July 11, 2007
I'm Burried
in paperwork concerning my mother's eligability for Medicaid help in paying for her long term care in a nursing home. And I'm paying a firm in Florida $5K to set it up and actually apply for me. I'd hate like hell to be wading through the beurocracy on my own.
My part and the firms part must be done by 7/27 to get retroactive coverage for this month. If not it's another $6K. Medicaid will not cover all the nursing home costs. About half will come from Mom's meager income, which is close to all of her income.
If you have parents nearing retirement age, do yourself a favor and talk them into getting long term care insurance. Dealing with government agencies is a royal pain in the ass.
July 10, 2007
Be a Sheepdog not a Sheep
Regrettably, there are too many other examples to mention of such brutal slayings. Random atrocities are all too common in our country. No one with common sense knowingly walks into danger. We do not seek it out. Sadly the predatory miscreant seeks his victims everywhere, thus anyone of us could be attacked just about anywhere you can think of. There are no safe sanctuaries. Too few of us prepare for it.
The next time some buffoon tells you that you are better off to submit to the whims of a criminal. You recount what you read on the Snopes site about what happened to these poor young people, whose lives were taken from them callously by depraved monsters.
Yes I carry a gun and hope to never have the need to use it, but use it I will if the need comes knocking.
July 08, 2007
Briar Weekend
Every year in the middle of July the father-in-laws family has a family reunion at Natural Bridge park in the hills of eastern Kentucky. It's usually hotter than all hell down on those 'hollers' this time of year, so I've successfully avoided the trip for maybe 15 years. This year the Boss and I drove her Dad down into the hills of his youth for the annual event. The heat was tollerable so long as I stayed in the shade and sat still on my butt.
Those hill folk are nice enough, but I have zero in common, except for the Boss, and nothing to talk about. The elders have maybe an 8th grade education at best because higher education wasn't available in those back hills. Out of 40+ people I think 3 have anything more than a high school education. They're all good, hard working people, but we think entirely different about the world in general.
The 3+ hour drive each way is definately a total waste of fuel and time as far as I'm concerned.
Driving back north through Cincinnatti was bumber to bumber 3-4 lanes wide. It seems to me that every weekend, this part of Ohio increases in elevation and then goes back down when all the Kentucky Briars head back north.
July 06, 2007
More Beltway BS
Bush is catching all kinds of Hell because he used presidential powers to reduce the sentense of Libby. Billy-Bob of Arkansas pardoned several convicts just before leaving office, and he lied under oath just like Libby. Those complaining about Bush were quiet about Billy-Bob. I wonder why?
Humiliating
Misbehaving/criminal US soldiers and failings of the efforts in Iraq get tons of media attention, while the atrocities of Al Qaeda only seem to get reported by the very few. And then it's summarily ignored by the MSM.
From the Geek
WHY DON'T AL QAEDA ATROCITIES GET MEDIA ATTENTION?
Because that might help Bush.
UPDATE: A journalist whose name you'd recognize emails:
Yon's story doesn't get attention because it is humiliating.
It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media � and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can�t do squat about such determined use of force.
Our words, images, arguments and skills can�t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won�t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.
So we pretend Yon�s massacre � and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn�t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can �fix� with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we �fix� them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.
Please don�t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.
This also seems to fit the pattern of most of the left. They ignore the existance evil, they ignore the truth about gun control, and they ignore all the historical failings of socialism. Maybe it is humiliating to be proven wrong, to have all your utopian beliefs dumped squarely down the toilet.
AK-47, Happy Birthday
Sixty years after the AK-47 went into production, Mikhail Kalashnikov says he does not stay awake at night worrying about the bloodshed wrought by the world's most popular assault rifle.
"I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," Kalashnikov said Friday at a ceremony marking the birth of the rifle, whose initials stand for "Avtomat Kalashnikov."
July 05, 2007
Happy Birthday
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.��Ronald Reagan
July 4th is the day on which we celebrate the first stirrings of our national freedom�and not just our nation�s freedom from foreign rule, but our own individual freedoms, which dated almost from that very day. It�s an important day�probably the most important holiday on our calendar�because it stands as our reminder. Kim du Toit
And we need to guard every one of those personal freedoms and liberty as if our very lives depended on it. Multitudes lost their lives acquiring our liberties, and multitudes have lost their lives since maintaining it. Liberty is worth more than life itself. If you disagree, then I suggest you deserve neither liberty nor life.
