30 quotes found
"While there are periodic calls from lifbertarians and others for the privatization or elimination of the program, given the first political opportunity to dramatically influence the Medicare program, a conservative White House and Congress sought to strengthen, not weaken, the program. To be sure, debates will linger about whether Medicare is too large or too small. Debates remain about the allocation of Medicare dollars. But December 8, 2003, demonstrated that there is no debate on this most fundamental fact: Medicare must survive."
"What, exactly, is the cost of this inaction? Estimates of the total national cost of medical malpractice range from $20 billion to $45 billion annually. But this number hardly tells the whole story. There also is the more hidden cost of defensive medicine, including unnecessary testing and second opinions that send patients scurrying through processes that would not otherwise be ordered and deepen the financial burden of America’s health care system by an estimated three percent of our country’s total health care expenditures. Who ultimately pays these costs? Reckless doctors? Faceless insurance companies? Seldom mentioned, the totality of these expenses ultimately falls exclusively on the consumer, since each malpractice award translates ultimately to increased malpractice insurance premiums, which, in turn, translates to either higher health care costs, fewer physicians (with less competitive pricing pressure), or both."
"The tragedy of Africa seemingly has no end. Viewing it from afar, the casual Western onlooker can be forgiven if the scenes begin to meld: Ethiopian famine in 1987, Somalian civil war and ensuing famine in 1992, and now Central Africa in 1997. The pictures and footage assume the role of media footnotes: snapshots of hopelessness, disaster, and death that seem as far away as the moon and as unrealistic as some science fiction film. Yet, like the African crises before it, the tragedy of Central Africa is very real and, in a global age, perhaps not as distant as some would like to think. With a foreign policy appropriately rooted in some sense of humanitarian decency, the Central African crisis will not be easily ignored by American policymakers. It screams for remedy."
"Ultimately, in its collapse, Laos was important because it proved the validity of the so-called domino theory, which preached that communism--once victorious in South Vietnam--would metastasize throughout the region. Laos, like Cambodia, proved the domino theorists correct. On August 23, 1975, just four months after Saigon's fall, communist Pathet Lao (meaning "Land of Lao") guerrillas entered the Laotian capital of Vientiane and seized control of the nation. It was an event that, while clearly destructive to American interests in Asia, served as something of a wake-up call to those American isolationists who had downplayed the regional threat of communism. It also ushered in a horrid era for this nation's 4.8 million people."
"The breakup of the former Yugoslavia--like the breakup of the former Soviet Union--presents challenges, some of which (such as developing tranquil relations among peoples of varying and often hostile ethnic and religious orientations) may, indeed, earn the label 'complicated.' But with the Bosnian war now in its third year, it is worth asking whether Washington has for too long outthought itself on this issue. Does the Bosnian crisis not hold some fundamental truths? Most certainly, it does. And if these truths could be agreed upon in a bipartisan fashion, might they not lay the foundation for the development of a comprehensive American policy that could assist in the deterrence of aggression and ultimately an assurance of peace in the region? The answer again is yes."
"Seventy years ago this November, Vladimir Lenin created the modern totalitarian state, transforming simpler forms of tyranny into history's most sophisticated apparatus of rule by terror."
"No chronology of Soviet atrocities can convey the crushing of the human spirit under Lenin and his successors. But the retelling of 70 years of grisly facts leaves little doubt that what we face today in Soviet communism is, indeed, an 'evil empire.'"
"Up against the ropes in the Iran-Contra affair, Ronald Reagan should have come out swinging, announcing clearly that this government carries itself in the tradition of the Marquis de Lafayette, that freedom fighters will no longer be left to die in the jungle, like Brigade 2506 at the Bay of Pigs."
"The time has come to stop talking about the lessons of Vietnam, and to start talking about the lessons of Afghanistan.""
"What does it mean, then, to become part of God’s work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God’s glory; and third, as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment. Another way to look at the Christian life, however, is to see it from the perspective of the final restoration. The world and our hearts are broken. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation, with the expectation of suffering and hardship and the joyful assurance of eventual success."
"The work of the Christ is that of raying out Divine love and encouragement to every creature in existence. The living Christ is perpetually occupied with the offices of his Christship. One of its most vital services is that of bringing human beings into a state of regeneration and self-conquest. Christ will not finish His work until the whole planet and all of humanity is brought to its highest degree of development."
"Christ's mission is to release the divine into our conscious knowing. He awakens the impulse in humanity to rise above his lower nature and be aware of his higher nature that dwells within."
"The Christ Spirit is really the aura of Christ Jesus extending to and including every portion of the earth. Whatever is Christ-like in essence, quality, mentality and conduct adds to the content of the ever-expanding Christ Spirit. We might also consider it as a tremendous reservoir of Light, which encircles the earth, whose function is to bless, to redeem, to spiritualize, to love and to heal all who make prayerful requests in the name of the Christ Spirit."
"Our Lord Jesus evolved just as each of us has. He was human, very human in the beginning of His evolution, but (throughout his physical incarnations) He more strangely than anyone else, more quickly had the power of excellence, that supreme ability to surrender Himself and to give himself to that which is higher than anyone else that has evolved through the earth. So, it was because of this excellence, because of this unusual ability, that Jesus, or better our Lord Emmanuel the only begotten Son, it means in esoteric fact, that our Lord was the only one who had this quality to become the Christ Officiant for our planet."
"Mysticism is the art of the practice of divine union. It is the soul's endeavor to draw nearer to God. Mysticism is the path of the heart, the path of love, the path of reverence into the citadel of enlightenment."
"Mysticism is the search for and recovery of our oneness with God."
"We are here in life for but one reason-to learn to climb through ascensions of consciousness into the true Selfhood which is within us-the Selfhood which belongs to the eternal, the Selfhood which is our real nativity, our home in God's spirit."
"Life's drama of incarnation consists of one's eventual discovery of their inherent destiny. We are a creation of the Supreme Spirit in whose seed of divinity , Godhood, like the Godhood of Jesus, shall come into fruition."
"As purity in motivation is matched by the will to penetrate the barriers that separate one from God, then the wonderful event takes place; one begins to know and see God."
"Christ's entire ministry can be summarized in just two words, live love."
"When humans face testings and tragedy, they should remember the angels who are always standing ready to lend their celestial assistance, comfort and council. You should never feel lonely, neglected, fearful, or defeated when you remember that there are the shining ones. They are watching with keen interest and a great desire to help to raise you, to stimulate you into contact with your own superior inner resources."
"Next to worship and realization of God and the Lord Christ, awareness of the Angelic Kingdom has helped and inspired me more than any other single reality my recognition has touched."
"Take in everything before you and let your eyes be drenched with beauty, and as you love beauty in a reverent way it becomes a sacrament to you."
"You'll never make the friendship of nature until you can approach her with the idea of learning all that she has, all that she is, all that she serves from the inner worlds outwards to this physical vestment. The more wildflowers you learn the names of the richer you are. The more birds you can identify the finer character you possess and the more you can love as well as appreciate and seek to protect beauty in every form, the higher and nobler becomes your character. For nature teaches your character to expand and it reaches out to your very soul to make it as pure as it is."
"The person who misses this adventure of kinship with the beauty that is to be found in nature temples, and fails to make the acquaintance of the creatures that are in those temples, misses so much."
"Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability."
"As a person who believes in individual responsibility, I did not fear being alone; besides, I only argue with myself as head of the Republican Senate Minority!"
"A healthy economy or a healthy population are not mutually exclusive."
"Fame is weird. I’ve never been super famous. I’ve always been somewhat recognizable. It’s been the healthiest trajectory. [It’s] not a scary spike. I have my priorities. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I know what it means. It means that I’m getting to do what I love."
"Jennifer's Body is my favourite movie that I've done. It was overlooked in theatres, but it does have a DVD following. I can't believe nobody wanted to see Megan Fox and me hitting it. They had an extreme close-up of our tongues, and I'm telling you, the thing about the scene is that it's actually really sexy. For a young girl to say that about her own sex scene - it must be because it's special. I think Megan and I kissed really well together. We have similar kissing styles and it worked. We got it done for the masses, and the masses still didn't show up."