The Debate, McCain and his remarks

I keep hearing my self say this is not my problem, not my argument, not my debate…………………

WELL HELLO ………………..LOOK WHO JUST MADE IT MY DEBATE……………..

 

McCain: “Senator Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through -- as he said, his object is a single payer system. If you like that, you'll love Canada and England.

 

Before I rant about this man I need to clear up a technicality, Mr McCain, if you are hoping to be president of the most powerful country on earth maybe you should learn to get your political terminology correct. When you quoted ‘Canada and England’ I suspect you actually meant Canada and the UK. I can’t believe I need to spell this out to a presidential candidate, but for the record ;…. The UK consists of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If you want to discuss, or even briefly mention, the health service of the UK it is inappropriate to address those remarks to or about ‘England’, this is a mistake of the politically inept and ignorant.

 

 

ONTO HIS OFFENSIVE REMARK.

 

I don’t know where to begin, how dare this man deride a health care system that provides unlimited health care, free at the point of delivery, to every man woman and child in the country? The provision of health care in this country, even the most pioneering and expensive health care, is allocated on the basis of medical need not on how good your insurance is or what your level of cover is. Or If Mr McCain had his way, if your employer decided to provide adequate health care cover.

 

I have a very dear friend who suffers the most terrible ill health. To my knowledge she has had two lots of open heart surgery and at least one other very new experimental heart procedure. She has had years and years of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid malfunction and a whole host of other medical problems. At no time during her years of illness was she ever asked demeaning questions about her financial situation or the limits of her health care cover. On the occasions when an ambulance was needed, one was called, arrived fairly quickly, and with out asking her who her insurance company was or sending her a bill, transported her as quickly and efficiently as possible to the world famous Ninewells Teaching hospital, Dundee. Here she received first class treatment which was FREE AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY. I have a horrible feeling if she lived under Mr McCain’s system she would no longer be with us; financially she is quite a poor woman who is unable to work.

 

I have arthritis; it was diagnosed a few years ago and is progressively getting worse. Over the last few years I have had, GP appointments, orthopaedic appointments,  ex-rays, physiotherapy and minor surgery all of which were provided under The National Health Service, again ‘FREE AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY’. The hospitals I have been fortunate enough to attend have, with out exception, been clean efficient and staffed by experienced professionally qualified doctors and nurses. I  have been offered  knee  replacement surgery as soon as I feel ready  to accept major surgery. All I need do is ask to be referred back to the surgeon.  My medical needs are assessed, thats is all, there is no other criteria.

 

Two of my grandchildren have spent time in special care baby units, they are quite well now but they had infant pneumonia when they were tiny babies, one when he was just a week old and the other just a week before his first birthday. These units are staffed with nurses who have specialist post graduate qualifications way beyond their first nursing degree. The ratio of nurse /patient is very, very high. At the change over of nursing shift the nurse in charge of my grandchild would make her self known to his mother so she knew who was responsible for her child at all times.  I don’t think these children would get any better care any where else in the world. Do I need to say it again?? ‘FREE AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY’’

 

I could go on, and on, but don’t worry I won’t. I’m not going to bore you with my niece and her ears, of my nephew and his stomach or my sister who has celiac disease, or my daughter who had childhood asthma and eczema, or the child at school who fell during a football match (the ambulance arrived within minutes of being called).   

I don’t deny we have problems in health care, every health care system has problems. Sure sometimes you need to wait a little while, and sometimes the hospitals are short of cash, and sometimes charities donate equipment but these are problems experienced by any system attempting to provide good health care. But I absolutely and with out reservation believe our National Health Service is among the best in the world. I don’t know any thing about Canada’s health care system but for it to be lumped together with ours I suspect it is good.

 

So Mr McCain, I repeat….how bloody dare you insult something your people can only dream of.

Stand Up Take Action Day

October 17-19, 2008

Stand Up and Take Action starts now!

Today is the day where, all over the world, there are events organised to bring attention to world poverty. Check out this web site and find a event near you.

 

If you have been reading my ‘poverty’ blogs, you will have read this before, you can’t see this too often, this is something we all need to remember every second of every day, remember,

 

This applies to you.

The poorest 40% of the world population accounted for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounted for 75% of world income, and the richest 10% accounted for 54%. We are the richest 20%!!!!!

 

http://www.standagainstpoverty.org/en/about-stand-up

 

On October 17-19, 2008 Stand Up & Take Action
Against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals

Around the world over 100 million people in over 2,000 events across more than 100 countries are registered to Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals, from October 17-19

Join millions worldwide to STAND UP and TAKE ACTION against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals.

(from their web site)

Last year, over 43 million people Stood Up to demand that world leaders keep their promises to end poverty and inequality. This year, help us break that record and send an even louder message to our governments.

Join the global movement of people who refuse to stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and broken promises to end it!

STAND UP and TAKE ACTION against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals.

Why Stand Up?

In 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration agreeing to do everything in their power to end poverty. They pledged to do this by achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a roadmap to end extreme poverty by 2015.

Still, every day, 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between rich and poor people is increasing. Nearly half the world’s population live in poverty, 70% are women. We have the power to change this.

Campaigners worldwide will STAND UP and TAKE ACTION to push their governments for more and better aid, debt cancellation, education for all boys and girls, healthcare, trade justice, gender equality and public accountability.

Fisrt Video;'The Make Poverty History Video',

Second Video; 'Stand Up Take Action Video,.

 

Stand Up, Take Action

Make Poverty History

Blog Action Day; Poverty

Herb Thursday; Wild Carrots and Hemlock

A WARNING

WILD CARROTS AND HEMLOCK

 

While out walking last week I realised the grassy bank was covered in new smallish plants. I thought I recognised this plant as a wild carrot. I know it grows around here, this is the perfect habitat, grassy, wild and by the sea. I thought it could be useful, I thought if I collected some I could taker it home, positively identify it and maybe even use it. Enjoying my walk and happily wandered along the cliff edge path I occasionally stopped  to put some of this plant in my bag.

 

WILD CARROT

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-QuAnnlace.html

Queen Anne's lace or wild carrot, herb ( Daucus carota ) of the family Umbelliferae ( carrot family), native to the Old World but naturalized and often weedy throughout North America and Europe. Similar in appearance to the cultivated carrot (which was derived from this plant), it has feathery foliage but a woody root. The tiny white flowers bloom in a lacy, flat-topped cluster (called an umbel) until they die off, when the cluster becomes nest-shaped. The plant was formerly used in folk medicine as a diuretic and a stimulant. Queen Anne's lace is classified in the  , class Magnoliopsida, order Apiales, family Umbelliferae.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/carwil25.html

Traditional Medicinal Uses---

Diuretic and stimulant. An infusion of the whole herb is considered an active and valuable remedy in the treatment of chronic kidney diseases and affections of the bladder. The infusion, made from 1 OZ. of the herb in a pint of boiling water, is taken in wineglassful doses. Carrot tea brewed in this way from the whole front, is considered excellent for a variety of arthritic conditions.

The seeds are very useful in flatulence, colic, hiccough, dysentery, coughs, etc. The dose of the seeds, bruised, is from one-third to one teaspoonful, repeated as necessary. They were at one time considered a valuable remedy for calculus complaints. They have a slight aromatic smell and a warm, pungent taste. They add an agreeable flavour to malt liquor, if infused in it while working in the vat. Traditionally, in herbal medicine a poultice made of the roots and applied to ulcers.

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HEMLOCK

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Conium+maculatum

A very poisonous plant, the toxins are especially concentrated in the seed. The stems contain up to 0.06% of the toxic alkaloids, the leaves between 0.03 and 0.8%, the flowers from 0.09 to 0.24% and the green fruit from 0.73 to 0.98%. The toxins, however, are very volatile and decompose readily especially when the plant is dried or cookedThe toxins paralyse the respiratory nerves, causing death by suffocation. Children have been known to die after using the hollow stems as blowpipes. The poisonous nature of the plant varies considerably, with many people believing that the plant is less toxic when grown in cooler climates, but this is not scientifically recognised. It grows through out Europe, Scandinavia and America.

http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/conium_maculatum.htm

How Poisonous, How Harmful?

Five alkaloids are present. Coniine is the most important but it also has  Conhydrine, pseudoconhydrine, methyl-coniine and ethyl-piperidine. It is a  violent emetic and convulsive, it causes paralysis of central and peripheral nervous system and death by respiratory failure. In Plato’s ‘Phaedo’ the fictionalised account of Socrates’ death there is no mention of nausea and vomiting. It may be that whilst the plant material is emetic juice obtained from squeezing the stalks does not have this effect.

Being a member of the same family as carrot and fennel, there have been instances of poisonous hemlock being mistaken for an edible plant.

What plant did I have you ask??? I have no idea, I didn’t keep it long enough to find out, it is now quietly rotting in my compostor.

Found this video, thought it was quite funny and it fits well with the topic, apologies about the poor quality of the video though, I included it because  thought it was funny.

 

 

 

 

Blog Action Day; Poverty,

                           POVERTY

 Remember this??

 THE ‘MAKE POVERTY HISTORY MARCH’

(all pictures in this blog come from that march)

 July 2cd 2005, Edinburgh, The biggest political gathering Scotland has ever seen. This was the one time when WE had the opportunity to influence the big guys, the world players, they were meeting in the G8 summit at Gleneagles the following week and WE, the people of Scotland had the chance to say…

’Hey you guys, look at us, YOU are in OUR country and WE want YOU to make world poverty HISTORY’’.

We marched, all the way around Edinburgh, we wore white and before long a huge white ring of people could be seen circling Edinburgh. They took pictures of it from the air. There was a carnival atmosphere, there was music and marching bands and stalls and flags and banners and children playing and people dancing. People arrived in busses from all over the country, they came from other countries. On the way, if one bus marked ‘Make Poverty History’, met or passed another one, every one would wave and cheer. The organisers expected 250,000 people but in the end there were many more. I know this happened because I was there, yes, really, I was there. I still have the tee shirt in my drawer and my photos are now posted. We thought we would make a BIG difference right away. We were wrong. We made very little difference, just  a few minor concessions.  Look around the world today, three years later and what do you see? You see Poverty every where, did we make a difference??………………..

Maybe we made a little difference to just a few people, maybe we prepared the ground a little; maybe we sowed a few seeds, seeds of hope for a few people. And if that is all we achieved; it was worth it.

 

AND NOW WE HAVE BLOG ACTION DAY FOR POVERTY

Will this make a difference?? The temptation is to think not, it’s so easy to think, ‘‘what’s the point?, nothing ever changes’’. The point it, IT COULD, but not if every one sits back and does nothing. There are more people in our history who have fought for out freedoms, liberties and justice than I have space to mention. Without these people ours lives would be very different and without OUR input the lives of millions in the developing world will never change.

This international fight against world poverty is only asking that you; you who live in the developed world and know nothing of abject poverty, do what ever you can to ensure the whole world enjoys some of the most basic human rights that you take completely  for granted.

How are we to do this??, good question, first maybe we need to understand a little of what we are dealing with.

 

Check this out

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

 
      * Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

        * The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

        * Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

        * Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.*OMG… did you read that bit about weapons!!!

        * 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

 And this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7583719.stm

 The World Bank has warned that world poverty is much greater than previously thought.

 It has revised its previous estimate and now says that 1.4 billion people live in poverty, based on a new poverty line of $1.25 per day.

 This is substantially more than its earlier estimate of 985 million people living in poverty in 2004.

 And this

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908762.html

 
In 2005 there were 982 million people out of the developing world's 4.8 billion people living on $1 per day, while another 2.5 billion (40% of the world's population) were living on less than $2 per day2. In 2005,

 THIS IS THE BIT THAT REALLY UPSETS ME

The poorest 40% of the world population accounted for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounted for 75% of world income, and the richest 10% accounted for 54%

 UGH….. HOW SICK IS THAT!!

 

Maybe these statistics don’t move you; sometimes it needs the human touch to understand the reality of what is happening.

 Try this

http://allafrica.com/stories/200809151171.html

 A rusty signpost with the words: "Mudhara Ticha. You are welcome, but don't be a spy," inscribed in white paint, greets visitors to a homestead surrounded by a corroded barbed wire fence.

 A brick structure under iron roofing, two huts and a small granary make up the homestead, in Nyanga's Zondo village, that is home to 14 year-old Tichaona Mubako who has been living there alone since he was 12. His father died two years ago and his mother earlier in 2004. Both parents died of HIV/Aids-related diseases.

 Ever wondered what it would be like to have no clean water??
If you have here is an interesting video.

 http://www.worldvision.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.2116

We all love children, have you any idea how many die every second of every day??

 Check this out

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

 

 Number of children in the world

    2.2 billion

Number in poverty

    1 billion (every second child)

 Shelter, safe water and health

For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

* 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)

   * 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)

        * 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

 Children out of education worldwide

    121 million

Survival for children, Worldwide,

* 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)

 * 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation

 Health of children

 Worldwide,

* 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized

* 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)

AND SO THE LIST GOES ON; But what can we do??

The most important thing is to lobby the politicians, for weeks now every ones pages have been full of Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and of course lets not forget Sarah Palin (as if we could). I tend not to comment on these pages cos ….. well I’m not American (but I did REALLY enjoy that video/song about OHHHHH Sara Palin, that was soooo funny). Point is, how much space has been taken up with discussion about eradicating world poverty? How important do people think this issue is? Who watched the video on Sea’s page…. Remember what it said…’Think outside the box’, guess this is the time to practice that.  

 This is where I started…………….Make Poverty History

 http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

and this is what they suggest we all do

TAKE ACTION NOW

pressure politicians and decision makers to help make poverty history.

DROP THE DEBT

Poor countries are still repaying unaffordable loans which the rich world gave irresponsibly. Some of these were to oppressive regimes, often for arms sales. Others were for useless projects from which only Western companies benefited. Still others were on unfair terms.

VULTURE FUNDS

Vulture funds are private companies that buy up cheap poor country debts, and then sue for huge profits. Earlier this year Donegal International sued Zambia for $55 million from a debt it bought for $3 million. It was awarded over $15 million - money which Zambia needed to invest in teachers, doctors and clean water supplies.

TRADE JUSTICE

The Trade Justice Movement is calling on the Governments to use their full influence to stop unfair deals going ahead, to listen to the serious concerns of poor countries and work with those countries to develop new deals that will help deliver trade justice.

And on a more personal level;

 It just takes a little thought and willingness to change.

For example, as I have said in previous pages, it’s not exactly rocket science to work out the relationship between cheap, throw away clothing and oppressive sweat shops. The answer is simple look for the fair trade label.

In a world where we are all clamoring for more, remember and understand what this actually means

The poorest 40% of the world population accounted for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounted for 75% of world income, and the richest 10% accounted for 54%

Again not rocket science to work out that if we have more than out fair share others will have less.

We all drink coffee, buy fair trade.

Stuck for Christmas presents for friends who have every thing? buy a goat for an African family

There is so much each and every one of us could do if only we could be bothered to make the effort. You don’t need to look very far, it’s all out there on the internet and that’s a place we all visit every day of our lives.

 TO FINISH, A HAPPY STORY

http://www.africa.hu/

 The story of Daniel, please go see this it is a story with a happy ending.