Personal Update

 Blog News, Personal
Feb 222012
 

I wish I had good news, but I never got to actually have the colonoscopy.  On Monday I fasted and repeatedly took three different laxatives and over two quarts of fluid.  I did not sleep at all Monday night.  All that prep was supposed to leave me empty and clean for the test.  I did not work.  Instead, it left me full and foul.  At the doctor’s office, they told me they could not perform the procedure, because the prep had not worked.  They said I can try again with a prep of two days of fasting and purging, but that because of the effect it had on my blood sugar, perhaps it was not that important to have the test done.  It did play havoc with my blood sugar, giving me, in one twelve hour period,  both the highest (352) and lowest (55) blood sugar readings I have ever had.  To make matters worse, lack of sleep sets off my COPD.  I spent all day yesterday and most of last night with a combination of severe runs and a violent cough.  The combination was a disaster. In any case, I am not yet able to research and write as normal.  I need another day of recovery time, so my articles should be back early Friday morning.  Right now I’m completely disgusted with my doctors.  Here’s the best way I can describe it.

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 Posted by TomCat at 10:01 am  No Responses »  Tagged with:

Open Thread–2/20/2011

 Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 202012
 

Yesterday I rested as much as I could.  I’m current with replies.  I’m scheduled for a colonoscopy on Tuesday morning.  No worries.  It’s routine, because of my age.  Because of it, I’m likely to be gone for two days, so expect no more articles, until early Thursday morning.  This morning and early afternoon, I’ll sleep all I can.  This afternoon and tonight I’ll be taking the medications to purge me for the test.  I will not be able to sit on one place long enough to concentrate on anything, except for the place made of porcelain.  I’ll be up all night taking medicine.  During the test I’ll be under a twilight anesthetic, so I’m likely to he groggy afterwards, in addition to sleepy from being up all night.  By Wednesday I should be able to research again.  I am not looking forward to this at all.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:39 (average 4:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From CBS: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum stood by comments he made Saturday opposing prenatal testing, saying it leads to selective abortions, and he said the president is "continuing" policies that encourage such abortions.

How much more invasive into privacy can these Republicans get?

From Minnesota Public Radio News: Mitt Romney returned to Salt Lake City on Saturday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 Winter Games he helped lead, but the GOP presidential candidate has come under attack for urging the federal government to provide big bucks for Olympic expenses.

Republicans believe in limited government spending, but not on anything they want.

From Think Progress: During an appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) couldn’t explain why the public rejects large parts of the Republican legislative agenda and instead blamed Democrats for opposing it.

 

Cantor is full of Santorum. This is why the public rejects their programs.  Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals. They do NOT represent YOU!

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  10 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Open Thread–2/19/2012

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 192012
 

Yesterday was restful.  I both slept and researched more hours than normal.  I’m current with replies.  Today I will have to make a store run.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:18 (average 4:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: If Mitt Romney’s Dog Could Write A Song, It Might Go Like This

 

Romney is just as oblivious to the needs of people too!

From Care2: Apparently, the Supreme Court is now in the business of forcing states to break their own laws as long as it benefits corporations and the politicians they control. On Wednesday, SCOTUS blocked a Montana court ruling that upheld the state’s century-old limit on corporate campaign spending. So much for state’s rights…

The author does not understand the ruling, which only stays the Montana court ruling until that ruling can be appealed, opening the door for a full review of Citizens United.

From Common Dreams: A clear message has been given to the United States through the tripartite summit of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan that Pakistan will support Iran in case of any possible aggression against it.

Moreover, Pakistan has clearly affirmed that the US will not be allowed to set up any airbases in Pakistan with the purpose of attacking Iran. The joint declaration says: "Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan will ensure respect of territorial sovereignty of each other and would not allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other".

What kind of insanity is it when our client, our so-called ally, and a state we oppose form a pact against this nation?  We need to pull the plug on funding Karzai, whose only qualification ever was his willingness to be a puppet for G.W. ChickenHawk and Big Oil, and get out troops out as soon as we can.  In addition we need to pull the plug on financing Pakistan.  With friends like that, who needs enemies.

From Washington Post: Ron Paul has gained 83 votes on Mitt Romney following a Republican presidential caucus in eastern Maine, where voting last week had been postponed due to bad weather. Romney still holds a 156-vote lead over Paul in statewide totals.

Thank goodness!  If Ron Paul had actually won one, the acolytes in his cult would be even more insufferable than they already are!

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am  10 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Open Thread–2/18/2012

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 182012
 

Yesterday I clearly needed to rest, and except for cleaning out my email, paying bill, and the normal hours I spend in research I rested, sleeping longer than usual in the afternoon.  I’m current with replies.  Today I may have an errand to run.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:19 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week

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The Republican project to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the 1% IS class warfare. This is another example of Republican projection.

From Washington Post: Congress passed a $150 billion economic package Friday, extending for the rest of the year a payroll tax holiday for 160 million workers and unemployment benefits for millions of others.

On a 293-132 vote, a bipartisan House coalition supported the compromise plan to keep giving workers a small amount of extra cash with each paycheck while also providing a continued cushion for the unemployed.Shortly afterward, the Senate voted 60 to 36 to approve the plan. It now goes to President Obama to be signed into law, giving him a victory on a portion of the massive jobs bill he presented to Congress last fall.

Score a big one for the good guys!

From LA Times: Pat Buchanan has been dismissed by MSNBC, the left-leaning news network, four months after the channel suspended him.

In an angry post on his blog, conservative commentator Buchanan took his critics to task, writing, "After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous."

Buchanan says the calls for his firing began with the publication in October of his book "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" about America’s decline, which critics have called racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic.

Buchanan was fired because he made racist comments on air, while plugging his white-power book on MSNBC time.  Good riddance to bad Bircher rubbish.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  10 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Did the Maine GOP Fear Being Certified Insane?

 Personal
Feb 172012
 

A few days back, I criticized Ron Paul for suggesting that the Republican party of Maine had stacked the deck against him.  When I’m wrong I say so.  In my own defense, it was an easy mistake to make as it’s been hard to find a time when Paul or his acolytes were not sniveling over some perceived injustice.  It is now clear that there were enough irregularities in the Maine caucuses to bring Paul’s complaint into the realm of possibility.  Imagine, if you will the Chair of the Maine Republican Party.  Watching the returns he sees that Ron Paul might actually win the caucuses there.  Oh the shame!  Oh the humiliation they would suffer to be the only state where Ron Paul has ever, or will ever, win the caucuses or a primary!  Faced with such an anathema, I can picture the party leaders cooking the results out of fear that the entire Republican Party of Maine might be certified insane.

17RacistRonnieWashington County, Maine, is the easternmost point in the continental United States. This region of rocky shores and pinetree forests is populated by proudly independent — and defiant — citizens.

The Republicans in Washington County have supported such radical and underdog candidates as Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan in the past.

Too bad they didn’t get to participate in the Maine caucuses last weekend.

Due to a snowstorm, the Republican party in Washington County (and in various locations in neighboring Hancock County) was forced to reschedule its caucuses for this coming weekend. Yet despite not having results from these precincts, Maine Republican Chairman Charlie Webster declared Mitt Romney the victor in the Maine caucus. Romney, Webster reported, earned 2,190 votes, while Ron Paul finished second with 1,996 votes.

According to the Associated Press, the chairman of the Washington County Republican Party, Chris Gardner, a Romney supporter, called state party leaders and expressed his “complete and utter dismay.” Washington County Republican leaders, who moved their caucuses to this coming Saturday after snow made it difficult to meet last weekend, will convene these postponed caucuses this Saturday, and County Chair Gardner is hoping that state party officials will change their mind and accept the results.

He shouldn’t hold his breath.

After all, the Republican leadership in Maine refused to accept the results of other caucuses that were completed in time. Eighteen towns that held caucuses in Waldo County reported their results by the Feb. 11 deadline, yet those totals showed up nowhere in the final tally. Nor did the results from Waterville or Belfast make it into the GOP numbers even though the caucuses held in those towns were also completed by the deadline.

The one variable that links each of these cases is Ron Paul. If all of Waldo County’s caucus totals counted (including the excluded results), Paul would have won by 21 votes. Paul was the only candidate to visit Waterville, where he spoke to students at Colby College and tallied 16 more votes than Romney in the excluded Waterville caucus. When the chairman of the Belfast Caucus Committee telephoned his results showing a Paul victory to the state’s Republican headquarters, he was told they already had the numbers. Those numbers mysteriously — and inaccurately — showed a Romney victory in Belfast. When the final tally for Maine’s caucus was announced, zero votes from Belfast were included. Interestingly, not a single case of excluded caucus results supporting Romney has been publicly identified yet…

Inserted from <Reuters>

The best coverage of this issue I have seen comes from Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night, including her interview with Maine columnist Bill Nemitz.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

She updated her coverage last night by announcing that the Republican Party of Maine is reviewing the results and might even include Washington County.  She interviewed Chris Gardner.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There are two possibilities.  If the original results were fraudulent, the Republican Party has demonstrated that they are too corrupt to be entrusted with running the nation.  On the other hand, if the original results were merely an example of the same level of competence evident throughout the Bush Regime, the Republican Party has demonstrated that they are too incompetent to run the country.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am  16 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Open Thread–2/17/2012

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 172012
 

Although I was still quite tired, yesterday was a busy one.  I had to walk to the mailbox to mail a letter in support of a prisoner, whit whom I do volunteer work, seeking parole.  From there, I walked to the drug store to get the collection of items I’ll need to prepare for next week’s test.  All in all I walked about two miles, so I’m pretty wiped out.  I’m current with replies.  Today is a rest and paperwork day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:48 (average 4:43).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The #1 Lie About Keystone That The GOP Is Pushing Right Now

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That estimate is generous.  Republicans are great at creating jobs, everywhere but in the US.

From Reuters: The new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a proposal to regulate about 200 debt collectors and companies that produce credit reports as part of an effort to extend its oversight beyond the banking industry.

The agency is charged by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law with overseeing consumer financial products, such as credit cards and mortgages offered by banks, as well as some products offered outside the industry, including residential mortgages and student loans.

It also has the authority to extend its oversight to companies that are "larger participants" in consumer financial markets.

Debt collectors and credit reporting agencies are the first industries to be targeted for supervision under this power.

Since both are rife with consumer abuse, I consider this a good idea.

From Slate: Oklahoma has become the latest state to mobilize behind so-called "personhood" legislation, which would define the beginning of human life as at the moment of conception. The state Senate passed such a bill, 34-8, on Wednesday and it looks likely to sail through the House as well, the Oklahoman reports.

Virginia House legislators also passed a pair of anti-abortion bills this week, including its own personhood measure. The other bill would require women to have an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion. A version of the ultrasound legislation has already passed the state Senate and Republican Governor Bob McDonnell is expected to sign the bill into law, CBS News reports.

With Republicans, the right to life begins at conception and ends at birth.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

Open Thread–2/16/2012

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 162012
 

Yesterday I felt very tired and rested, except for doing my research.  I’m current with replies, albeit briefly.  Today I need to go purchase items for a witch’s to prepare for a medical procedure next week.

Jig Zone Puzzles:

Yesterday it took me 4:33 (average 5:30).  To do it click here.  Today it took me 3:56 (average 4:56).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From LA Times: A $260-billion, Republican-drafted House bill is facing opposition from the left and the right, forcing GOP leaders Wednesday to put off a final roll call while they scramble to line up the votes to pass it.

The White House on Tuesday threatened a veto, saying the measure "jeopardizes safety, weakens environmental and labor protections and fails to make the investments needed to strengthen the nation’s roads, bridges, rail and transit systems." If the bill gets to the president’s desk, the White House budget office said, his senior advisors will recommend that he veto it.

This is the monstrosity that even Ray LaHood said was the worst he had ever seen.

From Washington Post: A Connecticut human-rights commission has rebuked a mayor who made a disparaging remark about Latinos.

The state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities said Tuesday it unanimously approved a resolution condemning East Haven Mayor Joseph A. Maturo Jr. for saying last month he might have tacos as a way to do something for the community.The Republican mayor made the remark in response to a reporter’s question after the arrests of four police officers on charges they harassed Latino residents and businesses. He received criticism from all quarters, including Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Just another example of Republican racism.

From Huffington Post:

Lisa Chan, the actress who appeared in a political ad that was widely criticized for furthering negative stereotypes of Asian-Americans, has apologized, calling her participation "a mistake."…

…"I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities," Chan wrote on her Facebook page, as first reported by the Angry Asian Man blog. "As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions."

I’m glad that Chan has apologized, but even though he has pulled the ad, Peter Hoekstra still refused to apologize and continues to double down on his Republican racism.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:03 am  8 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
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