Author: admin

I meant to post this much earlier but my internet connection was having problems and I sadly left this as a draft.

“This is the cause of my life,” Ted Kennedy wrote. “For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society.”

Kennedy was talking about health care. But then, Kennedy was always talking about health care. He was talking about it when he helped pass Medicare and Medicaid in the ’60s. When he tried to reach a deal with Richard Nixon in the ’70s. When he made it the center of his challenge to Jimmy Carter in the ’80s. When he created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the ’90s. When he directed his staff to begin educating senators and stakeholders for President Obama’s effort late last year.

There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America’s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.” <emphasis min @angol>

via Ezra Klein – The Cause of Ted Kennedy’s Life.

I meant to post this much earlier but my internet connection was having problems and I sadly left this as a draft.

“This is the cause of my life,” Ted Kennedy wrote. “For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society.”
Kennedy was talking about health care. But then, Kennedy was always talking about health care. He was talking about it when he helped pass Medicare and Medicaid in the ’60s. When he tried to reach a deal with Richard Nixon in the ’70s. When he made it the center of his challenge to Jimmy Carter in the ’80s. When he created the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the ’90s. When he directed his staff to begin educating senators and stakeholders for President Obama’s effort late last year.
There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America’s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.” <emphasis min @angol>

via Ezra Klein – The Cause of Ted Kennedy’s Life.

Noynoy Aquino announces bid for presidency in 2010
AMITA O. LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
09/09/2009 | 08:22 AM
It’s a go for Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
Early on Wednesday, he announced that he will run for president in 2010 as standard bearer of the Liberal Party (LP).
“Tatakbo ako sa pagkapangulo sa darating na halalan,” said Noynoy, who made the announcement on the 40th day after the death of his mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino.
He made the announcement at the historic Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan, where his famous mother took her oath as president on Feb. 25, 1986 during the final day of the EDSA People Power Revolution.
via Noynoy Aquino announces bid for presidency in 2010 – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

loved this from, chuck’s shared items

Keeping in touch with the things that help us feel alive – music, books, movies, even the theatre, if, mysteriously, you are that way inclined – becomes a battle, and one that many of us lose, as we get older; I don’t think enough of our cultural pundits, people who write about that stuff for a living, fully understand this. It’s one thing to have an opinion on Little Boots remixes if you earn your living hanging about in cyberspace; quite another if you’re a full-time teacher with three kids. My friend’s CD shop performed a valuable service to those whose shopping and browsing and listening time was rationed by circumstance, people who had the occasional five minutes on a Saturday morning to check out, and sometimes even buy, what everyone else was listening to.
via Nick Hornby on the liberating effect of MP3 blogs | Music | The Observer.

This is bad.

10M Filpinos unemployed—survey
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:14:00 09/08/2009
Filed Under: Economic Indicators, Employment
MANILA, Philippines – An estimated 10 million adult Filipinos who are looking for work (25.9 percent) are unemployed, according to the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations.
The current rate is lower than the record-high 34.2 percent (14 million) posted in February this year, SWS noted in its Second Quarter 2009 Social Weather Survey, which was released Tuesday.
The survey also found that the unemployment rate consisted of 10 percent who were retrenched, 9 percent who resigned or voluntarily left their old jobs, and 6 percent first-time job seekers.
via 10M Filpinos unemployed—survey – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Hmm, guilty as charged!!

The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.
Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or ‘cognitive resources’ trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.
The findings have implications for the performance of men who flirt with women in the workplace, or even exam results in mixed-sex schools.
Women, however, were not affected by chatting to a handsome man.
This may be simply because men are programmed by evolution to think more about mating opportunities.
via Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women – Telegraph.