Here is the 111th CONGRESS 1st SESSION H. R. 676 bill: “To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, improved health care delivery, and for other purposes.” It is a pdf file, 30 pages long and dated January 26, 2009. Just exactly how HR 676 relates to HR 3200, I don’t know. Section 501 of HR 676 says

Except as otherwise specifically provided, this Act shall take effect on the first day of the first year that begins more than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to items and services furnished on or after such date.

Here is Wikipedia’s coverage of HR 676. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not an authoritive site, but it is quite helpful in learning an overview so one can sort of put things in place. So I use it a lot. [Read more →]

YouTube – Wingnuts of the Week: Glenn Beck, Bill Maher & Racist Cop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4apBc87h5-A

via YouTube – Bill Maher: Birther Rant.

Bill Maher

I like Bill Maher [Bill Maher website]. I rarely miss his HBO show Real Time. His humor seems to me to be some kind of mixture of Will Rogers, George Carlin and Lewis Black. His Real Time HBO show airs live on Fridays at 10:00 p.m. PST.

I particularly look forward to his New Rules segment.

Last night, August 7, his New Rules feature was:

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn’t make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn’t put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing – in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It’s how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O’Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him. [Read more →]

Danny Tarkanian

Danny Tarkanian will run for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.

“I’m very concerned about the direction Senator Reid is taking us in Washington,” Tarkanian said Friday in a written statement about the Senate majority leader. “We simply cannot continue to allow our federal government to borrow, spend and bail out entire industries at the expense of future generations of Nevadans,” Tarkanian said.

Tarkanian has unsuccessfully run for a seat in the state Senate and for secretary of state. Tarkanian is the son of former Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian and Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian. [Las Vegas Review Journal]

Chuck Muth

However, Nevada conservative Chuck Muth, who recently launched a political action committee called Dump Reid PAC, said he doesn’t think Tarkanian is the Republican with the best chance to win the seat.

“Just 34 percent of respondents to a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll in July gave Reid a favorable rating, making him vulnerable to a challenger despite raising large amounts of campaign money. The statewide poll of 400 registered voters was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. from July 14 through July 15,” reported the RJ.

Glaciers worldwide are melting faster than anyone had predicted they would just a few years ago. It offers a clear indication of an accelerating climate change and warming earth, according to the authors. [CNN]

These changes are taking place in Washington State and Alaska in three different climate regimes,” said Edward Josberger, the lead researcher on the study with the USGS Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Washington. “So we feel it’s definitely something going on, probably on a global scale, and of course, if you look at other such measurements around the world and put it all together, yes, glaciers are retreating and retreating rapidly.”