Here is some trivia I stumbled upon having been directed there by a tweet. [Daily Linked]

• It is a matter of record that Canadian porcupines kiss one another on the lips.
• The world’s longest kiss took place on January 28, 2002. Louisa Almodovar and Rich Langly of New Jersey kissed for a record 30 hours, 59 minutes and 27 seconds on a segment of “Ricki Lake”.
• Matrimonial pollsters’ studies prove that a man who kisses his wife good-bye when he leaves for work every morning averages a higher income than does the fellow who doesn’t do that thing.
• In medieval Italy kisses weren’t taken, or given, lightly. If a man and a woman were seen embracing in public they could be forced to marry!
• Our brains have special neurons that help us locate each others lips in the dark.
• It is estimated that the average person will spend about 20,160 minutes kissing in their lifetime.
• You burn 26 calories in a 1 minute kiss.
• The first kiss ever shown in a movie was in 1896. The movie, was called The Kiss.
• Hershey’s Kisses got their name because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
• 50% of all people kiss before they turn 14. Kissing helps reduce tooth decay. Kissing increases the mouth’s production of saliva, and saliva helps clean the mouth thus aides prevention of tooth decay.

The daily ration of useless trivia.

Paul Reeves informs me there is a bill now pending in the House of Representatives, HR 676, by

Congressman John Conyers bill, HR 676, which would create a United States National Health Care Program (i.e. single-payer health care) was reintroduced in January.  HR 676 will expand the existing Medicare program into a national, single-payer health care program.

You can find the bill on OpenCongress.

Paul also wrote:

Right now it is being held up in committee — specifically the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Natural Resources committees.  (Keep in mind that a bill has to pass committee before it can be voted on in the house.)  Our very own Shelly Berkley and Dean Heller are members of the House Ways and Means Committees.  HR 676 currently has 78 co-sponsors, but will need a total of 218 votes to pass the house.

Hope this helps those interested in this issue informed.

Gail Munford of Las Vegas, wrote the following Letter to the Editor of the Las Vegas Sun which was published today:

Good for Cynthia Shiroky, who hit the nail on the head in her May 17 letter to the editor in the Las Vegas Sun supporting a single-payer health care system. We have a universal health care system with Medicare.

Medicare’s overhead is a minimal 3 percent, and it has an excellent, established distribution system throughout the country. How do I know this? I worked in Washington for Rep. John Conyers in 2003 when his health care bill, HR676, was totally overshadowed by the impending war in Iraq.

President Barack Obama’s plan has too many paths for people to use to obtain health care, and will become much too confusing to oversee, regulate and fund. Employers should not have anything to do with health insurance, as that’s exactly how the American automakers got into the trouble they are now mired in — having tremendous health care costs for both current employees and retirees that they had to add on to the cost of each car, rendering them noncompetitive with foreign car manufacturers.

Don’t listen to opponents of the single-payer system who tell you that your medical care will be in the hands of bureaucrats. That’s not true, and isn’t your care now in the hands of heartless health insurance company administrators who are just interested in the bottom line?

We could slowly add more and more Americans by age groups to the current Medicare system in a comparatively short time until we include everyone, and as Cynthia Shiroky wrote, the billing to one entity in a single-payer system will keep costs down as well as add innovations such as putting everyone’s medical records on a computer database accessible only to medical clients.

A single-payer system will for the first time give every American access to affordable and good health care. That is our right and don’t let public relations firms and lobbyists tell you otherwise.

See also: Republicans Fight Healthcare Reform and Single-Payer National Health Insurance

I had the task of dreaming up a communications system for the Nye County Democratic Party Central Committee.

I prepared a fairly detailed three page written report about what I thought a communication network should be comprised of and used.

I had to orally convey it at their meeting. As I feared, I think most were dozing off. Well, after all, it was rather boring stuff.

Boring or not, there is virtually no communication system in existence that allows the Democratic Central Committee and the rank and file Democrats to communicate with each other.

I’ll go so far as to say that I doubt there is more than a handful of the 9,000+ Democrats in Nye County, Nevada that can even name the current four members sitting on the Central Committee. Let alone what they intend to do, or not do, with respect to the Nye County Democratic Party.

I just finished writing about wikiHow. I began to explore that site a bit more after completing that post.

Lo, and behold! wikiHow has a whole section devoted to Education and Communications.

I don’t know whether any one on the Nye County Democratic Central Committee reads this blog or not, but if one of you do why not take a look at the wikiHow site and bone up a bit about communications with your constituents.

Understand, that without communications in the political party no one will get anywhere.

The Internet has a lot more on it than just silly stuff. When you roam (surf) around as much as I do you learn things.

I stumbled onto wikiHow. What the dickens is that? Well, it is a collection of How-To Manuals.

For example How to set up an inexpensive irrigation system. Or, how about How to make a rainstick? I don’t even know what a rainstick is. You can learn about How to treat a bee sting. They even show you how to eat Maple Seeds.

Take a look and see if you can learn how to do something.

I like genealogy. I wanted to know much more about my own father, who taught me so much. But knowing about him caused me to wonder about his father and his mother. Then, on backward to ancestors galore.

Finding out about my own father could have been much easier had he simply written an autobiography. But during life very few seem write their own life histories. I suppose for all kinds of reasons.

But think about it a minute. Inevitably, at some point in their lives your kids will wonder about you. Just who were you really, they’ll wonder.

Do them a favor and take the time to write your life’s history, then tuck it away where it can be easily found after you leave this earth.

You’ll find some help in doing it on wikiHow. So, get started.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will extend the same benefits to partners of gay and lesbian American diplomats as their heterosexual counterparts enjoy. [CNN]

“Historically, domestic partners of Foreign Service members have not been provided the same training, benefits, allowances and protections that other family members receive,” the notice says. “These inequities are unfair and must end.”

Kudos to Mrs. Clinton. Equal rights and benefits should extend to all persons. There is enough intolerance in the world. Human beings are human beings. We all deserve respect and equal treatment. So do same-sex partners.

Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun, reported today that Governor Jim Gibbons vetoed two labor bills.

AN ACT relating to health care facilities; requiring certain hospitals in larger counties to establish a staffing committee; requiring certain health care facilities to make available to the Health Division of the Department of Health and Human Services a documented staffing plan; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

The Governor vetoes the Act for the following reasons.

This bill mandates that each hospital in larger counties form a staffing committee to establish a staffing plan that addresses certain items such as nurse staffing ratios. A hospital’s license to operate is conditioned on the submission of such a staffing plan.

Although Assembly Bill 121 purports to address hospital staffing needs to ensure adequate patient care, the bill instead unnecessarily legislates in an area that should be addressed by medical professionals and health care management. Assembly Bill 121 could dramatically increase the costs of health care without a corresponding increase in levels and quality of service.

AN ACT relating to industrial insurance; allowing the provisions of certain collective bargaining agreements to supersede various statutory provisions relating to industrial insurance; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

The Governor vetoes the Act for the following reasons.

This bill would allow collective bargaining agreements to supersede state laws pertaining to industrial insurance. Nevada’s industrial insurance laws have been developed and refined over the course of many decades and many legislative sessions.

To allow collective bargaining agreements to usurp existing laws would lead to a plethora of unintended consequences, as those agreements are often written by and agreed to by individuals who are not experts in the field of industrial insurance. This bill could result in the preclusion of worker’s compensation benefits for workers who are currently entitled to those benefits pursuant to state law. Additionally, this bill could cause confusion and delay in the provision of benefits due to difficulties interpreting the language of varying collective bargaining agreements. Existing law allows workers entitled to benefits to choose physicians outside an approved provider list under certain circumstances. This bill could severely curtail if not eliminate the ability currently afforded to workers to choose a different physician. These are examples of only some of the unintended and harmful consequences to Nevadans that would result if this bill were to unwind years of legislative efforts and become law.

Today’s Las Vegas Sun has an article about how much influence and control the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has over the legislature of Nevada.

The business group succeeded in placing its key issues at the center of this session’s budget debate and helped frame the discussion by staking out a moderate position and getting key Republican lawmakers to buy in. The chamber’s demands became Senate Republicans’ playbook, with GOP lawmakers making support of any tax increase contingent on Democrats agreeing to enact the chamber’s recommendations.

The Chamber of Commerce and GOP generally work hand in hand for the benefit of business as distinct from people.

Attached as an amendment to the Credit Card Reform Bill that was signed into law by President Obama was a provision that permits guns to be carried into United States Parks.

That would make the National Rifle Association very happy and 2nd Amendment Rights people ecstatic.

It infuriates others.

Parks advocates are aghast at the notion of people packing pistols while coming to see Old Faithful or other national park treasures. The nation’s parks are special places, they argue. Current rules required guns to be stored and disassembled. The new law will take effect in nine months. [Las Vegas Sun]

How did Nevada’s elected representatives vote? Everyone of them voted for allowing the firearms in the federal parks.

Representative Dean Heller voted for the gun provision, but against the credit card bill. (Note: I don’t quite know how one can do that, but it is what the Sun reported.)

Senator Ensign, according to the Sun, was absent on the vote, he was playing golf in his son’s tournament.

The NRA applauded Senator Reid.