Dennis Lund: The mandate of Obamacare: What can be done now?
“This bill represents a giveaway to the insurance industry — $70 billion a year, and no guarantees of any control over premiums, forcing people to buy private insurance …” — Dennis Kucinich
ERSTWHILE CONGRESSMAN AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DENNIS KUCINICH saw right through the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, when he made the above statement on MSNBC in March 2010. Unfortunately for America, the leaders of the Democratic party were willing to pull a fast one on the electorate by calling the bill a legally authorized government mandate, avoiding the ugly truth: Obamacare is an extensive tax increase as well as government intrusion into our privacy.
Unfortunately, judicial activism, something normally embraced by progressives, reared its ugly head as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, instead of ruling on the law as written, abdicated his sworn duty last summer:
“The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, and if he had he stopped there and correctly ruled the law to be invalid he would have been enshrined in an imaginary conservative hall of fame. Instead, for extemporaneous reasons, he continued by declaring that the mandate was in fact a tax, and therefore constitutional under the application of Congress’s taxation power. Read the rest of this entry »
It Occurs To Me: Cycles of attraction
By John Gavin
I TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO RIDE A BIKE — at least that’s how I remember it.
I think it was the summer of 1968, when I was about 4 years old. Dad was in the Army and stationed at Fort McPherson in Atlanta. We lived on post, in a home that faced a large rolling green. Between that green and our house was a sidewalk that led out to the street in one direction and further into post housing in the other.
The first mode of transportation I recall using to traverse the long sidewalk was a little red fire engine. You remember the one — it had pedals on the inside of it and a bell on the hood that you’d ring with a pull of the string. Read the rest of this entry »
Jerome Page: The skeptical road to catastrophe
MODERN SCIENCE IS A VAST INTERCONNECTED ENTERPRISE. Built into its structures and methods of functioning is the consistent principle that challenge may at times be extremely frustrating, but that all theory must be subject to challenge. What is far more than an irritation is the skeptical notion that theories of climate change developed over decades of research, testing and rigorous challenge are simply the proceeds of a crowd of exploitative money-grubbing opportunists. It is dramatically ironic that this notion, expressed by the Wall Street 16, comes from a collection of folks almost half of whom have a financial connection with the fossil fuel business, and only two with peer-reviewed climate research publications in the past three decades.
I open this column with several questions posed for me. Please note that though I have a degree in science, I claim absolutely no authority on this subject — other than an intense curiosity and a capacity to read! Read the rest of this entry »
Think, Dream, Play: Any nerd can do it
By Carolyn Plath
IN THE MORE AND MORE FREQUENTLY VISIBLE CATEGORY OF “Geeks with Too Much Time on Their Hands,” we find the HAPIFork. That’s right. The HAPIFork is among the new products on display at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
HAPIFork’s developers remind us that regulating the speed at which we eat may help with weight loss and blah blah blah blah blah!
They go on to say that it takes about 20 minutes for our stomachs to alert our brains that we’re full; and eating faster means we consume superfluous calories … before … the message is … delivered …
Oh! ’Scuse me. I nodded off. Read the rest of this entry »
Fiddle me this
BENICIA RESIDENT Annie Marie will perform with Diane Dutra and Maureen (Mo) Coyle as Fiddlaround, an acoustic trio that features Americana music at its best, at 851 Music Studio, 1043 Grant St. in the Arsenal, on Jan. 19 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15; reservations are suggested. Contact Rhonda Lucile Hicks at 707-747-0320 or rhondalucile@gmail.com for information or to reserve a seat. Courtesy photo
Contractor tells refineries: Accidents never need to happen
REPRESENTATIVES from each of the five Bay Area refineries, including Valero Benicia Refinery, discussed safety at a forum in Martinez on Thursday. “Who owns safety? Everyone in the plant,” Jeffrey Webber said.
Donna Beth Weilenman/Staff
By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter
There never has to be another refinery accident that results in the injury or death of a company or contractor employee, Jeffrey Webber, president of Altair Strickland, said Thursday.
The keynote speaker at the sixth annual Industrial Contractors Action Safety Team, or ICAST, safety forum said the biggest key to safety is creating a culture of aligned expectations in which everyone working at the refinery believes that the goal is realistic and achievable. Read the rest of this entry »
City Council to hear appeals on permits for I-680 billboards
Objections lodged to planned switch to LED
By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter
Benicia City Council will hear appeals Tuesday of the city Planning Commission’s decision to approve use permits that would transform some illuminated static billboards facing Interstate 680 into multiple-message, digital light emitting diode types.
The Planning Commission authorized the permits by split votes Nov. 29. All three signs are placed on city-owned property near the highway; one is the former Nationwide Auto Auction sign erected in 1999 but inactive since the company closed several years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
