Category Archives: Oh brother!

Wait, What?

I recently received a letter from my insurance company.  Kind of a head scratcher, actually.  I opted out of maternity/pregnancy coverage as I wasn’t going to be needing it, and opting out saved me some money.  But now, it’s been added at no extra cost as a result of the changes (I can only assume) brought about by Obamacare.  Here’s a paragraph taken from the letter.

Colorado law recently changed, requiring individual health insurance carriers to cover the medically
necessary expenses of pregnancy, childbirth and maternity the same as treatment of covered illness or
injury. This applies to all major medical individual insurance policies in Colorado issued or renewed
on or after ]anuary 1,2011, regardless of the policyholder’s gender or age.

Yeah, you read that correctly.  We don’t have to pass it to find out what’s in there, we just have to wait until we get letters like this from our health insurance companies.


Wait, What?

I know, it looks like I have posted the exact same thing twice, however, I didn’t, well, I did, but not really.  I posted this one first, but somehow the URL got mixed up with a previous post (how on earth can that happen?) name “Huh?”.  I am leaving this here so that I work on trying to figure out what happened.  In the meantime, I reposted the content so that I could get a correct URL for linking purposes….

 

I recently received a letter from my insurance company.  Kind of a head scratcher, actually.  I opted out of maternity/pregnancy coverage as I wasn’t going to be needing it, and opting out saved me some money.  But now, it’s been added at no extra cost as a result of the changes (I can only assume) brought about by Obamacare.  Here’s a paragraph taken from the letter.

Colorado law recently changed, requiring individual health insurance carriers to cover the medically
necessary expenses of pregnancy, childbirth and maternity the same as treatment of covered illness or
injury. This applies to all major medical individual insurance policies in Colorado issued or renewed
on or after ]anuary 1,2011, regardless of the policyholder’s gender or age.

Yeah, you read that correctly.  We don’t have to pass it to find out what’s in there, we just have to wait until we get letters like this from our health insurance companies.


Pardon My Skepticism, Buuuuuuut…..

Do you ever get lost in the links on the interwebs?  I do.  I woke up much too early this morning and in the process of trying to activate my Google AdSense account (I need someone’s help on doing that, it’s like a different world in there), I ended up at an article on Examimer.com.

The headline reads: “‘Strong possibility’ tornado deadly fungus, secret morgues links to Gulf Plague”.

Read the whole article HERE, but in a nutshell, Deborah Dupre (“Human Rights Examiner”) reports on the fungus which has killed a number of Joplin residents post tornado.  IF we are to BELIEVE Ms. Dupre and her primary source, Ian Crane, (UKexoilmanwhistleblower), the fungus CAUSING the deaths was “evaporated” from the Gulf of Mexico and ended up being spread about in the tornadic winds of Joplin, MO.  The fungus eVAPorated from the Gulf after it was PLACED there by BP (British Petroleum) to break down the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill there last year…the spill having NOT been an ACCIDENT at all, BUT a PURPOSEFUL “depopulation event” created in an evil plot by BP (and apparently a large host of other co-conspirators) specifically in order to plant GM (genetically modified) organisms IN the water with the ULTIMATE and SPECIFIC  intent of killing hundreds of thousands of people with those very same organisms!!!

Really???  I mean, come on.  Forgive my incredulousness.  This is certainly a terribly ineffective and incredibly expensive way to go about creating a depopulation event if that’s what the goal was.  Additionally, it is not a method that can be at all controlled nor is there any reasonable way to predict an outcome.  I’m as big a conspiracy theorist as the next person, but this is a stretch.  It just doesn’t make any sort of logical sense.

And it must be pointed out that there are simply some basic problems with the premise of evaporation as a microbiologic dispersing agent.  First of all….this fungus (zygomycosis) is a terrestrial dweller.  And secondly, I’m pretty sure that evaporation happens at the molecular level and doesn’t support the lifting of heavy cellular organism up into the wind.  I could be wrong.

Lastly, it should be noted that infections from zygomycosis are common after natural disasters where dirt and decaying vegetative matter contaminate open wounds, especially after earthquakes and tornadoes.

I’m going to go out on a limb with this one and call it a CONSPIRACY FAIL.


I’m Not a Heroin Addict (But I Need My Methadone!) ~ A Special Lou Rant

Recently, Dan Akerson, the CEO of General Motors, came up with the brilliant idea to “slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas.”

Seriously, Dan, what PLANET are you from?????

He APPARENTLY believes that doing this will magically lead to people buying more fuel efficient/electric cars.

Quick lesson for ya, DAN….

The people who are already having a hard time (or impossible time) stretching their budgets to absorb the current price of gasoline are NOT going to be able to go out and buy an expensive fuel efficient or electric car simply because the cost of gas goes up even more.

The people who CAN afford to buy a new fuel efficient or electric car probably already have done so and/OR THEY DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE COST OF GASOLINE ANYWAY!  What does it matter if gas goes up a buck a gallon?  They can still pay the bills.

Doing something like this would only hurt those who are already hurting and you’re just, well, stupid, if you think this would actually be a positive move for Americans.  I don’t generally call people stupid, but this qualifies you, DAN, for the title.

Just sayin’.

P.S.  Where I live, electricity doesn’t just come from a nice clean outlet in my house, it comes from COAL, a carbon based energy source.  What’s the difference between burning coal or burning gas?  It’s a shell game, people.  It’s aaaaalll an illusion that some are selling, some are buying, and most are having crammed down their throats.

P.P.S.  The batteries in electric cars are lithium.  Where does lithium come from?  Well, there’s a single mine producing it in the United States, but the lithium extracted there is a small proprietary amount.  The U.S. reserves are small, and in decline.  Most lithium is found in Chile, Bolivia, China, and AFGHANISTAN (these Afghanistan deposits were fairly recently discovered and have not yet started to be mined).  Sooooo, we are being told to give up our addiction to foreign oil.  For what?  We’re gonna trade it for an addiction to foreign lithium (only the part about the foreign lithium is a secret).  It’s like the addict who gets off heroin by taking methadone, but then never gets off the methadone.  Now, since Bush was accused of invading Iraq for its oil, then I am going to feel free to accuse Obama of invading Afghanistan for its lithium, since access to a source for it fits nicely into his energy policy.  This may or may not be true.  But it’s certainly something to think about.  We are on the brink of jumping from the energy frying pan into the fire, and we’re doing it for no good reason at all.  Even if we find a massive new source of lithium in our country, any attempts to mine it would probably be blocked by the EPA, unions, the ACLU, and a thousand environmental groups of one ilk or another.  Come on, you know it’s true.  We’ll be importing all the lithium we use, and we’ll be importing it from some unsavory sources.

Why on EARTH are we not exploiting the rich petroleum reserves we have in our own country instead of playing these games??????  In theory it would be really nice if we could derive all of our energy needs from the sun, and the wind, and the waves.  But that is far in the future.  In the meantime, before America ends up on the trash heap of history, we should use what God and the earth placed under our feet.  At least we have oil here…what we DON’T have is a viable lithium reserve.

END OF RANT

:-)


What is YOUR diagnosis??

Sorry about the quality of this picture.  It’s a cell phone snap of an abdominal CT scout film taken recently where I work:

Positive Pregnancy Test by you.

This 22-year old female presented with abdominal pain and bloating of some months duration, recently much worse.

You be the doctor.  Look closely.  What is YOUR diagnosis?  And is there another test that you might have considered doing at some point before sending your patient (this patient) in for a CT scan…


I Wasn’t Going To Say Anything…

but, okay, I changed my mind…

Obama has given another crappy gift.  This time to the Queen of England.  I was prepared to cut him some slack on the iPod gift.

HOWEVER, I just learned that before giving her the gift, he loaded it up with “footage” of him giving speeches.

This guy is a real narcissist!

And before you start telling me about the gift the queen gave to the Obamas (a picture of her and her husband in a silver frame) and how that must be narcissistic as well, know that this is the gift she gives all visiting dignitaries.  It’s a crappy gift, too, but it’s the same crappy gift for everyone…it’s what she does, and she’s the queen, so whatev.

I almost can’t wait to see what he does next!  When he meets with the “president” of Russia, might I suggest an autographed basketball?  (Yes, Virginia, signed by Obama, not some NBA player.)


Prime Minister Brown Gets a Crappy Gift

Recently England’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his first state visit to the Obamas.  It is customary for gifts to be exchanged.  I remember the press having a field day over the bomber jacket that G.W. gave the normally very formally dressing head of state.  Not exactly something that he would wear, but come on, who in their heart of hearts doesn’t really want a fur-lined leather bomber jacket, even if it just hangs in the closet unworn?  I’d love it, and wear it.  It’s cool.  Not a gift I’d give a head of state though.  Bad gift number one.

But bad gift number one is probably looking pretty good these days!! 

For his first visit to the first black president of the United States, Prime Minister Brown clearly put a great deal of thought into the gifts he brought for the Obamas, and for their children.  The gift I believe shows the depth of his thought the most was an ornamental pen holder hewn from the timbers of the 19th century Royal Navy anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.  In 1909 the HMS Gannet was renamed HMS President.  A poignant and relevant gift all the way around.  There’s more though.  In the oval office sits a famous desk which was born out of the timbers of another famous ship, HMS Resolute.  The Resolute was a British ship which sank in the Arctic and was retrieved and returned to Queen Victoria by Rutherford Hayes.  The queen had the desk built from its timbers as a thank you.  PM Brown presented Barak Obama with the framed commission for the Resolute.  The Gannet and the Resolute were sister ships.  Man, he really knows how to gift a gift!  Oh, but he wasn’t done YET!  He also gave our newly minted president a first edition set of Sir Martin Gilbert’s biography on Winston Churchill.  Whew.  Those aren’t gifts you can run down to 7-11 and get on your way to the party. 

But he still wasn’t done.  Mr. and Mrs. Brown also brought gifts for the Obama girls. 

Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children’s books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

And what did President Obama give as a gift to the leader of the country who stands the strongest next to us?  He gave him bad gift number two.

A set of 25 DVDs.  Yeah.  DVDs.  As if the gift itself lacked thought, as a general rule, DVDs made in America don’t even work in UK DVD players.   I can only hope that at least whoever did the actual gift set purchasing realized this and purchased a set that would play in the players of that region.  Or maybe someone did their homework and found out that the Browns DVD players are all region players, but boy, do I doubt both of those scenarios…

And what did the Obamas get the Brown kids?  Replicas of Marine One helicopters.

Embarrassing at best.  Insulting at worst.  Either the Obamas put a great deal of thought into the gifts and thought they were appropriate….embarrassing.  Or they put a great deal of thought into the gifts and knew they were inappropriate and were intended to send a message…insulting.  I’m not sure there’s an in-between.  Unless they let some intern pick up the gifts which just shows the lack of interest the Obamas have in treating the leader of a country who has been our greatest ally and friend.  To me there’s just no good reason for these pathetic gifts.

The media in the UK is reportedly appalled.  They should be.

No gift at all would have been better than the ones that were presented.


Rebate?

So I went to a car dealership today to get a rebate.  A nice big fat rebate.  I didn’t go to buy the car that had the rebate on it, I just wanted to get the rebate.

Can you believe it?  I can’t get the rebate because I wasn’t buying anything!!!!  It seems that a rebate is a return of part of the money spent!!  No money in, no money out!!!  Apparently I can’t have something for nothing.

If democrats are to be believed, then even those who haven’t paid taxes can get a rebate.  At least this is my understanding of what they would like to have happen.

Again, economics 101!!! 

It isn’t a rebate if there wasn’t any payment to begin with…

…it’s welfare.


Why Doesn’t Congress Do THIS?

I’m sick over the nearly trillion dollar bill that congress is currently working so hard to try to get passed.

It seems there are lots of items of contention in the bill (duh).  But I imagine that there must be a few things that no one is disputing.  I’m not sure that any economic recovery bill is exactly necessary.  But if we must have one, how’s this for an idea…

Democratic Representative Walt Minnick of Idaho has put together just such a bill.  It has a 174 billion dollar price tag and focuses on infrastructure and tax cuts, two things which apparently everyone is in agreement need to be in the big bloated bills currently being debated. 

Dear Members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate, you can bring the rest of the stuff to the table later.  If you genuinely want to get something done NOW, pass this guy’s bill! 

Figure out how to spend the rest of the trillion later, while those who are getting tax breaks are busy spending their money and putting fuel into our flickering economic fire.  Getting people to spend money is the way to stimulate an economy.  Giving taxpayers their money back gives them more to spend…

Economics 101.


500 Million Americans

“Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs”

~  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

Oh yeah, she said it.  On CNN.  Watch the clip HERE if you don’t believe me.

Now, if every American of working age was like me, and had two jobs, and lost BOTH of them EVERY MONTH, that might come close to equaling 500 million JOBS lost every month, but even if you count children and retirees, there aren’t 500 million Americans TOTAL!

Gee, maybe that’s why the dems think that a trillion dollar “stimulus” package is no big deal…they think there are a billions of working Americans contributing to the tax base…

Good grief.

There are only 300 million people that live in the United States, Ms. Pelosi.   At least try to get the most basic facts straight.

Okay, maybe she misspoke and meant 500, or 500 thousand.  But she didn’t catch herself.  Probably because politicians are so used to making facts up, to twisting facts, and to dealing with tax dollar numbers that are so humongous, that the difference between 500, 500 thousand, 500 million, 500 billion and 500 trillion completely loses its significance…


Photo Friday – ARGH

For the second week in a row I am missing Photo Friday.  I am traveling.  I did take an awesome picture of the dinner I shared with my brother on Wednesday night (using my cell phone) and when I went to e-mail it to the computer I am borrowing it wasn’t on my phone anymore!  I guess I didn’t save it.  so I am missing the food challenge as well.  Sigh…

I’m a dope.

Catchya next week, I guess!

Hope to borrow a computer to get some comments out to those who partcipated!  :-)

You go, too, and leave a comment for them!

Tall Chick

Eiain (apparently suffering from my disease, got confused on the dates and has shared some fab bridge shots!)

Author

SpatulaHandle

Mrs Nascar

Slim Shaney

PHOTO FRIDAY ADVANCE DIARY

26th September: CuriousC’s choice -  Colours (of Autumn)

3rd October: Eiain’s choice – Music (musicians, concerts, still life of musical instruments or musical  scores, musical boxes etc - I could go on and on …..) You may also like to add a YouTube clip of your favourite music!

10th October: Mrs Nascar’s choice – Night ( moon, stars or any interpretation of night)

17th October:CuriousCs choice - Bridges / Arches

24th October: Eiain’s choice - Paws for thought

31st October: Author’s choice - Halloween!

7th November: Tina’s choice - Action Shots

14th November: Author’s choice - Windows (unusual or favourite windows, in your own home, or other homes, or churches, buildings etc – you may even include the view through a window. This can be a selection of photos or just one favourite pic).


I Wish…

…that the talking heads on TV and radio would pronounced “YOUR” like “yore”, and not “yer” when saying things like:

“I agree with your analysis…”. 

Saying “yore analysis” sounds so much better than “yer analysis” which sounds exactly like “urinalysis” and I don’t want to hear about “urinalysis” when I’m trying to get election results and not lab results…

It bugs me.


Little Successes!

Did the short four miles of the Waldo Canyon hike with Vickie this morning…it was too icy to do the top 3 1/2 mile loop though.  When we started this hiking thing I could barely make it up the three “flights” of steps at the trailhead and had to stop multiple times during the hike.  Today there was no stopping.  We do that part of the hike in just about an hour.  We could have run and done it faster today, but the air was bitingly cold and it hurt too much for that.  Anyhow, it’s amazing how much better my stamina is after just a couple of months of hiking once a week.

When I got home I tried to go on the internet but couldn’t make a connection.  I rebooted.  Reset the modem.  Reset the wireless router, etc.  I did note that the icon for my router which generally resides in the bottom bar of my screen was absent.  Odd.  So I fiddled with this and that, tried to fix it while I was on hold with Comcast to find out if there was a provider issue involved.  While I waited I found a link on my computer which, when I opened it, showed that my wireless system was turned off on my computer.  I clicked it to turn it on right when I got a live person and my internet was restored.  I’m pretty sure the Comcast person who got my call thought I was a nutbar.

How do you suppose it got turned off in the first place?  I have NO idea other than maybe my cat Mew Ling walked on my computer during the night and turned it off somehow.  She’s a sneaky snake that one!  She always does the most creative things when she takes a stroll on my keyboard!  I learn such interesting things when I am fixing her computer work.

… 


California In Danger of Falling Into the Ocean – Part II

I’m on the e-mail distribution list of L.A. Mayoral hopeful, Walter Moore.  I doubt he’ll ever win.  But he’s the most straight-talking, realistic-goal-setting, voice-of-reason to enter into politics in my lifetime.  When I lived in Southern California, though not in L.A. proper, I financially supported his first campaign.  He lost to Villaraigosa, unfortunately.  However, I have stayed on Mr. Moore’s e-mail distribution list just so I could make sure that my ulcer never completely heals!  :-)   Here’s one of his latest offerings.  I doubt he’ll mind that I have taken the liberty of reposting it here in its entirety.

Up In Smoke:  Common Sense
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, www.WalterMooreForMayor.com

Use a fireplace, go to jail.

The Philosopher Kings of the South Coast Air Quality Management
District (AQMD) have decided that government must stop you from
burning wood in your fireplace.

The AQMD — which is funded with $125 million of your money each year
– just made it illegal to install wood-burning fireplaces in new
homes, and adopted regulations to stop you from using your existing
fireplace on days they deem too polluted.

In a region where massive wildfires are as routine as televised car
chases, these kill-joys want to stop you from burning logs?  Are you
kidding me?

We’ve got ten jillion cars and trucks stuck in traffic, idling, for
about 18 out of every 24 hours.  We’ve got a governor who fires up the
Gulfstream twice a day to commute from L.A. to Sacramento.  We’ve got
kids getting shot while minding their own business.  And yet we need a
new law to ban the burning of logs in fireplaces?  Really?

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but I don’t remember ever hearing
about a coroner listing, as the cause of death, “lived in a city with
wood-burning fireplaces.”

Laws like this make you wonder what they’re smoking at the AQMD.
Wonder no more:  our city’s representative on the AQMD’s board is Jan
Perry.  That’s right:  the same City Council Member who wants to
“protect” you from fast food in South L.A. because you’re too fat and
stupid to decide what to eat and where.

Remember common sense?  I really miss it, especially when it comes to
people who have the power to tax and regulate.

People used to understand the concept of “priorities” and
“reasonableness.”  Now we’ve created so many agencies that they need
to manufacture new problems to justify their continuing existence and
ever-increasing funding.

The AQMD will never issue a press release saying, “The federal and
state Environmental Protection Agencies, along with county and city
agencies, have pretty much taken care of everything, and since we’ve
gotten to the point of regulating wood-burning fireplaces, we
recommend that our agency be disbanded.”

Okay, enough ranting from me for one day.  I’ll think I’ll go buy a
McBreakfast and light up a cigar just to spite the Philosopher Kings.

I don’t even think I have anything pithy I can add to this well-crafted and succinct masterpiece.

More idiocy in bureaucracy at its finest…

A brief follow-up note:

Looks like Mr. Moore has someone searching LexisNexis!  I got an e-mail from him today!  Love the internet!  Here’s the nice note I got from him:

L.A. needs you!  Come back!

It is so crazy here.  I’m glad to see you stayed on my e-mail list.

And hey, I may win this time.  I’ve raised nearly $80,000, and 
Villaraigosa is SO bad that I think he’s going to increase turnout 
among people who would ordinarily ignore the election.

We’ll see.

Bye for now.

Walter Moore

I have decided to make “California In Danger of Falling Into the Ocean” a regular feature as I come across items that make me shake my head.  I’m sure I’ll be posting more from Mr. Moore in the future!


Barak Obama Wears a Kilt*

What’s the big fuss about the picture currently making big news of Obama wearing a traditional tribal outfit when he visited his father’s homeland of Kenya back in 2006?  It just happens to be a wrap around skirtlike garment and a turban.  So what?

If his white mother was from Scotland, and Barak had gone there for a visit and donned the family tartan, would we even be having this conversation?

Is the Clinton campagin behind the recent circulation of this picture?  If so, does she really think America is dumb enough to fall for her fear tactics?  Gee, there are pictures of me wearing a Mao hat I got in China.  I own a watch with a hammer and sickle on it that I bought in Russia.  I have a Che Guevara T-shirt I picked up in Cuba.  None of these things make me a communist any more than wearing a turban makes Obama a muslim extremist terrorist.

What do YOU think of his wearing this outfit and the current brouhaha?

(*Okay, he didn’t wear a kilt.)


Change….

I’m so tired of hearing the word “change” come out of this group of presidential candidates’ mouths.  “I love change”, “I’m bringing change”, “I’m making change”, “change is good”… nebulous blah blah BLAH. 

Whenever I hear one of them talk about making change, I see them wearing a yellow, red, and blue fez and working the counter at Hot Dog on a Stick in the mall … “forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, seventy-five and twenty-five makes one dollar…”

It got me to thinking…

Can any of these candidates actually make change?  Now THAT’s something I’d really like to see!!


“It’s like a horror movie, only horribler…”

We (my brother, his four kids, and I) were on our way back from eating the most fabulous BBQ Tri-tip sandwiches out at a take-out place called “Green Acres” in Simi Valley.  This was an eating establishment that my brother found as a result of his being a freight delivery guy and driving all over So Cali.  (My family is committed to driving great distances to enjoy the best taste sensations.  This trip was no exception and was easily 60 miles each way…  Worth the drive?  Oh, you bet.)  I am giving the “Green Acres” Farmer’s Market’s BBQ Tri-tip sandwich my “unpaid product endorsement”.  Google it yourself and see what others have to say about it!

“Have you ever seen the Wizard of Oz house?” my brother asked as we entered his neighborhood on the way back home.  I had, but only briefly, and I’d been wanting to take pictures of it.  So we decided to swing by the house on our way back home.  This house is an abomination really.  We all decided it might not be TOO bad to live next to it, but it would be a daily horror to live across from it.  I may go back at a later date and try to get a few more good pictures.  However, the streets in town are narrow and it’s hard to get far enough back to encompass the whole monstrosity in a single frame. 

As I am shooting various aspects of the front of the house my eight year-old niece Avalon piped up with her opinion on what the experience of this house was like for her.

“It’s like a horror movie, only horribler…”

Go ahead!  Enter that gate if you dare!

 Every house needs a “mission statement” plaque imbedded in the front wall, doesn’t it?

This is what meets you by the front door.  (Was that baby in the movie?) 

Details… 

Details….

I must admit to a certain degree of morbid curiosity as to what the INSIDE of this house looks like…and to an even greater degree of curiosity as to what the people are like who live there!  :-)  


Glass Houses

From an e-mail I recently received: 

House #1

A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas.  Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas.  In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year.  The average bill for electricity and natural gas  runs over $2400.  In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.  This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern “snow belt” area. It’s in the South.       

House #2

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university.   This house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide.  The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American Southwest.  A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.  The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer.  The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system.  Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern.  Wastewater fro! m shower s, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern.  The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house.   Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.     

House #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of the ”environmentalist” Al Gore.   

House #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

This is confirmed by SNOPES.com.  Feel free to check it out. Talk about your “Inconvenient Truths”. And you want to know something?  It’s not that I care that Al Gore has a energy hogging house, I don’t.  What I care is that he is spouting his environmental gospel, and yet he lives the life of an energy pig.  The other thing that bothers me?  That would be that the media would be all over this like white on rice if the guy out preaching green and living in the energy hogging house was the President, and the guy in the green house was Al Gore.  The hypocrisy here is maddening. 


Let Are Kids Walk

It’s too early in the morning for me to be reading online news.

The story isn’t particularly interesting…people protesting because they don’t get their way, basically.  But this time it’s Fort Worth high school kids protesting because they are not being allowed to get diplomas nor to be a part of the commencement ceremony as they haven’t passed a required standardized test.  One kid is upset because she carries a 3.5 GPA but flunked the standardized test.  (She’s not even upset that she’s not getting her diploma, she’s upset that she can’t be a part of the graduation, with her friends!)

What’s good about this particular story, and what I WANT you to see, is the the placard being held high in the picture that accompanies the story which loudly proclaims..

“Let ARE kids walk”

For THAT egregious offense against the english language ALONE, this girl shouldn’t be allowed to graduate.

(Kudos to the writer and photographer for writing the real story without saying a word…)


I’ve Been To Cuba..

and Michael Moore, it AIN’T the place to go for top notch medical care.  You and those 9/11 rescue workers aren’t going to Cuba to try to get treatment that can’t be obtained in America.  You don’t really think I believe that you are going down there to make this little shockumentary to bring to light the problems of the American healthcare system.  You’ll fool a lot of people though.  But I bet if you ever come down with some sort of esoteric and obscure illness that you won’t be on the first boat to Cuba to get treatment.  No sir. 

I went on a medical mission and worked with a group of American surgeons and allied health care workers in the best hospital in Cuba.  They sterilised and reused urinary catheters until they fell apart.  They reused absolutely everything, even washed and reused surgical sponges.  Our team had to fix their sterilisation units as they were not working well and DID not adequately sterilise anything.  Their OR suites were not negative pressure ventilated.  Nurses were not pro-active.  They simply followed WHATEVER the doctors told them without question.  Physicians had weekend jobs as waiters as the pay as a physician is so poor that they need to augment their income.  The formulary of the pharmacy was so limited that we had to bring down our own antibiotics and pain medications and even ASPIRIN.  And there’s no such thing as a malpractice suit down there (and Michael, there aren’t malpractice suits NOT because there isn’t malpractice…it’s just not an avenue that’s available to Cubans who have been injured at the hands of physicians…)

Michael Moore is a shameless seeker of self-aggrandisement.  And he is a disengenuine misrepresenter and twister of facts.  Sure, he’s mildly amusing, but basically he is a talentless schlub who probably got teased beyond what he was able to handle when he was young.  And now he’s trying to get back at the kind of people he was, and still is, envious of.  And for some reason, he hates America and most Americans.

Cubans die trying to get TO America for things LIKE our healthcare system (despite its problems).  You don’t see Americans dying in capsized tin boats trying to get to Cuba for medical treatment.

Our healthcare system is not perfect, but to take a group of people and sneak into Cuba, FOR HEALTH CARE, is just a blatant attempt to further his personal agenda.  Period.  Going to Cuba to get the best healthcare available is like going to North Korea for religious freedom.  As a person who has experienced the best of the Cuban healthcare system first hand, I almost can’t wait for MM’s new movie “Sicko” to come out just so I can appreciate just how fully MM has lost his mind.

Michael Moore….Give me a break. 


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