Sabbatical

Dear readers and common taters,

I'm taking off for a while.

As the pictures show, much is on my mind.

It is not that I am short of subjects to discuss. Also by the plethora of comments submitted about my recent past post tell me that a myriad of people are eager to read my humble opinions. But rather that I should give America a break from my penetrating insights and wit for a time. To let you recover before my next onslaught of wisdom.

After all Congress is taking recess soon, and when they are out on play ground and away from the building the Land is safe from molestation for the time of their absence.

So it is time for me to take off for a while as well and get some outside things done and fix some of the corpus problems as well. But make no mistake, like the crazy guy who wanders the streets of your local city talking only to himself I will return here to this blog to do the same.

Do The Math, Are We Just Being Dumb Americans About This?

The total cost for health care in America in 2006 was 2.2 trillion dollars, by 2008 is was 2.6 trillion dollars. If we could by some damn miracle hold the cost of health care down to 2008 rates, then the cost Obama's Health Care Reform Plan over ten years (1.o or 1.6 trillion dollars depending on you source) would equal only four to six percent of all the money spent on the existing health care system. What, we can't SAVE four to six percent on the cost to pay for the plan?

"Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15.2% of GDP... The health share of GDP is expected to continue its historical upward trend, reaching 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017. Of each dollar spent on health care in the United States 31% goes to hospital care, 21% goes to physician services, 10% to pharmaceuticals, 8% to nursing homes, 7% to administrative costs, and 23% to all other categories(diagnostic laboratory services, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers, etc."

Now figure that the cost of the existing system isn't going to stay at 2.6 trillion dollars per year but will go up by as much as 30 to 70% over the next decade.

So we haven't got courage enough to gamble less that 4 percent of what we are already going to spend to let everyone in on good health.

In the next ten years the average America will spend not less than $80,000 per person on health care. So can you spare say $400 to $500 per year to help out the guys without health care?

Don't listen to the hired mouths of the health insurance industry. Do the math.

Search the data here.

Join The John Spruce Society

In a previous post about the Gates arrest I called the conflicts on the money.

As I said in my comments section:
"Since I posted this three days ago, just about everything I said would happen has happened. Am I prescience? No, it comes from three decades as a professional standing in the middle between Blacks and Whites in the academic world and listening to their biased bullshit from both sides.Just as soon as you question any conclusion from either side you become a "racist". Then you, rather than they, are the problem.Thus, for all of you who have tried to be "reasonable" and found yourself pissed on from both sides may I recommend to you membership in the John Spruce Society for radical middle of the road advocates. To join simply reply to this call on this post and join this intrepid group of true Americans. No dues either."

So, what is the John Spruce Society?
The Society was created by Howard Campbell Jr. who has been immortalized by Kurt Vonnegut in his book Mother Night. The Society was named after Private John Spruce who was killed at Check Point Charlie in Berlin early in the Cold War by being run over by a tank while standing in the middle of the road. The Society is for those who find that their positions on subjects place them in the middle of the road with a large probability of becoming ROAD KILL.

I would like to extend a special invitation to join our Society to Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC's Morning Joe program who this morning got run over from both directions for trying to make sense out of the testosterone battle between two idiots up in Boston.

No Win At The Ballot Box Then Resort To The Bullet Box

The GOP's next step?

Catherine Crabill is a realtor and "home-schooling mother of four," and now a politician too! In her very first political race, Crabill is challenging Virginia state Del. Albert Pollard, D-Lancaster.

"We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box… But that's the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting, but make no mistake, that was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny."

More Here

Check out the video

Now, tell me this is OK.

If you can't win at the ballot box you will resort to bullets.

Is that not advocating the violent overthrow of government?

Am I missing something?

Future Job Killer: "I Worked at FOX News"

Some decks of cards have only all Jokers in them.
Fox's Col. Ralph Peters says: Captured soldier is deserter, traitor, etc. : More

Fox teaser :Obama's Health Plan Scarier Than Cancer: More

Fox News Hosts spread lie that Obama says he hasn't even read the Heath Care Bill: More


Truth is on any given day you can get this kind of thing and much more on Fox news. It occurred to me that soon, if not already, having "I worked at Fox News" on your vita or resume, whether Local or National or Cable, will be a job killer. I mean, it's getting to the point that getting a recommendation from Fox News for a job will be like having worked for the Taliban Propaganda Department or Iran's Information Ministry, or the French Communist Party Newspaper. You may have the basic skills but jeez, you've been hanging out with the wrong crowd.

But hell any job is better than no job, right?

No, Really, This Shit Must Stop Now! Redux

Here are three items from and about the BIRTHERS for your information:









Now these are actually funny in a perverted sort of way. They remind me of some of the historical cartoons aimed at Lincoln by those who hated him. This is Freedom of Speech.
But cumulative hate leads to erosion of sanity.



Check this out:
Media Matters: Jon Stewart

Funny yes, Ironic, yes, but.....
Why does it continue?
Is someone looking for a motive?
Is someone promoting a motive?
What is being said after hours?


I live in the land that Tim McVeigh shat on.
If the "news" people had directly incited him like they are doing for this, I don't know what might have happened after the bombing.
Incitement is serious business.
Where is the self policing of morons by the media?
Isn't there a Federal prosecutor out there that can deal with this?
Or would that just feed the hate?
Someone should at least brand these doggies to know who to cull come round-up time.

Route 66 Fun Place

What's all this about? Check out Okie Book Woman

Note To Fellow Democrats

Note To Fellow Yellow Dog Democrats: Stand Away From The Edge!
Note To Blue Dog Dems: End Your Chasing Them Before You Go Over!
Note To Moderate Republicans: Don't Do It, We Need Someone To Chase.
Note to Nutcase Republicans: Go Ahead. You Can Swim. America Is Right Behind You :)



Cartoon by Pat Oliphant

No, Really, This Shit Must Stop Now

The right-wing -- now plus Lou Dobbs -- still doubts Obama's birth certificate

Republican Mike Castle from Delaware is booed when he said: “If you’re referring to the president, then he is a citizen of the United States.”
That didn’t play well with the crowd, who start booing and hissing.: Castle responded “You can boo, but he is a citizen of the United States.”

This is a lie that has to stop. Obama is a citizen.


If this keeps up it will be all that is needed to "finish" our President in the worst way. Cut this shit out.

CNN start by firing Lou Dobbs!
FOX News, Fire anyone who advocates this view point!
All other networks follow suit.
Congress censure anyone doing this shit in the house.
Senate do the same same thing.

This is going beyond freedom of speech. This is incitement. The theater is full and the nut cases are yelling FIRE. This must not go any further!

Why A Dialogue on Race Will Not Result in Solutions

Dr. Henry Gates is a Harvard Professor. He came home from an overseas trip and found his front door was jammed. He went around back, got into his house and pushed the front door partially open. The driver who brought him home then helped him force it all the way open, got back in his car and left. A neighbor saw them doing this and not recognizing Gates as the home owner called 911. The cops came and found Gates inside and confronted him. Gates is black and the driver was black and because of this, here is where the story diverges. One story is about blue stupidity and the other is about racial profiling.



By MELISSA TRUJILLO, Associated Press Writer Melissa Trujillo,
Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 4 mins ago

"BOSTON – Prosecutors dropped a disorderly conduct charge Tuesday against prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested at his home near Harvard University after a report of a break-in.

The city of Cambridge issued a statement saying the arrest "was regrettable and unfortunate," and police and Gates agreed that dropping the charge was a just resolution.

"This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department," the statement said."

MORE:



Dr. Gates and every Black news commentator I've heard so far says this is an example Racial Profiling! Al (any storm for a port) Sharpton inserted himself into the story instantly talking about racial profiling.

Some of the White news commentators "asked" if this was Racial Profiling but most just reported the story and reported that Dr. Gates said it was.

Whites seem to tend to see this as a stupid cop story. Blacks seem to tend to see this as a racial based action.

Let's pretend that Gates wasn't Black and was just an ordinary White Harvard Professor. If two White guys were "kicking in" a door would the busy-body neighbor have called the cops? Yes, those types would have called regardless of what color they were. Would the cop have had the same case of blue stupids. Probably especially if the White guy was belligerent and incensed that he was being challenged and accused of breaking into his own home. Most women would have said to themselves that this was a testosterone problem between the two combatants. Conservative men, black or white would side with the cop, but most men would side with the property owner "harassed" by the cop.

When you add race the problem morphs.
The White Irish cop didn't get super macho till Gates followed him out onto the porch and dissed him in front of other cops. That was a bad decision. Cop code says all Cops have to be even more of a "COP" in front of their buddies.

Was any of this racist? Possibly. How much of it. No one can know. But everyone will have their opinion. Can you "dialog" about this and get anywhere? I don't think so. The best you can hope for is that some individuals on each "side" would understand why the other "side" doesn't see it their way. But, there is no story or profit in that outcome so...

By the way you could dichotomize the story into black profiling or blue profiling.

What do you think?

Star To Asterisk

I'm fond of symbols.
They are a form of communication that can be straight forward or secret.
The advertising industry uses symbols to sell products, quite often wrongly without knowing what they mean.

So when I drove by my neighborhood grocery store and noticed it had a new sign I just had to wonder why? So what did that design mean?

Wal-Mart it seems is no longer Wal (star) Mart but is now Walmart (asterisk).

Say what? Asterisk? It's a starburst says the new alloneword Walmart. Naw, it is an asterisk.

Asterisk:: the character * used in printing or writing as a reference mark, as an indication of the omission of letters or words, to denote a hypothetical or unattested linguistic form, or for various arbitrary meanings.

At least it originally ment little star, but starburst?

Well Walmart* is going green and endorses Obama's Health Bill so what the heck, I guess I won't bitch too much. But it is going to take me a while not to automatically look at the bottom of the sign to see what the asterisk is refering to.












Source

And My Wife Slept Through It

No, not that. You do have a dirty mind don't you.

I'm talking about the first time man set foot on the moon.

I'd been back from Vietnam for about three weeks on July 20, 1969. My wife of two years had already gotten deep into my s..t about my bad language and bad attitude that I had carried home from Southeast Asia. We were in Warrenton Virginia. I had spent the day reporting in to my new duty station out in rural Fauquier County and we had just checked into the cheapest motel we could find. It was not only cheap but it was Very Cheap. The TV was an intermittently functioning fuzzy 13 inch black and white set with a rabbit ears antenna. I knew that Apollo had landed on the moon and that the moon walk was to be tonight, so we drove down to the A&W early got burgers and stuff and went back to watch it on the TV.

It was about five when they began showing (talking heads mostly) the landing on the moon. Excitement ensued when we heard that the select spot to land was to rough and they were going to "fly" LEM to a different place. After Eagle had landed and the historical script was read then there was a shot of not much in B&W fuzz out the window. It took the astronauts six and a half hours to get ready for their excursion (is that what the E means in LEM?). We went back to the A&W for root beer and fries at least once.

There were no chairs in our room only the bed so naturally Wife was lieing down, and so went to sleep. I woke her up several times, kind of. Finally they opened the hatch. They are coming out says I, and woke her up. She watched, and watched as nothing happened. Walter Cronkite talked and talked and she went to sleep on my shoulder.

Sometime long after my bedtime, Armstrong crawled out onto the LEM's platform and down the ladder. I elbowed Wife and said see, she looked and said , Wow! and rolled over on the bed asleep.

I watched the EVA, for a long time. At one point I went outside and looked up at the moon. I thought to myself, we have finally left the Earth.

U.S. Senators Display Their Inner Most Fears

Been watching the reruns of the Senate hearing on Sotomajor tonight. C-Span has edited out the pauses and hemhaws and breaks. So it flows much faster and unfortunately that even flow accentuates one of the traits of many of the Senators. Their butts were out.
Senator John Kyl of Arizona was one of several white male Senators who opened their long john flaps and showed their hinenies in the SCOTUS Justice hearing last week. They are afraid of losing their culture, their power, their privilege. How can you tell? They are accusing minorities and females of trying to bring their non white male judgements to the culture, such as on the SCOTUS. The overwhelming inference is that white guys either don't have a problem bringing their white maleness into their judgements or their way of doing is the right way of doing it. We are the world, they say, and don't you dare presume to change it.

The Republicans were the worst offenders, although Democrats had their moments as well. At least the Democrats were pandering to a diverse audience. The Republicans were kneeling to the most crass of elements within their constituencies. What exactly will that get them? What State is predominately white male rednecks with their submissive wives? I think the last State like that died in 1976.

It is disturbing to see so many Senators who are scared and in over their heads and/or who so readily kneel to the scroungy side of the population.

Nationalize Goldman Sachs Today!

"The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?

First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.

Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.

Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely."

Read more here.

Also FIRE all the Goldman Sac castoffs in the Obama Administration. Yes all of them!

Dang! This Old Dog Learned a New Trick

Always peel a bannana from its top. Top?

Watch and behold and learn: here

Black Core Thundersrtorm Warnning for Wierd Named Towns

It was well over a hundred today and a "cold-cool-less than warm" front is slipping by West of Oklahoma City. Black color on Doppler radar means winds above 60 mph. So this is a compact but serious severe thunderstorm full of wind gust over 75 mph, base ball, size hail, and several hundred lightening strikes per minute.

Right now there are warning for the towns of Newalla, Little Axe, Thunderbird area, Pink, and Slaughterville.

For some reason for just a second upon hearing that I thought I was somewhere else.
Just hearing them all in the same breath made them sound, well, weird.

Local Weatherman Infected With HUMA Syndrome

I was reading our local weekly free rag the OKLAHOMA GAZETTE as I was eating my Polish sausage sandwich at Earl's Barbeque's last night when the Chicken Fried News Quote Of The Week almost made me choke on my side of green beans.

It basically said that my trusted source of weather information Gary England at Channel Nine News was a Global Warming Denier. Shades of Jim Inhofe, tell me it isn't true that the man that has saved literally millions of Oklahomans' lives by repeating what he is told by the Norman, Oklahoma National Severe Weather Lab doesn't believe the science behind the concerns of global warming.

So off to

http://www.news9.com/Global/story.asp?S=10630678

and sure enough there as part of an article about how wrong the U.S. House was to pass a Global Warming bill was this:
"The measure to curb global warming has come at a time when many in the international community are questioning whether there's really a problem and whether it's man-made.
NEWS 9 Chief Meteorologist Gary England has long questioned the science on the issue of global warming.
"It's just not there. What they're finding is proof otherwise. In fact, the earth has been cooling for the last 10 years," England said."

Astounding indeed! Why hasn't that "cooling" kept both polar ice caps from melting rapidly, much more rapidly than anyone predicted? The Northern Polar Bears and the Antarctic Penguins might not think Gary is quite right on this subject. One thing about drinking the big oil laced natural gas fizzy Oklahoma kool aid is that has a serious side effect. It is known as the HUMA Syndrome. After a few quarts it just makes you want to bend down, to grab your ankles, and to yell "I love it" and "I want to stick my Head Up My Ass (HUMA)".

Few actually accomplish full-blown HUMA but Gary England and Jim Inhofe seem to have done so.

The White Men Won't Go Quietly Redux

Pat Buchanan speaks on behalf of the White Males and a Republican led Culture War.

How to Handle Sonia
by Patric Patrick J. Buchanan
07/14/2009

The chutzpah of this Beltway crowd does not cease to amaze.

They archly demand that conservatives accord a self-described "affirmative action baby" from Princeton a respect they never for a moment accorded a pro-life conservative mother of five from Idaho State, Sarah Palin......

Pundits here gets hoots of appreciation for doing to a white Christian woman what would constitute a hate crime if done to a "wise Latina woman." But, as no Republican who followed the script of the mainstream media ever won a national election, why should the party pay them mind?

If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004,....

These are the folks whose jobs have been outsourced to China and Asia, who pay the price of affirmative action when their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors. ... Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis ... McCain might be president.

How, then, to handle Sotomayor?

As Republicans have never brutalized a Supreme Court nominee ...
What they must do is expose Sotomayor...as a political activist whose career bespeaks a lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males....
Sonia is, first and foremost, a Latina. She has not hesitated to demand, even in college and law school, ethnic and gender preferences for her own. Her concept of justice is race-based....

Even if Sotomayor is confirmed, making the nation aware she is a militant supporter since college days of ethnic and gender preferences is an assignment worth pursuing. For America does not believe in preferences..... voters have tossed them out as naked discrimination against white males.
......

Read the whole thing at:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32699

The Real Old Stuff: Nixon Buttons to Beer Labels

If you like the stuff you see, keep reading.

I've got this "workshop"-"studio"-shack I've been building for years. The outside kinda is beginning to look like a country store. I've got old product signs and a Model A and a Model T wheel hanging on it and a screened in front porch and all. I even have an upright wood stove that will be installed someday.

There are lots of windows for light as well. Well I organized the cabinets and shelves to hold boxes and cans with all my various and sundry material, supply, and such stuff. But they look kind of dull and very much alike. So I decided to get me some labels and such to make them look like products and material from the 30's and 40's and keep with the "General Store theme" of the place.

Well that was a while back and my success was none too great. Then the other day I bought on eBay a very early Dr. Pepper paper bottle label in pristine condition and dating back to 1905-1920. Then I notice that the same pristine labels were being sold and re-sold. First, know that the label is real, not a copy, not a reproduction. So where did all the rest come from all of a sudden?

Ever wonder where those old apple crate labels come from? How does some antique mall dealers get a bunch of old political buttons? Well enter the advertising label dealers. People who scrounge old buildings and trade among themselves and then sell their goods in bulk to others.

So I stumbled into another unknown world that exist out there.

So here is a doorway for you to begin to explore it as well.

Let's open the portal to this place by starting with

http://www.oldstuffonly.com

I stopped by here today and left more than a few coins there. Their inventory changes all the time. Sometimes they have one or two of something or 50 or 500. They are a wholesale place that will sell to you but you've got to spend more than $20. I didn't have any trouble doing that even at 18 or 25 cents per item up to $2 to $5 for some.

Enjoy!

The White Men Won't Go Quietly

Today White Doctor Senator Conservative Oklahoma's own Tom Coburn said this to a Latina Federal Judge of some many years on the bench....

" We expect a judge to merely call balls and strikes. Maybe so, maybe not. But we certainly don't expect them to sympathize with one party over the other. And that's where empathy comes from.
Judge Sotomayor, you must prove to the Senate that you will adhere to the proper role of a judge and only base your opinions on the Constitution, statutes, and, when appropriate, treaties. That's your oath. That's what the Constitution demands of you. You must demonstrate that you will strictly interpret the Constitution and our laws and will not be swayed by your personal biases or your political preferences, which you're entitled to."

Empathy = Sympathy?

Empathy = Prejudice?

The 106 white boys on SCOTUS haven't been prejudice because they were white but he's afraid this female Puerto Rican heritage judge will be? How can a man old enough to have lived under Oklahoma's Segregated Constitution and Jim Crow Laws say this stuff?

Tom says Lady Justice is "Always" depicted blind. Just for the record she wasn't blind until the 15th century. I've always contended she was only blindfolded so she couldn't see the privileged class reaching up to tip the scale.

Basically what Tom and other Republicans did today was shrink their Party just a little bit more.

You guys need to stop this. Truly, as a Yellow Dog Democrat I don't want you to go away. I need you. Your the only thing that gives the Democratic Party unity. Without you guys we will start eating our own. Stick around will you, and please keep talking.

Oh yes, and take that fraudulent metaphor of a blindfold off my court system!

Offerings to the Lord and Master

Disclaimer: no animals were killed (yet) in the making of this blog. "Crossing Over The Rainbow Bridge" believers and PETA types read no further.

It is a behavioral characteristic of domestic cats to catch things and bring them to their owner's home and leave them on the door step. Unless that is if you have a cat door. Then, they sometimes, unfortunately bring it all the way to your feet.

Visa is the name of my small calico female cat. I adopted her because she showed up in my yard and hung around me as I worked outside like she was a puppy or something. She liked bugs, which was OK with me. But the day she showed up with a large bumble bee in her mouth I thought maybe I should feed her some real cat food. That of course sealed my fate. I became her servant and Lord at the same time (read that as Mother and Kitten). Cats are like that. She is named Visa because she is "Everywhere You Want To Be." She is about 7 years old now and is still the most active hunter of all of my cats.

One trick she has is to lay in wait on top of a six foot fence that separates our back yard from our back-back yard which is my domain. She waits there, just where the opening between the two yards is and when a bird flies low through the opening she comes down on it from above. 99% of the time she misses. Even when she succeeds she usually lands so hard that the bird escapes her. But on the occasion of all of the physics working right, she does succeed.

If I am in the yard then she brings it to me. I distract her and the bird goes free. But when she catches one, and then brings it into the house things get dicier. So today she does just that.

I see her trotting towards me in my chair with a sparrow in her mouth. Now the bird is not dead. It isn't even crippled. Scared to death, yes, but alive and flyable. In these circumstances my normal distracting Visa so the bird can escape is not a viable option. Especially when my wife sitting next to me is screaming something about, "Don't you dare let her let that bird go inside my house!" I really hate it when she says stuff like that.

So sure enough Visa brings the bird over to my feet and lays it down. I of course reach for the camera on the table next to my chair. "What are you doing?" says my wife, " You get that bird away from her!"

Now that of course is impossible for several reasons. Cats don't really want you taking their offerings to you away from them. You see, when a cat is outside catching the prey they are functioning as adults and when they bring the catch to you, it is as though you were their kitten. Now once they enter the house they undergo the transition to their being the kitten and you become the mother cat.

Ever notice how a cat hesitates just before they go out or in a door to the home? That's their transition time from one mode to the other, or so I'm told.

So if I reach for the bird, it may fly away triggering the cats attack mode, or the cat may intervene and try to stop momma from getting her toy/food. A dilemma ensues so of course I take a picture instead.

After a while Visa gets tired of the stand off and bats the bird to see it it is alive.

Of course then the bird flies off and Visa follows. The word is is melee! Here I should say that the other two cats were not around during this episode. If they had been, they too would have been in pursuit. It is the prey-flight/carnivore-attack syndrome you know. Wife screams at the cat and me and in general.

Visa after disturbing numerous shelves of valuable family heirlooms catches it behind one of my wife's collectible Green Mountain Teddies.

Then of course she brings it over to me again and Wife says. Take it away from her. I tried, but of course she grabs it away first and sits there with it in her mouth.

So I go back to the camera and take another picture, at which my wife gets up and leaves in disgust.

Now the bird is not dead. It got away again. It is now residing on the top most shelf in my wife's office. As soon as everyone calms down I will go open the door and let it fly outside. Meanwhile Visa is laying on my wife's computer looking up at the bird which she can not reach and my wife is saying, "You're not really blogging about this are you?"

U.S.A. Wolrds Best Health Care System

Listening to the Sunday Morning programs I have heard five people call the USA health care system the best in the world. If you're John McCain it is has been, is, and will be the best in the world for you.

But for the totality of the Nation it is a political canard and a personal lie to claim America has the best health care system in the world.

The USA is last in terms of access, patient safety, efficiency and equity in the top six developed nations of the world.

"The other five countries considered spend considerably less on health care — per capita and as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. spends more than $ 6,000 per person annually on health care, almost double that of Australia, Canada and Germany, all of which achieve better results on health status indicators. This suggests that the U.S. health-care system can and must do much more with its substantial investment in health."

"Americans' average life expectancy of 78 ranks 45th in the world — behind Greece, Bosnia and Jordan. Also, according to the CIA's World Fact Book, the U.S. infant mortality rate — deaths of newborns (under age 1) per 1,000 live births — is 6.50, higher than most developed nations. Even Cuba's IMR is 6.33."

"The U.S. lags behind all industrialized nations in health insurance coverage. The most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that 46.6 million Americans (about 15.9 percent of the population) had no health insurance coverage during 2005, an increase of 1.3 million over the previous year. It is no wonder that medical bills, overwhelmingly, are the most common reason for personal bankruptcy in the U.S."

"According to the Children's Health Fund, 9 million children are completely uninsured in the U.S., while another 23.7 million — nearly 30 percent of the nation's children — lack regular access to health care."

America has the Best Health Care in the World. That is true. But only for those Americans that can afford it. The Health Care System of America sucks big time. Most Americans know that. It seems only those who can say "I've already got mine" deny that.

My youngest son a couple of years ago was visiting his sister in Baton Rouge when he began to suffer intense excruciating abdominal pain. So he was taken to the emergency room. Three hours latter he was back with pain medication for a kidney stone and a $5,000 emergency room bill. Unemployed and without health insurance he couldn't pay it. Did the hospital give him a break or reduction of the bill, hell no. Even though he began paying on it they wanted to turn him over to a collection agency.

I also have a dying friend who has spent numerous days in an ICU over the past two years. He is wealthy enough to have excellent health care and supplemental health care policies. He has averaged more that $500,000 in cost each of the last two years. The excellent health care he has received has kept him alive without paying a penny of out of pocket extra cost over his policies.

America has the best health care in the world if you can afford it.

Got any stories to share?

Bring In The Clowns; Then Report Back

So Senator Tom Coburn is now embroiled in the national media as an element of two Senatorial adultery stories, and living in the Church Building of "The Family" on C Street in Washington. Of course Tom will keep all his involvement secrete because of his privileged communications as a Doctor of Obstetrics and/or Ordained Southern Baptist Deacon.
One Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jul/10/c-street-group-hurt-by-links-to-scandals/



But the real showing of Oklahoma's Clown Act will begin Monday.
"Three Republicans have said they will vote against Sotomayor, presuming her nomination is moved through the committee. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., bluntly says he voted against Sotomayor in 1998 when she was approved for her current job as an appellate judge, and he sees no reason to change his position now."
source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/09/republicans-look-sotomayor-nomination-learning-experience/

The Sotomayor Senate Hearing begins then, and Inhofe , our 75 year old thro-back to Jim's-crow, will be there to help the Republicans to establish their position on her confirmation to SCOTUS. If you have never witnessed Jim's astute style in a hearing you need to catch this one. Don't just watch the excerpts on FOX or MSNBC, catch it on CSPAN. Pop the popcorn, pour yourself a Diet DP, sit back and enjoy as Jim seals Oklahoma's racist reputation and erases some of the work done by good people here over the past 50 years.

Then come back here to my blog and tell me what you saw, heard, and felt.
Have fun!

Grandpa Says NO, Then Shits In The Kitchen

This may look like a political posting, but it is not. It is about the sandwich generation's sense of betrayal.

Ever have an older parent or grandparent who desperately needed something fixed in or around their home? So you fix it or hire someone to do it and find that Grandpa has cancelled it or undone what has been done? Well welcome to Oklahoma politics and its main delima.

So we have this EPA Superfund site in Pichar, Oklahoma that is contaminated beyond belief by unregulated lead and zinc mining for decades. The Feds have been buying out residents and helping them move. Most are gone, and all will be gone by Fall. But the few remaining contaminated homes need to be torn down and carted off, some buildings need to be moved, graves moved, and their needs to be help and oversight over all these things and etc. etc., as the town finally ceases to exist.

Along comes Grandpa and says ah hell kids we don't need to pay to have this done, just let it die. Don't spend any more money to "bury" it. So he just gets it stopped.

Dang it Grandpa why didn't you ask us about what we were doing first? Then the Grandkids say, the hell with it, we're not helping anymore.

Inhofe places hold on federal stimulus funds for housing in Superfund site

By Associated Press
6:39 AM CDT, July 9, 2009

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma says he has placed a hold on federal stimulus funds directed toward a housing authority in Picher, a fading mining town located in a Superfund area.State and federal buyouts of Picher residents in recent years have dwindled its population. The town is part of a 40-square-mile area that the federal Environmental Protection Agency put on its Superfund list in 1983, years after lead and zinc mining companies pulled out.About $135,000 in stimulus funds were awarded to the Picher Housing Authority. Inhofe says it makes no sense to send money to a place that is closing.Inhofe spokesman Ryan Jackson says the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has verbally agreed to honor the Republican senator's hold on the money.

___Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com/


My oldest son has left Oklahoma because of shit like this. My daughter won't come back either, and my youngest boy is looking to leave. There are good people here, but damn there are just too many like ole Grandpa.

When an animal shits where it eats, well that's bad.
Oh Grandpa, not again!

Number Games For Today

At 12:34.56 A.M and P.M. today July, 8, 2009 the shorthand time/date was sequential.
It was 123456789 twice today. So when will that happen again?

When will the date equal the Fibonacci sequence?

California, the State of, is playing number games today too. It is harking back to the Great Depression and paying with promissory warrants dated October 2009. They will pay the warrant bearer 3% annualized interest on that date. Also the warrants can be sold by the original recipient for 85% of face value now. So you guys with cash buy those dang things now!
If a State warrant for a $100 is bought for $85 and pays 3% interest of $0.75 then the buyer makes $15.75 profit in three months. So if you can keep this up over time you can make, uh, well, you do the math, a whole bunch in a year. You know that California will have to do this again and will pay up eventually with a good return.

But the biggest numero-uno-game is the Hospitals promising to provide x billion dollars in un-charges to finance health care reform. What are they promising? Well they will stop overcharging the government for hospital charges and will lower them down to the lowest negotiated charges they have been having the insurance companies pay. Wow! But they didn't promise to stop charging those without health insurance the full menu rate which is also much higher than the negotiated rates for insurance companies. That's like the Mafia agreeing to only rob you of half your money instead of all of it like they did that last time they rob you.
Kuddoes to the Hospital's for their number games.

Don't you just love these?

Give Me A Break! Conversation about Race? Hell No!

Carl Jeffers at the Huffington Post had this to say about the "racial divide" brought up at the Jackson Memorial:

"The line spoken by Al Sharpton actually went so far beyond the audience assembled at the service and touched a cord I have been stressing for some time -- that America still has not had the conversation on "Race" that it needs, and that statement is true today regardless of who is in the White House. Sharpton said directly to Jackson's children that "Your Daddy wasn't strange -- what was strange was what he had to deal with around him." And that statement brought the house down and the people up almost as a defiant gesture of angry response to all the Michael critics I named above and to members of the general mainstream society that many African-Americans felt just don't understand.
And later that day, CNN's contributor Jeffrey Toobin replied to Sharpton's statement by saying, "Give me a break." And it struck me that the Sharpton statement with the audience response (the most boisterous and prolonged of any response at the service), juxtaposed with the Toobin response serving almost as a "reach out" to mainstream White America to let them know that someone was prepared to go after this saintly image of Michael Jackson being constructed, clearly demonstrated the racial divide that still exists in this country and that President Obama had better find some time to try to address while he still has such high personal approval ratings and political capital in the bank, or we are all in for some big political and social shocks next time around. "

When you read the whole thing note how he first talks about Michael being morned by all the world, which is true, but then he misses the point of that by falling back into the old line racial politics.

Whole thing at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-jeffers/michael-jackson-a-final-r_b_227886.html

I disagree with Mr. Jeffers.
Obama should stay the hell away from the "Race" conversation for the simple reason there isn't one and can't be one. It is not a conversation because those that feel the "NEED" for it don't actually want to converse, they just want their position loudly proclaimed then shoved down the others throat.

Brother Al for an example is a man for whom it is always about himself, kinda like Sarah Palin.
His tirade at the Jackson memorial was a case in point. The audience was not just reacting for "RACE" reason, but for all the injustices that they perceived Jackson endured. Race, that was Al's gig.

Sharpton is a man who seeks any storm for a port. He don't need no conversation. He's already got the truth. Kinda like his friend Sean Hannity and others.

America can't talk its way to a solution about race. It can only grow its way to one. And folks it is well on its way, but the trip is long and Mr.Jeffers, and Brother Al, and I , and most probably you won't see the day when "race" means nothing and carries no weight in any manner.

Michael Jackson did more to erase and blur racial distinctions than any man that's lived in this time. No joke intended there folks, look at Paris Jackson and behold the future. It is shameful for any color race baiters to use him in this way.

Conversation, hell no, that was for the 60's and 70's. Now is the time to just live it.

And You Thought You Had Privacy

Predicting Social Security numbers from public data
Alessandro Acquisti,1 and
Ralph Gross
+Author Affiliations

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Communicated by Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, May 5, 2009 (received for review January 18, 2009)
Abstract
Information about an individual's place and date of birth can be exploited to predict his or her Social Security number (SSN). Using only publicly available information, we observed a correlation between individuals' SSNs and their birth data and found that for younger cohorts the correlation allows statistical inference of private SSNs. The inferences are made possible by the public availability of the Social Security Administration's Death Master File and the widespread accessibility of personal information from multiple sources, such as data brokers or profiles on social networking sites. Our results highlight the unexpected privacy consequences of the complex interactions among multiple data sources in modern information economies and quantify privacy risks associated with information revelation in public forums.

Read the whole academic study: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/02/0904891106.abstract


Shit, this is not a new knowledge. It has been doable for years. But now it is OUT THERE!

Now we will all have to get those damn RF implants and the secret UPC code under the upper lip, and have them all correlated to our eye's retinal scan.

Palin Strategy to Upstage Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson dies and knocks the Iranian "Revolution" off page one and TV lead-ins.

Sarah Palin is trying to upstage Michael Jackson by resigning?

The entire text of her speech of "resignation" maybe found at the site below. For the student of history and personality cults it is well worth a careful read.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/full-text-of-palins-resignation-speech.php

In it she says that all four of her children for for her stepping down. I guess that means the baby did too.

She says she is doing it for Alaska, Most Alaskans will probably agree with her though not exactly.

Then there is the weird bit about: "... I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.) Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we ALL could learn so much from someone like Trig - I know he needs me, but I need him even more... what a child can offer to set priorities RIGHT - that time is precious... the world needs more "Trigs", not fewer.

I wondered about that and what it ment so I googled Trig-Palin-mocked and got these two photos.

It seems this iconic picture was photo-shopped into the picture below,

It took me some time to find out how this mocked Trig in that clearly someone else's face has been placed over his.

The explanations is found at Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/25/palin-attacks-blogger-for_n_220668.html

The level of insanity of all of this makes me wonder at the state of our National mind.

But it all came together when I read this part of her speech.

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."

It became crystal clear then, she is upstaging

Michael Jackson!

I Know The Identity of the Lost TV Show Plot

Ever since the first season I recognized the plot background of "Lost" the TV series.

It ain't that hard kiddoes.

The Island is an insane asylum that houses one or more patients with multiple interacting personalities trying to resolve themselves into the controlling dominant personality of the patient(s).

See the movie "Identity" for a similar plot.

http://www.themoviespoiler.com/Spoilers/identity.html

What To Read Now, And Why,.....Say What?

Got my new Newsweek today and turned directly to the article : WHAT TO READ NOW: AND WHY!.

Read it here:http://www.newsweek.com/id/204300

I was chagrined to find that of the 50 books "I should of read" I had read exact 1/3 of one. They were counting Twain's three Mississippi books as one. I had read Huck..Finn.

But I had seen three as movies: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Frankenstein , and The Bear.

I've always thought of myself as a reader, but geez many of these essential books for these times I had never heard of much less read.

There are three books on my table next to the chair I read in. They are The Spear of Destiny, The Gnostic Paul, and Henry Stanley's book about seeking Livingston (although that one is in German which i do not understand, but that's another story). But still this Issue of Newsweek is making me feel well out of it.

So dear blog "readers" which of the books on the magic list have you read?

Where Is Wyatt Earp When You Need Him?

Ariz. Senate approves bill allowing guns in bars

Wyatt's Carefree Days Maybe Over

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Senate has given final approval to a bill that would allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry a gun into a business that serves alcohol.

The 19-8 vote completes legislative action on the bill and sends it to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. She has not said whether she will sign it, but she has long been a supporter of gun rights.

The measure has pitted powerful groups representing gun and bar owners against each other, sparking a debate about whether guns and alcohol can coexist without bloodshed.

Critics of the measure say guns and alcohol are a dangerous combination.

"We don't let people drink and drive, why should we let them drink and carry guns?" said Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, who voted against the bill.

Source: USATODAY.com

Wyatt Cleans Up Tombstone For A Second Time

It won't be long until we will have to add Cell Phones to the First Amendment or we will have more gun rights than phone rights.

My mama always told me never put off till tomorrow people you can kill today.

---Doc Holiday