My anger over flows.

As everyone knows the month of December has been one hell of a month. Not just this year but every year since pop passed away back in the early seventies. Yes, there have been some pretty good years here and there, but in general the holiday season has sucked. A few years back I added another reason to dislike December and this time of year, I had to have my best friend Major put to sleep because of cancer. 
Yes, he was just a dog, but a better friend a person could never have had. 
This year as most of my friends and family know my grandson had a television fall on his head and had to have major brain surgery.  That is just one more reason added to the list. 
The reason that I am writing this though has to do with the topper of it all, my so called son in law. I have considered him  less of a man since he moved out on my daughter and the kids saying something to the effect of "I can't deal with paying all the bills myself. When you get a job I'll move back in."How selfish can you be? I thought when you got married you were supposed to stick around and live up to your responsibilities as a husband and father? Maybe I am too old school to think anything different. I know I made my mistakes in that manner so I do know what I am talking about. But to top it all off when his son needs him most he turns his back on him, telling his wife and the mother of his child that "he isn't my responsibly". How can anyone turn their back on their own child like that?! I just can't imagine that anyone could be so self centered and selfish as to walk away from a little innocent child that you helped bring into this world. I know my daughter and my grandson will do just fine with out that POS in their lives, but I can't help to think of  how much more his son would benefit from him being there. Scoot with carry on and do a wonderful job and make the sacrifice's he isn't willing to make. 

Scoot, I love you and the boys to know end. I am always here for you.  

A New Beginning

It is now seventeen days since the disputed elections in Iran.
In my own way I am supporting the Iranian people by posting various sections of my blog in the colors of the the opposition, Green!
I encourage anyone who believes in liberty and the freedom to choose your own leaders and write a blog, use Face Book or any other type of social networking to do the same.
The illegally elected government is now cementing their power by arresting opposition leaders and protesters to solidify their power. There are no true elections in Iran as we in the free world can see for ourselves.
The Supreme Leader has ensured that the dictator will continue with his destructive ways and pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Mir Hossein Mousavi is the true president of that ancient land. He may have not opened Iran to the world, but he would be the legal leader and the people would have gotten what they voted for.
In the aftermath of the election Ahmadinejad was congratulated on his win, but if anyone in the world noticed, it was from countries who either run sham elections (Russia) or hold no elections at all (China). All they did was congratulate him on stealing an election.
We in the free, outside world should do everything we can to support the people in Iran. It may not be enough to get the election overturned, but they will know that they are not alone and we do support their quest for political and religious freedom.
If we let the people know we are with them it will embolden them to not give up.
It is difficult to follow the law when everything is rigged against you, but Mir Hossein Mousavi is still fighting, if not publicly, behind the scenes and attempting to do it within the law.
As things stand now the dictatorship is in place with the blessing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is going to crush all opposition to their rule. This is the beginning of the end for any kind of democracy or free elections in Iran.
Everything is now stacked against any opposition, you can't get air time, they are shutting down opposition websites and access to anything on the web that will give the people a place to let the rest of the world know what is going on.
I hope our President and other leaders of the free world do not let this happen.
Let our Iranian brothers and sisters know they are not alone.

Freedom and Iran

Last Friday the Iranian people went to the polls in what they thought was going to be a free and fair election.
What they got was a blatant insult to their intelligence and any chance of change crushed.
The reigning clerics knew their tight grip on policy was slipping away, so the supreme leader declared the incumbent firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinijad the winner by an almost two to one count.
The problem is that this happen while polling places were still open and counting was in progress.
How does this happen? This is a the theocracy where religion is the ultimate rule , lying is forbidden as I believe it is in all religions, I also believe that stealing is a sin. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ripped the people of Iran off and stolen a God given right, that is to elect the people to govern with no interference.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also made it very clear in his Friday sermon that it is time to stop the protest. Here is where he turns loose the feared militia "Basij" this way they can claim that they had no responsibility for the many deaths that will happen in the coming days.

From what I see this isn't just a power struggle withing the existing ruling system, but of the class that brought the revolution to Iran and the younger more educated and "wired" generation.
It doesn't matter what the ruling mullah's do the younger generation already knows what exist in the world beyond the borders of their ancient lands.
They do not want to bring down their government, that has been stated repeatedly. What they do what is for the government to do the right thing and respect their call for a new election.
This time let it be fair and let all opposition have equal time on TV and radio and any other means. Open the Internet to all site, not just what the ruling class deems is right.

The people can and will make the ultimate sacrifice and and do what any other repressed society will do when they have had their fill of being held down.
The government of Iran is afraid of what they see, this is exactly how they came to power.
They know the power of a motivated people.

Let the people have their voice.

God Bless and our prayers from the people of the United States

Cell Phones and Our New Society.

I am old enough to remember party lines and paying the phone company by the minute, much like cell phones were when they were first introduced. I also remember when cell phones were these huge clunky items you left in the car because they were so terribly unwieldy.
What I don't remember is when did we as a society become so self absorbed with our own self importance that common courtesy is ignored even in the face of posted rules.
If you have started wondering where this is leading I am going to explain.
I work for a community health center and see people all day long. My better half works for a utility in the local area and deals with the public all day long.
I have yet to see anything so rude as to be in a line to get groceries, pay a bill or get customer service and the person ahead of you has a cell phone stuck in their ear and trying to conduct business at the same time! For one thing that is just rude, period no other way to put it. Secondly it is extremely inconsiderate to the people behind that person who have to wait longer because that self absorbed person just has to continue yapping on the phone. There are a lot of businesses that have posted signs concerning cell phone usage while in line. Here we have signs posted that cell phone are not to be used inside the facility. I move around the building as part of my job and I can tell you in the past week I have had to tell at least four people a day that there is no cell phone usage allowed inside of the building. Most comply, occasionally I will get one like I did today that ignored me and continued with the conversation. Do people like that think that they are above the rules? Why do they feel that they have to have that phone shoved in their ears 24/7? Does it make them feel important?
I go to work rather early and here we are cruising down a windy two lane road with people whom have those things stuck in their ears! Mostly kids, with very little driving experience trying to navigate a windy road distracted by a cell phone! What I want to know for one is who in the hell has that much to say at 6:30 in the morning and why do kids feel that they can do something with less experience than and adult can with more experience!
The one that got me was an article about texting and driving! Now I do a lot of texting because of my kids, but in my wildest dreams would I ever have considered attempting to text while driving, yet the article state that kids do it often and while driving!
I would like to see laws in place to stop talking on cell phone while driving, period, no hands free or anything else. But who would enforce it? I see as many police officers doing it as regular folks! So who is going to police the police? As you can see no matter when or where it is, using a cell phone requires some manners and some common decency for usage in public. I guess manners and decency aren't in vogue any longer. I guess there are times I long for the days before cell phones.

The Current State of Health Care in The United States

As we all know the cost of health care is getting out of hand due to over zealous lawyers and the general pubic
preception that doctors should be perfect. In Utopia that may be the case, but this is the real world and I am here to
tell you that doctors, just like you and I are real people with minds, ideas and last but not least feelings.
I can speak from many years of experiance. For one I am, and I admit it accident prone and have spent a whole lot of time dealing with doctors. Second of all I work for a community health center and after saying that it goes without saying, I work with a lot of doctors. Yes most of them have a "God" complex, but I guess when you have to make life and death decisions on a daily basis you would get to feeling that way. Life is different in a community health center for a doctor because of the type of facility it is. Most are struggling for monies that just aren't forth coming and grants from the government that we may or may not get.
The reason most doctors come to work for places like I work is that they don't have to deal with malpractice coverage, it is covered through the CHC. I recently spoke to one of our providers and she informed me of the horrendous cost of malpractice insurance. She told me before she came to work with us that her malpractice premiums with reaching for coverage of $500,000.00, you read it correctly, $500,000.00.
You wonder why the cost of health care is so high! When she came to work for us she said that they insurance comany was getting ready to raise rates and drop the coverage. I couldn't believe the cost of the insurance so I did a little investigating and talking to other providers who provided similar numbers to what she had quoted me.
So there we have one part of the puzzle, now for the second and the one that burns my ass the most, the cost of prescription medications. My doc prescribed a medication for a problem I was having, of course I have insurance so I figured no biggie! Boy was I mistaken, first off I find that because the medication is for something other than my problem, it is not covered by my insurance company. Ok no problem I think to myself until I get the cost of the prescription, $70.00 for I believe it was two weeks worth of medication (14) pills! I am fairly healthy so I was able to tell the pharmacy thanks, but no thanks. If I can't afford something that wasn't that big of a deal and I will live with out it, how do the people like older folks who have to have certain meds just to live feel! The companies that devalope these drugs blame the high cost on R&D and the cost of getting it through the FDA! I call bullshit, what I see is a bunch of money grubbing buttheads trying to make as much as they can off people they know need this stuff to survive!
I speak from experiance after speaking to my mom, who is trying to survive with my step father on her retirement and little else.
There comes a time when something is so broken it has to be fixed no matter how painful it is. Doctors should be the ones making decisions on what gets done and what is prescribed. Those calls need to be takin out of HMO's, PPO's and laywers and judges hands.
Also Congress and the President need to get off their dead ass's and either get universal health care in place or place caps on what a doctor can be sued for and how much liability needs to be paid out.
Remember people doctors and nurses are people also, just like you and I even though they do have your life and mine in their hands.

Tibet and the Olympics

As we all know the Olympics are being staged in Beijing China in this four year cycle.
And of course along with the Olympics we have political discourse to go along with it. If you are not sure what I am speaking of just turn to the front page of any major newspaper or online news source of your choosing and look for or search for the Dalai Lama or Tibet and I know you will find articles on what has been happening there. It seems that Tibet for some strange reason feels that they should have independence from China.
What started this whole thing was a headline I saw where China accuses the Dalai
Lama of stirring up unrest prior to the Olympics being staged there this summer. Well let me see here, you have a foreign power that is controlling a country not their own, a spiritual leader who preaches peace and a military that is shooting, beating and generally doing what they want to peaceful protesters. They (China) has tried everything in their power to not let that information out to the rest of the world i.e. shutting down You Tube and banning any news coverage of the events that would not look favorably upon the Chinese government. I follow the world news at large and seeing this is one of the greatest abuses I have seen from China since the Tiennamen Square massacre. China feels it can get away with these types of abuses because it is calling on the world at large to ignore what is happening there and not to make the Olympics a “political pulpit”. This has happened before as we all know with the United States and the U.S.S.R. Both boycotting Olympic games held in each others countries in the eighties. Those boycotts didn't accomplish anything. But with these Olympics boycotting would be the perfect way for the world to show their displeasure.
I am not sure if most people understand the orient and honor. China feels it is a great honor to host these games. If the world were to boycott the games the Chinese government would lose great face (honor) in the eyes of the rest of the world and that would be a great dishonor. Yes I feel the whole world should boycott these games to show the Chinese government that it is time to forgo the dictatorial type of government they have and to honor a countries sovereignty and allow either greater autonomy or free rule, as they are supposed to do to another area of China, Hong Kong.
The Chinese government places no value on human life and their human rights records show this. But this is the perfect time to show that they are willing to move forward and change.
As one of the world largest countries and economies they should be taking the lead in human rights and issues like that, but they still rule their country with an iron fist and attempt to control everything the people of their country reads, watches on T.V., and listens to on the radio . That is not freedom, that is being afraid of what your countrymen will see outside of their own country and want to know why they can't have the same freedoms as the rest of the world.
These are old men trying desperately trying to keep this huge country under their thumb and keep their people ignorant of what could be without their dictatorial rule.
They are so afraid of their own people they won't have democratic elections and let the people decide for themselves because they know they will lose their power over the largest population in the world.
China, it is time to move into the 21st century and allow you people to think and make decisions for themselves, not have the government do it for them. They do have minds of their own.

World Elections

It seems to be election time all over the world. Russia just finished their “free and open” elections and now Iran is having theirs. Before Iran’s election started the Supreme Ayatollah called for massive turn outs which would tell the west that they are happy with the type of government they have. As the results have filtered out the numbers are much lower than they had hoped. I believe this means the people are not happy but you can be assured the twisted president they have elected will make it look like some kind of support for his continued stupidity of defying the United Nations Security Council.
I hope the rest of this great nation looks at the way countries like Iran, Russia, Egypt, and any number of other countries that try to claim that they hold fair and free elections and then look at what they have here. We have a system that may not be perfect, but it allows it’s people to really choose who they want to represent them, not some sham election where all the opponents of the ruling class are declared ineligible for shady reasons ala Russia and Iran. Russia claimed that their elections were free and fair. If they were free and fair why were foreign monitors restricted so much that they quit because they couldn’t do their jobs properly. What about the majority of opposition opponents’? They were forced to drop from the race or were blocked from placing ad’s on the state run television stations. The president – elect wouldn’t even debate the remaining opponents.
When and incumbent dictator hand picks his successor and all opposition is crushed, where is the “free and transparency” part of the election. Not only had all that happened consider all of the arm twisting that gone on before Russia’s election. Bosses are going to the people that worked for them and basically blackmailed them into voting for the ruling party just as they were probably blackmailed with loss of jobs or promotions and such. And on top of all that, to maintain his power Putin has “volunteered” to be the next Prime Minister of Russia, hmmmp, who’s in power here?
Just one more example of sham elections. Remember the little island approximately ninety miles off the U.S. shore, Cuba. Here is one of the worse offenders in the world! Let me get this straight, Had one President for forty nine years (because there was no one to run against him). One party rule, great opportunity for change huh? Now they held elections and what do they do, elect one dictator to replace another. These are free and fair elections, was there a choice in there somewhere I missed?
People in this country need to step back and look at what goes on out there in the rest of the world. We are one of the few countries that give the people the choice and as I stated before it isn’t perfect, but look at the alternatives, how do those look to you?

God bless America