The poll called the Wrong House!

Or maybe the right one.

I'm watching my baby granddaughter and we both lay down to take a nap -- hey its hard work to watch a 2 month old! So, of course the phone rings. I answer the phone to find out its a poll(although no human, just computer generated). So here I go:

Do you approve or disaprove of the way President Obama is handling the economy--the bailout of the banks and takeover of the healthcare industry(hmmm....can we say push poll?)? I approve.

If the governor's race was held today, would you vote for Quinn or Brady(I live in Illinois)?

Quinn.

Senator Meeks has introduced a bill to allow parents to choose where they want to send their children to school - for moral, academic and safety standards...this allows parents to choose the best education for their children, if the so choose(like parents who don't like this obviously are bad parents). Do you support this bill?

No--Sen. Meeks is rightfully trying to assist his constituents, who live in Chicago. Although I agree with his reasons, I don't agree with the bill. Instead of trying to destroy our public school system(shrub, reagan already did a pretty good job nationally and Illinois has a very regressive tax system which hurts school systems).

Governor Quinn says he will veto this bill if it passes, does this change your vote for Governor?

No.

Representative Brady says he would enact the ability for parents to see that their children get the education they deserve(like the wording? IOW, if the parents aren't rich enough, they don't deserve a good education?). Would this change your vote for governor?

No--Brady has also voted consistently against childcare, worker's rights, women's reproductive choices(including cutting funding for birth control to poor women, only funding birth control for married women) and recently re-introduced a "cost cutting" bill that animal control kill shelters should do mass gassing of pets when their time is up instead of individual--this was made illegal years ago because of the emotional cost--to workers, volunteers, and the fact that there would be animals that would not die during the mass gassing and then would have to be gassed...again. He also has voted against breast cancer research grants--notice a pattern here?

Are you pro life?

OH....you mean anti-abortion? No...and obviously Brady isn't pro life either---see my last paragraph.

Governor Quinn wants to raise taxes and not cut spending to help get Illinois out of its budget crisis. Do you agree or disagree with Quinn?

Agree--Illinois has a very regressive tax structure and its stuck in the 70's. We are doomed with the "flat tax" and it shows that it doesn't work. House Bill 174 not only increases the personal income tax from 3% to 5, but it also increases the personal exemption from $2000 to 3000 per exemption and doubles the credit for property taxes, so....my family would actually have received about $1000 more this year as a refund--what's wrong with that? Oh....shoot....I forgot...I actually know what I'm talking about.

Representatvie Bradley wants to cut spending and not raise your taxes...Do you support Brady's plan?

HELL NO. We've been "cutting" so much in the budget for the past couple years there is little to be able to cut without hurting services--one place that everyone is talking about cutting is senior services----we're going to cut services to seniors???? Really??? And that's fair how????? Oh, and of course children, prisons and mental health--line staff, not executive.....Illinois, although we have the 5th highest wealth in the 50 United States(and if we were a country, we'd have a larger bankroll than Saudi Arabia!) has the least amount of state employees. Want to see lines? Get a driver's license on a Saturday.

And the last question?

Do you support civil unions or homosexual marriage and homosexuals in the military where our troops would be subject to homosexuality in thier units, their bunkers, their barracks mess halls, quarters bathrooms(and about 8 other places, but I couldn't remember them all)?

AGREE! I really couldn't believe the wording on the last question...OMG such a crock!

Of course after that they asked my gender and my age....wonder if they'll ever poll my house again. I obviously didn't fit their idea of a "good" voter. But then it pays not to be a low information voter. This poll was sponsored by the Illinois Family Council...wonder whose family, cuz I sure wouldn't want my family included in their bigotry and stupidity.

How Seniors benefit from the New Health Care Law

From the Ohio Alliance for Retired Amercians:

As the above says, this is how that evul health care plan is going to hurt seniors....

Reduces drug costs by phasing out Shrub's doughnut hole:
Provides a $250 rebate in 2010 for seniors who fall in donut hole. Next year, seniors receive a 50% discount on perscription drugs when stuck in donut hole and by 2020, it will be eliminated.

Covers Preventive Services:
Next year, seniors who participate in Medicare will receive annual check ups. This law also eliminates co-pays/cost-sharing for mammograms, colonoscopies and other preventive screenings.

Supports Early Retiree Coverage:
Provides financial assistance to employer helath plans that cover early retirees, bringing down health costs and premiums by as much as $1200 per family, per year in some plans.

Encourages Doctors to coordinate care and improve quality:
Creates incentives for providers to work together to better serve patients and reduce wasteful care like repeated tests.

Removes Obstacles to Changing Part D Plan:
Allows Part D enrollees to make a mid-year change in their enrollment if current plan unexpectedly changes the plan and makes them pay a higher cost in perscriptions.

Significantly lowers Cost for Struggling Seniors:
Expands the Medicare Part D low-income subsidy, which will dramatically help struggling seniors afford their health care costs.

Enacts CLASS Act creating a anew option for long-term assistance for seniors and the disabled:
Creates a new, voluntary self-insured insurance program to help families pay for the costs of long-term supports and services if a loved one develops a disability. Also creates new options for states to provide home and community based services in Medicaid, enabling more people with disabilities to access long-term services in the setting in which they choose.

Enacts the Elder Justice Act:
Authorizes new criminal background checks on long-term care workers who have access to residents or patients and requires greater transparency of nursing homes, including public disclosure of the entities that own, govern, operate and profit from nursing homes. The law also requires better information about the quality of nursing care and improves complaint process.

Saves Medicare funds:
By eliminating wasteful over-payments to Medicare Advantage p[lans and by creating new incentives for coordinated high quality care across the health care spectrum, the law extends the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by 9 years and improves Medicare for generations to come.

Urban Legends and Stupid People

I have more than one "friend" from work that sends me the urban legend spam, you know the ones....somebody's hiding in the trunk, congress doesn't pay social security, Obama is an undercover muslim/socialist/fascist/communist(I learned the differences in these when I was in high school, I'm wondering if some of my work associates ever finished high school),under the car, swilling perfume, walking with a big dog, bringing home a mexican rat and leaving a kidney behind, those stupid things. When I get them, I go to Snopes and send back the link to show that its not true...and ask/tell them, once again, to check these out before sending to me...do they? Nope.

So a couple of days ago, I get the: Gangs are using baby carriers in the road to rob people!!!!! Oh...and this was sent from a police memo and the last line was that it was checked out at snopes....sure. So, I go to snopes(through the portal, not the link provided--who knows? That could be a phishing site) and find out, that OH MY GOD--ITS FALSE! Who'da thunk? So, I send the link, hit reply(but hit reply all instead of just reply, should teach me about doing these late at night). Figure that's it. Do with it what you will.

The next morning, I have 2 responses; one from the friend that states: It was a police memo, therefore it must be true. She also received it on April 1 I do a quick bing search and copy the results to her--the only website that says this is true or that it actually happened was a white supremist group...and its a mexican gang!!!!!! Hmmm....no word on it thru Reuters, AP, or any reputable news source.

The other response? Get this:

SO WHAT IF THIS IS FALSE. IT CERTAINLY CAN HAPPEN. STRANGER THINGS HAVE.

in all caps. HUH?????? So, in her world, facts don't matter, honesty doesn't matter...only the boogey man and gossip??? And we wonder why so many people believe the republicons lies? Much easier to make yourself feel less of a moron when the Limpd**ks, Oreilly's Hannity's Bachman's, Palin's of the world use that ignorance/bigotry/stupidity of yours to screw all of us into the wall...

Liberals rate higher IQ, less religious in study

Science Daily reported that a new study finds that more intelligent people are statistically significantly to exhibit social values and atheism preference and are more apt to consider themselves liberal; these preferences are antithetical to the normal evolutionary process.

The study is being published in Social Psychology Quarterly, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The theory, which was tested and developed at the London School of Economics and Political Science, proposes that people of higher intelligence are more likely than people of lower intelligence to adopt new preferences and values, preferences that don't correlate with older "values" that have been shaped by evolution during the past millions of years. These values are morals that would actually be against the primary evolutionary development of a species.

"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions," states Satoshi Kanazawa who is an evolutionary psychologist involved in the project. "As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values and lifestyles."

Kanazawa also discovered that more intelligent individuals are more likely to be nocturnal. Why? Because artificial light is fairly modern, early human beings slept with the sun--they usually woke up shortly before dawn and went to sleep soon after sunset. In this study, he argues that humans, in evolutionary terms are designed to be conservative, caring about their "tribe"(family and friends--those that you know personally), survival of their tribe over the survival of all humans, conservative nature doesn't have the "ability" to care about people/animal/nature in other than a black/white ideal(rather than nuanced).

Kanazawa's theory is supported by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a long term study which has found that teens who identifed themselves as "very liberal" have an IQ average of 106 contrasted by teens who identified themselves as "very conservative" ranged an average IQ of 95("normal" IQ is 100).

Similarly, religion also figures in humans' tendency to "be all end all" ideology. We are designed to be paranoid and fearful and the idea of a supreme being gives us someone to place those fears in, to believe that if we do this, "God will provide" and protect us from danger. This paranoia has helped us survive when life was much harder and more "hand to mouth" and extreme vigilance against all potential dangers were literally around every corner.

But, more intelligent offspring tend to be less paranoid, and to look at other "tribes" as less threatening. They also tend to question/explore life and see science, rather than religion as a better way to survive/assist future offspring.