Category: Conservative

Posted on

Now This Really Pisses me off!!!

DavidLoPan

I swear the TSA and our government have got to be a bunch of idiots!

I hate being taken for a fool and god knows the TSA loves to assume the American People are idiots. Worse though is when the TSA assumes that our enemies are idiots.

Years ago, LONG before the TSA existed I got into trouble, as in “detained” for questioning the logic of the people running the metal detectors.

Back in the day, they’d have us turn on our equipment, then they’d look through the lens of our SLR film cameras and wave us on to the metal detectors.

I pointed out once that a variety of explosives are very stable, powerful, and require a blasting cap or its equivalent to detonate. Given these facts, were I someone that wanted to do something bad I’d actually want there to be power in a laptop or similar device. 

SLR Camera

At that same time I also pointed out that looking through the view finder of an SLR camera tells you absolutely NOTHING about what might be in the film compartment.  (Yes, it was WAY back in the day!)

When the nice security men & FBI finished questioning me, one of the agents asked me what on earth possessed me to cause a scene in a boarding line at an airport?

I responded:

I didn’t cause a scene, I simply made some observations… out loud.

I continued, if someone is going to inconvenience me in the name of safety then by god DO IT and be safe about it.

MetalDetectors

No-one is safe if our safety is an illusion. Simply going through the motions of insuring my safety is an insult and a waste of mine and everyone else’s time. If you’re concerned about a bomb being in a laptop then really inspect the laptop. 

If you’re concerned about explosives in an SLR camera then open the damn camera and LOOK inside.

But best of all, make us put everything through the damn X-ray machine. Then you can actually see if something looks amiss inside our computers, cameras, cellphones, backpacks, purses, and god knows what else people may be carrying onto the damn airplane.

The agent smiled.

He told me he didn’t want to see me ever again in one of questioning rooms. He told me I was smart enough to understand that, “Theater” could sometimes be a deterrent, and that I wasn’t incorrect about the stuff that could go boom.

I saw his point, at the time.

I happily flew for many years after that encounter. I also noticed that the security folks began asking all passengers to put all their stuff in the X-ray machines.

Why am I pissed off now?

Because we’ve come full circle!

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi YouTube

The difference is that our enemies have access to stuff that is more destructive, and those same enemies aren’t using bombs as a negotiating tool (as the folks who claimed they had a bomb then ordered the pilot of a plane to take them to Cuba).  Today our enemies are willing to blow themselves up and take other people with them.

SO why are we engaging in this silly bit of theater?

The DHS says they’re worried about so called undetectable bombs…

Okaaayyy. 

Then doesn’t that presuppose that the people building these sophisticated bombs are smart enough to build them so that powering up the devices won’t set the thing off?

Lets give our enemies credit for at least being able to use the knowledge they gained going to western colleges.

I resent the theater today more than I resented it back at the dawn of time.

Theater isn’t going to protect us from Jihadists intent on causing us harm. 

If our government is serious about protecting us, then they need to terminate all financial aid and make sure that ALL funds to and from terrorists cells in our country are cut off.

The Hamas mouthpiece CAIR should be deprived of all funding originating outside the US and should be prevented from transferring any funds out of the country. Which means preventing the French bank BNP and others from obfuscating the sources and destinations of transactions. 

(For god’s sake it’s an annoying odyssey for honest citizens to open bank accounts with piddly sums of cash. How the HELL can international banks get aways with this stuff?)

We shouldn’t be providing Syria weapons.

The Muslim Brotherhood is another organization that we have no business supporting.

We need to be depriving these terrorist organizations of their funding, weapons, and communications.

It’s interesting that ISIS is waging an impressive recruiting and PR campaign via Twitter! That needs to stop.  If that means giving the Muslim countries their dreams of internet isolation from the rest of the world, so be it.

Last, and most importantly we need to stop the politically correct bullshit. I’m not suggesting that we become a bunch of racist xenophobes, I’m saying that we need to have all the information about the goings on in our country.

That means we need to see the reports about honor killings, like those recently uncovered in NJ. We need to understand how Islam is influencing our country for good or ill. We need truth, and fearlessly honest reporting to return to mainstream news.

I firmly believe that in the light of truth, we as a people will be better able to make decisions that are in our best interests.

Make no mistake, it’s not a sin to act in your own self interests.

Even the Occupy Wall Street people figured that out.

Posted on

A slow news day…

This morning over my morning coffee I noticed that the News feeds hadn’t changed their headlines much.

NewImage

The news lead on Google is about the botched execution where the inmate later died of a heart attack. 

While that’s an important issue I’m somewhat disinterested. The inmate died. That was, after all the desired result of the execution.

That the inmate died in a way that was not according to plan and obviously less than peacefully isn’t something I’m particularly worried about. I presume that his victim(s) didn’t die peacefully either. Perhaps this was simply Karma playing out.

I’m ambivalent about the death penalty.

NewImage

I used to be a staunch supporter, but now I’m not as sure as I once was. I’m not in favor of the death penalty today because there have been so many instances where the person convicted of a crime had their conviction overturned by DNA or witnesses recanting their stories.

Given these occurrences, I’m not sure that taking another persons life is truly the best solution. Death is final, conviction of a capital crime, on the other hand, may not be.

Regardless of where you stand on the death penalty, we as a society all bear the responsibility for throwing the switch.

Each of us is taking another person’s life by proxy. That responsibility is something that I am not convinced I should accept. 

As a result, I have voted NO in recent elections where the Death Penalty was on the ballot. Even with my NO vote, if executions are still being carried out in the name of the society (of which I’m a member) I still bear responsibility for taking another’s life.

On the other hand, if I were to see someone kill another human being during the commission of a crime with my own eyes… 

Sorry… Mr Killer, you’re a dead man.

My thoughts on this subject may be confusing to some, but this logic illustrates a point.

You don’t have to be 100% in either the liberal or conservative camp. You can use your mind and information to decide what you think is right or wrong from either side of the political coin.

In general I think our “News” organizations are failing us and that they have all become so biased as to be unreliable.

Cases in point

NewImage

Why hasn’t the media picked up on the recently retired Representative Keith Farnham (D) from Illinois being charged with possessing child pornography?

NewImage

From Breitbart, Why haven’t the Media Outlets reported the other cases of BLM overreach? There’s an interesting article here  discussing a “Land Grab” in California. Essentially the property owner has had his property value reduced to zero because he can’t build, subdivide, or sell the property to anyone except an organization that will then turn the land over to the BLM.

This guys had this kind of thing happen to him twice with two different pieces of land! 

There’s another piece on Breitbart about the BLM that further illustrates government overreach.

This stuff is Newsworthy. 

These articles are exactly why the media is supposed to be unbiased. Without the media, these kinds of abuses go on every day and allow our government to become more powerful, more abusive, and less American every day.

NewImage

Conservatism is no longer he ravings of a few disgruntled rich, fat, white men, or the lunatic fringe whose poster boy is Rush Limbaugh.

Each and every one of us should be concerned and taking notice. If a low level organization like the BLM can get away with this kind of thing, it begs the question;

What can higher level organizations get away with?

Posted on

Thank God for Obamacare. (NOT!)

NewImage

What follows is my personal experience in the odyssey of trying to obtain and / or keep health care insurance.

In March of 2013 I obtained a personal healthcare policy at a substantial savings over the nearly $700 dollars a month I had been paying under COBRA.

Yes, I was unemployed, I still am unemployed. Make no mistake, my unemployment isn’t for lack of trying to find something. I’m old (in my 50s) so obviously I’m not employable anymore and everything I know about anything is of course null & void.

I’ve applied to retail places, I’ve applied at Apple as a retail store clerk, I’ve applied at places that I should have been a shoe in. But nothing has led to my obtaining gainful employment.

So here I am, unemployed, with no unemployment benefits. I’m still paying my bills by using my 401k and being eaten alive with the penalties incurred from early withdrawal of funds.

I’ve got scary amounts on my credit cards and I’ve been just trying to hold out a little longer.

Ok, maybe I’m a foolish optimist, maybe, I should have cashed out and moved to South America or Indonesia when I could live for a good long time on the cash I have, and simply checked out of the rat race.

I haven’t, I still have hope. I still believe there is a place for me in the society of my birth. Albeit I’m starting to question that belief.

NewImage

In November or December I received a notice from Anthem saying the due to Obamacare my policy was going to be cancelled.

I called Anthem and was told that due to the lateness of the notices, I had the option to extend my policy to February.

I thought “Cool” that will give the whole Obamacare rush and ensuing nightmare scheduled for January 1st, time to settle.

There were, and still are so many unknowns about the way that Obamacare is going to affect the health care industry I figured by mid February the information would be more available and I’d be better able to make an informed choice as a consumer.

NewImage

So I told the Anthem representative I wanted to take the option. The representative said “excellent”, took some additional information and we terminated the connection.

Flash forward to yesterday. A routine monthly RX was suddenly denied. The pharmacy says that I need to show them a new insurance card, which I don’t have.

I’m thinking WTF?

I do some checking and find that the Anthem automatic deduction from my checking account didn’t take place. It usually happens within a 5 day spread we’re three days past that 5 day spread.

I’d noticed the billing was late but hey it’s January and they have to be busy as hell thanks to Obamacare.

NewImage

Apparently, I’m now in an indeterminate state with my insurance. I’ve spent the past 4 hours on hold trying to reach an Anthem representative and had the call dropped 5 times.

This is not an issue I can fix on their damn web site, or via their voice recognition computer, I need a human being because something has clearly gone awry but I have no capacity to correct the problem (whatever that may be) by myself.

I did get a letter of explanation about why my original policy had been cancelled.

I apparently absolutely must have pediatric dentistry as part of the policy.

Since I have no children, I’m confused about why my health care policy was canceled to force me to add a service I will never use.

There have been reports of other single men across the country having their policies cancelled because their existing policy didn’t cover mammograms, pap smears, and other related singularly female issues.

My Anthem Dental policy recently FAILED to cover any part of a necessary treatment like a crown and refused to cover a necessary filling. But my new policy will, by God include pediatric dentistry.

NewImage

I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to do a Dental policy when I selected the Obamacare approved policy in February.

My current Dental policy was costing more yearly, than the cost of 2 cleanings and once yearly X-rays, if I were to pay for these services out of pocket.

Since it didn’t cover much in the way of other dentistry I figured why bother? I’ll shop around for a dentist on my own and we’ll figure out a reasonable price for services on our own.

I’m confused by all these required services being required in every single policy. If I were to get married I’d review my insurance policy and make appropriate changes. If I were to become a father I would again review my insurance and make necessary changes.

In point of fact, these LIFE CHANGES have always been accommodated in corporate policies regardless of open enrollment periods.

NewImage

I find myself completely confused and pissed off because Obamacare is screwing over the healthcare system. for the sake of maybe 10% of the population. But the other 90% of us are being absolutely FUCKED.

When I say FUCKED, I mean hard, fast, and dry!

When I found out there’d been a problem with my RXs, I asked the pharmacist what’s it going to cost for me to just pay for the stuff I need? The answer was astounding, $297.00!

And that is for generics!

I thought generics are supposed to be cheaper. Which led me to wonder what the “real” drugs cost. Would I be better off going to Tijuana and filling my RXs there? Or should I contact a Canadian Pharmacy and have a lovely 3 day weekend in Toronto once every six months?

OH Wait… That’s right, our FDA says the Canadian Drugs or Tijuana drugs aren’t the same, or as safe as the American versions.

Right! We’re expected to believe this in light of the defective Warfarin from China a few years ago?

Or the Oxycontin debacle, or the Indian drug company that had glass in it’s Statin products.

Or the other Indian drug company whose drugs were not at the correct concentration, or even the correct drug in some cases, or otherwise contaminated?

NewImage

The FDA is full of shit and obviously in collusion with big pharmaceutical companies. But the FDA still wants us to believe American drugs are somehow safer than their foreign counterparts.

Uh, sure, yep, I’ll believe that.

In a pigs eye!

As I move into the fifth hour on hold I find myself wondering why I, and apparently a large chunk of average American citizens are being punished to provide insurance for a relatively small portion of the overall population?

It would have been far easier, and certainly more direct for the federal government to just PAY for all coverage for that part of the population. Or the government could have required that the insurance companies pay for the uninsured population out of their obscene profits. That would have had the same effect.

Yet we have a congress that apparently passed Obamacare without reading it.

Those members of congress that did read the law, raised objections and have subsequently been painted as some evil caricature of satan because they actually did their job and questioned the far reaching impacts of the law.

Any average citizen who questions the effectiveness of Obamacare is similarly painted as a racist, GOP RWNJ (Right wing nut job), and evil beyond all of Satan’s inner circle.

Discussion of the subject is more forbidden at the holiday table than religion, politics, or the next superbowl winner.

NewImage

Many in the medical profession have been warning of massive disruptions in medical care and irrevocable changes or damage to our system that will likely leave our healthcare system in shambles.

Doctors are retiring early because they see a situation where they will not be able to provide their services without such intense government intrusion that compliance with government regulations will trump patient consideration.

I myself am once again looking at a 700 per month bill for insurance (per the conversation of December.) But my policy isn’t substantially changing.

After SIX hours in a hold queue I finally got an operator who had stuff on the ball and who was able to help me. Yeah, you read that correctly. SIX hours!

I still didn’t get all the stuff done I needed to with regard to the routine maintenance of the policy. But I was able to get the correct numbers to get the RX filled.

I’m grateful to that lady and I hope she had a great day.

NewImage

As far as the rest of it?

I’m really starting to believe that Obamacare should be terminated before the damage done to the healthcare industry is irrevocable.

Of course since I’ve said that, I’m automatically a rabid, racist, gun totin, GOP RWNJ.

Hey ultra liberals, you may want to be very careful how you paint me. I might decide to own it.

 

 

Posted on

Am I becoming anti-technology or just paranoid?

NewImage

There was a time when I didn’t mind playing with Windows, Mac, Linux, UNIX, Android, and IOS all at the same time.

I actually liked the challenge of cobbling together all the bits necessary to connect disparate machines & systems into a nicely unified whole.

This led to about 20 email addresses and nightmares in synchronizing various contacts lists.

Lately, I’ve been on a simplification kick. I’ve been deleting accounts of various types that no longer serve me. Now I’ve gotten to the point where I’m looking very hard at email addresses.

I have an Android phone, I have Mac computers and an iPad that I freaking love. 

By definition this means that I have to have at least one gmail account. It also means that I have to connect the Mac & iPad to that gmail account in order to keep the contact lists current between the devices. 

This is an uneasy connection / alliance at best. When it works it’s mostly ok when it breaks it’s a royal pain in the behind.

I’ve gotten tired of fighting to keep everything in sync. 

I’ve long believed that technology should be transparent to the user. With Macs in general that is true. But sometimes trying to work outside the Mac empire is… well opaque. 

I’ve finally gotten to the point that I just don’t want to have to fiddle.

With the recent revelations about the monitoring our own government is conducting, It’s time for me to consolidate and reduce my internet footprint to as minimal as possible. One easy way to do that is to standardize on Apple devices and services exclusively.

Obviously, that won’t stop the monitoring, but at least I’ll know where I’m bleeding information from.

Posted on

Sharp Fire Day 3 (What part of this don’t you understand?)

Unknown

Yes we’re evacuated.

Yes it’s inconvenient and a little uncomfortable, if for no other reason than our routine has been completely disrupted.

BUT…  and this is important.

It is far better for me to be here.

Not because I’m scared but because I’m out of the way!

Narrow roads, unpredictable fire, lots of equipment, lots of firemen, the very real potential for chaotic and potentially dangerous retreat where second of delay can cost lives.

So the Firefighters correctly asked us to evacuate. They very patiently explained their reasoning to people who didn’t get it,  and yet…

There were dumbasses who insisted on not leaving when they’re asked to do so. I get it, they wanted to stay to protect their homes if possible.

If I didn’t have responsibility for the dog, I might have been one of those dumbasses. Of course… The key would have been in the ignition of the car, the car nose out in the driveway and the basics would have been packed in the back of the car.

Worse yet are the dumbasses who insist on walking into an evacuated area.

Folks that don’t leave are, at least Identifiable because they’re going to be hunkered down in their houses. If things go bad the Firefighters can make sure they can take those folks with them.

But what about the people that walk in?

Are these people thinking at all? 

Many of them don’t belong or live in the area,  and don’t know what they’re walking into.

They’re placing yet another strain on the Police & Firefighters. Yes, another strain… How do the police know you’re not up to no good?

The Police and Firefighters are busting their asses to make sure that the property is protected from both the fire and from opportunistic scumbags.

The presence of people walking in and out of the evacuation area makes the jobs of the Firefighters and Police much more difficult than it needs to be.

These guys, have to keep doing head-counts to keep track of the number of folks coming in & out. And with ecah new body they see, its another person they’re responsible for.

Yes dumbasses…  

The Firefighters and Police primary duty is to protect human life, then structures & property. (Yep even idiots who by all that’s Holy should have offed themselves years ago and earned a Darwin Award in the process)

Your presence in the area makes them responsible for you.

Honestly I’d rather have the Firemen concentrating on putting the fire out instead of counting or trying to control idiots. 

But then again, I’m funny that way. I’d rather not lose my home again. 

If the wind changes and the fire starts moving fast toward them what are those people on foot going to do?

Ask for the cops to give them a ride out? Hop on the firetrucks and hope theres enough room?

I’d like to see the police give them a ride out of the area… to the local jail. Charge them with insufferable stupidity and hold them for 10 days. But that’s me…

Should the wind change, causing the firefighters have to fall back… Does it ever occur to these idiots, that a Firefighter or Police officer may lose their life trying to find or protect their moronic asses? 

Of course not…

Nope! All these people think about is their own selfish desires and self importance.

So, for the sake of the morons in the crowd.

Fire Hot

Fire has big red things climbing trees and crawling on bushes

Smoke from fire hard to breath its bad

Firefighters make fire go away

When Fireman tells you to go away… Do it!  

Go find someone else to annoy perhaps you can go chat up someone in the media I’m sure one of them would love to hear your inane driveling about big fire, lots of smoke, and that you were scared.

The media won’t even bother to ask if you’re a resident or why you crossed an evacuation line in the first place.

One last thing… we pretty much all agree that the Main Stream Media are a bunch of idiots… So since THEY are out of the evacuation areas what does that say about those folks that cross evacuation lines on foot?

Think about it.