The last post, The End

This is it, the end, the last post.  I am hosting my own site.  If you liked anything at all that you see here, you will really like the new site.  Yep, it's still free and I have a bunch of new stuff.  My new addy is: 

ANurseWithAttitude.org

Looking forward to seein' ya
JTaylor

Dogs and Cats

We have so much stress,  so much really bad stuff happening in the world today.  Our economy is spiraling into a full blown depression, The national debt and government spending is out of control. The housing market is at 70% default, Unemployment is at 19.6% (in my state).  American’s are dying needlessly fighting in conflicts of pure politics. We are at war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. The entire Middle East is on fire. Our political leaders are completely clueless as to what to do …

I occasionally suffer from all the informational and worldly stress overload.  Sometimes I just like to turn off the TV, radio and computer and just sit on the porch and feel the summer breeze on my face and forget about the stress and everyday hassles.  Maybe have a glass of Merlot and a small block of cheese. I like to talk about things that do not relate to current political, social issues, or even work related things.  When I’m in one of these dark type moods, I enjoy talking about things that have nothing to do with anything. 

I went shopping the other day at SafeWay for some groceries.  On walking out, I saw a bumper sticker that said,  “the more I know about women, the more I love my dog.”   I laughed out loud.  I may have been a little too robust as the person in the car over stared at me like I had three heads.  It just struck me funny as I thought, why exactly does a guy enjoy the company dog but prefers to live with a woman.

A dog loves to be with you. A dog doesn’t spend any of your money or run up your credit card without your permission.  A dog lives to just sit and listen to your stories about fishing, hunting or whatever.  A dog loves just go for a ride in the country, go to the shooting range,  camping or just hiking in the woods. A dog will drop everything  to go fishing with you, and he won’t catch anything bigger than you do.   He loves to watch the same shows on TV that you like.  The woman that you actually live with… well, no promises on any of that. 

My wife has new cat that she loves. His name is Tod.  I have never understood why women love cats. Cats are independent, they don’t listen, they don’t come when you call, They don’t pay any attention to you, they stay out all night,  and when they stay home they like to be left alone and sleep all day.  In other words, every quality they hate in a man, they love in a cat. Why is this.  Maybe it is true about the theory how opposites attract.  This is why I laughed today and this is one of the many things that I ponder while sitting on my porch with my wine. 

Free Range Kid

    As a very young child, I was allowed to run free. I lived in a place called Bon Secour, a very small town in Alabama. It was located some distance from anything that could reasonably be called a “city.” My cousin Lea , a few year younger than me, and I knew all the roads, side roads and trails by the time I was ten. We were given the freedom to run and explore. We knew in which yards grew scuppernong grapes, plums, and free fruit for the picking. We knew the dogs of our little community by name and which were friendly and which were to be avoided. We knew the names of the store owners, the mailman and the guy at the gas station. We knew were to catch the best and biggest fish and which fields were baited in the fall for dove and quail hunting. I was given a BB gun at age eleven and I set out into the world to shoot pretty much that was small and moved. I could mount it across the handle bars of my Schwinn Stingray and nobody would give me second look as I peddled several miles to the local fisheries to hunt rodents. At the fisheries, my friend Chris and I could shoot the sea-roaches off the piers from twenty feet. We made beer can top chains by collecting pop-tops down at the gas station. I’d occasionally go the next town which was Foley to see my grandmother. This was ten miles away. We were allowed to go into the drug store alone and purchase a twenty five cent malt or go into “The Galley”, the local tavern on the river and play pinball for a dime. The Bon Secour river was fed by natural springs. When the weather was particularly hot, we could pedal our bikes up to the head of the river, where and the water was really cold. This was a treasured place called “The Ice Box”. This was particularly refreshing after a long bike ride.
     These were my summer days. It was pretty much the same for all of the boys in our community. Nobody scheduled our days, nobody organized our fun and nobody watched over our shoulders. We were simply free to be. I often wonder if this childhood isn’t the planted seed that grew into my libertarian world view today. Could it be that my desire for a society of free people enjoying their liberties to have roots in that 1970's era freedom I experienced as a child? Frankly, it is hard see how the freedom I experienced could not be what I long for in the grown up world.That really worries me. Now that I am much older and reflect with three boys of my own, I worry even more. I worry about the adults that will arise from childhoods being experienced today. Everywhere I look, children are being scheduled and hovered over. Intense sports training begins at age four, helicopter mothers never let children out of their sight. Kids are fenced in, programmed and continuously managed by adults. What kind of future will we have? What kind of world will these heavily managed children grow up to build? Will they long for the wide open spaces and pure freedom that I experienced? Or will they build a structured, managed, constricted severely controlling society that is based on the only world they know? I’m getting older every day and with that, it is more than ever clear, that these kids will eventually be politicians, judges and our leaders. There is still nothing I can do, but it still worries me.

The Anti-War Movement is Officially Dead

I guess that the antiwar movement in America is dead, killed; it doesn’t care a whit whether we assassinate bin Laden, a son of Qaddafi, or send troops into Libya, or if we bomb Yemen or how many Predator drones we send into Pakistan or even how many American troops have died this month in Afghanistan or Iraq. Everything is on the table now and there are no self-restraints, no cutting jokes on The Daily Show, no cutting comments on Letterman, no Barbara Streisand crazy commercials. A Nobel peace laureate is now the Left’s totem and he can send very deadly Special Units on quite deadly missions as he sees fit — and without worry about a New York Times op-ed barrage or an ACLU lawsuit. This gives the new U.S. government a newfound advantage, a veritable blank check, from keeping Guantanamo open indefinitely to using a Cheney “assassination Squad” and valuable water-boarded intelligence whenever it wishes.
It seems like just yesterday that George Bush was President and CNN was explaining how disgusting it was that “harsh interrogation techniques” were used to obtain valuable information from Iraqi terrorists. It was explained that everyone who took part in obtaining that information are criminals and that the information gained was unreliable, illegal and should have been destroyed.
Now it is a different time. Obama is the new leader and as water boarding was used to put the intelligence community on the right track to kill Osama bin Laden, it’s just fine.
I didn’t agree with going to Afghanistan when we originally went. I didn’t agree with sending troops to Iraq. President Bush went to Congress with his concerns and our representatives voted on the matter. The majority won and we went to war. Although I didn’t agree, but because it was the will of the people, I didn’t complain. However, practically on every corner, there were war protesters, picketers, petition signers, and a host of disgruntled people chanting “no more war for oil”. I even heard sermons in church on how we shouldn’t be at war with the poor Iraqi people.
Now that the ruling party has changed from Republican to Democrat, everything is just fine. Not only do we still have wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan with no end in sight. Obama has started a war with Libya, bombed Yemen, invaded Pakistan, and attacked Syria with Predator drones. All of this is still perfectly OK. I am not fine with any of this. I ask one simple question… where the heck are all the protesters? I didn’t agree then and I certainly don’t agree now especially since the last four conflicts listed that were initiated by our fearless Commander in Chief, were started on his own. That is, without a vote from Congress, without the consent of the people. Not only are those “peace protesters” mysteriously absent, but many of my friends on the left are proud to support Obama’s exploits by shouting that Obama did the job that Bush could not do.
The hard fact that I seem to struggle with, is that the “Peace” movement in the US was never really there. It was always just a leftist facade. Merely a tool to bash conservatives and then be placed in a case marked “Open only in case of Elections”. The anti-war movement was phony, a cynical gathering of partisan Democrats who were really never all that concerned for the devastation, loss of life and economic hardships that a war brings. They got what they wanted… Obama, their hero. Now no one cares anymore.
When I get really tired of hearing the liberal drivel from my coworkers , I like to throw out this little fun fact:
Obama has launched more cruise missiles and is directly responsible for more death and destruction than all the other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined!

Anti-Discrimination: The Right to Take From Others

   
The Democrat version of the latest health care package or “ObamaCare”, as I call it, was initiated because some people claim to have “no-access-to-health-care” issues. Others claim that the reason for a government sponsored health plan is to combat the rising cost of health care. I’m pretty sure that ObamaCare will do neither. The OB-GYN that delivered my three children is no longer providing childbirth services and now only does routine exams, general women’s health services etc.; the liability of delivering babies has became too great for this practice. Our physician got out of this particular aspect of his profession long before we ever heard of Candidate Obama. He claimed that he can no longer pay the ridiculous malpractice premiums. The hospital where I currently work is one of the last remaining delivery centers. We stay in business only because my employer happens to be a state funded teaching hospital. Because of this, we are blessed with a rather shallow tort cap. The link to easily accessible health care as well as lowering high health care cost is clearly a tort reform issue. The 1017 page "ObamaCare" health plan hasn’t a single word written towards any type of tort reform. It does however contain a whole lot of words towards a much larger problem facing medical care today, and that is entitlement. This is the notion that doctors are required to treat certain patients in private practice, or inversely that patients are entitled to receive medical treatment from a specific physician. This notion is utterly ridiculous. Part of the problem with ObamaCare is that it “promises” everything to everyone. You are entitled to health care. You are entitled to be taken care of. You are entitled to receive services regardless of your own personal history, actions, or lifestyle. Because if I want to smoke three packs cigarettes a day and drink vodka with both hands, that is my business, right? Well, it shouldn’t be just all right. If we are all paying the price for your irresponsibility, there should be some sort of control in place. The other part of the problem the Obama plan makes a feeble attempt to correct is discrimination. This problem lies with the theory that all discrimination is bad and must be abolished, which is patently absurd. All discrimination is not bad — in fact, it’s quite necessary and on many levels.  In many situations discrimination is perfectly rational, reasonable and equitable. Banks discriminate based on one’s income and ability or inability to pay off debt. Car insurance companies discriminate against bad drivers. Basketball teams discriminate against short people. Victoria Secrets discriminate against Rosie O'Donnell. We discriminate everyday by the choices we make in where we live, shop, and send our kids to school. We use reasoning and logic to make dozens of decisions every day, each with a component of discrimination. If I buy my car, I must have insurance before I can drive it off of the lot. It is the law in Oregon that every driver must have insurance. I believe that this is true for most states in America today. However, if you drive fast, drink alcohol, or do practically anything particularly reckless, you get a ticket. If you get enough tickets proving you are exhibiting a risky lifestyle with your car, your insurance rates go up. Why should this be any different in the health insurance industry? Risky lifestyles should pay more!  I have a neighbor who has a sedentary lifestyle, drinks, smokes, and eats pork rinds all day. I eat healthy, watch my weight, and exercise regularly. Why should I pay the same health insurance rates as my neighbor? It isn’t fair and it isn’t right! Well, to make this discrepancy even worse, In comparison to my actual neighbor,  I pay an incredibly high premium for my health care while my neighbor pays nothing at all. Yet my neighbor still gets the same health care. He gets his health care faster and without the inconvenient wait for an appointment. This has gone completely backwards. To save money, the Obama plan should take into account a person’s lifestyle and tax him accordingly for his health care. If a person doesn’t want to pay much for his health care, then he should be able to get the minimum care. Say only “major medical” coverage. If someone wants everything done including private room and private nurse, then he has the option to pay for the "deluxe package." If someone wants to smoke cigarettes and to have no health care insurance at all, he should have the option to opt out. … And with this “opt out” option, Health care providers would be under no obligation give him multiple level treatments for his lung cancer. A lower cost hospice care would be made available for a reasonable fee (paid up front).

The same liberals think that by having the government intervene, all discrimination can be eliminated; Everyone can have everything, no matter what their personal situation. This is, of course is pure fantasy, as we witnessed in the housing market. Now we’re going to give it a try in the insurance market and expect different results? The reality never changes, everybody cannot have everything equally. You might just as well pass a law that says a casino must provide equal odds for everyone that walks in. Discrimination is necessary and required no matter how badly the liberals want to eliminate it. The question is whether you want that discrimination performed in the private sector or by government, but make no mistake it will still happen. It must be there or the system will collapse. In the private sector, OB-GYN doctors refuse obese, high risk and patients without an extensive prenatal history. In the government’s hands, you get rationed medicine. They decide who gets what treatments, when, why, how much and which caregiver. The best we can do is keep the decisions in the hands of the public (that is private industry) so that we can not only continue to deliver the best health care in the world, but through competition we can keep the prices as low as possible. With the planned government controlled healthcare that is threatening us, we will have neither.

Is It A Baby or Not?

    I know, abortion has been discussed and discussed ..but  I have personally found most people invest too much of their own agenda into the discussion, so an honest and thoughtful debate is rarely to be found and usually disintegrates into name calling and finger pointing.
    There are Christians who believe that abortion is totally wrong.  Liberal America (51% of American by Obama's vote) are all about pro-abortion, stem cell research, genetic research and all of the perk's that go along with an abortion. As a medical professional,  I tend to shy away from this topic because I do not want the discussion to be merely about conservative religious viewpoints, and liberal talking points on women's rights.
    Most laws going through Congress and eventually signed into law, are by nature, rather conservative or moderate.  Very left leaning liberals get quite frustrated with this process.  To make matters worse, the conservatives ruled the roost for many years.  The liberal views just could not get out through the standard process. That process being, electing an official, have him post a bill, bring it to a vote, and it becomes a law.  Without this avenue, most liberals work  to utilize the third branch of the government, the judicial system.  Judges are appointed for life and answer to no one.  For once, the simple majority doesn't matter.  If a liberal activist judge is appointed, there is nothing that can be said or done as a protest.  Decisions are made, and by precedence, becomes law.  What eventually got me started on this path was a controversial decisions recently made by a liberal judge.

    It seems that if a criminal  kills a woman in an act of violence, and later it is discovered that this woman was pregnant,  the criminal can be charged with two homicides?  How is this?  It seems that if a woman wants a baby or maybe she even had a difficult time getting pregnant, there is an investment of "human rights" to the unborn fetus. If the woman doesn't want the baby and wants to have an abortion on demand even if it is near the time of birth, then it is just a plain ole "fetus" with no rights at all. 
    This is one of the many conundrums, double standards, and unfair decisions  that liberals seem to continuously  propagate to further whatever cause they seem to be working on at the moment. And for some strange reason, this is accepted by all,  liberals and conservatives alike. 

      I prefer the democratic process to make decisions for the people. Lets all just vote in a referendum election or maybe we can actually elect officials to debate the issue for us. Only liberals tend to utilize an activist judge to get their point across... usually against the will of a majority of the people. This  problem leads me to ask?... can a fetus be defined objectively as a human being, only by the opinion of the woman who carries it? It seems that some people define a child by the same value as property.  That is it is considered an actual child only if it has value or worth by the original owner.  This is truly a sad state that we live in. 

The End Is Near... For Obama-Care

Hey, This is kind of off the cuff... I know...  I've blathered on and on about political stuff and after all, I'm a nurse. And this blog is named, after all,  "A Nurse With An Attitude".  I probably should get on and start a little talk about nursing stuff. Or at least health care stuff.  Well, I just lost a huge amount of money directly because of the shenanigans played by  Obama and our short sighted Congress.  Lets say that I'm just a little bitter and I want to vent by saying a few nasty things about them... thus my last few posts.  I just read that the Obama-Care health plan is officially on hold.  It was labeled "unconstitutional" by the Florida State Supreme Court.  This could be the beginning of the death of President Obama's  new national health care law.  The Obama lawyers have put forth an appeal, but what it seems that all of this posturing and legal wrangling will do nothing except gain this law a fast track to the United States Supreme Court.  Once there, the fate of this law will be decided on once and for all.