Two Babes Mud Ring

hcliberal @ 05:20 pm: NeoCons
Speaks for itself

astroprisoner @ 12:16 pm: School Shootings and the Easy Way
It looks like we're into a spree again, as we were eight years ago...when one tragic event sets off a chain by inspiring other lunatics to do the same. We're just a very short time away from an outcry to stop this violence by passing more gun control laws.

There's a basic problem, though:

A guy who gets up in the morning and puts "Massacre defenseless children in a school" on his to-do list is insane, and will not be stopped by mere gun control laws.

"But Rick," you say "you've missed the point. If we take away the guns then these nuts won't be able to go into schools and shoot children."

Skipping entirely over the "bad guys can get guns anytime they want" argument that has been re-hashed many places, I'm going to go straight to the trivia question: What was the biggest school massacre in US history?

"Why, Columb...uh-oh, this is a trick question, right?"

Yeppo, it sure is. Columbine is the worst school shooting, but for sheer body count the correct answer is the 1927 Bath School bombing in which the weapon was dynamite...more specifically, a car bomb or VBIED. Oddly, this incident took place in an era of much more loose gun control than we have today...but I digress.

Lesson: keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics may be a good idea, but when a crazy man is determined to slaughter children in a school he's going to find a way to do it even if he can't get his hands on a firearm.

"OK, so let's put much stricter controls on guns and dynamite" you say. Nope, that's not going to do it. Taking a certain set of weapons out of the hands of people won't stop the violence, it will only cause the violent to change their weapons. We need look no further than the rising crime rates in Australia and the UK for proof of this.

And we also need look no further than Columbine. We talk so much about what Klebold and Harris did with guns that we tend to forget that their actual intent was to blow up the school building. They had constructed a huge bomb using a 20-pound propane tank, and much higher casualty numbers were averted only because it didn't explode. (The information on the propane bomb isn't being covered up, but it certainly is "de-emphasized" in the news reports. Why? I'd like to think that there's some responsible reporting in action here: keep repeating the fact that "the propane bomb didn't explode" in the news enough, and some whacko will figure out how to repeat Klebold and Harris' moves except this time with a devastating explosion. I think I know what they did wrong. I ain't sayin' what it is, but it ain't rocket science.)

Propane is available virtually everywhere. Gasoline is an explosive, and restricting access to it is impossible. The process to make nitroglycerin is available on the web. Gunpowder is a simple mix of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. You want to make a bomb? The ingredients are all around you.

We cannot keep the tools of destruction out of the hands of those with sick minds.

Worse yet, by attempting to solve the problem of school massacres by restricting the access to weapons, we're trying to solve the problem the easy way and totally ignoring the root cause of the problem. That root cause is the fact that undiagnosed mentally unbalanced people are out and about in society. Solve this problem, and the problem of school massacres will be solved as well.

The core of traditional liberalism is always said to be compassion, but a "solution" that focuses on weapons while ignoring the mentally ill shooters is a "solution" that totally ignores many who are also in need.

Focusing on mental illness as a solution is, admittedly, a much more difficult problem than simply controlling guns. The process of diagnosing and treating the mentally ill. Worse yet, there's no end point: while one can (perhaps naively) envision a society where weapons have been eliminated and their futrher manufacture or import is halted, one cannot realistically envision a society where mental illness is forever eliminated because those who suffer from congenital mental illness will continue to be born.

It is a much harder task, but I'm just enough of an old fogy to recall a great man who stood up one day 45 years ago and said "We choose to...do [these] things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win[.]"

JFK was talking about the moon, but his concept of doing things because they are hard reflects a spirit we once had, and can have again.

We can spend the rest of our lives arguing about gun control, when in reality no gun control answer will solve the true problem.

Or, we can wake up to what the real problems are, and start figuring out how to solve them.

What would JFK do?

nursejudy @ 12:21 pm: Secondhand Smoke Tragedy
At the same time today as the Surgeon General came out with his latest warning on secondhand smoke, my sister-in-law’s 50-year-old sister is undergoing surgery for lung cancer.

Peg is not a smoker, but her parents were, her husband is, and the ladies in her bridge club are. Peg came down with pneumonia last month, which was the first warning, because she is never sick. Her chest x-ray showed two spots on her lung. Her doctor told her that her lungs looked like she had smoked her whole life.

The pneumonia probably saved her life because they caught the cancer early. We don’t know yet exactly what the pathologists will find because as I write, she is still on the operating table.

The Surgeon General’s report today said separate smoking sections don’t cut it. “Only smoke-free building and public places truly protect nonsmokers from the hazards of breathing in other people’s smoke.” Moreover, he said, “There is no risk-free level of exposure to someone else’s drifting smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilation systems don’t eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.”

The Surgeon General is especially concerned about young children who can’t escape their family member’s addiction in search of cleaner air. Living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s risk of lung cancer and heart disease by up to 30%.

I have been called rude, arrogant, a troublemaker, and a bitch for years because I have made no bones about not wanting to breath another’s smoke. I campaigned for a nonsmoking nurses’ lounge in the operating room I worked at in Denver—they called me a troublemaker. I refused to play in the same bridge club that Peg plays in because of the smokers—they called me arrogant. I have asked people not to smoke in my house or sitting behind me at a Bronco Football game—I was called rude. I have always refused to date any man who smokes—I was called a bitch.

But you know what?

I won the nonsmoking nurses’ lounge, but lost smoking friends. I didn’t get to play bridge, but I also didn’t get lung cancer. The Denver Bronco’s banned smoking in their stadium—I believe they were the first professional team to do so. And many of those smoking men I refused to date have already had heart attacks—and I am not the one who has to take care of them.

Quite frankly, I would rather be called a rude, arrogant, troublemaking bitch, than to have the left upper lobe of my lung removed and undergo radiation and chemotherapy because of someone else’s addiction.

Peg was too nice. Look what it got her.

Please Don’t Smoke!

Nurse Judy

nursejudy @ 12:09 pm: Medical Malpractice Irony
Two headlines caught my eye in the past couple of days on medical malpractice that I found morbidly ironic:

“Malpractice suits often groundless, study says” (Boston Globe, May 11)
and
“Senate rejects award limits in malpractice.” (New York Times, May 9)

The first story concerned a new study by Harvard School of Public Health that found 40% of medical malpractice cases filed in the US are groundless. Many of the lawsuits analyzed contained no evidence that a medical error was committed or that the patient suffered any injury. Though most of the dubious cases were dismissed with no payout to the patient, the groundless lawsuits still accounted for 15% of the money paid out in settlements or verdicts.

The second story noted that the US Senate once again rebuffed a Republican effort to limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases. Senator majority leader, Dr Bill Frist, who has argued for years that rising insurance rates, fueled by skyrocketing jury awards are driving physicians out of business and compromising patient care, could not pull the 60 votes together needed to end Democratic-led stalling tactics.

The Senate gallery was filled with white-coated proponents of the bill who watched the debate, hoping the Republicans would pull it out this time. Opponents of the bill included the Democrats and the association representing plaintiff’s lawyers.

Dr Frist was quoted as saying he knew going into the debate that the measure was likely to be blocked but wanted to put Democrats on record before the midterm elections in November.

Oh Pleeeease, Save Me!

Why in Hell can’t the Senate “Majority” leader who is a cardiac surgeon get enough votes to pass such a critical piece of healthcare legislation? If the vote is always going to be about politics instead of policy anyway, why can’t he whip the Senate into shape, or grab ‘em by the balls, or do something to get the votes? He has the Majority, for God’s sake.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Dr Frist is a pansy ass of a Senator who needs to go back to cracking chests—something he was good at.

Nurse Judy

nursejudy @ 12:15 pm: One Helluva Ride
Thank you all for the prayers for my Mother who died on April 26 at the age of 97. She was "Simply the Best."

I don't think anyone could have expressed the paradox we called Mom better than my youngest brother in his eulogy at her funeral.

I thought I would share it with you:

"One Helluva Ride"

At the end of Mom's last ride home in the ambulance, in her groggy state, she lifted her head and told the ambulance driver, "Well, that was one helluva ride."

And so it was.

Her 97 years were one helluva ride. Not always easy, a hard life in many respects--her Father died when she was less than 2 years old.

After my Mom and Dad married--she at 35 years old and he at 45--they bought a 100-year-old, 2-story brick house and made a home for 6 kids on a wing and a lot of prayers. She and my Dad had as unselfish a partnership as you will find. They shared in the housework and cooking and gardening and caring of 6 kids as no other couple I have ever known.

The greater world will not take note of this simple, ordinary lady's passing--no fame, no fortune, no notoriety to speak of; except to those of us whose friendship she made or those of us whose way she guided.

To us--she was an extraordinary character indeed.

She was also a bit of a paradox.

Loud and opinionated, with a few salty words thrown in, yet often shy and reserved and a homebody--a homebody who traveled around the world.

A more skeptical, stubborn person you would not find, yet she was one who had a deep and unwavering faith in God--who she turned to every day of her life.

Loud? She had a signature laugh that brought down the house.

Many years ago, a bunch of my high school friends surveyed the community and concluded that Mom had the wildest, craziest, loudest laugh in town. It was a laugh that could embarrass a teenage kid to death, and it only got worse when she tried to restrain it.

Tough love? Long before Oprah and Dr Phil, if my Mother didn't invent "tough love," she was certainly its most ardent advocate.

I said tough; I did not say politically correct or sweet. When told one time that someone said "Oh your Mother is so sweet," her response was--"I've been called a lot of things before, but sweet has never been one of them."

Strong willed? It was often embarrassing when I would come back home for a visit and friends would come up and ask, "Is that your Mother out there mowing her big lawn in the summer heat?" All I could say was 'Well, she's only 85 years old. She probably has a few more good years left before she'll hire someone to mow it for her—someone who can do it right.'

The old Greek proverb had her in mind: "One must wait for the evening to see how sweet the day has been."

After my Dad died 25 years ago, she was determined to live a full life, enjoy her grandchildren, and do things unimaginable at an earlier time in her life.

This woman who lived her entire life within a couple of blocks from our small-town Square stood in St Peter's Square in Rome, Red Square in Moscow, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Trafalgar Square in London, and Manger Square in Bethlehem.

She stood on top of the world in Nome, Alaska, and on the bottom in Australia and New Zealand. She walked the Great Wall of China and The Way of the Cross in Jerusalem. She rode a camel to the Pyramids and sailed through the Panama Canal.

And all of this after she was 75 years old.

She had the unusual distinction of having watched as a high school student, Charles Lindbergh's hero's parade down Washington Ave in St Louis after soloing across the Atlantic, and then 60 years later, sitting on a lawn chair at Cape Canaveral in Florida, she watched the Challenger Spacecraft lift off and explode over the Atlantic Ocean.

How many of us will pass from this life with our children and grandchildren thinking we are the neatest character they have every known? Her Godchild and flower girl in her wedding who's here today, called her "My Auntie Mame."

This ordinary person was extraordinary indeed.

Despite the sorrow we feel today, we have so much to be thankful for and remember—especially the selfless, unconditional Love.

But the picture I will always keep in my mind is the twinkle in her eye before getting ready to cut loose with the biggest, loudest, craziest laugh in town.

Never has something as simple as a laugh said so much about one person.

Yes it was one helluva long and fruitful ride, and now as she would say, "It's Amen."

nursejudy @ 11:09 am: One Helluva Ride
Thank you all for the prayers for my Mother who died on April 26 at the age of 97. She was "Simply the Best."

I don't think anyone could have expressed the paradox we called Mom better than my youngest brother in his eulogy at her funeral.

I thought I would share it with you:

"One Helluva Ride"

On Mom's last ride home in the ambulance, in her groggy state of mind, she lifted her head up and told the ambulance driver, "Well, that was one helluva ride."

And so it was.

Her 97 years were one helluva ride. Not always easy, a hard life in many respects--her Father died when she was less than 2 years old. She was poor in worldly terms much of her life.

After my Mom and Dad married--she at 35 years old and he at 45--they bought a broken down 100 year old 2-story brick house and made a home for 6 kids on a wing and a lot of prayers. She and my Dad had as unselfish a partnership as you will find. They shared in the housework and cooking and gardening and caring of "us kids" as no other couple I have ever known.

The greater world will not take note of this simple, ordinary lady's passing--no fame, no fortune, no notoriety to speak of; except to those of us whose friendship she made or those of us whose way she guided.

To us--she was an extraordinary character indeed.

She was a bit of a paradox: Loud, opinionated, with a few salty words thrown in, yet often shy and reserved and a homebody--a homebody who traveled around the world. A more skeptical, stubborn person you would not find, yet one who had a deep and unwavering faith in God, who she turned to every day of her life.

Loud? She had a signature laugh that brought down the house.

Many years ago, a bunch of my high school friends surveyed the community and concluded that Mom had the wildest, craziest laugh in town. It was a laugh that could embarrass a teenage kid to death, and it only got worse when she tried to restrain it.

Tough love? Long before Oprah and Dr Phil, if my Mother didn't invent "tough love," she was certainly its most ardent advocate.

I did not say politically correct or sweet. When told one time that someone said "Oh your Mother is so sweet," her response was--"I've been called a lot of things before, but sweet has not been one of them."

Strong willed? It was often embarrassing when I would come back home for a visit and friends would come up and ask, "Is that your Mother out there mowing her big lawn in the summer heat?" All I could say was 'Well, she's only 85 years old. She probably has a few more good years left before she'll hire someone to mow it for her.'

The old Greek proverb had her in mind: "One must wait for the evening to see how sweet the day has been."

After my Dad died 25 years ago, she was determined to live a full life, enjoy her grandchildren, and do things unimaginable at an earlier time in her life.

This woman who lived her entire life within a couple of blocks from our small-town square, traveled the world:

She stood in St Peter's Square in Rome, Red Square in Moscow, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Trafalgar Square in London, and Manger Square in Bethlehem.

She stood on top of the world in Nome, Alaska, and on the bottom in Australia and New Zealand. She walked the Great Wall of China and The Way of the Cross in Jerusalem. She rode a camel to the Pyramids and sailed through the Panama Canal.

And all of this after she was 75 years old.

She had the unusual distinction of having seen Charles Lindbergh's hero parade down Washington Ave in St Louis after soloing across the Atlantic, and then 60 years later, sitting on a lawn chair at Cape Canaveral in Florida she saw the Challenger Spacecraft lift off and explode over the Atlantic Ocean.

How many of us will pass from this life with our children and grandchildren thinking we are the neatest character they have every known? Her Godchild and flower girl in her wedding who's here today, called her "My Auntie Mame."

This ordinary person was extraordinary indeed.

Despite the sorrow we feel today, we have so much to be thankful for and remember--the selfless, unconditional Love.

But the picture I will always keep in my mind is the twinkle in her eye before getting ready to cut loose with the biggest, loudest, craziest laugh in town.

Never has something as simple as a laugh said so much about one person.

Yes it was one helluva long and fruitful ride, and now as she would say, "It's Amen."

astroprisoner @ 03:12 pm: Free Markets and Immigration
As we all were, I was watching with some interest the general strike (well, that's what it was) called yesterday in behalf of "immigrants."

There does seem to be quite a move afoot for amnesty. And amnesty does seem like such an obvious solution. After all, the people are already here, why not make them legal? We can't just kick them out, and after all, they're just doing jobs that Americans won't do.

Of course, amnesty is doomed to fail as a solution to illegal immigration because it fails to address a most basic question:

( Why did you get the salad and not the caviar as the appetizer? )

astroprisoner @ 05:53 pm: Moussaoui must die.
(Crossposted to astroprisoner)

Much debate and discussion going on regarding Moussaoui. Should we kill him? Should we not?

Arguments against killing him (in addition to general objections to the death penalty) include "It's too easy" and "It's just giving him what he wants."

Here's an example.

Here's one argument, one scenario, one simple word that no one seems to have considered: Beslan.

Here's another, one the world has almost forgotten: Ma'Alot.

Picture a dozen terrorists, having taken over a school, wired the children with explosives, tossed out the bodies of some teachers, and now demanding "Give us Moussaoui or we kill all the children." What would we do?

Of course, we would give up Moussaoui. What other choice would we have?

And thus, he would be neither executed nor in prison, but free.

Kill him. Kill him dead, and this scenario will never take place.

Leave him alive, and the door remains open for it to happen some day.

What child's life is worth that risk?

astroprisoner @ 04:55 pm: Facing Down Iran
(Crossposted to astroprisoner)

Thoughts to ponder.

Facing Down Iran

Quote:
What's the difference between a hothead and a moderate? Well, the extremist Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," while the moderate Rafsanjani has declared that Israel is "the most hideous occurrence in history," which the Muslim world "will vomit out from its midst" in one blast, because "a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world." Evidently wiping Israel off the map seems to be one of those rare points of bipartisan consensus in Tehran, the Iranian equivalent of a prescription drug plan for seniors: we're just arguing over the details.

So the question is: Will they do it?

And the minute you have to ask, you know the answer. If, say, Norway or Ireland
acquired nuclear weapons, we might regret the "proliferation," but we wouldn't have to contemplate mushroom clouds over neighboring states. In that sense, the civilized world has already lost: to enter into negotiations with a jurisdiction headed by a Holocaust-denying millenarian nut job is, in itself, an act of profound weakness-the first concession, regardless of what weaselly settlement might eventually emerge.

( And actually, it's even worse than that. )

astroprisoner @ 01:31 pm: Music Fun!
April 15 rapidly approaches, income tax deadline with it. For your musical enjoyment, a tune to accompany filling out forms:

Former Massachusetts Libertarian Gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell sings "How Could I Live Without Filing Taxes?"

(Crossposted to astroprisoner)