Here’s the quote from the article. Read this and then let’s discuss.

An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors “need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle.”

More than half of randomly surveyed adults — 57 percent — said God’s intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.

When asked to imagine their own relatives being gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.

The first thing I’d like to know is what is the demographic of the people they surveyed. For all we know they could have surveyed 100 religious extremist freaks who also believe they don’t need to work because, “God will provide.” Sure, it says its a random survey but I want more details.

I know that when someone you care about is sick or dying people are going to pray that they survive. Regardless of how religious a person is, praying always seems to be an instinctive reaction to a situation like that. But as soon as you start saying that God has more power than the doctors I start to say, “Whoa, wait a minute here people.”

What scares me here is not the people who keep praying long after the doctor says that there is nothing more they can do. What scares me are the people who ignore doctors because they believe that God will take care of them.

Guess what people? If there is a God out there, he created doctors for a reason.

(Full News Story)

Here is an article written by some ignorant SOB basically stating that Libertarians want to live in a Grand Theft Auto type world. You know like GTA IV where the game takes place in Liberty City. He is stating that Libertarians support lawlessness and chaos.

This dude can kiss my ass. The real definition of a Libertarian is someone who believes in freedom, limited government and self-sufficiency. This also includes the freedom of someone to conduct themselves in a manner that you may not approve of, just so long as they don’t violate your or anyone else’s right to life, liberty or property through force or fraud. Here are some excerpts from this ridiculous article from The Chattanoogan:

Libertarianism, a fairly new movement in the United States, is propounded by politicians, business people and pundits. They say it is the only way America can regain its pre-eminence in the world. But it is really just another name for egotism, narcissism, and sociopathic behavior.

It is not a new way of thinking, but is based in erroneous aristocratic assumptions regarding wealth, power and position that are still held by many. They believe they are smarter, better, and therefore, more deserving than the rest of us.

Many high achievers (and those who believe they should be, but…) act as if they are aristocrats. They deserve to be treated in a special way, socially, in business and legally. Other people believe they are to be treated aristocratically because of their birth into the right family, education in the right schools and position in the right society. They think they should not have to pay a fair share of taxes, have laws limit their actions, or be critiqued for their lifestyles.

Instead, they deserve to have several McMansions and condos and to buy up huge tracts of land for their own use, posting it to prevent others from enjoying it. And, of course, they imply, “Don’t question us about paying for what we have. After all, we’ve got money, even if we also have huge debts.”

The money they made is frequently not due to inventiveness or even hard work. Instead it is made by cooking books, cutting corners, ignoring laws, and making false (or at a minimum very questionable) statements in documents, contracts and advertisements. They also prey on people’s weaknesses, pride and greed, but mainly on their ignorance …

… In the last century, the communist governments in the USSR and China as well as Nazism were built on this same line of thinking. “Trust us, we’ve got all the answers.” In totalitarian societies, the elite reserve the best for themselves and give the masses only enough to keep them from rioting. Do we want that kind of life in America?

Yet the Libertarians think just like this. They pose it as liberty and freedom, but they really mean anarchy. They also propose getting rid of laws that help us uphold moral standards. Some people would like that, but would that create a land in which you would want to live?

Libertarianism would create a nice life for the leaders, but the common people and middle class would suffer to support them in their luxury. It took two centuries of revolutions in America, Europe and then around the world to overthrow the aristocratic systems. Let’s not give Libertarians a chance to take us back to the “good old days” (for the rich and powerful that is).

Read the full story.

I sat down last night to watch some Olympic coverage. First up in the lineup was synchronized diving. I was getting into it until I realized that the commentators were idiots and I was ready to stop watching altogether just because of them.

I can hear you asking me, “But Kevin, what could they have possible said that was so bad?”

It was ridiculous just how much they were kissing the Chinese divers’ asses. I mean come on now people. The Americans would get criticized badly for their minor mistakes but the Chinese would get praised regardless of what they did.

At one point the female commentator (whose name I don’t care to know) actually said (and I’m paraphrasing) - the Chinese had a few minor mistakes but they are just so great that it was a great dive.

I don’t remember her exact words but the point she was making is that since they are great divers they can do no wrong. Well hell, let’s just forgo the competition and give them gold since they are so great and completely infallible.

The United States social security system is bankrupt and the reason is because people are living longer and baby boomers are starting to retire. There have been talks about privatizing social security where the worker gets to decide how much and where to save their money. Currently, the country of Chile has a private social security system and are having great success with it. Did you know that if we privatized social social security and our medicare programs, we could get rid of the income tax and just have a 10% federal sales tax? Anyways, here is how the Chile reformed their social security system.

Chile had a pay-as-you-go system, just like us. But, the pay-as-you-go program is a system that is failing all over the world. Chile knew that they would need to make some major changes like increasing the retirement age and increasing taxes. They understood that the pay-as-you-go system had a fundamental flaw, one rooted in a false conception of how human beings behave. That flaw was lack of a link between what people put into their pension program and what they take out. In a government system, contributions and benefits are unrelated because they are defined politically, by the power of pressure groups.

So they decided to go in the other direction, to link benefits to contributions. The money that a worker pays into the system goes into an account that is owned by the worker. They called the idea a “capitalization scheme.”

They decided that the minimum contribution should be 10 percent of wages. But workers may contribute up to 20 percent. The money contributed is deducted from the worker’s taxable income. The money is invested by a private institution, and the returns are untaxed. By the time a worker reaches retirement age–65 for men, 60 for women–a sizable sum of capital has accumulated in the account. At retirement the worker transforms that lump sum into an annuity with an insurance company. He can shop among different insurance companies to find the plan that best suits his personal and family situation. (He pays taxes when the money is withdrawn but usually at a lower rate than he would have paid when he was working.)

The worker can contribute more than 10 percent if he wants a higher pension or if he wants to retire early. Individuals have different preferences: some want to work until they are 85; others want to go fishing at 55, or 50, or 45, if they can. The uniform pay-as-you-go social security system does not recognize differences in individual preferences. In Chile, those differences had led to pressure on the congress to legislate different retirement ages for different groups. As a result, they had a discriminatory retirement-age system. Blue-collar workers could retire at 65; white-collar workers could retire more or less at 55; bank employees could retire after 25 years of work; and the most powerful group of all, those who make the laws, the congressmen, were able to retire after 15 years of work.

Under the system, you don’t have to pressure anyone. If you want to retire at 55, you go to one of the pension-fund companies and sit in front of a user-friendly computer. It asks you at what age you want to retire. You answer 55. The computer then does some calculations and says that you must contribute 12.1 percent of your income to carry out your plan. You then go back to your employer and instruct him to deduct the appropriate amount. Workers thus translate their personal preferences into tailored pension plans. If a worker’s pension savings are not enough at the legal retirement age, the government makes up the difference from general tax revenue.

The system is managed by competitive private companies called AFPs (from the Spanish for pension fund administrators). Each AFP operates the equivalent of a mutual fund that invests in stocks, bonds, and government debt. The AFP is separate from the mutual fund; so if the AFP goes bankrupt, the assets of the mutual fund–that is, workers’ investments–are not affected. The regulatory board takes over the fund and asks the workers to change to another AFP. Not a dime of the workers’ money is touched in the process. Workers are free to change from one AFP to another. That creates competition among the companies to provide a higher return on investment and better customer service, or to charge lower commissions.

The AFP market opened on May 1, 1981, which is Labor Day in Chile and most of the world. It was supposed to open May 4, but they made a last-minute change to May 1. And why did they do that? José Piñera, who as Chile’s minister of labor, explained that May 1 had always been celebrated all over the world as a day of class confrontation, when workers fight employers as if their interests were completely divergent. But in a free-market economy, their interests are convergent. “Let’s begin this system on May 1,” he said, “so that in the future, Labor Day can be celebrated as a day when workers freed themselves from the state and moved to a privately managed capitalization system.”

Today they have 20 AFPs. No AFP has gone bankrupt. Workers have not lost a dime. They created a regulatory body that, along with the central bank, set some investment diversification rules. Funds cannot invest more than x percent in government bonds, y percent in private companies’ debentures, or z percent in common stocks. Nor can more than a specified amount be in the stock of any given company, and all companies in which funds are invested must have credit ratings above a given level.

They set up such transitional rules with a bias for safety because the plan was to be radical (even revolutionary) in approach but conservative and prudent in execution. They trusted the private sector, but we did not want to be stupid either. They knew that there were companies that might invest in derivatives and lose a lot of money. They didn’t want the pension funds investing workers’ money in derivatives in Singapore. If the system had failed in the first years, they would never have been able to try it again. So they set strict rules, but they are relaxing those rules. For example, only three years ago they began to allow the funds to invest abroad, which they weren’t allowed to do initially, because Chilean institutions had no experience in investing abroad. They say though that the rules will be more flexible someday.

Also during the transition to the new system, they began by assuring every retired worker that the state would guarantee his pension; he had absolutely nothing to fear from the change. Pension reform should not damage those who have contributed all their lives. Even if it took a constitutional amendment.

Second, the workers already in the workforce, who had contributed to the state system, were given the option of staying in the system even though they thought its future was problematic. Those who moved to the new system received what they called a “recognition bond,” which acknowledges their contributions to the old system. When those workers retire, the government will cash the bonds.

New workers have to go into the new private system because the old system is bankrupt. Thus, the old system will inevitably die on the day that the last person who entered that system passes away. On that day the government will have no pension system whatsoever. The private system is not a complementary system; it is a replacement that they believed would be more efficient.

The real transition cost of the system is the money the government ceases to obtain from the workers who moved to the new system, because the government is committed to pay the pensions of the people already retired and of those who will retire in the future. That transition cost can be calculated. In Chile it was around 3 percent of gross national product. How they financed it is another story. It would be done differently in each country. Suffice it to say that even though governments have enormous pension liabilities, they also have enormous assets. In Chile they had state-owned enterprises. They calculated the real balance sheet and, knowing there were enough assets, financed the transition without raising tax rates, generating inflation, or pressuring interest rates upward. In the last several years they have had a fiscal surplus of 1 to 2 percent of GNP.

The main goal and consequence of the pension reform is to improve the lot of workers during their old age. The reform has a lot of side effects: savings, growth, capital markets. The reform was enacted to assure workers decent pensions so that they can enjoy their old age in tranquility. That goal has been met already. Currently the system is paying old-age pensions that are 40 to 50 percent higher than those paid under the old system. (In the case of disability and survivor pensions, another privatized insurance, pensions are 70 to 100 percent higher than under the old system.)

But there have been other enormous effects. A second and extremely important one is that the new system reduces what can be called the payroll tax on labor. The social security contribution was seen by workers and employers as basically a tax on the use of labor; and a tax on the use of labor reduces employment. But a contribution to an individual’s pension account is not seen as a tax on the use of labor. Unemployment in Chile is less than 5 percent. And that is without disguised unemployment in the federal government. They are approaching what could be called full employment in Chile.

Chile’s private pension system has been the main factor in increasing the savings rate to the level of an Asian tiger. Their rate is 26 percent of GNP, compared to about 15 percent in Latin America. The Asian tigers are at 30 percent. The dramatic increase in the savings rate is the main reason that Chile is not suffering from the so-called tequila effect that plagues Mexico. They do not depend on short-run capital flows because they have an enormous pool of internal savings to finance their investment strategies. Chile has been isolated from short-run capital movement because its development is basically rooted in a high savings rate.

Pension reform has contributed strongly to the growth of their economy. Because growth increases employment and wages. Several experts have attributed the positive growth rate to the private pension system.

Finally, the private pension system has had a very important political and cultural consequence. Ninety percent of Chile’s workers chose to move into the new system. They moved faster than Germans going from East to West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those workers freely decided to abandon the state system, even though some of the trade-union leaders and the old political class advised against it. But workers are able to make wise decisions on matters close to their lives, such as pensions, education, and health.

Every Chilean worker knows that he is the owner of an individual pension account. They have calculated that the typical Chilean worker’s main asset is not his small house or his used car but the capital in his pension account. The Chilean worker is an owner, a capitalist. There is no more powerful way to stabilize a free-market economy and to get the support of the workers than to link them directly to the benefits of the market economy. When Chile grows at 5 percent or when the stock market doubles, Chilean workers benefit directly, not only through higher wages, not only through more employment, but through additional capital in their individual pension accounts.

Private pensions are undoubtedly creating cultural change. When workers feel that they own a fraction of a country, not through the party bosses, not through a politburo (like the Russians thought), but through ownership of part of the financial assets of the country, they are much more attached to the free market, a free society, and democracy.

By taking politicians out of the social security business they have done them a great favor because they can now focus on what they should do: stop crime, run a good justice system, manage foreign affairs–the real duties of a government. By removing the government from social security, they have accomplished the biggest privatization in Chilean history–someone even called it, paraphrasing Saddam Hussein, the mother of all privatizations, because it has allowed them to go on to privatize the energy and telecommunications companies.

Jose Pinera says “Of course, there have been some mistakes. There are some things that should be improved. There is no perfect reform. With time and experience, I know I would do some things differently. But on the whole, I can tell you that it has been a success beyond all our dreams.”

This information was taken from an article at The Cato Institute.

The teachers unions are the most powerful unions in the country maybe the world. They are also so corrupt that they have managed to turn government school children into a bunch of mindless idiots.

The National Education Association members pay into a “Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises Fund” that allows the union to spend tens of millions of dollars on all state and national politics. In the 2007-08 fiscal year, the NEA spent $2.3 million on top of $1 million spent the previous fiscal year in which they were fighting a school voucher referendum in Utah. Those damn private schools! I hate it when parents want to have the choice of sending their kids to schools that actually care and want to teach their children.

The NEA finished 2007-08 with a surplus of nearly $5.9 million, which means the union will enter the 2008-09 school year with almost $20 million available to spend. And will they be spending that on the school children? Probably not.

Read the full Wall Street Journal story.

Learn more about the unethical approaches of teachers unions.

How in the hell can you lose $1 billion? Oh yeah, I forgot this is the government we are dealing with.

The Postal Service had a net loss of more than a billion dollars in the third quarter of the fiscal year, the agency said Wednesday.

For the quarter ended June 30, the loss was $1.1 billion, which officials blamed on reduced mail volume in the slowed economy, coupled with rapidly rising transport costs because of high fuel prices.

There are two things that could easily fix those problems. Lower corporate tax rates to pick up the economy and how about drilling for our own oil and developing other alternative sources of energy to ease the cost of transportation! It’s not rocket science fools.

The post office is working to deal with its losses by cutting costs. The agency has reduced its staff by about 100,000 since 2000 and is offering early retirement to some clerks, mail handlers and supervisors.

Read the full story.

Yesterday, Clark Howard talked about a new type of industry that is booming, e-cycling. There are many of us, including me, drowning in electronic waste. I myself have cell phones all over the place that I don’t use. There’s a new website called VenJuvo.com that may help you de-clutter your life and possibly earn a little extra cash. Plus, recycling electronics protects the environment from more waste.

VenJuvo.com is an online trade-in center that pays for pre-owned electronics. They will purchase cell phones, mp3 players, computers and cameras to GPS systems and gaming consoles. You simply go to the site, enter the info on what you have and get a quote for what they’ll pay you. They pay for shipping and you typically receive your payment in 3 business days.

For items that no longer have value, VenJuvo.com also offers free e-cycling. This is just one of many examples of entrepreneurs exploring e-cycling. CellforCash.com and CellPhoneTradeIns.com are a couple of sites where you can try unloading your old cell phone for cash.

Visit ww.clarkhoward.com

A conservative group is warning parents about a bill under consideration in the California state Senate that requires public schools to have an official “Gay Day.”

Oh dear, a group of religious freaks are going crazy over celebrating Harvey Milk who was the first openly homosexual person to be elected to public office in a major U.S. city. He was a former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member, who was assassinated by a former Board of Supervisor in 1978. Let’s see here, don’t religious freaks celebrate someone who allegedly existed, I don’t know, several times a year. They have Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday and Passover. Am I missing any other “Holy” days? So why can’t we celebrate someone who was gay and ACTUALLY contributed something to society?

Read the full story.

This one is for all you liberals. This is your hero, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, in action:

• Establish civilian militias critics fear will evolve into Cuban-style community groups used to monitor and prevent “counterrevolutionary” activities.

• Give Chavez the power to expropriate goods from private business owners without approval from the National Assembly.

• Increase state control over food production and commerce, punishing business owners who fail to comply with price controls and other regulations with fines, indefinite closure or up to 10 years in prison.

• Give Chavez the ability to designate regional political authorities who could undermine the power of elected mayors and governors.

• Put Chavez in charge of a social investment fund for “excess resources” from state-run enterprises — including recently nationalized telecommunications, electricity, steel and cement companies.

• Support efforts by the Chavez government to create a socialist-style economy at the community level, providing for bartering of goods and the communal operation of “social property” businesses.

• Change the name of Venezuela’s military, now decreed to be “Bolivarian,” a reference to independence hero Simon Bolivar, whom Chavez considers to be the inspiration of his socialist movement.

Read the full story: Venezuelans protest Chavez move

Clark Howard talked more about the housing bill today. It’s got all kinds of pork buried in it. One provision in the bill even has a subsidy for railcars. Railcars? What the hell does that have to do with housing? People, this is our politicians at work, just trying to serve their own interests while destroying the country.

Railcar subsidy: A tiny provision buried in the bill adds Colbert County in northern Alabama to the Gulf Opportunity Zone, a region that gets federal benefits to help with hurricane recovery.

The provision will let National Steel Car of Canada get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt financing for a plant it is already building in the county, which is almost 300 miles from the coast and far from the ravaged areas.

Legislators in Oregon, home to U.S. railcar manufacturers, objected to the provision, saying it provides an unfair subsidy to a foreign competitor. But Alabama legislators, who had promised the Canadian company it could get state or local financing if the federal subsidy fell through, got it included in the bill.

Here are some more key provisions, most of which become effective in October:

• Reverse mortgages will now have a 2% maximum on fees (1% for mortgages above $200,000) — with a cap at $6,000. This is good news for “house rich, cash poor” seniors contemplating a reverse mortgage. It should reduce the number of people getting ripped off with huge fees.

• Interest rate rescue for those in jumbo loans is on the way. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be allowed to buy loans up to 115% of the local median home price. That means access to lower interest rates for those in loans above $417,000.

• There will be new protection for active military and veterans against foreclosures. Lenders will be required to wait 9 months — instead of 90 days — before beginning proceedings. Plus, there are new rules on interest rate adjustment. For too long, banks had unwittingly violated laws on interest rates for military. Visit Military.com to learn your rights.

• Vacation homes will be the subject of new scrutiny. No more loopholes about avoiding capital-gains taxes by living in a vacation or rental property as a primary residence for 2 years before selling it. Now you may owe tax on a portion of the gain, based on the years you didn’t live there full-time.

Read the full story on the other subsidies in the bill.

Visit www.clarkhoward.com