President Bushs Social Security Accounts Idea Is Dead

Bloomberg News:" U.S. Senator Max Baucus, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said President George W. Bush's proposal to create private Social Security accounts has no chance of passing Congress. Privatization is dead, Baucus, a Montana lawmaker, said on Capitol Hill today. The Bush proposal won't pass, no way, no how. Lawmakers returned to Washington today after a two-week recess. Bush, who has undertaken a 60-day tour of the country to promote his proposal, and his congressional allies had hoped to use the recess to generate momentum for diverting Social Security funds to create the accounts. Almost all Democrats, including Baucus, oppose the accounts, and polls indicate the proposal is losing favor with the public. Republicans must get the support of at least five Democratic senators to gather the 60 votes necessary to pass Social Security legislation. Baucus said he contacted Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff, several weeks ago to tell him Bush would not receive the necessary Democratic backing.I never really liked this set-up anyway, as I felt this was done around the rich. Not the working class and the poor."

Solar Eclipse - March 8th, 2005

NASA:"Skywatchers in much of the U.S. are in for a treat on Friday evening, April 8, when the sun and moon cross paths to create a special hybrid solar eclipse. This unusual type of eclipse means a partial eclipse for some viewers, an annular eclipse for some, and a total eclipse for others. In the U.S., a partial eclipse will be visible south of a line extending across the nation from southernmost California to central New Jersey with about a 40% partial eclipse in regions like southern Texas and 50% in southern Florida. Hybrid eclipse occurs when the highest point of the moons shadow pierces Earth's surface at some points, but falls short of the planet along other portions of the eclipse path. The curvature of Earth's surface brings some geographic locations along the path into the umbra while other positions are more distant and enter the antumbral rather than umbral shadow. In this case, the eclipse path starts as an annular eclipse (the moon crosses the sun but does not cover it completely) southeast of New Zealand and stretches across the Pacific Ocean to Panama, Columbia, and Venezuela. It then changes to a total eclipse south of Tahiti, then converts back to an annular near Costa Rica and partial for the US. After Friday, another solar eclipse (also partial) won't be visible from the U.S. until 2012 I live in Idaho, according to NASA, I won't be able to see it. I'm still going to watch anyway never know, a few years back my kids and I watched one out our back door. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Was like a black & gold ball floating in the air and it was huge to us larger then the moon. So I hope we get lucky again, will let you know if I do."

Cigarette Then No Job ??

MSNBC:"As health insurance costs continue to climb, companies are urging employees to curb unhealthy behavior like smoking. Also sometimes refusing to hire smokers at all! Will Big Mac lovers be next? Weyco may be one of the only large companies in the country that can boast not only a smoke-free workplace, but a smoke-free workforce. Achieving that status, however, didn't come without a lot of effort and controversy. When he let go 4- employees after they refused to stop smoking. Civil-rights activists accused the company of discrimination, arguing that Weyers was punishing workers for engaging in a legal activity on their own time. Weyers claimed that he gave his employees plenty of notice and opportunities and incentives to quit, to decide which is most important: my job or tobacco? Says Weyers. Most companies already ban tobacco use in the workplace and more than a half dozen states and hundreds of cities have enacted laws to the same effect. Growing number of companies are refusing to hire people who smoke, even if they do so on their own time and nowhere near their jobs. An estimated 6,000 Employers no longer hire smokers, according to the National Workrights Institute, an affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. From Sheriff's Department's to Ace Hardware stores to College's. Employers in several industries and states are telling smokers they need not apply. Even large corporations like Union Pacific have tightened restrictions. Last fall, the railroad company announced a no-smoking policy anywhere on its properties, including rail yards and train stations. If a job applicants indicate's they are a smoker, their automatically rejected, says Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley. Weyco began monthly tobacco testing and charged a $50-a-month fee to workers who tested positive or declined to be tested. Those who were identified as nonsmokers in the test were exempt from paying the fee. If smoking can be used as a potential criterion for hiring or terminating employees, not only do you create a class of people no longer employable but, more importantly, you start down a very slippery slope, says Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Workrights Institute. There's very little we do in our private lives that doesn't affect our health or productivity. What's next? Are employers going to start choosing what you eat off the job? And the four former Weyco workers have since enlisted the help of state senator Virg Bernero, who has indicated he will introduce legislation to prevent employers from discriminating against people who smoke. That focus has led to some concerns that overweight workers could also find their jobs at risk. If there's no state statute in place, says Kevin Zwetsch, a labor employment lawyer in Florida, there's nothing unlawful about an employer saying if you want to work for me, you can't eat Big Macs. I know we all have been told that smoking is bad for your health, but. I also thought that America was called the land of the free! Freedom to choose? Okay so these big-wigs are saying they now longer pick-up one of those Natsy - Stinky - Cigars to smoke when their buddies are handing them out at the club? Ya right!!"

Rape Test detects Y-chromosome

New Scientist:" A test that can prove a woman has been raped even if no sperm are found. After the trauma of rape, women who report it have to undergo a medical examination to look for sperm. But the test can fail, and as a result the woman's claim to have been raped may not be believed. Now a French study has confirmed that a back-up test can detect the male Y chromosome even if no sperm are found. The standard test, in which technicians use microscopes to look for sperm in vaginal, oral or anal swabs, is very sensitive. But an attack by a man will usually leave traces of skin cells, which will carry the telltale Y chromosome. These chromosome can be detected even if there's only one male cell for every 5000 female cells. The method has already helped convict rapists I know this is not something people like to read about, but just the fact that medical-science has advance to this stage is something to me, I hope you agree."

Soldiers War Stories

commondreams:"Death toll of U.S troops tops 1500, many soldiers return to our communities. To end the war, we must listen to their war stories rather then rely solely on peace marches. This challenge requires that we step outside of our comfort zone and talk to people whose political views may differ from ours. We ought to expose ourselves to the reality of war as experienced by our friends, neighbors and coworkers. Those of us who have organized and participated in countless peace demonstrations over the years are well aware that these public displays of discontent and conviction rarely attract people who are not already sympathetic to our plight. Yet, around the country, peace and justice organizers are busy organizing marches, demonstrations, and community gather declared an international day of action against the war. People need to be reminded that we are at war and that we, individually and collectively, are responsible for the killing of as many as 198,000 Iraqi civilians. Rather then appealing to the deaf ear of this callous administration, we should listen to those most affected by the war in our society: soldiers who fought in Iraq and have been returning in large groups to our communities these days. We should not compete with the military or with groups in our communities that are celebrating the return of the troops home with medals, honors, and fanfare but often fail to listen to the battle tales of individual soldiers. Instead, we ought to reach out as individuals to family members, friends, neighbors and coworkers who witnessed and participated in this war. We need to listen to their first-hand horrific experiences. We should ask them to describe in as much detail as possible, what they witnessed and did in the war and what the war did to them, recognizing that for most, this was the most intense, and probably traumatic, experience of their lives. It is not the time, nor our role, to judge or educate these soldiers. They do not need us to tell them that they participated in a futile war, nor to lecture them about the real reasons behind it. Most of them know experienced the futility of this war on their bodies, pondered the lies behind it in their minds and had to fight with anguish, frustration and fear in their hearts, whether they admit it publicly or not. Listening to these stories as difficult as they may be, will enable us to better reach out to and to communicate with those who don't yet share our sense of urgency to end this war. Further, these personal accounts, shared in private settings, are invaluable because it is such uncensored stories that the mainstream corporate media, which has been embedded with (or rather in-bed-with) military units has failed to share with the public. The public debate that took place in this country at the height of the War in Vietnam and eventually contributed to its end was ignited as much by the soldiers who returned from the battlefield and shared their hellish stories as by the anti-war movement. By listening to the stories of soldiers who have fought in Iraq, we do not condone the inhuman actions they may have participated in, nor the war. Instead, we expose the reality of war and its devastating effects not only on its victims but on its perpetrators as well. One of soldiers interviewed in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 states: "When you kill someone, you also kill a part of yourself." This is not a message that military recruiters share with the vulnerable youth they are trying to desperately recruit. Unfortunately there is very little we can do to undo the massive death, destruction, and human suffering caused by this war. Listening to soldiers' accounts may help us mobilize a larger segments of American society to end the war in Iraq and stop the senseless loss of life. In this dark moment in our history, soldiers' war stories have more of a chance to offset the beat of the Bush Adminstration's war drums then the anti-war slogans we have been chanting at peace demonstrations."