FURTHERMORE. . .

In an interview with ABC's Jake Tapper, Barack Obama fouled up the healthcare issue. For purposes of defending the penalties attached to the mandate, he compared health insurance to automobile insurance saying "everybody has to get auto insurance," which is not true. Only people who own a car need to buy automobile insurance.

Brian Czech, Letter to the Washington Post - Of course politicians will argue about whether climate change legislation will "slow U.S. economic growth," because economic growth is assumed to be a top priority. But that assumption is simplistic and outdated. Stabilizing the climate is all about stabilizing the economy: moving it toward a "steady state" that is neither growing nor in recession. . . For the sake of our children and grandchildren, what we really need to argue about is whether to continue pushing economic growth at all costs or to strive for a steady-state economy that fits on the planet. Politicians shy away from this debate because, in a steady state, population must be stabilized and poverty has to be handled with at least some redistribution of wealth. But, clearly, the rising tide of economic growth threatens to sink more boats than it lifts.

A reader suggests - given your editor's apprehension about attending a strategic planning meeting - that he take along a bull shit bingo card. There is also a cliche version.

The British Guardian has a new section devoted to small business. Meanwhile, the archaic American media has yet, despite its financial distress, to discover that small business people might like to read news about and helpful to them, as would workers. While every big American paper as a business section, try to find a workers' section.

A US judge has ordered South Carolina not to issue a vehicle number plate with a Christian image and slogan. The state legislature had approved a licence plate with a cross in front of a stained glass window and the words "I Believe" written along the top. District Judge Cameron Currie said that the plate violated the First Amendment, which enshrines the separation of church and state. A similar bid by a group in Florida last year did not pass state lawmakers.

ABC News - Currently there are approximately 131,000 homeless veterans in the United States, that's down from about 200,000 reported just a few years ago

Haaretz - Anyone who owns a radio probably knows the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" (To everything there is a season) very . . . Here's what the listeners don't know: every time this song is played, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions receives a few dollars, which accumulate to a "several thousand dollars every year," according to the committee's co-founder and coordinator. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is a non-profit organization that uses non-violent means to oppose Israeli demolition of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Seeger has been donating some of the song's royalties to ICAHD for ten years.

New America Media - The CDC estimates between 2 million and 5 million people have been infected [with swine flu] since the outbreak in April, and 2,000 people have died, including 100 children, said Dr. Andrew Kroger of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Financial Times - No Palestinian leader can or will negotiate while Israeli colonisation of the West Bank continues. Mr Netanyahu's refusal to call a halt to expanding settlements means in effect there will be no two-state solution. If that is so, then the prospect is for a long and bitter fight for equal rights within one state. That would spell the end of Israel as a democratic Jewish state. It would come to resemble in many ways the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. If Mr Netanyahu believes that he has achieved a victory by refusing to halt the settlements, he is wrong. It is more like a project of national suicide.