- Good lord. A brave security guard stops a mass shooting. Police show up after he’s subdued the perp — and and shoot the hero dead. The details are even more appalling than the bare facts. There’s a GoFundMe for the young victim, a churchgoer and father of an infant.
- Was Amazon’s long search for a second HQ a total scam? (Is anybody the teeniest bit surprised that they ended up choosing to locate in the nation’s capitals of money and political power after running the tax-paid bids into large numbers of zeros?)
- Did you know Congress created something called the United States Preventive Services Taskforce (that tries very hard to pretend it’s not a government tool)? Well, it wants each and every one of us to be screened for alcohol abuse when we visit our doctors. I guess if our government already considers us all criminals, we might as well be considered drug addicts, too. OTOH, treating us as actual free and responsible adults would be nice for a change.
- Two on the #MeToo front: A young man expelled from college four days before graduation on a demonstrably flimsy accusation sues both the school and the young woman; and Michael Werecat Dean defends Stephen Elliot, one of the men who ended up on Moira Donegan’s infamous list of anonymous accusations. Elliot is suing, too.
- MWD is also creating a musical benefit for Ross Ulbricht’s mother, who has suffered financial and emotional hardship from her son’s egregious prosecution and prison sentence. The compilation is for “microtonal and/or xenharmonic music.” Don’t ask me what that is; links at the link explain.
- Free-market talking legislators + farm bills = hypocrisy.
- Coyote Blog says don’t heed all the modern political “facts” about the history of Nazi Germany.
- My fellow political junkies: If it seemed odd to you that an all-American Republican paragon got beaten by a lying leftist anti-gun whackdoodle in the supposedly very red state of Arizona, here are five reasonable reasons.
- An anti-gunner says something about his comrades that actually makes sense.
- Have you ever wondered where your early childhood memories got to? Apparently your growing brain was responsible for their deletion.
- Even CNN gets sick of politics, it seems. They do a charming feature on photos of dogs catching treats.
- And here’s a yoga lesson for you cat lovers.
Re: the killing of the security guy by a murderous clown in costume: gee, what a surprise that LE are investigating themselves. I can see it coming now: a few weeks’ paid vacation for Officer Unfriendly, followed by “according to department policy, no further action.”
Re: the alcohol screening: of COURSE the gummint is taking an owner’s proper interest in the health and utility of its herd animals (i. e., us). How else? Moo! Moo!
Teehee! I have a cat who taught himself how to catch treats.
There are dozens of things that the grown-ups want doctors to screen for at every visit. I can’t remember them all, but the list includes domestic violence, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and depression. They also had us screening for sudden acute respiratory syndrome. This was from my residency days from 2000 – 2003. Imagine if I did that, while charging my patients for it. That would be like making an appointment with your mechanic for an air conditioning freon recharge, and he does a brake job and a tune up also and charges you for them.
BATFE Form 4473 (‘permission slip’ one fills out at a gun seller, to purchase a firearm in the US):
“”11e. Are you … addicted to … any depressant … narcotic drug, or other controlled substance?”
Answering “YES” is disqualification from firearms’ purchase.
Soon, the mere consumption of even one alcoholic beverage (then, tobacco, etc., etc.) – which IS a “controlled substance” – will be considered “addiction”. Then, refer to the question above. What the “United States Preventive Services Taskforce” wants to prevent is any one’s possession of a firearm.
If a doctor/nurse/clinician/whomever asks if you smoke, drink, own guns, or whatever, just answer NO. All they want is a response to put into their form/database. Besides, everyone seems to be lying to everyone else these days; you don’t have to tell anyone ‘the truth’ about yourself.
As things seem to be unfolding here in the state named after one of the greatest founders of the country, you have a few choices. One is to bend to the will of the so called elitist powers that be, cause you know, they know more, yet most have a hard time finding where to put gas in their car. And don’t even get me started on the BS climate change crap. That leaves us dirt folks in the Eastern half out.
The other is to just nullify every single un-Constitutional act, bill, whatever, that is passed by the so called “elitist” PTB. Simply quit playing by their illogical rules which haven’t shown a whit of common sense in over 40 years.
We now live in a state that should be considered what I call SKOW, or affectionately know as the Socialist Kingdom of Washington. We now reside in a total kingdom where every thing we say, think, and try to do, even on our own property, is controlled by the state. We no longer are innocent until proven guilty of anything but are considered felons in all things and must beg permission from the state before we can change our underwear. Then it must be approved in quintuplicate with a note from your doctor, dentist, state approved advisor and social network provider.
Please stop the bus and let me off, I’d rather crawl into a hole on bloody stumps than put up with this insane blather coming out of the asshats of the Western half of the state.
[This we “believe” is because of a small group of naïve well-heeled idealists on the left don’t want a safer gun to be the solution to gun violence.]
They don’t. It’s the same response as anti-smoking zealots wanting to ban vaping, even though it’s far safer than burning tobacco. For people who want to control people, 100 percent is the only acceptable goal.
“Naïve” is the wrong word to describe them.
“If a doctor/nurse/clinician/whomever asks if you smoke, drink, own guns, or whatever, just answer NO. All they want is a response to put into their form/database. Besides, everyone seems to be lying to everyone else these days; you don’t have to tell anyone ‘the truth’ about yourself.”
Right — and that’s my SECOND response.
My first response is: “What has that got to do with why I’m here?” and “How are you going to know if I’m telling the truth?”
I have answered that before when asked for a SS No. and regarding a gun in the house. Their stock answer is, “We have to ask.” And my response is, “Well, I don’t have to answer.”
When told by me that it is government-inspired nosiness and has nothing to do with my medical condition, they have backed off and not pushed the issue to its full argument (other patients in the office were listening).
The only way to keep political issues out of medicine is refuse to accept them as valid medical issues.
Alcohol is no worse a “drug” than sugar (and for many of the same rwasons), and far less dangerous than hidden substances such as Round-up which has recently been found in cereals such as Cheerios and Quaker Oats. At least the user knows what s/he is taking and how much alcohol is being imbibed — and has control over its intake. Pesticides, genetically-modified substances, and synthetic preservatives, OTOH, which the user cannot control but may react to, will, in the long-run, feed on the health of the patient in the form of long-term illness, including many autoimmune diseases.
I would rather know where my poison comes from than suffer for many years and die of so-called “old age”. At least it would be my choice to make.
I wonder when they will start screening for how much pizza I eat. I should be counseled on my excessive pizza intake. All that cholesterol and saturated fat are bad for me . . . in someone’s opinion.
“I wonder when they will start screening for how much pizza I eat.”
They’re probably tracking your pizza purchases already and keeping a permanent record. The next Edward Snowden will reveal the existence of an NSA pizza database a year or so from now — if some hacker doesn’t get in and expose the entire government pizza-consumption database (sorted according to our socialist insecurity numbers) sooner and sell it on the darkweb.
Doctors are coerced to ask these questions and most disdain it. (A previous name for this program was “Meaningful Use” but uniformly I heard doctors refer to it as meaningless use.) . I work at an office with a specialty where drinking, smoking, flu shots, pneumonia vaccines, etc. are generally irrelevant to what the patient is there for, but we ask anyway. If we don’t, the government withholds a substantial amount of money from medicare reimbursement (whether or not the particular patient is a medicare patient is irrelevant). Of course, withholding this money isn’t a penalty for non-compliance. Granting it is an “incentive” payment for doing their will. Part of what I have to do is review the data on patients who don’t get us points on a particular measure to identify recording errors/omissions and make adjustments, so I see the forms that the patients fill out in answering the questions. I get a kick out of the many who simply leave sections blank (usually smoking and drinking questions) and especially those where the notation on the form is “patient refused the form”, but a majority answer them all unquestioningly. Fortunately, to date, it isn’t illegal for the patient to do this or to lie…
“I get a kick out of the many who simply leave sections blank”
That’s encouraging. 🙂 Little Outlaws everywhere.
Thanks for the insight, even the depressing parts.
“I wonder when they will start screening for how much pizza I eat.”
If you pay for your pizza with plastic, then there’s already a record, same goes if you have your pizza delivered, not to mention a supermarket “loyalty card”
The issue will be when the U.S. enacts socialized medicine; “Sorry Mr. Smith you’ve drunk too much and ate too much pizza, we won’t be able to treat you”
“I get a kick out of the many who simply leave sections blank”
That’s encouraging. 🙂 Little Outlaws everywhere.
It’s long been legend that if you strap an American in a chair naked and shine a bright light in his face all you’ll get is name, rank and serial number, and often not even that much.
But give him a form to fill out ……….
And the forms are particularly insidious when they come from your doctor. There is the unspoken assumption that there is a legitimate medical reason for the questions.
For the questions from our medical profession, concerning liberty, I have one thing in common with those who live by the Quran and that is when it comes to answering questions from the non believers (of liberty) I have no problem giving a less than honest answer to protect my liberty.
“… to date, it isn’t illegal for the patient to do this or to lie” – MP, November 14, 2018 6:32 pm.
Life Insurance forms already ask applicants’ health habits. Not admitting tobacco use, for instance, could be considered ‘Insurance Fraud’ (one of those “Three Felonies A Day”). And, it could void any policy issued, and prevent any payout, even if all the premiums were paid.
Just wait ’til they start putting similar “under penalty of perjury” clauses on dr/hospital forms …
[Note: Herein is not legal advice. You have to pay for that.]
“Have you ever wondered where your early childhood memories got to?”
I never knew why while I was simply thankful that it’s so.
So far, the NRA has been absolutely silent on “A good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun getting popped by trigger happy cops”.
I expect them to stay that way, as they did for Philando Castile. Because the only thing better than a good guy with a gun in the NRA’s eyes is a cop.
And that cop will get 4 months desk duty and a letter of commendation in his personnel file.