A friend's son was a recent West Point graduate during Desert Storm. He was sent there, served, got a medal or some kind of honor and was "laid off" as soon as Desert Storm was over. Considering what the government spent to educate him and the fact that he was quite happy to serve at least the time he was obligated for, any quite possibly more, that seemed pretty odd to me, but I guess they didn't want to take a chance on more officers getting to retirement.

Read a fact in today's paper that cheered me up a little: With a shift of only 90,000 votes nationwide out of a total 75 million cast, the Democrats would control both the House and the Senate.

What does that mean? It means this race was just as close as the 2000 prez race. It means the media reporting of this race as a huge Republican massacre is bullshit. It means there is no Republican mandate.

And it means that the Dems taking back all 3 prizes in 04 is actually quite possible, despite what the conservative media biases tell us. Rumours of the death of the left have been greatly exaggerated.

The Republicans have the rope anyway, so it's their turn to hang themselves. Seriously, though, the economy is starting to take over the dialogue. War isn't going to help because when people can't make the bills, or are very immediately concerned that they won't be able to, that's what they vote on. Obviously GW knows that now, but whether he'll do what needs to be done is unlikely. That doesn't make me happy, but it's what I believe. I'd rather have things be good than to have the side I'm rooting for win because things are very, very bad.

What does make me kind of happy is the Lousiana vote. It's a chink in the armor. It may not be all that significant in and of itself, but I do think it should serve as a message that the Republican mandate is precarious and fragile even if you believe it exists at all.

The 60 Minutes piece on the selling of the war must pretty much have been a capper on a bad week all around for the administration.

I think the Louisiana vote may be very significant--if only because Bush tried really, really hard to influence it, and he failed. A chink in the armor that I think (hope) will widen.

Zman,
Interesting to read your posts. I have a son currently in training for AF Reserves. He joined up to get money for school, but he's doing very well, and considering going regular AF--any advice for him? He'd like to apply for appointment to the Academy, but he says something like only 4 Reservists a year get appointments.

I was happy to see Landrieu win as well, even though she's quite conservative. Just nice to see Bush lose one. Hopefully the ball is starting to roll.

Gore was on the Sunday Morn talk show, and he brought up Universal HealthCare again. Nice to see something besides wars and tax cuts being discussed.

I'm still more excited about Kerry. He's a new face (for some of us) and I just can't help feel he may do better than Gore. He's less irritating from a vanity standpoint, he's a war hero, and that may help him with some of those macho male swing voters, who hate Gore because he doesn't come off as a "guys guy."

I'm a little concerned about either one of them being a bit too stiff to win, but I guess it depends on how things are come election day. One thing that has come out of all of this..the 2000 election and the Greens and this midterm election is that at least the Democrats are thinking about their shortcomings and trying to address them.

GREAT letter from an Italian guy who is baffled about why America doesn't provide healthcare for all her citizens. The guy makes some really good points:
http://citypages.com/databank/23/1149/article10935.asp

It's a great letter. The reason we don't have national health care isn't the fault of all politicians, though. It's in good part that we are idiots. People opposing national healthcare just have to say that it'll raise taxes, and it becomes an impossible hurdle to overcome. Those same people don't seem to be able to figure out that they're paying a fortune for healthcare now, and that's if they have jobs with decent benefits, so shifting the costs to taxation, rather than payroll deductions shouldn't cost them more and would give them a whole new level of security and also freedom to experiment with career changes more freely.

As much as I take issue with politicians not being forthright about this, I have to be disgusted with us for buying into the idea that a single payer system should cost us more than the current mess. By which I mean every middle and working class person should be screaming for national healthcare and not shutting up until we get it.

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I have lived with National Health Care, I think that it does increase taxes alot and I think that there are abuses of the system. At times, there are delays in service as so many others get the same service offered to them, however, it is by far a better system then what we have here in the USA.

Perhaps a system of X number of visits to the doctor being allowed per person or family, so many stays in the hospital ect.

Of course if an illness is real then there would not be any limits except for the cost vs life question....i.e. if we are to spent two million for a transplant then let it be for a ten year old not someone ninty-five.
Doctors to, should be limited in how many tests they can run and how many experts they can send a person to.

These steps would curtail the thousands of useless visits that some people make and stop all these extra costs for tests that are not needed, sort of a compermise between unlimited health care and a insurance based system.

I do know that I saw a lot more doctors in Canada then I ever will in the US and if I did get sick again I for one would return to Canada for the healthcare.

I always heard Canada has better healthcare. I thinkone of Mijkes cousins had a tumor or something once yrs ago & went to Canada to get to operated on & is okay now...

It is baffling that people don't demand a system that guarentees you won't become homeless if you get sick. It sounds like such a simple, reasonable thing.

But there's nothing reasonable about those who oppose it. Anything --ANY FUCKING THING-- that is not a tax cut, is automatically some liberal, commie crap. They just shut their ears. Health care? commie crap. Clean water? treehuggin pussies. Civil liberties? just more liberal sedition. Tax cut? yaa, yaa, more, more, more!

Right now, the spin is working for em on the middle swing voters.

http://rense.com/general32/decla.htm

Anyone scared yet???