"Even if the trust fund does run out, Social Security will still be able to pay eighty percent of promised benefits. The actual shortfall would be a pretty small part of the federal budget, quite easily made up from other sources. Once the whole baby-boomer generation is into the retirement pool, Social Security's share of the gross domestic product will only increase by about two percent. Well, President Bush's tax cuts are more than two percent of GDP -- and they're happening right now, not fifty years from now. So the idea that there's this Social Security thing that is a huge problem is just wrong.
...It's hard to understand why anyone would want to return us to the days before the New Deal, when millions of elderly people lived in poverty. But if you really dislike the notion that the government provides a safety net for the poor, then Social Security is the prime target."

The Alliance for Worker Retirement Security is the leading business coalition backing Bush's proposal that would allow workers to invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes in private investment accounts. The Alliance's 35 members include representatives of industries that could profit enormously from such a plan, including the Securities Industry Association, Wall Street's main trade group, and PaineWebber -- now called UBS Financial Services and one of the biggest campaign contributors in the securities and investment industry.
...Some investment analysts have said the fees associated with private accounts might be too small to provide much of a financial windfall.
...As a member of the Alliance, however, the Securities Industry Association has made its support for private investment accounts unequivocal. The SIA has contributed $2.1 million to federal candidates and political parties since 1999, of which $1.2 million went to Republicans. Additionally, the association spent more than $10 million on obbying from January 2003 through June 2004.

"There hasn't been a drop of water in the faucets for six days...Water is like peace - you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away...
...I'm sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words 'collective punishment'. "No, Riverbend," they are saying, "That's impossible." But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don't vote - Sunnis and Shia alike - the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We've been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it's their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don't want?"

As you noticed, the Florida representation is relatively thin compared to California... of course, this is largely due to Polynesian Pop having a larger impact over here in the 50s and 60s (and the fact that Los Angeles is my home base), but Florida was no slouch on that front, and there's a lot of great history there. I'm working on beefing up the Florida locations in Critiki, spurred by the growing interest in tiki in Florida--no doubt helped by the major Hukilau event that's happened at the Mai Kai for the past few years. Florida tikiphiles are now getting together more regularly and informally... as a matter of fact, just this past weekend I flew out to Daytona Beach just to get together with a few dozen friends for dinner at the Hawaiian Inn. The Mai Kai is absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite tiki bar... and I've been to many dozens of tiki bars.

I know how it is. Even in a good month, following the media and keeping yourself truly informed is rarely easy and infrequently pleasurable and unless you're a fanatical media junkie absolutely never better than sex.
...This, then, is the irony. Because now is the time when vigilance is needed more than ever...
...Know that this is not you. Know that you do not have to kowtow and you do not have to succumb and you do not have to bury your head and merely endure. Know that you have this one humble and luminous choice, always and always and every single day: no matter if it's dark energy or light, low vibration or high, raw intimate self-defined sensual divinity or dumbed-down numbed-out force-fed conservative sanctimony, you can either trust that truth and follow your own hot moral compass, or allow it to be stained and warped and doused in fear and led wide, wide astray. It's not about them. It's about you.

""The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah -we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.""

"Connor's death was the result of a USMC general order to put down all dogs. We had raised over $1200, and had all arrangements made. When we went to pick her up at the remote location where they had been watching her in order to take her to the plane, she was missing. She had been found and taken less than twelve hours prior."

" ...the government was spending much more than it was saving by bribing people to leave SERPS (State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme). What had once been a £1.6-billion surplus in the National Insurance Fund vanished completely. Worst of all, many workers left good occupational plans and faced being worse off, not better off, in retirement by depending on the privatized schemes."

"And so, at the exact moment that America contemplates replicating this disaster, many in Britain -- some conservatives included -- are looking more and more kindly on American Social Security as a model for reform. The National Association of Pension Funds, a group of employers who sponsor the nation's largest schemes, is urging government not to expect the private sector to shoulder the burden of keeping the nation's elderly from poverty. Chief executive Christine Farnish notes that it's "actually cheaper for the state to carry the risk," adding that in looking for a system that offers the best combination of modest guaranteed retirement benefits delivered at low cost, the U.S. Social Security program seems the best model. "It doesn't have to make a profit, and it delivers efficiencies of scale that most companies would die for," she says."

"But this time the administration has informed D.C. authorities they'll have to absorb the cost and suggests that they use federal funds that had earlier been earmarked to fight terrorism...Why would an administration, already under severe criticism for sending soldiers into battle without enough armor, put itself in a position where it appears equally indifferent to equipping those charged with fighting terrorist at home?"

"Just as the United States prepares to funnel untold billions to its private sector for the management of private accounts, back in 2002, many U.K. insurance companies, mindful of tough new rules against giving bad advice, began to write to their customers urging them to consider abandoning their private savings and returning to the state pension system -- something hundreds of thousands of Britons have done already."

"... when historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals that he had set for himself before he took office -- the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the privatization of Social Security -- he concocted crises where there were none.
...We've had plenty of presidents, Richard Nixon most notoriously, who divided the media into friendly and enemy camps. I can't think of one, however, so fundamentally invested in the spread of disinformation -- and so fundamentally indifferent to the corrosive effect of propaganda on democracy -- as Bush. That, too, should earn him a page in the history books."

"No WMDs. No Social Security crisis. Reality does not reign in Bush's world. It's wrong that conservative columnist Armstrong Williams was paid by the administration to push pro-Bush propaganda. But what's far worse--and more dangerous--is that (White House spokesman Scott) McClellan receives taxpayer dollars to promote and defend Bush's facts-free fantasies."

"The officers fighting in Iraq are, most of the time, remarkably enthusiastic. This is their war, the only one they may get in their careers. It follows an attack on the United States, even if the connection between the attack and the war has been questioned. Within the tiny sliver of the war each sees, examples of brilliance and bravery abound. They're proud to be a part of "the most beautiful Army in the history of the world," as one recently returned captain put it; he praised his immediate commander for wisdom and compassion, and his company for being so disciplined and professional that it could turn off the violence "like a good hunting dog.""

• Half of all grains consumed should be whole grains, at least three servings per day.
  
• Less than 10 percent of calories should come from saturated fats, and fat should make up no more than 25 to 30 percent of total calories. No firm guideline was set for trans fats, only a recommendation to keep them "as low as possible."
  
• Whole foods are generally preferred over processed: fresh fruit, for example, rather than juice.
  
• Protein sources should be lean and low-fat.
  
• Foods should be fiber-rich and contain "little added sugars or caloric sweeteners."
  
• Recommended daily sodium intake was lowered to 2,300 mg or less, about 1 teaspoon of salt.
  
• Everyone should get a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes each day of moderate exercise - brisk walking or bicycling, for example. Losing weight will require 60 to 90 minutes of more intense daily exercise.

"First, in many instances, the content of the Killian documents does not
mesh well substantively with the official Bush records. Second, the Killian documents vary in significant ways from the standard format and jargon of documents issued by the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group in the early 1970s. Thus, the Panel believes that there remain substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents. The Panel believes that careful reporting prior to airing the Segment should have identified these questions and, at a minimum, should have delayed the broadcast so that more reporting could be conducted."

"Just 16 percent of those who voted for George W. Bush said there was "ever a time" when they thought they would vote for John Kerry. And 15 percent of Kerry voters said there was "ever a time" when they thought they would vote for Bush."
And, "Another finding of the post-election survey of 8,664 adults who had already been interviewed once before Election Day was that the public gave the Bush campaign less credit for honesty than it gave the Kerry campaign."

"Gosh, we certainly can't have people taking higher office in America when some portion of the populace believes the election to be illegitimate. Heavens no.
...It's clear that the difference between Florida and Washington is that we had the good fortune of having elected a secretary of state with genuine integrity, instead of someone willing to game the system for partisan gain.
...The Republicans failed because of incompetence, pure and simple, and now they're counting on clubbing Gregoire with the "illegitimate" label for the next four years. The irony is delicious. The hypocrisy, though, is what we've come to expect."

"But even though he is the brother of the most powerful man of earth and came bearing news of a $350m (£186m) US contribution to the $2.5bn international relief effort, nobody seemed to know who he was.
"Who are you?" asked one slightly bemused Australian consular official as the large-girthed US stranger pumped his hand.
"I'm Jeb Bush."
"Oh, are you a relative of the president?" said the interlocuter, jokingly.
"Yes I am. I am his little brother."
"Oh," came the reply. "Good for you." "

"First, much of the bloggers' vaunted fact-checking was seriously warped. Their driving assumptions were often drawn from flawed information or based on faulty logic. Personal attacks passed for analysis. Second, and worse, the reviled MSM often followed the bloggers' lead. As mainstream media critics of CBS piled on, rumors shaped the news and conventions of sourcing and skepticism fell by the wayside. Dan Rather is not alone on this one; respected journalists made mistakes all around."

Looking for the "land of the free"? Try Estonia.
OR IRELAND. OR CHILE. OR DENMARK. OR EVEN ICELAND. These countries now offer more economic freedom than the United States.
Long a symbol of economic prosperity and might, America for the first time ever no longer ranks among the top 10 "free" nations of the world, according to the 2005 Index of Economic Freedom.