Oil spill finally stopped?

So BP finally stopped the flow of oil, but who knows if it will last? Even if the cap does stay, it took waaaaay too long to get here. They had better not do any more deep water drilling until they know how to plug such a leak in the future. I fear however that Obama will eventually bow to political pressure and lift the moratorium even if nothing substantial changes in safety technology.

Times Square bomber caught

Got this one in an email this morning.
BULLETIN – POLITICO's Josh Gerstein: 'A Pakistani-born American wanted in connection with the alleged car bombing attempt in Times Square over the weekend was arrested at 11:45 p.m. at John F. Kennedy airport in New York City, Attorney General Eric Holder said in an unusual in-person statement at the Justice Department at 1:30 a.m. Faisal Shahzad, 30, was attempting to board a flight for Dubai, Holder said. The suspect allegedly purchased the Nissan Pathfinder used for the attempted bombing from a private owner via Craigslist. 'Over the course of the day today, we have gathered additional significant evidence which led to tonight's arrest,' Holder said in his comment delivered at the Justice Department at 1:30 A.M. 'This investigation is ongoing as are our attempts to gather useful intelligence and we continue to pursue number of leads but it's clear that the intent behind this terrorist attack was to kill Americans.'

Oil Spill

Here is an interactive map that shows the seriousness of the disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html?ref=weekinreview

greece crisis

The greeks are really pissed that there economy has failed and they have to be bailed out by the EU specifically the Germans. Basically the idea is to trim the fat out of their economy and then prop them up with money from the IMF. The Greeks are angry at everyone involved. They are even biting the hand that feed them.

Vitriol is also being heaped on Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, by Giorgos Trangas, a popular radio talk show host.

“She looks like an apple strudel that’s been squashed by a Wehrmacht lorry,” he said on his programme. from a times article

Sarah Palin

Ted Nugent writes: 'If Sarah Palin played a loud, grinding instrument, she would be in my band.'
Taken from Mike Allen's Politico Playbook

governmental collapse

Full Article:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/201047164717764440.html
Looks like we have a coup this week. The Kyrgyzstan government collapsed today.

"When it comes to real frustration, it's the economic problems that really motivate people. The key turning point may have been the imposition of new utility bill tariffs," he said.

"People's energy bills doubled overnight in January and that caused serious consternation among a significant part of the population who are largely poor by international standards.

apparently they got really pissed over their utiility bills.

Also there was a little bit of corruption. The president appointed his sisters and his cousins and his aunts to key positions.

That's not good...

Full article:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/20104514598966998.html

I caught this one in the my inbox when i woke up this morning. This shows that the pakistani taliban is growing increasingly bold. \

"Zafar Jaspal, a security analyst in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera that while the government has routed the Taliban from their bases in places like South Waziristan, they are spreading into settled areas.

"The American consulate is one of the most well guarded places in Peshawar," he said.

"It [the attack] was well planned and they very confidently hit their target.""

This attack shows that the Taliban are behaving like wildlife driven from a deforested area. When they are driven from their habitat, they end up causing trouble in the city. We can expect more attacks from these people. They run on anger and violence and they will attack whatever they believe to be their enemy. However, with this attack they also killed several native Pakistanis. So we shall see how long it takes for them to be exterminated from the city.

On a lighter note, check this out.

http://ibb7.ibb.gov/pronunciations/index.cfm

Chechen Suicide Bombers

full article: http://www.newstatesman.com/200409060023
While we wait for further news to surface about the bombings in Moscow, I would like to take the chance to post some information about suicide bombers in that part of the world. I usually think of a suicide bomber as a crazed ideological zealot but these Chechens gave me a new insight. Apparently, they coerce some of their bombers into blowing themselves up. Here are a few snippets.

"Surprisingly, Zarema is not a defiant Islamist desperate for a place in heaven. Her story is one of poverty and desperation typical of a land that has known nothing but war for a decade. "

"Her debts became so great that a group of men from whom she had taken a loan told her she had no choice but to pay them back with her life: if she would complete a suicide mission, her debts would be repaid and her family would also receive money. She claims she lived in a mountain village for a month with Chechen independence fighters, who fed her stories of Russian atrocities.

"Zarema has claimed she wanted to carry out the suicide bombing to avenge her husband's death, but she also says she was drugged regularly in her orange juice, which gave her headaches. On the designated day, she was sent to a central Moscow cafe: she attempted to detonate the device in three different places before being arrested in a fourth restaurant. Police reported that she was extremely upset by the death of the officer who tried to defuse the bomb."

"Was Zarema willing to sacrifice herself, or an exploited victim? Her story perhaps shows that, for many of Chechnya's "black widows", their motives lie somewhere between choice and coercion."

"in reality, the Chechen situation is completely different from that in Arab countries, where terrorism is closely linked to Islamist fundamentalism: far from being freedom fighters with an equal right to die for their beliefs, Chechnya's female martyrs are more likely to be forced, blackmailed or brainwashed to their deaths."

This is a sad situation that goes against we normally think about suicide bombers. If you want more info check out this book.

My Ideal, Pipe Dream Healthcare Plan

Sterling Miller
4/3/2010

As president Obama finally signed the final piece of the health care legislation, this week I thought it would be a good time to outline what my ideal health care reform package would have been if I were a dictator. Almost all of these ideas I heard from other sources, and none of them are original with me. Many of them are included in the law which the president signed. Others are from Republicans or other Democrats.

Regulatory Reforms

Regulations must be introduced to prevent insurance companies from taking advantage of consumers. The practices that would be banned would be:
· Kicking people off of their plan or unreasonably increasing their rates because they get sick
· Placing lifetime or annual caps on the amount of money that is paid out to an individual
· Denying someone coverage or discriminating excessively in price because of a preexisting condition

These practices are unfair and do not constitute true insurance. Under the current system, however, companies have no choice but to resort to them. This is because not doing so would cause there rates to skyrocket because only sick people would buy insurance from them, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Therefore, the government must step in and provide regulations, putting everyone on a level playing field and putting an end to rewarding bad behavior.

Universal Coverage

It is an oft-quoted fact that the United States is the only developed country which does not guarantee health insurance for all. We are the richest country in the world and yet there are about 47 million people in this country without health insurance. To change this, I would propose that Medicaid be expanded to cover more people that currently do not qualify, but still cannot afford insurance. Additionally, subsidies should be provided according to a sliding scale, so that there is a gradual shift from complete government coverage to none. These subsidies would then be used to buy private insurance. Furthermore I would place a tax on companies that do not provide health coverage to their employees, in order to remove the economic disincentive from providing coverage in most cases. If employers still choose not to cover their employees the revenue from the tax will help defray the cost of covering the uninsured. There would also be an individual mandate, which would require everyone to buy health insurance, or face a significant fine. This is reasonable, since sufficient subsidies would be provided so that insurance would be affordable. And it would also be necessary to keep individuals from gaming the system, and only buying insurance when they get sick, because of the aforementioned prohibition on discrimination on the basis of preexisting condition, under “regulatory reforms.” Finally, the quota of doctors in the system would have to be increased to account for the new patients entering the system.

Reducing Costs

One way to reduce costs of insurance is to increase competition in the health insurance markets. Although there are 1300 health insurance companies in the country, there are effectively local monopolies in many areas for two reasons: One is that there is a special antitrust exemption for health insurance companies, allowing these monopolies to form. Furthermore, it is illegal to buy health insurance from another state from where one lives. I would propose to eliminate the antitrust exemption and allow buying insurance across state lines. Doing these two things would dramatically increase competition, thereby reducing insurance premiums.

However the cost of health care itself, apart from insurance, is skyrocketing and must be brought under control. One thing that contributes to high costs is medical malpractice and the defensive medicine that ensues, with doctors spending extra money to avoid lawsuits. To address this I would place a system of caps limiting the amount of money that could be awarded in a medical malpractice suit. There would be different caps for different types of injuries, with a high overall cap. Additionally, if a judge determined that a lawsuit was totally frivolous he/she would be able to require that the litigant pay the legal fees of the defendant. Prescription drugs are extremely expensive in this country so I would decrease the amount of time of a patent, and allow importation from Canada, where drugs are much cheaper. Also I would remove the tax exemption of the most expensive, employer-provided insurance plans known as “Cadillac plans”. These plans tend to isolate the person completely from medical costs, because virtually everything is paid for. Discouraging these plans by removing their tax exemption would help reduce costs because the decision-maker would more often be paying something in the way of copayments, and would also have some incentive to reduce premiums. In addition, I would look to root out waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid by increasing accountability measures and stepping up enforcement of fraud.

Note

All of the regulatory reforms I list below are in the bill, as is everything I list under universal coverage, with the exception of increasing the number of doctors, which will likely have to be addressed separately. Of the things I mentioned for cost containment only the parts about fraud and waste in Medicare and Medicaid, along with decreasing the time for a patent, and the “Cadillac tax” are in the new law.

Sterling Miller

I am nineteen years old and am a sophomore at Rhodes college. I am pursuing a Political Science and International Studies bridge major with a Physics minor. I am a follower of Jesus, and try to live my life in accordance with my faith. I am from Harrisburg, PA. In addition to politics, I enjoy sports and other games. My favorite kind of food is Thai food.

Chip Houston

Hi I'm Chip. I am a native of Memphis, Tennessee. I am mostly interested in international news and politics. I enjoy finding correlations between religion and international relations. I am interested in China, Afghanistan/Pakistan relations, and Asia in general. For fun, I am an amateur musician. I sing in the Choir, play my souped-up hot rod trombone, and Carillon.