This video speaks for itself.
The real death panels are the insurance companies that deny care.
Only in America.
12 Charged With Running Major Marijuana Ring; Who Cares?
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
For the last five years, John Duzicky and James Gleason have been dues-paying members of the Sewickley Heights Manor Homes Association, leading quiet lives in the upscale Aleppo housing development with manicured lawns and tennis courts.
At the same time, they played leading roles in a drug ring that smuggled thousands of pounds of Mexican marijuana from Arizona to Allegheny and Beaver counties, bringing more than $2 million worth of the drug here between 2007 and 2009, according to a grand jury presentment.
State Attorney General Tom Corbett yesterday announced that Mr. Duzicky, Mr. Gleason, and 10 other men face charges of conspiracy, drug possession and possession with intent to deliver.
“The drug organization dismantled today represents just one of thousands of criminal enterprises across the country involved in the illegal trafficking of narcotics across the border form Mexico,” Mr. Corbett said during a news conference at the Sewickley police station, with 30 pounds of marijuana on a table in front of him.
Mr. Duzicky, 37, is being held at a prison in Arizona, as are Larry and Richard Catlin, brothers who routinely carried marijuana from the southwest to Pennsylvania in trucks with secret compartments, Mr. Corbett said.
According to the attorney general, Mr. Duzicky was the leader of the drug ring, and he had been smuggling pot from Arizona, where he also has a home, since 1990.
Who cares? Why are we locking people up for marijuana-related offenses? Stop the madness already!
Stephen Amidon: Why I Love Britain’s Socialized Healthcare System
Stephen Amidon, an American from New Jersey, learned to appreciate the U.K.’s socialized healthcare system when his newborn daughter was born very sick in London.
I was initially skeptical about the NHS. I’d grown up comfortably in suburban New Jersey; good private healthcare was always immediately available through my father’s insurance. When my English wife became pregnant soon after we settled in London, I was alarmed by the idea of having our first child born in a system I had been told was underfunded, overstressed and inefficient. After all, healthcare in the UK was free. How good could it be? Friends and relatives back in the States were spending thousands to have children. If you get what you pay for, I was about to get a whole lot of nothing.
[…]This, I learned, is what the NHS is about — common decency. It is about the shared belief that all the people who live in the United Kingdom constitute a society, and a decent society provides certain necessities for its members. Freedom from hunger is one. Police protection is another. Free healthcare from the cradle to the grave is simply one more item on this list.
I saw this decency at work countless times over the following decade, until my return to the United States. I saw it with the twice-daily home visits by community midwives for the fortnight after each of our newborn children’s release from hospital, and in the vouchers for free milk we were given for those babies. I saw it when our GP paid us a house call early one Sunday morning to treat our son’s spiking fever.
I saw it most clearly, however, in the treatment my in-laws received at the end of their lives…
11-year-old Adonis Bell Saves His Family
Adonis Bell saved the lives of his family early Wednesday morning when a fire broke out in his grandma’s Roselind two-flat.
At 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, the 11-year-old woke up when a fan started pushing heavy black smoke into the room where he slept.
He was the only one in his grandma’s Roseland two-flat to notice.
Barefoot in a tank top and jogging pants, Adonis went to the kitchen where he saw the ceiling on fire near his bedroom — billowing black smoke and orange flames that were gnawing a giant hole above the kitchen stove.
The boy remained calm.
“I knew what to do,” Adonis said. “A fireman came to our school.”
He ran to wake his mother, who told him to get his 2-year-old godsister, Jordan Hobbs, out of the house.
That’s what the fireman at school said, too. “Get myself and everybody out. He told us not to grab any stuff,” Adonis remembered. “Just get out.”
Firefighters tell us every second counts in a structure fire. I saw a controlled demonstration of such a fire once in Park Forest. The flames grew tall and hot very fast.
Quick thinking, Mr. Bell. Kudos to you, sir. You saved the lives of every member of your family in the house that night.
Mayor Daley, this young man deserves official recognition from your office. He’s one of Chicago’s finest.
Lutherans Overwhelmingly Approve Sexually Active Gays as Clergy
First, the news from WTAE in Pittsburgh:
MINNEAPOLIS — The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination took openly gay clergy more fully into its fold Friday, as leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to lift a ban that prohibited sexually active gays and lesbians from serving as ministers.
Under the new policy, individual ELCA congregations will be allowed to hire homosexuals as clergy as long as they are in a committed relationships. Until now, gays and lesbians had to remain celibate to serve as clergy.
The change passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA’s national assembly. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance.
“I have seen these same-gender relationships function in the same way as heterosexual relationships — bringing joy and blessings as well as trials and hardships,” the Rev. Leslie Williamson, associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Des Plaines, Ill., said during the hours of debate. “The same-gender couples I know live in love and faithfulness and are called to proclaim the word of God as are all of us.”
Conservative congregations will not be forced to hire gay clergy. Nevertheless, opponents of the shift decried what they saw as straying from clear Scriptural direction, and warned it could lead some congregations and individual churchgoers to split off from the ELCA.
“This will cause an ever greater loss in members and finances. I can’t believe the church I loved and served for 40 years can condone what God condemns,” said the Rev. Richard Mahan, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W.Va. “Nowhere in Scripture does it say homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable to God. Instead, it says it is immoral and perverted.”
So, while the vote was very positive, there are still those who condemn the decision.
But it passed.
An interesting insight from a gay man:
Tim Mumm, a gay man and an assembly delegate from Whitewater, Wis., said the Scripture that guides opponents of the more liberal policy was written by mortals, at a much earlier time, and doesn’t reflect what many Christians now believe.
“I believe for me to marry a woman would be wrong — even sinful,” Mumm said.
I never thought about it that way before, that it would be considered sinful for a gay man to marry a woman.
Look, I don’t want to hear from atheists and agnostics decrying organized religion. Whether you go believe in God or not, this is a huge step forward for gays and lesbians. And the Lutherans have decided to lead.
Health Insurance Industry: Home of the Real ‘Death Panels’
Commentary from Courage Campaign:
Our "Insurance Jive" video shows that insurance companies actually operate de facto "death panels" — and demonstrates why we must demand that a strong public option be included in health care reform.
Send this video to your friends and help spread a progressive message that shows why reform is so desperately needed.
Visit http://www.couragecampaign.org now to take action.
‘It’s a Great Day for America, Everybody!’ I Love Craig Ferguson
I love the Late, Late Show with Criag Ferguson.
I just want to say that once. Ferguson rocks.
Enjoy the above video, completely random, plucked from the CBS Web site.
Patrick Kane Pleads Not Guilty; Looks So, So Young
I really feel for Patrick Kane’s parents.
As the father of a 23-year-old, I can’t imagine what these two are going through watching their 20-year-old son paraded in front of the cameras over misdemeanor charges for allegedly roughing up a cab driver.
He looked every one of his 20 years as he spoke to the press.
Kane is lucky he was not charged with a felony.
Blackhawks star winger Patrick Kane and his cousin pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges in Buffalo, N.Y. Thursday for allegedly roughing up a cab driver during an argument.
“Today was a tough day for us,” Kane, 20, said following his afternoon arraignment, which lasted about five minutes.
“You know, I just reiterated to the judge that I’m not guilty of any crime. . . .Right now, much more can’t be said. I’m confident in the legal process. I believe in it, and hopefully this time will be behind me.”
On Wednesday, an Erie County, N.Y. grand jury threw out the more serious second-degree robbery felony charges against Kane and his cousin, James Kane, 21, but indicted them on third-degree assault, theft of services and harassment.
The cousins’ next court date is scheduled for Thursday morning, but they are not required to appear at that hearing.
The pair, who are free without bail, are allegedly working on a plea agreement, according to the Buffalo News.
Click on the link above and read the Sun-Times’ account of the incident. It sounds bad.
Mom and Dad, you’ll get through this. But your son must face the music.
Don’t Mess with a Chicago Firefighter
Two men are in custody in Chicago after allegedly beating a Chicago firefighter Wednesday.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
After 9/11, you don’t even want to think about messing with a firefighter. And particularly not a Chicago firefighter.
Police caught the alleged offenders in the act.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Blood stained the sidewalk Wednesday near Dickens and Halsted, a posh Lincoln Park corner where you can get a fancy French meal, buy expensive shoes and practice yoga.
That’s the spot where Chicago firefighter Matt Jones was brutally beaten about 4 that morning by two attackers who are now in custody, police said.
Matt Jones won the “top physical achiever” award in his Chicago Fire Academy class. He graduated from the academy Feb. 1.
Jones, 24, was listed in critical but stable condition with a shattered trachea in Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center’s intensive care unit. He also suffered a broken nose, internal bleeding and a damaged lung, according to a law enforcement source.
When police patrolling the area arrived, one attacker was punching Jones while another man stomped on his head, police said.
As officers got out of their squad car, one of the attackers took two steps, kicked Jones in the face and tried to run away, a source who was briefed by police said.
The two had been drinking, police said. Of course.
I know there’s a horrible propensity in our culture to blame the victim. However, according to all reports, Matt Jones sounds like a great guy.
I suspect these guys are going to live to regret this alleged beating in more ways than one.