More Unfair Taxing Proposed

Living in a rural area without access to public transportation, this would be horribly unfair. On an average, I drive 40 miles each way to work. It's 90% highway miles in a car that gets about 30 mpg. As it is, I fill up the 15 gal tank at least twice a week, sometimes more. If the system changes, people living in urban areas will pay the least (if they avail themselves of public transport or live close to work) but, as history shows, will benefit the most from road improvements. State roads tend to be the last repaired when compared to city streets, federal highways. And lord help you if you live on a dirt road!

Nope, not a fair solution at all.

Personally, I favor toll roads. People who use the roads pay for the upkeep -- especially the large trucks that are so hard on them.

Also, states should be forced to use materials that will last! That cold patch junk is useless. Black top should be thick enough to stand up to the weather.

clipped from www.cbsnews.com Taxing Miles Driven Instead Of Gas Burned? (AP) U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn. Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects. drawn complaints from drivers who say it's an Orwellian intrusion by government into the lives of citizens. Other motorists say it eliminates an incentive to drive more fuel-efficient cars since gas guzzlers will be taxed at the same rate as fuel sippers. Besides a vehicle miles traveled tax, more tolls for highways and bridges and more government partnerships with business to finance transportation projects are other funding options,

Who to Believe?

You see the ads on TV, in the popular magazines. They describe 'Exactly' how you feel. The finally understand your pain! Now all you have to do is bring this information to your poor, uninformed doctor. He's been out of school for a long time and probably hasn't seen the ads on TV explaining that the perfect drug for you is just a scribbled prescription away. Your salvation is at hand!

The only problem is, the drug company has an agenda. Profits.

The drug may have side effects that are worse than your illness. It may not work for you at all. Your insurance (if you're lucky enough to have insurance) may not cover the cost. You may not even have the condition they describe so well.

Fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of convenience: when all the other tests are negative, this is the diagnosis. But don't tell that to the drug companies...they have your best interests at heart...

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com Drugmakers’ push boosts ‘murky’ ailment WASHINGTON - Two drugmakers spent hundreds of millions of dollars last year to raise awareness of a murky illness, helping boost sales of pills recently approved as treatments and drowning out unresolved questions — including whether it’s a real disease at all. Fibromyalgia draws skepticism for several reasons. The cause is unknown. There are no tests to confirm a diagnosis. Many patients also fit the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and other pain ailments. Experts don’t doubt the patients are in pain. They differ on what to call it and how to treat it. But critics say the companies are hyping fibromyalgia along with their treatments, and that the grantmaking is a textbook example of how drugmakers unduly influence doctors and patients. Drugmakers respond to skepticism by pointing out that fibromyalgia is recognized by medical societies, including the American College of Rheumatology.

Study: Avoid routine X-rays for back pain

Part of patient education and responsibility should include all diagnostic tests. Weighing the risks/rewards can only happen when the physician is upfront and honest. If a test will not give an answer, it should not be ordered. Exposure to radiation coupled with the high costs associated with unnecessary tests should fall under the 'Do no harm' mantra.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com WASHINGTON - Routine use of costly X-ray, MRI and CT scans on patients with lower back pain may be unnecessary and, in the case of two of the tests, expose people to low-dose radiation, researchers said. Back pain is one of the most common reasons people visit a doctor or miss work. Experts say while most patients have no serious underlying condition causing the pain, doctors often immediately order imaging procedures that can check for problems like herniated disks, muscle injuries, arthritis or broken bones. "Some clinicians still do lumbar-spine imaging routinely or without a clear indication, possibly because they aim to reassure their patients and themselves, to meet patient expectations about diagnostic tests," or other reasons, the researchers wrote. Patients who insist on having an imaging procedure should be told of their limited usefulness, Kochen added.

13 Things To Keep To Yourself At Work

Going to the article will give great examples of each. What an eye-opener!

clipped from www.cnn.com Do you know what TMI is? Chances are you're either guilty of it or have been its victim. It stands for "too much information" and it's making daily life awkward for people across the country. 1. Medical history: 2. Confidential work information: 3. Plans to quit: 4. Online venting sites: 5. Matters of the heart: 6. Politics: 7. Salary information: 8. Religion: 9. Your privileged life: 10. Therapy sessions: 11. The Rubik's Cube that is your personal life: 12. Gossip: 13. Your Chris Rock routine: If you haven't suffered through one of these conversations, your time will come ... or you are a walking diary. Painful chitchat on a train is one thing, but workplace TMI is its own monster. At work, oversharing can damage your reputation, make your co-workers avoid you in the hallway and even damage your career. Here are 13 things you shouldn't share while on the clock:

Many, Many Steps Backwards

This is and will be a huge step backward for all involved, but especially for women.

Where is the outcry?

Allowing the Taliban even a small foothold will be a monumental mistake.

clipped from www.cnn.com Pakistani government does deal with Taliban on sharia law Story Highlights Pakistani Taliban's interpretation of sharia includes banning girls from school Deal with the Taliban comes after a visit by U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke Taliban: 10-day cease-fire in Swat Valley is good-will gesture towards government Critics warn that previous dealings with the Taliban have allowed it to regroup Next Article in World » It marks a major concession by the Pakistani government in its attempt to hold off Taliban militants who have terrorized the region with beheadings, kidnappings, and the destruction of girls' schools. Sharia is defined as Islamic law but is interpreted with wide differences depending on the various sects of both Sunni and Shia Islam. He said the government's decision amounts to a marriage of convenience made under duress. Pakistan's military operation in the region is unpopular among Pakistanis, but efforts to deal diplomatically with militants have not worked in the past.

More From the Article About Martyrs

"The world’s 2.1 billion Christians are a religious minority in eighty-seven countries. The Geneva Report of 2002 estimates that up to 200 million Christians are being denied their full human rights, as defined by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, simply because they are Christians. Since 2000, there have been forty countries where at least one verifiable death attributable to anti-Christian violence has occurred.
In Saudi Arabia, it is considered a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews. Apostasy from Islam warrants a death sentence. The Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks for elementary and secondary school children demonize Christians, Jews, and non-Wahhabi Muslims. The reports of harassment, surveillance, arrest, and torture of Christians in Saudi Arabia are too numerous to relate in this article.
The situation in India has become particularly problematic. According to the All India Catholic Union, a Catholic rights group, there have already been more 200 episodes of anti-Christian violence this year perpetrated by Hindu extremist groups. Among these acts are the gang rape of two Christian women, the murder of missionaries and priests, sexual assaults on nuns, ransacking of churches and convents, desecration of cemeteries, and Bible burnings.
The past year in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, saw three Catholic high school girls captured on their way to school and beheaded, a Christian market bombed, and the president of the country refusing to overturn a controversial death sentence looming over the heads of three Catholic men. International groups have recorded 134 reports of violence perpetuated against Christians by extremist groups since 2000, including church bombings, altar desecration, killings, and false imprisonments.
“Christians are, in fact, the most persecuted religious group in the world today, with the greatest number of victims,” reports Nina Shea.
“The most atrocious human rights abuses are committed against Christians solely because of their religious beliefs and activities—atrocities such as torture, enslavement, rape, imprisonment, killings, and even crucifixion. Roman Catholics, together with Protestant evangelicals, are the prime targets.”
Religious freedom is pivotal to a free society. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is the prerequisite for the exercise of all other basic human rights. . . . Where religious freedom is denied, so, too, are other basic human rights.

So the next time you think to tell me how wrong I am to believe in God, to trust that the Bible is truth, to pray for this country - remember that people are actually dying for these beliefs.

You don't have to believe, but can you stand by and allow others to be killed, maimed or imprisoned just because they believe? Because they pray? Because they try to improve the lives of people around them? So many people on this forum are quick to judge other countries treatment of certain groups. When will you defend the rights of these people?

The Greatest Story Never Told: Modern Christian Martyrdom

I'm not Catholic, just Christian. I decided to look this up because my faith comes under constant ridicule - called into question daily. Persecution does not require that I be physically beaten or killed. Verbal abuse seems to be rampant, not only on Clipmarks, but in general.

How soon before verbal attacks progress to physical attacks? It's happening all over the world already.

clipped from www.catholic.com Dying for Christ seems almost surreal to most Westerners. We live in a part of the world where Christianity rarely makes the news unless it is to be mocked or defamed. Otherwise, the media is strangely silent about modern Christian martyrdom. “Three things distinguish anti-Christian persecution and discrimination around the world,” said Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “First, it’s ugly. Second, it’s growing. And third, the mass media generally ignore or downplay its gravity.” The secular West has been looking the other way for a very long time. Even the average church-going Christian is not likely to know that 45.5 million of the estimated 70 million Christians who have died for Christ did so in the last century. While Christians in the secular West languish in spiritual mediocrity, Christianity remains a deadly serious matter almost everywhere else on the planet. Christians are a religious minority

What Will They Come Up With Next???

I LOVE Snopes.com...If you get an email that is just too weird, too good to be true, just too awful...it's usually bogus. Every once in a while, something is actually true, or a mixture of truth and lies. Snopes checks them out and tells the truth.

It's a fun site just to play around on when nothing else catches your interest.

Enjoy.

clipped from www.snopes.com 25 Hottest Urban Legends This page compiles the 25 urban legends currently circulating most widely, as determined by frequency of access, user searches, reader e-mail, and media coverage. Tuesday, January 27, 2009 Obama Acceptance Speech Virus Cell Phone Directory and Telemarketers Microsoft / AOL Giveaway Mail Server Report Swiffer WetJet   809 Area Code Scam #77 or *677 Cell Phone Notification Remus Reid #-9-0 Phone Scam Evan Trembley Pimple Ball Dog Toy Jury Duty Scam Applebee's Gift Certificates   Nancy Pelosi http: vs. https:   PPA Recall Alert   Reverse PIN Panic Code   Luke Air Force Base 'Life Is Beautiful' Virus Reachelle Marie Smith Burundanga Business Cards   Juval Aviv Jane Fonda and POWs Freedom of Choice Act Joshua Bell

Do you know people like this?

LOL - I just loved this!

clipped from my.yahoo.com

Reality Check

Listening to the news programs gush and fawn all week has left me slightly nauseated.

The reality is that more than 59 MILLION voters did not vote for Obama.

So, we'll see...

clipped from en.wikipedia.org Barack Obama 69,456,897 52.9% John McCain 59,934,786 45.7%

Student Loans

clipped from my.yahoo.com

Can You Imagine this Happening In the US?

I know people that call the doctor and if they have to wait 2 days for an appointment, will just go to the ER. And if you need a specialist (and it's not an emergency) a patient may wait 30 days or so.

But can you imagine if you had to wait over a YEAR??? And that's just for the consult.

The article doesn't say how long before procedures or surgery can be scheduled.

When we talk about Health Care Reform in the States, we picture something along the lines of cradle to grave care with the government footing the bill. Kinda like Denmark. Nice but it won't happen here.

A program like that in Ireland or England or even Canada would cause more protests than the Iraq war.

clipped from www.irishtimes.com Patients wait 480 days for appointment Figures produced as part of the pilot "HealthStat" programme, which compares performance in different hospitals, show that the Mid West Regional Hospital in Limerick had some of the longest average waiting times, among larger hospitals, for a consultant clinic outpatient appointment, writes Martin Wall The figures for the end of October reveal that the average waiting time for an appointment at a consultant clinic from the time of referral by a GP was 480 days in Limerick. However, within specific specialties in the hospital the waiting time for an outpatient appointment was longer. The figures show that the average waiting time for an outpatient department appointment to see a general surgeon was 600 days. At St James's in Dublin the average waiting time for an outpatient appointment to see a consultant was 100 days. In general hospitals, which would have fewer specialties, the picture for waiting times to see a consultant was also mixed.

Thought for the Day

A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa.

'The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago....Red meat is awful....Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining....Chinese food is loaded with MSG....High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in drinking water....But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it.
Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?'

After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said,
'Wedding Cake?'

Let The (political) Games Begin!

This would be entertaining if it wasn't so predictable.

clipped from news.yahoo.com Obama tax plan runs into opposition in Senate WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts are running into opposition from senators in his own party who say they won't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday said that tax portion of Obama's stimulus plan is unworkable. They were especially critical of a proposed $3,000 tax credit for companies that hire or retrain workers. Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota described it as "misdirected." The cost of the economic rescue package Obama wants is expected to swell to more than $800 billion or more. About $300 billion of that would be tax cuts or refunds for individuals and businesses.

No Surprise Here

Hamas continues to lob bombs into Israel and then cries foul when Israel fights back...
Now they won't go for a cease-fire unless all their demands are met. That is NOT negotiation, it is a continuation of criminal/terrorist behavior.

If this were happening in our backyard we would not have had the patience or the restraint of the Israelis.

Watching the demonstrations of TV - both sides - and hearing about all the different governments calling for a cease-fire I find one single element consistently missing: No one mentions how long Hamas has been pulling this crap and how many people they've killed and how much damage they have done. Why? Israel is a sovereign nation. They deserve to live in peace and occupy their land.

So much for 'objective' reporting.

clipped from www.cbsnews.com Hamas Rejects Gaza Cease-Fire CBS/AP) French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Israel had accepted an Egyptian-French cease-fire plan for the Gaza Strip, but Hamas officials in Syria told CBS News that they could not agree to the plan because it does not guarantee open border crossings or an end to a crippling blockade. Nicolas Sarkozy said the Palestinian Authority, which has not had any control in the Strip for more than a year, also agreed to the plan that was offered up by the French and Egyptian foreign ministers at the United Nations Tuesday night. In Syria, a spokesman for Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal told CBS News' George Baghdadi soon after Sarkozy's comments were made public that the militant group did not accept the terms of the Egyptian-French plan

heheheheheheh............

clipped from my.yahoo.com

Gotta Love Garfield!

clipped from my.yahoo.com

Easy Assessment Tool

It only took me about 3 minutes...As a nurse, I think this is so important because it's a cancer that hides for a long time, but is so easily cured if found early (age 50 or so). The polyps are removed during a colonoscopy and usually that's it! And we give really really good drugs for the procedure - the prep is what sucks.

clipped from www.nih.gov New Tool Developed to Predict Colorectal Cancer Risk A new online tool for calculating colorectal cancer risk in men and women age 50 or older was launched today, based on a new risk-assessment model developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. This new tool may assist health care providers and their patients in making informed choices about when and how to screen for colorectal cancer and can be used in designing colorectal cancer screening and prevention trials. An article describing the new risk-assessment model and a second article describing its validation appear online December 29, 2008, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The risk assessment tool is available on the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov/colorectalcancerrisk, and people using this tool should work with their health care providers to interpret the results.

Merry Christmas!

May your Christmas be Bright
May your Family be Blessed
May Joy & Laughter Ring in your Ears
May Love Fill your Heart

~And~

May you Bring the Same to Those Around You

~And~

May the New Year Bring Health, Prosperity and Love
To You and Yours

From My House to Yours
Blessings

Obama's Choice..

Apparently, you're only allowed free choice when certain people like it.

Fair weather supporters want what they want and will bitch and moan when they don't get exactly what they want.

So much for 'inclusion' and 'diversity' and 'open discussion' spouted by the liberal far left.

clipped from www.cnn.com Obama's inaugural choice sparks outrage (CNN) -- Prominent liberal groups and gay rights proponents criticized President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday for choosing evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration next month. Warren, one of the most influential religious leaders in the nation, has championed issues such as a reduction of global poverty, human rights abuses and the AIDS epidemic. "There is no substantive difference between Rick Warren and James Dobson," Kolbert said. "The only difference is tone. His tone is moderate, but his ideas are radical." Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama, defended the choice of Warren, saying, "This is going to be the most inclusive, open, accessible inauguration in American history." His book "The Purpose Driven Life" has sold more than 20 million copies since it was first published five years ago, and Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in 2005.