Exercise

What it takes to discourage Democratic voters

"Apparently all it takes is six years of economic torpor; the disastrous debut of the biggest new federal program in two generations; record levels of federal debt; revelations of scandals and malfeasance at the Veterans Administration, the IRS, the Secret Service, and the Justice Department; Russian revanchism on the march; a rampaging army of (literal) cutthroats gobbling up territory in the Middle East; and the feeble and patronizing government response to a modern plague." Mona Charen.

But all the polls show voters still think the Democrats care more about them. If this is caring, go love on someone else!

During the Great Depression when the economy would start to perk up, FDR would get some bloated socialist program passed, and the economy would sink again.  Ten years he did this, yet Democrats still think he is a saint because Grandpa was sent to the woods to built cabins or grandma got a ten cent raise.  Although I think the Ebola thing has been way over publicized, we see that it has lessened respect and faith in the president, who sits on his hands and worries about West African economies when our stock market got shaky just from the damage to airlines. Then he appoints a political hack to be the Ebola czar.   No one, except maybe Rachel Maddow has faith in him.

Hate speech and Houston

Gay marriage, confused restrooms and hate speech packaged ordinances such as Houston's will not be the end of it, folks. There is hate speech legislation that includes 30 forms of sexual behavior, many of which I didn't know existed such as klismaphilia and gerontosexuality, as well as pedophilia and incest. H.R.1913 - Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

• Apotemnophilia - sexual arousal associated with the stump(s) of an Amputee
• Asphyxophilia - sexual gratification derived from activities that involve oxygen deprivation through hanging, strangulation, or other means
• Autogynephilia - the sexual arousal of a man by his own perception of himself as a woman or dressed as a woman
• Bisexual - the capacity to feel erotic attraction toward, or to engage in sexual interaction with, both males and females.
• Coprophilia - sexual arousal associated with feces
• Exhibitionism - the act of exposing one’s genitals to an unwilling observer to obtain sexual gratification
• Fetishism/Sexual Fetishism - obtaining sexual excitement primarily or exclusively from an inanimate object or a particular part of the body
• Frotteurism - approaching an unknown woman from the rear and pressing or rubbing the penis against her buttocks
• Heterosexuality - the universal norm of sexuality with those of the opposite sex
• Homosexual/Gay/Lesbian - people who form sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with members of their own gender
• Gender Identity Disorder - a strong and persistent cross-gender identification, which is the desire to be, or the insistence that one is, or the other sex, "along with" persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex or a sense of the inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex
• Gerontosexuality - distinct preference for sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with an elderly partner
• Incest - sex with a sibling or parent
• Kleptophilia - obtaining sexual excitement from stealing
• Klismaphilia - erotic pleasure derived from enemas
• Necrophilia - sexual arousal and/or activity with a corpse
• Partialism - A fetish in which a person is sexually attracted to a specific body part exclusive of the person
• Pedophilia - Sexual activity with a prepubescent child (generally age 13 years or younger). The individual with pedophilia must be age 16 years or older and at least 5 years older than the child. For individuals in late adolescence with pedophilia, no precise age difference is specified, and clinical judgment must be used; both the sexual maturity of the child and the age difference must be taken into account; the adult may be sexually attracted to opposite sex, same sex, or prefer either
• Prostitution - the act or practice of offering sexual stimulation or intercourse for money
• Sexual Masochism - obtaining sexual gratification by being subjected to pain or humiliation
• Sexual Sadism - the intentional infliction of pain or humiliation on another person in order to achieve sexual excitement
• Telephone Scatalogia - sexual arousal associated with making or receiving obscene phone calls
• Toucherism - characterized by a strong desire to touch the breast or genitals of an unknown woman without her consent; often occurs in conjunction with other paraphilia
• Transgenderism - an umbrella term referring to and/or covering transvestitism, drag queen/king, and transsexualism
• Transsexual - a person whose gender identity is different from his or her anatomical gender
• Transvestite - a person who is sexually stimulated or gratified by wearing the clothes of the other gender
• Transvestic Fetishism - intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving cross-dressing
• Urophilia - sexual arousal associated with urine
• Voyeurism - obtaining sexual arousal by observing people without their consent when they are undressed or engaged in sexual activity
• Zoophilia/Bestiality - engaging in sexual activity with animals

APA's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," Fourth Edition, Text Revision (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), pp. 566-582 (DSM-IV)

A plan to increase welfare by raising the minimum

The Democrats are on a roll again, lying about income, wealth and the minimum wage.  The Obama economy has only done well for the wealthiest, so of course they are demanding increase in minimum wage.  Walmart union led protests this week are saying $15, some $20 an hour. Minimum wage workers account for 4.7 percent of hourly paid workers and 1.1% of all workers and there are more women, and most are part time. Most companies will have to cut employees and when it doesn’t work, the demands will only increase.  And this is sort of an evil plan, because that means fewer teens working and learning job skills, therefore, more poorly prepared adults, and larger welfare rolls to vote Democrat. See how it works? When I worked at minimum wage I was probably not even worth that, but some employers decided I had a future and could be trained. Thank you Mayor Zickuhr, Mt. Morris Public Library and Foxbilt Feeds.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130325.htm

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers earn raises within a year—without the government’s help.

The average family income of a minimum-wage worker is $53,000 a year, less than the national average of $79,500 a year but well above the poverty level.

Sometimes it’s what you DON’T do that saves the environment

Don’t release balloons at parties and weddings and community celebrations.

Speaking of Ebola

While you've got exotic diseases on your mind, Chikungunya Virus which is spread by mosquitoes has now arrived in Florida from the Caribbean. You don't die, but it sure hurts. Also, how's this for speedy food safety investigations. Live swamp eels have been shipped to the U.S. from Asia since the 1990s for ethnic food markets, and now a study shows 27.7% of them are infected with some nasty nematodes which can transmit Gnathostomiasis. Vision loss, blindness, pain, paralysis, coma and death.  As reported in JAMA

Two female publicity hounds

There are two women whose stories are making the rounds of the internet, twitter and Facebook.  It’s hard to tell just how much they’ve generated since these stories are “shared” and passed along by multiple people, which could account for how recently I see them. But I think they are publicity hounds.

One is planning her suicide because she has a fatal illness. Famous and not so famous are pleading with her, telling her life can be good. 

The other is planning her abortion with writing a tender, loving letter to her baby who she is planning to kill because this just isn’t the right time.  I figure she’s angling for money and when the offer is high enough, she’ll take it.

I’m not giving them any publicity by providing a link, photo, or name.

Houston, we’ve got a problem

There are apparently some government officials in Houston who haven't read the Constitution and don't know the history of clerics in the Revolution, elimination of slavery, the Civil Rights movement, every war protest, and construction of every social agency from schools to hospitals. Somehow they've gotten the idea pastors can't preach morality and politics from the pulpit. That should surprise the ones preaching about climate change and income gap, which is also the topic of many (boring) sermons and church workshops.  I wish I had $5 for every sermon I heard against the Viet Nam war in the 1970s.

The mayor of Houston is a tyrant and bigot. Transgenders now think THEY are being thrown under the bus because they might not have open-to-all toilets if she backs down.

http://allenbwest.com/2014/10/christian-persecution-us-openly-gay-houston-mayor-demands-pastors-turn-sermons/

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/

Hearty Breakfast Muffins (Carol Shaw Johnston)

• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 zucchini, shredded
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (I used low-sugar Craisins)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place paper muffin cups into a 12-muffin pan.

. Mix carrots, banana, zucchini,vegetable oil, yogurt, and eggs together until fully incorporated.

. Whisk flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Mix brown sugar, oats, coconut, pecans, cherries, cinnamon,salt, and ginger into flour mixture until all ingredients are coated in flour.Stir wet ingredients into flour mixture until just combined. Scoop batter into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean and edges are slightly brown, 17 to 22 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

What has NIH done with funding specifically for preparedness and biosurveillance?

The NIH has already been given massive amounts of money beginning with post Katrina funding to handle the situation we have now with Ebola.  Where has the money gone?

Here’s what’s covered in the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013

• National Health Security Strategy
• Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
• National Advisory Committee on Children and Disasters
• Modernization of the National Disaster Medical System
• Temporary reassignment of State and local personnel during a public health emergency
• Improving State and local public health security
• Hospital preparedness and medical surge capacity
• Enhancing situational awareness and biosurveillance
• Enhancing medical countermeasure review
• Accelerating medical countermeasure advanced research and development

“The 2013 law builds on work the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken to advance national health security. These include authorizing funding for public health and medical preparedness programs, such as the Hospital Preparedness Program and the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement. These programs build the capabilities of communities’ health care and public health systems to support people in need during and after disasters.

Thousands of hospitals and communities across the country participate in these programs, and because of this participation they now have stronger capabilities and better planning to respond to disasters. They regularly exercise and conduct drills. They are building partnerships across their communities so that if parts of the infrastructure are overwhelmed by disaster, the system can still provide care. Using these programs over the past seven years to strengthen health systems and build coalitions, states have been able to handle in a number of disasters on their own without federal responders.”

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/03/20130313a.html

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr307/text

More lies about the Founders—left is working overtime

No, democracy wasn't invented by the Founding Fathers nor the indigenous peoples, who had many cultures and languages. They relied on many sources not only in Europe, but the Bible and all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. No one ever learned the nonsense of this straw man poster misinformation which first tells a lie, then reports to correct the lie. Also, we don't have a Democracy, we have a Republic. The Founders were brilliant men with flaws who knew they stood on the shoulder of giants. We have tiny shriveled gnomes today who don't think, plan or read history, whose ideas are rooted in Marxism and the divine right of kings.

Yes, the archives belong to the victors as we say in the library field, however, we are fortunate to have many original documents, although well hidden and disguised in government schools today. There was a real fascination with everything Indian if you check 19th sources. And if you go back to 16th and 17th c. sources, some Europeans were horrified by the behavior and culture they found--and obviously saw their own culture as superior (although not by our enlightened, humanist standards where we sacrifice the unborn for personal gain but not usually living children).

Contrary to popular belief, Obama’s speeches rate at the bottom of the presidential scale

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/study-obamas-rhetorical-superiority-myth

I checked several sources for this story. The liberal ones claim that Bush and Obama were equally elementary in the speeches and today no one would be able to understand the complex speech and references of the pre-1920 politicians. But others say Bush's speeches were better. Actually, it's the speech writers, with the politician putting in his own touch. I find Obama's mannerisms, teleprompter dependence and stammering very distracting, as were Bush's facial quirks and folksy good ol' boy mannerisms. But Bush was an avid reader of history, biography and politics--Obama depends on hip hop music on his I-pod and it showed.

https://www.vocativ.com/interactive/usa/us-politics/presidential-readability/

I took a writing class a few years ago at Lakeside in which the instructor told us the most difficult vocabulary and complex constructions were on the sports page of the newspaper. I was once a speech writer for an Ohio female politician. It's not that hard to learn the cadence and style of a speaker by reviewing previous speeches. But you do need to consider the audience.  Speaking to a conference of state workers was different than speaking to a gathering of unemployed workers who were over 55 (the area I was working in).

Do you know what day it is?

Today, October 15, we celebrate the end of the Siege of Vienna in 1529 by the Ottoman Caliphate under The Sultan Suleiman. Buck Sexton says, "Consider it the anniversary of the West refusing to go quietly into the long cold night at the hands of the Islamic conquest almost 500 years ago...."   I'm not sure it's worth too much celebrating. The Muslims were persistent and there was another famous battle in 1683 to take the West.

http://4freedoms.com/group/austria/forum/topics/the-siege-of-vienna-in-1529

http://www.wien-vienna.com/vienna1683.php

Spin and fear equal hysteria

I hate the way Ebola is being politicized, both by the right and the left. There's a Democrat action group that's made a ridiculous ad about the GOP causing this with the budget when the CDC did zip nada zilch about a disease known since 1976 and had it's budget line increased. And on the opposing team paranoid Christian survivalists are claiming Obama is launching germ warfare because he hates us. They are making the loony left look almost normal. Millions are dying of AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa; we have hysterical people in the U.S. who are refusing vaccines for measles, mumps, polio, diphtheria, HPV and seasonal flu. Add to that the biggest killer in the U.S. is not bacteria or viruses, but lifestyle diseases--alcohol, drugs, tobacco, overeating, sexual promiscuity and couch surfing--things we actually DO control. Plus there are those among us who believe we are mini-gods and can control the climate and viruses and bacteria. Really, it's like living in the dark ages. The news media pile on like ants at a picnic spreading fear and misinformation. I’ve been awake about an hour and have heard about the 2nd hospital employee with Ebola at least 10 times.

A different viewpoint on technology

Domestic violence among gays and lesbian couples

It's not easy to find reliable statistics on domestic abuse and battering within the gay community (it's quite a bit higher than among heterosexual couples), in part because they've been afraid to report it, or societal factors are blamed, and more recently there is the not so subtle threat of homophobia if anyone researches it. But this paper has some good resources.

https://www.rit.edu/cla/criminaljustice/sites/rit.edu.cla.criminaljustice/files/docs/WorkingPapers/2009/2009-16.pdf

http://thehairpin.com/2012/08/run-anyway

HIV, Ebola, and spending

This is government speak to absolve individuals who spread this disease of all responsibility.

"Creating an AIDS-free generation will require shared responsibility, including that of partner governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector, civil society, and faith-based organizations, among others."

Yet when a nurse who gave her best to help a dying Ebola patient comes down with the disease, SHE violated protocol.

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife announced Tuesday they are donating $25 million to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control foundation to fight the Ebola crisis. Wow. That's spitting into the wind. Why not give it to a church or charity who actually do something like building hospitals and training local medical staff, or to pharmaceutical R & D companies developing a vaccine or cure? WHO estimates that between 40% and 70% of African health facilities are the property of or managed by Catholic churches. I'm sure they could use some help now that treating Ebola is interfering with other health concerns like malaria, TB and AIDS. Or, since so many Liberian doctors and nurses have died from Ebola, perhaps he could fund their replacements. $25 million for CDC is chump change.

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Think we spend too much on other countries' health problems? When asked, many Americans guess 28% of our budget goes to foreign aid, but it's actually less than 1%. G.W. Bush really pushed the envelop increasing U.S. global health funding from $1.7 billion to $8.2 billion; Obama? Not so much. It's at $8.7 billion. But let's say it's roughly $9 billion. Sounds like a lot on my pension, but that's out of $4 TRILLION, or less than 1%. The largest amounts go to Africa, and most is for HIV ($4.9 billion); very little for "neglected tropical diseases" like Ebola. Also, since the Democrats came into power, some foreign aid is dependent on those countries accepting our anti-family, birth control programs. So don't believe all the hate ads you're seeing from the Democrats that stingy Republicans are to blame for Ebola. The CDC share of the health budget actually went up. (Statistics from Kaiser Family Foundation, published in JAMA, April 23/30, 2014; editorial comments are my own)

http://kff.org/infographic/visualizing-health-policy-a-snapshot-of-us-global-health-funding/

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-kicks-25-million-ebola-n225381

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2007/np05/en/

No reduction in emergency room visits under Obamacare

Don’t expect use of emergency departments to drop after Obamacare is fully implemented.  A recent study of the Massachusetts system show that ER visits increased after insurance reforms.

“Insured white patients younger than 65 years accounted for 62.7% of emergency visits before reforms went into effect and 64.2% afterward. In the same age group, insured black patients accounted for 12% of emergency visits before the reforms and 13.9% afterward. The largest increase was among Medicaid patients younger than 65 years, who accounted for 23.6% of emergency department patients before the reforms went into effect compared with 29.7% afterward.”

http://newsatjama.jama.com/2014/03/20/emergency-visits-up-in-massachusetts-after-reforms-enacted/

Whatever happened to Born Again Redneck?

He had a great blog—can’t find anything after 2012.  Conservative, libertarian gay man who commented on politics and home décor.  I think his real name is Patrick Joubert Conlon.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman chose not to remain quarantined