Random Thoughts

Pause, reflect

I am really looking forward to the day when this woman will be out of a job.

It’s one thing to be a hypocrite. It’s one thing to lie. But to be a lying, in your face, serious as a heart attack hypocrite takes some kind of evil skill I can’t even fathom.

“We’re not in a big rush” on health care, Pelosi said. “Pause, reflect.”

I read that, and I almost had an out-of-body experience. Like I was suddenly set down on another planet. Because this is the woman who has been shoving universal health care down America’s collective throat like there is no tomorrow.

August 2009:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed on Wednesday to push through the government-sponsored health care program that the late Ted Kennedy characterized as his life’s work. “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” Pelosi said in a statement.

October 2009

“Leaders of all political parties starting over a century ago with President Theodore Roosevelt have called and fought for health care reform and health insurance reform,” Pelosi said. “Today we are about to deliver on the promise.”

December 2009

“We would do almost anything if it meant we would pass health care for all Americans (by) the Christmas holidays,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday. “Maybe we can’t,” she said, in which case Congress could deliver “a New Year’s present for the American people.”

6 January 2010

Lawmakers are “very close” to resolving differences between the House and Senate health care bills and sending a final version to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.

And now she says “not a big rush,” and “pause, reflect.” I suppose the stunning failure of Democrats to hang on to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat wouldn’t have anything to do with Ms. Pelosi’s dramatic change of attitude. Not that she’s capable of understanding what Massachusetts’ voters decision represents,

“Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too,” Pelosi said, referring to the state’s health care program. “So we don’t [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should.”

It’s not complicated, Ms. Pelosi. Americans simply don’t want to pay for universal health care.

We can only hope that this is an epic fail for what has to be the worst bill in the history of US government.

Right voices thinks it could be the beginning of the end for Pelosi.

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit calls it a quagmire.

And Instapundit…oh jeeze, it hurts to laugh this hard.

Could we Californians hope for a Barbara Boxer reelection loss? American Power thinks so. Oh, be still my heart.

And in the meantime…

I am brushing off the cyber equivalent of cobwebs here. I ought to be ashamed of myself, for all but abandoning my blog for two months.

My blog email is full of spam, understandably, but why is it written in Russian? What did I post last that issued an invite to Russian spammers?! Nevermind, I’ll just hit “delete” repeatedly.

Nothing bad happened to me in the interval between my last post and this one. My only excuse for dropping out of the blogosphere was the hurricane of life: Committing to writing NaNoWriMo, then having a full court press California state mandated teaching performance assessment followed by holiday craziness. Blog? I have a blog? Does anyone read it? Will they notice if it falls silent for a few weeks, or months?

I did not finish NaNoWriMo, but I did find my creative (fiction) voice again. That’s been fun. I’d forgotten the pleasure of playing with characters, of letting them interact and typing the result. So, for me, NaNoWriMo was a success. And I nailed a major win on the state requirement, with a perfect score and the evaluator’s comment “This is the best TPA 2 I have scored.” It felt really good to kick butt on that one.

The holidays were a success too. Though my family has narrowed down to MrRT and the four RT offspring, three of whom no longer live at home, this meant the holidays really were happy. No ugly scenes, no unpleasant relatives, just good food and good times. Christmas especially, when all six of us were together.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, makes me happier than watching my kids thoroughly enjoy each other’s company. That is the best part of parenthood, right there.

So, it’s January now–heck, January is half over–and I’m preparing to walk into a 12th grade classroom and teach English to high school seniors who are already half checked out and heading for graduation. I must be out of my mind. Not that I have a choice; it’s the final part of the teacher credentialing process. Since they put me with 6th graders last semester, they (whomever “they” is at my university) apparently figured I needed to experience the other end of the spectrum.

Hey, if I can teach 6th grade (and I can) and 12th grade, then surely I can cover everything in between.

At least in theory.

Meanwhile, life goes on in strange and terrible ways.

One one hand, Massachusetts voters finally grew brains.

Brutally Honest calls this triumph “Obama being spanked.” Brilliant metaphor, and so apt.

Right Voices offers up a gem of humor from Jon Stewart on the election.

And Michelle Malkin calls it a miracle. Yes, they do happen.

On one hand is US politics, sometimes depressing, sometimes wonderful, often surprising.

On the other hand, we have the horrible tragedy in Haiti:

I can not even fathom this.

There are so many ways we can help these devastated people, without even leaving home. First and foremost there’s the financial, through reputable organizations like the Red Cross, Child Hope, World Vision, Compassion International, Samaritan’s Purse, and in Haiti itself, the Real Hope Rescue Center. 

A fairly comprehensive list of charities working in Haiti is available here.

Even five or ten dollars matters in a country so poor they’re beyond desperate on a good day. They haven’t had a good day since January 12. They’re not likely to see another one for a long time.

And you might want to bookmark The Anchoress as you keep Haiti’s people in your thoughts and prayers.

I’m back. I’m writing. And I’ll be posting more on these and other stories very soon.

He didn’t know what he was signing

You can’t make this stuff up.

President Obama’s “green jobs” adviser is distancing himself from the “9/11 truthers” — Americans who say the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks may have been an inside job — releasing a statement late Thursday that says he didn’t read carefully a petition he signed in 2004 calling for an investigation into the Bush administration’s knowledge of an impending attack.

In the statement, Van Jones also apologized again for several inflammatory remarks he made prior to joining the Obama administration. It was his second apology in two days.

An aide to Jones told FOX News on Thursday night that the green jobs czar “did not carefully review the language in the petition.” The aide did not say when Jones signed the petition or when he became aware of the controversy…

Jones’ second mea culpa comes after a Wednesday apology in which Jones said he uttered “offensive words” in February when he called Republicans “assholes.” He said the remarks “do not reflect the views of this administration” and its bipartisan aims.

But such statements just scratch the surface of Jones’ past commentary, and could present a dilemma for the Obama administration as it struggles to pass health care reforms and other priorities, including a climate change bill championed by Jones.

Jones has consistently leaned on racially charged language, pointing the finger at “white polluters and the white environmentalists” for “steering poison” to minority communities, as he makes the case for lifting up low-income and minority communities with better environmental policy.

A declared “communist” during the 1990s, Jones once associated with a group that looked to Mao Zedong as an inspiration.

Jones’ exceptional past is reminiscent of associations noted during the presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama doggedly fended off claims that he was tied to radicals and overzealous activists.

But with now-President Obama entering the perhaps trickiest phase of his young presidency — building the kind of consensus around health care reform that President Clinton could not — a divisive figure could prove disfiguring.

You think?

Everyone knows congressmen don’t read bills before they sign them. So why should Jones be responsible for signing a nutjob petition? I mean, really, do we expect people in Obama’s administration to be conscientious and diligent, ethical and honest? Of course not! Remember, this is the president who put a tax cheat in charge of the IRS, the first of a string of nominated tax evaders including Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, and Nancy Killefer.

Given how willing Obama is to take on people with all kinds of unsavory past political and financial baggage, it’s amazing that he’s way behind in hiring for key administration positions (H/T The Moderate Voice)

While career employees or holdovers fill many posts on a temporary basis, Mr. Obama does not have his own people enacting programs central to his mission. He is trying to fix the financial markets but does not have an assistant treasury secretary for financial markets. He is spending more money on transportation than anyone since Dwight D. Eisenhower but does not have his own inspector general watching how the dollars are used. He is fighting two wars but does not have an Army secretary…He has invited major powers to a summit on nuclear nonproliferation but does not have an assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.

Honestly, it’s better than the Marx Brothers. Heck, put Joe Biden at a microphone and it’s darned close to a Marx Brother’s movie (as envisioned by Moneyrunner at The Virginian)…

Gateway Pundit reveals even more of Van Jones’ wacked background.

And Michelle Malkin describes the pattern we are seeing as

…a leitmotif that runs through my czar, cabinet, and nominee withdrawal chapters of Culture of Corruption: Obama czardom is the deliberate end-run around transparency. Van Jones did not just accidentally slip through the cracks of the Obama vetters. They knew what he espoused before they installed him.

If only it was all simply a movie, and the well being of our country was not at stake.

If you’ve got your health…

So, if I write about Youngest Son coming home from a week at camp only to come down with swine flu–which he then lovingly shared with both his parents–I’m inviting a string of spam about A(H1NI) and Tamiflu, aren’t I.

*sigh*

It really is no worse than any other type of flu. Of course I haven’t had any other type of flu in at least 15 years, so it hit me like a cement truck. But I do not have Obamacare, I have good old Blue Cross PPO. And that means that when I woke up sick, I went to the doctor of my choosing and got the drugs I needed at the pharmacy of my choosing and within 24 hours my fever was gone, and now, three days later, I am feeling considerably better.

Of course my health care is not free, but you, dear reader, are not paying for it out of your taxes either. MrRandomThoughts pays for it in part out of his salary, as a subscriber to the medical coverage provided by his employer.

It ain’t broke here, Miz Pelosi, please don’t go fixin’ it. At the very least, don’t go telling me the government running health care is going to solve anything. That’s just another lie amidst all the lies being told about this scheme…

…the president claimed the plan will not lead to rationing. But the bill, on page 30, section 123, would create a “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” that would make determinations about what kinds of treatments, items and services can be covered within certain benefit classes, and what kind of cost sharing will occur.

Oh swell. That will solve everything.

It is so darned hard sometimes not to judge the book by the cover.

Some more related thoughts…I’ve not been a big John Mackey fan (his Wild Oats messageboard stunt put me off) but I am a major Whole Foods shopper. Now I’m doubly glad they have my patronage. (H/T Gayle Miller).

In his [Wall Street Journal] op-ed, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare,” published Tuesday, [Whole Foods CEO] John Mackey criticized President Barack Obama’s health care plan.

Mackey provided eight “reforms” he argued the U.S. can do to improve health care without increasing the deficit. He suggested that tax forms be revised to “make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance.”

Mackey also called for a move toward “less government control and more individual empowerment” instead of “a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits.

This published reaction, on the other hand, is the epitome of everything I find so very moronic about liberalism:

Christine Taylor, a 34-year-old New Jersey shopper, vowed never to step foot in another Whole Foods again.

“I will no longer be shopping at Whole Foods,” Taylor told ABCNews.com. “I think a CEO should take care that if he speaks about politics, that his beliefs reflect at least the majority of his clients.”

Excuse me for a moment while I pound my forehead against the keyboard at the sight of such asininity.

Never mind how ridiculous it is to be spiteful about logically expressed concerns and valid suggested alternatives to a serious issue. Mr. Mackey’s beliefs are HIS beliefs. They do not have to reflect the majority of ANYONE else’s beliefs, much less what someone presumes are the “majority of his clients.”

I’m very conservative. I would bet Ms. Taylor real hard earned money that I spend more of it at my local Whole Foods than she does at hers. Seriously. Whole Foods and the local Farmer’s Market are just about the only places I shop (save for buying cat food and paper products at a major supermarket chain). And I’ve been shopping at my local Whole Foods for over 29 years, since it was a Mrs. Gooch’s, back when Ms. Taylor was too young to know what “organic” even meant.

I know what my city’s Whole Foods’ clientele is comprised of: Mostly upper middle class, fairly well educated people who are not about to give up access to Strauss milk and wild King salmon just because they may have voted for The One back in ‘08. Chances are, like an increasing percentage of the country, they’re not digging this health care plan either.

Ms. Taylor should go ahead and boycott though.  Meanwhile, I won’t have to deal with people like her grabbing the fresh asparagus before I can get to it.

Mackey’s argument is a sound one, worth reading. And I do appreciate his opening quote from Margaret Thatcher…

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Indeed.

When character counts…

As we watch Sonja Sotomayor lie her way into a lifetime Supreme Court appointment, it’s all too easy to think that she’s only too typical. She’ll smile and say whatever it takes to get what she wants.

Odd how, for a “wise Latina woman,” she displays a startling lack of wisdom when it comes to difficult issues like late term abortion.

Senator Coburn: Should abortion be legal at 38 weeks?

Sotomayor: “A woman has the constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy under certain circumstances.”

Coburn: Should technology have any bearing on whether or not a child should be aborted?

Sotomayor: “I can’t answer that question.”

Coburn: What about a viability of a fetus? Should that be a standard that we consider?

Sotomayor: “I can’t answer the question because the Court does not reach out to answer the question.”

She’s all too typical of an administration that brings us such gems as John Holdren.

I think about what it means to have people like these setting policy that will affect us for generations to come, and I despair. Then I come across something that reminds me that some people still have souls.

From Confederate Yankee by way of Brutally Honest, comes a portrait of a woman who exemplifies all that is noble about our US military.

JOINT BASE BALAD — The emergency-room trauma call and the medical staff’s immediate action upon his arrival is only a memory to her now; sitting quietly at the bedside of her brother-in-arms, she carefully takes his hand, thanking him for his service and promising she will not leave his side.

He is a critically injured combat casualty, and she is Army Sgt. Jennifer Watson of the Casualty Liaison Team here.

Although a somber scene, it is not an uncommon one for the Peru, Ind., native, who in addition to her primary duties throughout the last 14 months, has taken it upon herself to ensure no U.S. casualty passes away alone. Holding each of their hands, she sits with them until the end, no matter the day or the hour.

“It’s unfortunate that their families can’t be here,” said Watson, who is deployed here from Fort Campbell, Ky. “So I took it upon myself to step up and be that family while they are here. No one asked me to do it; I just did what I felt was right in my heart. I want them to know they are heroes.

“I feel just because they are passing away does not mean they cannot hear and feel someone around them,” she continued. “I talk to them, thanking them for what they have done, telling them they are a hero, they will never be forgotten, and I explain my job to them to help them be at ease knowing the family will be told the truth.”

In general, Watson explains to the patients that the CLT works within the Patient Administrative Department here, acting as a liaison for all military and civilian patients in-theater and initiating the casualty-notification process to the patient’s next-of-kin.

Upon their arrival at the Air Force Theater Hospital, Watson speaks with each combat casualty getting as accurate information as possible about the incident. Once the doctor gives their diagnosis and severity of the patient’s injuries, Watson and her team complete and send a Defense Casualty Information Processing System folder report to the Department of the Army or the patient’s respective service so that their next-of-kin can be notified.

“I make sure we tell their family everything they want to know, so they know everything that’s going on,” said Watson. “[Through the report], we’ll tell the families everything that is going on with their family member … so that they don’t have any questions.”

Furthermore, once the initial report has been sent, the CLT and Watson make hourly rounds to the intensive-care ward or unit to check on the patient’s well-being, or, for the more critical patients, to check on their stability.

“We are constantly communicating and making sure the family knows everything we know,” said Watson. “We want to put the families at ease and let them know that everything is being done for their loved one. From the moment a servicemember is brought in through Hero’s Highway, they are never alone.”

Each month, the AFTH, the equivalent of a U.S. Level-1 trauma center, treats more than 539 patients; more than 101 are trauma cases in the emergency department. Although Watson can never predict if and when her fellow brothers- or sisters- in arms may need her, she is always available here.

“The hospital staff is wonderful,” said Watson. “They know how important it is for me to be there with them and if they know it’s time, someone will come and get me no matter where I’m at.

“I see it as a form of closure, not just for me, but for the families so that they know that somebody was there with their son or daughter,” she added. “My heart goes out to every patient that comes into the hospital, especially my wounded in action Soldiers. I feel like everyone who comes through the door is my brother or sister.”

Not surprisingly, Watson’s dedication to duty and her hard work have not gone unnoticed. She has touched the lives of all those who she has come in contact with, to include the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group commander, Col. Mark Mavity.

“Sgt. Watson’s story is one of the most compelling here in the Med Group,” said Mavity. “She is a Soldier’s Soldier who combines an unparalleled level of compassion and commitment to our most grievously wounded warriors with amazing professionalism each and every day.

“What is truly incredible is that she is a personnelist by training but with the heart of a medic who has taken it upon herself to hold the hand and keep a bedside vigil with every mortally wounded Soldier who has spent their last hours within the AFTH,” continued the colonel. “She will not let her brave brothers or sisters pass alone. This is a heavy burden to bear and at great personal emotional cost to Sgt. Watson, but she is unwavering in her final commitment to these Soldiers. You don’t have to look any further than Sgt. Watson to find a true hero.”

“Angel” and “hero” are only two of the many titles Watson has been given since arriving at JBB; although she is appreciative of the kind words, she remains humble.

“I am far from an angel,” said the sergeant with a smile. “I just do what is in my heart. I guess for me, I think about the family and the closure of knowing the Soldier did not pass away alone. To say I’m a hero … no. The heroes are my guys who come in [through Hero's Highway].”

Reflecting on her time here, Watson said she is extremely thankful for the opportunity she has had to work side-by-side with the Air Force.

“The staff of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group has done an amazing job since I have been here,” she said. “They are incredible. They have done procedures and saved the lives of the most critically injured Soldiers, and have been some of the most professional people I have ever worked with.

“I want the families to know that their servicemember was a hero,” Watson concluded. “They made the ultimate sacrifice, but before they passed on, they received the best medical treatment, and the staff did everything they could — they were not in pain and they didn’t die alone.”

I’m guessing that Sgt. Watson is likely to be a bit put off by the attention on her. She’s not doing what she does for the accolades, she’s doing it because that’s the kind of woman, and soldier, she is.

It’s called character. Everyone has it. All too few have the kind that Sgt. Watson demonstrates.

Comets, Climate Change and Congress

My inner science geek (usually deeply buried) has surfaced:

“The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908.”

Ever since something generated a huge explosion over Siberia in 1908, flattening an area as big as a large city, scientists have been trying to figure out what caused it.

Among the enduring mysteries: Following the explosion, the night skies shone brightly for several nights across Europe all the way to London, 3,000 miles away…

The explosion on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest. Estimates are the Tunguska Event was as strong as at least 10 megatons of TNT and perhaps a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.Just last year, many experts were figuring it was an asteroid.

But Kelley’s team thinks a comet fits better, since comets are loaded with water ice (asteroids are mostly rock and metals). The comet would have started to break up at about the same altitude as the release of the exhaust plume from the space shuttle following launch, they calculate. In both cases, water vapor was injected into the atmosphere.

But how did the water vapor travel so far?

“There is a mean transport of this material for tens of thousands of kilometers in a very short time, and there is no model that predicts that,” Kelley said. “It’s totally new and unexpected physics.”

Cool.

The Tunguska Event and its cause create serious ramifications for the global climate change theory. Never say it; the concept that *gasp* nature itself could be behind climate change is unthinkable. Can’t get any tax money from evaporated comets, can we.