6 posts tagged “death”

Guess What I Named My Toilet?

There's no avoiding confronting the liberal fraud involved with global warming. You hear about it everyday. And to be clear, the fraud is not whether or not warming is occurring, that's a separate issue. The fraud is that if it is, it's so awful that our very existence is threatened, so we need to immediately curb our rich lifestyles and ruin the lives of people in the third world who aren't so fortunate - you know, for the good of the planet.

But there's also a fraud being perpetrated on us by the right as well - that the rich are overtaxed. Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal is going to have another article on it, and today, Glenn Beck was decrying it, saying that the rich are paying a greater share than ever.

That may be true, but it actually has nothing to do with anything. It may only be a consequence of the rich having a greater share of the wealth than ever. And earlier today, Rush Limbaugh said something I found to be unbelievably shocking.

He was talking about a story in which the head of some particular family with four children was saying that he couldn't make it on fifty thousand a year. He's probably right. But Limbaugh's reply was a stunner - "Get a REAL job!"

Limbaugh then continued on about the evils of universal healthcare (it is), but he went further by deriding people who feel entitled to healthcare. For the record, if you're one of the richest fat loudmouths on the planet, you have no right to talk on this subject.

My position, the one that got me in trouble with psuedo-conservatives, is that if a treatment exists, everyone in this country who needs it is entitled to it, and no one should be bankrupted because he was unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of life's lottery. And if that means taxing the Limbaugh's of the world more, then so be it.

Except that it probably doesn't. At least not until we restore competition to healthcare and make medical savings accounts available to everyone to name just two factors in an eventual healthcare cure.

But to get back to the subject of taxing the rich, the crime is not in how much the rich are paying, it's the fact that someone has to pay, and taking it from people who make fifty grand and have four children is the real crime (although the third and fourth kids could be a crime itself, but that's another story).

And the biggest crime of all is the profligate spending by government that requires higher taxes in the first place - which George Bush presided over more than any other President. And he's now bragging about a lower than expected deficit.

And what would that deficit be today if George had ever vetoed a spending bill?

And can you name a rich person who is no longer wealthy because of taxes?

And am I just a complainer who resents not being more fortunate?.

I can answer the last question: I've been relatively fortunate, but I resent injustice, and so far, I have not been the victim of it, But I could be at any moment as can you. And what's more unjust, a rich guy having to pay more taxes, or a middle class person who needs medical treatment that will ruin her for the rest of her life if she's lucky enough to survive?

Being that we're smack in the middle of the latest, uniquely obnoxious, PBS pledge drive, the beginning of Greg Crosby's column grabbed my attention, especially the part about Kay Starr, a singer I've never seen, but who, thanks to the days of Napster, opened up a whole new world for me.

But I found that Mr. Crosby had a lot more to say about life as we know it, and I couldn't agree more., especially the part about him feeling more comfortable with dead things. But you'll have to read the column to see what he meant.

Samsung has a home laser printer that I've seen on sale for seventy bucks. I almost bought one. That was last week.

This week, there's a report out of Australia in which researchers found that a third of laser printers emitted dangerous levels of toner dust which is fine and can linger in the air for fifteen minutes.

Of course, in an office setting, where the printer is being used all day long, the air may never clear - and that toner dust may be far worse than cigarettes, the researchers say. But probably not as dangerous as asbestos, I say.

Me: "Do you sit near your office printer?"

Wife: "Yes, it's an HP, why?"

Me "Oh my God... !"

From the article: "The researchers found that... More than half of the printers tested - and all but one of the highest polluters - were made by HP Laserjet."

Late last year, my wife had a routine chest X-ray which showed her to have a small spot on her lung. She was advised to get a follow-up X-ray in three months.

That one showed the same spot, and she was sent for a CT-scan which, surprise, also showed the spot.

My wife was then told to see a lung specialist, and she was fortunate enough to get an appointment - four and a half months later - at the end of August.

So we've been waiting since March to find out if the spot's gotten worse, or if (as I found out from the Net, not her doctors) such small spots are almost never cancer.

Would you feel relieved?

I mean no one asked to see her films to determine if there was any urgency, and when I brought up that seemingly significant point to my doctor (not hers), he advised that they would only do that (examine the X-rays ahead of time) "if she had symptoms."

Amazing, don't you think?

In the meantime, my wife went to Urgent Care last February because she was experiencing what she called "congestion" in her chest. It was determined that she was not having a heart attack, but these episodes have since become so frequent that she now regards them as routine.

And now... do you think exposure to toner particles five days a week could cause "congestion?"

Wife: "What do you want me to do, quit?"

That is the dilemma, isn't it? Does she quit or does she bring this study to her company's attention and possibly risk damaging her career or even being fired?

Or does she say nothing and just wait to see if she's only got months to live anyway?

Oh, and did I mention she works for an environmental testing lab?

Air quality heal thyself.

My wife once asked, "What does 'based on a true story' mean?"

I told her it means that, quite possibly, absolutely nothing in the film she was about to see was actually true, that when she saw, "This is a true story," she could expect it to be substantially true."

Such is the case with liberals and their stories about war casualties, and in the case of Iraq, lack of same.

It started with the Vietnam aftermath, and that story culminated last week when John Kerry actually stated that bloodbaths and persecutions in the wake of America's pullout "didn't happen," the fact that it did - in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos - notwithstanding.

It later became a favorite tactic among liberal loons to manufacture a figure for the dead Iraqis for which America was responsible - then double or triple it as the need arose.

No one doubts that a lot of civilians have perished in Iraq. All we know for certain is that the actual number is a fraction of what liberals claim it is. But we have no way of knowing how many were the result of American action, and even then, the important figure would be, how many could have been avoided?

And if you could derive that number, then you would have to subtract the number of Iraqis who would have died at the hands of Saddam Hussein if he were still in power and further speculate as to how many would die in the future because of Hussein, and subtract that as well.

Then you might have something resembling a realistic figure of Iraqi dead for which America was responsible - and it, in all likelihood, would be a negative number.

Now it's true that those Iraqis Saddam killed would likely be different than the ones we killed - there being a greater likelihood that the ones Hussein beheaded, shredded and dropped from buildings would have been friendlier to us.

And now, another Hussein D-(very) Ill., the one Aput probably likes,  has decided that an Iraqi genocide is worth the risk as long as we are long gone.

That almost makes it hard to decide which Hussein is/was worse, doesn't it?

But then, we'll never have to make that determination, since, all the history writers being liberal, a future Iraqi genocide never happened.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - The owner of an upscale steakhouse in Louisville said he asked O.J. Simpson to leave his restaurant the night before the Kentucky Derby.

"I didn't want to serve him because of my convictions of what he's done to those families," Jeff Ruby said... "The way he continues to torture the lives of those families with his behavior, attitude and conduct."

Simpson, an NFL Hall of Famer and Heisman Trophy winner, was found innocent in 1995 of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman but was found liable in a civil trial that followed.

Ruby said Simpson came in with a group of about 12 Friday night and was seated at a table in the back. A customer came up to Ruby and was "giddy" about seeing Simpson, Ruby said.

"I didn't want that experience in my restaurant," Ruby said, later adding that seeing Simpson get so much attention "makes me sick to my stomach."

He said he went to Simpson's table and said, "I'm not serving you." When Simpson didn't respond, he repeated himself and left the room.

Ruby said Simpson soon came up to him and said he understood and would gather the rest of his party to leave.

"It was the first time since 1994 he has ever shown any class," Ruby said. "He showed it that night in the restaurant" by leaving quietly.

Ruby said after Simpson left, people in the restaurant started applauding him (Ruby). He said he has received about 100 positive e-mails since the incident.

-------

Score: Ruby won - Simpson nothing