Sunday, January 30, 2011

Egypt, A Tale Of Missed Opportunities.

We missed a lot of chances to have an actual representative republic in Egypt, starting back when Ike was President. Our best chance, of course, was back when we took Iraq with our most powerful Division stuck on the boats because of Turkish intransigence.

I am still convinced that once our guys took Baghdad, again with our most powerful single Division still on the sideline, we had a very tough spearhead poised to pierce any country in the area. To the heart of Muslim unrest? There was Iran. The "Intelligence" Agencies we pay billions for could probably tell us where to put each cruise missile to kill the Mad Mullahs and Imadinnerjacket, that little sawed off punk that loves to run his mouth. The sat. intel can tell us where every tank in their inventory is. Why is it that we didn't end that regime while we had the troops and air right there?

Or, perhaps we might have gone the other way and ended the funny idea of the House of Saud. Every Wahhabi teaching comes from there. We could have ended that nightmare in a matter of minutes with our Air Forces.

I am absolutely convinced that was the plan, put the most potent fighting force in the world right in the middle of Islam's madness and carve out the real madmen. Not so much the guys who strap on the Semtex overcoats but those who train and send them. We had the men and machines there, and the ruthless men to control them, Bush, Cheney (Happy birthday, Dick!) and Rumsfeld. Somehow, though, on the edge of victory, we lost our nerve. I suspect that Democrats had much to do with that.

So, now Egypt is probably going under. Would the Muslim Brotherhood still exist without the Mad Mullahs and the Wahhabi types? Iran's flag will fly a little higher, the house of Saud's a little lower. The folks running the countries outside the Mideast will be figuring on what happens to the Suez Canal and what happens to oil prices.

The chowderheads running the USA are going to be wondering what happens to the mostly service troops still in Iraq. meanwhile our Infantry, Armor and Artillery are off in a landlocked country with no convenient way to the sea. The country the supplies must come through is a nuclear armed hotbed of madmen.

Okay, we can fly our troops out of both those places but the equipment? It's bad enough that we have overused and under-replaced our equipment since about 2006 when the Donks took over the purse strings, how long will it take to replace the gear if the supply lines through Pakistan close? And this is what we are facing right now, the Muslim world is seeing an essential weakness in the leader of the west. The Muslim world is reacting.

Thank the Lord Israel has her nukes, she may well need them.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Whole Polical Party In Charge Of Making The State Of The Union Worse.

I sure wish the constitutional requirement that the President make Congress aware of the state of the Union was still done as it was for the first hundred or so years of the Republic. The President would send a written letter to Congress. There is no guarantee but there is a chance there would be a little less horsesh, um, fertilizer involved.

I would like to propose a simple Constitutional Amendment. No elected official shall be allowed on television. Any messages must be delivered in writing by fax or e-mail to all known media outlets in the area of that government official's district.

That way we could all know about something important like if they declare war. Otherwise, how about if they want to be TV stars they go out to Hollywood.

I confess, I did not watch the speech, nor the response. I did not need to. I drive around, I see the vacant buildings where there used to be businesses. I see the vacant homes. I buy groceries, including cheaper and cheaper cuts of meat. It wasn't very long ago that my pension would buy me a couple-three nice thick porterhouse steaks a month as well as some of those thick cut pork chops. I do not need some idiot politicians telling me what a great job they are doing.

Hey, politicians! Maybe if you idiots stop subsidising ethanol poor folks could buy food. Oh and if you stop with the sugar tariffs we wouldn't have corn syrup in everything, speaking of why folks are fatter and more diabetic. I swear, it's almost impossible to buy, say canned fruit, that doesn't have corn syrup. Remember when it had sugar instead and we didn't need "relaxed fit" jeans by age thirty-five?

I don't know what we can do short of adding a "canning party to the TEA Party. We consumers will never be able to match the political donations of, say, Archer-Daniels. What we could do is pick a couple of things every election , early in the cycle and let concresscritters know that a vote for means we vote against. Why does a can of pears contain no sugar but both high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup? I realize that sugar helps keep bacteria from growing, Granny taught me that when she canned peaches and pears, cherries and grapes. She got her sugar from sugar, though. Meanwhile the price of meat is going through the roof because the corn that would be fed to steers is going into gas tanks. And folks screech about how the underground aquifers are going dry while no one talks about how much water it takes to make a gallon of ethanol.

Meanwhile the left is up in arms because Glen Beck is quoting some old lefty accurately. Um, Plivens, perhaps if you would not call for Greek style riots, you know, the ones where people were killed by molotov cocktails, Beck would not put your idiocies up on his chalkboard. This may seem strange to the left but the most of us do not want to be burnt up in riots. The left does not understand this, and they really don't understand why the ordinary citizens around have all the guns. How un-European!

Another visit to another doctor for Linda Lou today. This one up in a town called Addison. Addison is due north of central Dallas. We live a little north of due east of central Dallas. About sixty miles or so. I remember Addison from back in the mid '70s. The main thing back then was an airport for general aviation. Other than that there were a couple of factories and not much else. I remember there was a die casting plant where folks would make cast parts of zinc and aluminum. A few law enforcement agencies would throw their confiscated dope in the aluminum furnace. Wasn't nothin' left of it after than, molten aluminum is hot! Other than that, Addison had empty fields where the folks hunted birds. Not today. Buildings cheek by jowl. A lot of them up for rent, for some strange reason.

Anyhow, they changed Linda Lou's antibiotic because it was making her sick. I really wonder just how many doctors there are between our place outside of Dogpatch and Addison, particularly with gas fast approaching $3.00. I sometimes wonder just how long it is going to take this far-flung and ever increasing tribe of medics to manage a simple little thing like repair a couple of broken bones. It ain't rocket surgery. Place the bone ends together. Hold them in place. let them knit together. Eleven months and counting. Meanwhile, of all of the legions of medics involved, only one is into bone repair. All the rest seem to be in charge of mopping up the mistakes of the others. Sigh.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Scraps Of Not Much

Well, Linda Lou is getting a bit more confident getting in and out of the house, as long as the deck is dry. The visit with the Orthopedic Surgeon did not go as well as we would have liked, still no weight bearing on that foot. No weight until the wound on the bottom of her foot heals which may bring us into next year. The small wound on the top of her foot is healing nicely, the bottom, not so. The wound on the bottom of her foot is the one where the rod started coming out, which started this last round. So, the surgeon took that rod out and then, opened that wound up again after the last round of antibiotics and in went the next (we hope last) rod. So, now we wait. I'm pretty sure Linda Lou likes getting waited on hand and foot (especially foot!) but it's kind of a pain.

Bingo T. Pug is especially clingy since Linda Lou came home. I shall not mention that it's not easy to type with a Pug on my lap. The home care nurses are nice, they're coming by every day to change the dressing on Linda Lou's foot. Next week I think it's gonna be on me over the weekend.

That is some grisly news from the northeast, delivering live babies and "snipping" their spines with scissors. Not to mention the filth, the unlicensed people doing medical work, the various inspectors ignoring all of that. It's not really surprising, though. Once we lose sight of the simple fact that life is a gift from God, all sorts of monstrous things become possible. Not only did they not care about the babies, mothers died. Oh well, life is cheap there. Exactly what is the real difference between Jared Loughner and everyone who ran and enabled that "clinic"? Except that "clinic" ran up a bigger score.

I'm wondering why the civil rights crowd does not join us "Christianists" on this? All those minority women permanently harmed and not a peep out of the NAA(L)CP. Too bad we don't have a news media anymore. Seems there should be more than a few questions. Instead we get "it's not about abortion!!!!111!!!" from them. Excuse me for bein' a pore dumb redneck but if it happened in an abortion "clinic", by an abortion "doctor" and it was supposed to be supervised by the Board of Medical Inspectors, what is it about? What is it about the "news media"? Let's see, Major Hasan slaughters a slew of unarmed soldiers and the call goes out "don't jump to conclusions!" Loughner slaughters a bunch of people at an open air political rally and the call goes out "it's because of right wing hate speech". Now this and "it's not about abortion!" Marge Sanger would be proud. Not only are they slaughtering black babies, they are even killing some of the mothers and rendering others sterile for life. I swear, the modern Democratic Party beats the foo out of the Klu Klux Klan at it's most powerful. Of course, back then the KKK was simply the armed forces of the Donks. Today the blacks kill themselves. Sigh. Those who decry this are called racists in the upside down world we live in.

I wonder just how much of the "conservatives against Palin" movement out there is because of the way Palin attacked crooked Republicans, as well as Democrats. Just how much of the Palin hatred is because she just doesn't tolerate crooks. It's easy to dress this up in fancy language, but I bet there is a lot of fear in there. Among the bloggers and pundits, how much of the 'I'm not crooked but who knows what corners *my* favorite guy has cut?" is out there?

There is some question among the right about how come the left has such contempt for Palin, but only among those who do not recall the contempt with which the left had for Jerry Ford, George HW Bush, George W Bush, etc. Contempt, it's what the left does. See the abortion mill above.

I would have been more into the Ayn Rand/Atlas Shrugged crowd if it had not been for Eddie Willers. Remember Eddie? He was the main assistant to Dagny Taggert. While not quite bright enough to be a hero of the story, he was a staunch and steady subordinate. Maybe he couldn't think of the best solution, when told how to work that solution, there he was, giving his all. Remember the end of Taggert Transcontinental? The train stopped and Eddie, the faithful, left alone. Want to know why I'm not a Randian? It's right there. No loyalty down. Eddy would have stopped a bullet for Dagny, yet she abandoned him. Somehow this fits with that Gosnell story.

Well, back to waiting on Linda Lou.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Home

Well we got home in one piece. Linda Lou was kind of frightened by the prospect of pivoting and then sitting in the chair that was some six inches higher, it didn't help that she couldn't hardly move because the wood deck was damp. Still, I do believe the success was a confidence builder.

The next trick is getting her outside, this comes tomorrow as she has an appt. with her orthopod. Every day a new adventure. We are really hoping that this visit will be where he allows some weight on that leg.

Bingo T. Pug and Cochise Apache Princess are thrilled. Linda Lou, after looking at the house, not so much. Oh well.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Life Writter By Mel Blanc

A couple quick medical updates, for those who my have a faint interest:

I am almost totally done with the active Shingles outbreak. Almost every single scab has come off, there haven't been any new sores develop. That's something. I saw my family practice Doc again. He was pleased with my progress and mentioned that I had the biggest case he's seen in a while. I do confess, it was rather gaudy.

I am still fighting what they call "Postherpectic Neuralgia". It is, I believe and hope, starting to ease. I mostly do not take the Tramadol now, a combination of Ibuprofen and Tylonal, plus my Gabapentin keeps it under control. Most of the time. Okay, sometimes. Once in a while? The pain, when it hits, is in four places on my right side, the elbow, the shoulder, front and back and my neck. Anyhow, I have an appointment with my Neuro Doc, maybe we can get this over with.

The big news is that Linda Lou comes home Tuesday! Well, actually, she doesn't come home, I have to go get her. So, I shall drive to Canada, er, Oklahoma, er, Allen and bring her home. Perhaps by the time I drive up and get her the driveway and grass will be dry enough so her wheelchair does not sink in the mud. Considering that they still haven't allowed her to put any weight on her bad leg, that would be nice. I must push her up the ramp in her wheelchair, get her to the step into the house, then she gets on her walker while I take the wheelchair in the house, push it right to the step. She turns around by hopping in the walker, sits down in the wheelchair and I pull her the rest of the way into the house.

This should be interesting. I'm pretty sure this scenario was written by Mel Blanc or, perhaps, Walter Lantz. I never claimed to be clairvoyant or anything but I foresee another visit from the South Tawokoni Volunteer Fire Dept. out to the poorfarm.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Dear Sheriff Dupnik

I am really wondering about those five times police were called because of Loughner's increasingly bizarre behavior at that community college. So far, all we are hearing from Clarence Dupnik, the chief law enforcement officer of Pima County has not said much except that somehow the Right and the immigration battle is responsible for this shooting.

It would be nice to know if, during any of those five times police were called to the campus to deal with Loughner, they ever took him to jail. If not, why not? Officers are not Psych experts, they are trained to notice gross mental problems. So, if they never took him to jail, doesn't that count as negligence?

If they did take him to jail, why didn't they ever take him for a Psych Evaluation? Had they taken him he should have been committed. If he had been committed he would not have been able to legally buy that Glock. It's also likely that if he had been committed her would not have been able to buy one outside the law. Few criminals want to get caught and so would not deal with a guy babbling irrationally.

Clarence, I know that the actual law enforcement side of your department is run by your Chief Deputy while you take care of the budget and the politics. Still, instead of looing so far afield, shouldn't you be looking just a little closer to home on this? Or, Clarence, are you making all this noise to deflect attention from your baliwick?

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Nutcase Control Is What We Need.

In the wake of the murder of Federal Judge John Roll , nine year old Christina Taylor Green and four others, plus the attempted muder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and a slew of others in Tuscon yesterday had little to do with guns. Yes, a gun was used and if only the nutcase had been limited to a knife the death toll would had been lower. Of course if the nutcase had used any of the dozens of easily followed explosive recipes available, the carnage could have been higher.

Now I am pretty solidly in the "against" column when it comes to shooting my political opponents. I will admit that there are more than a few who, if they should die of natural causes, I would joyously pee on their graves but actively killing them? Nope. That will have to wait until (and if) things get so bad it calls for rope and lamp posts. There are only a few that I wouldn't put a little something in my hands to help defend.

The trouble is that since the '70s, when a group of Federal Judges emptied out the insane asylums in the USA, we have been overrun by loonies. I'm sorry but I do not care about being politically correct. (Politically correct according to whom? Who gave that bunch the right to diced?) I will ignore the question of exactly when the Constitution was amended to give Federal Judges the right to decide the Nation's mental health policies for now. The Judges said let them out and into the (nonexistent) community bases programs.

Well, Congress was supposed (according to those judges) to put out some multiple of billion dollars to make those group homes, but didn't. Since no matter how hard they try, the judges cannot make the Congress spend money, they didn't. This led to our cities being inundated with random nutcases of all types.

A whole lot of folks have died over the decades since the Judges, in their exalted wisdom, emptied the asylums. Perhaps now, with a Congresswoman shot through the head and a Federal Judge killed, the powers that be can finally figure out that our cities should not, in fact, be crawling with nutcases.

I have called this shooter a nutcase. I may be wrong. Anyone who shoots a beautiful little girl like Christina Green may well not be a nutcase but, instead, be cursed with Demonic Possession.