Blog: CONSILIENCE PRODUCTIONS

Health Care Passes!! It's only the beginning of fulfilling Teddy Kennedy's vision: It's a Right, Not a Privilege! The United States of America has now joined the league of Western nations that have an official Universal Health Care policy. The people have spoken! Elections DO have consequences [even if this bill has serious flaws]. It's just the beginning.

Stop by the VoxPop Cafe in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, this Sunday afternoon (3/21) to check out the fourth installment of our Consilience Awareness Concert Series . The Vinson Valega Quartet will perform from 4:30-5:30pm, featuring Dan Pratt on tenor saxophone, Matt Chertkoff on guitar, Phil Palombi on bass, and Vinson Valega on drums. 1022 Cortelyou Road - Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn, NY. (718) 940-2084. The Q Train to Cortelyou Road is the closest subway stop. [...]

This video of of a health care protest (pro vs. con) from Ohio is extremely disturbing, especially at the :50 mark when anti-reform protesters yell and throw money a a man holding a sign claiming he has Parkinson's. "No handouts!" they scream at him. David Kurtz over at TalkingPointsMemo sums what's really going on here: Those guys screaming about "handouts" would be perfectly at home at a rally in the 1990s, or the 80s, or the 70s and so on. This isn't new, and it's not original. The social and cultural [...]

Gallup has a new survey out tracking the changing opinions on Climate Change: is it real? will it affect you in your lifetime? do you believe most scientists agree that it is man-made? And the results show a distinct change in the past year: In a sharp turnaround from what Gallup found as recently as three years ago, Americans are now almost evenly split in their views of the cause of increases in the Earth's temperature over the last century. In 2007, 61% of those surveyed believe that the cause of the rise was due [...]

One year after President Obama began this nationwide debate on health care, we are finally getting close to final vote on this bill (which has already passed both chambers of Congress and only needs to be merged into one final bill...no easy task, of course): "I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform," Mr. Obama said during a 20-minute speech in the East Room of the White House. He said there was no point in starting over, as Republicans are demanding, and called on nervous Democrats [...]

The Great Recession continues, with the number of those unemployed over six months soaring to a record. This powerful story ran in this past Sunday's NY Times: 6.3 million Americans have been unemployed for six months or longer , the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948. That is more than double the toll in the next-worst period, in the early 1980s. The article continues in stark detail, portraying what so many Americans are going through today. First there's Ms. Eisen: Here in Southern California, [...]

This story is getting a ton of play the past few days as a game changer in the Health Care debate in Congress: Anthem Blue Cross has agreed to a Feb. 8 request by California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner to delay its individual health insurance rate increase until May 1 to allow an independent actuary to review their rates, the California Department of Insurance has reported. Now you know that their strategy is just to delay until we, the citizens, are looking the other way when they just jack up their fees again. [...]

The Supreme Court ruled recently that U.S. Corporations (and foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries) can now take out unlimited political advertisements either for or against candidates running for office. The case - called "Citizens United" because that's the name of the organization that pressed this cause - is now famous and has overturned precedent leading all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt's administration in the beginning of the 20th century. It's simply stunning, with unknown repercussions that only time will reveal. Yet, will it really matter? It's up for debate, as this article in the NY [...]

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is woefully unprepared for this latest devastating earthquake disaster to strike. Please give as much aid as you can. Organizations that are mobilizing to help Haitians struck down by this calamity include, Mercy Corp , American Red Cross , and Doctors Without Borders , to name only a few. Speaking of which, Doctors Without Borders (also known by their French initials, MSF) are already on the ground and reporting back on the devastation here . The New [...]

From Juan Cole : The big news out of Iraq over the weekend was the awarding of a handful of new oil development contracts to companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Russia's Lukoil. These bids follow earlier awards of fields for development to China. The American oil majors failed to conclude any new deals, though Exxon Mobil won a bid for West Qurna 1 in November. The Iraqi authorities have strong motivations to diversify their petroleum customer base given the current hegemonic position of the United States in their country. And will all [...]

Much has been lamented about regarding the health care bill now set for debate in the Senate over the next month. The Public Option is obviously a large sticking point, but even more important are the cost-cutting aspects of this bill. Are they real? The Republicans seem to have magically fabricated a cost of $2.5 trillion over the next 10-15 years ( pulling that number out of thin air ), and yet we keep hearing that the bill will actually cut the deficit. Can this be possible? Ron Brownstein at The Atlantic has the skinny on the true [...]

A must read editorial from the Washington Post written by Jim Comey, a deputy attorney general and U.S. attorney in Manhattan during the Bush administration and Jack Goldsmith, an assistant attorney general during the Bush administration who now teaches at Harvard Law School and is on the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law: Reasonable minds can disagree about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 perpetrators in a Manhattan federal court. But some prominent criticisms are exaggerated, and others place undue faith in military [...]

It really is all about sticking it to Obama and the Dems. From Kevin Drum : Congress gave final approval Thursday for an additional $24 billion to help the jobless and support the housing market as climbing unemployment poses a growing liability for elected officials. The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the House and headed to President Obama for his signature Friday, extends unemployment insurance benefits that were due to expire and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, while also expanding it to cover many other home purchases. And [...]

In a perfect "Consilience Storm," this story of our government using music to torture inmates in Guantanamo completely and utterly turns upside down the meaning and message of music in our culture, or all human culture, for that matter: On behalf of a coalition of U.S. and international musicians, including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Tom Morello and Jackson Browne, the National Security Archive today filed a series of FOIA petitions requesting the full declassification of secret U.S. documentation on the strategy of using music as an interrogation device at Guantanamo and other detention centers. [...]

No text

This video interview of Thorbjoern Jagland, a member of the committee that chose Obama to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, explains very clearly their rationale: It's obvious that they were impressed by Obama's impact on the dialogue between nations and how he has brought about a radical shift in world politics, where dialogue and negotiation are back in vogue. Essentially, this prize is meant to both encourage Obama's vision and as a repudiation of the past 8 years under the Bush administration. And yet, when he talks about upholding [...]

This fascinating article in the NY Times this week discusses recent research unearthing Michelle Obama's lineage back to 1852. Although it was most certainly hyped due to the evidence of her having white ancestors (front page of the NY Times, appearances on Good Morning America emphasizing the black/white issue), the history is nonetheless important, if only for the fact that we now know the path taken by this most historic figure (our first black First Lady): In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. [...]

Now this is disturbing, to say the least: On Sept. 1, 2009, Finton met with the undercover FBI officer and was told the vehicle for the attack would be carrying close to one ton of explosives. According to the affidavit, Finton indicated an awareness that the bomb would cause civilian casualties, but expressed his view that such casualties were justified. Unbeknownst to Finton, the FBI ensured that the vehicle for the attack contained no actual explosive materials. The affidavit alleges that yesterday, on September 23, 2009, Finton drove a van containing what he [...]

If screaming at the President of the United States of America, "You Lie!," as he's giving a speech to both the House and the Senate isn't bad enough, does this get the Hypocrisy Award of the Year ? Poor Joe Wilson. The conservative Republican representative from South Carolina stepped in it Wednesday night when he broke with centuries of decorum by screaming, "You lie!" at President Obama during his health-care speech to a joint session of Congress. Cut the man some slack. He's passionate! I know this because he told me, in [...]

On this day eight years ago... Visit the 9/11 Digital Archive today .