<blockquote>Good luck with the keratosis.</blockquote>
It's absolutely no problem <i>if</i> you can see a doctor.
See, here's the sweetest irony of your postmature suggestion that I talk to my doctor about how he likes Medicare: The reason he has time at all to shoot the breeze with me about this stuff is that I the patient am his customer, not some health plan, so there's no health plan bureaucrat to ration his minutes with his patients. He can also promise next-day appointments. Contrast that with most health plan docs -- months for an appointment, then get your butt out again in 10 minutes.
<blockquote>Sounds like you might be skipping some of your anger medicine...</blockquote>
Do I have your blessing to get it on Part D, for which I "likely never contributed a dime"? Remember, our profit-friendly Congress obligingly ponied up Big Pharma's asking price without even a whimper. Not to mention that getting it prescribed would also cost Medicare.
<blockquote>In fact, based on your statements, it seems like you are a net financial plus for the system, so we need you around.</blockquote>
So I'm "absolved" after all? Not even five Our Fathers for my penance?
Oh, and this just in:
https://www.prwatch.org/node/8922
I hope your health plan is cutting you a special deal for doing this; it's sad to think of them gouging such a loyal shlepper just like everyone else.
On Sunday, an older council Republican made his case beside the Democrats’ plan for a “public option” for health insurance.
He explain that the public option would “are the first steps in… destroy the best health care system the world has ever recognized.”
There are very good opinion aligned with the health care proposals being superior by the Democrats.
This is not one of them. And with only weeks before the full Senate considers a complete health care reform enclose, such chatting point will only challenge the Republicans’ hard work to face and develop upon the Democrats’ efforts.
Late in 1993 I began forums in cyberspace to discuss the proposed health care reform by the new Clinton administration. I had the sense to archive the contents of the public debate in compressed ascii text. My personal contribution to Billary was a series of papers for the large committee she chaired. Their efforts and mine came to naught. Reasons for that have been examined by myriad Monday morning quarterbacks - but IMO the best assessment was done by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele in their 2004 book "Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business & Bad Medicine". I keep a copy on my bookshelf, next to "The Solid Gold Stethoscope" by Edgar Berman, M.D., 1976.
When Barack Obama was elected I got excited about the new possibility for health care reform and dug reference material out of storage boxes. After reading the new book by T.R. Reid, "The Healing of America" I have become a drum major for the sanity he proposes. I have tired to rescue from catacombs the 1990 Walter Cronkite documentary film called "Borderline Medicine" - which suffered worse attack from the MIC than did SICKO. Few people listen to Mike, everybody listened to Uncle Walter, which is why this documentary is not available today in public libraries or for sale on DVD.
But the last 15 months of vitriolic debate closer to hate speech, and the tsunami of MIC money being thrown against reform of US health care leaves me emotionally drained, and angry as I can remember being. And it is apoplexy that leads me to suggest the following, outside-the-box, hypothetical scenario.
1. As a nation we cease "cold turkey" attempting to reform health care, and leave matters exactly where they are and have been for more than four decades.
2. On Constitution Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument we create two immense pits which bear structural resemblance to BBQ pits.
3. But - these pits would be public crematoria. The one closest to the Capitol would contain the burning corpses of persons whose death can be traced to failure to reform health care. The other pit would be used to cremate persons whose death is known to have Iatrogeneic causes: incompetence or malpractice or system failure. For more than a decade such deaths have been the third highest cause of funeral parlor pickups at hospital, after cancer and cardiac disease.
4. Then we wait to see if the constant smoke and smell over Washington D.C. has the least bit of effect upon the power holders and brokers. How many corpses would we need to burn in pits to convince those who refuse to abandon the status quo? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
For 40 plus years simply "calling" for health care reform has proven a total waste of time. It is like the meow of kittens. So has voting into office politicians who promise to reform HC, so has demonstrating, by marching or waving signs, so has writing brilliant and cogent books (I have a collection of them), so has making superb documentaries about the need for HC reform (I have a collection of them) and so has making movies like SICKO.
What's left? You tell me. What have we not tried?
Thank you for contacting the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) regarding the safety of our City’s biosolids compost and the use of the term “organic” in signs and literature promoting our compost give away events.
The SFPUC has been giving away biosolids compost yearly since 2007. The SFPUC shares your concerns regarding the safety of biosolids compost – that is why we test our biosolids for contaminants, and make those test results available to the public. We are constantly re-evaluating our pilot giveaways and have no immediate plans for our next event.
The SFPUC’s previous use of the term “organic” in signs and literature regarding our biosolids compost was intended to communicate its high carbon content in a manner akin to the term “organic chemistry”. To prevent confusion with what is labeled as “Organic” by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFPUC has since removed any reference to the term from all of its signage and literature.
San Francisco is a city that prides itself on its sustainability and being at the forefront of new environmental and public health initiatives. Just as in many of our other initiatives, our biosolids program goes above and beyond what is required by federal and state laws. Although no law requires it, the SFPUC tests for contaminants and we have found extremely low levels of contaminants in our biosolids. One of the few countries in the world that has limits on endocrine disrupters is Denmark. Our levels of endocrine disrupters fall below what is required to meet even their reuse standards.
I hope you will take the time to learn more about our San Francisco biosolids program by reading the accompanying text. In addition, you can also find more documentation along with tests results on our website at www.sfsewers.org
Sincerely,
Tommy Moala
Assistant General Manager for the Wastewater Enterprise
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background: What are Biosolids? What is Biosolids Compost?
• Biosolids are the treated nutrient-rich solid waste removed from sewage at every wastewater treatment plant. In San Francisco, biosolids treated in an anaerobic environment (in an environment devoid of oxygen) and heated for about 20 days at 95 degrees Fahrenheit in a series of tanks at our treatment plants. Methane gas is collected from the biosolids and used to produce renewable energy that powers our operations.
• Biosolids Compost undergoes further aerobic treatment for 3-4 weeks (oxygen-based environment) and kept at temperatures exceeding 131 degrees Fahrenheit at a composting facility in Merced. At the facility, the biosolids are mixed in with organic materials like wood chips or paper fiber. This is the process that converts the biosolids to compost.
• The sustained and serial anaerobic and aerobic treatment substantially reduces many compounds of concern.
Metals Levels / Other compounds of concerns (i.e.: endocrine disrupters, triclosan, etc.)
• Metals - We have very low concentration of metals in our biosolids. Our levels are not only far below the current EPA standards, but below the more stringent European Union standards as well. In fact, if you line up our biosolids compost with the same compost you would purchase at your typical gardening store, the metals concentrations would be about the same, in other words, very low.
Other compounds of concerns
• Although we aren't required to, the SFPUC has conducted tests on these compounds because we want to be ahead of the curve. We have extremely low levels for all of these compounds in our biosolids. One of the few countries in the world that has limits on endocrine disrupters is Denmark. Our levels of endocrine disrupters fall below what is required to meet even their reuse standards.
The Term “Organic”
• The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s (SFPUC) former use of the term “organic” referred to the scientific definition of organic matter as in containing significant amounts of organic carbon. To prevent confusion with what is labeled as “Organic” by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFPUC has since removed any reference to the term from all of its signage and literature.
Why are the metals/other compounds low?
- There are a couple of reasons why:
1) The SFPUC provides drinking water from an enclosed, protected tap water supply. There is no contamination of our water from wastewater dischargers into our water source. We receive our great water pretty much straight from snowmelt off the Sierra Nevada to our taps.
2) San Franciscans are very educated and environmentally conscious. Part of that is due to the great work of SF Environment and the SFPUC. People know they shouldn't be dumping their motor oil down the drain or dumping dangerous chemicals down the toilet. After all, where does all that end up - straight to our wastewater treatment plants.
This is also part of the reason the SFPUC has sponsored an Eco-Fair two years in a row, the Big Blue Bucket event. We educate people and provide resources. For example, at our events, we collected more than 2 tons of old/expired medications for proper disposal.
The SFPUC also has an aggressive, and award winning water pollution prevention program. In the past 8 years, we've eliminated mercury runoff from dentist's offices and are constantly sampling our major dischargers to make sure they are in compliance.
3) San Francisco is primarily a residential city. There are no major industries in the City that would serve as a large contributor of metals, chemicals and compounds into the wastewater system.
The regs for these transactions were debated by the EU parliment and reviewed by Eurostat shortly after they happened. This was covered in an article in Risk Management magazine back in 2003. The EU got exactly what they wanted, plenty of budget wiggle room for it's members. Now that it has become a problem, the politicians are looking for a scapegoat. When will you guys in the pitchfork crowd realize that you are being played by the politicians? Just a few facts. The Greek transactions were cross currency swaps. What makes them unique is the use of a lookback period for the exchange rate instead of the spot rate. The pricing of CDS follow the credit quality of the issuer. If the Greeks were not such terrible credit risk you can bet the cost of Greek CDS would be cheaper. If you restrict CDS trading you WILL hurt liquidity in the market and restrict credit. CDS did not wreck th U.S.economy, an overleveraged consumer did. What do you think the "toxic assets" are made of? They are the nonperforming loans of overleveraged consumers. It doesn't matter how many times you write this stuff, you don't make it true. The only thing you do is fan the flames. Most of your audience doesn't have a prayer of truly understanding how any of these transactions work.
Thank you for contacting the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) regarding the safety of our City’s biosolids compost and the use of the term “organic” in signs and literature promoting our compost give away events.
The SFPUC has been giving away biosolids compost yearly since 2007. The SFPUC shares your concerns regarding the safety of biosolids compost – that is why we test our biosolids for contaminants, and make those test results available to the public. We are constantly re-evaluating our pilot giveaways and have no immediate plans for our next event.
The SFPUC’s previous use of the term “organic” in signs and literature regarding our biosolids compost was intended to communicate its high carbon content in a manner akin to the term “organic chemistry”. To prevent confusion with what is labeled as “Organic” by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFPUC has since removed any reference to the term from all of its signage and literature.
San Francisco is a city that prides itself on its sustainability and being at the forefront of new environmental and public health initiatives. Just as in many of our other initiatives, our biosolids program goes above and beyond what is required by federal and state laws. Although no law requires it, the SFPUC tests for contaminants and we have found extremely low levels of contaminants in our biosolids. One of the few countries in the world that has limits on endocrine disrupters is Denmark. Our levels of endocrine disrupters fall below what is required to meet even their reuse standards.
I hope you will take the time to learn more about our San Francisco biosolids program by reading the accompanying text. In addition, you can also find more documentation along with tests results on our website at www.sfsewers.org
Sincerely,
Tommy Moala
Assistant General Manager for the Wastewater Enterprise
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background: What are Biosolids? What is Biosolids Compost?
• Biosolids are the treated nutrient-rich solid waste removed from sewage at every wastewater treatment plant. In San Francisco, biosolids treated in an anaerobic environment (in an environment devoid of oxygen) and heated for about 20 days at 95 degrees Fahrenheit in a series of tanks at our treatment plants. Methane gas is collected from the biosolids and used to produce renewable energy that powers our operations.
• Biosolids Compost undergoes further aerobic treatment for 3-4 weeks (oxygen-based environment) and kept at temperatures exceeding 131 degrees Fahrenheit at a composting facility in Merced. At the facility, the biosolids are mixed in with organic materials like wood chips or paper fiber. This is the process that converts the biosolids to compost.
• The sustained and serial anaerobic and aerobic treatment substantially reduces many compounds of concern.
Metals Levels / Other compounds of concerns (i.e.: endocrine disrupters, triclosan, etc.)
• Metals - We have very low concentration of metals in our biosolids. Our levels are not only far below the current EPA standards, but below the more stringent European Union standards as well. In fact, if you line up our biosolids compost with the same compost you would purchase at your typical gardening store, the metals concentrations would be about the same, in other words, very low.
Other compounds of concerns
• Although we aren't required to, the SFPUC has conducted tests on these compounds because we want to be ahead of the curve. We have extremely low levels for all of these compounds in our biosolids. One of the few countries in the world that has limits on endocrine disrupters is Denmark. Our levels of endocrine disrupters fall below what is required to meet even their reuse standards.
The Term “Organic”
• The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s (SFPUC) former use of the term “organic” referred to the scientific definition of organic matter as in containing significant amounts of organic carbon. To prevent confusion with what is labeled as “Organic” by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFPUC has since removed any reference to the term from all of its signage and literature.
Why are the metals/other compounds low?
- There are a couple of reasons why:
1) The SFPUC provides drinking water from an enclosed, protected tap water supply. There is no contamination of our water from wastewater dischargers into our water source. We receive our great water pretty much straight from snowmelt off the Sierra Nevada to our taps.
2) San Franciscans are very educated and environmentally conscious. Part of that is due to the great work of SF Environment and the SFPUC. People know they shouldn't be dumping their motor oil down the drain or dumping dangerous chemicals down the toilet. After all, where does all that end up - straight to our wastewater treatment plants.
This is also part of the reason the SFPUC has sponsored an Eco-Fair two years in a row, the Big Blue Bucket event. We educate people and provide resources. For example, at our events, we collected more than 2 tons of old/expired medications for proper disposal.
The SFPUC also has an aggressive, and award winning water pollution prevention program. In the past 8 years, we've eliminated mercury runoff from dentist's offices and are constantly sampling our major dischargers to make sure they are in compliance.
3) San Francisco is primarily a residential city. There are no major industries in the City that would serve as a large contributor of metals, chemicals and compounds into the wastewater system.
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