Friday, January 31, 2014

Obama Will "Never Hesitate" to Use Force to Protect the American People

By Proof

First of all, I'd like to thank President Obama for reminding us of the awful incident at Benghazi, even though he did not refer to it by name, and in the most oblique manner possible:
As Commander-in-Chief, I have used force when needed to protect the American people, and I will never hesitate to do so as long as I hold this office.
"I will never hesitate" to use force to protect the American people. If that is the case, Mr. President, exactly what happened in Benghazi?

Friends of the blog may remember that I have gone into detail of the tripartite nature of the Benghazi scandal, or three separate scandals, if you will. The first part was the administration ignoring requests for more security, ignoring the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi (unlike virtually every other Western mission or NGO), and ignoring the warnings and the obvious significance of the anniversary of 9/11. This represents at the very least a serious lack of judgment, which should not be rewarded with further employment or, dare we suggest, promotions?

No one has truly been held accountable for the lack of security at Benghazi, and these persons are, for the most part, still in a position to muck up any number of other things vital to our nation's interest.*

And before we deal with the second, which will be the thrust of this piece, let us consider the third part of the scandal, which is to say the cover up. There is no nice way to put this, but there must have been a conspiracy of sorts, within either the White House or the State Department, or both, to put forth the fairy tale (read: lie) about a video which incited the attack, when the administration knew full well from the very beginning, within minutes, that this was an organized terrorist attack, likely al Qaeda, not some spontaneous protest of an angry mob.

The fact that for weeks, spokespersons for the President, the Secretary of State and the President himself all repeated this lie, has never been fully investigated, nor has the responsible party or parties been held accountable for lying to the American public.

Which brings us to the second part, that of the Commander-in-Chief. One month after the attack at Benghazi, Obama made a rare statement on Benghazi, when pressed by a reporter:
“Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I’ve said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we’re going to find out exactly what happened, but what we’re also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.”
-Barack Obama, Oct. 26, 2012 "The minute I found out what was happening... I gave three very clear directives..." Well, that would certainly fit with a "never hesitate" scenario. But, Leon Panetta tells us that the President was notified within minutes of the start of the attack. So, if President Obama "did not hesitate" and "gave very clear directives" to those around him, why was no one sent to Benghazi to rescue or come to the aid of those dying in a terrorist attack? Obama was praised to the heavens for making a "gutsy call" on killing bin Laden. How do we know it was a "gutsy call"? That's what the sycophants in the media and his administration were repeating over and over. Aside from the fact that he was persuaded by Valerie Jarratt on three separate occasions NOT to make the 'gutsy call' to kill bin Laden, where is the evidence of a similar "gutsy call" on Benghazi? It was a "gutsy call" to stand up against the wishes of a female adviser, but not to save the lives of an untold number of American citizens?

I say "untold number", because too many people try to diminish the importance of what happened at Benghazi, because "only" four people died. But there were more than thirty people who came under attack at the embassy that night. Two men, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who did perish in the attack, rushed to the aid of the diplomatic mission, though they were not State Department security, and aided in the rescue of some 33 souls.

So, from his overstuffed chair in the Oval Office, when news of the attack first came to him, Obama didn't know that two former Navy Seals would rush to their defense. When news of the attack first came, no one knew how long the battle would last. But we have armed forces stationed around the world, trained for just an eventuality like this. Why were they not sent? And if some reports can be believed, some forces were sent and they were recalled and told to stand down. Was this your "gutsy call", Mr. President? To call off any attempt at aid or rescue, because it might be embarrassing to the political narrative you were selling with your re-election campaign?

Mr. President, as I have said before, it does not take a Congressional investigation for you to tell the American people what you yourself know to be fact. It only takes a spine. You said you gave "very clear directives"? To who? What precisely were those directives? And if they were not carried out, what punishment or discipline was ordered to those who either refused or failed?

Did you indeed not hesitate and give clear instructions, or did you dither as brave Americans lost their lives defending an outpost that you and the state Department couldn't be bothered with?

You owe an explanation to the families of those slain and to the American people why you apparently hesitated and made ready to attend a Vegas fundraiser rather than attend to the very serious business of protecting the American people that you were elected to do.

Be a man, for a change, Mr. President, and tell us what you did or didn't do that night. Or are you saving that for your next autobiography?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

*A side note, since periodically some mindless, liberal drone (but I repeat myself) will try to put forth the argument that the reason there was inadequate security was because of those wascally Wepublicans, who constantly cut the budget. A few will go so far as to blame the "Republican" sequester that was proposed by Barack H. Obama.

This argument is patently false. The State Department has not argued a lack of funding for the lack of security, and a simple perusal of the State Department budget for that year will show millions of dollars spent on art in various embassies around the world. It wasn't that there wasn't any money, there just wasn't any competent, adult leadership in the organization

We Won’t Have His Nostrils To Kick Around Anymore

His ears remind me of a bat’s ears, his bald head is scaly, his nostrils so ginormous you could drive a Mack truck through them and his moustache was the model for Mr. Potato Head.

Rep. Henry “Nostrildamus” Waxman, the 20-term monument to government overreach and overregulation announced on Thursday that he won’t run for re-election.

One of Nancy Pelosi’s closest allies is calling it quits.  Good riddance you lying sack-o-shit and take the hedge clippers you use to trim those gnarled nose hairs with you.


Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Hey, It Snowed!

I watched the temperature drop on my home weather station from 58° to 25° on Monday.  By Tuesday morning I awakened to a reading of 19° and a winter storm advisory in my area that began at noon.

As I drove into work, the main thoroughfares had already had an anti-icing agent applied to them.  I even encountered some city vehicles that were still in the process of spreading the agent.

I arrived at work and parked my car in the business valet deck.  I knew when I got off that I would not have to scrape the snow and ice off my windshields if I parked there.

I kept an eye on the weather and noticed that the snow started falling around 3 o’clock.  It didn’t let up the whole afternoon.  By the time I got off at 8:30 PM everything was covered with snow. 

I took the shuttle bus to the parking deck.  I paid the attendant and climbed in my car.  I had my gloves on because the steering wheel was very cold.  I cranked up the heater and took off. 

The wind was blowing fairly hard and my greatest fear was having the force of the gusts push my car in a direction I didn’t want to go.

I was extremely fortunate that the roadways were largely empty.  I’ve got Michelin Defender tires on my car and believe me I was glad of that.  The cars that I encountered on my way home were pensively making their way down the highway.

I didn’t have any problems getting home until I decided to pull into a gas station to fill up with gas.  (I learned a long time ago that you never head out in wintery weather without a full tank of gas.)  When I had to make a sharp turn into the station, my car slid just a touch.

I did get a scare coming down my street however.  There were about seven kids playing in a front yard several homes up from mine.  Maybe they were tossing a ball or something.  Anyway, one kid ran into the road.  It was dark and only the grace of God kept that young man from becoming a smear on the road.  Again, I have those wonderful tires to thank and, of course, the good Lord.

I got home and switched the thermostat from energy savings to automatic, fixed a mug of hot chocolate and sat down to unjangle my nerves.  Shortly afterward, I brushed my teeth and put on some fleece jammies and went to sleep.  And hell no, I didn’t watch The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer stand up and lie to the nation.

I watched “Frazier” and “The Golden Girls” on the Hallmark Channel.  I needed something light-hearted to watch to settle my nerves.  I had a fairly good night’s sleep and woke up to see for myself in the light of day a beautiful covering of snow outside.

I love snow.  We don’t get much around these parts and my little furkid loves her some snow too.  I put on some ski bibs, some earmuffs, a knit cap and mittens and decided to let little Sophie go out to run in the snow.

She ran and ran and ran.  She did figure-eights and zig-zags.  She would run up to me and beg me to run with her.  That wasn’t happening.  It was waaaaay too early for that shit. 

After about 15 minutes, I called Sophie to come in the house.  It was time to fix some grits and eggs.  We needed something warm for our tummies.

Now, I have to face going into work on roads that are going to be more treacherous than they were last night.  That means I have to leave home at least an hour earlier than usual just to make sure I have enough time to deal with the idiots who can’t drive in this stuff.

Did I say I love snow?  Well, I do except when I have to go to work in it.

Ya’ll have a good day.  Be safe out there and stay warm.


Monday, January 27, 2014

Bon Appétit, Rats!

Not to be confused with National Cheese Day which falls on June 4th, The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer and his juvenile delinquent West Wingers will be fielding questions from Obamaphone owners and other idol worshippers with a virtual Big Block of Cheese Day.  Yep, it’s for reals.

It’s an event where no one is actually invited and where no cheese will actually be served and TWMDCO will answer staged questions.

Big Block of Cheese Day will be January 29th, the day after the State of the Union Address where he will once again talk the country to death.  We’ll be forced to listen to how he’ll improve the economy and how important privacy is and Obamacare is working really, really well.  There will be a blurb about ladders of opportunity and how Republicans are evil.  He’ll throw in a dash of race card and invoke his old standby bullshit line that with him in “the people’s house” the oceans will rise and the planet will begin to heal.”

Americans by the millions will curl up in fetal balls—blah, blah this and blah, blah that mimicking Charlie Brown’s teacher—until their ears bleed.

All we’ll need then will be a day devoted to fermented curds.  This White House is stupendously laughable.


Planet Hillary Puts Universe On Notice

Amy Chozick, writing for The New York Times Magazine opened with this absurd question about Hillary Clinton:
“The gravitational pull of a possible 2016 campaign is bringing all the old Clinton characters into her orbit. Can she make the stars align, or will chaos prevail?”
The image on the cover of the magazine presented ‘ol Cankles Clinton with her face digitally altered into an extraterrestrial orb.  Thankfully, her cankles were not integrated into the photoshoppery.

What ensued was a blogosphere ablaze with alterations to the mag’s cover.  Poor Hillary.  All manner of “take me to your planet” memes emerged.  What these ‘chops missed was the shameful way in which Hillary “Rotten” Clinton allowed four innocent Americans to be murdered by savages in Benghazi.  SooperMexican got it right.  So did the Earl of Taint.

Ms. Chozick sickened me with her words:
“[Clinton] spent four years at the State Department displaying great political and diplomatic and managerial skill, and in that process shed much of the baggage generally associated with the Clintons.”
The money quote from the piece is this:  “How can Clinton, who is 66, make American voters think about something other than her fraught personal and political past?”

That’s simple—form an initiative called Correct The Record to defend her against media attacks.

If she’s so GD great politically, diplomatically and managerially why would there be a prerequisite to defend her?  One word:  BENGHAZI.

Mainstream media poodles have already endorsed her and a gaggle of lefty pundits have anointed her with the oils of inevitability.

The families of the four dead Americans have never gotten so much as an apology for her cowardice.  The New York Times may create a sterilized biography of this Bitch-of-Benghazi with her bloated head floating in outer space putting the universe on notice, but the blood of innocents will not be forgotten by the American people.

So my ‘chop depicts an astronaut marooned to die a slow death in the universe Planet Hillary inhabits just like Ambassador Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods did in that Benghazi pesthole infested with godless savages.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Sunday Slacker Post

I have never cared to watch the Pro Bowl.  I guess people watch the thing because they realize their couch potato days are numbered.

According to John Breech at CBS Sports, NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth and Commissioner Roger Goodell almost canceled the game.  After the 2012 Pro Bowl that had “everything but the effort,” the two reckoned the game was one colossal joke.

Legendary coach John Madden believes, "It's become an embarrassment, it's become a joke, and as they seek to improve it, it's become an even bigger joke"

So, besides the players sucking back Mai Tais and Pineapple Daiquiris, wearing puka shells, leis and Hawaiian shirts no real effort on the field of play is needed.  The winning team receives $53,000 for each player and the losers each receive $23,000.  It just ain’t real football people.

Speaking of slackers…it has been nearly a year since my neighbor who lives across the street had a tree snap about six feet from the ground. Fortunately, it fell away from their house but it did not completely come to rest on the ground.  The neighbor called her brother a couple of weeks afterward to cut the tree trunk and haul away the top of the tree.

What the brother left behind were the base of the tree that stood about six feet high and two long sections of trunk.

I expected that he would return to cut up the trunk into sections and haul that away as well.  Apparently, he adheres to the Slackers Credo of “I will never put off until tomorrow what I can forget about forever.”

During the course of these many months I have offered repeatedly to have my yard man dispose of the unsightly mess.  The last time I spoke to my neighbor about removing the tree I was told that the brother would be coming by to cut up the tree to use for firewood.  I wasn’t buying that.  Anybody and everybody knows you don’t burn pine wood in a fireplace.  The buildup of creosote in the chimney can burst into flame creating a frightening and dangerous event.

Sometime during my power nap today, someone came to my neighbor’s house and removed the tree.  I wonder what happened.  I had actually considered contacting the Code Enforcement Officer in my sleepy little burg about the fallen tree tomorrow.  I was relieved I didn’t have to do that.

I have been an epic slacker today myself.  I wanted to give my little furkid Sophie a bath and trim her coat in preparation for my gigantic Super Bowl Party coming up next Sunday.  Nope, I thought.  That’s too much of a commitment.  I needed to go to the grocery store.  Nope, I thought.  It’s too damn cold.  I’ll hop online and order a pizza and a 2-liter bottle of soda.  Couldn’t do it.  The website was offline for maintenance.  Who takes a Papa John’s Pizza website down for maintenance when there’s a football game on?  Oh yeah.  It’s the Pro Bowl.  Who gives a shit?

I was just about to slip on twenty layers of clothes and brave the cold to go get some fast food when the phone rang.  It was an old friend I hadn’t talked to in a while so we did some catching up and promised to get together soon.  I wasn’t in the mood to brave the cold so I checked out the Pay-Per-View movies and decided to take advantage of the free movie offer from DISH I received in the mail last week.  I watched “Reasonable Doubt”.  It was somewhat OK, but I was glad it was free, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Having had only two pieces of toast for breakfast, I was pretty darned hungry by now and decided to see if the pizza website was back up.  It was and I ordered a large with pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, black olives, jalapeno peppers, green peppers and extra cheese.

I ordered the large so that I could share some of it with Sophie.  She really likes pepperoni.

While I waited, I decided to check out the new Ranger Up T-shirts I’d seen in an email.  I fell in love with the “American Spartan” model and ordered it.

I think I’ll enjoy a bowl of Belgian Milk Chocolate gelato and hit the silks.  Hope tomorrow is more productive than today although I’m not complaining.  Now I don’t have to look at the pitiful tree trunk lying my neighbor’s yard, I didn’t watch the stinking Pro Bowl and I’ve got a cool T-shirt coming to Casa de Curmudgeon soon.

Life is good.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Excuses-R-Us : Expect 2014 to be a Vintage Year for Presidential Whine

By Proof

Here at the Political Clown Parade, reading Curmudgeon's 'The Insufferable Airhorn And His Insufferable Hubris', I took a closer look at some of the remarks President Selfie has made of late. Whine-a-palooza! Some examples from the New Yorker:
“There have been times where I’ve been constrained by the fact that I had two young daughters who I wanted to spend time with, and that I wasn’t in a position to work the social scene in Washington."
First of all, given the one hundred and fifty plus golf outings, and pictures of him playing golf on "vacation with his family", with his family nowhere in sight, make it hard for me to believe that President Selfie ever pines for moments alone with his daughters. "If you like your picture of strong fatherhood and domestic bliss, you can keep it," intones the president. Second, when has "working the social scene" ever been a prerequisite for presidential leadership? Shouldn't at least a small portion of that take place in the Oval Office? (If we could ever get him there??) Somehow Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and a few others all managed to be effective leaders without smoozing the capitol's "social scene" or being on CNN. Or this gem?
"...the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base so that they feel persuaded that I’m not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but I’m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical, and that, actually, a lot of the things that we’ve put in place worked better than people might think. "
This, too, is laughable. President Selfie, your message has penetrated to the Republican base ever since you told "Joe the plumber" that you intended to "spread the wealth". Your problem with the Republican base is not that your "message hasn't penetrated", but precisely because it has.

Ain’t It Rich? The Insufferable Airhorn And His Insufferable Hubris

“Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.” ― Thomas Sowell

Many people read with great disdain the long and tedious puff piece by David Remnick in The New Yorker wherein the ridiculous assertion was made that racial tensions may have softened his popularity.
“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president. Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black president.”
And now, in bonus excerpts, from the same interview Mr. Remnick foisted upon The New Yorker’s elitist readers we learn that The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer believes he’s been frozen out by none other than Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
“Another way of putting it, I guess, is that the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base so that they feel persuaded that I’m not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but I’m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical, and that, actually, a lot of the things that we’ve put in place worked better than people might think.
It couldn’t be because he sucks at president’n.  Nah.  Perish the thought.  It’s because we’re all fucking raaaaacists.

“When the central domestic fact of your presidency was a fraud, people won't listen to you anymore,” opined Peggy Noonan.  She continues—“He has been for five years a non-stop windup talk machine.  Most of it has been facile, bland; the same rounded words and rounded sentiments, the same soft accusations and excuses.  I see him enjoying the sound of his own voice…”

The venerable former psychiatrist, Charles Krauthammer, clinically diagnoses TWMDCO’s delusions of grandeur in this way:
“Look, it’s rather unseemly if you are the commander-in-chief, the leader of the free world and the most powerful man on earth who can reduce pieces of the planet to a cinder on his command, to get so whiny. You know when you pull the camera back and you look at the media landscape—on one side you got those elements in the media that are sympathetic or even worship at his feet.  You’ve got ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, of course MSNBC. You’ve got Hollywood that’s sympathetic, the television/entertainment side. I mean, you got the major newspapers—The New York Times, The Washington Post.  It’s what Lenin would call the commanding heights of the culture—are all on one side. And what do you have on the other side? Fox News and talk radio. And you’ve got a president of the United States complaining that that explains the failures of his administration.” 
“It goes way beyond that.  This is the best example you can find of Obama's political and ideological self-righteousness. He truly believes that the way he sees the world, he says in this little snippet of the interview, that it's pragmatic, it's rational, all he wants to do is help the folks. And of course, anybody who is on the other side, anybody who sees say the biggest stimulus in American history or the takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy—with a scheme that is completely irrational and collapsing around him—anybody who says this is not working can only be either acting against the national interest or being suspicious of him without any reason.” 
“He simply can't accept the fact or at least in public he doesn't accept the fact that one can actually have a view that contradicts his, that is in good faith, that is patriotic, and that also seeks the good of the country.  So if you think as he does, self-righteously, that there is no way to oppose him and be honestly patriotic and sympathetic to the American people, then of course you have to attribute all of these evil motives to the other side who are preventing the people from receiving the message. I think it is a myopia, rather it is unbecoming, and in fact it often becomes repulsive. It is a refusal to give respect to the other side.”
Woof.  They don’t call him “The Hammer” for nothing.


More Bad Lip Reading Of The NFL

Friday, January 24, 2014

Wendy Davis: A Harvard Chick Who’s A Complete Fraud

Thanks to Woodsterman for the Cowboy Code I inserted in this Photoshop™
Ever since the election and re-election of The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, voters affiliated with Democrats and Republicans have seemed to prefer electing someone to idolize.

That hasn’t worked out so well.  I need not delineate all the ways that this country has been in decline as a result of their misguided folly.

What we are now witnessing in the Great State of Texas is a monumental display of grandiose fraud, lies and deception.

Wendy Davis, the democratic contender for governor has been reported to have embellished her life story.  The Dallas Morning News broke the story of Davis conveniently neglecting the truth about her sugar daddy, leaving her children behind while she attended Harvard and a host of other prevarications.

Davis acknowledged “some chronological errors and incomplete details” blaming her aides for the lies about her life story.  “My language should be tighter,” she said. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”

I especially liked how Rich Lowry painted Davis’ suggestion that Greg Abbott, her opponent in the race, “is unfamiliar with struggle.”
“To suggest that Abbott is unfamiliar with struggle is offensively stupid. When Abbott was a law student in his 20s, he was out jogging when a tree fell on him, shattering his spine. He spent months recovering in the hospital and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.” 
“Davis nonetheless ended an anti-Abbott statement the other day with this flourish, “I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes." 
“Davis should fire herself from her own campaign if that line didn’t strike her as, at the very least, inapposite given her opponent’s disability.” 
“Her supporters have risen to her defense, on the novel theory that it is sexist to demand that a newly minted feminist icon avoid misleading people. For them, all that really matters is her abortion extremism. Everything else is a detail, including the story of her life.”
My takeaway from all this is Wendy Davis all about killing babies and mocking the disabled.  And I thought nothing could be more shallow than “Hope and Change.”

Project Veritas is out with a new undercover video showing staffers from Battleground Texas, an organization full of Obama for America alumni with an expressed goal of turning Texas blue, openly mocking Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for being in a wheelchair.

This is reprehensible.




Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The Further Adventures Of Curmudgeon

Photo credit:  DKCorner.blogspot.com
I have chronicled since January of last year the saga of I-Don’t-Feel-So-Pretty-Good from the diagnosis of restrictive lung disease and COPD to the alarming diagnosis of diastolic heart failure.

My lung doctor set up pulmonary rehabilitation for me and my cardiologist ordered a polysomnogram (sleep study test).  I went to the orientation for pulmonary rehabilitation on January 6th and was disappointed that I would be put on a waiting list for the location nearest my home.  I was offered another location that was too far from home to even consider and a third location in the downtown area near where I live but the hours of operation were 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  This is not doable for me since I have to report to work at 12:00 PM.  So by October, when I have retired, I will begin the rehab.

Yesterday I was scheduled for a sleep study test.  I reported to the Hampton Inn at 7:30 PM.  I knocked on the door marked Sleep Study Center.  “Rita” answered the door.  I gave her my name and she handed me a clipboard with three sheets of paper for me to fill in the data required.

We entered the room next door and I was instructed to watch two videos that were already cued up.  I finished filling out the paperwork and obligingly watched the videos.  I jumped into my PJs and Rita returned with a cart loaded with equipment and lots and lots a wires.

Rita placed a small cup like the ones they dispense pills in at the hospital on the coffee table.  It contained a gooey green substance and there was a long stick with a cotton swab on the end stuck in it.  I was informed that the goo was an exfoliant.

Rita began unwrapping a series of wires with electrodes and handed it to me instructing me to slip it down my T-shirt and then down my PJ bottoms.  Once I did that she began to use the exfoliant to “clean” two areas on my left leg.  Then she attached two electrodes to my left leg.  We repeated that process on the right side.

Rita placed some kind of a strap that was placed under my arms above my breasts and another around my waist.

Rita then asked that I sit in the chair beside the desk in the room.  She began to apply the green goo to six spots on my head.  She wiped off the excess and then applied something akin to epoxy just like she had on my legs.  The difference was this shit was going into my hair.

Then I was asked to move to the bed’s edge and have a seat while she went through the same process to place electrodes near my eyes, on my chin and cheeks.  Then came the cannula that went into my nostrils.  Attached to this was a plastic hook-like dealie that rested on my upper lip.

We made sure the TV’s remote control was within reach and then I laid down on the bed.  Before doing so, Rita gathered up all the wiring and laid them on my left side.  She immediately began inserting the ends of the electrodes into a circuitry box called a Patient Removable Link.  Finally, she placed an Oximeter on the middle finger of my left hand.  She taped it in place.  It had a red light on it that remained constantly lit.  It reminded me of ET’s finger from the movie E.T. The Extraterrestrial when he touched Elliott’s face and told him, “I’ll be right here.”

Anyway, Rita said that if I needed anything to just call.  She said, “There’s no button to push.  I’ll be able to hear you call.  There’s a speaker beside your bed.”  She asked if I needed anything.  “No,” I said and off she went.

There was no clock in the room and I couldn’t wear a watch so I was guessing it was some time after 9:00 PM when Rita closed the door.

I clicked through the limited number of channels on the TV.  As usual, there wasn’t shit on so I settled on Fox News.  I thought at least I’ll be able to track the time.

Now you know the Hampton Inns have The Heavenly Bed™ and you would have thought I would be comfy.  Uh uh.

For one thing, I didn’t have my furkid Sophie to snuggle with and for another there was that damned camera peering down on my every movement.

If I had to float an air biscuit would Rita hear it?  I figured she would.  If I had an itch in a place you don’t dare scratch in public would I dare go after it on camera?  Nope.  So there I was trapped like Gulliver by the Lilliputians.

I sleep on my side 99.99% of the time.  Rita said I could start out that way but wanted me spend some time on my back.  I tried to obey.

I remember listening to Megyn Kelly and drifting off.  Near midnight I figure, I had to pee.  I called to Rita and she came in and unhooked the Patient Remote Link and slung it around my neck.  She wrapped the cable for the Oximeter around my wrist and I was freed to go pee.  The light was deliberately left on in the bathroom so I walked right in and took a seat.

When I looked in the mirror as I pulled up my PJ bottom I was terrified.  I looked like some demented science experiment and my hair looked like a fright wig.  The goo and glue had nearly every strand of hair standing on end.  The tape, the electrodes and the wires attached to my face were like an interstate spaghetti junction.  Holy shit!

I went back to the bed and Rita reconnected everything.  She asked if I always sleep with the TV on.  I said that I do.  I informed her that the TV would remain on or we could conclude the test.

After Rita left I tried to get back to sleep but I was getting pissed.  Time was dragging on in super slow motion.

Maybe an hour or so later, I managed to drift off again.  Then I heard Fox & Friends First come on and I knew it was 5 o’clock.  I called for Rita and asked if we could make this end.

Rita asked me to hold on.  Apparently she had to confer with the doctor in the Sleep Center.  Moments later she answered that they had gathered enough information and she would be in in a moment.  I asked her to come fairly soon since I had to pee again.

She disconnected everything from the remote link and I took care of business.  When I reentered the room, Rita began to unplug all the electrodes.  Once she had done that she began to apply some sort of solution to dissolve the glue that was left behind.  She said that she would try to remove as much as she could but I would need to use the hottest water I could stand to remove it all.

As she did this I asked if I had obstructive sleep apnea.  She said she was not allowed to discuss the results with me.  She said the doctors “like to do that..” Then she changed the subject by telling me the hotel would have breakfast ready at 6:00 AM.

Apparently she thought I was going to shower in the room.  No ma’am.  My ass was headed home.  I tried to rake through my hair but it was all glomed together.  Brushing it only made me pull my hair out in little tee-niny clumps.

I threw on my clothes and bolted out of there. 

When I walked in my door at home, little Sophie took one look at me and wondered “What the hell?”

I sat on the sofa and she sniffed my arms and jumped in my lap and then started furiously sniffing my hair.  I promised her everything was alright.

I decided to go ahead and shoot up my insulin and take my other meds and fix some honest-to-God breakfast, not some Continental breakfast shit.

Sophie loves her some grits and scrambled eggs so I cooked enough for both of us.  I cleaned up the kitchen and headed for the shower.

I had to wash my hair four times.  Four times—just to get the majority of the goop out.  I took a brush to my hair and tried to work the rest out but decided to wash my hair in the sink one more time for good measure.

Then I laid down to take a power nap before I had to get ready to go to work.  All day long I was tired and aggravated.

When I got home from work I slept like a baby.  It’s true what they say—there’s no place like home. 

Now I’m just waiting for the results.  They say that 1 in 20 people have obstructive sleep apnea and that 50% never get tested.  You should check out the Sleep Study Questionnaire to see if you have the classic symptoms and get checked out.

My story may discourage you, but I want to be able to get a full night’s rest.  That is something I haven’t been able to achieve for a long, long time—perhaps years.  A new study has shown that sleep-disordered breathing is a marker for the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.  Sleep apnea can lead to a fatal heart attack, it raises blood pressure and lowers the oxygen supply to every organ in the body and the disruptive sleep pattern puts pressure on the nervous system.  It is said that the brain and heart never enjoy full repair and rejuvenation as long as sleep apnea goes untreated.  So I would encourage anyone who reviewed the questionnaire at the link that feels they may be suffering from SDB to get checked out.  The test is truly a pain in the ass but having a chance to end the vicious cycle of trying to get a good night’s sleep and never achieving it is worth it.

Jackasses “R” Us


The best headline I read following the raging tirade of Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman was, “he made a great play, but lost his mind in post-game interview.”

Full disclosure:  I was rooting for Seattle to win the game against the Niners.  The sole reason for doing so was because I can’t stand loudmouth bullies and arrogant pricks like Michael Crabtree, Anquan Boldin and Colin Kaepernick.

I had not followed the Seahawks during the regular season and was unfamiliar with “the best corner in the world.”  My team, the Carolina Panthers, met the Niners twice in during the 2013 season.  The first meeting saw the “Angry Kitties”, as my friend Proof likes to call them, beat the Niners 10-9.  It was a different story in the NFC Divisional Playoff.  The Niners walked away with the win 23-10.

Proof and my two other blogger friends Odie and Stogie would rag on my team in a good-natured way throughout the games.  I now regret having favored the Seahawks over the Niners in the NFC Championship game.

Talking smack is part of the game.  The fans do it.  The players do it.  The coaches do it.  The sports “jocks” who anchor the games do it.  This player, Sherman, went waaaaay over the line in the post-game interview with Fox sideline babe Erin Andrews.  Some are reporting that she “loved” it.

“You expect these guys to play like maniacs and animals for 60 minutes,” Erin Andrews told USA Today's For the Win. “And then 90 seconds after he makes a career-defining, game-changing play, I’m gonna be mad because he’s not giving me a cliché answer, ‘That’s what Seahawks football is all about and that’s what we came to do and we practice for those situations.’ No you don’t. That was awesome. That was so awesome. And I loved it.”

Writing at Sports Illustrated’s MMQB, the insufferable “Ringworm Sherm” made a host of unconvincing excuses to justify his adderall-addled antics—the choking taunt, the fake handshake taunt and calling a clear holding penalty bullshit.  He has managed to convince himself that it doesn’t rain in Seattle.  He sees blue skies instead of storm clouds.

I’m no Inspector Clouseau, but it doesn’t take much effort to search “Richard Sherman PED” to learn that this clown has a performance-enhancing drug problem.  In fact, the “Seadderall Seahawks” have a problem.

Defensive end Bruce Irvin, Seattle’s first-round draft pick in 2012, became the latest Seahawk to test positive and get a four-game suspension. He joined John Moffitt, Allen Barbre, Winston Guy and Brandon Browner on the list of guys suspended since 2011.

Richard Sherman got popped last season when he tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, but he avoided a four-game suspension when he successfully appealed on the basis of botched testing by the NFL.

The Seahawks may have won the game last Sunday, but Sherman wound up being a loser.  He deserved all the blowback he got in the aftermath of that interview.

And like the Internet meme says, “I just made you a Broncos fan.”

"Showdown at the AC Corral"

By Proof
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Modern times call for modern problems. The Gurus of Global Warming convinced many of their acolytes that the way to enlightenment and global salvation lay in abandoning the internal combustion engine for an electric car. (Cue the cute, little, three eyed aliens from Toy Story: "Oooooh!") And it was good.

And a handful of far sighted individuals bought electric cars and a handful of far sighted employers built a handful of charging stations for their employees. And it was good.

And then, they started to be plagued by their success.
Eager to reduce energy use, German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles. Just three years later, SAP faces a problem that is increasingly common at Silicon Valley companies -- far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, a host of thorny etiquette issues have arisen, along with some rare but notorious incidents of "charge rage."
Sixty one electric cars and sixteen chargers? What could possibly happen?
"In the beginning, all of our EV drivers knew each other, we had enough infrastructure, and everyone was happy. That didn't last for long," said Peter Graf, SAP's chief sustainability officer and the driver of a Nissan Leaf. "Cars are getting unplugged while they are actively charging, and that's a problem. Employees are calling and messaging each other, saying, 'I see you're fully charged, can you please move your car?'"
Unlike road rage, these people will not try to force you off the road, or shoot you, but they might send out a nasty email blast!
George Betak learned firsthand the perils of "charge rage" last fall when he worked at Yahoo's (YHOO) Sunnyvale headquarters, where he said more than 100 employees who drove plug-in vehicles regularly tussled over limited charging spots. Betak, who no longer works at Yahoo, drives the all-electric BMW Active E and one day made the grave mistake of unplugging a colleague's Chevy Volt. 
"I needed to be somewhere by 6 p.m., and all of the active chargers were full. I couldn't plug in all day," he said. "There was a Volt that appeared to be finished charging, so I unplugged it so I could get a half-hour boost. The Volt isn't pure electric -- it also has a gasoline engine. The next day, I learned that the Volt owner was furious, and he sent out this email blast saying that I stole his charge.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) estimates about 20,000 electric cars being used in northern California today, and expects 800,000 by the end of 2020. I'm sure that the wonderful people who brought you Solyndra will have figured out a solution by then!

Until then, let's be careful out there!

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

New Surgeon General Warning

...on Obamacare!
By Proof, from the archives:
"Warning: Obamacare may be hazardous to the health of your wealth."
Cross posted at Proof Positive

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Devil Baby Predictions

Hell-o.  I’m the Devil Baby that gave New Yorkers the fright of their life.  I know you’ve seen the viral video that’s been viewed more than 34 million times and counting.

Not unlike the day Lucifer decided to possess a woman’s toaster I, the spawn of The Unholy One who can make breakfast cereal speak in foul incantations and cause boiled eggs to be unrighteously runny, have visited upon this delightful blog to predict the outcome of today’s NFL Conference Championships.

Go ahead and make rude comments.  I’ll puke pea soup on you á la Linda Blair.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Unfit To Be President

On September 14, 2012 The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer and “Her Royal Thighness” Secretary of State Hillary “Rotten” Clinton delivered remarks at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base for Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith a U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer and two former Navy SEALs and embassy security personnel Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods.  They were the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

During the ceremony, Clinton said:
“This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We've seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video [emphasis mine] that we had nothing to do with.” 
“It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless. And it is totally unacceptable. The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob [emphasis mine]. Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts.”
The 85-page bipartisan Senate report on the Benghazi attack is damning to both TWMDCO and Her Royal Thighness.  The report placed blame for the attack and the subsequent murders on armed Islamist militants that have ties to al-Qaeda, the State Department and its miserably incompetent staff who “failed to heed incessant warnings that security was evaporating there.”

"The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya—to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets—and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission," the committee said in a statement.

Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large for National Review calls the report not quite a whitewash but a “very political document.”
"It is an amazing thing to have such a searing indictment of the State Department and the intelligence bureaucracy and, Hillary Clinton's name, I think appears in the entire document once," he said. “It says the State Department made all these mistakes, it made no independent intelligence investigation after this had happened, after people died.”
One must remember that the horror of Benghazi came less than two months before Election Day 2012.

For a while afterward, the West Wing and all the minions ensconced there peddled the farcical fairy tale that it wasn't planned terrorism but a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Muhammad video.

Susan Rice, then-U.S Ambassador to the UN, obediently made appearances on all five Sunday talk shows to deliberately lie to the American people on the atrocities in order to prevent “members of Congress from beating up on the State Department for not paying attention to the warnings.”

On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 TWMDCO spoke before the UN General Assembly saying:
“That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.”
“It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well--for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion, we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.”
In the second presidential debate, challenger Mitt Romney stated “for the record” that it took the president 14 days before he called the attack on Benghazi an act of terror.

Ed Morrissey offers this thought, “One does not need a name at the top of this report to know where responsibility rests for this massive failure. Hillary Clinton ran State, Leon Panetta ran Defense, and David Petraeus ran the CIA. But the distributed nature of the failure indicts the Obama administration and Barack Obama himself, too. The White House is responsible for interagency coordination, for one thing, especially when it comes to national security and diplomatic enterprises.”

When this president vanquished HRC in 2008 he nominated her for Secretary of State to create a “team of rivals”.  Remember that?  It was one of the most politicized choices in history.  The ulterior motive behind that nomination was to close ranks within the Democratic Party because everything in Washington is as calculated as the tri-dimensional chess game in Star Trek.  The scheming Left intended for this president to be reelected in 2012 and the way would be paved for Clinton for the 2016 presidential race.

Adam Parkhomenko worked for ‘ol Cankles from 2003 to 2008 on the Friends of Hillary, HILLPAC and Hillary Clinton for President Committees.  Now, he is the Executive Director of Ready for Hillary.  Its mission statement is to “build capacity across the country to put Hillary in the strongest position possible should she decide to run.”

The January 27, 2014 cover of Time Magazine features a pant-suit-clad leg ending with a high heeled shoe with a tiny little man hanging on for dear life to the heel.  It asks the question, “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?”

David Von Drehle postulates:
“Clinton has not decided whether to run for President because to do so would only slow her down. Indecision serves her well by preserving flexibility in her schedule, by shielding her from answering every Internet controversy and by allowing the Republican opposition to take shape and draw fire.  How long can this go on? Longer than you think.”
The operative word in that statement is “indecision”.  Indecision is what killed four Americans in Benghazi.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit to be president. 
Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith who was killed during the attack on our Benghazi facilities declared, “I want the whole world to know it: she lied to my face, and you don’t want this person to be president.”

On the occasion of the first Mother’s Day she wouldn’t have Sean to talk to she wished the woman with her son’s blood on her hands a Happy Mother’s Day saying, “She’s got her child.  I don’t have mine because of her.”