A Lesson Learned While Young...

Via my mom:

Obamacare and the Doctor...

Here's a well-known physician's take on Obamacare.  Dr. Zane Pollard is a pediatric ophthalmologist in Atlanta, Georgia.  Via my mom:

I have taken care of Medicaid patients for 35 years while representing the only pediatric ophthalmology group left in Atlanta, Georgia that accepts Medicaid. For example, in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.

Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.

Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for  each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved  list. Get the point -- rationing of care.

Over the past 35 years I have cared for over 1000 children born with congenital cataracts. In older children and in adults the vision is rehabilitated with an intraocular lens. In newborns we use contact lenses which are very expensive. It takes Medicaid over one year to approve a contact lens post  cataract surgery. By that time a successful anatomical operation is wasted as the child will be close to blind from a lack of focusing for so long a period of time.

Read the whole thing.

Kinda scary, isn't it?

It's what Britain and Canada are living with every day...

A Flying Pig Moment...

Thomas Freidman is a columnist for the New York Times, writing with a predictably liberal slant.  It's rare for me to agree with him on substance, though I've enjoyed his writing style and cherish him as a level-headed source of information about the liberal mindset.

So it was with great surprise that I read his column about the award of the Nobel Peace prize to Obama.  It's a terrific piece that I think is one of the better reactions any commentator has had.  A sample:

Here is the speech I hope he will give:

“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.

“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free. I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.

But don't miss the whole thing (even if it is at the New York Times).

Nice work, Mr. Freidman!

Girls and Boys...

Look at the photos on the right.  One of them is a girl, the other a boy, right?

Wrong.

They're both photos of the same person.  The one on the left has had its contrast enhanced.  Our brains turn that little bit of information into a cue about gender.

That's one I never would have thought of...

LCROSS Impact - LIVE!

I'm watching the impact of the LCROSS satellite on the moon, live on streaming NASA video on the web.  Very cool...

Speaking Piano...

Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize...

Really, he did.  I read it on several news sites this morning.  I don't think it's a parody, and it's not an April Fool's Day joke – it is, after all, October. 

I guess I have a mistaken notion about the Nobel prizes.  I've always thought that they were awarded for actually accomplishing something.  Evidently I was wrong.  Even the Nobel Committee's announcement confirms this:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

So it's the effort that matters, not the accomplishment.  This reminds me of the modern approach to education in many school systems, wherein students are assessed not so much on how well the know the material, but rather on the effort they made.  It doesn't matter if you get the right answer to a math problem; what matters is whether you tried.

Apparently that's also the case with the Nobel Peace Prize.  Only efforts matter.  And maybe not even them – I've heard a lot of talk about Obama's efforts, but I'm unaware of any actual efforts he's made.  Maybe there are some secret efforts that the Nobel Committee has been briefed on that us mere citizens have not.  Or maybe the Nobel Committee has an odd and unexpected sense of humor.  Or maybe they're just all crazy.

The latter seems the most likely.

So now Obama joins a long list of other winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Many of these winners are indeed worthy and admirable people of great accomplishment: Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiessel, and Nelson Mandela among them.  But there is also an embarrassing list of losers who have won this prize: Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Mohamed ElBaradei, Kofi Annan, and Yassar Arafat.  In that context, Obama's selection fits right in.


What a crazy, upside-down world we live in!

Record Ice Melt...

Record low, that is.

Since 1980, satellites have been tracking very precisely the amount of snow and ice in both the arctic regions (north and south).  About 90% of all the fresh-water ice in the world is in Antarctica, so of course when the global warmenists talk about ice melting, that's the place of most concern.

If global warming was causing ice to melt, the place where you'd be most worried about it would be Antarctica.   Al Gore, in his movie, painted a vivid picture if Antarctica melting and causing the oceans to rise, flooding thousands of islands and coastal cities.  We'd better watch that ice carefully!

Well, the data is just in from their most recent summer (remember, the seasons are reversed down there).  Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters: for the 2008-2009 summer season, the amount of ice melt was the lowest ever recorded by satellites.

How, er, inconvenient for the warmenist crowd...

Oh, My...

Some commentators have been speculating for many months that Obama's autobiography Dreams from my Father was actually co-written by Bill Ayers (radical, domestic terrorist, SDS member, Weatherman, now professor at the University of Illinois, and neighbor of the Obamas in Chicago).  When I first read these speculations, I thought it seemed unlikely – why would an aspiring politician take a chance like this?  Clearly he wouldn't want to be connected to someone like Ayers.  Furthermore, Obama's book doesn't credit a ghostwriter, and such credits are normal (though certainly not universal).

But now comes word that the speculators were even more correct than they thought.  Bill Ayers reportedly claims to have written the book, not merely co-written it.  Anne Leary, a conservative blogger from Chicago, posts that she had a chance meeting with Ayers at the airport, and he said:

Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.

Assuming this is a truthful account, that's just stunning – it means Barack Obama the author is a fraud.  It means that the public image of Barack Obama – heavily influenced by that book – is a fraud.  It means that a domestic terrorist and criminal helped shape our President.  It's confirmation of the darkest suspicions voiced by the fringe right.

Worst of all, it's utterly shameful...

They Don't Want You to See It...

The healthcare reform bill, that is.  Whatever that might end up being.  The majority Congressional leaders (that would be the dynamic duo of Reid and Pelosi) are fighting efforts to have the bill online for public viewing for three days prior to the vote.

This is not a new tactic, nor is it something the Republicans can claim innocence on.  But it still stinks to high heaven, because there's only one reason why they would do this – the Congressional leadership wants to pass a bill that they know the public (those pesky voters) would object to.

Lead.
Gunpowder.
Steel tube.
Congressional leaders.
Some assembly required.

A Beautiful Morning...

We're having a spell of absolutely lovely weather – cool, crisp, and (by our standards) positively wet air.  No rain, though the forecast holds some possibility of it.

This morning walking the dogs (at 3 am!) was particularly nice.  A light haze blanketed the ground, but it was perfectly clear overhead.  The near-full moon brightly illuminated the yard, making it easy for Race (our border collie) to run around the yard chasing a stick I threw repeatedly.  There's nothing that makes that dog happier than simply chasing that stick...

Marines and the President...

My mom sent a link to this video, which has been floating around for a while.  I refrained from posting it when it initially came out because there was much criticism of the careful and obviously biased (for George W. Bush) editing.

However, since that time I have corresponded with a fair number of our warriors in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  Their comments lead me to believe that this video is a fairer portrayal of our military's attitudes than the critics would have us believe. 

So here's the video, and you can make up your own mind about an appropriate reaction:

Divert Your Course!

Via my mom, who thought I'd enjoy the naval-themed humor...


...and she was right, for it captures rather nicely the amazing arrogance of some (certainly not all) naval officers...

A Doctor's Take on Healthcare Reform...

Dr. Simi Lyss is a regular reader of this site, and is a medical doctor.  He has this editorial in his local paper, and I reproduce it here at his invitation:

I agree that reform in health care is necessary at this time. However the proposals that are being presented by our government, I believe, are a total disaster.

I have downloaded and tried to read the proposals before Congress. I have found, after several hours of reading, that they are totally incomprehensible. Continual reference is made to previous statutes and regulations that are not reasonably accessible to any reasonable person. Not a big surprise because the document is more than 1,000 pages long!

Who wrote this proposal? Clearly not our legislators. I don't know but it was almost certainly a number of “policy wonks” who may or may not reside in the real world most of us live in.

The proposals seem very similar to the systems that significant countries, such as Canada and Great Britain, currently have with all their problems we already know about.

I have a physician friend who has been a consultant on medical issues to multiple nations, including Great Britain, who stated that in the U.S. 30 million people fall through the cracks and that in Great Britain 30 million people are stuffed through the cracks!

So, where should we go from here?

While our medical care system has a large number of problems, many could be made better by the following suggestions:

1) True malpractice reform. Let's not try a demonstration project as President Obama suggests. Let's try a system like, for example, the one that Texas has already instituted. It has very significantly lowered the costs and distortions caused by a runaway malpractice system. These reforms should be instituted nationally.

2) Allow insurance companies to sell their insurance across state lines. This would increase competition in a dramatic way that would benefit all of us with better coverage and lower premiums.

3) Eliminate the ridiculous provision in our tax laws that says deductions for out of pocket medical expenses must exceed 7.5 percent of our “Adjusted Gross Income” before being deductible from our income. How would you react to a rule that said you could only deduct mortgage interest that was above 7.5 percent of your AGI? How is this so different?

4) Allow medical insurance premiums to be deductible for tax purposes. If you have your medical insurance through your work, the premiums are already deductible for your employer. Why is it different if you don't have coverage through your job and have to buy this insurance yourself?

These actions are certainly not all we need to do but they are important first steps. However, lets not throw out our whole system which works fairly well for at least 85 percent of people who are asked. Let's not try to help the 15 percent by going to an untried idealistic system that is likely to be a disaster for us all.

For what it's worth, all of the MDs I know are unhappy with Obamacare and all the multitude of proposals coming out of Congress.  By and large, they agree with Dr. Lyss' on the elements of healthcare that most need reform.

Conservatives vs. Liberals...

Via Jim M.:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful. Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping  for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

This is an old one that's been floating around in various forms for years.  As I reread the note from Jim, it occurred to me that I've never seen the equivalent sort of thing from a liberal's perspective.  Have you?

God Bless...

YouTube philosopher Pat Condell takes on organized religion:


I particularly enjoyed his parting line...

Uh Oh...

A Canadian study shows that there is an increased chance of catching H1N1 (the “swine flu”) if you have had this year's seasonal flu shot.  The study is credible enough that Canadian provinces are re-thinking their vaccination plans:

Distributed for peer review last week, the study confounded infectious-disease experts in suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu.

The paper is under peer review, and lead researchers Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University must stay mum until it's published.

Met with intense early skepticism both in Canada and abroad, the paper has since convinced several provincial health agencies to announce hasty suspensions of seasonal flu vaccinations, long-held fixtures of public-health planning.

Flu vaccinations have been controversial for a while because they're not very reliable.  There's also a bogus controversy about the safety of the flu vaccine from the loonies who are convinced that vaccines (in general) are linked to autism, but this has been thoroughly debunked.  But the controversy about the effectiveness of flu vaccines seems to be well-founded.  For example, last year in San Diego the seasonal vaccine missed every flu variant we actually experienced – so the flu shot was worthless.

But this study shows something much more concerning: that getting a flu shot is worse than worthless – it actually increases the likelihood that you'll come down with H1N1.

I think I'll skip the flu shot again this year...

DMV-Style Healthcare...

This is great!

Little Israel Is Still Leading the Way...

As Uri Dromi points out:

A uranium enrichment facility nobody knew of suddenly emerges in the sacred city of Qom, Iran launches missiles that can threaten not only U.S. targets in the Persian gulf, but also Israel and southern Europe, and now the world panics.

Surprised? Not if you're an Israeli. For years we have been sounding the alarm, only to be told to stop crying wolf. Now we are asked to lie low and let the responsible leaders of the world take care of the situation.

It must be tremendously frustrating for many Israelis to watch obvious world-threatening problems develop – while most of the world ignores them.  Repeatedly the Israelis have acted when other nations would not or could not, to the benefit of us all.  The most recent example is their discovery and destruction of a nuclear facility in Syria.

My cynical bet is that the world will do nothing effective to stop Iran before Israel feels the need to take unilateral action.  Past experience suggests that when they do, the action will be effective – and they'll be publicly denounced by the entire world, while private nearly all countries will breath a huge sigh of relief.

We're lucky the Israelis are here to do the dirty work for those – like us – don't have the balls to do it themselves...

On Roman Polanski...

Me, I'm just tickled pink that the shithead is on his way back here to face the court.  It's a foregone conclusion that his punishment will be light, unless a miracle happens and the court decides to punish him for skipping the country.  I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, the disgusting spectacle of the Hollywood “elite” (and I put that term in scare quotes, because, well, in that context it is scary) defending Polanski goes on and on, endlessly.  Mark Steyn notes (in the middle of a typically excellent column):

One sympathizes. Except that there are millions of children of the Holocaust struggling under the burdens of the past – and only one who deals with them as Roman Polanski does. Working on the film "Chinatown," the writer Robert Towne found it hard to concentrate at the director's pad, what with "the teenyboppers that Roman would run out and take Polaroid pictures of diving off the f***ing diving board without tops on. Which was distracting. With braces."

Braces. Cute.

Which leads directly to this:

Rope.
Tree.
Amoral Hollywood scum.
Some assembly required.

Isn't it amazing how many problems we can solve with a few feet of rope and a convenient tree?

Obama Administration FAIL...

At right is the chart originally published by the Obama administration earlier this year, with a red line added to show the actual unemployment rate.

They used this chart to sell the “stimulus package”, saying that without it unemployment would rise to about 9%, and with it unemployment would drop to below 7.5%.

Well here we are at 9.8% (as of September) and still climbing.

I don't think that even the Obama administration believed this chart.  Anybody with even the slightest understanding of economics and experience with government knew that there was no way in hell the stimulus package could have an effect that fast.

Even so, the sorry bastards used this chart to sell our descendants into debt.

Rope.
Tree.
Stimulus-supporting politician.
Some assembly required.

Viewer for Lyons Peak Cameras...

I've got a new viewer page up for the HPWREN cameras on Lyons Peak (permanant link on the sidebar at right).

This page makes it easy and convenient for anyone to view the cameras, and includes the ability to zoom and move around the image.  On the north and east facing cameras there's even the ability to identify the features you point to on the picture (I haven't finished them for the other two cameras yet).

Enjoy!

Exactly Right!

Glenn Reynolds (aka The Instapundit) succinctly expresses one of my feelings about the Obama administration:

Meanwhile, with this gang in charge who would be surprised to find that under ObamaCare your chances of a liver transplant really will depend on your politics? Not me.

Exactly right.

And isn't that scary?

NJ: The Loser State...

The fellow at right is Robert Melia, Jr., a former Moorestown, New Jersey police officer.  He has an interesting hobby:

MOUNT HOLLY, NJ -- A former police officer accused of having a moonlight tryst with a group of cows will not be facing animal cruelty charges after all.

As it turns out bestiality is not a crime in New Jersey.

Former Moorestown police officer Robert Melia Jr. was charged last year with sexually assaulting three girls.

During the investigation, police say they found a video in the man's home that showed him sexually molesting cows.

But that didn't have any consequences, being that it happened in New Jersey (aka “The home of contented cows...”).  His assault of three young girls (with his girlfriend?!?) will hopefully have more.

And now everyone knows that if oral sex with cows is your thing, then New Jersey is the place to be...

Quote of the Day...

By Charles Krauthammer:

When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom.

Heh!  Read the whole thing...

MESSENGER Does Its Last Slingshot...

The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully made the last of three planned “slingshot” maneuvers in preparation for Mercury orbital insertion on March 19, 2011.  On each of these slingshot flybys MESSENGER has gathered images (click to enlarge) and other science data.

MESSENGER is a great science and technology success story, for a tiny fraction of the cost of a manned space mission...

African Ingenuity...

Fascinating story about a African kid creating a wind-powered lighting system from scrounged materials such as shock absorber pistons, bicycle dynamos, and old engine fans...

Political Cartoonists Are Figuring Out Obama...

A nice collection via my nice cousin Mike D.  As always, click to enlarge.

My personal favorite: “The Great Financipator: Four score and seven hundred billion dollars ago...”:

Break in Our Weather...

And very welcome it is!  We had a couple of brief rainstorms last night, just enough to wet the surface and to produce that wonderful “rain smell” that we haven't had for a long while.  This morning I walked the dogs in crisp, cool air that reminds me of winter.  And to think just a few days ago we were in the hundreds!

A Sense of Humor...

...even in wartime.  Via my mom:

Quote of the Day...

Mark Steyn lays it out for us:

When you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn’t that they'll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters, seven-eighths of the way. That’s what happened in New York last week. Barack Obama is not to blame for whichever vagary of United Nations protocol resulted in the president of the United States being the warm-up act for the Lunatic-for-Life in charge of Libya. But it is a pitiful reflection upon the state of the last superpower that, when it comes to the transnational mush drooled by the leader of the free world or the conspiracist ramblings of a terrorist pseudo-Bedouin running a one-man psycho-cult of a basket-case state, it’s more or less a toss-up as to which of them is more unreal. To be sure, Colonel Qaddafi peddled his thoughts on the laboratory origins of “swine flu” and the Zionist plot behind the Kennedy assassination. But, on the other hand, President Obama said: “No nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

Read the whole thing to find out how dog-feces ice cream factors in.  Then read Gerson's piece...

The Birds and the Bees...

Via my cousin Mike D.:

A father asked his 10-year old son if he knew about the birds and the bees.

“I don't want to know!” the child said, bursting into tears.  “Promise me you won't tell me!”

Confused, the father asked what was wrong.

“When I was six,” the son replied, “I got the ‘There's no Easter Bunny’ speech.  At seven, I got the ‘There's no Tooth Fairy’ speech.  When I was eight, you hit me with the ‘There's no Santa’ speech.  If you're going to tell me that grown-ups don't really get laid, I'll have nothing left to live for!”

World's Shortest Fairy Tale...

Jim M. continues his theme from last week:

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl 'Will you marry me?' The girl said, 'NO!' And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf a lot and drank beer and scotch and had money in the bank and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted.

Pocket Taser...

Don G. passed along this little story:

Pocket Taser Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Taser for their anniversary submitted this:

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 22nd Anniversary,  and I was looking for a little something "extra" for my wife.

What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser. The effects of the taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on the assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety...WAY TOO COOL!

Long story short, I bought the device, and brought it home. I loaded two triple-A batteries in the thing, and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.

Awesome!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to the Wife what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all THAT bad, with only two triple-A batteries, right?!!! There I sat in my recliner with my cat, Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions, and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target.

I must admit, I thought about zapping Gracie, (for only a fraction of a second) and then thought better of it. She's such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong? So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top, with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and taser in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms, and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would just be wasting the batteries.

All the while, I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5" long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; (pretty cute really, and loaded with two little bitty, itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, "NO possible way!"

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best. I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as if to say, "Don't do it master," reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't POSSIBLY hurt all that bad...

I decided to give myself a one-second burst, just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION @!@$$!%!

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over, and over, and over, and over again.

I vaguely recall waking up on my side, in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs.

The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, and undoubtedly thinking to herself, "do it again, do it again!"

Note: If you ever feel compelled to "mug" yourself with a taser, one note of caution: there is NO SUCH THING as a "one-second burst", when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative. SON-OF-A-%#&**%#... that hurt!!!

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up, and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. (How did they up get there???) My triceps, right thigh, and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I'm still looking for my testicles. I'm offering a significant reward for their safe return.

Hah!

That image of Gracie saying “Do it again!” will ring true to any animal owner. I'm positive that all of our seven cats and four dogs would do exactly that!

Paroled Arsonists in Our Midst?

Now comes word that authorities are suspicious that a paroled arsonist was responsible for setting “several” fires in East County:

On Monday, CAL FIRE Battalion Chief and acting Boulevard Fire Chief John Francois informed Boulevard Fire Board members that a paroled arsonist had been living in the community.  The arsonist is now back in custody for violating his parole terms.

“Several suspicious fires are still under investigation,” Donna Tisdale, Chair of the Boulevard Planning Group informed East County Magazine. Tisdale expressed shock that community members were kept in the dark about a potentially dangerous arsonist in their midst at the height of fire season—and she is now calling for reforms in the law to require that neighbors be notified if an arsonist is turned loose in their neighborhood.

So this sorry sack of poop is back in jail.  Good, though not good enough – some idiot might let him out again.

A few questions come right to mind:

• What the hell were those “authorities” thinking when they released a convicted arsonist into a giant pile of fuel like East County?
• Why are those aforementioned “authorities” still in a position where they could do this again?
• How many more of these arsonists live amongst us?
• Individuals in government need to be held accountable for their actions or inactions, just as individuals in companies are held accountable.  Who are the individuals in our government responsible for this kind of terminal stupidity?
  

Where Our Oil Comes From...

There were some surprises for me in the chart at right (click to enlarge).   For instance, I had no idea we imported significant amounts of oil from Angola and Columbia.

But the big surprise was that our (U.S.) total oil consumption declined last year.  It makes sense, given the recession, but somehow that little factoid had escaped my eye...

Accidental Shooting in Lawson Valley...

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A man accidentally shot himself in the hand and his wife in the knee as he was taking apart his gun to clean it Thursday, sheriff's officials said.

The shooting was reported about 3:30 p.m. in a home on Lawson Valley Road in Jamul.
The 27-year-old man told deputies that he was taking apart his .40 caliber Springfield Armory semi-automatic pistol to clean it. In order to remove the barrel, he had to pull the trigger. He removed the magazine, but a round filled with "snakeshot" ammunition, similar to BBs, was still in the barrel and it went through his hand and into his wife's knee, the Sheriff's Department said.

Both were flown to Sharp Memorial Hospital for treatment. Authorities said the incident appears to be "purely accidental."

Anybody know anything more about this?

An Inspiration To Us All...

Via my cousin Mike D.:

As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to make a difference in the world.  It is at these  times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable achievements of other Seniors who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither.

Harold Sclumberg is such a person.

"I've often been asked, 'What do you old folks do now that you're retired'?   Well, I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background, and one of the things I enjoy most is turning beer, wine, Scotch, and margaritas into urine – I'm pretty good at it, too."

Cult of Personality in the Making?

More of my readers have written me about this video than anything else I've ever published.  On one level it seems perfectly innocent; just a bunch of schoolkids singing a song.  But then when you think about the words, and think about the influence this has on the kids, it seems very creepy.

As I watched it, the first thing I thought of were the videos that came out of North Korea a few years ago.  Those videos had many scenes of North Korean citizens paying homage to their leader, but the one that struck me hardest were the classroom scenes with the children mechanically singing the praises of their fearless leader. 

Then I thought back to my own school days.  I cannot remember ever being asked to sing the praises of Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson.  Nope, didn't happen.  We recited the Pledge of Alleigance in the mornings; we learned about Eisenhower's service in WWII; we learned about PT-109.  But no creepy paeans to our leader.  No cult.

Viewing this video, I thought “This may not end well.”, meaning Obama's presidency.  Think about this...think about the combination of this video and the proposal being floated to remove the restriction on the number of terms an American President may serve.  That starts to smell a lot like Hugo Chavez.  Or imagine a few years from now some close associate of Obama announcing his run for President – while promising to retain Obama as (say) the Secretary of State (like Putin in Russia).  The kind of personality cult building shown in this video inclines people to be worried about such things.

As they should be.

Have You No Shame?

An excellent speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.  My favorite moment is when he asks the delegations gathered at the U.N. “Have you no shame?”