Change // Current

Brighter Planet Better Stars

"It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide clear heavens... more

BrighterPlanet
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9 days ago
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5 comments

World Freedom Day ( To the Tune of Annie Get Your Gun )

I guess the Nobel from the Onion made me irritable. When I saw someone had the idea to... more

opit
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12 days ago
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The Great Climate Swoop

Saturday 17 October 2009: The Great Climate Swoop descended on the Ratcliffe... more

JasonNParkinson
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17 days ago
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Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up

While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major... more

atomiclegion
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20 days ago
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Why gay marriage, getting high, and going to Cuba will soon be legal.

The End of Prohibition "I think this would be a good time for a beer," Franklin D.... more

atomiclegion
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20 days ago
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95 comments

Grab A Mop! ovvero parlate di meno e aiutate di più.

Barack Obama si ribella ai critici in questo esilarante quanto concreto video.... more

tommids
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21 days ago
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In his midnight mission to honor the returning war dead, President Obama did more than personally extend the nation’s condolences to grieving families gathered at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Without uttering a public word, Mr. Obama erased President George W. Bush’s shameful attempts to hide the pain of war from Americans and to shield himself from paying public tribute to the thousands who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The long-overdue display of national gratitude and regret by the commander in chief rekindled a note of most solemn ritual that the country owes sons and daughters in uniform sacrificed in war. The president was restoring a post-Vietnam tradition that included the graphic embraces and wrenching words personally extended by President Ronald Reagan to the families of the 241 soldiers, sailors and Marines who perished 26 years ago in the bombing of the Marines’ camp in Lebanon.

The Bush policy was to prohibit any news media coverage of the returning war dead and to never show the president within a camera-lens’ length of the dolorous homecomings. Under Mr. Obama, the Pentagon reversed the no-coverage policy in February. On Thursday, the president himself took the necessary next step.

He silently saluted in the morning darkness as the remains of 18 Americans killed this week in Afghanistan were transferred from a military transport. He spent close to two hours talking in private with stricken families. One of them gave approval for the news media to show the nation its loved one’s arrival before the president and assembled officers. Within minutes, of course, bloggers were reacting. Some were grateful. Others denounced Mr. Obama for photo-op exploitation even as they demanded he hurry up and decide whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

The true cost of war must never be denied by the nation or its leader. Mr. Obama’s visit was entirely appropriate as he faces the decision of what comes next in Afghanistan. The pity is President Bush never dared as much.In his midnight mission to honor the returning war dead, President Obama did more than... more

current89
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23 days ago
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75 comments

Barack Obama lifts HIV/AIDS US travel ban

Barack Obama said that a US travel ban against people infected with the HIV virus will be overturned early next year.

The order will be completed on Monday, Obama said, finishing a process begun during the administration of George Bush.

The United States is one of about a dozen countries that bar entry to travellers based on their HIV status. The ban has been in place for more than 20 years. Obama said it will be lifted just after the new year, after a waiting period of about 60 days.

"If we want to be a global leader in combating HIV/Aids, we need to act like it," Obama said at the White House before signing a bill to extend the Ryan White HIV/Aids programme. Begun in 1990, the program provides medical care, medication and support services to about half a million Americans with HIV or Aids, mostly low-income people.

The bill is named for an teenager who contracted Aids through a blood transfusion at age 13. Ryan White went on to fight Aids-related discrimination against him and others like him in the late 1980s and to help educate Americans about the disease. He died in April 1990 aged 18.

His mother, Jeanne White-Ginder, attended the signing ceremony, as did several members of Congress and HIV/Aids activists.

In 1987, at a time of widespread fear and ignorance about HIV, the department of health and human services added the disease to the list of communicable diseases that disqualified a person from entering the United States.

The department tried in 1991 to reverse its decision but was opposed by Congress, which in 1993 went the other way and made HIV infection the only medical condition explicitly listed under immigration law as grounds for inadmissibility to the country.

The law effectively has kept out thousands of students, tourists and refugees and complicated the adoption of children with HIV. No major international Aids conference has been held in the United States since 1993 because HIV-positive activists or researchers could not enter the country.

Obama said lifting the ban "is a step that will save lives" by encouraging people to get tested and to get treatment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/30/obama-ends-hiv-travel-banBarack Obama said that a US travel ban against people infected with the HIV virus will... more