On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:44:45 -0800, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

"jps" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:31:04 -0800, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

"Tom Francis - SWSports" wrote in
message ...
"New York City health officials scrambled to explain themselves on
Thursday following outraged media reports about bankers who got scarce
H1N1 flu vaccines through their employers.

Members of Congress fired off letters demanding immediate explanations
and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminded state
and city health officers of the need to make sure the most vulnerable
people get shots first."

"....16 of the city's 25 biggest employers had vaccine, including
Columbia University, Citi Group and others, as well as the Federal
Reserve Bank, which is not among the top 25 employers."

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...5A44QI20091105

A report on CNBC today indicated that - heh, who would have figured
this - that Goldman Sachs executives and high level employees got
their swine flu shots almost as soon as the vaccine was released.

CITIgroup was another beneficiary of Hope and Change.

Kathleen Sebelius is incompetent and should be fired immediately.
She's in charge and she blew it.

The best part? All that vaccine that's supposed to come online in
December?

It's behind schedule by 30 days.

~~ snerk ~~


You sound like an extraordinary optimist. It's nice to know that your
expectations of Obama and all the 1000s of employees are so high that you
would expect, nay demand, that on the day after inauguration day all of
the
problems with gov't would be solved. I'm a pretty optimistic person, but
you
really have me beat!

But, I have hope that some day, I'll be as optimistic as you...

I had the expectation that once Bush got in office, things would get
worse. He never disappointed me.


Honestly, I was dismayed when Bush took office, but the economy was humming
along, and since he was mostly on vacation, I figured it wouldn't be too
bad. Sure, some social programs would be gutted, but then people would wise
up and vote him out in four years.

Then 9/11 came, and he seemed to be hitting the right mark. Then, it all
went off the tracks when the Iraq invasion was being pushed. Several of my
friends said he was lying, but I said I didn't think so, even though I
thought the weapons inspectors should have been given more time. I remember
Rice talking about the "mushroom cloud" scenario. We were all still jittery
after the bombings. I didn't believe he or Cheney would lie about something
like WMDs, and everyone thought Saddam was a very bad customer. I was even
more convinced when Powell sat in front of the UN and made the claims he
did.

Then, as the first few months passed, the lies became transparent, obvious.
It all went down hill from there. But, I was still hopeful that the American
people would figure it out, esp. with Kerry, a true war hero running. We
know what happened then. More filthy lies and more eroding of our civil
liberties. Now Obama is trying to undo some of Bush's crap, including the
economic mess. It's going to take a while, and I give him latitude to try.

Others clearly are not interested in that. Fear-bases strategies are very
effective. We need to be vigilant. We saw what happened the last time we let
down our guard.

I think half our guard is on permanent vacation. Between religion, a
bad case of affluenza, rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, the
middle class under assault, civics no longer a part of our society,
fear-based politics, divisive issues... we have lost track of the
ball. We don't know if we're on offense or defense, what the rules
are, what we stand for, what we need to protect, what we should try to
affect and what's beyond our means. Washington is a cesspool of
scheming and greed.

The latest thing to capture our imagination is recovering from Bush
and Cheney.

It's not a very exciting endeavor to recover but it's worth the
investment. It's worth investing in our own infrastructure instead of
destroying someone else's and paying to rebuild their country.

What happened to being interested in the welfare of our country?

Did it die after WWII? Is that the last time we were really
threatened and needed to pull together? I think we're lost. We've
lost touch with our values, ideals, goals.

Now we're into protecting against the next guy. It's not the hostile
country, it's the hostile neighbor. We've grown small and petty.

Look at the fight we're having over health care. People are angrier
about this than sending our troops into harms way for no good
reason???

We have a chance to focus on what's next but we're having to overcome
the inertia of Bush, wars, state-side spying, a devisive election,
etc. I hope we find our focus and a way to rebuild. This is a
frightening time, not based on the fear they're trying to sell.