I now have read a second news article pointing to a President Bush initiative that scares me like no other.

Since the second article is at a news magazine I despise, a right wing mouth piece, I want to give you the first story I read on the subject: Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness (BMJ.com). BMJ is the British Medical Journal. I had dismissed this as sounding too crazy to be true. But the article did point to the actual the proposal, titled the “New Freedom Initiative” at the Whitehouse! It exists.

Can someone decifer it and give us the facts? The articles make it sound as if every school child is to be screened and marked for mental illness at a young age as a “preventive” measure. What Orwellian world have we entered?!?! Why havn’t we heard more about this in the news?

Boing Boing originally posted about this last Friday and I’m surprised more webloggers who read Boing Boing didn’t pass it around. Too scary ehh?

Ronald Reagan talked of getting government off our backs while growing the defense department to fight Soviet threat. Bill Clinton declared the era of “Big Government” over and actually shrunk the size of the federal establishment. Now “Big Government” is back. But far worst then ever. We have the most intrusive government in the history of the country. One which attempts to legislate our bedrooms, our bodies, our schools, our words, and now our minds.

Oh, I apologize for not linking to the right wing magazine – but whenever you link to something on the internet, you give it visibility on search engines, which means you give it traffic and influence. I refuse to do that.

Did you happen to see his 60 Minutes interview? I don’t know about you, but if his book has more about his growing up then about Monica, I’ll be a very happy reader.

I think it’s awesome that I can actually relate to a living President. Yes, that’s right, I said I can relate to him. At least his childhood in major respects.

If that comes as a shock to you, I apologize. I long ago choose to start my public biography when I was on the streets and a teenager. The time before is too hard to discuss. Too hard to capture in writing. Too hard to process.

I have said many times that I am blessed – and I mean it.

Hearing Bill Clinton’s story leaves me feeling both happy and a more then little insecure. Happy that someone from beginnings so similar to mine has done so much. And a little insecure that I haven?t done enough with my life to make a difference.

Supreme Court Rejects Patient Lawsuits Against HMOs.

Keeping Your Name Private Can Be A Crime.

There is “no credible evidence” that Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, according to a new staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein’s secular government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing training camps or weapons, the panel found in the first of two reports issued today.

Read the rest in the Washington Post.

Then read more about the anatomy of this myth at the Center for American Progress.

I would be yelling for impeachment – but that might help Bush get re-elected.

Instead:

Make a contribution to the Kerry campaign and make sure you are registered to vote.

Oliver Willis links to and gets a discussion going about yesterday’s endorsement of Kerry by the Philadelphia Daily News. It’s more then just an endorsement – it gives pointers to how you can get involved.

“I don’t wake up in the morning hating Kenneth Starr. I wake up in the morning feeling sorry for people who believe they are in possession of the whole truth… And I think you should, too,” President Bill Clinton told a large crowd tonight after the premiere of The Hunting of the President. “If you want to be forgiven, you have to extend forgiveness, even to people who aren’t smart enough to ask for it.”

“If you want to be forgiven, you have to extend forgiveness, even to people who aren’t smart enough to ask for it.” is another one for my quotes file. Damn that’s a great quote.

Read the rest of Jeff Jarvis’s post, summarizing last night’s event sponsored by The Week.

Instead of recieting the Pledge of Allegiance, why not move to reciting the Preamble to the Constitution?

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Read this analysis by Ernest Miller. It makes sense. And like Ernest Miller, I need to question the patriotism of anyone who would choose the Pledge over the Preamble. via Jeff Jarvis.