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Nationalized Healthcare Would Be a Middle Class Disaster
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (83)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm not as thrilled with the O'budget on health care as on education. Nationalized health care has been a disaster for the middle class wherever it exists. Yes it gives access to the deeply impoverished, but at the expense of the middle class. The rich can always buy their way out of any health care system and get the best of care. Here's what the Obama administration will do:
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Obama's 2010 Budget Stresses the Answer to Almost Every Economic Ill: Education
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
It's true: the O'budget redefines government as we know it. The idea of putting minor off-budget items (such as wars) back on-budget is brilliant. Keeping those costs hidden, a Bush concoction, was never anything but wicked wizardry. Making college more affordable and improving public schools, is among the most important things this president will do:
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Sex on Wall Street Still Dictates Success
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (4)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Check out the cover of Forbes magazine, and its story on Wall Street women whacked in the downturn. The subhead asks:
After the scandals of the 1990s, didn't Investment Banks put sexist employment practices behind them? Evidently not.
All I can say is, it figures!
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Octuplet Dilemma: Should Hospital Let Kids Go, Should Taxpayers Be Burdened?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (166)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In case you watch Dr. Phil's show Thursday, you'll be privy to the second half of his interview with the now-infamous octuplets mother, the first half of which aired Wednesday.
The interview was pre-taped last week and since then Nadya Suleman has apparently been telephoning Dr. Phil McGraw on a regular basis. He told the Los Angeles Times she called him to say she now fears the "Suleman eight" may not be released to her when they are ready to leave the hospital. The infants are still in a neonatal care unit at the Kaiser Permanente hospital where they were born nine-and-a-half weeks prematurely.
Dr. Phil says Suleman believes the hospital won't release her children to her until, "she has a better living arrangement." On the one hand, who could blame the hospital given the following:
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Evangelical Churches Push Kinky New Sex Challenges--But For Married Couples Only
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2009 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
More evangelical churches are pushing sex—in some cases, rather risqué sex, on married couples. The formerly straight-laced church is changing with the times and now promoting, even urging, married couples to have more varied sex and more of it. According to alternet.org, a progressive media website, "Christian sex shops, Christian sex advice columns, and Christian sex blogs" abound on the Internet.
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Obama Rally Prayers Are Dangerous, Bush-like and, Typically, Pandering
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2009 Comment (15)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
My USNews.com colleague Dan Gilgoff has revealed that President Obama has produced a presidential first: his public rallies and events will start with invocations that have been commissioned and vetted by the White House:
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Gay Marriage in Rhode Island or Anywhere is a Bore (Unlike Abortion); Let's Move On
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (52)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm really bored with the gay marriage issue. How about you? I wish it would just go away. Why do some straight people care what gay people do? I care about my marriage, but not about anyone else's. Why should other straights care if the issue does not affect their own marriages? The issue comes up again as Rhode Island's state senate considers a bill to legalize gay marriage:
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Signs the Recession is Starting to Break, Obama Administration Gaffes Aside
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (11)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm beginning to hear the welcome sounds of an economy starting to rouse itself out of slumber. I'm not saying it's turned around yet, or anything close to that. I'm just sensing and hoping that bottom may have been struck, or that the slide is starting to slow. We may still be months, if not years, away from economic growth. But the speed of the crash seems to be slowing.
Anecdotally, the few friends I have in real estate say more resale housing contracts are going to closing. A person I met through work whose spouse is employed at a local Ford dealership says 21 cars (new and used) were sold last Saturday, which is a one-day high not reached by that dealership since about two years ago.
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Chimp Was Not at Fault in Attack—Wild Animals Should Be Left in the Wild
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2009 Comment (7)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
By now, most of us have heard the horrifying story of a chimpanzee shot by Connecticut police last week after the chimp attacked a friend of its owner. The owner called 911 and stabbed the chimp herself (whom she claims to have raised almost as her child) because the chimp went into a violent fit and, she thought, was trying to kill her friend.
The chimp was not at fault here. The owner was. She and thousands of other Americans who insist (for who knows what reason) on owning wild animals have no one to blame but themselves when wild animals, which cannot ever be truly domesticated, act out. It is to be expected, and therefore, it should be against the law. Even well-meaning owners should be fined and sent to jail.
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Fed Chairman Bernanke Delivers Grim Economic News to Governors
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2009 Comment (1)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The National Governors Association meeting was held this weekend in Washington with loyal oppositionists (to wit, hard-line Republicans) taking to the airwaves to criticize President Obama's stimulus package as misguided, bloated, and not targeted enough.
