The DOW finished 2005 DOWN at 10,717.50.
2004 Close was 10,783.01.
Guess BuSh will have to find a NEW measure of the "Swell Job" the economy is doing.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
GOOD idea or BAD idea?
Star Tribune in Minneapolis may run the names of ALL KILLED IN IRAQ, or their front page, to pay tribute to them.
2. A Vietnam veteran has set up shop next to an Army recruiting station in Duluth, Minn., showcasing a sign that reads, "Remember the Fallen Heroes." It also carries the number of American troops killed in Iraq, the number wounded, and the number of days gone by since the war began.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
2. A Vietnam veteran has set up shop next to an Army recruiting station in Duluth, Minn., showcasing a sign that reads, "Remember the Fallen Heroes." It also carries the number of American troops killed in Iraq, the number wounded, and the number of days gone by since the war began.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
A fellow here in
What a terrific idea. HOPE it works.
BuSh has Bankrupt the USA, something no enemy has EVER done before.
They couldn't do it in WWI, WWII,
Monday, December 19, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
STOP BEFORE IT STARTS
Time Magazine names - Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, and Bono "Persons of the Year" for their work to eradicate such calamities as malaria in
It needs to STOP BEFORE IT STARTS. Condom Education attacks those problems BEFORE THAT START.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
There is a military psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg, N.C.,
that turns out what its officers call "truthful messages"
to support the United States government's objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan,
although its commander acknowledged that the stories are one-sided and their U.S. sponsorship is hidden.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
that turns out what its officers call "truthful messages"
to support the United States government's objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan,
although its commander acknowledged that the stories are one-sided and their U.S. sponsorship is hidden.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
Friday, November 25, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Computer Companies NEED TO PROVIDE SUPPORT
This ALL sounds GREAT, BUT, wouldn't it be BETTER if these companies
offered CUSTOMER SUPPORT WHERE WE WERE ABLE TO TALK TO AN ENGLISH SPEAKING PERSON?
Google is giving away $90 million to a new charitable foundation it started and another $175 million to nonprofit groups for what it Calls socially useful businesses.
Intel Gives away $72 million in cash and $17 million in equipment last year worldwide. Microsoft = $47 million in cash and $363 million in software to nonprofit organizations.
Google Gave $5 million to the Acumen Fund - $2 million to the One Laptop Per Child program
Google also gives free advertisements - worth $20 million so far this year - to organizations it feels worthy, in areas like human rights, environmental causes and poverty.
offered CUSTOMER SUPPORT WHERE WE WERE ABLE TO TALK TO AN ENGLISH SPEAKING PERSON?
Google is giving away $90 million to a new charitable foundation it started and another $175 million to nonprofit groups for what it Calls socially useful businesses.
Intel Gives away $72 million in cash and $17 million in equipment last year worldwide. Microsoft = $47 million in cash and $363 million in software to nonprofit organizations.
Google Gave $5 million to the Acumen Fund - $2 million to the One Laptop Per Child program
Google also gives free advertisements - worth $20 million so far this year - to organizations it feels worthy, in areas like human rights, environmental causes and poverty.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
MORE OF BuSh DOING NOTHING
MORE OF BuSh DOING NOTHING.
We are paying more for gasoline because - Last month, Exxon Mobil announced that its profits reached $110 million per day -- up 60 percent from this time last year
Bush should ask Congress for Criminal penalties for oil company executives who engage in price gouging. America's leaders did not stand for price gouging during World War II -- nor should ours today.
But we HAD A LEADER DURING WWII - Something we don't have now.
We are paying more for gasoline because - Last month, Exxon Mobil announced that its profits reached $110 million per day -- up 60 percent from this time last year
Bush should ask Congress for Criminal penalties for oil company executives who engage in price gouging. America's leaders did not stand for price gouging during World War II -- nor should ours today.
But we HAD A LEADER DURING WWII - Something we don't have now.
Friday, September 23, 2005
MORE THAN 300 SAFETY VIOLATIONS
BP - British Petroleum to pay record $21M safety fine to settle government claims of more than 300 safety violations after a March explosion and fire at its huge Texas City, Texas refinery that killed 15 and injured more than 170.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
THESE ARE THE GOOD GUYS
THESE ARE THE GOOD GUYS - The Regional Social Marketing Programme for HIV/AIDS Prevention, which is being organised by Population Services International (PSI), has been funded with $1.6 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and $943 000 from the PANCAP Global Fund Initiative.
• Condom Use: Population Services International - PSI targets risk groups such as commercial sex workers and their clients, migrant workers, truckers and intravenous drug users. The social marketing of male condoms has been found to be the most cost-effective of the six HIV/AIDS prevention strategies studied, averting an HIV infection at a cost of $10.
In Cambodia, HIV prevalence has dropped among the general population and among key high risk groups at the same time that condom use has been rising.
• Condom Use: Population Services International - PSI targets risk groups such as commercial sex workers and their clients, migrant workers, truckers and intravenous drug users. The social marketing of male condoms has been found to be the most cost-effective of the six HIV/AIDS prevention strategies studied, averting an HIV infection at a cost of $10.
In Cambodia, HIV prevalence has dropped among the general population and among key high risk groups at the same time that condom use has been rising.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
ENDING POVERTY
That BuSh is a REAL NUT CASE.
He shouldn't be in the White House, he should be in a HOME.
His latest project is to END POVERTY.
There is NO way to end poverty, without BIRTH CONTROL,
and that INCLUDES CONDOM EDUCATION.
But, he won't even talk about CONDOMS.
The Catholic Church's stand AGAINST BC is RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE POVERTY IN THE WORLD.
It is to the advantage of the Rich, to have a LARGER and LARGER work force, it makes for CHEAP LABOR.
2. Minimum/Living Wage = A wage that will, at least provide housing and food.
BuSh is against THAT too.
He shouldn't be in the White House, he should be in a HOME.
His latest project is to END POVERTY.
There is NO way to end poverty, without BIRTH CONTROL,
and that INCLUDES CONDOM EDUCATION.
But, he won't even talk about CONDOMS.
The Catholic Church's stand AGAINST BC is RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE POVERTY IN THE WORLD.
It is to the advantage of the Rich, to have a LARGER and LARGER work force, it makes for CHEAP LABOR.
2. Minimum/Living Wage = A wage that will, at least provide housing and food.
BuSh is against THAT too.
Friday, September 16, 2005
More Phony Baloney
<b> Promises. Promises.
Things I NEVER hear -
1. Did you happen to catch how BuSh plans to pay for ALL he Promised.
He is running up a HUGH bill.
2. Greedy Gouging Oil Companies talking about paying their share.
NO. They want a Tax Break.
3. Bragging Conservatives wanting to pay Their Share.
They will weasel out of it, by passing it on to OUR KIDS. </b>
Things I NEVER hear -
1. Did you happen to catch how BuSh plans to pay for ALL he Promised.
He is running up a HUGH bill.
2. Greedy Gouging Oil Companies talking about paying their share.
NO. They want a Tax Break.
3. Bragging Conservatives wanting to pay Their Share.
They will weasel out of it, by passing it on to OUR KIDS. </b>
Big Oil & BuSh
Before his speech in NOrleans BuSh stopped off in MS to see his Big Oil Buddies at Chevron.
Wonder if he asked them to reduce their RECORD PROFITS. Probably not.
Wonder if he asked them to reduce their RECORD PROFITS. Probably not.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
BIG OIL - Lets go after them.
JOHN L. SMITH writes a column for the RJ
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-03-Wed-2005/news/26986712.html
HE FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT!!!!!!
Maybe gasoline prices will drop if Big Oil, OPEC profits go even higher
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
This week,
Exxon Mobil Corp. announced second-quarter profits of $7 billion. That's a 33 percent jump. Royal Dutch Shell PLC's profits over the same period were $5 billion, and even relatively small Marathon Oil's earnings grew 91 percent.
They're really tightening their belts and taking one for Uncle Sam.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-03-Wed-2005/news/26986712.html
HE FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT!!!!!!
Maybe gasoline prices will drop if Big Oil, OPEC profits go even higher
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
This week,
Exxon Mobil Corp. announced second-quarter profits of $7 billion. That's a 33 percent jump. Royal Dutch Shell PLC's profits over the same period were $5 billion, and even relatively small Marathon Oil's earnings grew 91 percent.
They're really tightening their belts and taking one for Uncle Sam.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
Monday, August 01, 2005
NO CONGRESS or NO UN NEEDED!!!!!
We don't need a Congress or a UN -
BuSh operates alone.
He appoints Bolton.
AMENDMENT XXVII (adopted in 2001) to the OLD Constitution.
BuSh can do ANYTHING he wants.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
BuSh operates alone.
He appoints Bolton.
AMENDMENT XXVII (adopted in 2001) to the OLD Constitution.
BuSh can do ANYTHING he wants.
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
Saturday, July 02, 2005
NOVAK'S WHITE HOUSE SOURCE REVEALED???
Tonight on McGlocklin - Channel 10 @ PM
Will - Larry McDonnell will reveal that Carl Rove was Novak’s source for the Outing of Joe Wilson’s wife?
Previously, Rove had testified before the Grand Jury that he didn’t know WHO the source was.
Can you say - PERJURY?
Ken
Thursday, June 23, 2005
NO States Right Under Bush
Bush wants MORE ATOM Plants.
Where does he plan on storing the waste? NV.
Does NV Want Atom Waste Stored here? NO
I thought the GOP believed in State Rights.
Can Anyone Tell me ONE GOOD THING BUSH HAS DONE?
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Anothere 8,500 died today in Africa
Whatever happened to Bush's pledge to combat AIDS in Africa?
When President Bush introduced his global AIDS initiative in January 2003 -- calling it "a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts" -- the plan certainly sounded promising.
Bush pledged to spend $15 billion over five years to provide life-saving drugs to at least 2 million people with HIV, prevent 7 million new infections, and care for the sick and orphaned in fifteen countries.
Most of the money, the president declared, would go to sub-Saharan Africa, home to the majority of the world's 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS.
In the hardest-hit countries, nearly forty percent of the population is infected, and
12 million children across the region have lost at least one parent to the disease.
"I believe God has called us into action," Bush declared during a trip to Uganda in 2003. "We are a great nation, we're a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need, a brother and sister in crisis."
Dubbed the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the ambitious agenda provided the administration with some much-needed PR at the very moment it was preparing to defy international will by invading Iraq.
But from the start,
Bush has failed to deliver on the funding he promised -- and what little money he has provided is being used to promote a right-wing agenda that undercuts international efforts and puts millions of people in AIDS-ravaged countries at greater risk of infection and death.
Thanks to the president's foot-dragging,
his "emergency plan" took its sweet time getting going.
Bush requested only $2 billion for PEPFAR in its first year -- a billion less than one would expect.
Then, when Congress decided to approve $400 million more than the president asked for,
Bush unsuccessfully fought to block the increase.
By the time the first relief funds arrived in Africa, nearly a year and a half had passed since the president announced his plan -- a
costly delay in fighting an epidemic that claims 8,500 lives every day.
The administration insists it will meet its goal by 2008, saying it planned all along to gradually "ramp up" the program. But public-health experts say it looks increasingly unlikely that Bush will fulfill his promise -- and that even if he does, the money will fall far short of what is needed. According to UNAIDS, a partnership involving the World Bank and nine other international aid groups, the world needs to spend $20 billion a year by 2007 to wage an effective war against AIDS. What Bush proposes to spend annually, if funding remains constant, is less than half the $6.6 billion that America would be expected to contribute based on the size of its economy.
"The fact that the United States can spend $300 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but cannot find a relative pittance to rescue the human condition in Africa -- there is something profoundly out of whack about that,"
says Stephen Lewis, the secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The president's AIDS initiative, like his invasion of Iraq, is a go-it-alone affair that ignores the clear global consensus on how to fight AIDS. In launching his own initiative, Bush has shifted the bulk of U.S. money away from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international organization that has funded projects in 128 countries and is widely recognized as the best way to distribute AIDS funds. "Bush is starving the fund," says Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "It's despicable, frankly."
In addition to shortchanging international relief efforts,
Bush is using AIDS funds to place religion over science, promoting abstinence and monogamy over more effective measures such as condoms and sex education.
Before overseas groups can receive U.S. funding, for example, the
Bush administration requires them to take a "loyalty oath" to condemn prostitution -- a provision that AIDS workers say further stigmatizes a population in need of HIV education and treatment.
Brazil recently became the first country to rebel against the oath, announcing in May that it was rejecting $40 million in AIDS grants from the administration.
"What we're doing is imposing a really misguided and ill-informed ideology on top of a public-health crisis," says Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Bush's plan calls for an "ABC" approach to HIV prevention -- which stands for abstinence, "be faithful" and condom use -- but the administration is stressing the "A."
In its first year, PEPFAR spent more than half of the $92 million earmarked to prevent sexual transmission on promoting abstinence programs.
Studies show that such programs actually increase risk by discouraging contraceptive use. What's more,
focusing on abstinence and monogamy ignores the reality facing young women and girls in Africa and other impoverished regions, who are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food or shelter.
Among fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa, studies show,
more than three times as many young women are infected with HIV as young men.
"It's only a matter of time before the impact of abstinence-only programs can be measured in needless new HIV infections," says Jonathan Cohen, an HIV/AIDS researcher with Human Rights Watch.
The emphasis on morality is being driven by social conservatives, who have made spreading the gospel of abstinence and monogamy to Africans their primary mission.
"Condoms promote promiscuity," says Derek Gordon of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family. "When you give a teen a condom, it gives them a license to go out and have sex." At a congressional hearing in April, Rep. Henry Hyde threatened to cut funding for organizations that promote condoms. "The best defense for preventing HIV transmission is practicing abstinence and being mutually faithful to a non-infected partner," Hyde declared.
Nowhere is the effort by conservative Republicans to turn back the clock on sex education more pronounced than in
Uganda. By aggressively promoting condom use and sex education, Uganda has managed to cut its HIV rate from fifteen percent of the population to barely six percent during the past decade, making it Africa's biggest success story.
But under pressure from the Bush administration, Uganda has taken a dangerous turn toward an abstinence-only approach. In April, the country's Ministry of Education banned the promotion and distribution of condoms in public schools. To make matters worse, the government has even engineered a nationwide shortage of condoms, issuing a recall of all state-supplied condoms and impounding boxes of condoms imported from other countries at the airport, claiming they need to be tested for quality control. As of this year, a top health official announced, the government will "be less involved in condom importation but more involved in awareness campaigns: abstinence and behavior change."
The Bush administration is supporting the shift by pumping $10 million into abstinence-only programs in Uganda.
"One can put a dollar figure on the political pressure," says Cohen, who has closely studied the initiatives in Uganda.
"Groups know the more they talk about abstinence, the more they'll get U.S. funding.
And they fear that if they talk about condoms they'll lose funding -- or, worse, get kicked out of the country."
Ambassador Randall Tobias, who
serves as Bush's global AIDS czar,
issued written guidelines in January that spell out the administration's agenda. Groups that receive U.S. funding,
Tobias warned, should not target youth with messages that present abstinence and condoms as "equally viable, alternative choices."
Zeitz of Global AIDS Alliance has dubbed the document "Vomitus Maximus." He says, "I get physically ill when I read it. It has the biggest influence over how people are acting in the field." And under a proposal being pushed by Republicans on Capitol Hill, Tobias would be given the power to divert even more money toward promoting abstinence. "All Republicans can think about is making Africans abstinent and monogamous," says a Democratic staffer involved in the negotiations.
"It's the crassest form of international social engineering you could imagine."
The anti-condom order issued by Tobias is already having a chilling effect among the groups most effective at combating AIDS. Population Services International, a major U.S. contractor with years of experience in HIV prevention, says it can no longer promote condoms to youth in Uganda, Zambia and Namibia because of PEPFAR rules.
"That's worrisome," says PSI spokesman David Olson.
"The evidence shows they're having sex. You can disapprove of that, but you can't deny it's happening."
What's more, conservatives are attacking PSI for promoting condoms -- a campaign that prevented an estimated 800,000 cases of HIV last year. Focus on the Family recently denounced PSI as a "shady" and "sordid" organization that is leading Africans into immorality by promoting condoms. And in April, conservative Republicans in the House invited Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan minister, to Capitol Hill, to berate PSI and other public-health groups for "promoting promiscuity and condoms" in his country. This year, for the first time, U.S. funding for PSI has been reduced.
Groups that support the president's religious agenda, meanwhile, are beginning to receive money that has traditionally been devoted to more experienced organizations.
The Children's AIDS Fund, a well-connected conservative organization, received roughly $10 million last fall to promote abstinence-only programs overseas -- even though the group was deemed "not suitable for funding" by an expert review panel. FreshMinistries, a Florida organization with little experience in tackling AIDS, also received $10 million.
"Bush has enacted policies that will redirect millions of dollars away from groups that have experience fighting HIV and AIDS and toward groups that don't but are members of his religious constituency,"
says Cohen.
In the end, say public-health experts, the administration's diversion of funds away from tried-and-true HIV prevention methods is more than a misguided experiment -- it's a deadly game of Russian roulette that could mark a calamitous turn in Africa's attempts to get a handle on the AIDS epidemic.
As Bush fails to make good on his promises, Africans continue to contract HIV and die from AIDS in the same numbers as they did during the worst phases of the epidemic.
"People will look back and say,
'Why didn't they stop the dying?' " says Zeitz. "Why don't we show our compassionate selves?
What kind of country are we?"
(Posted Jun 02, 2005)
===============
[B]It is not ONLY Bush’s fault, but he is the World Death Leader - leading people to Death.
What is NEEDED is Condom Education -
His delay in fighting an epidemic that claims 8,500 lives every day.
Focusing on abstinence and monogamy ignores the reality facing young women and girls in Africa and other impoverished regions, who are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food or shelter.
more than three times as many young women are infected with HIV as young men.
And ALL YOU are doing is defending a Killing Program.[B]
===========
Is that what Jesus would be - a Lutheran?
[B]12 million children across the region have lost at least one parent to the disease.
"I believe God has called us into action," Bush declared during a trip to Uganda in 2003. "We are a great nation, we're a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need, a brother and sister in crisis."
But from the start,
Bush has failed to deliver on the funding he promised -- and what little money he has provided is being used to promote a right-wing agenda that undercuts international efforts and puts millions of people in AIDS-ravaged countries at greater risk of infection and death.
They are dying at the rate of 8,500 a day.[/B]
Another 8,500 died to day in Africa
Send me an Email - LVKen7@peoplepc.com
Whatever happened to Bush's pledge to combat AIDS in Africa?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7371950?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1118264073970&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1069
When President Bush introduced his global AIDS initiative in January 2003 -- calling it "a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts" -- the plan certainly sounded promising.
Bush pledged to spend $15 billion over five years to provide life-saving drugs to at least 2 million people with HIV, prevent 7 million new infections, and care for the sick and orphaned in fifteen countries.
Most of the money, the president declared, would go to sub-Saharan Africa, home to the majority of the world's 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS.
In the hardest-hit countries, nearly forty percent of the population is infected, and
12 million children across the region have lost at least one parent to the disease.
"I believe God has called us into action," Bush declared during a trip to Uganda in 2003. "We are a great nation, we're a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need, a brother and sister in crisis."
Dubbed the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the ambitious agenda provided the administration with some much-needed PR at the very moment it was preparing to defy international will by invading Iraq.
But from the start,
Bush has failed to deliver on the funding he promised -- and what little money he has provided is being used to promote a right-wing agenda that undercuts international efforts and puts millions of people in AIDS-ravaged countries at greater risk of infection and death.
Thanks to the president's foot-dragging,
his "emergency plan" took its sweet time getting going.
Bush requested only $2 billion for PEPFAR in its first year -- a billion less than one would expect.
Then, when Congress decided to approve $400 million more than the president asked for,
Bush unsuccessfully fought to block the increase.
By the time the first relief funds arrived in Africa, nearly a year and a half had passed since the president announced his plan -- a
costly delay in fighting an epidemic that claims 8,500 lives every day.
The administration insists it will meet its goal by 2008, saying it planned all along to gradually "ramp up" the program. But public-health experts say it looks increasingly unlikely that Bush will fulfill his promise -- and that even if he does, the money will fall far short of what is needed. According to UNAIDS, a partnership involving the World Bank and nine other international aid groups, the world needs to spend $20 billion a year by 2007 to wage an effective war against AIDS. What Bush proposes to spend annually, if funding remains constant, is less than half the $6.6 billion that America would be expected to contribute based on the size of its economy.
"The fact that the United States can spend $300 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but cannot find a relative pittance to rescue the human condition in Africa -- there is something profoundly out of whack about that,"
says Stephen Lewis, the secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The president's AIDS initiative, like his invasion of Iraq, is a go-it-alone affair that ignores the clear global consensus on how to fight AIDS. In launching his own initiative, Bush has shifted the bulk of U.S. money away from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international organization that has funded projects in 128 countries and is widely recognized as the best way to distribute AIDS funds. "Bush is starving the fund," says Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "It's despicable, frankly."
In addition to shortchanging international relief efforts,
Bush is using AIDS funds to place religion over science, promoting abstinence and monogamy over more effective measures such as condoms and sex education.
Before overseas groups can receive U.S. funding, for example, the
Bush administration requires them to take a "loyalty oath" to condemn prostitution -- a provision that AIDS workers say further stigmatizes a population in need of HIV education and treatment.
Brazil recently became the first country to rebel against the oath, announcing in May that it was rejecting $40 million in AIDS grants from the administration.
"What we're doing is imposing a really misguided and ill-informed ideology on top of a public-health crisis," says Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Bush's plan calls for an "ABC" approach to HIV prevention -- which stands for abstinence, "be faithful" and condom use -- but the administration is stressing the "A."
In its first year, PEPFAR spent more than half of the $92 million earmarked to prevent sexual transmission on promoting abstinence programs.
Studies show that such programs actually increase risk by discouraging contraceptive use. What's more,
focusing on abstinence and monogamy ignores the reality facing young women and girls in Africa and other impoverished regions, who are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food or shelter.
Among fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa, studies show,
more than three times as many young women are infected with HIV as young men.
"It's only a matter of time before the impact of abstinence-only programs can be measured in needless new HIV infections," says Jonathan Cohen, an HIV/AIDS researcher with Human Rights Watch.
The emphasis on morality is being driven by social conservatives, who have made spreading the gospel of abstinence and monogamy to Africans their primary mission.
"Condoms promote promiscuity," says Derek Gordon of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family. "When you give a teen a condom, it gives them a license to go out and have sex." At a congressional hearing in April, Rep. Henry Hyde threatened to cut funding for organizations that promote condoms. "The best defense for preventing HIV transmission is practicing abstinence and being mutually faithful to a non-infected partner," Hyde declared.
Nowhere is the effort by conservative Republicans to turn back the clock on sex education more pronounced than in
Uganda. By aggressively promoting condom use and sex education, Uganda has managed to cut its HIV rate from fifteen percent of the population to barely six percent during the past decade, making it Africa's biggest success story.
But under pressure from the Bush administration, Uganda has taken a dangerous turn toward an abstinence-only approach. In April, the country's Ministry of Education banned the promotion and distribution of condoms in public schools. To make matters worse, the government has even engineered a nationwide shortage of condoms, issuing a recall of all state-supplied condoms and impounding boxes of condoms imported from other countries at the airport, claiming they need to be tested for quality control. As of this year, a top health official announced, the government will "be less involved in condom importation but more involved in awareness campaigns: abstinence and behavior change."
The Bush administration is supporting the shift by pumping $10 million into abstinence-only programs in Uganda.
"One can put a dollar figure on the political pressure," says Cohen, who has closely studied the initiatives in Uganda.
"Groups know the more they talk about abstinence, the more they'll get U.S. funding.
And they fear that if they talk about condoms they'll lose funding -- or, worse, get kicked out of the country."
Ambassador Randall Tobias, who
serves as Bush's global AIDS czar,
issued written guidelines in January that spell out the administration's agenda. Groups that receive U.S. funding,
Tobias warned, should not target youth with messages that present abstinence and condoms as "equally viable, alternative choices."
Zeitz of Global AIDS Alliance has dubbed the document "Vomitus Maximus." He says, "I get physically ill when I read it. It has the biggest influence over how people are acting in the field." And under a proposal being pushed by Republicans on Capitol Hill, Tobias would be given the power to divert even more money toward promoting abstinence. "All Republicans can think about is making Africans abstinent and monogamous," says a Democratic staffer involved in the negotiations.
"It's the crassest form of international social engineering you could imagine."
The anti-condom order issued by Tobias is already having a chilling effect among the groups most effective at combating AIDS. Population Services International, a major U.S. contractor with years of experience in HIV prevention, says it can no longer promote condoms to youth in Uganda, Zambia and Namibia because of PEPFAR rules.
"That's worrisome," says PSI spokesman David Olson.
"The evidence shows they're having sex. You can disapprove of that, but you can't deny it's happening."
What's more, conservatives are attacking PSI for promoting condoms -- a campaign that prevented an estimated 800,000 cases of HIV last year. Focus on the Family recently denounced PSI as a "shady" and "sordid" organization that is leading Africans into immorality by promoting condoms. And in April, conservative Republicans in the House invited Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan minister, to Capitol Hill, to berate PSI and other public-health groups for "promoting promiscuity and condoms" in his country. This year, for the first time, U.S. funding for PSI has been reduced.
Groups that support the president's religious agenda, meanwhile, are beginning to receive money that has traditionally been devoted to more experienced organizations.
The Children's AIDS Fund, a well-connected conservative organization, received roughly $10 million last fall to promote abstinence-only programs overseas -- even though the group was deemed "not suitable for funding" by an expert review panel. FreshMinistries, a Florida organization with little experience in tackling AIDS, also received $10 million.
"Bush has enacted policies that will redirect millions of dollars away from groups that have experience fighting HIV and AIDS and toward groups that don't but are members of his religious constituency,"
says Cohen.
In the end, say public-health experts, the administration's diversion of funds away from tried-and-true HIV prevention methods is more than a misguided experiment -- it's a deadly game of Russian roulette that could mark a calamitous turn in Africa's attempts to get a handle on the AIDS epidemic.
As Bush fails to make good on his promises, Africans continue to contract HIV and die from AIDS in the same numbers as they did during the worst phases of the epidemic.
"People will look back and say,
'Why didn't they stop the dying?' " says Zeitz. "Why don't we show our compassionate selves?
What kind of country are we?"
Whatever happened to Bush's pledge to combat AIDS in Africa?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7371950?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1118264073970&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1069
When President Bush introduced his global AIDS initiative in January 2003 -- calling it "a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts" -- the plan certainly sounded promising.
Bush pledged to spend $15 billion over five years to provide life-saving drugs to at least 2 million people with HIV, prevent 7 million new infections, and care for the sick and orphaned in fifteen countries.
Most of the money, the president declared, would go to sub-Saharan Africa, home to the majority of the world's 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS.
In the hardest-hit countries, nearly forty percent of the population is infected, and
12 million children across the region have lost at least one parent to the disease.
"I believe God has called us into action," Bush declared during a trip to Uganda in 2003. "We are a great nation, we're a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need, a brother and sister in crisis."
Dubbed the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the ambitious agenda provided the administration with some much-needed PR at the very moment it was preparing to defy international will by invading Iraq.
But from the start,
Bush has failed to deliver on the funding he promised -- and what little money he has provided is being used to promote a right-wing agenda that undercuts international efforts and puts millions of people in AIDS-ravaged countries at greater risk of infection and death.
Thanks to the president's foot-dragging,
his "emergency plan" took its sweet time getting going.
Bush requested only $2 billion for PEPFAR in its first year -- a billion less than one would expect.
Then, when Congress decided to approve $400 million more than the president asked for,
Bush unsuccessfully fought to block the increase.
By the time the first relief funds arrived in Africa, nearly a year and a half had passed since the president announced his plan -- a
costly delay in fighting an epidemic that claims 8,500 lives every day.
The administration insists it will meet its goal by 2008, saying it planned all along to gradually "ramp up" the program. But public-health experts say it looks increasingly unlikely that Bush will fulfill his promise -- and that even if he does, the money will fall far short of what is needed. According to UNAIDS, a partnership involving the World Bank and nine other international aid groups, the world needs to spend $20 billion a year by 2007 to wage an effective war against AIDS. What Bush proposes to spend annually, if funding remains constant, is less than half the $6.6 billion that America would be expected to contribute based on the size of its economy.
"The fact that the United States can spend $300 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but cannot find a relative pittance to rescue the human condition in Africa -- there is something profoundly out of whack about that,"
says Stephen Lewis, the secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The president's AIDS initiative, like his invasion of Iraq, is a go-it-alone affair that ignores the clear global consensus on how to fight AIDS. In launching his own initiative, Bush has shifted the bulk of U.S. money away from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international organization that has funded projects in 128 countries and is widely recognized as the best way to distribute AIDS funds. "Bush is starving the fund," says Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "It's despicable, frankly."
In addition to shortchanging international relief efforts,
Bush is using AIDS funds to place religion over science, promoting abstinence and monogamy over more effective measures such as condoms and sex education.
Before overseas groups can receive U.S. funding, for example, the
Bush administration requires them to take a "loyalty oath" to condemn prostitution -- a provision that AIDS workers say further stigmatizes a population in need of HIV education and treatment.
Brazil recently became the first country to rebel against the oath, announcing in May that it was rejecting $40 million in AIDS grants from the administration.
"What we're doing is imposing a really misguided and ill-informed ideology on top of a public-health crisis," says Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Bush's plan calls for an "ABC" approach to HIV prevention -- which stands for abstinence, "be faithful" and condom use -- but the administration is stressing the "A."
In its first year, PEPFAR spent more than half of the $92 million earmarked to prevent sexual transmission on promoting abstinence programs.
Studies show that such programs actually increase risk by discouraging contraceptive use. What's more,
focusing on abstinence and monogamy ignores the reality facing young women and girls in Africa and other impoverished regions, who are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food or shelter.
Among fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa, studies show,
more than three times as many young women are infected with HIV as young men.
"It's only a matter of time before the impact of abstinence-only programs can be measured in needless new HIV infections," says Jonathan Cohen, an HIV/AIDS researcher with Human Rights Watch.
The emphasis on morality is being driven by social conservatives, who have made spreading the gospel of abstinence and monogamy to Africans their primary mission.
"Condoms promote promiscuity," says Derek Gordon of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family. "When you give a teen a condom, it gives them a license to go out and have sex." At a congressional hearing in April, Rep. Henry Hyde threatened to cut funding for organizations that promote condoms. "The best defense for preventing HIV transmission is practicing abstinence and being mutually faithful to a non-infected partner," Hyde declared.
Nowhere is the effort by conservative Republicans to turn back the clock on sex education more pronounced than in
Uganda. By aggressively promoting condom use and sex education, Uganda has managed to cut its HIV rate from fifteen percent of the population to barely six percent during the past decade, making it Africa's biggest success story.
But under pressure from the Bush administration, Uganda has taken a dangerous turn toward an abstinence-only approach. In April, the country's Ministry of Education banned the promotion and distribution of condoms in public schools. To make matters worse, the government has even engineered a nationwide shortage of condoms, issuing a recall of all state-supplied condoms and impounding boxes of condoms imported from other countries at the airport, claiming they need to be tested for quality control. As of this year, a top health official announced, the government will "be less involved in condom importation but more involved in awareness campaigns: abstinence and behavior change."
The Bush administration is supporting the shift by pumping $10 million into abstinence-only programs in Uganda.
"One can put a dollar figure on the political pressure," says Cohen, who has closely studied the initiatives in Uganda.
"Groups know the more they talk about abstinence, the more they'll get U.S. funding.
And they fear that if they talk about condoms they'll lose funding -- or, worse, get kicked out of the country."
Ambassador Randall Tobias, who
serves as Bush's global AIDS czar,
issued written guidelines in January that spell out the administration's agenda. Groups that receive U.S. funding,
Tobias warned, should not target youth with messages that present abstinence and condoms as "equally viable, alternative choices."
Zeitz of Global AIDS Alliance has dubbed the document "Vomitus Maximus." He says, "I get physically ill when I read it. It has the biggest influence over how people are acting in the field." And under a proposal being pushed by Republicans on Capitol Hill, Tobias would be given the power to divert even more money toward promoting abstinence. "All Republicans can think about is making Africans abstinent and monogamous," says a Democratic staffer involved in the negotiations.
"It's the crassest form of international social engineering you could imagine."
The anti-condom order issued by Tobias is already having a chilling effect among the groups most effective at combating AIDS. Population Services International, a major U.S. contractor with years of experience in HIV prevention, says it can no longer promote condoms to youth in Uganda, Zambia and Namibia because of PEPFAR rules.
"That's worrisome," says PSI spokesman David Olson.
"The evidence shows they're having sex. You can disapprove of that, but you can't deny it's happening."
What's more, conservatives are attacking PSI for promoting condoms -- a campaign that prevented an estimated 800,000 cases of HIV last year. Focus on the Family recently denounced PSI as a "shady" and "sordid" organization that is leading Africans into immorality by promoting condoms. And in April, conservative Republicans in the House invited Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan minister, to Capitol Hill, to berate PSI and other public-health groups for "promoting promiscuity and condoms" in his country. This year, for the first time, U.S. funding for PSI has been reduced.
Groups that support the president's religious agenda, meanwhile, are beginning to receive money that has traditionally been devoted to more experienced organizations.
The Children's AIDS Fund, a well-connected conservative organization, received roughly $10 million last fall to promote abstinence-only programs overseas -- even though the group was deemed "not suitable for funding" by an expert review panel. FreshMinistries, a Florida organization with little experience in tackling AIDS, also received $10 million.
"Bush has enacted policies that will redirect millions of dollars away from groups that have experience fighting HIV and AIDS and toward groups that don't but are members of his religious constituency,"
says Cohen.
In the end, say public-health experts, the administration's diversion of funds away from tried-and-true HIV prevention methods is more than a misguided experiment -- it's a deadly game of Russian roulette that could mark a calamitous turn in Africa's attempts to get a handle on the AIDS epidemic.
As Bush fails to make good on his promises, Africans continue to contract HIV and die from AIDS in the same numbers as they did during the worst phases of the epidemic.
"People will look back and say,
'Why didn't they stop the dying?' " says Zeitz. "Why don't we show our compassionate selves?
What kind of country are we?"
Monday, April 25, 2005
New Oil Refinery Score Card - China 1= India 1 = USA = 0
China and India to build NEW Oil Refineries.
US to build NONE. Saudi Endorses Idea.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B661C6D23-8275-4483-936D-E1C47D84B9F8%7D
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Who cares how many die?
The Catholic Church has decided THEIR DOCTRINE is MORE important than
solving the AID Pandemic.
They would rather let MILLIONS die than bend.
Bush is the SAME WAY.
I am talking about their stand on Condom Education.
Pitiful!!!!!!!
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Bush Chooses Iraqi's
23 million people live in Iraq
What makes THEM more important than the 35 Million that live in the USA that have NO health Insurance?
Do YOU have health insurance?
A REAL leader would have figured out a way to help BOTH groups.
How can ANYONE defend a leader that would choose to help OTHER people over
helping Fellow Americans?
Monday, March 21, 2005
What do they believe in?
Isn’t it hypocritical for the GOP to BRAG about being for -
States Rights - then Over ride the State Court as in the Schiavo case?
Less Government - Then vote for MORE Fed Control.
Less Killings - then Start a war.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
They BOTH used it!!!
I KNOW Hitler used it, but what other Current WORLD Leader
can you name that approved the use of - Torture and Propaganda?
DUMB???
If Kids are SO smart - How come they don’t use Condoms?
If Gays are SO smart - How come they don’t use Condoms?
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
World Bank? Another BAD idea.
PAUL WOLFOWITZ the guy responsible for the Invasion of Iraq
is being recommended, by BUSH, to head the World Bank. What say YOU???
Friday, March 04, 2005
DON'T TRUST COMPANIES
YOU KNOW companies will do the right thing. Here are some examples.
Chicago insurance broker Aon Corp. will pay $200M in case that accuses it of cheating customers.
Health Care Cost continue to rise - Why - Example - Florida sues Tenet
Florida is suing Tenet Healthcare Corp. - Hospital Operator - on racketeering charges inflated fees to obtain $1 billion in improper reimbursements from a Medicare fund.
Bank of America Corp., the No. 3 U.S. bank, will pay $460.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that investors brought over its role in the collapse of WorldCom Inc., the long-distance phone company.
Ad agency exec - Shona Seifert, recently convicted of conspiring to defraud the federal government.
Citigroup Inc. agreed to pay $75 million to settle a class action securities lawsuit.
Marsh & McLennan - will pay $850 million to settle charges it rigged Insurance bids.
Public Accounting Firms guilt of Conflict of Interest.
Companies continue to Raid Pension Funds.
So far, this year, Public companies have paid Securities settlements of $5.5B.
Is that Hard, NO, IMPOSSIBLE, to defend?
But, I KNOW you will TRY.
DON'T TRUST COMPANIES
YOU KNOW companies will do the right thing. Here are some examples.
Chicago insurance broker Aon Corp. will pay $200M in case that accuses it of cheating customers.
Health Care Cost continue to rise - Why - Example - Florida sues Tenet
Florida is suing Tenet Healthcare Corp. - Hospital Operator - on racketeering charges inflated fees to obtain $1 billion in improper reimbursements from a Medicare fund.
Bank of America Corp., the No. 3 U.S. bank, will pay $460.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that investors brought over its role in the collapse of WorldCom Inc., the long-distance phone company.
Ad agency exec - Shona Seifert, recently convicted of conspiring to defraud the federal government.
Citigroup Inc. agreed to pay $75 million to settle a class action securities lawsuit.
Marsh & McLennan - will pay $850 million to settle charges it rigged Insurance bids.
Public Accounting Firms guilt of Conflict of Interest.
Companies continue to Raid Pension Funds.
So far, this year, Public companies have paid Securities settlements of $5.5B.
Is that Hard, NO, IMPOSSIBLE, to defend?
But, I KNOW you will TRY.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Blockbuster - FRAUD and DECEPTION???
If you are late returning a Blockbuster movie - ALL THEY DO IS CHARGE YOU FOR THE FULL PRICE OF THE MOVIE.
NEW JERSEY SUES TO STOP BLOCKBUSTER AD CAMPAIGN
Alleges 'End of Late Fees' Claim Is 'Fraudulent and Deceptive'
The New Jersey state attorney gene has filed a lawsuit against Blockbuster
charging that the rental chain's "End of Late Fees" advertising campaign is "fraudulent and deceptive."
The ads, however, do not tell consumers that they will be charged the purchase price for the video if they don't return it within seven days or that they'll be charged a restocking fee if they return the video within 30 days, according to the suit. Ads do not "prominently disclose" that some franchised stores continue to charge late fees, the suit says. New Jersey officials are asking for restitution from Blockbuster to customers whose overdue rentals were converted to a sale, or those who were charged a restocking fee or a late fee by a non-participating store. The suit also asks for as much as $10,000 in civil penalties for each violation.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of residents of New Jersey, where there are 170 Blockbuster stores, takes aim at every step of the retailer's program. The suit notes a "very small, limited disclaimer" on the TV ads that says: "Participating stores only. See store for complete details." Radio ads offer the disclaimer "Details at participating Blockbuster stores."
Thursday, February 17, 2005
BUSH IS AGAINST AMERICAN HERO'S
*** What this boils down to is -
Bush and his bunch want the US to PAY compensation to Iraqi’s that were in Abu Ghraib,
but NOT to US HERO’S that were in the Same prison.
Can you say HYPOCRITE?
How did Bush get to be ON the Side of Iraq
and NOT on OUR side?
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The rationale: Today’s Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
The case abounds with ironies.
It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention.
Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago.
Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Condom Education
How can Unmarried people call it “Making Love” when they DON’T use a Condom?
People may be forever attached by the AIDS virus.
Nation's fastest-growing group of people with HIV: BLACK WOMEN.
WHO is it Bush wants to help???
Bush wants to stop helping cities replace aging sewage systems.
Clinton said he shares one idea with a former political foe, Newt Gingrich -- modernizing medical records.
China begins clinical trials on Stem Cells
China begins clinical trials on Stem Cells to help leukemia and other patients suffering from severe diseases. An injection of primitive mesenchymal stem cells developed by Chinese scientists. Pre-clinical trials for treating coronary disease, diabetes, liver failure and other severe cases.
Focusing on repairing damaged or malfunctioning tissue organs, is expected to greatly upgrade the efficiency in treating such serious cases. The human body is something like a "cell world" consisting of 1,000,000 billion cells in more than 200 kinds of different tissues. Those cells derive from stem cells with high potential in reproductive fission. Zhao's research team has isolated potent stem cells from bone marrow, that can be induced and then fuse into various tissue cells in a given body environment, so as to help patients repair and renew organisms. Zhao said the first phase of clinical experiments will conclude in three months.