Cheney "Just Fine" After Heart Transplant...

It has been axiomatic amongst the most rabid Left-wingers in America that Dick Cheney, the so-called Prince of Darkness, has no heart.

Now we know he's had at least two.

We here at the Asylum can't help but believe, although we love Dick Cheney with all our (no pun intended) hearts, that the whole Cheney Transplant drama sets a very bad precedent.

Think of It As The Healthcare Version of "Catch-and-Release"...

Nutjob climbs L.A. Tower....naked and whistling hymns.

While the President is busy using Gestapo-like tactics to force the catholic Church to pay for abortions, perhaps he could explain what his "landmark" "healthcare" law is going to do to help the truly mentally ill?

The Regulatory State Run Amok...

Drop that muffin! You're under arrest!

FDA now considers Walnuts to be drugs.

The government is now out to regulate food companies and suppliers who claim, often with some justification, that their products are 'better' for you and have beneficial health effects. If this is what ObamaCare has truly wrought, then we're in for a reign of petty tyranny, the likes of which we have not seen since the days of the Intolerable Acts.

We're probably also going to suffer under a government-run healthcare system which can spend it's time looking for legitimate businesses to sue and harass, while providing the typical Third-World style of government healthcare: you'll get that proverbial mosquito-netted cot on which to slowly die from some otherwise-treatable malady upon, safe from the prying eyes of the tourists and journalists.

Light bulbs. Low-flow Toilet bowls. CAFE standards. Salt, sugar and caloric intake. These are all, to some extent or another, regulated by the government, all under the auspices of 'it's good for us', so why shouldn't the government take the next, logical step and claim walnuts as a prescription drug, or unfiltered tap water a danger to Americans? Who's stopping them? Who is raising a ruckus over such an insignificant thing?

The thing is, though, these regulations are never about 'what's good for us'; they're about putting some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in charge of some aspect of your life, then taxing everything within an inch of it's life, and expanding the scope and power of government in ever-more subtle and destructive ways.

The insignificant has a way of becoming very significant under those conditions, and very quickly.

Revolutions have often begun this way.

National Marlboros and Twinkies Day...

Yet another city government decides that smokers are fair game.

It is ironic, no, that's the wrong word...it's sad...that in this day-and-age of the West 'bringing freedom and democracy' to the brain-dead-bass-ackwards-intolerant Muslim World, the West itself becomes just a little bit more like those Muslims with every passing day.

As far as smoking bans go, this one is quite tame compared to the oppressive regime we Smokers here in Fuhrer Bloomdouche’s New Yorkistan must suffer. However, when you start to discuss the possibility of discrimination in employment because of a person’s willingness to engage in a legal activity that government has collected untold hundreds of billions from for centuries, you’re starting to wander off the reservation of 'caring' about your fellow men and into the hypocritical minefield of totalitarianism.

Smoking Bans are quite popular these days, and smokers are perhaps the last group of people on Planet Earth that one can, in a socially-acceptable sense that requires nothing more than a great deal of moral sermonizing, openly discriminate against. Oh, and the Fatties. You can discriminate against them, too.

The reason being that the habits of Smokers and Fatties have long drawn the disapproval of so-called Liberals who consider both a blight upon the landscape, an easy source of tax dollars, and a wonderful target of opportunity in the fight to bring about socialist tyranny one baby step at a time. After all, how sweet is it that one can torment, brutalize, unfairly tax, discriminate, and hold up for public approbation and humiliation their fellow Men under the cover of the bromide “I’m only worried about your health, and the health of others” and not have to mean a single word of it?

If you only ever understand one thing about Liberalism, then understand this:

Liberalism is never about your freedom. It's never about your right to live as you choose. It's never about your benefit; it's always about the Libtard being able to reorder society according to his or her own often-questionable tastes and ideals. Liberals don't want the power to 'take care of you'; they want the power to make you live as they see fit as a matter of their own personal physical and mental comfort.

Some will make the argument that Smokers and Fatties are millstones hung around the neck of society, as their habits are more likely to cost the State billions in health care costs, and thanks to many junk science studies about secondhand smoke and the supposedly bad health risks associated with excess body weight, you have, if you’re a good little Leftard with dreams of wielding the power to tell everyone else how to live, a ready excuse to let your inner tyrant fly.

I’m going to engage in a little experiment here, one Libtards engage in all the time. Bear with me, this might be instructive. It's called The Game of Moral Equivalence That Really Has No Moral Component.

If one were to say that smoking and obesity bring with them a great number of potential health risks, and these risks cause a great deal of expense in terms of rising insurance and treatment costs which others must bear, therefore, smokers and the obese must be shamed, taxed, made to change their habits against their wills, and otherwise blamed for all of society’s evils, then please explain the following:

If smoking and over-eating kill, and drain the public coffers, and are otherwise habits that can either be avoided or reformed through the use of taxation, regulation, and discrimination, then why has no one applied a similar program of enlightened oppression against Homosexuals?

After all, homosexual activity often leads to AIDS, which we all know is a deadly, incurable disease, that often requires a great deal of money and specialized medical care to treat. I wonder, if we added up the costs associated with the health risks of smoking, obesity and AIDS, if the numbers wouldn’t, in proportion, show AIDS to be every bit as deadly, every bit as expensive to treat, and as easily-avoidable as lung cancer or diabetes.

Why aren’t the health care advocates out there railing against butt sex as a deadly threat to society that costs the taxpayer billions, and as a disgusting habit that often carries with it unacceptable behavioral and health risks to innocent bystanders? I mean, because of AIDS, right here in New York City, we give free needles away to heroin addicts as an anti-AIDS measure. Because of AIDS, then, we've encouraged and subsidized drug addiction -- another expensive public health problem! -- haven't we?

Oh, right: because most Leftards are probably gay, and heroin addicts. But I (only-half) jest, of course. The real reason is because open homosexuality is one of the devices the Left depends upon to sap the moral strength of a free people, to destroy the bonds between family members and communities, and to encourage all sorts of vices and attitudes which can later be manipulated for political advantage.

If we’re going to be discriminating against people because of their habits and the supposed cost/threat to society, then let’s start prioritizing the costs/threats accordingly. When the day comes when homosexuals are discriminated against because of their behavior and the health risks associated with it – not to mention the crippling financial drain incurred in treating AIDS -- then I’d say we have True Equality in America.

I know plenty of Smokers who have lived good, long lives, free of medical complaint, with nary a cancer cell in sight.

I know plenty of Obese people who have lived full, active lives, without the trouble of diabetes or weight-related bone/joint issues.

I know plenty of Smokers/Obese people who pay for their own private health coverage, and who do not have to – nor want to – depend upon the state for their well-being and health.

I also know plenty of homosexuals who have caught AIDS – and often brag about it because it brings them sympathy and a mess of attention (which is what all homosexuals want, anyways. It's why they 'chose' to be gay in the first place!) , not to mention federal funds – who do nothing but try as hard as they might to obtain the drug cocktails they need to stay alive (and thus spread the AIDS virus, because let’s face it; they’re often not giving up sex, are they?) at someone else’s expense.

It’s not an automatic that a smoker dies of cancer, or that he/she spreads cancer through secondhand smoke. It is not an automatic that an obese person is going to spend years in a hospital bed in a special ward sucking up tax dollars like a sponge for treatment, or going through replacement knees like I use toilet paper.

It is, however, an automatic that a homosexual with full-blown AIDS is fighting a losing battle, and would most certainly die without $3,000-a-dose anti-viral drugs that he possibly can’t afford for long on his own, constant monitoring of his health status, and other expensive courses of treatment.

So, why do we pick on Smokers and Fatties?

Because they’re not sympathetic ‘victims’ with a political utility, that’s why.

I think it’s time the Smokers and Fatties of the World United, and stopped this insanity, began to expose some of these double standards, and engaged in a fight to restore our right to live our lives as we goddamned please, and give the shit our elected officials and the busy-body-Nanny-staters give us back tenfold.

I hereby declare today National Marlboros and Twinkies Day. Light one up for freedom! Suck down a Twinkie in defense of your rights! And make sure you do it in the face of the most insufferable leftist douchebag you know, and if she (it’s usually a she) has anything to say about your ‘disgusting’ behavior, then blow smoke in her face and squish the rich, creamy filling into her hair, sending her screaming into that good night like a Arab who’s just found out his fourth wife has a dick under that burqa.

Or at least punch her square in the mouth. Just on general principles.

And while you’re at it, tell every homosexual you know that you’re not inclined to pay for his treatment when he finally (not if, always when) catches AIDS.

It’s time to start fighting back.

A Trip Through My Mailbox, Part IV…

Okay, it is now time to go over some reader mail, which I haven’t done for some time recently, mostly because there’s been such a paucity of such. I like to do this from time to time, if only because it is my (self-appointed) task to let the seven or eight of you who read this regularly to know just what sort of knuckle-dragging, gap-toothed moron has been given access to a computer in these here United States.


We start with an oldie-but-goodie. Someone named MomAgainAtXX (the 'XX' is to keep you from knowing her age, or trying to look her up) has just found this classic blog entry, and is quite disturbed by it (I can't believe people are still responding to this, but the New York Times keeps directing them here!).

She wants to know how my mother is doing, and is concerned that the woman is in danger if left alone with me, because I seem to have it out for her. To which I might reply, "Mind your own business, bitch!”, but for those who might be genuinely interested, here it goes:


The Old Warhorse is six months past her knee replacement surgery. She has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 pounds, because I feed her properly. Her brilliant Surgeon at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases has recommended that she cease the twice-weekly physical therapy because she has made tremendous and better-than-expected progress. Mom is certainly more mobile and pain-free these days, but no less annoying.

Now that we’ve corrected the problem with a bum knee, it’s time to move onto that abrasive and annoying personality of hers. I’m seriously contemplating suing the therapist she’s been seeing for the past 25 years, because if anything, my Mother is an even bigger Lunatic than I am. She is either the most persistent OCD/Anxiety Complex/Narcissist/Clinical Depression case in the annals of medical history, or someone has just been taking the piss out of her and not caring whether these complexes ever get fixed or addressed. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

And no, MomAgainAtXX, I haven’t shot her, but I should have…years ago. I would have saved myself the aggravation of last night’s -- twice weekly -- encounter:

Mother: (puffing mightily, as if having just completed a marathon, after ascending the 14 steps to enter the house. The point is that I’m supposed to feel sympathy, as if the trek was a trial upon her surgically-repaired-and-better-than-ever knee. She stands at the door, apparently trying to get my attention, sighing and making guttural noises).

Me: (Not paying her any mind, watching TV, because I KNOW WHAT’S ABOUT TO COME OUT OF HER CAKEHOLE…)

Mother: You’re not putting the garbage out?

(I'm About to throw something in her direction because the garbage collectors won’t be here for another 14 hours and this is the second time today I’ve been reminded that garbage has to go out, despite the fact that I put it out every Goddamned Sunday. She’s obsessed with garbage and appearances, as this is the only house on the block that hasn’t put it’s garbage pails out 14 hours before the truck arrives and this greatly bothers her, playing upon all her exigent neuroses:

The garbage needs to go out, but she’s not going to do it because that might require an effort. The longer it sits in the pails, the more upset she becomes, and the fact that the garbage has not been put out WILL keep her awake all night. And because we’re the only house on the block that hasn’t put its garbage out a day early, it gives the appearance that there must be something wrong with us: we’ve bucked the trend, failed to follow the herd, we’ve fucked up the neighborhood symmetry, whatever.

Just know that I hear about garbage at least four times a day, and in an imperative tone that implies Galactic Doom should it not be ready 12 hours in advance of pickup. The Earth might fall off it's axis if the recycleables are not thrown out in a clear plastic bag, like the Sanitation Regs require, or if the trash cans have crud stuck to them, as this is an embarassing example of lack of attention to appearances. Welcome to My Hell).

Again with the garbage? Get a hobby, please?

(Mother exits, Stage Right).

Here’s the kicker, MomAgainAtXX: thanks to changes in the Social Security rules, I’m stuck with this maniac for another year as she can’t support herself -- this will be the SECOND TIME my mother will be relying upon me as her source of support -- and when her disability insurance runs out this summer she won’t be eligible for Social Security, being only 66 years of age this August. Check back with me in another year to see if she’s still alive then.

And keep your tut-tutting to yourself. I don't particularly care what you think. If I were a terrible son, I would have kicked this albatross around my neck to the curb long ago. She's more trouble than she's worth.

What Newt Meant to Say...

...I think, was that Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to 'save' Medicare basically amounts to cutting out the Middleman without tackling the question of whether it is the proper role of government to provide medical insurance to it's citizens at all.

Medicare is Socialism. This cannot be gainsaid; any attempt to paint it otherwise, to obscure this truth, is cynical and ultimately futile. The government had no business handing out health insurance, just as it had no business in creating a Ponzi-scheme disguised as a retirement plan.

If I understand Rep. Ryan's plan, it will basically 'give' vouchers to seniors so that they may buy insurance on the open market. In the process, the Medicare bureaucracy that sprang up to administer the program would slowly fade away as the "Free Market" (we don't have free markets in this country), through the magic of competition set up a regime of superior care at lower cost, and relieved the Federal Government of the responsibility of having to administer the program itself.

When that happens, you could fire all those useless bureaucrats who are collecting bloated salaries and expecting even more gargantuan retirement benefits, thus 'saving' The System, and relieving the taxpayer of an onerous burden.

The 'reform' would, basically, keep Medicare in place; it would only change the way in which your dose of socialism gets delivered. Your choice: you can take it through a 'voucher' or keep the old anally-injected delivery system. The end result is still the same.

If Medicare is socialism, brought into being by the spirit of Great Society Social Engineering, then, naturally, any reform that keeps the basic premise underlying it alive is still 'social engineering'.

Ryan's plan only makes sense if it is an interim step towards eventually eliminating government interference in the health care market. Otherwise, it's simply a welfare pig in a new shade of lipstick. If the ultimate goal is not to eliminate Medicare altogether, then one has to assume that Ryan's reforms are simply a way in which to make the same old social welfare payments to the same old people, only in a way that conservatives who don't think too deeply (this is a large number, btw) just won't recognize as welfare.

Welfare is bad because it's expensive for the taxpayer to provide it, and it comes with a laundry list of rules, regulations, and other government 'interference' with the rights of the individual. The government enacts these rules and regulations in order to influence certain behavior, and many of the behaviors government is encouraging are often morally questionable and an assault upon Constitutional Rights...

...unless a conservative gets to make the rules and regulations and encourage the behaviors they want to encourage, and then it becomes a 'reform of a badly-flawed and bankrupt system'. Newt is essentially correct in his assertion that Ryan's Plan, at first blush, is right-wing social engineering, just as much as the current system is the result of left-wing social engineering.

The solution is to have no government-run medical insurance scheme whatsoever. However, this would deprive politicians and bureaucrats of either political stripe the ability to interfere with your life in ever-more esoteric and subtle ways.

I really believe that Rep. Ryan wants to cut 6 trillion bucks out of the National Debt and realizes that the process is going to be painful for some, and certainly cause tremendous uproar in these United States, and so he thinks to cushion the blows through gradualism. 'Privatization', though, is a conservative buzzword for keeping the basic structure of entitlements -- i.e. handing out tax payer money, mostly to people who don't pay much in taxes -- while making sure the money ultimately finds it's way to Big Business through the magic of the 'Free Market'. It doesn't matter if you call it a 'voucher system' or a 'government check', it's still the same thing; a direct subsidy to the insurance industry, only under Ryan's plan, it passses through fewer hands.

It's still welfare, though. A True Free Market solution would be to let people have to fend for themselves, and those who can't or won't, will simply have to suffer the consequences of their laziness and short-sightedness. But then Rachel Maddow calls you nasty names on (P)MSNBC,and you have to contnue to defend and explain yourself, and the whole thing gets rather tiring and annoying. Better to go the incrementalist route, and just rebrand the whole thing.

It's not the conservative's (small 'c' intentional) job to 'reform' fundamentally-flawed programs so that they merely cost less; it's to eliminate fundamentally-flawed programs that cost too much, run contrary to American Constitutional principles and which infringe upon the Individual's Rights. Any system which eliminates the aspect of Moral Hazard or repsonsibility on the part of the recipient is also bad juju.

Now that sort of reform  -- blowing the thing up entirely, and putting the responsibility for your own welfare back onto the individual -- would be a true conservative solution to many of the problems we face today, but since there are no more true conservatives (and the ones who usually claim that mantle are more concerned with the Afterlife than they are with this one, so they don't really count), don't expect to ever see it happen.

Newt's real sin in this case was not so much to criticize Ryan for not going far enough, it was to provide the Other Side with a soundbite that's going to be pinned to every GOP-wannabe between now and 2012. And that douche who confronted Newt over his comment in Iowa is exactly the sort of 'conservative' I'd like to see tarred and feathered; he's worried about tactics at the expense of grand strategy, and how it plays in the Press.

Propaganda, it seems, still takes precedence over prudence in American Politics, unfortunately.

And that's really troubling, because Newt's supposed to be the smartest guy in the room, and he should have known this when he made the comment.

Even if you gave the democrats (small 'd' intentional) the opportunity to say "Even Newt Gingrich is against this..." it doesn't change the crux of the issue, which is:

How can you justify the contiunued existance of an unconstitutional, super-expensive, super-intrusive, flawed, destructive, out-of-control, politically-manipulated Entitlement Program which has cost far more than was ever envisioned, provides fewer services, and is rife with fraud, waste and abuse, in a day-and-age of $14 trillion dollar National Debts, high rates of unemployment and shrinking tax bases?

The only response available to democrats on this question is a simple appeal to emotion and class warfare, their stocks-in-trade. Any conservative worth his salt should easily be able to defeat emotion and class-warfare with reason, logic and The Constitution. If you, as a conservative, are worried that Newt's response gave the dems 'ammunition', you're worried about people armed with water pistols and slingshots, while we have Stealth Bombers and Atomic Bombs.

You have to utter but one sentence to kill any democratic objection that Ryan's Plan, or any other reform of Entitlements, are 'cruel', 'mean', or 'will throw Grandma out into the street":

"Keeping the system as-is requires huge tax increases, and more power vested in Washington. That formula has worked so well up to now, hasn't it?"

'Nuff said.

Update: Corrected a minor spelling error. Apologies!

Your ObamaCare Future...

Four postponements. Institutionalization. Poor nutrition, and despite government-provided dental care, a set of teeth one would be embarrassed to show in public on anything but a nag horse. Oh, and a dead person who maybe shouldn't be dead. Great healthcare system they've got there in Britain.

You just have to love the following typically-libtard-ed quote. I can imagine it being delivered with that famous British stoicism and stiff upper lip:

'We were given the very sad news and as word spread it threw a pall over the civic dinner. Margaret was much loved and respected in this town.'

Yep, don't you just hate it when your Civic Dinners have a pall cast over them? Rather takes away from one's enjoyment of the Stilton and Port.

Now, I'm not saying this woman would have lived had she been given the advantages of the American system, or at least, what's left of it. But you have to wonder why it is that a presumably-vital surgery can be postponed four times, why there is no inquest, and why the family of this poor woman is left to wonder "what if...", or worse, left wondering "Why?" and apparently getting no answers from officialdom.

Could this happen in America? Sure it could. Would it be commonplace, though? Hell no. Why? Because six seconds after this woman expired, ther would be a battalion of lawyers talking lawsuit, a local TV or newspaper reporter looking to make his/her bones on the story, and a grandstanding politician or two to pollute the airwaves with inane nonsense that would still have the effect of at least getting someone in that hospital to take a look at their methods and procedures to ensure that everything was done to the best of everyone's ability.

It's called a 'Free Market', and even though the involvement of a reporter, a politico and an ambulance chaser would, at first blush, seem to have nothing at all to do with whether or not a woman gets an operation, they, in fact, DO. They are part of the auxiliary to the System which keeps healthcare providers honest, and even if they would have failed to keep this particular woman alive, their actions would have had the effect of ensuring better care for those who come after her in similar circumstance. Free Markets are about more than just the transfer of money from one hand to another. Read some Adam Smith and Freidrich Hayek if you don't believe me.

Personally, I hate (in ascending order of repugnance) reporters, politicians and lawyers, but even a study of basic biology will reveal that parasites can often serve a useful function, without even knowing it.

Because the National Health System in Britain is government-run, it cannot be sued when someone fucks up, and requests -- even from bereaved family members -- for information can be problematic if not damned-near impossible endeavors. The System investigates and audits itself, which is to say that the government investigates and audits itself, and so there is little motivation to be honest about costs, results, statistics, goals or conditions. The bureaucrats who run the System have no interest in letting anyone knows how it operates, because if the general public did know the truth, these assholes would have to find other jobs, and let's face it; no one pays as well and expects as little as The Government (any government) does.

This is what's headed your way, whether it's Canada's infamous 10-month waiting list for the Maternity Ward, or Britain's onerous "We've only budgeted for 1,000,000 emergency appendectomies this year. Unfortunately, you're Number 1,000,002, please come back on January 1" standard, or Holland's "Why should we fix your leaky heart valve? You're 84, for Chrissakes! Have you thought about Euthanasia and medical marijuana?" routine.

It sounds like (and I have no evidence to back this up whatsoever) they shuffled this woman from one ward to another over a series of weeks or months, while some nameless, faceless bureaucrats, actuaries and accountants discussed whether or not it was a worthwhile investment to save her life.

So much for being loved and respected in the community.

The sooner ObamaCare is defunded the safer -- and healthier -- we'll all be. We'll at least have the choice about whether we have a surgery or not.

On 'The Managerial Revolution'...

I made reference to James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution a few days ago, and got some mail from people asking me where they could find a copy, since it doesn't seem to be floating around many Public Libraries these days.

Of course, you can find all the Jacqueline Suzanne you want, but very little in the way of Political Science. Unless it's Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, which I'm led to understand the library can't keep on the shelves, or Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (can't wait for the movie!). Amazon.com has The Managerial Revolution -- at an unconscionable price. I personally found my copy at The Strand bookstore in Manhattan, many years ago, and I think I paid about $8 for a used copy, so try them. Otherwise, I'd keep my eyes peeled at used book sales, swap meets, etc.

For those who can't afford the ass-rape price over at Amazon.com, I'll summarize the book for you here as best I can.

Burnham wrote the book in about 1940 or '41, at the start of the Second World War. His basic premise was that laissez-faire capitalism was as dead as a doornail, and as proof of this dictum, he pointed to the defeat of the capitalist nations of France, and the hanging-on-by-it's-fingernails desperation of Great Britain and it's empire. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were going to win the war, according to Burnham, because they had abandoned the old-fashioned, outdated, unworkable system of Capitalism. The superiority of the Nazi/Fascist economic system, where industries were nationalized but their owners allowed to keep ownership -- and profit -- by the State, was evident by it's visible effects upon the battlefields of Europe.

Burnham also made the point that while Capitalism was doomed, Socialism wasn't exactly automatically going to inherit the Earth, as many Leftists had hoped (the Soviet Union, he felt, would also be defeated, or at least come to some accommodation with the Nazis in order to simply survive). What was going to replace those two systems was a mixture of both; a planned economy (on the Nazi, socialist model), geared to national aggrandizement and victory, but run by a new generation of people who weren't interested in such old-fashioned notions as mere profit, as much as they were eager to be the New Arbiters of Power within this new system.

This New Generations were to be called The Managers. Their ranks were to consist of the politicians, scientists, technical specialists, inventors, lawyers, media types, and so forth, who were willing to put their talents to work for the empowerment of the State in return for special privileges; the opportunity to manipulate the levers of power for their own benefit. These were the men and women who would remake society according to their tastes, and being privileged employees of the State, they were to also acquire the ability to direct resources as they saw fit (usually, in their own direction).

The Managers, in the new, Managerial State, would find their way into positions from which they could influence business and government according to their efforts, while remaining invisible.

A similar idea was once also promulgated by the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, who postulated that if given a choice between full-blown Communism and Capitalist Democracy, the greater mass of the people would choose Capitalist Democracy almost every time. Therefore, the Communist was always assured of defeat in fair electoral politics. So, instead of engaging in electoral politics, the True Believer Commie would instead make an effort to insinuate himself into the institutions of the State -- into the educational system, the judiciary, the legal profession, law enforcement, labor unions, and so forth -- and work within the bureaucracies to promulgate his stupidity. Much like the Managerial Class would do.

In any case, Burnham turned out to be wrong in a major way: the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States defeated Hitler and Mussolini, and it was the American Capitalist System that had become the Arsenal of Democracy that built the guns, ships, planes, grew the food, pumped the oil, and shipped it all over the oceans to every battlefield where it was needed, and wherever it could be brought to bear against the enemy.

In fact, I think it was 1944 -- when Germany was staring certain defeat in the face -- when Burnham changed his original thesis in another book, The Machiavellians, in which he basically said "forget what I said before...it's obvious that Hitler and Mussolini had the right idea, but were just the wrong guys to lead this new Managerial Revolution, but the idea will survive. Democracy, it turned out, was far more amenable to Managerialism after all than Dictatorship was... just you wait..."

And we waited.

You now live in a world which is managed by selfish little toads to the nth degree. Products are produced with built-in obsolescence as a major consideration, and with full knowledge that newer-and-better technologies and products are available now but deliberately held back by Big Business. Government advocates on behalf of this industry or that, sends trade missions to foreign countries on their behalf, and negotiates Free Trade Agreements which allow favored industries to relocate the more expensive aspects of their operations overseas (where wages are lower and regulation non-existent). Where it would be inconvenient to move operations, the government then allows masses of illegal immigrants to pass into the country unmolested, or issues H1-B visas to effectively do the same thing. The Middle Class is deliberately destroyed so as to make them dependant upon government.

There is no longer anything that can be described as a Free Market, anymore. Markets are now manipulated by a hybrid of Business Interests and Government Regulations. Government now picks winners and losers in industry. Businesses are started overnight with government subsidies, and then quickly die when the subsidy money dries up without having produced a single thing except profits for it's executives. Banks are allowed to defy economic logic and extend their reach into stock markets, mortgage markets and insurance industry, and then are bailed out by legislators and Presidents who have been bought and sold by corporate money when they become Too-Big-To-Fail -- and no one notices that it was the lawmakers (manipulated by the Managerial Class) who allowed them to get that way by issuing this or that waiver, or failing to perform the basic oversight duties its empowered to conduct.

And when the inevitable happens -- disaster looms -- then government simply demands more restrictive and intrusive powers to ensure that 'this never happens again!' Restrictive and intrusive powers put into the hands of...you guessed it: the Managerial Class (i.e. the bureaucracy).

How do you think GE has managed to avoid paying any taxes whatsoever, get Jeffrey Immelt (perhaps the worst CEO in America today) on the President's Economic Advisory Board, and then stand to profit enormously because of its involvement in Green Energy, Electric Hybrid Vehicles, High-Speed Rail and Nuclear Power projects? Not to mention having it's finance arm, GE Capital (the largest such finance company in the world) bailed out by American taxpayers? The Oil and Coal industries are being slowly strangled in the name of environMENTALism -- another branch of Managerialism; this one says we can control the weather with lovely thoughts and strangling Western Economies -- from which GE will profit handsomely, and gladly return some of that tax-free profit into Obama's and the democratic party's coffers.

General Motors and the UAW have also been the recipients of government largess, and they will, we're assured, in the very near future be building automobiles powered by GE products. Those automobiles will be  protected against foreign competition by the government (remember all those Potemkin Toyota Hearings last year? Oh, btw, it turns out that Toyotas don't have accelerator problems...only stupid drivers). The Defense Industry has it's hooks into every Congresscritter who's ever lived, so that Congress can fund 400 F-22's when the Air Force only wants 300, sell tanker aircraft the military doesn't even want, build tanks which are overkill for the current battlefields were on, fund jet engine programs that no one wants, and spend money to ensure that every soldier has every high-tech geegaw, regardless of it's actual battlefield utility?

NASA only exists to ensure that thousands of highly-trained specialists actually have jobs. In return, we get to watch them shoot golf carts to other planets we could never live on, chase asteroids, build an International Space Station for which we bear the burden of cost, and look for exoplanets in other galaxies we can't reach for millenia, if ever. There is currently no replacement due for the Space Shuttle for another decade, and not too much of a domestic, commercial Space Industry in this country: Do you believe the government is simply going to allow all that talent and experience to either wither away, or worse, head overseas? NASA engineers and technicians will, mark my words, be able to write their own checks.

You get your news and entertainment from corporate conglomerates that are cheerleaders for this-or-that political point of view, and they don't even try to hide their biases anymore. The executives of the major networks exert their influence on behalf of the political parties. Hollywood makes films attacking this or that political standpoint, or cultural tradition. News anchors have absolutely incredible power to shape public opinion. Newspaper editors, too. All contribute to political parties and candidates, and then actively seek to aid the very politicians they've bought, or raised to prominence. Editorial content is carefully vetted, crafted, infused with orthodoxy, to ensure that only one point of view is presented, and that any other point of view is discredited.

Washington, D.C. (and every state capitol, also) is absolutely lousy with lobbyists, lawyers, think tanks, special interest groups, etc. These people actually write legislation in cahoots with lawmakers, carving out special breaks, tax credits, waivers, relaxation of regulations, legal immunities, for themselves or their clients, and then ensure that a steady stream of cash flows into campaign coffers, or that lucrative job offers for 'retired' politicians are available when needed, in return.

The healthcare industry is about to be handed over to the Federal Unions. The private insurance industry is about to be squeezed out of the medical insurance racket by legal means, economic factors, and state-run insurance exchanges, all brought into being by ObamaCare. That new system will be run by the bureaucrats who made Medicare such a rousing success. The ultimate goal is to de-privatize as much of the healthcare system as possible, and then leave the business of deciding who lives and dies in the hands of a nameless, faceless, unelected mish-mash of bureaucracies, approval boards, Death Panels, government accounting boards, lawyers, and so forth.

President Odingbat, in order to better run all these new government bureaucracies that he's created and dole out the giveaways to politically-favored people and entities, has appointed something like 35 'Czars' who are unelected, unanswerable to the people or Congress, and as we have seen, have little or no regard for the law. They seem to act capriciously, and pick-and-choose who wins and who loses according to their personal preferences, or according to political orientation/affiliation.

Your Public Schools and Universities are chock full of people pretending to be educators, but their real job is to indoctrinate; to prepare future generations of people for the day when every aspect of their lives will be controlled for them, where their decisions will be made for them. We turn out college graduates who can't add. We promote elementary school children who can't read. Textbooks are devoid of facts, and full of pie-in-the-sky garbage disguised as scholarship. The price of a college education continues to climb, ensuring that only the 'right'people  -- i.e. rich liberals who can afford it, or who have been exempted from the more onerous and oppressive dictates of government -- will be able to get one. And where will they work? Not private industry -- which will soon be destroyed -- but for the government. The schools impose "Speech Codes" ostensibly for the protection of people's sensibilities, but mostly because no dissent against the coming Managerial Revolution can be voiced, or even tolerated.

Wall Street, once a bastion of Conservative Capitalists, is more and more coming to be dominated by the Rich Liberal. Wall Street poured more campaign cash into Barack Obama's coffers than they ever did any republican, in the last election cycle. In return, ex-Obama administration appointees find themselves with highly-paid sinecures when they leave Public Service, and the Firms find themselves with a ready supply of people who have the ears of those in power, or in a position to re-write this or that reg, squash this or that investigation. And to be fair, it was going on long before Obama came down the pike; How many Clinton Administration officials found themselves on the board of directors of Citigroup, JP Morgan., AIG, and others?

How much influence do NOW, the NAACP, United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, EncironMENTAL groups, a thousand think tanks, study groups, blue-ribbon panels, immigrant spokesdouches, Advocacy Groups of a Thousand Stripes visibly exert upon American Policy? How often do we see the same people leave -- and then re-enter -- 'government service' on a regular basis?

Burnham predicted this would happen; a collusion between business, government, and politically-favored-and-funded groups in which one hand washes the other; but instead of just the old-fashioned notions of plain old graft and bribery, all this coziness has an identifiable, and yet not-too-easy-to-discern, goal; the Management of the American Public by people and groups who will stand to benefit the most from the re-ordering of society when the fruits of capitalism are 'spread around' in the proper fashion. And by the proper people.

Of course, such a thing will eventually destroy the very capitalism that it depends upon to fund it, but that was the goal all along. Once there's no more money and the ensuing crisis such an event will create finally arrives, government (i.e. the Managers) will simply grant itself  "Emergency Powers" to re-order society as it sees fit. The decisions on who gets what, if anything, will be made by the same Managerial Class (bureacrats, 'experts', and so forth) that probably engineered the crisis in the first place. Socialism will arrive -- if not in name but surely in effect -- without there ever having been a vote in favor of it, without a violent revolution, and without anyone ever identifying it as 'Socialism' at all.

NOTE: This post has been edited for spelling, and punctuation, and a few additional notes have been added since the original publication.

Welcome Smartsilvers.com Readers...

Been a lot of you coming here for the last four months or so, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say hello, and thanks for stopping by...and mind your own business.

Of course, you're all here to read the same four-months-old post, and judging from the e-mail that it still continues to generate, it would seem that you're all shocked...shocked...that someone would say such horrible things about his own mother without having a clue as to our family dynamic,or history. A few have expressed concern for her safety, and some, mostly you Asian twits -- who have come here from that Lady in Singapore's blog which linked to the original post, which will get no traffic from me -- want to know what the fuck is wrong with me that I show such blatant disrespect for my own mother. This would never happen in Singapore/China/Japan/Korea, et. al.

Well, this here is America, not the Orient (I don't care if that term is Eurocentric, I'm fucking using it).

Here's the news: My mother is still alive, despite being the biggest pain in the ass since that (in-)famous Englishman (who's name I cannot be bothered to look up) was executed at the Tower of London by having a red-hot iron poker rammed up his Poop Chute. She is well, and no, I haven't beaten her to a bloody pulp...yet...and -- probably -- never will. So you can stop saying novenas for her safety. She is not liable to meet her untimely demise at the hands of an ungrateful son.

That post is what we refer to in the trade as SATIRE. It's actually not very far from the truth, but still satire all the same. Your generation (and just which generation is that, anyway? How many of you went to school with King Tut, John The Baptist or Atilla the Hun? Show of hands?) has the unfortunate habit of believing everything you read without engaging your (rapidly-fading) critical thinking skills. You figure that if it wasn't completely, literally true then no one would bother to write it down.

What I really enjoy -- other than the indignation of old folks who have little time left on this Earth but choose to spend their last, waking breaths questioning my sanity -- is the palpable fear that's contained in those e-mails. Now, when I say this, I don't mean that I actually get off in some sexually-perverted way on your fear, just that it's interesting to note just how frightened many of you are at the thought of your children completely abandoning you just as you begin to enter your Terminal Incontinent Stage, and think I've just given then a How-To-Manual on how to treat a sick parent,or a Permission Note to mistreat you.

Apparently, this is a common worry amongst the Lived-Longer-Than-They-Ever-Deserved-To-and- Collected-More-In-Social-Security-Than-They-Ever-Paid-Into-It demographic. Yeah, I know: you're entitled. You fought Hitler.

If I have to explain it again:

1. My mother is not, and never was, circling the bowl. She only had a knee replacement and is/was in no immediate danger of dying, unless she took a header down a flight of stairs. However, she was never left alone, and had no intention of ever approaching a staircase in her condition.

2. She pissed me off with her incessant whining, so I blogged about it. Then again, she's been pissing me off with her constant and ungrateful whining for 44 years now, so I can't imagine why I waited so long. Even at that, I was here, taking care of her. People who have no class, empathy, or sense of obligation don't do things like that. Like my sister who only lives eight blocks away and couldn't be bothered to do more than make a daily phone call, and my brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton. More people have seen Bigfoot than have seen my brother in the last three years. Got anything to say about those ungrateful and disrespectful children? Didn't think so: they don't blog, after all.

You should read all the e-mail I got from 'kindred spirits' (i.e. other children taking care of sick parents) that ran the gamut from 'I hear ya! These old folks suck!' to 'Do you think I should ask the doctor to give Dad a Hot-shot and just be done with it?' Now you tell me, just how bad was my post, or my actions on my mother's behalf? Compared to some of those lunatics, I'm a friggin' saint.

If this fear preys on your mind in your final days, instead of worrying about me and my mother, you should start worrying about what kind of monster you've raised, or perhaps start making amends for having been a rotten parent before it's too late.

By the way, my mother will eventually die so poor she won't even be able to pay attention, let alone her bills in years to come. So I certainly didn't do it to get a bigger piece of the inheritance, as some of you have suggested.

3. She received the absolute best of care that I could provide. I fed her, washed her, changed her dressings, administered her medications, saw to her comfort and otherwise fufilled every whim, wish and need, no matter how fucking stupid, time-consuming, retarded, unnecessary, or annoying. I've done the research: in at least seven states, the kind of crap she pulled would have been grounds for justifiable homicide. I paid for all the Visiting nurses she needed, and have paid for physical therapy twice a week for the last two months.

4. I warn everyone who comes here that they're liable to be offended. I don't care if I offend people because, believe me, no one gives a shit if they offend me. Those of you still following the New York Times link were warned by the author of that post that you would probably be offended. You are owed no apologies, and since most of you asking for one (why?) will soon be dead, anyway. Good luck getting one.

5. The absolute LAST thing I need is to be lectured to by complete strangers. Especially ones who apparently don't understand what they read, or who rub hemorrhoid cream into their hair because they had 'A Senior Moment' only three minutes earlier, and then get on the computer.

6. I DO NOT HATE THE ELDERLY. Only the whiny old bastards who won't help save their country the cash and finally let slip this mortal coil, already. In fact, I only wish every goddamned day that my grandparents were still here, because they were the only people who ever gave me any guidance, or who talked any horse sense. My mother, incidentally, will only be 65 this August, so technically, she's not elderly at all. She just behaves as if she is.

7. Yes, I use a lot of foul language. Like you never have in the 3,000 or so years you've walked the Earth? Just deal.

Other than that, I'm happy to see you. Enjoy your (unfortunately brief) stay.

From the "Psychiatry is Bullshit" Files...

Yesterday, as is my wont, I was watching television, when there happened to be a little program on the Learning Channel entitled Searching for Sanity. The premise of the show was that 10 strangers, five with diagnosed mental disorders, could be forced to live together for a week or something, given a bunch of onerous tasks to be completed as a team, all the while under the observation of a team of "psychiatric experts" who are kept in the dark about all the stranger's mental conditions.

The challenge was for the Psych Team to be able to pick out the head cases based on their activities and reactions. The Pshrinks were being tested to see if they could accurately distinguish the Moon-Howlers from the 'Normal' folks, and if they could make a diagnosis which was in line with the disorders on view. In addition, they were also being tested to see if they could distinguish between characteristics which are more accurately described as personality traits as opposed to full-blown mental diseases. And guess what happened?  
                                                                                          
The Pshrinks -- a Psychiatric Nurse, a Renown Psychiatrist, and a Professor of Psychiatry --were wrong about 60% of the time. They managed to tag members of the 'Control Group' as mentally ill when they weren't, and missed some of the insanity of the Rubber Room Brigade entirely.

All that clinical training, all that education, all that experience, and they had the same results you would expect as if they had simply guessed at Who's the Loony, or had a chicken peck at the Dingbats completely at random. Might as well have been blindfolded for the entire week. Before I completely destroy the Mental Health Profession for such dismal results, we need to take two things into consideration:

1. The test took place in England, where the Socialized Medical system has probably resulted in doctors who really don't give a shit. They're basically better-paid factory workers or trash collectors, who can't be sued for malpractice, and who have operated for years under a mess of government guidelines that are probably both contradictory and convoluted, and so there's bound to be some apathy, some bad work habits, and a lot of complacency within them.
                                                                                             
2. Some of the Mental Patients had been undergoing therapy for many years, or were on medications which masked their symptoms during the test. But the results were astounding, and reinforced, in my mind, something I've been saying for a very long time: Modern Psychology is complete and utter bullshit, very often practiced by individuals who only initially took psychiatry up in school so as to discover what was wrong with themselves.

After a near-decade on the couch myself, I've come to the conclusion that a Psychiatrist is merely someone who is often in a position to offer you some common-sense advice, but refrains from doing so because they like the $400, 45-minute hour too much. Only with a prescription pad. They substitute whatever cancer is eating away at your brain --Mommy didn't love me, the Little Green Men live under my bed, the World is out to Get Me -- with the super-addictive drugs of sympathy and empathy. That they're faking both doesn't occur to you. That sympathy and empathy is what keeps you coming back, like the heroin addict to the Spike, and allows Dr. Douche to get the leather and wood interior in the new Beemer this year. 
                       
And speaking of prescription pads, the Mental-Diseases-are-the-result-of-chemical-imbalances- in-the-brain school of psychiatry probably does more harm than good, dispensing a variety of meds that:

1. No one knows exactly how or why they work, and sometimes, even if they will.
2. Probably have no long-lasting therapeutic value.
3. Can be addictive.
4. Produce other health risks when used for extended periods of time.

Because giving you some drugs is a lot easier than having to listen to your bullshit, and then having to offer you some decent advice. Besides, it's covered by insurance, ain't it?

A Guy Could Get Killed Around Here...

First off, I must offer my apologies about something. I was planning to post some crap about the King Hearings yesterday, but never got around to putting the finishing touches on the post -- something I will do today, depending upon how I feel -- but I have an excuse for it. Bear with me, because this gets a little convoluted. and then just plain strange.

You see, I did something incredibly stupid yesterday (only yesterday?); I tried to cross a street, with traffic lights and crosswalks, and everything. Not just any street, mind you, but a street where there's three-way traffic at an intersection which is becoming a bit notorious in these parts for a variety of reasons, and none of them good.

The intersection of Amboy and Richmond Roads here in New Dorp is probably one of the most dangerous stretches of pavement in all of Staten Island, and I wouldn't doubt that it's becoming one of the more hazardous intersections in all of New York City. The combination of turning lanes and obnoxious semi-suburban SUV drivers combining to make a trip across the street, even within clearly-marked crosswalks, the pedestrian equivalent of walking through a dynamite factory with flaming torches in either hand and one stuck in your rectum. You are, literally, taking your life into your own hands when you attempt to cross the street there.

I have absolutely no luck whatsoever at this particular intersection, and so it is a complete mystery to me why I continue to use it. I have had food tossed at me from a moving vehicle at this spot. I have been nearly killed or crippled by inconsiderate drivers who wanted to race me through the junction more times than I care to remember. I have witnessed at least four accidents, or near-accidents, there in the last six months, and seen the wreckage of about half a dozen more at the site.

Why this is should be is easy to figure out: the average driver on Staten Island is a dipshit, who somehow hasn't come to the realization that a car can be a deadly weapon, and should be driven responsibly. There is a sense of entitlement, or stupidity, perhaps both, present in our drivers which states that they have the right to make a turn any goddamned time they wish. Red lights are something you can safely pass through if you happen to be the the first to get there, and there's at least a millisecond either before or after the yellow and red. There is no red-light camera there -- unlike the two intersections to the east or west -- and it's one of those places where if you don't complete your left turns as quickly as possible, you will have to suffer the indignity of having to wait another 90 seconds to do so, with a long line of impatient dipshit drivers behind you all blaring their horns and questioning your lineage.

Having to slow down for a pedestrian, or holding your turn to allow them to pass, is a burden no one wishes to bear in their rush to the next red light. You're in a car, after all, dammit, and cars mean motion, and if that means you have to nearly sideswipe some asshole on foot, then that's his problem. I've complained about this on many occasions, but yesterday's little escapade has me absolutely fuming.

Because I was nearly run down...again...by a driver running a red light, and this time, my usually-cat-like reflexes (HA!) failed me during the critical furious-backpedalling-stage, and with the street being slick because of a snow-rain mix (not to mention all the oil slicks from previous accidents. I swear, if you wanted to solve the problem of our dependence upon foreign oil, send two dudes with Shamwows to this intersection after a rainstorm. They could soak up enough oil from the pavement to keep us going for the next century). I fell in the path of the oncoming Ford Contour, which missed me by about two feet.

Now, to give the driver who nearly killed me credit, he at least blew his horn as he went through the light, giving me about three seconds of warning that he had no intention of stopping, and then did me an even bigger favor by not hitting the accelerator as he passed. There wasn't even a swerve. He also didn't have the courtesy to stop, get out of the car, and see if I was alright or not; that driver just continued on his merry way.

All I know about that Ford are the color and the North Carolina plate. In this neck of the woods, North Carolina plates usually mean 'illegal immigrant'. Having once lived in North Carolina myself, this is probably not very far from the truth.

So, there I am, laying in the street, and all the vehicles that had been lined up to make the left turn that would carry them into my path had I been upright, went about their business. Shouldn't let something as trivial as a man who has slipped and fallen into the path of oncoming traffic stop you from making that all-important left on your way to Starbuck's, or to get your nails done. Four vehicles, and four potential witnesses, simply drove by, taking care to at least slow down while I tried to regain my footing...

...which soon became problematic, what with the pain and all. So, I struggled to one foot, and hopped back to the questionable safety of the sidewalk. I say "questionable" because if you saw the guardrails that are mounted along the road to 'protect' pedestrians, you might think the same thing; there isn't a one that doesn't bear witness to the number of accidents at this intersection. They're all dented, warped, misshapen, mangled, and bear multiple multi-colored streaks, the remnants of numerous paint jobs that have scraped, rammed, brushed or kissed the steel.

There I am, in awesome pain, of the sort that put me in danger of abandoning my Agnostic ways, for I was invoking the name of the Savior...only in a way that would probably get me kicked out of most polite congregations. Putting any weight whatsoever on my left foot became problematic, and then, virtually impossible. I was pretty certain that something was broken.

Which is were this starts to get weird.

I'm self-employed, and erratically employed, at that, which means I have no medical insurance. I'm also a white male, which means no ObamaCare or Medicaid for me; white males are supposed to PAY for those things, but not actually benefit from them. This means no trip to the Emergency Room for me unless I'm bleeding profusely, can see a vital organ, or have a hole someplace big enough to drive a freight train through it. This means a trip to the Urgent Care Center (three lies for the price of one), where services are cash-and-carry. Fortunately, I didn't have far to limp to the nearest bus stop, and the wait was uncomfortable, but mercifully short.

I was seeing enough stars to qualify me to to run NASA.

Eventually, the bus deposits me within hopping distance of the Urgent Care Center, which -- go figure -- is full of illegal immigrants, mostly children, who are coughing up blood and scratching at crusty shit all over their faces that I wouldn't even begin to guess the origin of, and leaving a trail of mucus, spit, pus and Lord-knows-what-else all over every surface, while their mothers babble on in that Spanglish patois, apparently unconcerned that Miguel and Pablo are jumping off the furniture, or that Pillar or Margarita are digging in the trash cans, or that their newly-mobile infants are crawling on the floors and picking up strange shit to put in their mouths.

There's approximately 52 forms to fill in, and a two-hour wait, but what do you expect for $79.00? It could be worse: I could be in Canada and waiting eleven years for a foot specialist, or in England waiting behind 3,000 Muslims, each with three wives in tow, waiting for the results of the blood tests they took six months ago as a prelude to marrying wife Number Four. My foot and ankle have now swollen to the point where I can actually watch my veins bulge and twitch with every heartbeat. I have watched my skin turn multiple colors. If my foot were a wine list, you could have had your choice: Red, Rose, Burgundy. I think I've invented a new color; Blurple, which is a combination of black and purple. It hurt like hell.

I finally get to see a Nurse Practitioner, who will decide if I really need a doctor. Within 15 seconds, and one 'GODDAMN!' later, her professional judgement was that, yes, you should see the doctor before we have to saw that sucker off.

The Doctor comes in. He reminds me of the sort one usually associates with Microsoft Technical Support; he's Indian, his English is difficult to follow, and he's probably the only guy within the distance who will work for this ridiculously low price. You know you're in trouble when you see that Doctor Ghandi has posted his diploma proudly in the examination room, and you think you see the words 'Fisher-Price' on it. He decides that the best course of action is have my foot x-rayed, so that he can make a 'pro-p-er diag-NO-sees'. I would have to hobble down the hall to the radiologist...

...and right down Mammary...errr...MEMORY Lane.

Because Debbie is the radiologist.

Debbie (not her real name) is someone I once dated for a very short while, Back in the Day. The romance didn't last very long because Debbie had some very annoying personality traits (like I'm some prince?). For a start, she used to show up at my place of work...every night...with a complete meal cooked. I didn't mind this so much because she could cook up a storm, but I was working and couldn't spare a whole lot of time to entertain her. I was also having to answer questions about who she was, because her name kept appearing in the security guard's sign-in book,and well...I'm supposed to be working, not having a dinner date in the office. So I had to ask her to stop. Which pissed her off; Debbie was always easily pissed off.

In fact, everything was a big fucking drama with Debbie, so that even the odd, innocent comment or action pissed her off, and quickly became a Federal Case. No apology was ever accepted, and within 24 hours every deadly sin you committed was usually forgotten, and things were all sunshine and candy canes again. Amongst her other faults: she was a pot smoker, big time, and once you showed up, leaving again was a serious issue; she didn't want to be left alone. But then she'd start some shit, give you the cold shoulder and demand that you leave, and whenever this repetitive process began, Debbie was almost always starting to roll a joint.

I later discovered that Debbie was addicted to prescription painkillers (and more. She hid it very well), and the constant drama was just her way of manufacturing an excuse to take them without having to admit that she was an addict. Needless to say, I wasn't putting up with that sort of bullshit, and so Debbie got the heave-ho. Ancient history, right? It's been like 17, 18, years, maybe more, and there's that Hippocratic Oath thingy for her to consider, right?

And here she is, about to subject me to a dose of radiation.

She's changed. She finally seems happy (it's amazing to me how all the women in my life seem to get happier after I stop dating them. Wonder what's wrong with them?), and it's apparent that she's finally passed that radiology exam that she failed twice while we were dating. Then again, that makes me a bit worried -- because I know she's failed the exam twice. I could be walking out of this room with a mutated gene, you know.She's been married, and divorced (who didn't see that coming?). But she was actually pleasant, concerned, happy to see me, and wanted to know everything that has transpired in my life since we parted ways. Since this was not the proper venue for chit-chat -- there were, after all, another 40 illegal immigrants outside demanding Medicaid-provided x-rays for their runny noses and leprosy --we're going to get together this weekend. I'm bringing my gun, just in case she goes all mental on me. Been known to happen with Debbie. Don't know why I said "yes"; in hindsight, I should have asked her for a head x-ray, too, I figure.

Anyways, nothing is broken. It's just an extremely bad sprain, with the possibility of some (minor) ligament damage. Doctor Swami suggests ice packs, Tylenol, and that I see an orthopaedist, as Nurse-Practitioner Bedside-Manner wraps my foot/ankle so tight you'd think it was an Egyptian Pharaoh on his way to the Dirt Nap. I can't get a shoe back on, so it's a cab ride home for me.

I call the cops to report a near hit-and-run, and they take a report, but they ain't got much. Metallic Ford, North Carolina plates, maybe Hispanic driver, no witnesses. I have a better chance of shitting gold bricks than I ever have of seeing that douchebag with a driver's license (someone gave this retard a driver's license?) being brought to justice, or of seeing anyone in authority do something useful about that intersection. I'm out $90.00, and somehow managed to make a date with a woman I once walked out on because I thought she would go all Glen Close on me, even if she did make a killer pot-roast.

It all probably would have been easier to just get myself run over.

About Charlie Sheen...

Sometimes, when you take a certain position on a subject you have to expect that there will occasionally arise circumstances which either blow your stance to smithereens, or which thrusts you into the curious conundrum of having to split rhetorical hairs in order to justify your viewpoint. For example, I have, on this page, tried to make distinctions between, say, Mohammed Atta and Jared Lee Loughner (one the 9/11 'leader; and the other the Arizona lunatic who shot Rep. Giffords this past January). Both have committed murder, and the immediatly-obvious differences between the two are the scale of their heinous crimes and the motivations behind them.

Atta was a religious fanatic, pumped up on the Islamic propaganda that blames Western Culture for the plight of hapless Arabs (instead of, say, the totalitarian mindset, seventy generations of inbreeding, the sheep-shagging, and a bad mixture of politics and religion), and Loughner was a known nutjob who could find no help in a country with the best healthcare system ever known to mortal men.

I make no excuses for the actions of either. There are no excuses for either, however, I can (and often do) make the following, important distinction; Atta was a trained killer -- a volunteer -- who went into his kamikaze mission convinced of the righteousness of his cause, and the correctness of his method, while Loughner is probably a schizophrenic; before Loughner went off and killed six people and wounded a dozen more, he was simply a very sick man that the "System" (the mental health services, the courts, the Police) -- not to mention his own family -- utterly failed. Had Jared Loughner gotten the same attention as Charlie Sheen at some point in his miserable life, six people might still be alive, and Gabby Giffords would have one less hole in her head.

If Mohammed Atta had found at least one blond with no self-esteem, taste, or gag reflex, there would probably still be two buildings sitting over the 19-acre hole in Lower Manhattan.

People who read this blog regularly ask me how it is that I can make excuses or distinctions for murderers, to which I reply: I most certainly don't, in the sense that I don't try to explain away the actual crimes that they commit. What I have done is simply to state the following truths about people like Jared Loughner, the Discovery Channel gunman, the guy who flew his Cessna into the IRS building in Texas, et. al.

These people have serious medical problems. Their issues are often well-known to the people around them, who never seem to actually do anything to help these guys before they go off, but then in the aftermath will tell any douchebag with a microphone that they knew he was a danger to others, and they were frightened by the prospect of his going ballistic, but never seem to have cared enough to actually take any meaningful actions which would have saved someone's life. But when you state opinions your detractors are always looking to turn whatever you say or write upside down in order to advance their agendas...or, maybe they're really just very poor readers who just don't (want to) understand what I've written...and so the next time someone goes off they want to know what you have to say about THAT, Mr. Defender of the Mentally Unstable?

And so we come to the curious case of Charlie Sheen.

I was hoping to avoid this topic for the simple fact that while Sheen obviously has issues (you have to be a democrat or an Irish Setter to miss them), there is a fine distinction to be made between him and the Jared Lee's and "Crazy Pat" Sherrill's (the Original Post Office Shooter) of this world; Sheen's problems are, probably, mostly self-inflicted wounds. The schizos and the psychotics are born that way and they can't help themselves. People who do enormous amounts of cocaine, bang porn actresses (and really, who in their right mind would? They've only been liberally painted, inside and out, by the jizz of a thousand men. The thought is so disgusting that I'd rather bang Hillary -- twice, with my eyes open, too -- than take a swing at any of those whores), and spend three-day weekends on a drug-and booze-fueled bender that either ends in an exploded ticker, or AIDS, or a combination of both.

Do not equate the Caligula-like excesses of Charlie Sheen with the plight of the seriously mentally ill. While there may be some indications of (minor) mental illness present in Sheen (and his Comrade in Porn-Star Excess, Tiger Woods), the real issues for him appear to revolve around poor impulse control and extreme narcissism. That is NOT the same as some dude born with a poorly-wired brain or a genetic defect that will eventually see him talking to his neighbor's Wiemeraner and coming to the conclusion that the best way to bag Jodie Foster is to shoot at the President of the United States.

Charlie Sheen isn't so much mentally ill as he is someone who's probably never been told "NO". He's living proof that certain personality traits -- which of themselves usually offer no direct threat to anyone -- combined with the ability to actually FINANCE the worst excesses you might imagine, can combine to create a monster. Charlie Sheen would probably be 'cured' if someone just took his fucking credit cards away, denied him access to his bank account for a while, and placed him in an environment where he could not exercise his piss-poor judgement. Given time, the thrills of cocaine and threesomes with extremely-well-used concubines would probably disappear. With the benefit of hindsight and sobriety, Sheen would eventually come around to the idea -- on his own -- that he's been nothing short of a complete ass.

I've seen the interviews: That man is still high, fucking wired, and I don't care how many 'drug tests' he says he's passed in recent weeks. People who are clean and sober don't talk at supersonic speed, don't express ideas that would strike the average person as incredibly bizarre, and aren't convinced that they're Superman and ready to do it all over again -- if only you'll leave him alone. The clean-and-sober also don't cry about being wanting to be left alone while simultaneously begging every swinging dick with a video camera to come and interview them. Charlie Sheen is simply a drug addict with a rather high opinion of himself and more money than most small nations available to boundlessly finance his stupidity; he's not on the same plane as someone who finally gives in to The Voices and shoots up their HomeEc class.

Now, I can't claim to have special knowledge of Charlie, personally. I just recognize the symptoms of his particular collection of issues. The first of these is that he probably has no self-esteem whatsoever, and the string of high-priced-courtesans-with-even-less-self-esteem are merely the first clue. He spends the majority of his time in these recent interviews beating his own chest, posturing, extolling his supposed virtues, bragging. He's proud of what he's 'accomplished' , i.e. ingesting enough cocaine to kill a woolly mammoth and surviving, and making a public spectacle of himself. He truly isn't, though; it's all bravado. Somewhere in his head is the thought "I'm worthless" and the coke-drenched soirees are both escape and deathwish being played out simultaneously. I know this because I've had the same relationship with Rye Whiskey, Tequila and a certain recreational plant in my own life. I look at Charlie and shake my head; been there, done that. The only difference is that I never had the sort of bank account one normally equates with an Oil Sheik, or I might have died a long time ago.

He really wants to destroy himself, on some level, I think, but just doesn't have the courage to put a gun to his head, step out in front of a moving freight train, or jump off a bridge. He's either hoping the booze, drugs and chicks will erase the feeling of helplessness and worthlessness, or, if he's really lucky, take him out without him having to take any action whatsoever. Mostly, it's a front designed to get attention and sympathy. More than likely, he's hoping to 'kill' this version of Charlie Sheen, thinking there's another Charlie beneath it all, misunderstood, unheeded, just itching to bust loose...if only we'll take the time, and give him enough attention, to drag it out. It's a game; Charlie wants us to peel back all his complex layers, all the while putting up a show of resistance. This behavior is probably subconsciously designed to lead him to some tragic event which serves as the "time to grow the fuck up moment" which releases the 'real' Charlie.

Sheen's underlying mental (so-called) 'illnesses' are treatable, but never really 'curable'. Most of these problems are solved with simple behavior modification. Feeling sorry for one's self, narcissism, poor impulse control, craving attention (even negative attention) stupidity and an unerring ability to consistently make the wrong decisions are simple character flaws -- not illnesses. The Psychiatric Establishment has a vested interest in classifying such things as diseases because otherwise it would go bankrupt, and have no reason to exist. It's one thing to 'cure' you of your fingernail biting, addiction to smoking, or poor social graces -- those are the easy ones that don't even involve any actual medicine be practiced at all -- it's an altogether different thing to 'cure' someone who hallucinates without drugs, or who is convinced the Pope is sending him coded messages through his fillings that Piers Morgan is the Anti-Christ. There is no (permanent) medical regime for that, no matter how much the Pshrinks would like you to believe the contrary.

Modern Mental Medicine understands the underlying factors inherent in bad behavior and how to change them; it knows comparatively jack-shit about the inner-workings of a healthy human brain -- let alone one that is laboring under the weight of schizophrenia or psychosis.

But then again, Sigmund Freud was a cocaine addict, too. And he's their God. But, I digress...

You can get over your anxiety disorder or drunkenness by modifying your behavior or recognizing when you're about to do something stupid and taking positive action, but those are not options when you're truly sick. When you're really ill, the only options psychiatric medicine can offer you is either some 'wonder pill' that even the experts will admit to you that they can't explain how, or why, it works, brain surgery, or long-term commitment to a facility, and even all of those options are largely a hit-or-miss affair. Sheen doesn't have a mental illness; he's just a a great, big, full-of-himself douchebag.

So, for all of you jerkoffs filling my mailbox with "Why don't you defend Charlie Sheen, the Obvious Mental Patient, with the same fervor and feeling with which you defended the man who tried to assassinate Gabby Giffords" screeds, I can only reiterate:

The two cases are not comparable. Jared Loughner was/is a deranged man, suffering from a severe mental defect that cannot be cured by medical science, and who was made a pariah by a society that is quite happy to go through life expecting that 'someone' will 'do something' about him, and so spare them the necessity -- and personal inconvenience -- of having to take some responsibility for a sick son, brother, or friend, only to stand around shaking their heads in mock disbelief that the man they all knew was a ticking time-bomb would go berserk and start shooting up a supermarket parking lot.

Charlie Sheen, on the other hand, is just a douchebag with a large bank account, no self-discipline, and a huge ego that combined to become a perfect storm of stupid excess. The reason he gets attention before he does something that gets someone killed is because he's a celebrity, and somehow, in the Great Cosmic Code of Justice that I just don't understand, that makes him someone worth saving, and someone worthy of more sympathy than a would-be political assassin, right?

Fuck no! If all things were truly equal, Jared Loughner would have gotten the same attention Sheen has gotten -- before he killed and maimed -- without having to have been rich and famous. Celebrity Doctors would be rushing to treat Loughner's particular brand of crazy with the same breathless exuberance with which they try to explain away Sheen's on the Boob Tube. Loughner would have gotten the expensive course of 'treatment' (read; internment) that Sheen will no doubt retreat to when he finally tires of playing that 'leave-me-alone-no-come-bask-in-my-badass-self-routine' he's playing at now. Sheen, like Mohammed Atta, knows exactly what he's doing -- he's voluntered, in a sense, too.

There is no excuse for their actions -- whether it's murder or making a public spectacle of yourself -- but Loughner has this mitigating factor in his favor; he's truly sick in a way that medical science cannot comprehend, or effectively treat for very long. His course of 'rehab' now consists of an orange jumpsuit and ends with a lethal injection . Charlie Sheen is just plain sickening, and most --if not all --of his' illnesses' are probably just the result of his own stupidity, and his life will probably be saved.

Only On Staten Island...

...can you leave your children at a Police Station, and then be arrested for Endangering the Welfare of a child.

Then again, with this sort of cop protecting our fair city, that might not be too far from the truth.

However, if charming little anecdotes about scaring your over-indulged, you-made-'em-uncontrollable children into quivering submission, or killer drunk-driver cops aren't your cup of tea, there's more to our fair isle. Why, if you look closely enough, you'll see a classic example of what happens to you if you make extremely poor decisions AND depend upon the government for your catastrophic healthcare. Your ObamaCare future, coming to a town near you!

The category of people once defined as"The Rich" has seemingly gone from $250k+ a year to those who earn $700 bucks a month, in just under 2 years? That's Change You Can Believe In, Son! Yesssirrreeee!

By the way, was I the only one who noticed that this young man is, somehow, both an Honors Student AND collecting government-funded disability payments for a learning disorder? And that John Jay offered him a free education, but that he didn't take it? Does any of this sound right to you? Not to belittle the kid's plight, but really, at what point do you stop playing victim, and expecting the taxpayer to pick up your bills, and start taking advantage of the opportunities you've been handed on a silver-fucking-platter?

Do you know how many people there are who would...ahem...give an eye...for a free education, Dispshit?

But it was so good to see that his union coughed up a whole $250.00 for his healthcare. Way to look out for the Workin' Stiff, Fellas! Warmed the cockles of my black, little heart, it did. I wonder how much the union gave to Chuck "I Wet My Pants Daily" Schumer's re-election committee? Did it get one of those 900+ waivers from the Obama Administration that let it wriggle out of ObamaCare, too?

Of course, it's not all doom-and-gloom in these parts. No, no, no. Sometimes, we can even entertain ourselves with the outrageous antics of our fellow citizens. Especially the ones who walk into a Home Depot, and probably stage an incident so as to provoke some response and therefore have grounds for a potentially-remunerative lawsuit. The gratuitous racism and de rigeur ambulance-chaser-approved neckbrace are just an added bonus.

The gene pool needs some chlorine, methinks.

Why The Office of President of the United States Isn't an On-the-Job-Training Exercise...

Barack Obama is a badly-flawed man. When I say that I don't mean to imply that he's an evil person who stomps puppies and raises kittens for their meat and hides. I'm certain that on a personal level, he's rather an amiable gentleman, and by all appearances is an excellent husband and father. He just isn't smart enough to know what he doesn't know, and doesn't really know what he claims he does, and never seems capable of getting the proper help when he needs it, or to be even capable of recognizing when he needs that help.

Look about you. Does it look like someone who knows what he's doing is in charge? Do you feel that your political leaders grasp the reality of your life and the world around us?

When this country is facing economic crisis, exploding unemployment and is teetering on insolvency, Barack Obama spends his time devising federal giveaways disguised as "Stimulus"; Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage-Renegotiation Schemes, Green Energy boondoggles, a Healthcare program that somehow puts 30 million deadbeats into the insurance/health systems without raising costs, spouts the usual claptrap about "Education", fosters a Soak-the-Rich , anti-business, anti-growth mentality, recycles liberal (small 'l'' intentional) boilerplate policy that has been historically-proven to be about as useful and efficacious as mammary glands on a bull.

He turned the business of governing over to a cabal of Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and what they wrought was too terrible to contemplate -- a harbinger of the collapse of the federalist system, an assault upon the personal liberties of the individual -- and Obama spent 15 months polishing that turd, trying to convince you that a series of programs that even he couldn't adequately explain were somehow manna from Heaven.

He couldn't explain any of it because he didn't understand it, either, mostly because he had nothing to do with it, of course. Why do you think Nancy Pelosi had to resort to extra-constitutional means to get Obamacare passed, and Harry Reid had to bribe Senators (members of hi sown party, no less!) to make it a reality?

When the Gulf of Mexico was poisoned by BP, and millions had their livelihoods destroyed by an uncontrolled gusher of crude oil, Obama went on vacation. But he did, at least, file a lawsuit, bless his heart.

When the nation is at war with Radical Islam, Candidate Obama announces that it's a war we cannot win (The Surge has Failed, Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the concept of Human Rights, referring to terrorism as a "Man-Made Disaster", etc.), and makes various pronouncements calling GWB, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., War Criminals, Obama goes to Cairo and makes a speech apologizing for America defending itself while Al'Qeda expands into Yemen and Somalia, home-grown Jihadis shoot up Army bases, attempt to blow up Times Square, and try to bring down airliners with TNT boxer shorts. President Obama then repeats and extends the very Bush-era policies he previously decried, and then pretends as if he's still -- somehow -- on the higher moral ground that his predecessors could never occupy.

When the country needs firms, committed, reasoned leadership, Obama reminds us that he's a multi-and-post-racial Messianic figure who should be worshiped and obeyed, rather than held accountable for his actions, or lack thereof. If you criticize him, you're racist. If you disagree with him, you're a Redneck-Bible-thumping-Gun-Clinger. If you point out the glaring disconnect between his rhetoric and reality, you are accused of wanting to "turn the clock back to when the Republicans drove the car into the ditch".

At a time when economic recovery should be the paramount concern of the political establishment, Obama instead ordains newer restrictions on commerce. He imposes new taxes. He nationalizes the automobile industry, attempts to do the same to the healtchcare industry, bullies the banks, and sticks his cronies on a myriad of economic advisory boards.

He wags his fingers at Corporate America for their unbridled greed, their lavish, expensive trips to, and conventions in, Las Vegas, and then jets himself and the Missus on taxpayer-funded "date nights" to see Broadway shows and the best resorts, or plays golf on the best courses in America on a regular basis, or takes 10 vacations in the span of 12 weeks. He sends his wife on a junket to Spain that requires several hundred hotel rooms. He travels to India with an entourage of thousands.

When clarity of purpose and intent is necessary, when people need to be held accountable for the mistakes that were made which put the country in the dire straits it finds itself in, Obama creates a myriad of "czars" who's purposes are nebulous, and who aren't accountable to anyone...except him.

These are either the actions of a man who is determined to implement a New System which is certainly un-American...or they are the scattershot, clueless, hard-headed stupidity of someone who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, and has even less of an idea of how to do even that much.

I would tend to believe it to be the latter, rather than the former. Being a"community organizer" and a temporary, half-term Senator, who never held a private sector job in his life, and was probably patted on the back, unduly lauded, and socially-promoted for being"special" without having to distinguish himself in any meaningful way, doesn't exactly prepare one for the job of President of the United States.

Barack Obama is making it all up as he goes along. He's a second-rate actor playing a part.

And if you needed even more proof that Barack Obama, the President-of-last-Resort, was totally unprepared for this job, and is unequal to the task of performing it at even a satisfactory level, we see all of his shortcomings and lack of experience manifested in the response to the crisis in Egypt.

You didn't need me to tell you this if you have eyes in your head and at least three working brain cells, but it bears repeating every day. If you don't believe me, just ask Professor Hanson. He's smarter than I am, you know.

I don't think Barack Obama is a bad man. Just a very bad President.