MsGuy

TY, KYTOP's suggestion is an excellant one. My friend the long time Lion's Club big wig would kick my ass if he knew I had forgotten about the Lion's programs for blind and sight impaired folks. It's their main inter-national charitable focus. Local clubs choose how they will engage in the overall effort, so any inquiries should be directed to one of your local charters. The club locator link on this assistance requests page shows 4 clubs in the Tampa area. Since this is a completely local activity and programs vary greatly, it may well be another dead end for you but it's certainly worth checking into. My small town Lions Club has sponsored operations for several people over the years. Because of the execellent reputation of the Lions in this field, clinics and hospitals often offer their services at a discount when the Lions are sponsoring the individual.

Curmudgeon \ kur-MUDJ-uhn \ noun 1. a bad tempered, difficult, cantankerous person. 2. a surly or miserly person. I wouldn't go that far. Cranky at times, maybe...

Not really. NASA decides to grab a few headlines by overstating its findings. The media proceeds to hype the hell out of the story. Not saying this isn't a breakthrough in understanding the capacity of earthlife to adapt to hostile enviroments. Or that it doesn't have implications for the possibilities of alien life evolving in circumstances previously thought unpromising. But then folks have been speculating on that for as long as I can remember.

RA1, several of the more affluent families in my home town use Mayo when they are dissatisfied with the level of medical care available locally/regionally. As Minnesota is a lot closer to Canada than to Mississippi, I doubt that some Canadians making the trip down proves anything other than folks who can afford it tend to seek out the kind of world class medical care Mayo offers, where ever it may be found.

LOL, I had to look it up, but that actually works as an explanation! OK, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So now Comcast has decided to charge Netflix (& presumably any other Streaming content providers in the future) a toll to allow their bit-stream to flow down the last mile of the internet. Pay to Play

But wait, there's more... "There may be more damage to come: In a followup to his original piece, Forbes’s Andy Greenberg writes that WikiLeaks has unpublished documents from multiple financial firms. "Ever modest, when asked about the impact the impending “megaleak” may pose, Mr. Assange told Forbes, ” It could take down a bank or two.” ---- That seems a little paranoid, BBB. The CIA is angling to take down the State Dept,the Oval Office and the US finantial system? The only way we will know for sure is if Mr. Assange gets his hands on the Agency's archives and goes rogue. And somehow manages to avoid falling out a 6th story window.

"We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it" Wikileaks announces plans for a massive release of executive level memos and documents from a major US bank. I have no idea how Julian Assange, the Wikileaks guy, has managed to avoid being shot but he is certainly providing us with a lot of fascinating information. Can you imagine how many top banking guys are puking blood into their executive toilets after reading that article in Forbes?

TY, most insured folks have no idea of the difficulties the uninsured face in obtaining adequate medical care. And until they become aware just how close their own tax & employer subsidised insurance system is to collapse, they will continue to feel no sense of urgency to deal with the situation, especially if alternatives are presented as threating their own comfortable situation. That's no reflection on them , it's just part of being human.* Problems that don't impact us personally just don't seem all that urgent. I readily admit the condition of the US health care system didn't seem all that urgent to me until I realized that I might actually live long enough to see it implode around me. *Look at what's happening down in Haiti. Does either of us feel any real sense of urgency about this? Yeah, it's regretable but it's not really our problem, right?

Me too. Not in the States. Down here it's a paycheck.

I'm sure these reforms won't magically solve all Cali's problems but they do seem to be at least a half step in the right direction. "Two upcoming changes will remake California elections, but it's not clear if either major party will benefit. The state is using an independent citizen's commission to redraw the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts, after voters stripped that power from the Legislature. California also is moving to open primary contests for congressional, legislative and statewide offices. Voters will be able to choose candidates from any party, with the top two vote-getters heading to the general election." (Washington Post) Those two, plus being able to pass a budget by majority vote, ought to nudge state politics in a more sensible direction.

According to this article, Wikileaks has agreed to at least a modicum of self-censorship on the diplomatic cables.

Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs." The Guardian, one of many news outlets given a dump of the diplomatic cable traffic, gives a sampling of the type of material found in the records. Everything from Prince Andy behaving badly abroad to the Saudi's pleading for air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities to the Afgan Vice President being caught in a Gulf States airport with a suitcase stuffed with $52 million in cash. Basically the leak amounts to snapshot of the US caught in the act of either 1) covertly managing the American Empire or 2) coping as best it can with a complex, difficult international enviroment , take your choice. By the way, the Wikileaks site is currently under a DDOS attack rendering it inaccessible to the public. Assuming it eventually goes back on line, I've read that the cables will be in the form of a searchable data base, so anyone can go looking for whatever he might find of interest (including whatever Prince Andrew was up to).

TY, you might be interested in this short article in National Review by Sen. Coburn. The good Dr. even quotes Tom Jefferson on the subject of earmarks: "Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison, spoke directly against federally-funded local projects. “t will be the source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get the most who are the meanest.” Jefferson understood that earmarks and coercion would go hand in hand." Full article

Xian, this is a reply to your blog rather than your post here. Have you considered consulting with a sports physical therapist about your knee pain? A good one might be able to tailor an exercise regimen for you that allow you to successsfully compete in club tennis. Or, if that's not in the cards, he might help you find a more appropriate sport in which you can excel without undue stress on your knees. I get the feeling from reading your blog that tennis is only a means to an end and that your underlying goal is to be recognized as a competent athlete by your friends and family (& those old farts at the club). However all that turns out for you, you have my best wishes.

Not to fret, TY, something not unlike what you wished for is aready on the horizon. I figure that as health care costs creep above 20% of GDP in the US, business enterprises will be forced to pull out of providing health insurance for their employees and America's whole weird, Rube Goldberg system will collapse. FYI, that's sometime toward the end of this decade according to the latest projections, so schedule any elective procedures you may be anticipating accordingly.

Meanwhile, one more shoe topples off the bed. Irish government collaspses under debt.

LOL, actually, lookin, it's a case of purest serendipity. "Personally, I'd click the off button on this feature" was intended as an indirect way of supporting Lucky's desire for management to turn off the feature. I had no idea any such button existed except on the administration level. But you followed up on my unintended clue, found the button and the rest is history. I've already used your button myself! I was sorely tempted to take undeserved credit for this delightful discovery, but, seeing as it was my hero lookin who did the work (& being exausted by being poked by the few remaining remnants of my conscience all afternoon ), I felt a full confession was in order. Thanks, lookin, for allowing me this opportunity to spend a few hours basking in unearned glory. It was wonderful while it lasted.

Guys, back in the day, gays just didn't out other gays. These days some do. Times change. Standards of behavior change. Some out for ideological/political reasons, some out from anger/revenge/spite, some for their 15 minutes of fame or to make a buck. All I'm saying is do what you think right but don't be a hypocrite about it and be honest about what you're doing. Go back and read the article. Can anyone honestly say that the business about his Scientology was anything but throw-a-way fluff to cover their ass from criticism by gays who still are uncomfortable with commercialized outing?

Well, Lucky, the common denominator for most of the topics you cited is the word "what" in the title. Not exactly a useful criteria to select threads for further reading. On the plus side, the software did seem to understand that "Sarah Palin" correlates with "Nuisance." Maybe Oz hired left leaning programmers. Personally, I'd click the off button on this feature.

So now they are saying we have 4 Republican votes to repeal DADT in the Defense Authorization Bill if it makes it past filabuster and 2 Republican votes for cloture (maybe)!!?? And that Obama has strong armed the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Reid into keeping repeal in the bill (for now). I've been up and down on this DADT repeal roller coaster to the point my head is spinning. I've gotten to the point I'm deliberately trying not to get my hopes up. So does anyone have any information as to what Dick Lugar and Susan Collins (the 2 potential Repubican votes for cloture) are up to? Are they serious about voting for cloture if Republicans are allowed to offer a reasonable number of amendments or are they just blowing smoke up the collective ass of gay friendly Republican and independant supporters with no real intention of ever allowing an up and down vote on DADT? Anybody got any idea? I'm way past being bumfuzzeled on this.

Lucky, try as you may, you will never convince me a major pharmaceutal company would try to sell worthless products with nasty side effects just to make a buck. After all, we are trusting these people with our lives!

hee hee hee

Agreed. If you're down with randomly outing folks for purely commercial purposes, just man up about it ( ) and say so. The pretense that Travolta's Scientology has anything to do with this is just plain silly.

Bless your heart, RA1, but folks who reside at the headwaters of Burning Creek don't often let such concerns influence their votes.