Go HERE to discover where scientists finally discovered him/her/it/that.
Hint: If you have empathy, you may have found him/her/it/that first.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
AJC will print "media romps" letter
The letter to the Altanta Journal-Constitution that I mentioned in my March 7 post concerning the media being simply a lapdog of government instead of a watchdog will be printed this week, according to the paper's letters editor, who called me today.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
I'm a DOCTOR, damnit! Shut the f--- up, worm food!
The online ratings services Zagat's and Angie's List are popular. They allow consumers to rate the service of restaurants, plumbers and much more. They've just added medical care to their list, so the complaints are rolling in against the medical profession like, well, like cash into medical coffers -- and doctors have dropped their grapes, thrown on their togas and descended from Mount Olympus faster than you can say "bend over and relax."
Yes, doctors are mad and they're not going to take it anymore when they get back from their three-week cruise. They've vowed to double the current wait times for their beneficence (OK, that's not technically true -- yet). But this is true. Some of them are making patients sign waivers to promise not to say anything negative about them on the Internet.
Yes, you read that right. The priss-pusses who speak and write English as a foreign language (or no language at all) and forgot to tell time the minute they ascended the marble thrown at medical school and cross out the name "Jesus" in the Bibles they don't read and put their own name in Jesus' place had not dare to hear negative chatter from the hoi polloi whom the Jesuses deign to see.
The clever fellow who thought up the waiver idea (he's a doctor, so "guy" is out) is a certain Jeffrey Segal, an N.C. neurosurgeon. He's helping doctors find the rascals who betray their saviors and to purge their comments. Mr. Segal (I save "Dr." for my computer geek guys who always fix my computer, don't charge much, never make me wait and are cool as shit) says that sniping postings say nothing about what should matter to patients: medical skills. Gotta love it when doctors tell us what should matter to us. Uhm, Mr. Segal, most restaurants know how to make a burger fairly well and most doctors know their medical shit pretty well, so it's the SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE that matters, you snooty bitch!
Almost 2,000 doctors have signed up for one of the waivers from Mr. Segal's ironically named company: Medical Justice. But there's good news from the rebellious online universe. The ratings services are telling doctors to go to hell when the doctors contact them and notify the services that a certain complaint came from a patient who had signed the waiver. Hopefully, the online service folks are making the doctors wait 1 hour and 10 minutes before getting through on the phone.
But let's go one further here, folks. If your doctor wants you to sign a waiver, tell him to stick his EpiPen where the sun don't shine, and then do your best Liza Minnelli drama exit from the building. And then go tell anyone else about the doctor's waiver requirements and post it to as many places as you can. Any doctor worried about patients' comments is a doctor that ain't worthy of his cross. (What great irony, indeed, it would be to see doctors losing their practice because their demand for waivers was the biggest complaint on the online services.)
If your doctor calls you to complain, just tell him to take a deep breath and bend over and relax.
Yes, doctors are mad and they're not going to take it anymore when they get back from their three-week cruise. They've vowed to double the current wait times for their beneficence (OK, that's not technically true -- yet). But this is true. Some of them are making patients sign waivers to promise not to say anything negative about them on the Internet.
Yes, you read that right. The priss-pusses who speak and write English as a foreign language (or no language at all) and forgot to tell time the minute they ascended the marble thrown at medical school and cross out the name "Jesus" in the Bibles they don't read and put their own name in Jesus' place had not dare to hear negative chatter from the hoi polloi whom the Jesuses deign to see.
The clever fellow who thought up the waiver idea (he's a doctor, so "guy" is out) is a certain Jeffrey Segal, an N.C. neurosurgeon. He's helping doctors find the rascals who betray their saviors and to purge their comments. Mr. Segal (I save "Dr." for my computer geek guys who always fix my computer, don't charge much, never make me wait and are cool as shit) says that sniping postings say nothing about what should matter to patients: medical skills. Gotta love it when doctors tell us what should matter to us. Uhm, Mr. Segal, most restaurants know how to make a burger fairly well and most doctors know their medical shit pretty well, so it's the SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE that matters, you snooty bitch!
Almost 2,000 doctors have signed up for one of the waivers from Mr. Segal's ironically named company: Medical Justice. But there's good news from the rebellious online universe. The ratings services are telling doctors to go to hell when the doctors contact them and notify the services that a certain complaint came from a patient who had signed the waiver. Hopefully, the online service folks are making the doctors wait 1 hour and 10 minutes before getting through on the phone.
But let's go one further here, folks. If your doctor wants you to sign a waiver, tell him to stick his EpiPen where the sun don't shine, and then do your best Liza Minnelli drama exit from the building. And then go tell anyone else about the doctor's waiver requirements and post it to as many places as you can. Any doctor worried about patients' comments is a doctor that ain't worthy of his cross. (What great irony, indeed, it would be to see doctors losing their practice because their demand for waivers was the biggest complaint on the online services.)
If your doctor calls you to complain, just tell him to take a deep breath and bend over and relax.
Are anti-drugs crusaders on drugs?!
I sent the following letter to the WSJ today concerning a column (by John Walters) stating that drug legalization isn't the answer to the latest wave of murder and kidnapping perpetrated by drug traffickers in Mexico and America.
_______________________
John Walters said “narco-terrorists want power, not control of the drug trade” and “the drug trade is a tool, not the cause of these violent criminal groups.”
No. Narco-terrorists want money, and the illegal drug trade is their tool, their means. When we legalize drugs, the outlaws will lose the competitive edge to savvy businessmen – and the outlaws will lose their power or money or whatever you want to call their motivation.
But let’s put aside psychoanalysis and rationalizations. America has had its 100-years war with drug traffickers, and America still hasn’t learned its lesson: The minute you outlaw a commodity is the minute that the scum of the Earth set up shop and begin murdering people.
Like every other major opinion writer on the drug issue, Mr. Walters eschews fundamentals. The real issue here is liberty. People have a right to do with their bodies as they please, including the ingestion of harmful substances – and live with the ramifications of their often-irrational actions.
And as long as the rationalizations continue for a “drug war,” we will continue to see hundreds of innocent people (including the valiant officers who carry out such horrendous laws) lying in pools of their own blood.
Let’s stop the puritanical insanity.
_______________________
John Walters said “narco-terrorists want power, not control of the drug trade” and “the drug trade is a tool, not the cause of these violent criminal groups.”
No. Narco-terrorists want money, and the illegal drug trade is their tool, their means. When we legalize drugs, the outlaws will lose the competitive edge to savvy businessmen – and the outlaws will lose their power or money or whatever you want to call their motivation.
But let’s put aside psychoanalysis and rationalizations. America has had its 100-years war with drug traffickers, and America still hasn’t learned its lesson: The minute you outlaw a commodity is the minute that the scum of the Earth set up shop and begin murdering people.
Like every other major opinion writer on the drug issue, Mr. Walters eschews fundamentals. The real issue here is liberty. People have a right to do with their bodies as they please, including the ingestion of harmful substances – and live with the ramifications of their often-irrational actions.
And as long as the rationalizations continue for a “drug war,” we will continue to see hundreds of innocent people (including the valiant officers who carry out such horrendous laws) lying in pools of their own blood.
Let’s stop the puritanical insanity.
Shrugging Atlas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution prints a section each day for anonymous "vents" from readers. And so today, I saw this delightful one:
"If you feel a rumble in the ground anytime soon, it is Atlas beginning to shrug."
That's what I'm talking about! Thank you, fellow freedom lover!
"If you feel a rumble in the ground anytime soon, it is Atlas beginning to shrug."
That's what I'm talking about! Thank you, fellow freedom lover!
Media romp under covers with government
Objective observers of the media know the drill: Liberal government announces newest fascist proposal, and media breathlessly and "objectively" reports it, extrapolating on the alleged benefits to the economy and public -- with the assumption that the government should have anything to do with the economy and that the "public" is the so-called downtrodden.
And so the chickens have been coming home to roost for the media for many years, with subscriptions and TV viewership declining rapidly, and now many media companies are going bankrupt -- something unfathomable just 10 years ago. I wrote that last sentence with a big grin, knowing that justice has finally paid a visit to the abominable and morally corrupt media establishment.
But there are those who blame American ignorance and apathy for the media blues, including Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University who on Thursday had a column printed nationally in which he blasted Americans for their un-interest in national politics, newspaper reading and TV news-show viewership. And so I penned the following letter to the editor to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Mr. McCall's ignorance:
_____________________________
Jeffrey McCall laments that “the citizenry is not holding up its end” in reading newspapers to stay informed, but then he inadvertently finds the answer to this lament at the end of his column: the media are awful.
Let me be a little clearer for Mr. McCall. The media have gone from being the Fourth Estate to the Fourth Branch of government. They are mouthpieces and bullhorns instead of patriotic spies and probing intellects. They are now lapdogs instead of watchdogs.
Government has become their raison d’etre. They dine on a liberal cuisine of welfare, socialized medicine, international appeasement, Obama adulation, wealth jealousy, racism “dialogue,” punitive taxation and a plethora of slogging, cumbersome, uncommunicative, inept government services. Then they smack their self-satisfied lips and wash down their scandalous repast with a snifter of global warming, a glass of recycling and a bottle of environmentalism.
Never has government been so happy to welcome a new bed partner. And as these four romp and giggle under the covers, true American liberty gets a kick in the head – and the media become our avowed enemy.
And so the chickens have been coming home to roost for the media for many years, with subscriptions and TV viewership declining rapidly, and now many media companies are going bankrupt -- something unfathomable just 10 years ago. I wrote that last sentence with a big grin, knowing that justice has finally paid a visit to the abominable and morally corrupt media establishment.
But there are those who blame American ignorance and apathy for the media blues, including Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University who on Thursday had a column printed nationally in which he blasted Americans for their un-interest in national politics, newspaper reading and TV news-show viewership. And so I penned the following letter to the editor to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Mr. McCall's ignorance:
_____________________________
Jeffrey McCall laments that “the citizenry is not holding up its end” in reading newspapers to stay informed, but then he inadvertently finds the answer to this lament at the end of his column: the media are awful.
Let me be a little clearer for Mr. McCall. The media have gone from being the Fourth Estate to the Fourth Branch of government. They are mouthpieces and bullhorns instead of patriotic spies and probing intellects. They are now lapdogs instead of watchdogs.
Government has become their raison d’etre. They dine on a liberal cuisine of welfare, socialized medicine, international appeasement, Obama adulation, wealth jealousy, racism “dialogue,” punitive taxation and a plethora of slogging, cumbersome, uncommunicative, inept government services. Then they smack their self-satisfied lips and wash down their scandalous repast with a snifter of global warming, a glass of recycling and a bottle of environmentalism.
Never has government been so happy to welcome a new bed partner. And as these four romp and giggle under the covers, true American liberty gets a kick in the head – and the media become our avowed enemy.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
My letter on Bill Moyers published in Wall Street Journal
The following letter I wrote to the Wall Street Journal was published today. Moyers had written a long letter himself to the WSJ on Feb. 26 attempting to defend his actions as a chief of staff under the cretin Lyndon Johnson in which Moyers and Johnson used the abominable FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to spy on White House staff that may have engaged in homosexual behavior and other private matters. The WSJ had printed an earlier column correctly excoriating Moyers for his contemptible actions.
My letter to the editor:
______________
Bill Moyers says that he and Lyndon Johnson decided to "follow up on a handful of [Hoover's] reports" concerning the private lives of administration staff. Let me put that a little more candidly. Mr. Moyers and President Johnson decided to save their behinds by unleashing a corrupt FBI chief on the civil rights of White House staff.
Mr. Moyers is blind to his own culpability and immorality in this matter, as we see in his final paragraph wherein he states that "no harm came to a single person." Indeed, just to the Constitution.
My letter to the editor:
______________
Bill Moyers says that he and Lyndon Johnson decided to "follow up on a handful of [Hoover's] reports" concerning the private lives of administration staff. Let me put that a little more candidly. Mr. Moyers and President Johnson decided to save their behinds by unleashing a corrupt FBI chief on the civil rights of White House staff.
Mr. Moyers is blind to his own culpability and immorality in this matter, as we see in his final paragraph wherein he states that "no harm came to a single person." Indeed, just to the Constitution.
Conservative columnist job at AJC
I haven't mentioned in these pages that I've been trying for a month and a half to become a conservative columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I and 200 other Atlanta-area folks filled out an extensive questionnaire in late February for the post, and I have just learned that I am not one of 10 finalists for the position.
That is unfortunate. I think I could bring a fresh voice (some might call it a "radical" voice) to the conservative movement -- one that would make Rush Limbaugh seem like Nancy Pelosi (my apologies to Mr. Limbaugh's bona fides).
I'm still in contact with Matt Kempner, the editor in charge of the questionnaires, at insideajc@ajc.com concerning the position and sent him 3 of my columns I wrote for this blog in late February on torture, the water crisis and the "liberal tsunami" that hit the American economy. And Mr. Kempner was kind enough to pass my 3 columns along to the current AJC conservative columnist, Jim Wooten, to read. But this is most likely a long-shot -- though hopefully, not. We'll see.
As many of you know, my conservative (one might even say "Jeffersonian conservative") positions on all subjects are based upon a philosophical position that humans have a complete and total right to their own lives -- something amiss in the modern GOP, and something that needs an eloquent and unmitigated proponent in print. It is still my hope that the AJC will see this as a positive and perhaps bring me in for an interview. It is a job of a lifetime, and I would sorely hate to lose it.
That is unfortunate. I think I could bring a fresh voice (some might call it a "radical" voice) to the conservative movement -- one that would make Rush Limbaugh seem like Nancy Pelosi (my apologies to Mr. Limbaugh's bona fides).
I'm still in contact with Matt Kempner, the editor in charge of the questionnaires, at insideajc@ajc.com concerning the position and sent him 3 of my columns I wrote for this blog in late February on torture, the water crisis and the "liberal tsunami" that hit the American economy. And Mr. Kempner was kind enough to pass my 3 columns along to the current AJC conservative columnist, Jim Wooten, to read. But this is most likely a long-shot -- though hopefully, not. We'll see.
As many of you know, my conservative (one might even say "Jeffersonian conservative") positions on all subjects are based upon a philosophical position that humans have a complete and total right to their own lives -- something amiss in the modern GOP, and something that needs an eloquent and unmitigated proponent in print. It is still my hope that the AJC will see this as a positive and perhaps bring me in for an interview. It is a job of a lifetime, and I would sorely hate to lose it.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Good sports
With so many people and politicians doing bad things nowadays, I'm happy to blog on something terrific that was done by some baseball players. Here's the story from the AJC:
"Western Oregon University senior Sara Tucholsky homered against Central Washington University. Stumbling around first base, Tucholsky collapsed with a badly injured knee. The teams were informed that she would be credited with only a single unless she could continue to round all the bases. Her own team was not allowed to help her. Instead, two Central Washington players picked up Tucholsky and carried her around the bases to home plate. Central Washington lost 4-2 and was eliminated from postseason contention."
Here's the video (you might get some tissue handy): Girl carried around bases
This is such a terrific story about justice and one team recognizing that the girl earned her homer and deserved it and should get it.
"Western Oregon University senior Sara Tucholsky homered against Central Washington University. Stumbling around first base, Tucholsky collapsed with a badly injured knee. The teams were informed that she would be credited with only a single unless she could continue to round all the bases. Her own team was not allowed to help her. Instead, two Central Washington players picked up Tucholsky and carried her around the bases to home plate. Central Washington lost 4-2 and was eliminated from postseason contention."
Here's the video (you might get some tissue handy): Girl carried around bases
This is such a terrific story about justice and one team recognizing that the girl earned her homer and deserved it and should get it.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sieg heil to our newly "presidential" president
[The following letter was sent to the Wall Street Journal today in response to one of its top writers praising Obama for finally becoming "presidential" in bearing.]
Peggy Noonan does not usually do “vapid,” but her column on Barack Obama allegedly attaining the presidential aura was like reading a 1938 commentary that Hitler no longer acted like a corporal and was instead “presidential.”
The man who currently occupies the Oval Office is a Keynesian charlatan who, like nearly all Democratic presidents of the last 80 years, has never had a real job and has no respect for business, ingenuity, free markets and wealth-creation. He is not so much socialistic as he is fascistic. He seeks to run businesses by fiat, as Hitler did. He speaks of the “greater good,” as Hitler did. He speaks of sacrificing for the nation’s benefit, as Hitler did. He rewards the evil-doers, as Hitler did.
He is the prickly Patrician in Chief who commands silence by announcing “I won,” and speaks condescendingly to his citizens with phrases like “let me speak plainly on this,” as if we American yokels cannot understand anything unless the chiding Daddy Obama “speaks plainly.”
And so we have Ms. Noonan stealing a Bill Safire moment to inform us liberty-loving citizens that our new dictator has ascended to “presidential” status.
Sieg heil!
Peggy Noonan does not usually do “vapid,” but her column on Barack Obama allegedly attaining the presidential aura was like reading a 1938 commentary that Hitler no longer acted like a corporal and was instead “presidential.”
The man who currently occupies the Oval Office is a Keynesian charlatan who, like nearly all Democratic presidents of the last 80 years, has never had a real job and has no respect for business, ingenuity, free markets and wealth-creation. He is not so much socialistic as he is fascistic. He seeks to run businesses by fiat, as Hitler did. He speaks of the “greater good,” as Hitler did. He speaks of sacrificing for the nation’s benefit, as Hitler did. He rewards the evil-doers, as Hitler did.
He is the prickly Patrician in Chief who commands silence by announcing “I won,” and speaks condescendingly to his citizens with phrases like “let me speak plainly on this,” as if we American yokels cannot understand anything unless the chiding Daddy Obama “speaks plainly.”
And so we have Ms. Noonan stealing a Bill Safire moment to inform us liberty-loving citizens that our new dictator has ascended to “presidential” status.
Sieg heil!
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