Tell me, If there's a liberal media...

Why isn't this picture on the news?

Take a good hard look, Bush supporters. This is what you voted for.

This and thousands more dead children we don't have pictures of.

"We know that the only reason that this dead baby has his arm frozen to his lifeless face is that three years ago this week, George W. Bush gave the order to begin the unprovoked, unjust and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. He hasn't fired a single shot or launched a single missile; he hasn't tortured or killed any prisoners; he hasn't kidnapped or beheaded civilians or planted bombs along roadsides, in mosques or marketplaces. Yet every single atrocity of the war – on both sides – and every single death caused by the war, and every act of religious repression perpetrated by the extremist sects empowered by the war, is the direct result of the decision made by George W. Bush three years ago. Nothing he says can change this fact; nothing he does, or causes to be done, for good or ill, can wash the blood of these children – and the tens of thousands of other innocent civilians killed in the war – from his hands."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/march/

Fewer people died in Iraq than any other war ever.

I keep hearing this argument as though it makes the War in Iraq OK somehow. Asside from being factually false, it represents the sick,twisted logic you have to resort to to justify the unjustifiable.

This opinion comes I'm sure from someone who doesn't have the foggiest clue how many people died in every war ever, so it's kind of a "from the ass" statement to begin with, but let's just stick to American wars. Here's a list of American wars with fewer casualties than Bush's war in Iraq (so far --remember we're loosing more every day, so the number keeps going up).

War of 1812 2,260
Mexican-American War 1,733
Spanish-American War 385
Persian Gulf War 148

Now I'm not even counting stuff like Grenada and Panama or even Kosovo where we stopped a civil war (as opposed to starting one like this invasion has).

This is academic, however. Factual inaccuracy is the least of this argument's problems. Since we're loosing more and more soldiers each week, I wonder when the number will be high enough for chickenhawks to admit it's not the miracle that was advertised. What's the magic number where the price becomes too high? 3,000? 10,000?

What's the point? If fewer people died of AIDs than any plague that swept across Europe, should we inject ourselves with it? If the Green River Killer killed fewer people than any other serial killer should we invite him over for dinner? 2300 young sons, daughters, husbands, fathers not coming home to their families ever again is no big deal in this new crazy neo-con world I guess.

In response to people coming from Canada for better health care...

I know quite a few people who cross the other way to get their medication at reasonable prices.

http://www.ey.com/GLOBAL/content.nsf/Canada/Tax_-_Calculators_-_2005_Personal_Tax

The average tax rate for $75 k a year in Canada is anywhere from 21% to 32%

Our federal tax rate in that bracket is 28% http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html

(not counting state income taxes. So depending on where you live and what exemptions you have, you could be paying fewer taxes in Canada than in the US. (Now if you count their medical deductions then be sure and count ours both employer and employee and count L&I, etc).

Go to the CIA world factbook and look up life expectancies and infant mortality rates etc. I find it interesting that with our Bible Belt and Christian values, we have 6 times the % of people living with AIDS than Sweden where Gay marriage is legal (but I digress).

This is all academic. The point you are trying to make is a philosophical one. The government is trying to take control of our health care and somehow thereby our lives. I find this hard to believe --it seems to me there’s more motivation for ceos of health insurance companies to spend money scare us. I mean if we have universal health care, does Hilary Clinton get a huge bonus? What happens to her stock options? I don't think changing how our health money is handled to a possibly more efficient system is as much an invasion of our freedom as say The Patriot Act.

The government of this country IS the people. Therefore what you are saying is you don't want the American people controlling their health care, but rather some insurance conglomerates. At least the politicians you can vote out of office

tort reform and medicare vs hmos

The insurance industry itself has declared that caps on damages will not lead to lower premiums and, in fact, states with caps do not pay lower premiums nor have premiums fallen in states recently adopting caps. Why? Greed comes to mind. In fact, many insurance industry watchdogs feel the insurance companies are flat out lying when it comes to the profitability of medical malpractice insurance. Through the use of various accounting "tricks", insurance companies manipulate their profits and losses.

Right now I’m suing my insurance company just for the “uninsured motorist” portion of the policy I paid for. Proponents of tort reform would have me believe that out of the goodness of their hearts these kinds of companies will cut into their profits to lower their premiums if only we give up our right to sue for whatever amount we can get.

I am always amazed at the touching conservative concern for the plight of billionaires. Here's an interesting couple of facts to remember:

Medicare takes about 3% of the money in administrative costs. This means 97% (give or take 1% depending on whom you ask) goes to the actual health care of the recipients.

Health insurance companies take about 15-30% of the collected premiums for their administrative costs.

Why the big difference? Federal programs don't have to spend billions on advertising, corporate lobbyists, free trips for Tom Delay and Bill Frizt, giant bonuses and private jets for CEOs and board members etc. They don’t skim profits for their shareholders.

For people who won't admit that some things are better handled by the government I would suggest maybe a private military. Maybe Star Wars and the war in Iraq could be funded by private donations? How about we privatize the Police force? Heck right now we already have a privately owned congress. Don’t believe me? Just wiki Abramoff.

I don't shed a tear for the poor over-regulated billion dollar health care industry. It's the "over-regulation" of business that separates us from places like Mexico and apparently the Caiman Islands. But feel free, find me a country with smaller government and fewer social programs and less government regulation of business where it’s better to live than here. If you do I’ll change my mind.