Active shooters in schools: The enemy is denial

The original article can be read at this link (hopefully it won't be taken down):

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman to cops: The enemy is denial

I got the full text in an email [OT: That should never be done because of author's copyright and intellectual property rights] from a friend who had forwarded it to a larger list, and then got a response from a lady who claimed that the problem is about social media and the failure of gun control advocates to realize that only law-abiding folks will obey newer and more restrictive laws.

Her points are valid, but of course I think she missed the mark because the anti-gun crowd DO know that, but don't care because they want all guns to go away, unless they need protection and then they want the police to be there, but that's not always possible, so some of them want guns to protect themselves, like Dianne Feinstein who is licensed to carry a firearm for her self-protection, but she is fighting to get guns out of our hands. She is a foolish hypocritical elitist who firmly believes we are low-lifes without value, but she, in her high and mighty ivory tower, is valuable and not expendable.

Back to my point about the lady who responded to my friend. I didn't think she got close to the actual root, so penned something very close to the following text, though this version has been more carefully penned and researched a bit more thoroughly:

I think the problem goes much farther, and deeper, than that. I think the problem began when the progressives were successful in banning prayer from school, then pushing the myth of "the separation of church and state"

Whenever you take the ultimate moral authority out of the education of our children, they begin to fight against the "ministers" of the "truth" they learn because they aren't getting the critical after-life centered answers that are critical to their personal growth and successful entry into adult citizenship. A solid moral foundation can never be gotten from a god-less and amoral system.

In short, government became god, schools became churches, and secular humanism, which fits every philosophical definition of a religion, became the official state religion. Scientists became prophets and the judges of the brand of truth that denies our creator His credit.

Years ago, and long since lost, I wrote a masters-level paper on the beginning of the public school system in the U.S. In that paper, I explained, using the founder's own words, that our schools were modeled after Bavarian schools where, because of the Industrial Revolution and the need for factory workers, they didn't educate, but rather schooled children to accept life as servants to the wealthy in their factories.

Those who were chiefly instrumental in the foundation of government-owned public schools were Secular Humanists. They insisted that the schools would become exactly what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

To that extent, one of the founders, John Dunphy, said, "I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith which will replace the rotting corpse of Christianity."  http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=dunphy_21_4

Are we  not seeing the fruits of that effort now as godless fools vote for wickedness and tyranny; security and "free" stuff instead of liberty and prosperity?

You can't remove God from schools without Satan taking His place. If you refuse to believe in Satan, you are a tool in his hands.

Go figure there isn't any respect for life. Why should there be? We have been taught we evolved from a lower, less complicated, life form and there isn't any purpose in living. We celebrate the discovery of something that might be life on Mars as reported by Voyager, but murder a fetus claiming it's not "life".

And that's my soapbox.

I'm still and always
(how boring is that?)
Karl

Barack H. Obama Has Some "Firsts"

I received this in an email and thought it ought to be put on a blog where it could reside in a more-or-less permanent setting. For your reading punishment, I present.

Barack Hussein Obama Has Done More Than Any Other President Before Him with an Impressive List Of Accomplishments:

He Is The FIRST

... Muslim President.

... President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

... President to have a social security number from a state in which he never lived.

... President whose policies resulted in a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

... President to violate the War Powers Act.

... President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

... President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party (health insurance).

... President to spend a trillion dollars on 'shovel-ready' jobs when there was no such thing as 'shovel-ready' jobs, and now there isn't a paper-trail of who actually got the money. None.

... President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

... President to by-pass Congress by implementing "The Dream Act" through executive fiat.

... President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the US, including those with criminal convictions.

... President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

... President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

... President to terminate America 's ability to put a man in space, and therefore, terminate the flow of incredible inventions the space program created, such as emergency blankets that fit in a pocket.

... President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation, and then on the same day, hold a national "Muslim Day of Prayer".

... President to have a law signed by an "auto-pen" without being present; perhaps playing golf.

... President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

... President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.

... President to require huge corporations to not disclose their plans for massive lay-offs until after an election, and blackmail, or bribe them to not tell America WHY they were laying off thousands.

... President to tell a major manufacturing company in which states it is allowed to locate a factory--only states that are not "Right-to-Work".

... President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

... President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago as part of his campaign promise to put them out of business in favor of "green energy" which has no scientific basis for being successful.

... President to promise that energy prices would "inevitably skyrocket" under his plans, and then make it happen, thus leading to him being the first:

... President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

... President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

... President to appoint 45 czars (and counting?) to replace elected officials in his office.

... President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists (card-carrying communists).

... President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 102 to date, which is why he is the first:

... President to miss more than 75% of his security briefings then lie about it and when shown evidence, make excuses about it in true narcissistic fashion.

... President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

... President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

... President who's First Lady wrote a master's thesis that had been removed from circulation because of its racist and prejudicial content, and which is not available to be read by anyone for any reason whatsoever.

... President to go on multiple global "apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

... President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer at the rate of millions of dollars (and counting).

... President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife at a cost of $1,765,000.00 a year (previous 1st ladies had none, until recently. Hillary Clinton had 3; Laura Bush had 1. There were none before then. Hillary's were paid for by the taxpayer; George W. Bush paid Laura's out of his salary).

... President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

... President to repeat verses from the Holy Quran, and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to prayer) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

... President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences", and then was the first:

... President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at his suggestion they pay for their own benefits.

... President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

So, if you read all of them, I ask, "How is hope and change going for you?" For me and my patriotic friends, it really stinks, and the stench is growing because this corrupt man's actions are emboldening our enemies, both within and without our borders.

That hope and change is the result of the only campaign promise he kept, which is to "Fundamentally Change America." He has. We are a socialist country now, just like Greece and most other "free" countries on earth. Every scholar who understands government knows every democracy fails within 200 years. Our founding fathers gave us a Republic, and as Benjamin Franklin warned, "If you can keep it" and we have failed to keep it. Why? Because the stupid, foolish, selfish, and greedy among us have learned that if they vote "left" they get free stuff at everyone else's expense from this "Robin Hood" government that promises to destroy the super rich, which under their definition is anyone who makes an actual living and can provide livings for others. In other words, small business.

Welcome to The Socialist States of America which soon, if  not already, are no longer "United"

---
I'm Karl


I'm sad. I wonder why God kept me back to be born during this time. I have the answer, but it's too personal to put here. Must too personal.

This Isn't The Mitt The Media Portrays!!!

The media has done all in its dishonest, corrupt, immoral, and frankly, evil, power to hide Mitt, and hide Barack Hussein Obama's wicked, vile, evil intentions and lack of character. (for a reference, please see 2016 The Movie, not just that page, but the actual movie. It's epic and is in Obama's own words with his own voice)

Now to the subject of this entry.
(See the original article at Breitbart.com)

MITT HUMILIATES THE MEDIA AND NOW THEY WILL SEEK REVENGE

"Who is this guy?" tens of millions of American voters asked themselves last night. "This isn't the Mitt Romney the media's presented to me over the last six months."


Free of the corrupt media's filter; free of the spin, the lying fact-checkers, the gotchas, and the desperate effort to cover up any and all bad news that might hurt Obama -- by every standard, every measure, every opinion, and every opinion poll, what we witnessed last night at the first presidential debate of 2012 was a commanding, dominating blow-out performance by Governor Mitt Romney.

Last night the GOP contender showed up to kick butt and chew bubblegum, but unfortunately for  Barack Obama, Romney was all out of bubblegum. The real loser, though, was a corrupt mainstream media that had just spent months desperately crafting a Mitt Romney that doesn't exist -- a Mitt Romney voters would not find acceptable as president.

We've all seen what's happened month after month after month after month: Obama's Media Palace Guards have assured us that Romney can do nothing right and Obama can do nothing wrong. This carefully crafted media game-plan (coordinated openly with the Obama campaign) was meant to strip Romney of the single quality voters demand in a president, and that's competence.  If you're not competent, you’re not an acceptable alternative, which means we're going to vote for "the devil we know."

But last night all of this blew up in the media's face, and this morning the American people trust the media even less than they did the night before -- and for one very simple reason: they were lied to … again. Where was the bumbling, elitist, out of touch, awkward, wife-killing, gay-hating, corporate vulture who tortures dogs and stumbles through Europe like Chevy Chase in a "Vacation" sequel?

Well, he didn’t show up last night because that's not who Mitt Romney is. That Mitt Romney is a media creation manufactured out of lies and desperation by those who spend 24 hours a day crafting trip wires, fabricating gaffes, and standing before the elephant of Barack Obama's failures and asking, "What elephant?"

For all of moderator Jim Lehrer's flaws last night, the 78-year-old semi-retired PBS newsman did the only thing we conservatives ask of the media: he mostly stayed out of the way and offered up a fairly level playing field. There were no gotcha questions and no  What about your gaaaaaffes?  To his great credit (though he did try to rescue the president more than once), Lehrer kept the debate in an arena no liberal can win in --and that's on the issues.

Unlike his cretin colleagues, Lehrer was actually interested in the issues that matter. So he asked about taxes, job creation, education, the deficit, and an overall governing philosophy. In other words, he didn't stack the deck to distract from what a horrible philosophy big government liberalism really is. With a rare opportunity like this, if you’re smart, prepared and all out of bubblegum, a conservative can win any debate. Obviously, Mitt Romney not only won last night, he delivered the kind of satisfying drubbing to Barack Obama we conservatives have been waiting four years to savor.

Yes, someone finally was given and took full advantage of the opportunity to point to that little emperor and say to the world, "Look, he's naked!"

And now the lying, biased, corrupt, degenerate mainstream media has a problem on its hands. Because now the whole world knows that they were not only pointing to clothes that didn’t exist but also attempting to destroy anyone who dared cry "Naked!"

In ninety short but delicious and unforgettable minutes, Mitt Romney not only exposed President FailureTeleprompter as the churlish, entitled failure he truly is -- he also destroyed the caricature our thoroughly corrupted media institutions had built around him.

Romney's commanding victory was Reaganesque, and so is the result. In 1980, the media did everything in its power to  scare voters away from Ronald Reagan by portraying him as a scary warmonger. But during his first and only debate with then-President Jimmy Carter, Reagan proved the media a liar.

This is exactly what Romney did last night, but unfortunately, he has two more debates ahead of him. This means that the media has two more kicks at the cat to rescue Obama, and Romney had better be prepared, because the push is already on to ensure he is asked, What about your gaaaafffes?

Even though Obama enjoyed four more minutes to speak than Romney, immediately after last night's debate, the left marched in unison to blame the moderator for not controlling things enough. And this makes perfect sense. Leftists know they can't win on a level playing field. But if the referee takes control,  victory can be had!

This means that for the two upcoming debates, Romney had better be prepared for questions about his dog, Bain, gaffes, wealth, taxes, high school bullying, perfect hair, the mole that wasn't there before, and his disastrously racist victory over Obama in the last debate.

 The author is John Nolte, and you can follow him on Twitter @NolteNC

----

So, that's what I would like to have said, but John said it so well, I thought I'd put it here (and if I am not supposed to, someone will please let me know, right?)

I'm Karl (still, and finding out that I can lose weight - 25 pounds in the past few months)

Awaken Oh Sleeping Giant

I am very sincere when I say that if Mr. Obama wins a second term, we can say goodbye forever to the United States Constitution. There is nothing more important than to make every effort to deny this impostorous fool the chance to complete his self-assumed mandate to fundamentally transform our great nation into another also-ran 3rd-world country. His goal is to make [us|US] pay for all the criminal activity that has put us so far ahead of the rest of the world. He said it himself that he does believe nobody in the US has achieved their greatest successes themselves. If you don't believe this man is evil, you are a fool. -- Karl

Obama's Second Term Transformation Plans

The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.

The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama's first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of "transforming America" in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.

The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.

During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelming controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama worshipping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.

The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.

For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they "shall" do something and more than 200 times when they "may" take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the "Secretary determines." In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014.

The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation's financial, banking and investment sectors. The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled by Barack Obama and his radical associates.

Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.

None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress. The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages.

It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.

Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago style political tactics.

The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists.

The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.

Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g. the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history. In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.

Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? Nobody; Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.

Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism.Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.

The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.

What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them.

Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships.

Steve McCann
May 12, 2012

******

I'm Karl, and I approve Mr. McCann's words as though my approval somehow makes it more valid...
You can find out about him at http://spectator.org/people/steve-mccann/all and read some of his archives at http://www.americanthinker.com/steve_mccann/

I'm not sure if I am able to legitimately re-post this, and if anyone has any information about this and whether I can or not, please leave a comment. I'll do what I can to make it right, even if that means I need to remove this post. --thank you.

2012 Summer Olympics and NBC's alleged broadcast

I love the Olympics. I guess I always have. I say "guess" because I don't know for sure. You see, I wasn't really there when I was a kid.

Is that a confusing comment? Maybe it is. However, if you knew me, you'd realize it's true. I don't know much about the things going on around me. Did I say "don't"? Okay, I meant "didn't". Really.

But once again, which a person with A.D.D. can say often, I digress.

When I was little, I don't think I knew I had siblings. Oh, I knew there were other people in the house where I lived. I also knew how to find my way home. I had friends, too, and we often did things we shouldn't have done. We were boys. Boys always do things they never tell their parents. If you have a boy, ask. My siblings knew I was there. They knew they had a little brother. Of course they did. After all, it was all about me all the time every day of every year, until I got about 18. Oh, and I had a little sister, and of course, she was spoiled rotten. I wasn't. No I Wasn't!

But, during my 19th year (yes, 19th because at the end of that year, I turned 19 but was still 18 throughout the duration. Do the math. First birthday, 0, 2nd birthday, 1, etc. The first birthday was the day I was born, duh.), I went through a change. I started understanding that Christ died for me. I knew that there were girls, and if I was to have any like me, I better learn how to keep other people happy.

You might ask me, "How does the sacrifice Christ made relate to girls?" It's really quite simple. Christ died that I might live. I can't have a girl love me, unless I give all I have, short of my life, to keep her happy. I also learned that with some, that's just not enough. They just can't seem to be kept happy. They need your blood, sweat and tears, too. Of course, I learned to give that, too, and still it wasn't enough for some of them. Oh well. Their loss.

Now back to the Olympics, or rather, NBC's alleged coverage thereof.

NBC SUCKS!

Anyone who has ever watched MSNBC (or as Rush Limbaugh rightly calls them, PMS-NBC), knows they are unabashed progressives who think anyone who isn't is a "hold onto their guns and god" losers. Of course they are the minority, but while they have viewers, they will continue in their arrogance.

As I've watched the Summer Olympics, I'm well beyond disappointed in their coverage. They can't do a single sport without making stupid comments that show they have no respect for their viewers' intelligence. Well, either that or they have none of their own, and aren't ashamed to put it on display.

One very intelligent comment was something to the effect, speaking of a gymnast when she was very young, "and all her friends where just kids!" No, really?! Her friends that were her own age, were kids? Holy cow, how could that be? Just kids? I thought maybe they were adults, like she was...

Okay, I've left the uh... best, for last.

The videography. I can't call it that without feeling like I've insulted videographers.

How many nose-pore-close shots of the ONE athlete they have decided to focus on do we have to see before we feel claustophobic? Really NBC. Get off it already! AND, the athlete they have chosen to focus on, with a very slight mention of the other athletes in the event, often doesn't even win!

It would be a little different if the athlete they were focusing on was even from the United States. I mean, aren't they an American network? Aren't they? Honestly, I think they work for either the United Nations, or the International Olympic Organizing Committee, or even just olympic.com (the official website of the olympic movement) and really have no allegiance for the country that gives them the freedom to be morons.

Okay, be honest. Aren't you sick of looking up athlete's noses, or at their butt when they bend over? I wonder how clever the engineers in the trucks think they are for leaving those shots onscreen so long?


If they broadcast the Olympics next time, I'll not watch. It's the least I can do.

About the olympics themselves. I really need to leave my competitiveness at home (figuratively speaking because I always watch them at home) because though I love watching the non-sports sports, such as diving and gymnastics, I still hate the judging. I know enough to see when a participant has been given poor marks, and I still believe that the judges mark participants from non-socialist countries lower than those from the countries that are communist. Maybe that's just me.

Of course, I also notice when a participant from one of the non-free countries are marked below their performance. I don't like unfairness no matter who gets the short end of judging. I do like the new scoring they use in gymnastics. It's much better than the "10" point scoring of the past. If they had the current scoring back in the iron curtain/eastern bloc days, Nadia Comaneci would not have scored a perfect "10". That's my belief anyway. I saw a video of her uneven parallel bar routine and I saw several deductions.

The problem with any "judged" sport is simply this: the judges get carried away with the enthusiasm of the spectators. I know how that feels because I was a high school football and basketball official for 14 and 10 years, respectively. Because there are rules and I knew them almost cold, I wasn't influenced as much as if I had been a gymnastics judge, which I could have been. I learned how to judge, but didn't get, or go looking for, the opportunity.

Before I leave the judged sports, back to NBC. Why in the world when an American wins the 10 meter platform gold medal, don't they show the medal ceremony? And even when they have shown the ceremony, why haven't they shown more than one person getting awarded their medal? Do they think we don't care to see the whole ceremony? I am so disappointed I can't stand it. This is fresh on my mind because I just watched David Boudia win the gold medal, and NBC didn't show the medal ceremony. I'm convinced they hate the anthem, and more, the country itself.

It's my opinion, and I've seen significant agreement in the world, that the judged sports aren't really sports because you can't ever know who actually wins. The winners are based on nonobjective judgments made by silly, fallible humans. In real sports, there's a score, or a measured outcome. We know who wins a footrace because they are the first one across the finish line. We know who wins a football, hockey, basketball, or baseball game because they scored more.

On a different topic, but back to the olympics. I wonder when a broadcasting company will have the honesty, and morality, to show how wicked and vile the olympics has become. Did you know the olympic people provide condoms for the athletes in the village? See this article and you'll find out more than you wanted to know about the debauchery found there. Yes, debauchery. The Romans had nothing on these folks.

I'm sorry to end on a negative thought. Life is like that, isn't it... (not a question)

Back to what I started with about me as a kid:  I will be who I will be, and will do what I will do because I'm me, and I [finally] know who I am. It took years, but I finally know. I worry about those around me who don't know themselves and have to rely on the opinions of those around them, and also worry if those opinions aren't positive, or don't make them feel good.

And again, I'm Karl...

Taxes are Hidden to Protect the Guilty - From US

One word: Disgusting!

Why do I feel that word is apropos? Because it is. It just is.

I am catching up on bills today. My bride is with her Dad who is in hospice after having a stroke, and she would usually do it while I'm at work. Well, I'm not at work because I had bladder surgery last week, and instead of healing right, I'm still bleeding, so am at home "resting"...

In any case, I am a nerd, spending an unusual amount of time with my phalanges hovering and jerking over a digital input mechanism. Yes, I live with my computer, or in this case, a Dell M90 (yes, it's pretty awesome, and it was a gift! which is the best kind of awesome - and I want a motorcycle and pickup truck next...).

The point of that was to help me lead into this: I got online to check on everything I could about the bills I was going to pay.

What we do, or rather the services we offer at http://ourldsfamily.com cost us money. I'm only going to write about our internet bill today.

For us, internet and phone are the same thing because our internet is DSL and goes over our phone line, so I go to Centurylink's website. They have online chat. I got busy chatting to someone named Brandi. She helped me figure out that I don't want them as my ISP. I knew that already but she didn't. XMission has been incredible for years.

The point is, she found that I was paying $8.98/mo for long distance. I don't need no stinking long distance for my land line, and haven't for years. Cell phones are great. Plus, I thought they took that off my bill years ago!

Yes, I'm ticked off. At Myself! Dorknoided freak-a-zoid.

So Brandi, who is now my friend, removed it for me. During that process I had to tell her more than I figured I ought to because to start the chat I had to tell her everything necessary for her to know I owned the account. After I had given her everything, including my blood type, she told me "there is a one-time charge to make this change. It's required by the federal government. It's $5.50. It will appear on your next bill."

What!?!? Are you serious? I have to PAY A NEW TAX to have long distance removed? What in the world for? (imagine you can hear the sound of crickets)

Oh yes. I know. Because they can, and we are too stupid to fight them about it.

Well, someone better fight. If someone doesn't get this sort of thing stopped, there's going to be blood in the streets.

The government figured out long, long ago that if they hide the taxes, we won't cry. They were right. Now there are little taxes, conveniently called "one time fees" hidden in everything we do, including removing an extra charge from our phone bill.

Currently, the United States (and every other industrialized country in the world) is peopled by a bunch of dunderheaded morons who couldn't fill a teacup if their combined IQs were added together and converted into rat urine.

Yes, I'm Karl.

Yes, I'm annoyed today.
PS. I didn't give Brandi my blood type. She already has her own. No really...

My Health At Age 57

I don't know if this is wise.

Actually, it probably isn't.

So why am I writing this? So I can have it in writing.

I turned 57 on Jan 12, 2012, which was three weeks ago, plus a few days.

First, I'm what's called a pseudo-hemophiliac, which means I have one of the non-major forms of a hemorrhagic diathesis. It's called Von Willebrands Disease. That's the most minor thing as I grow older, though is potentially serious should I get in an accident...

I've had 5 surgeries on my eyes with 12 total (including eye surgeries). In the eye category, I've had 3 cornea transplants (one wore out) and a cataract implant. The other surgery was to remove a cyst given to me by a 3-year-old sunbeam while he sat on my lap when Betty and I team-taught his class. He raised his arms suddenly, hitting me in the eye with his thumbnail and cutting it. I had a visit and was given an anti-biotic, however the cut was deeper and a pocket of infection stayed... That's the short version.

The other surgeries are my knees, a shoulder, an angio-plasty and a back surgery. I can't remember the other 2 but will after I post this, should I be inclined to think about it.

There's some history. Yes, abridged and missing incidentals.

Currently I have a degenerative bone issue. So far I've lost 1.5 inches of height, and the increasing pressure on the spinal column is causing enough pain that when I don't take pain medications I slip into a pain-induced depression that is worse if I do anything physical at all with sharp pains in seemingly unrelated parts of my extremities... and elsewhere, too.

That and having been diagnosed with diabetes during the past few months. Last night my bgl (blood glucose level) dropped to 84 and I thought I was going to die. Since 84 is in the normal range of 80-120, I felt miserable because my bgl has been so high for so long and I wasn't used to it being 'normal'.

So, I'm not medicating for diabetes as my diet seems to be working well, however it's frustrating not to be able to eat what I want, especially when my employer is now stocking the place with free pop, juice, cocoa, water, etc...

But other than having to take 1600mg of gabapentin (generic for Fanatrex, Gabarone, Gralise, Horizant, Neurontin), 60mg to 180mg of codeine and then 50mg to 150mg of tramadol (generic for Ultram, Rybix, Ryzolt) every 4 hours exactly, so as much as 5 times a day if I don't get much sleep, which is common. I can't sleep more than 8 hours or I have trouble getting up in the morning because of the pain I grow during the night. Oh, and I take a double dose of Allertec, Costco's generic for Zyrtec, ever day. And if I get stung by a wasp/hornet (and I don't know what else), I have to take a bunch of Benedryl and get medical help, "just in case".

I used to sleep in on Saturdays, but now it appears I sleep in, however it's because I stay up later on Friday nights so I can take one last dose, then go to bed, which means 8 hours later is between 9am and 10am, which is how late I slept when I would actually sleep in. I would get to bed earlier than 1am or 2am back then.

So, I have to lose weight, and I think if I make that happen, which I am a little at a time, my diabetes will go away to come back when I'm older than my current age, which I indelicately pointed out above.

So there you are. Boring stuff to all but me and my sweetheart. She's worried sick about me and is certain she can heal me by changing my diet. Hopefully she's right. There is one more thing I get to suffer, but which is a delicate subject I hate to share. Suffice it to say one of the side effects of the drugs I take is that I give birth every 4 or 5 days to a concrete brick that pinches and tears it's way along the old alimentary canal. That's a recent development as well.

I have a good doctor who is uncomfortable with the amounts of drugs I take, however is prescribing them on the word of the neurologist he referred me to, who he told me before I went, is the only one he knows that isn't nuts. She is cute, however, but unfortunately a bit of a bimbo, too. It's embarrassing, actually, and makes both my wife and I uncomfortable. I don't need to see a cute little Vietnamese neurologist's cleavage when I need a serious discussion about my "18 year old's brain and nerves" as she puts it.

I don't have a lot of confidence in her, however, because the nerve conduction test she did where she put electrodes on my body here and there, then ran electricity through them to see where the nerves have issues, did something strange to me which she ignored. My right arm almost tickled, but my left arm just about killed me. It was agonizingly painful. She said they were the same. How can that be? I brought that up to my regular doctor and he explained that the test just measures nerve conduction, not how painful that conduction is. Ah, so the fact that one hurt like the dickens and the other didn't has nothing to do with conduction? Go figure.

But, back to her comment about me having nerves and brains that test out to be only 18 years old. I guess as we age, things dim, so it stands to reason that "younger brains feel stronger pains", as I just thought of and said (wrote). So it's obvious to anyone who knows me that my nerves and brain never grew up! Dang, huh? But there you go. I guess I have always known my brain never grew up and figure it never will. So, as my brain goes, so do I.

Of course, she pointed out a couple spots on my brain that will eventually cause a stroke, which is awesome, right? Uh? - - no.

Okay, now I'm done with this little diatribe, however there are things I didn't cover, like my doctor prescribing enough so I can experiment with larger and smaller doses and different combinations and etc, etc, etc... I think I about have it figured out. I may quit the tramadol and take a lot of the gabapentin and codeine, plus the other stuff, like B-12, which I have to have to think at all, and a B-complex, eye-specific thing, and some other stuff too annoying to go look at and figure out better.

I really don't think I can go through writing all this again, so may just copy and paste if I want to do a new entry on this nonsense. Better yet, I'll just edit this one and let good enough stay here.

Update on 2012.08.11 during the last weekend of the London Summer Olympics.
I am now going to a Korean Acupuncturist. I have begun to think it's making me worse. I'm in more pain, and now the medicines are starting to make me just fall asleep without warning. I'll be typing, and next thing I know, my eyes open and I've typed a bunch of whatever character is under my heaviest fingers. It is making me nervous, and wondering whether I'll survive another year. Who knows... There's more, but some things can't be written down. They are too personal for this forum. Maybe I'll write them in my Google Drive journal. Yes, that's where they go. So no end yet...