splinter, the emergency room.  You can go there – they might treat you at a cost which those who cannot afford a doctor most certainly cannot afford.

Emergency room costs are the highest in the hospital.  They must be.  Only the emergency room must keep staff on duty when there are no patients.  Emergency room staffing must be at a level which would allow them to deal with a true emergency – like that ten car pile-up, or the terrorist attack, airline crash, or ... pick the catastrophic event.

America has, without doubt, the world’s best catastrophic health care treatment facilities.  We have them because we need them.  We will not treat the splinter until it becomes infected; and then probably not until gangrene has set in.

We have children dying – like Trina Bachtel’s – because we deny their mother’s basic care.  Pay $500 a month for medical insurance – $6,000 a year after taxes on a salary of $40,000 ... that’s 15% of earnings.  Pay, and pay and pay – only to learn, when you need the insurance, that you have a co-pay that will place you in bankruptcy.  WHY?  Because the insurance does not require, nor would it pay for, basic preventative medical care.

OH RIGHT – according to Bush and McCain,  preventative medical care is what you get at the Emergency Room.

America is the only industrialize nation with out universal health care – because of that we pay twice as much as every other industrialized nation for health care which is only marginally better than a third world nation.  In the case of  Trina Bachtel, she would have better off in Cuba (where people only make $17 a day).  Babies in Cuba have a higher probability of surviving the birth process than those in America.

Come to think of it, for all their suffering, Cubans live longer than Americans and in better health.  Of course, those who live better than anyone on the planet – and who have the lowest carbon footprint – are Scandinavians.  They have a cradle to grave “Nanny State” and the highest standard of living in the world; and they manage it without any of America’s natural resources.

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