The problem is that too many "breeders" are unwilling to see themselves as responsible for an over populated world. It's the mom with two kids in a pram(one about 18 months and the other a newborn and three other kids 3,5 and 7 hanging on to moms coattails that many of us frown at.

Nothing that I have read explains why the GOP has pulled out all the stops in it's effort to stop health care reform. In plain English the GOP knows that if the Dems pass a quality health care plan with a public option the public in a few years time will love it as much as they now love Social Security and Medicare. The GOP is aware that this kind of public approval will make winning elections at the national and even the state level even more difficult than 2008 and they don't want to be a permanent minority. Hence their strong opposition in the face of a moral position that the US really needs to take better care of all it's citizens health.

It is really very easy to do'

First: Obama must remind all the over 65's and all Senators that given the huge numbers of boomers coming into the system Medicare will be in deep financial doo/doo in 5 or 6 years.

The easiest way to save medicare in it's present financial form is to make it the public option by allowing it to provide coverage for all adults 18 and over and families of these adults.

A strong influx of younger people paying at present over 65 rates but using far fewer services will make Medicare financially viable.

Politically GOPers will be reluctant to vote against such a policy. Voting against saving medicare for the 65 and overs is a political no-no and few Senators will risk it. It will also guarantee the support of the heavy voting over 65 set for a public option.

The last and most important advantage is that Medicare is a fairly efficient operation with a well schooled management in place and most important of all it will increase Medicare's ability to bargain with the entire provider community thus cutting down the cost of all health care.

In the late 70's I was a consultant to a "Beltway Bandit" on a CIA contract that sought to explain the CIA's failure to see the Shah's downfall. The reason the Shah fell and for the results in Friday's election are identical. When Khomeni came to power it was because of his appeal lower class males in Iran. In thousands of tapes sent to Iran from France the message was "if the Shah's revolution is successful you will lose whatever power you have left. The power to control your wife (or wives) and children." It is the same message(which has only slight appeal for middle and upper class people) which brought about Friday's results.

Medicare is in deep trouble but not mainly because of increasing medical costs. It's problem is that it only covers that portion of the population that requires both a lot of care and care that costs a great deal. That's easy to fix. Just allow medicare to provide it's coverage to all ages of our nation's population that are wiling(or their employers are willing) to pay current Medicare prices for 80% coverage. Balancing medicare's current coverage numbers with an equal number of the 18 to 35 age group will quickly put medicare in the black. So, in the bargaining for cheaper more universal health care,Medicare should be made the government's provider for all ages, As a sop for private insurers, Medicare's treatment costs should become the standard for private insurers. This will allow the private sector to compete reasonably well with Medicare.Public and private insurers working together would help a great deal in reversing the cost trends of health care.

It is important that each year someone debunks the notion that SS is in trouble. Today's writer has covered the issue quite well. The only thing he left out is an argument made by those who seek to end SS that the Treasury bonds which are the backbone of the current and growing SS surplus will not be honored by the treasury sometime in the future. Of course this would mean that all the private holders of Treasury Bonds would see their holdings go up in smoke as would such national holders as the Chinese and Japanese. In my view the chances of this happening are very close to nil for it would destroy the class of people who want SS to fail.

I am shocked that those who planned this survey did not do a regression analysis with % of each states support for Obama the dependent variable and the independent variables being Importance of religion, religious attendance, education level. income level and % of non white population. Given such an analysis we could do a much better job of sorting out an explanation for 2008 voting patterns. Only the religious attendance variable would have required an additional question. What a wasted opportunity.

This morning TV was all agog about a family with 18 lovely talented kids and that plug says it all regarding any environmental,energy and spend less programs we as a society promote. All of them are simply nibbling at the edges of a problem all Americans and particularly our politicians are afraid to tackle; population control. There are simply put too many Americans and we are growing again at about 2% per year. Which means that in about 40 years there will be 600 million of us. We cannot be environmentally sound until we reduce our population back to about 150 million people and that will require an enforced one child per family (ala China) for a goodly number of years. Is that likely to happen? I doubt it. So why care about our environment at all. It is a waste of time, money and energy without a stringent population control policy.