By John Ballard
Let us turn our attention away from the turkeys in Washington to those in the grocery stores.
Thanksgiving Day is nigh.
Purists may want to consider a real turkey this year instead of what we have been taught to eat in recent years.
I've not had one, incidentally. They're [...]
By John Ballard
Frank Sharry is Founder and Executive Director of America's Voice. With the support of allies in the immigration reform community, he created the new organization in early 2008 to focus on communications and media as part of a renewed effort to win comprehensive immigration reform. Prior to heading America's Voice, Frank [...]
By John Ballard
Said before.What a golden opportunity has been missed to educate Americans about the implications of their health care choices. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, in an op-ed in today's Washington Post condemning the USPSTF guidelines, confirms [...]
By John Ballard
This is too long to tweet and too short to blog, but too good to miss.
Tom Watson riffs on the Palin phenomenon.
Journalistic poetry.
...Newsweek went with the full Joan on its cover this week, fronting essays by Evan Thomas and Christopher Hitchens, pieces that are also accompanied by [...]
By John Ballard
This quote speaks for itself.
For a fuller view go to the link.
Hospitals have no incentives to prevent unnecessary hospitalization. Physicians, paid mostly by fee-for-service, have every incentive to order more tests and procedures. Neither is rewarded directly for making – or keeping – patients healthy. Key to [...]
By John Ballard
The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force kicked over a hornet's nest this week by changing the long-standing recommendation for routine mammogram screenings for breast cancer in women. I cannot imagine any reader who missed the story, but in case anyone just recovered from a coma here is a [...]
By John Ballard
Dina Temple-Raston's report this morning on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does little to explain how this man became a poster child for terrorism. Though it comes as no surprise, I had no idea he had been a foreign student in an American university in his younger years, but [...]
By John Ballard
OFA (Organizing For America) had a contest to select an amateur video to promote health care reform using paid advertising. The contest energized the base, then from among twenty finalists one entry was selected by voting. In order for one's vote to be counted it was necessary to' [...]
By John Ballard
This is an information only post.
Having listened closely for years and still not figuring out this reporter's name, I finally got around to looking it up. Doualy Xaykaothao has been reporting from all over Asia since 1999 and with every broadcast I have turned up the radio [...]
By John Ballard
Dead Pool time.
Get braced for a deluge of opinions as KSM goes on trial in NYC.
Everybody who is Anybody (as well as the Nobodies) will have something to say.
My post is prompted by something said by a new contributor at Coming Anarchy.
...whether it’s by military [...]
By John Ballard
Immigration reform may be the Next Big Thing.
Janet Napolitano fired the first shot yesterday speaking to the Center for American Progress.
We all know the story: A steady influx of undocumented workers, crossing our borders illegally in search of work and a better life. A market among [...]
By John Ballard
This man is so rational he makes me want to move to Vermont.
His constituents must be very proud of him.
Contrary to my previous post, I'm reluctantly back to undecided about the Coathangar provision of the bill.
A Massachusetts race indicates it's too soon to expect [...]
By John Ballard
Most Progressives, myself included, reacted to the Coathanger Amendment with dismay. After all the time and effort spent plowing the ground getting ready for eventual Congressional action on the Freedom Of Choice Act, the leadership of the House betrayed everyone by caving to one of the most [...]
By John Ballard
Charts like this are supposed to make us feel better. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that.
I would feel better if I didn't have such a bad attitude about the Reagan/Clinton/Bush years. The last two and a half decades will be remembered as the Age' [...]
By John Ballard
Found at Facing South
More links and details at the source.
By John Ballard
Let's hope the teabaggers can peek out from behind their American Flags today long enough to check out this report regarding immigrants in the armed forces.
Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY), and Russ Feingold (D-WI) have introduced' [...]
By John Ballard
This is something for Veteran's Day I came across several years ago. I posted it at my old blog with regularity since most readers don't read archives and items like this are unforgettable. The original link is still active but the formatting has become messy.
August 13, [...]
By John Ballard
I use the term in progress advisedly. In Washington terms like "progress" or "in progress" don't mean the same as when used in everyday conversation.
Pat Garofalo at the The Wonk Room compares the two versions of financial services regulatory reform being crafted in the House and' [...]
By John Ballard
Posted without comment.Today my little brother Bill would have turned 51.
Which means he's been dead almost 9 years. Can't quite understand that.
He was waiting for health insurance to kick in at his new job: We'd watched how medical costs had starved our family when we' [...]
By John Ballard
"Without objection..." (as they say in Congress) I'm stealing Ian Welsh's headline.
He gets today's extra points for squeezing the most content into the smallest space with this latest step in health care reform's laborious, turgid, messy, bruised and stained trudge through Washington politics, hopefully on the' [...]
By John Ballard
Speaking of denial, the tragedy at Ft. Hood (strategically scheduled exactly between Election Day and Veteran Day) prompts little in the way of soul-searching as many patriotic Americans close ranks for a stoning.
As a population we are quick to be in denial about the violent extremism [...]
By John Ballard
Denial is reaching pandemic proportions.
In the short space of a day I came across two more examples.
►►►Via NPR this morning, a new book by Michael Specter: "Denialism."
Nearly 20 percent of the families in Vashon Island, Wash., aren't getting their' [...]
By John Ballard
I haven't read it yet but this is a snip from my next reading assignment. I'm posting as I wait for the printer to finish eleven pages.
H/T Maggie Mahar's blog. Looks like pretty good content.
Followup later: It's an excellent article. Recommended reading. Notes and comments after [...]
By John Ballard
Mark Lynch poses more questions than answers about how best to confront extremism. His list needs to be widely discussed by both laymen and policy makers. This timely list was published just in time for the tragedy at Ft. Hood to trigger another round of public consideration [...]
By John Ballard
So you don't have enough on your plate?
Here's an off-the-wall take on some serious issues. Fasten your seatbelt.
Is human population expanding? Or dwindling? Should we neuter ourselves at the SPCA? Or multiply like the Octomom? The answer is... both?! Yes. Depending on your GPS coordinates, human numbers [...]
By John Ballard
Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is [www.hamiddabashi.com].
I heard a news reporter this afternoon refer to Iran's street demonstrations as "the biggest civil'" [...]
By John Ballard
Pay for what works. What a concept!
Oddly, no one seems to have thought about it before.
...Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare (the health insurance system for people connected to the military), the federal employees’ health benefit system, and private insurers have spent tens of millions of dollars on non-medical services, [...]
By John Ballard
Got a tweet from Crof about swine flu in Gaza.
Swine flu has not reached Gaza yet but with 1.5 million residents squeezed into 360 square kilometers it would appear to be a small miracle.By John Ballard
Okay, ya'll.
If and when it happens, just remember you read it here first.
Noriel Roubini is very smart. He was among the few economists who saw last year's economic collapse the year before. They don't call him Doctor Doom for nothing. So this most recent warning is' [...]
