Environmentalism, Conservation, Animal Rights, & Stewardship

The difference between Environmentalism/Animal Rights and Conservation/Stewardship is that one is espoused by Progressive Politicians, Neo-Hippies, and members of the Glitterati and the other is lived day by day by people with Jobs and Families and Taxes and Bills to pay.

Part 1- Natural Resources Conservation

  Al Gore wakes up in the morning in his palatial estate, no doubt filled with all the opulence and decadence that being the worlds first Green Billionaire can provide, He is driven in his gas guzzling Limousine to his private Jet and flown to his destination where another Limo invariably picks him up for his speech about our Carbon Footprints (whatever that really means).  Meanwhile, Joe Blow gets up in the morning in his 1200 sq. foot house that was built in the fifties and walks to the bus station to get to his job collecting trash on the back of a truck or works in  a recycling business for aluminum cans, or works for a business that converts used oil into a useful product.  Who is actually doing  more for the environment?

  

Environmentalists chain themselves to trees and lie down in front of logging equipment.  Conservationists know that unless the deadfall and diseased trees are harvested they pose a serious risk of spreading fires when a lightning strike happens and choke out new growth.  Environmentalists stage protests and wield megaphones; Conservationists plant saplings after logging an area.  Environmentalists scream save the bison, save the wolves, save the polar bears, save the seals.  Conservationists know that when humans start living in an area that animals are going to have to be controlled, that is part of our responsibility as humans.  In order to control the Bison herds we have to help their population.  Bison do not know that they are supposed to stay in the parks.  They spread, this brings them and the domestic cattle into contact which is not healthy for either side (bison carry diseases that we vaccinate for in cattle, and  yet cattle can give bison diseases that are not normally in a bison herd) 

Everyone loves wolves, but wolves want to eat things.

We control the herd animals that wolves like to eat, so wolves want to eat domestic cattle, so we control the wolf population because if we didn’t they would a) starve and b) get into trouble in towns and cities.

Look at the Mountain Lion situation in California, California in its’ vast wisdom prohibits hunting mountain lions and yet opens up bicycle and hiking paths in prime Mountain Lion real estate.  The result, Mountain Lions have killed several bikers, hikers, and kids in the last decade.  We don’t want the mountain lion to go extinct, but clearly we do not want them eating our citizenry.  We also like for people to have recreation in the outdoors.  It is called Risk Management: you have to weigh the situation out and make appropriate decisions.  If the available habitat can easily support X mountain lions and we have 2X mountain lions in the habitat alongside people, guess what, Kitties are going to eat Folks.  So the solution is remove the people or remove an appropriate number of cats.  California needs revenue and hunters would pay money to take care of their cat problem.  It would be a Capitalist solution.  Or, they can continue to do what they are doing which is to have the fish and game folks to live trap the cat and put it somewhere else or kill it themselves at an expense.  Control the population and make money doing it, or control the population and spend money doing it. Hard Choices.  Of course, if we let hunters do it, there will be people in the  California woods and trails with GUNS, and apparently that is scarier than getting eaten by a big cat.   The more looney of the environmentalist herd believe that the Human population is the one that needs controlled.  Clearly we do have choices to make: We can limit our population, or limit and manage wildlife populations.  I am not willing to kill humans so there can safely be more deer.  That is the difference between conservation/stewardship and animal rights/environmentalism.  

Same deal with Polar Bears and Seals and every other critter.  Common sense management goes a long way.  This is why we have deer seasons, left unchecked deer would become a pestilence and their genetics would seriously suffer.  Hunting is part and parcel of good wildlife management.

Part II- Food Production:

I watched a program on animal production recently and the whole thing made me so irritated that I have not even been able to process it until now.  Let me talk a minute about animal production, specifically Hog and Poultry.  In the old days of Hog farming a farmer turned all the hogs loose out on the open range.  You marked your hog’s ears with a knife so you could sort out yours and everyone else’s later and let them fend for themselves.  The result was that the meat quality was different than we are now used to, and it was a willy nilly business with the genetics being decided by the hogs.  Now hogs are raised in houses and due to improvements in their diet and genetics grow rapidly and can be turned into delicious bacon in a short period of time. Likewise, poultry farming is now a big business instead of something that the Farmer’s wife does.  All of this means that we can feed more people and do it cheaper than ever before.  It also means that since the animals are in close proximity they are a little more susceptible to disease so many times they are given antibiotics in their food as a preventative measure.  This has the Neo-Hippies in a major uproar.

They see the antibiotics as the reason little Billy and little Sally are fatso’s (like me)…and believe it has nothing to do with the preparation of the food or the lack of exercise in Billy and Sally’s lives.  So if you follow the (il)logic:  antibitoics are bad, only necessary because the animals are too close, cramming animals together is bad for their mental well being.  So they propose to make laws requiring a certain space for every animal and to prohibit feeding animals antibiotics.  The Danish have discovered that they can get a hog just a big without antibiotics if they don’t put them too close together and give them more food.  Wel…DUH! of course they can.  The goal is not to get the hog bigger than they would normally get.  The goal is the get them that way Faster, and Cheaper.  People don’t like pictures of hogs and chickens in houses, and yet, they don’t like 8 dollar value meals and 6 dollar a pound bacon either.  Europeans don’t know the difference, their bacon has always been 12 dollars a pound (don’t quote me on exact numbers I know meat is exorbitant in Europe and that is my only point.)

Which brings me to my last point on the Hog and Poultry rant portion of this post.   If you regulate that every hog has to have X amount of living space or Lebensraum (a nice Nazi German word there) that will also translate into transportation space.  Now instead of 100 hogs going to the slaughterhouse in a truck, we will have 25.  Meaning we will need 4 times as many trucks and 4 times as much oil being used.  But that won’t raise prices at all will it?  Remember…we are going to EAT them anyway.

I am NOT saying it is ok to mistreat animals.  I love animals, and when I hunt, I understand that I am killing something, and there is a responsibility when I remove something from the circle of life to do it in a beneficial and humane way.  I also do not want to see an animal made needlessly uncomfortable or injured even right before I shoot it in the head, cut its’ throat,  and cut it up into pork chops and nuggets…but for Pete's sakes it is FOOD.  While researching pictures for this post I found a graph by some Neo-Hippie group that claimed in all seriousness that Vultures kill more Cattle than Wolves and Bears.  Vultures…!  Vultures DO NOT predate on cattle, they are SCAVENGERS…ridiculous.  But other folks will see that crap and take it at face value because they do not know better.

Farmers,  Ranchers, Outdoorsmen, and Arborists have been and continue to do  more to further Wildlife’s wellbeing and Animal Science/Food Production than the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, PETA, or Pam Anderson’s big boobies ever will.  Why do we listen to people who don’t raise animals, and do not live near the wild when it comes to raising animals and managing wildlife?

  Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs says it very very well and I think has his finger right on the issue:

“Like my friends who espouse all things  Green, I want to live on a healthy planet. I really do. But I’m tired of the guilt; I’m suspicious of the manipulation. And I’m weary of being lectured by people who seem to care more about the planet than the people on it. Hollywood and Washington have shaped the issue, and now, all things Eco-friendly are up for sale. Well, that’s fine. But when it comes to jobs, the people who make a difference aren’t covered in green. They’re covered in Brown – dirt, mud, grime, grease, or maybe something worse. I’m no expert, but if we’re going to save the Earth, the color of Dirt makes a heck of a lot more sense than the color of Envy. The way I see it, if we really want to get clean and green, we’re gonna have to get down with brown. In other words, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty.”

Well said Mike, well said.

-KOOK

Sycophancy Should Not Be a Resume Enhancer

"What’s really going on, I think, is that the nature of class war has changed. The old virus has mutated. The old social and political divisions have given way to two new classes — rather as on the trains. Those in economy are most of us, paying for the comforts of those in first class. And those in first class are the new political class — all those who owe their advancement and their security and their pensions and their privileges not to their backgrounds or their talents, or even necessarily their political parties, but to the state and our taxes."

Minette Marrin.

I think she is on top something and though this author is British and writing in reference to Britain the same phenomenon is reaching the shores of the United States. As Americans, we reject largely, the idea of nobility. Particularly special status granted by birth right or favor. We, largely, reject the notion of special status by way of unearned and undeserved privilege.

Yet, we can see it and sense it in the halls of our governments, in the schools of our communities and in the offices of our civic leaders. It is exactly the disgust we feel toward such a system that is fueling the tea party movements. Everyday, ordinary Americans, incidentally the people who have made this country the engine of the world, are recognizing that the world of the ivy leaguer and the VIP by political favor is worse off than the world would be if ran by Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Main Street. They also see that they are the people solely responsible for funding this orgy of incompetence sure to bring about heir own demise. They are funding their own destruction and they want it to stop.

Americans will entertain the notion of nobility only so far. They accept the movie stars and their offspring living lives of opulence. Maybe because of the knowledge that so many have come from nothing and so many never will enter that stratosphere. Maybe, too, because they receive something in return, diversion and entertainment. They also have a sort of schadenfreude when they see through the tabloid windows that all is not perfect in the lives of opulence. On some level, too, exists a knowledge that their wealth and prestige is earned through some control of the consumer. We choose whether to dish out ten bucks for the latest Brad Pitt box office release or to pay $17 for the Miley Cyrus t-shirt.

We also accept our Bill Gates and Steve Jobs model moguls. Largely self made men or women who won the lottery of life through determination, skill, smarts, timing, intuition and luck. People who, in turn, have brought us products or services that have revolutionized our lives for the better. Again, we got something out of the equation. Millions of others road their backs to lesser but still beyond their dreams standards of living.

However, these new elites -- we gain nothing from their self imposed status. They ride our backs to comfort and prestige. They do not create wealth. Rather, they destroy it. They do not elevate citizens or inspire them to higher levels. Rather, they encourage and institute policies that insure the citizen's own permanent mediocrity in the name of equality.

What is worse, they divide people. They pit one group against another against another to keep the ire and attention directed anywhere but at their own ineptitude and their own lack of greatness. Like bulldozers, they make their way through our society destroying and devaluing everything they come into contact with. They rouse the rabble and on the backs of the poor they claim to represent they ride their first class seats and make permanent offices in their ivory towers.

Like a bolshevik street fighter in the early 1900's, I watch as the public grows weary with the gluttony of the political class. Everyday, more would welcome watching this new nobility stripped of their positions of prestige and be forced to survive in a world where sycophancy is not a resume booster. The world most of us choose to live in.

h/t to Samizdata http://www.samizdata.net/blog/

Unity of an Economically Conservative Cause

Ron Paul gets a bad rap with conservatives. Mostly because he has a contingent of staunchly ideological supporters who are as equally malcontented as any leftist you will come across. Reading the rabid responses to Paul's victory in the CPAC poll told the story of the chasm that exists with conservatives today. We can nearly all agree on the things we do not want however we cannot come to a meeting of the minds on just what it is we do want.

Instead of , at least, reveling in the idea that people, particularly young people (it was pointed out on FOX this morning that the CPAC poll was influenced by a large number of people 25 and under) are open to the ideas of limited government, abolishing the Fed and the message of our Founding Fathers, posters on leading conservative message boards are throwing out adjectives such as mentally unstable, nuts, kook and whacko. Hardly inclusive talk that is looking for common ground to secure the leadership position in Washington come 2012.

Ron Paul is as clear a litmus test on limited government as we might get for a long time. He has a pro-freedom resume that is solid. Yet, we are told over and over again that he is not conservative because of his "only respond if attacked foreign policy". When did an interventionist foreign policy agreement become the litmus test for conservatism?

True, Paul does not understand radical Islam and the threat it poses to western civilization. Conservatives do not understand we are not going to save western civilization by fighting half hearted wars in countless foreign countries all while Islam proliferates in the capitals of Europe and American cities. Something has to give.

Ron Paul isn't going to win the GOP nomination, but he's bringing new, young fiscal conservatives to the cause. When they come to that cause rather than the leftist dogma they were steeped in from cradle to grave we need to embrace that hope. Not only American youths either. Young minds from Istanbul to Oslo are listening to his message and are hearing ideas they have never heard before. For all their lives they've been bathed in cheap Social-Democratic rhetoric and all of a sudden they have a man talking something that stirs them.

As conservatives of all stripes, we need to come together on the principles of liberty we can agree on. All the other stuff, we can work out later. We must understand this one salient point of history; no republic ever fell due to invasion or due to being conquered from outside. Every single republic, from the beginning, fell due to internal economic policy failures. It is for that reason alone, that Ron Paul cannot be dismissed, even for his other errors.

At this standing Barack Obama can not beat any single unified candidate in the 2012 general election. His 41% strongly disapprove numbers are largely irreversible. A single unified fiscally sound and conservative candidate is unbeatable. The trick is keeping our marriage of convenience together and not slipping into 1992 Perot style defeat. The times are too serious and the stakes too high.

The Irony

Isn't it funny how the socialists never see the hard truths of reality right before them? Looking to Greece and the situation it finds itself in, I am reminded of why European styled socialism will never happen in North America south of Canada. Certainly not with the current demographic trend brought to us by our friends on the left. Mexican immigrants just are not going to play reciprocal European welfare state. Not gonna happen.

I do not say that as a "racist" statement or a derogatory statement. Living in a border state, I understand the hard working nature of most first generation Mexican Americans. Nor do I begrudge black markets, they are born of necessity. It is just a cultural and sociological observation.

Greece is in trouble because of over spending. Their level of spending is atrocious. They have a progressive tax system topping out at about 40 percent of income over about 75,000 dollars a year and they have the dreaded VAT tax at 19 percent. Over 50% of their GDP is from government spending.

The reason why Greece is in trouble (and Italy, and Spain) is that the southern European nations have a long history of shiftless sorts grifting off the public troff while dodging and cheating on their taxes. In Greece, 30%-40% of their economy is “underground.”

Greece has defaulted on their public debts for 105 years out of the last 200. This isn’t a new problem. It is a long-standing cultural one. It is a culture of tax avoidance and government employees.

Are you seeing the similarities to California yet?

Is Reverend Manning on to Something?

Those of you not familiar with Reverend David Manning probably should be aware of this, albeit colorful, but also extremely brave man. I first became aware of him a month or two ago when I somehow linked to one of his youtube videos after reading a report that he was going to be jailed for statements he supposedly made regarding Obama. He was never jailed but his office did receive an intimidating visit from officals.

He is what could be termed a "birther" but he seems to have a much deeper grasp of the picture.




I do not think you need to be a conspiracy nut to see something is awry with the timeline and biography of Obama. Add to that the apparent disconnect he has with American principles and values and his complete aversion to operate in any sort of manner that would remedy the situation we are in economically, culturally or in terms of national security and you have the real makings of a Tom Clancy thriller.

I have to admit I do not follow the birth certificate and "lost years" stories very closely. Mostly because we heard these rumblings during the Clinton presidency. Clinton during his Oxford Days was rumored to have been a double agent, with a confirmed CIA connections. He was played as a double agent, infiltrating student antiwar groups and making trips to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. It is said that he was recruited by the Russians in Czechoslovakia.

We heard of his cross borders education, even spending time in the Soviet Union, the missing medical records and missing school records. All stories very similar to Obama's. Suffering, as we all do from time to time, from polarized thinking I fell into a sort of, "well they can not all be Manchurian candidates or CIA assets" and dismissed them.

Then recently, it hit me. Sure they can. And there are probably others out whose names we do not know.

Manning's perspective is interesting. I do not know if he has the entire picture correct but he certainly has most of the pieces of the puzzle and I am starting to make out some of the images.

It makes you wonder, how many people do you know of little better than middle class means travelled from the United States to Pakistan and into the Soviet Union in the 1980s? Or in the case of Bill Clinton, he was a kid of no means, again making his way to Oxford and into the Soviet Union to study and then into the highest levels of our government? Just a little bit of a coincidence.

Think of the similarities between the two men. Both from dysfunctional backgrounds with little to no paternal influence. Both, undoubtedly, with sociopathic and narcissistic personalities. Interestingly, both men seemed to enter into loveless marriages of convenience to further their charade. Both having mentors of the communist persuasion.

I am not sure what to expect from Manning's trial if anything. Perhaps, we can hope to shed a bit more light on the murky past of Barack Hussein Obama. More than likely we will never know the full truth. However, there is an expression that comes to mind that fits the scenario. There's no such thing as a coincidence in politics...or anywhere else, for that matter.

The Arrogance of the Ignorant

It is a phenomenon I have been seeing more and more of lately.  People who demonstrably do not know “come here” from “sic em” , or to put it even more plainly “people who don’t know Sh*t about Sh*t”, are absolutely, positively, arrogant to the point of condescension about what they “believe.” 

I am not sure of its’ root cause although I can make reasonable speculation.  A similar or possibly same phenomenon is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.   I guess it is not a new phenomenon. I am lucky enough to live with a family member who is several years my junior, many people her age are stunning examples of this mindset in action, but they are by no means the only people I see displaying it.

I am not passing judgment on people because of their ignorance, I am ignorant of many things.  I am not a great connoisseur of wine, Art, or Sculpture, do not watch Japanese Anime, do not watch foreign language films, and have no idea what is happening on “The Hills.”  As a result of my utter lack of knowledge in these topics this blog is not titled “My Thoughts on Wine, Foreign Language Films, and “The Hills”.  I do not make haughty assertions as to the state of this years’ grape crop, or the pros and cons of Subtitles vs. English language dubs.  If I did people would call me a fool. 

A substantial portion of the population however, seems to have no problem stating their strongly held convictions regarding history, the constitution, or any manner of topics.  What is more they take the moral high ground while waxing eloquent about the ills of capitalism and the virtues of Che Guevara.  They vociferously and viciously expound upon the ills and evils of Christianity and the Separation of Church and State.  They pound the table and look down their noses regarding Energy, Wildlife Conservation, Food Production, and any number of other topics they have heard one of the glitterati express some harebrained opinion on.

Imagine if a Cattle Rancher from Montana attempted to educate Pam Anderson on the best way to do…well what does Pam Anderson do anyway?  But Ol’ Pam has no problem dictating to the Rancher the best way to raise cattle or deal with predators.  What if a SEAL Team Commander tried to tell Matt Damon the best way to position himself for the camera or say his lines?  But Matt has no problem sallying forth with his esteemed opinion regarding the best way to get our enemies to give up the intel…

 

 

 

 

This just trickles down to the everyday Joe and Jill level.  I admit I spew opinion all day long on this blog. I am not suggesting that people do not have a right to their opinion.  But, I try very diligently to have facts or at a bare minimum well reasoned arguments to back up my opinion.  What I am commenting on here is when a person has not taken the time to read or think about the issue in any meaningful way, and after failing to reason out a logical argument why do they get to be condescending and arrogant in their ignorance?  Why is being pro-animal rights a morally superior argument than being Pro-Life on abortion?  Why is it  accepted and even cool to hate Christianity, but have no opinion on other religions?

Case Study #1: driving through a small city with a person around Christmas time, the self proclaimed favorite time of the year of the person I am riding with.  They also profess to be atheist. Those two assertions by themselves seem to run counter to logic to me, whatever.  There is a nativity scene in a private person’s front yard and the person I am with becomes very irate and states that Nativity scenes are offensive and those people should not be allowed to have them.  When asked if it would have been offensive to have had a big golden Buddha in their yard, the person says that would have been ok.  So, I made the  statement that it is not that they were ‘atheist’ they were ‘anti-Christian’  dumb looks and a general ‘whatever’ were the reply as if I was simply too unintelligent to ‘get it’.

Case Study #2, a friend’s friend makes the assertion that they are vegetarian because it is cruel to eat meat, and that they really do not understand people who hunt and kill things.  It was pointed out that this person eats fish, so they modify their statement that they are pescatarian but most people do not know what that means so they usually just say vegetarian.  Then they become near apoplectic regarding deer hunting, why would anyone want to kill a deer, why can’t they just go to the store like everyone else for meat if they have to eat it? 

The counter point is made that 1) eating store bought meat is hired killing, and 2) deer have an arguably better life in the woods than the cows do in the feed lot.  So the counter to the counter was that those were good points, and that is why people should not eat meat.

The  pescatarian issue was raised again, asking if the only difference between their concern for the cows and deer, vs the concern for the fish is because a fish cannot be cuddled.  Outrage and Anger at my ignorance ensued and the subject was immediately changed.

   I thought that in each of these instances there was a very reasonable line of debate started and yet the logical counter-argument was painted as the fool.  Haughtily and Condescendingly I was considered a troglodyte and a square who just doesn’t get it.   The only way that I can think to combat this type of mind set it to attempt to turn the tables on them.  This seems to be the only real way to bring reason into the hearts of Liberals.  We have to frame the argument so that the conservative position is seen taking the high moral ground, we have to (simply, in an extremely elementary way) demonstrate that the Liberal position is the uncaring unfeeling hateful position.

As to why a person’s own uneducated feelings and beliefs are held in higher esteem than that of a generally accepted reality based on facts and history…well blame new age thinking in general. 

-KOOK

Recent Personal Events With U.S. Healthcare

If anyone has wondered as to my whereabouts for the past week or so, I have been mostly sleeping in hospital waiting rooms.  I am pleased to say that all seems to be heading in the right direction, but this ordeal has given me some real world experience to back up all of the theory expressed here regarding the state of our healthcare system.

My Paternal Grandfather, my “Pa”, is 80.  The man put a lot of the work into my upbringing, and we are extremely close.  Pa has already had three artificial hip surgeries (two replaced, one repaired again) and he has pretty serious arthritis in other places as well.   His heart has been weak since the 70’s but it has not slowed him down much until very recently. About a month ago it became apparent even to him that something was going to have to be done with his heart or things were going to get very sad very quickly.  He spent a week in the hospital getting his blood pressure and fluid levels optimized for surgery and the surgeon and other assorted doctors decided that he was a candidate for a double valve repair surgery and MAZE or Cardiac Ablation procedure using the DaVinci Robot.  This is where a robot performs the operation endoscopically with the surgeon controlling the robot from several feet away.  Very new, very expensive, but less invasive and more precise, with the hope of faster recovery. 

He was scheduled for surgery on Wednesday, February 10th.   The two nurses and the anesthesiologist I met in Pre-op were very caring and professional.  One of the nurses informed us that she would be calling every hour or so with updates as the surgery progressed.  We sat in a nice waiting room staffed by a couple of  volunteers.  We received our update calls and were informed that the surgery was successful and they were finishing up.

Unfortunately this is where things took a downward turn.  It seems that due to several factors when the blood flow was rerouted back through the heart a very bad bleed developed around the sutures on the heart.  The machinery had to be re-positioned and restarted and the surgeon had to double the stitches.  This meant a lot more time on the machines and a lot more blood lost.

The first night Pa spent in the CCU was not a pleasant one.  His nurse Leigh was very frank (possibly too frank) about his situation and what the next 8 hours would decide, she also plainly took her job personally and seriously.  We were told that there was a brand new family waiting room with plenty of couches, pillows, and blankets would be provided and we could all stay.  We did, and Pa made it through that night.  We met Jeanine in the morning, Jeanine was much more positive regarding Pa’s outlook but admitted that the prior evening was pretty touch and go.  We were encouraged to somewhat ignore visiting hours and just pop in from time to time to check on him, a trend other nurses continued (or at least tolerated).  Thursday night Dad and I did not stay, letting my Aunt and Uncle take a shift. Friday brought new nurses, who continued to impress with their understanding and level of care.  Pa’s situation was improving in tiny increments but we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.   Dad and I stayed Friday night again in the family waiting room.  Saturday brought on the weekend staff and it continued to impress.  Saturday was a day of remarkable progress towards getting Pa’s fluid levels down.  In fact we were so sure things were going smoothly Dad and I left again.  I got one hour of sleep,  at midnight we received a phone call that his heart had stopped, but the the nurses got him back. About halfway to the hospital we got another call that it had stopped again, but that it had restarted on its’ own.  The usual hour drive from Dad’s house to the hospital took considerably less time than usual.  Before we got to the CCU it had stopped and restarted once more.  I slept in the CCU room that night, what little I slept.  The nurses were completely understanding of us all. Sunday was a long day, getting his electrolyte imbalance (apparently the cause of the problem) under control and getting his heart rhythm sorted out.  Monday was a Good Day, he got his breathing tube out, he knew who we all were and I got to see his baby blues.  We had a little conversation and he told me to go back to work.  It was a long drive home, but it was a good drive.  He is still there, but he is still improving.

Throughout this entire ordeal every single person that we encountered from the volunteers, the housekeeping staff, the cooks in the cafeteria, the security guards, the nurses, and the Doctors treated my Pa as a person, and the family as important.  We were shown caring and compassion.  We and pa were treated with respect.  We feel that Pa received a top notch level of care.  So to the staff of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau Mo; from the Security guards who helped us find our way around and were always polite, David and Jody (I think); to the nurses Leigh, Jeanine, Heidi, Denise, Amalaya, Lori and the others whose names I did not get or cannot remember; to Doctors Beck and Jones, to the ones who are still taking care of him during his stay, and all the volunteers and kitchen and housekeeping staff, Thank You.

Now I ask you, if Obamacare were to pass do you honestly believe that we would have such high quality customer service?  Do you really think that an 80 year old man with advanced arthritis and a very badly degraded heart would succeed in becoming a candidate for robot assisted heart surgery?  I think not.  Do you think that in the sort of environment sure to evolve in a government run, certain to be unionized, bureaucratic nightmare, where pay is guaranteed to be substandard, and Doctor’s decisions have to pass a panel of government flunkies (political officers) that we would have had such a good experience?  Our system may suck, but it is still the best in the world.  My recent experience has proved that to me.

-KOOK

The K.O.O.K's Manifesto

In honor of the Upcoming “Jobs Bill” Porkulus 2

Glenn Beck - Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science Discovered

February 15, 2010 - 14:09 ET

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.

The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science Discovered