Thursday, January 20, 2011

Please Forgive The Long Posting

The following is copied from a local newspaper

"Ill will over bill kill means entertainment from the Hill"
by Tim Rowland

"I pride myself on taking bold, uninformed stands, but I confess that I don't have a lot of strong feelings about national health care one way or the other.

To me, it's in the same category as Social Security, Medicare and the prescription drug act. I wish there were a better way than big federal government programs, but it seems to be the direction in which all civilized nations are moving. So why fight it?

I also can't help but point out that national health care would not have been necessary were it not for the insane greed of insurance companies, lawyers, drug companies, medical device outfits and just about anyone who took advantage of people's emotions, health and well-being for exorbitant profit.

But, since the health care law doesn't specifically benefit me, I am rather ambivalent.

Instead, I was all jacked up for the House Republicans (they of the You Lie! Hell no you can't! Kill the bill, kill the bill! faction) who were about to go full Bruce Lee on the Health Care Reform Law this week.

In anticipation of the action, Capitol Building janitors had sent out extra wet/dry vacs to soak up the expected gallons of drool and slobber produced by mouth-foaming Republicans. This was to be the bloodiest, craziest rodeo produced on the Hill since Ollie North slapped down the Democrats during Iran Contra.

At some point, I was pretty sure that we would be treated to video of some House members in party hats running around without their pants.

Most notable to me was the title of the Reform reform legislation: "A Bill to Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law."

Great, they're going full preschool on us right out of the shoot. Can't wait for the sequel: "A Bill to Repeal the Poopie Caca Economic Stimulus Package."

Obviously, there are no grown-ups in charge, so this was going to be good, right? Alas, it was not to be. The Arizona shootings put a damper on the House trampoline act, to the point where sponsors of the bill considered changing the title from "Job Killing Health Care" to "Job Destroying Health Care."

I don't get it. They're about to deny health care to millions of mothers, women, children, people with handicaps and invalids, and all of a sudden they're worried that the title of the bill is too harsh?

Come on man, in for a penny in for a pound. Let your hair hang down. Call it the Repeal of the Law that Buries an Ax So Far Into the Skull of Jobs That the Jobs' Eyeballs Will Pop Out And Roll All the Way to Memphis Act.

House Republicans shouldn't try to be sensitive; it's not what they're about. If you're a run-first offense, you are just going to look silly if you come out throwing the ball.

But if you're a fan of pure goofiness, we haven't had this much fun since the "House Managers" during the Clinton years, when a bunch of fat old white men tried to remember what sex was like long enough to build an impeachment case around it.

In the search for a kinder, unkind compound adjective, Speaker John Boehner went with "job-crushing." That's a little limp in my view. I prefer Rep. Steve King, who called health care, no lie, the "entrepreneurial extinction act."

Steve. Dude. Do you really expect the people who put a person like you into office to understand what that means? Ix-nay on the Ulti-may Yllable-say, if you get my drift.

Ah well, it was bound to be a dud. As one reporter noted, the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate anyway. Or maybe we should say, destroyed on arrival."


Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist. He can be reached at 301-733-5131, ext. 6997, or via e-mail at timr@herald-mail.com. Tune in to the Rowland Rant on antpod.com or on Antietam Cable's WCL-TV Channel 30 at 6:30 p.m. New episodes are released every Wednesday.
Copyright © 2011, Herald Mail

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Thank You for Thinking Of Me

Another birthday has come and gone. Melinda made sure that I was properly celebrated with a sartorial shopping trip and dinner out followed by cake, ice cream and presents opening. Everything was much appreciated, especially Holly and Steve's gorgeous Dog Book, the gift certificate from Mary Lynn and Tim and the H & D chocolate truffles sent by Gail and Bob.

Facebook gave a lot of my "friends" the opportunity



to send salutations and it was great to talk with brothers Bill and Bob and to Pop.

I guess I will have to try and keep having birthdays. Thanks everyone!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Ophiuchus Rising

I just ran across the information that because of astronomical minutia, it may become necessary to adopt a 13th Zodiac sign called Ophiuchus. This entity is allegedly associated with the historical guy Imhotep or Aesculapius, the fellow with the snake and staff.

Also, with regard to the customary 12 other signs of the Zodiac, some dates have shifted from one sign to another. For example, yours truely will morph from a goat to an archer. I'm not sure I really mind (for a long time I thought I was a Saggitarius anyway before this change so you can see how closely I followed this astrology stuff)

Friday, January 14, 2011

What do the following all have in common?






Well, this has been a trying week, technologically and otherwise. To one degree or another, all of these images represent some sort of disfunction in my life and/or that of my dear wife.

First, the Trend Micro Antivirus that I bought for our new Dell (and for our other 2 computers) failed to install no matter what the Best Buy Geeks could do. They finally installed a trial Kaspersky AV that may or may not be working properly. One Geek suggested it was a Microsoft issue.

Next, my Brother wireless printer needed to have its inkjets cleaned again before it would print (that's what I get for not using OEM ink cartridges.

Taking advantage of a free "Showtime" weekend on DirecTV, I recorded several movies at least two of which did not play back correctly leaving poor James Bond in a pickle and some Alien stuck in Viking haunts. The tech at DTV suggested it might be their fault, not my DVR (we'll see).

Today, either the Dell running Windows 7, the Kaspersky AV or the Seagate external drive balked at saving some financial file updates as backups.

Also today, the University Sakai instructional system would not recognize my existence in trying to link to the poli.sci. class I'm taking.




We all know what the remaining image represents as a disfunction.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Let's try this again


I noticed this morning that I had not posted anything since last August. That's not necessarily bad.

I should update Maggie's information. She is now a svelt 45 lbs and on her annual Vet visit was scored a "3" on the 5 point body form scale. This happens to be "ideal"; not too skinny and not too chubby. She is up on all her shots (or will be after a couple of boosters) in 3 weeks.

Maggie has much improved her reactions to vehicular traffic but still needs some training about social graces with other dogs. Still very much a work in progress.