Ken Padgett

Organ transplants save thousands of lives every year, but many more people die because there aren't enough organs available. In the US, about 100,000 adults and children are waiting for organ transplants, and over 6,500 people die each year while waiting on a transplant list. Recent polls indicate that as many as 85% of Americans support organ donation, but only about 30% have formally expressed their willingness to donate. Most states have opt-in programs via driver's license or state ID card applications. But with the continuing shortage of transplantable organs, some are suggesting a switch to an opt-out system (also called implied consent). With implied consent if people don't specifically opt-out, they will be considered potential organ donors upon their death. Opt-out systems are unnecessarily coercive in that they force people to make a choice or have that choice taken away from them and they don't take into account the wishes of the family. Another variation o...

Why is support for Republican ideas so strong among many of the people who are suffering the most because of those same ideas? It’s because of how skilled Republicans are at framing issues in ways that are beneficial to them and because their messaging is more effective due to the fact that it is much better organized and better financed than Democrats. Republicans would have you believe that Obama is solely responsible for the bad economy, as if everything was going fine till he took office.  However, the facts are otherwise: Obama didn't create the economic crisis. Obama didn't start the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has never had a free hand to do what he wanted to do. Republicans have openly bragged about doing everything they could to make Obama a one-term President. Republicans have sabotaged every legislative attempt to promote job growth so as to improve their chances in the next election. Of course Obama and the Democrats deserve plenty of blame for the ...

SARAH PALIN: "He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4C7bvHv2w What is even more laughable than this latest Palin word salad is the lengths that Palin apologists have been going to claim her comments are somehow factual: "Clanging church-bells in the middle of the night probably did warn British spies & double-agents that something was afoot. Sarah was referring to the Revolutionary spirit of resistance to British rule as a "warning" to the British that the colonists were fed up, and not gonna take it any more. And, can any Sarah-bashing know-it-all provide video or links to news reports of Paul Revere's Ride? Sarah Palin's history lesson is as goo...

Creation of a no-fly zone is not the easy solution that saber-rattling right-wingers seem to think it is. The first step in creating a no-fly zone is to destroy all radar and missile sites and airfields. That's an act of war that requires a substantial commitment of US forces at a time when we are already involved in two wars we can't pay for or staff now. Our military is also exhausted and their equipment is worn out. And what happens when the no-fly zone doesn't stop Gaddafi from destroying the rebels, which he is in the process of doing right now with mostly ground forces? Once we've made a military committment, do we just walk away when that doesn't work, as it surely won't, or do we then send in the Marines? And why do right-wingers seem to think it is our responsibility to insure Gaddafi's defeat? He is no threat to us and we are not the world's policemen. If the Europeans want to take him on let them do all the heavy lifting for a change. The...

Hooking up a computer to a plasma TV has opened up many possibilities for playback of DVDs I've purchased and media files that I've downloaded off the internet. Since playback from a hard disc is much more reliable than it is from a DVD, I copy all DVDs to my computer that I plan to watch.  It wasn't long before I was adding a couple of 2TB drives to my computer to hold a giant library of media but even that has turned out to not be enough storage for everything because my library keeps getting bigger and bigger. But, where there's a will (and money) there's always a way. Want lots of storage for your home theater PC?  I built this one myself:   10TB USB Disc Array for Home Theater PC This 10TB USB array cost about $565 for everything and all of the parts were purchased from Amazon. Western Digital 2TB External Drives 5 @ $89 each = $449 American DJ PC-100A 8 Channel Power Strip = $30 Penn-Elcom R1194/3UK Rack Shelf 3U = $45 Power Strip Adapter Liberato...

Republicans took control of the House last November by taunting President Obama and the Democrats with "Where are the jobs? Republicans said their campaign was about creating jobs, but since they took office it’s clear that cutting government spending comes first, last and always -- now that they've cut taxes for the rich. How can Republicans fight for massive tax breaks for the rich and as soon as they get that immediately pivot into being reformed big spenders who now claim to be deficit hawks, and do it without looking like hypocrites? Good question, but it appears that they ARE getting away with it and, much to the dismay of many who supported him, President Obama has also bought into this nonsense.  Republicans say a smaller government eventually will spur private-sector job growth. Yeah, eventually. However in the mean time, government spending pays for research, infrastructure, education and other programs that create or protect existing public- and private-se...

In December, a study from University of Maryland researchers found that Fox News viewers were vastly more misinformed than news consumers who depended largely on other outlets for their information.  Fox News immediately attempted to discredit the study, but leaks from Fox News staffers and consistency in messaging have shown a disturbing pattern of talking points that are repeated on Fox News throughout the day. A June 4, 2009 internal memo from top Fox News Channel editor Bill Sammon was leaked recently,that said, “FYI: My cursory check of Obama’s 6,000-word speech to the Muslim world did not turn up the words ‘terror,’ ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’.” Immediately, numerous Fox personalities grabbed the ball and ran with it; Megyn Kelly, Brett Bauer, Shep Smith, and other personalities on supposedly unbiased ‘news’ shows, even Sammon himself, used the fact that the president’s speechwriters had chosen to avoid that particular word choice as unnecessarily inflammatory...