Saturday, June 30, 2012

3557 Get off my lawn! #1

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Maybe we should just give the presidency to
whomever can raise the most money
and just be done with it.
-- Shoebox.com --

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Well, we've had our second "boil water" advisory in two weeks.  Welcome to NJ.  Three mains collapsed, and it will take weeks to repair them, so no outdoor water (gardens, lawns, car washing) until then.  I'm beginning to miss the extremely hard, silty, smelly and bad tasting well water at the country house.  It was at least dependable, always there. And relatively free.

--------------------------------

The usual people are screaming about the Supreme Court approving the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA).  The government site for information on the law is at http://www.healthcare.gov/law/index.html.  There's an excellent brief and clear synopsis at http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb8vs/eli5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/c530lfx, which I highly recommend.

Somebody did a poll where they asked people if they approved of it or not.  If the respondent said no, the pollsters then asked if they approved of each of the individual parts, and they found that almost all of them liked almost all of the pieces of the law.   That doesn't make any sense.

Conservatives want to gut the mandate part.  Oddly, they want to keep the "no refusal for pre-existing conditions" part.  Do they really not understand that you can't have one without the other?  Otherwise, people simply won't get insurance at all until they get some catastrophic condition, THEN they'll buy insurance.  That won't work, fellas.  Premiums for all of us would be astronomical. 

Buncha idiots!

The governor of LA says LA will "defy the federal government" and refuse to implement the law.  Apparently he's unaware that any state can do anything they want as long as they achieve the goals of the law, which is lower costs and full coverage.

What leaves me spinning is that conservative types like to think of themselves as having family-oriented and Christian values, while they think liberals are immoral family-destroying godless atheists.  Or something.  But, uh, isn't taking care of your neighbors a Christian value?  And who is more likely to do that?

Contrary to what the talking heads tell us, Canadians and Brits seem quite happy with their health care systems.  When did "socialize" become a dirty word?  Why is "profit" such a wonderful word?  As Dr. Phil would ask, "How's that workin' for ya?"

---------------------------------

I went to the country house mid-week, so there was a lot of listening to the car radio.  Some woman is all ticked off about the rash of female stars appearing in magazines without makeup.  She points out that they all have perfect lighting, perfect hair, perfect tans, and "some work done".  Now here's the part that had me screaming.  She says that all women need makeup to look good, and to pretend otherwise is trashing womanhood.

She's NUTS!

If anything, SAYING that all women need makeup to look good is trashing womanhood!

(Yeah.  I'm yelling.)

----------------------------------

If you're trying to lose weight, substituting "pure natural" cane sugar or honey for high fructose corn syrup isn't going to help.  It's all sugar!  Sugar sugar sugar!  Empty calories.
a) "pure" or "natural" is irrelevant when it comes to gaining or losing weight.
b) a calorie is a calorie.
c) sugar cane and corn cane are related.  Corn syrup is used in processed foods because it's cheaper, that's all.
d) if you don't know how many calories were in what you just ate or drank, it's cheating to consider it zero.

---------------------------------

What's with all the catheters?  Every public bathroom I've used in the past two years has had used urinary catherers in the sanitary bins in the stalls, or worse, on the floor, and especially restrooms in nightclubs frequented by younger women.  Is there some kind of silent epidemic going on?  I don't understand?  Why do so many young women use them?  I just don't get it.

----------------------------------

An Albany area TV station has an ASL (sign language) interpreter in a small box on the lower right of the screen for all newscasts.  Which is a nice idea.  But!  They also always broadcast a station identifier overlay. On the lower right corner of the screen.  Over the interpreter.  You can see that the interpreter is there, but you can't see her hands.

Has no one from the station ever noticed?  Or don't they care?
.

Friday, June 29, 2012

3556 Severe weather?

Friday, June 29, 2012

The fruits of the second amendment are usually rotten.

-----------------------------------------------

This is what it feels like:

[http://youtu.be/tVEPvXBEOSE]
.


Sunday, June 24, 2012

3555 Gaslight abuse

Sunday, June 24, 2012

If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed
and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
-- Malcom X --

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The movie Gaslight (1944) was mentioned today.  I'd never seen it, so I looked it up and the reviews  made me want to see it.  I found the entire movie several places online, but always in Spanish, with no closed captioning.  Duh?  So I ordered it from Amazon.

Searching for "gaslight" turned up several references to "gaslighting" as pertains to domestic/relationship abuse.  I'd never hear the term in that context before.  That exploration led me to http://www.abuseandrelationships.org/index.html, a very interesting site.

When we think of abuse in a relationship, we tend to think of battering, or the threat of violence, or coercion.  But there are other much more subtle forms of abuse.

I read all of the section "The 'Con'".  It was eye-opening.  I didn't realize that some of the relationships I've been in were abusive.  But now that I think about it, yeah.  I recognize it. 

Not only that, but in at least one relationship, *I* was abusive.  Once I wanted out, I was derisive, showed a lack of respect, and purposely undermined his confidence.   This is abuse.

I intend to read all of the rest of that website.
.

3554 My pillow has a purr.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Don’t rely on jobs for anything. They will always try to get the most of out you
by providing as little to you as they can.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 Nugget and Titus.
.