Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New year

One of my least favorite holidays, but I treasure the last night of the Christmas tree being up. Alaska (oh sure, you betcha, also, too)King Crab which will be my first attempt; several Internet sites have been reviewed. Apparently the crab is cooked before frozen, so all I have to do is steam. Or broil, which some recommend. I'm using a lemon-garlic-beer combo to steam as the recipe, courtesy of Emeril, was the first hit on foodnetwork.com. Yikes. Could be an expensive mess.

Just give it to 'em

Pueblo City Council ("We Don't Need No Stinking Mayor!")has decided to keep the moratorium on medical marijuana clinics, until the State can decide if their legality is really legal, or something. Even though the White House has stated they will not interfere with States' rights in this matter, Somebody Thinks It's a Bad Idea. Misuse of prescribed medication is at an all-time high, but if you smoke a weed for pain relief you make the Baby Jesus cry. Just let the patients have it. And may you need be in the throes of terminal cancer without adequate pain medication.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Best Health Care in the World

My massage therapist left his job of 25 years at a hospital for a new career as a massage therapist. Here's his take on health care, as presently experienced by my father in rehab: the system is broken. Not just health insurance, but the entire model of health care delivery. To wit, my father has missed physical therapy because the staff couldn't get him ready in time as an aide decided not to show up that day; it took a week for the kitchen to meet with him to ascertain he could not eat the crap they were serving (he's hypoglycemic, as am I) he has had to catch several medication errors ("Oh, I guess we ARE supposed to get Advil at bedtime, silly me ")he is given stool softeners everyday even though he has had to runs since his surgery 10 days ago. I had the same experience at my last hospitalization, medication errors, medical equipment left in the middle of the floor for the entire time I was there, nurses who didn't speak English ramming my bedside desks up against the wall with the drawers against the wall so I could not access my purse or phone. The nurses fighting over which of them was going to take my flowers home (alerted to me by the janitor). But hey, it's the best health care system in the world, and anything said otherwise is socialism!!! USA!! USA!!! USA!!!
Oh, did I mention United Health Care just raised my 2010 premium $60 dollars every month? Cuz somebody has to pay for the two lobbyists for every Congressperson and the CEO's $24 million bonus in 2009 and they sure aren't going to pay for that themselves.

Of course it's Socialism

The quotable David Simon: “Of course it’s socialism”
From an interview Simon did with Vice Magazine. Not all of it’s about economics, but given what The Wire was about and that his new show, Treme, is set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the way money works or rather doesn’t work for many people was naturally on his mind:

…of course it’s socialism. These ignorant motherfuckers. What do they think group insurance is, other than socialism? Just the idea of buying group insurance! If socialism is a taint that you cannot abide by, then, goddamn it, you shouldn’t be in any group insurance policy. You should just go out and pay the fucking doctors because when you get 100,000 people together as part of anything, from a union to the AARP, and you say, “Because we have this group actuarially, more of us are going to be healthier than not and therefore we’ll be able to carry forward the idea of group insurance and everybody will have an affordable plan...” That’s fuckin’ socialism. That’s nothing but socialism.

…So the whole idea of group insurance, which of course everyone believes in, like that fellow on YouTube, “Don’t let the government take away my Medicare…” You look at that and you think there’s only one thing that can make people this stupid, and that’s money.

Read the whole interview.

Hat tip Maud Newton.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas

Just returned to the Prairie from aging parent duty in Denver. Of course the weather tried to stand in my way but the CDOT app on my new smart phone (My Touch, thank you Whoopie)served me well in my travels (Why is Castle Rock so miserly with the plows?). Husband loves the new Kindle, even thought it arrived a week late and after my departure for Big D emblazoned with "AMAZON.COM' even though I asked for two-day shipping and a 'gift box'. Of course he spent three days alone with it knowing who it was from and that it was lighter than a book would be. So much for a surprise.

But he says he loves it and is not happily digesting a the most recent Steven King novel retailed at $30 at B&N but his for $9.99.

I am happy with my new My Touch, wonderful Ugh slippers and beautiful diamond hoop earrings. I will wrestle the Kindle from him soon enough to catch up on the literary classics I've missed for .99 later.

Elder care is daunting and exhausting. Between trying to get answers about treatment plans, dietary needs and medication errors (my parents are not the most assertive people on earth, cuz taking care of yourself might bother someone) getting the non-hospitalized one groceries, lunch, dinner, shoveling walks, fixing the garage door and computer, deciphering log in passwords left in undecipherable script and watching 'It's a Wonderful Life' in between bites of Village Inn pie and 45-minute monologues waiting for the hairdresser to call back and the walk to be shoveled - well, it's tiring.

But I'm the only surviving offspring and I've got to step up. Family dynamics and dysfunction abound. Happy birthday, Jesus.

Thank you, Al!

The Year of Al Franken | TPM Photo Features

Saturday, December 19, 2009

And too prevalent in political discourse these days

Tacitus Voltaire said,

the next version of the DSM will include a description of stupid personality disorder:

Stupid Personality Disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as “a pervasive pattern of idiocy, a marked susceptibility to ridiculous theories and meaningless slogans, need to issue fascist diktat, and a lack of information gathering ability [1], beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Lack of ability to gather, digest, and understand easily available information.
2. Intense attachment to pet theories, and a obsessive preoccupation with them.
3. Rejection of any facts that contradict these pet theories, accompanied by intense anger, and denigration of the person bringing these facts to their attention.
4. Marked susceptibility to conspiracy theories, random bullshit dressed up with ten dollar words, and melodramatic but impotent threats.
5. Addiction to issuing orders in Command Voice.
6. Poore speling and CAPITAL LETTERS
7. Inability to admit that perhaps one might be mistaken in some small detail.
8. Black and white thinking, perfectionism, inability to put themselves in other people’s shoes.
9. Narcissistic personality disorder

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Daily Kos said it best...

Before we begin what I suspect will be a furious attempt to rebrand the reported "compromise" (read: capitulation) on health care as the most meaningful piece of progressive legislation since ever, I think Senate Democrats deserve recognition for doing something that most thought would have been impossible--crafting health care legislation that will, ultimately, please no one.

The Democratic base is going to voice strong objections, because instead of taking bold steps in the face of a health care crisis, you allowed a guy that spent 2008 campaigning for a Republican presidential nominee to have unilateral veto power over the legislation (the optics of that aspect of this story could not possibly be worse).

Good luck getting that base to the polls in 2010. Their motivation to keep or expand a Democratic majority looks like it was rendered meaningless.

So, congratulations, guys. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to singlehandedly imperil a Congressional majority and return bargaining power to a political party that has been spending the last five years circling the drain. Perhaps John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will send you a "thank you" card
.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/14/814214/-Congratulations,-Senate-Dems!!!

From Sadly, No

Posted at 1:23 by Brad
This sort of comment is something I hear a lot from friends in Europe and elsewhere:

Where i come from, The Netherlands, which is far from perfect, i pay 125 Euro’s for full coverage. Dentists and pre-existing conditions included. I can have a television at my bed and a minibar if i want to, but that’ll cost me extra. We have 6 or 7 big insurance companies here who facilitate this and who are bound by government rules on maximum charges and minimum coverage. It works fine, there’s no deficit created and everybody is fully covered. Besides that there’s a government subsidy for everyone who doesn’t earn enough to pay for the premiums.

We’re a democracy, with politicians, which are to some degree polarized into left and right, but everybody agrees we need good healthcare. If our people are denied that, we go out onto the streets and make known that we disagree.

It’s that simple.

It is that simple and that’s what drives me insane.

The United States has, bar none, the stupidest and cruelest health care system in the entire developed world. We pay out the ass for health care expenses and leave tens of millions of people uninsured. Paying more for worse outcomes is the very definition of inefficiency, but that’s the system we have. In fact, our system is so bad that even its glibertarian defenders sneak off when no one’s looking to get affordable health care in France.

I don’t get it. Why do we put up with paying tons of money for crappier health care? Why are other countries’ health care systems relentlessly demonized when they’re demonstrably and empirically better than ours? And most importantly, how can we have a set of political leaders who insist on removing any and all bits of reform that might actually prove popular with the average voter?

Bernie Gets It

Petition: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

This is why, Rahm...

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Napa Hop

Back from a business trip to Napa, CA. So great to be in the familiar landscape. The Bay, the bridges, the aroma, the humidity (low, but more than Colorado) the people - the well-heeled, in-style folks where every hostess is stunning and even the 80-year-olds have the correct hair and clothing to be seen at the right place for lunch. Vineyards, olive groves and retail, retail, retail. A Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/Cost Plus every 2500 feet or so. Additional small local eateries and lovely food and wine. *sigh*. Also a rental house with non-working wireless and ants in my laptop. Water ants from Argentina now making themselves to home in everything in Napa and this house but the food.

But first, the getting there: a long cab ride to the Pwello "airport" in the falling snow. The door was unlocked but no one around when I arrived. Soon two people appeared to check my bag and take 10 minutes on the phone - the phone? - to get an approval code for the debit card I offered for my bag charge. The other three passengers arrived and shortly we were offered the security check. Four Official People with Uniforms (OPwU)submitted us four Suspicious Looking Folks to the most scrutiny I've encountered in any U.S. airport. All four OPwU checked out my 3 oz bottles as there was some question as to whether they were 3 oz. or an illegal 3.5; my shoes examined, my purse searched, my laptop bag gone through, my person patted down and subjected to a pap smear (complimentary). After we passed inspection the two counter people that check my bag and issued my boarding pass ran around the outside of the building, loaded our bags, switched their hats and entered the security area to ask for our boarding passes. That they had just issued to us. I feel insulted that she didn't remember me from ten minutes before at the check in, but rules are rules. When we were finished boarding, they changed into new hats and seated themselves to fly us personally to DOA.
OK, maybe they didn't fly the plane themselves, but almost. It was a quick, easy flight, made more amusing by the FAA-required prerecorded rules to observe in the unlikely event of a water landing before take off. The reading light in the cabin where so dim as to make incapable any reading of printed materials until landing and good overhead light in the terminal.
Here's the view from above during the trip: frozen tundra, some frozen tundra, more frozen tundra, the Rocky Mountains in the distance, frozen tundra and a herd of cattle.
Mid-air I look out the window to the wing (the Great Lakes Airlines plane is small enough that almost every seat has a good view of the wing) I see a small door labeled "Battery Compartment". I prayed they were fully charged.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Blocked in YOUR time zone, I'd take it personally

"In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the 'Peanuts' television Christmas special.

'Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose.. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....when the answer should simply be 'yes'....'
Bonus stupid: laments that voting isn't restricted to 'property owners.'"
h/t WTF is it Now?

Thursday, December 3, 2009

|Pueblo Deputies shock 'out of control' child with Taser

NewsFirst5.com Colorado Springs news, Colorado Springs weather, Pueblo news, Pueblo weather Pueblo Deputies shock 'out of control' child with Taser

Fly Me

Lord - it took me three tries and 45 minutes to find the Pueblo Memorial Airport, and I had Google Earth directions. You may think I'm simply blonde, but the street signage is Pwello is somewhat lacking. The one-story airport is hidden behind the four-story Airport Museum, the entrance to which reads 'Airport Terminal' and on a smaller sign appended to previous sign "next intersection" meaning 20 feet. I scooted into the turn line to eventually face a stucco building with the very large proclaimation of "AIRPORT RESTAURANT"  and the very small declaration of "Pueblo Memorial Airport" visible with squinting. I wonder if I should present myself two hours before my flight for security screening?

Monday, November 30, 2009

To Dubai with Love

In all the Tiger news, it was easily overlooked that Dubai just defaulted on $60 billion of debt.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

You know I love Tiger Woods. So let me get this straight....your wife drove out to your car in a golf cart at 2 AM to save you from an incident with a hydrant at the end of your driveway and bashed in your rear window to save you from...um, the massive fire in your front seat, no, wait...you hit your head on the pantry doorknob and didn't want to disturb her sleep so you attempted to drive yourself to the hospital but passed out and backed into a hydrant, no wait....this is going to require a really big solitaire for Christmas.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Holiday

Well it's after the Turkey Holiday and my husband and I have successfully survived sharing it with my folks. They are cute, but my dad shares every thought that crosses his mind out loud. I am thankful that they want to brave the drive, which at their age fills me with some anxiety. They have GPS on the cell phone, but that didn't keep them from getting lost at the Ft. Carson entrance attempting to navigate to the Love's outpost and attached restroom on the other side of  I-25.

Husband won his football bets this weekend and is feeling quite fine. I am still preparing for the business trip next weekend and fighting a bad tooth. I just had my teeth cleaned last week, but skipped the checkup as I ran out of insurance in June. Which reminds me - we need health care reform. Have I mentioned that? Put people above profits. It's not going to take anything away from your freedom to make a million dollars a year in your Amway business by ensuring every American gets health care.

Back to cleaning up puke from geriatric cats and enjoying leftover turkey. But not in the same hour.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Turkey parts, cream pie and Dutch Clark

Enjoying the after-after Thanksgiving Day and still nomming turkey and coconut cream pie in between getting ready for my business trip. preparing my training presentation on their new software and reading a required book. Big events here in Steel City this holiday season weekend - some high school football tournament at Dutch Clark stadium which is a Big Deal because high school fricking football is a Big Deal in a town of 100,000, and so is the stadium; and the Big Deal Christmas "Parade" of Big Lights which my husband insists is a Big Deal because it features at least one marching band but I imagine consists of no more than three floats and the guest appearances of a News First 5 weekend anchor and possibly the weatherman.

I wish I could pay more respect to the memory of Dutch Clark, but I can't remember what importance he played in the Home of the Heroes to get a stadium named after himself. A high school football coach would be the obvious guess. I assume he won The Big Game.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Peace

One thing about the prairie I must say: consistent pink and gold sunrises, enjoyed with my Former Feral in my lap. I am awaiting the arrival tomorrow of my parents direct (via Chevy Malibu) from the Mile High City to the plains. My husband says he used to fly to Denver for $40, and the parking was free at the Pwello airport, which made it cheaper than driving. Those days are gone. I'd fly my folks down but it's $180 per person for a 40-minute flight. I can make that drive with my eyes closed (not recommended) 20 minutes from downtown Denver to Castle Rock; 15 minutes from Castle Rock to Monument; 15 minutes from there to the Springs; 15 more minutes to Fountain; 30 more to Pwello. Don't forget: the rest stop outside Larkspur is permanently closed. Say hi to the folks at Pinon on your way down.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Be mindful of mixing up your relationship to God with your patriotism.

Part Seven of 'Why I'm no Longer a Conservative"

http://www.georgehutchins.com//

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Neverland

I never thought I'd end up spending my later years in a village. I-25 in Pwello has two lanes. Right lane: 40 miles an hour. Stop to merge at the side of the highway. Left lane: 85 miles an hour. Drive up the ass of the Honda in front of you in the left lane with your superjackedupbigasstruck. Move over to the right lane just to run into the idiots in the right lane who don't understnd how to merge with the five cars stopped at the shoulder, waiting to accelerate from 0 to 30 in 90 seconds when the conditions are right. Be very confused and tentative when the right lane is closed for the installation of a Jack-in-the-Box (they are still in business???) in a parking lot next to the right lane. (Why this requires the closure of the entire right lane, I can't explain). I was behind a driver yesterday who was literally going two miles an hour. Of course her primer grey whatever model with duct tape holding the muffler in place had the three "Support Our Troops" eight-year-old bumperstickers in place as required by law here. Gawd.

A Double Dip of Word Salad

For all my friends that insist Caribou Barbie is the most qualified 2012 Presidential candidate EVAR USA! USA! USA! who is one of them and speaks for 'Merika and people and press are just mean to her, please check out the following transcription of her Alaskan Highness herself. Speaking. Maybe in English. This is not meanness. It's not editing magic by the nasty Couric crew. It's why I did not entertain for a minute consider her as a candidate for anything.

A Double Dip of Word Salad

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Teh Cute

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Fox News displays old campaign footage to claim Palin is getting ‘huge crowds’ at her book signings

Gosh, two 'mistakes' in a one week period. Mess with the facts, apologize, smirk to yourself knowing the bell cannot be un-rung. Sort of like all the mistakes their 'interns' made when they ran Repubs looking bad ((Standford, Ensign, Foley, Craig, and when he spoke againist waterboarding, McCain) with "D" after their names on the crawl. Isn't obvious they aren't a news organization? Too bad most of their followers don't care.

AMERICAblog News A great nation deserves the truth: Fox News displays old campaign footage to claim Palin is getting ‘huge crowds’ at her book signings

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Interview With John Cole

From a piece by E.D. Kain, John Cole of the blog 'Balloon Juice' speaks of turning from being a Republican in 2003:

And putting aside personal political beliefs, I simply don’t understand how anyone can look back at the two Bush administrations and say, with a straight face, that Gore or Kerry would have been worse. I just don’t. Every single aspect of the last eight years was a complete and total disaster. How could Gore possibly have been worse? Anyone who is still a Republican after eight years of Bush and Cheney is simply a Republican for the rest of their life. Nothing is going to change them.

Something I have to remind myself of in political arguements discourse with my many Repub friends and family. When I hear talking points about 'death panels' or health care as Socialism or Obama is a radicalsecretMuslimterroristcommieabortionist who is taking this country down, I sigh and remember that they have "The Brain Fever". Probably contracted from the sermons they hear at their church.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

GOP Boys

Even my grandmother - a very spiritual woman who is pro life- wondered out loud why men were so involved in this issue. I concur: where's your dog in this fight? Something else is going on here. Jesus' General takes a stab at the answer:
GOP Boys

Flirting with Ferrets

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Marine attacks priest

Good grief - back in my acting days, I was cast as a 60's hippie, marching with a sign for a scene in a student film. An army man in full uniform walked through as we were filming, marched to the people seated at a table in the scene and asked if they 'needed help', gesturing to us dirty hippies. Poor man was well-intentioned and some extras had a good laugh. The soldier was appropriately embarrased by his gaffe and moved off the set quickly when he realized he had distrupted the shoot. A bit different from the link below. We really need to provide more mental health care for our soldiers, ya think?

Tampa police: Marine reservist attacked Greek priest he mistook for terrorist - St. Petersburg Times

Tampa police: Marine reservist attacked Greek priest he mistook for terrorist - St. Petersburg Times

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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Iz Caturday!





Prairie Life

Cash for Clunkers never made it here. Hundreds of primer-grey autos held together with the mandatory three 'Support Our Troops' stickers and some duct tape. In addition, few seem to understand the rules of a four-way stop. Or merging. Or yielding.
Nice sunrise, beautiful pinks and orange across the eastern view which means towards La Junta. If you squint, you can make out Long's Peak in the distance, if you turn around.
Had lunch with friends at a local, long established diner in the area that specializes in sausage sandwiches and greasy patty melts. And something they call 'Masticoli' which is penne pasta with red sauce and maybe a meatball. The spoons with our large iced teas sprouted somewhere below the fluid line, and so had to be dug out or tea sipped with a straw so as not to damage the teeth.
What's with all the check-writing? And do you really distrust the credit card swipe at the pump so much that you fill up and then stand in line to hand the staff your gas purchase in person? The same reason you refuse direct deposit of your paychecks cuz that's just suspicious.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Damn Librul Media

So my teabagger friends (and that includes my husband, sorry to say) mention how the election results handed Obama his hat and walking stick. New York voted in it's first Democrat in 120 years? Didn't read much of that, didja? Damn librul media.
It's Thursday, frost on the ground and 80 degrees forecast for Saturday. And Joe LIEberman is still a douche.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

70 Degrees and sunny, or as we call it in Pueblo, "November"

I'm almost ready to turn the air on in the condo. A beautiful, sunny day, hard to believe motorists were stranded in the blizzard three days and an hour north ago. Pee-wee football next door at the middle school. The seven-year-olds are playing each with one pink sock, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Hear the giggles, "she said 'breast'". It's been Upset Sunday for the NFL, although Denver has done so much better than any of us anticipated when we found out our new coach was all of 32 and we were getting Chicago's quarterback??? Broken toes are healing, back muscles still strained. Geriatric kitties sleeping, one snoring. I awoke this morning with the typical 5:30 AM (Standard time, as of this November 1st) worry about the future and when I ask for help, He replies, "Do not worry about tomorrow, today has enough worries of its own".
Oh, I forgot.
I can be nuts about the lack of retirement funds, or the state of the econcomy, or how I'm going to survive this layoff at my age in my field in this small town, and if Congress will actually pass a health care reform bill that will meet all of our needs, and I determine that I will relax, listen to the still, small voice inside and know He holds my future.

Must...Have...Brains

So far this Halloween (my least favorite 'holiday' - glad it's over) our houshold has had one broken toe, scrapes and a muscle pull from a fall out of bed; firecrackers last night but zero trick-or-treaters. But we got this as a treat :http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=162150099156 'Joe Lieberman is a Douchebag' on Facebook!

Friday, October 30, 2009

Friday Cat Blogging

Just wait five minutes

...and the weather will change. All of us Colorado know this by heart. Blizzard yesterday, 60 degrees today.Oh yeah, Lieberman is still a douche. Filibuster of the health care reform bill = loss of Chairmanship.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Ten inches

...or more snow headed for metro Denver. Barring any emergencies (stay healthy, Grandma) I am no longer worrying about road conditions on Monument to get to my job up north. Don't need to bookmark the CDOT website anymore, either. (Good job on the new website, CDOT).

Go, Senate!

It's not a single payer system, but I'll take the public option, thank you, Harry Reid. And of course Joe Lieberman ("my wife is a lobbyist for Big Pharma, but that didn't sway my decision") plans to filibuster the plan with the Repubs. How is this guy a Democrat, again?

Monday, October 26, 2009

No trigger

Public option for health care - no trigger! The trigger will never be pulled. Medicare Part "E" - Medicare for Everyone.

Clouds in my coffee

Who is that 'You're So Vain' guy? How tired is Carly Simon of being asked that question? 36 years according to the Inside Edition I am hearing over my shoulder. Still no answer. May we all be so discreet.

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