Big Bad Evil Ol’ US.

The other day Hackerboy (who is six) was on the Wii playing a game that looked suspiciously like the Tour de France in its layout.  Let’s call it the Tour de Frank.

Anyway, he had moved from 100th place in the beginning to 17th place by the end of Stage 5.  I was making dinner and only marginally paying attention but I was following his progress.  He was clearly excited by his progress and I heard him say loudly:

I was BORN for this!

Where he got that, I’ll never know.

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I’m not addicted to Red Bull™.  I can quit anytime.  I like the taste.  It is a social thing.  I just don’t want to quit.  I’m not hurting anybody.  I only have a few.  Other people?  They have problems.

Beautifully creative use of Red Bull™ long after the body has eliminated it.

I only wish I had come up with that idea.  It’s elegant.  Beautiful.  Cheaper than taking it to the shop.

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Note:  I’m tired, cranky, and bitchy.  I’m going to rant.  You might skip over this if you are in a “don’t pop my bubble” mood.

As you know, I listen to NPR to follow the saying “Know thine enemy”.

I end up knowing far too much.

Rodriguez moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 7. He says if he could, he would vote.

“To see people that have that privilege and not take it, and because they don’t take it we have people elected that create laws that hurt me, that hurt my family, that hurt our communities. It can get frustrating,” he says.

“I am practically an American without papers, and because of that I don’t have the power to vote,” says Rodriguez. “So, the best thing I can do now is organize those that can, and make them vote for me.”

Yet another ILLEGAL alien is whinging about the raw deal he’s getting just because he hasn’t gone and become a legal entity in the US.  Like it’s the US’s fault that he’s in the situation he’s in.  It’s his family who is at fault.  They didn’t do a “moved to the US”, they did a “snuck into the country illegally and decided to stay”.

At the end of the evening, Somos America President Daniel Rodriguez took to the podium.

“Raise your hand,” he said in Spanish, “if you know someone who’s not here but needs this information. Raise your hand if you know someone who’s been deported. Raise your hand if you know someone who has the power to vote.”

Across the room, hands shot up at each statement.

“Every question, almost everyone raised their hands, and that just goes to show you that there’s a lot of people that know the pain and the hurt of being deported or having to know someone that was deported,” Rodriguez recounted.

Rodriguez told the crowd of mostly ineligible voters that they need to use that pain and turn it into power by tapping friends and family who can vote.

The pain and hurt of being deported or having to know someone that was deported… I have friends from Germany that were here LEGALLY and they had to go back home.  So a large number of hispanics here illegally feel like they are owed the right to break the law and be given a free pass?  Well, they certainly won’t be disabused of that notion by our Marxist president and the liberal media.

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Today I heard another thing on NPR.

One of the reporters was interviewing a lady from Yemen.

Turns out a lot of Yemenis hate the US and distrust us.

WHOA!  OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!  This turns my world UPSIDE DOWN!  Yemenis somewhere in the world hate us.  Oh.  My.  God.

She said it as if we were suddenly going to have to sit up straight and pay attention.  So what?  Big deal.  Let’s have a head count – the number of Yemenis who have been terrorists who have attempted to kill, want to kill, or have killed – innocent civilians.  Ok.  Now let’s take a head count of the number of US terrorists who have the same aspirations to kill Yemenis.  Yeah, there’s a huge network of people organizing to do just that.  Uh-huh.  Sure.

Next, the reporter made mention of either $150 or $170 million dollars being spent on aid programs in Yemen – building things, infrastructure, etc.  He asked her if that is helping the US’s image in Yemen.

Guess what?

Her response was essentially that no, it does nothing because Yemenis see how much we spend on military involvement in Yemen – troops, equipment, training – and see that it is far more.  They also believe that most of that money goes to corrupt individuals in their government.

A corrupt government is a symptom of a corrupt society (the US is not an exception).  But why is the US implicitly to blame for their corruption?  Why do Yemenis still take money from the US?

And better yet, why do we spend money on a country that hates and distrusts us when it does no good and is going to corrupt individuals?  We do it so we can function covertly and overtly in their country.  Let’s not couch it in terms of “aid”, m’kay?  And Yemen – if it is such a distasteful thing, stop claiming the high road while holding out the hands for money.  Clean your house of corruption while you are at it.

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Poison!

Gosh, life sure is a scary place, isn’t it?  BPA is the new pants-wetting monster-under-the-bed.   Actually not new at all.

Cash-register receipts from many fast-food outlets, groceries, pharmacies, big-box stores and U.S. post offices contain high levels of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A.

A study released late today by the Environmental Working Group reported that a laboratory analysis it commissioned found the plastic component BPA on 40 percent of receipts from McDonald’s, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Safeway and other businesses.

BPA is used to coat thermal paper, which reacts with dye to form black print on receipts handled by millions of Americans every day. In laboratory tests, the chemical has been linked to a long list of serious health problems in animals. Several environmental activists, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also have called for removing BPA from canned goods.

Wash your hands – you should be doing that already – before you eat.  Oh, but they have an answer to that!

The EWG, a national nonprofit organization, is undertaking additional studies to determine whether and to what degree BPA enters the body. However, earlier this month Swiss scientist Sandra Biedermann and her colleagues from the Zurich Official Food Control Authority reported that BPA from register receipts can “enter the skin to such a depth that it can no longer be washed off.”

If it is so deep that it can’t be washed off it is deep enough to not get on my food.  Unless somehow the chemical is so frickin’ evil that it senses food and leaps out of our pores onto that food.  Since we always can trust Wikipedia:

While there is little concern for dermal absorption of BPA, free BPA can readily be transferred to skin and residues on hands can be ingested.

Back to the bedwetting article.

That finding raises the possibility that the chemical infiltrates the skin’s lower layers to enter the bloodstream directly, the EWG says.

The skin is really quite impressive in terms of what it can keep out and yes, there is always a possibility.  However, if you are only going to “raise the possibility” then it means it hasn’t been tested and hasn’t been quantified.

Ask yourself:  “Who is the EWG?”  “What is their agenda?”  “Who gives them money?”  “What do they consider a success story on any given chemical threat-du-jour?”

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Minor Details. Don’t Worry About It.

Update:

Dr. Emanuel, a bioethicist, believes that doctors and hospitals should apply a rationing scheme he calls “complete life” for such medical services as ICU beds, heart transplants and vaccines during a flu pandemic. Under this scheme, adolescents and young adults would get priority over infants and the elderly, because “they have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants — have not yet received these investments.”

I have heard any number of advocates and apologists for health care reform, and they flatly deny that there is any wording that supports “death panels”.  They mock such concerns and dismiss them.

But here is the thing… when making a law or institution, the original  intent will not matter at a later date in the real world… you should always assume that the worst possible outcome allowed by the letter of the law (or the lack thereof) will be used and come to pass.

How else would we get a “living constitution,” or the idea that the 2nd amendment is acceptable some times but not others, or that separation of church and state means that a prayer/observance/motto/relic/book cannot be given a place in a public building?

Here’s an example, many thanks to Sarah Palin:

Palin can also put another notch on her belt when it comes to influencing health care “reform” — the Senate will drop language “encouraging” doctors to initiate conversations with patients about hospice and palliative end-of-life care from its bill, The Boston Globe reports:

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Republican and one of six committee members trying to hash out a bipartisan bill, said yesterday that the provision could be misinterpreted and that it will not be contained in the committee’s proposed legislation. ..

“Could be misinterpreted?”  No, try “Will be misinterpreted.”

Moving on…

Palin was hardly the only one to look at the House bill and realize its implications. In a commentary posted on The Daily Beast, “thinker” Lee Siegel — who believes “the absence of universal health care is America’s burning shame” — calls rationing end-of-life care “morally revolting”:

Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal health care affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right. …

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We’ve known that our social programs have been in dire straits for a while now.

Spencer Bachus – SS could be in default in 2 years.

If we add noises of concern about Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s Affairs Hospitals we see a pattern, a common thread.

Guess what?  Large government programs do not work.

Let’s add health care!  It’s proven that we can give poor-to-mediocre care to veterans, so let’s give that same caring to everyone!

Sent to me, don't know the source. Anyone cares to claim it I'll gladly shout your name to the rooftops. This is funny!

Watch for the Obamessaiah to explain away his flip-flops as being the product of a passionate and emotional… feeling… and that we should judge him (and give him a pass) on his caring and compassion.

Whinging by the dems:

“We were forced into this by Republicans,” one official said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs blamed the media for misunderstanding the administration’s support.

“The administration’s position is unchanged,” Gibbs insisted in a testy exchange yesterday during which he handed one reporter exact quotes to read from previous speeches.

Republican responses were less than sympathetic:

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said blaming the GOP is “laughable.”

“Apparently having a filibuster-proof majority, a 40-seat advantage in the House, and a president who was once really popular isn’t enough,” Spain said in a statement. “Maybe if people actually liked the bill, Democrats’ wouldn’t have such a tough time whipping up bipartisan votes, much less vulnerable Democrats within their own party.”

g

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Will Harsh Treatment of Terrorists Harm US???

Mike Baker over at Fox News had a great editorial on whether treating terrorists harshly should be avoided because it will make us like them.

https://lemurking.wordpress.com/mike-baker-terrorists-and-morality/

Worth a read. More tonight. I think the answer is a really strong NO.

Oh, wait, I have another link. Bummer Dude The conversation probably went something like this (one sided as the cops just stare at the idiot in front of them):

Like, dude.. hold on I gotta pay for this pizza… … … ok, it’s like, dude, we thought those were tomato plants, y’know?

What a shock, man. I’m so totally bummed. I’m as surprised as anybody, really.

(sprinkles “oregano” on his pizza)

– LK

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