arkansas trash

Over the past year as the democrat primaries were moved forward in time, I felt that the Clintons were behind it for one simple reason: Hillary is not designed for long-term wear. She needed a coronation, not a mud fight. With her ability to raise money, the assumption was there that she would overwhelm all comers like a huge wave engulfs kids swimming just a few feet from shore.

Iowa comes. View the statements in and around the voting so far. The night before Iowa, Bubba talks about him losing that state, too. In NH, Hillary dismisses Iowa as NH being a “new state, a new day.” Bill said yesterday that Iowa made a mistake. Claimed people were voting for a “fantasy.” He said that the short time between Iowa and NH – which I continue to maintain he engineered – meant that voters were not casting based upon their hearts but headlines. Hillary cries, literally, about how hard it is on the trail, and then remains stoic as a supporter publicly and to her face mentions assassination and Obama in the same sentence. Funny, she was very quick to denounce some people holding up shirts asking her to iron them, as if a woman's place is in the home - why did that seem planted to me? She dismissed MLK’s work as only beginning when LBJ “passed” (she used that word) the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She somehow forgot to add that Senate republicans passed the Act over the strong objections of the democrats, including the rather vocal Algore, Sr.

How utterly despicable these people are. When the results go against them, they attack the voters as misguided lemmings. “Listen to me. I know what you should do. I am right – you are wrong.” I thought I was narcissistic. Naw, I know I am. But I do not hold a candle to these clowns.

Why is Obama so popular right now? Perhaps no more a reason than Jimmy Carter got elected: the democrats want a change. There has been 28 years of either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. Hillary wants that to be 32 or 36. Even FDR’s run ended at 20 years when Truman left office. It is time for a change.

It is time for Obama? I have no idea. I’m an independent with long republican roots. I will not vote in the primary. I will wait to see if I will vote in the general. I think Obama is going to get excoriated in the general campaign, but so does every candidate on the national platform. We’ll have to see if the heat tempers him or exposes structural flaws.

Hillary will get pounded today in NH. The real issue is how close to 50% Obama can get. If he cracks well into the 40s, then the fickle California crowd will follow his aura. That will toast Hillary. Her only chance is to sweep February 5. In the interim, she will lose South Carolina and Nevada. The latter has to be particularly galling to her.

I watched her Senate campaign as the NY Carpetbagger which was so carefully orchestrated to avoid any possibility of confrontation, of probing. Try as she might, that is just not possible in a presidential campaign. The national press, no matter how tightly in bed they were with her before, are egomaniacs drunken with their power. They love to take people down. The scent of blood blinds them. Hillary’s third-place finish in Iowa, even though by just tenths of a percentage point, was all they needed. Second place is no longer any good for her. She must win. The measuring rod has become the margin of victory by Obama. The longer the rod, the more blood in the water.

How much do these people lie? Bubba’s cell phone rings. He says that only Hillary has the number. Think about that. For everything the guy is involved in, from fundraising to fornication, all he has is a dedicated hotline to Hillary? Just does not ring true, not even considering that he has multiple phones but only one with him. His words ring as hollow as when he said, “I think we all know what we are talking about” as he dodged the “sexual relations” questions.

These people are trailer-park trash that has been dressed up to look pretty. They left their social strata and played with the elites for a long time based, in large part, upon Bubba being an “exceptionally good liar.”

It’s time to go home, people. In truth, we really never knew you, and what we did know we didn’t like very much.

What will be interesting is the next phase. When the Clintons lose their powerbase and are no longer feared by former associates, the books to be written are going to be exceptionally brutal. No, I do not feel sorry for them in the least.

Want a very bold prediction? Michigan moved their primary up considerably, and in a show of support with the national party, all of the major candidates withdrew and no longer appear on the ballot - except Hillary. Watch a groundswell of write-ins for Obama. If he wins that state based upon a write-in campaign, Hillary will lose it publicly and ugly.

extreme scrapbooking

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We’ll spend five glorious days and four nights hunting faeries. When we have all of our treasures, we’ll spend an additional three days in EXTREME SCRAPBOOKING!!.

You’ll learn how to:
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~~ Other foraged items will be used to create a full-experience scrapbook!!

We'll spend most evenings in the local pubs getting liquored up for a night filled with disturbing faery and other woodland creature nests during this prime mating season!!

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Sign up now!! If we receive your confirmed reservation before February 1, 2008, we’ll include two free vomit bags for the flight to Ireland and one chastity belt for the cruise home (these come in handy for both men and women!). CALL NOW!! DON'T WAIT!!

rectally speaking

You people think I am exaggerating when I tell you that docs have a butt-insertion fetish. Well, to wit:

“A 60-year-old man with acute pancreatitis developed persistent hiccups after insertion of a nasogastric tube. Removal of the latter did not terminate the hiccups which had also been treated with different drugs, and several manoeuvres were attempted, but with no success. Digital rectal massage was then performed resulting in abrupt cessation of the hiccups. Recurrence of the hiccups occurred several hours later, and again, they were terminated immediately with digital rectal massage. No other recurrences were observed. This is the second reported case associating cessation of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage. We suggest that this manoeuvre should be considered in cases of intractable hiccups before proceeding with pharmacological agents.”

Now, the guy’s got hiccups. That’s a mouth thing, right? I mean, out the other end, he would be a serial farter. No, it’s his mouth. He won’t stop. What to do? Well, stick your fingers up his ass. Makes sense, eh? Can’t you picture it? Hiccup, hiccup, hiccup, insert, silence, extract, hiccup, hiccup, insert, silence, extract, hiccup …

“Dr. Bob, I think we have something here!”

“Yes, Dr. Jim, I agree. What a novel idea! Tell me, how did you conceptualize of this solution?”

“Well, Dr. Bob, I was reading one of my old Med School textbooks, How and When to Compromise the Anal Cavity. Just for old times’ sake, really. Loved that course. And I noticed that I jotted in the margin, ‘Always,’ and ‘At every opportunity.’ Then later in the book, I found a muse I wrote to myself, ‘The butthole is the gateway to health.’ I started thinking. Remember Extant Physiology Lab, where we tried to push the existing knowledge of biological functions?”

“Yes, Dr. Jim, I do.”

“Well, Dr. Bob, at NYU we tested the hypothesis that a person could not burp and fart at the same time. We were amazed that the historical data was so conclusive. So we began controlled tests among volunteers from the general population, and then later amongst ourselves.”

“Go on, Dr. Jim”

“Alright, Dr. Bob. From a scientific viewpoint, it has to be understood that a ‘fart’ is not something defined purely by auditory cognition.”

“Of course, Dr. Jim.”

“Yes. It is the mere passing of gaseous fecal matter that establishes whether or not a ‘fart’ has occurred.”

“The silent-but-deadly effect.”

“Precisely! So we rigged a sensor line into a Dixie cup and duct taped the device onto the posterior out-door.”

“Brilliant!”

“Thank you, Dr. Bob.”

“You are welcome, Dr. Jim. We then induced a burp effect through the consumption of various soft drinks.”

“Did you also enhance the physiological environment to increase the likelihood of farting?”

“You are following this research closely. I am impressed, Dr. Jim.”

“As am I with myself, Dr. Bob.”

“As well you should be, Dr. Jim. As you anticipated, the original experiment design was fatally flawed. The subjects burped on a recurring and frequent basis, but watch as we did – no farts.”

“What did you do in response, Dr. Bob?”

“We adjusted the testing protocol, after appropriate presentation and approval from the Chief of the Medical Staff, to isolate a subject-preparation phase.”

“Do tell.”

“Before a subject was fitted with the butt-gas capture system, we sat them in a room for thirty minutes and feed them beans and Coke.”

“Brilliant!”

“Thank you, Dr. Jim. We anxiously watched both mouths and butts of the subjects. It usually took no more than 15 minutes post-consumption for the body to respond.”

“And what were the observations, Dr. Bob?”

“The subjects did indeed burp and fart rather intensely, however, never at the same time!”

“Fascinating!”

“Yes. Now we had to figure out why.”

“And did you?”

“No. Funding ran out. But this one subject had such a magnificent ass that I chose to specialize in gynecology.”

“So the research was a success.”

“Yes, it was.”

“So tell me, Dr. Bob, how does that research relate to the patient in front of us now, the one with repeating hiccups?”

“Simple, Dr. Jim, and forgive me for suggesting that I am rather shocked that you do not see the correlation already.”

“I am merely deferring to your expertise, Dr. Bob, and I hope to hear more about the specialty-inducing subject as well.”

“Very well, Dr. Jim. The results of my previous research as applied to the present situation are thus: If one cannot fart and burp at the same time, then there must be a relationship between the two escape hatches. It cannot be avoided. So, if a patient presents with hyper-activity in one of the regions, compromise the other and see what happens!”

“Research in action!”

“Yes!”

“So, tell me, have you ever treated a serial farter by cramming something down their throat?”

“Yes, but the hospital’s legal staff informs me that I cannot speak of the matter until the litigation is resolved.”

“I understand.”

I get hiccups upon occasion. I wonder if my insurance company will pay for a butt plug? “Hello, Blue Cross Nurse Hotline? Can’t stop my hiccups. Any ideas? Hmmm. Didn’t think of that … ok … hhmmmm … alright. And that’s covered? Wow. Ok. Thank you. Have a nice day.”

Hiccup. Insert. Silence. Ut oh! My pants are getting tight!

when can i masturabte?

There are just some things that you just cannot make up. I cut nothing below – full and complete. You have all the links.

J.W. from Canada writes, “As-Salamu `alaykum. I got married four months back. I am a Muslim and try to follow Islam to the best of my ability. During the time of my wife's period (which is usually seven days) I get sexually aroused a lot (she’s had like THREE periods, pal. Get a fricking grip – oh yeah, that’s what you are going to ask. Sorry, got ahead of myself.). I would like to know if, during this time, it is permissible for me to masturbate (smile)? If not, is there any other option?” (There’s the neighbor’s sheep, a mud hole, a rotting tree by a creek bed, your sister.)

Counselor Ahmad Kutty responds:

Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. (Same to you, pal.)

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, cut to the chase.)

Dear brother in Islam, thank you so much for your concerns about your religion and Allah’s law even in what concerns your sexual life with your wife. (Gotcha. You get paid by the word, buddy? Talk!)

As for your question, it should be clear that masturbation is generally considered forbidden (except for the quite amazing exceptions noted at the end of this post) in Islam since it is deemed to fall under the category of sexual satisfaction outside the framework of marriage (don’t tell me that you’re about to say everything has to be with her, are you? Everything?). However, mutual masturbation between the man and his wife (here we go – so I can’t yank my pud, but she can? Where do I sign up? PBUH) is not haram; rather, it is permissible because it is a part of the enjoyment which Allah has allowed (nice guy, that Allah). Allah Almighty says: “Those who guard their chastity (i.e., private parts from illegal sexual acts). (why is there a period to the left and a capital E to the right? Your God seems to be a grammar retard.) Except from their wives or (the captives and slaves) (gotta love the fact subsumed in evidence, eh? It is perfectly fine to have captives and slaves. You people are bizarre.) that their right hands (I’m left handed; when I use my right hand it feels like someone else is doing it – is that ok?) possess,—for them, they are free from blame.” (Al-Mu’minun: 5-6)

In response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states (oh, the above was like scripture, and now we get the sermon? I’m into it.):

“We are not allowed to engage in sexual intercourse with our wives during their menstrual period (why not? Give me a good reason. Name ONE. That’s why somebody invented soap and water.). However, there is no taboo on gaining sexual satisfaction from them through other ways (tell me more!). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) (double that if he is going to elaborate on “other ways”) was once asked, “What is allowed for a husband from his wife during menstruation?” (Somebody asked him this? Where's that humungo thighed Mrs. Clinton & her Fabulous Question Planters when you need them? This dude is walking around like a fricking prophet and people asked him about banging their wives? You people hate Jews, but, c'mon, they had a bit more decorum with Jesus, right?) He replied, “Everything except sexual intercourse.” (I LOVE this guy – “everything”) Just as there is no taboo on intimate touching, fondling, caressing, et cetera, there is no prohibition on spouses masturbating each other, et cetera. (I think “et cetera” is Muslim for “yadda yadda yadda.” That Mohammed said that?!? That is so funny. The dude is walking around like he’s the Christ and talking about jacking off. So hip! Did he wear headphones and sunglasses? So, we already learned that she can take the yoyo for a walk. You mean I can just say, “This side’s bloody, flip it over”? That’s cool with you? So provided a slave isn’t available, I can just crank her up the ass and you have no problem with that? You people spent too much time in the desert with camels. Trust me on this one. I bet the etymology of “animal husbandry” is a bit further east than Greece or Rome.”)

Although you are not allowed to masturbate yourself, your wife can masturbate you without incurring any sin (You’re repeating yourself. On purpose? For emphasis? OK, ok. I’ll talk to her and said you said so. "Um, jerk me off, PBUH." That's all, right? I say that and we're cool?). So satisfy yourself through halal (lawful) (I thought "halal" was deep fried and served in a pita. Learn something new everyday.) ways; we have sufficiency in what Allah has made halal for us so that we do not need to turn to that which is considered as haram (unlawful).” (I thought "haram" was a bunch of chicks - or as you call them, "captives." Let’s summarize, she can yank it, I can flip her over, I could do a slave, I could kidnap somebody so I have a “captive.” I didn’t see any prohibition on her blowing me – I mean, “everything” is a pretty broad term. I can toe fuck her? Just can’t bang her. Got it. What an amazing religion to discuss such real issues. And you think we are too loose? Tell me, when I clip my toenails, right to left or left to right?)

Excepted, with slight modifications, from: www.muslims.ca

You can also read:

Islamic Ruling on Masturbation. Can I? Short answer: Yes (hunh? I thought you just said, no.), but only if you aren’t married (ah! So stay single and the sheep are safe.), if you think you really need to bang some married girl (so even if I am married, I can do it if that woman over there is driving me to the point of distraction. What an incredible religion you people have.), or if you are releasing sexual tension rather than achieving sexual desire (now, talk about wordsmithing. Tension not desire. Well, I get really tense sometimes – does that work? Hey, I’m tense, I took my Viagra and she’s late from work - yank yank yank. And that’s OK? Listen to me, boys, create a flow chart of your rules. See the spirals and feedbacks? There’s no flow (menstruation aside). Your rules are creating asshats. Settle down. Relax. Masturbate. Don’t be so uptight.).

My Husband Does Not Satisfy Me in Bed: Can I Masturbate? Short answer: No. So what if we Muslim men have short dicks and no sense of foreplay. Deal with it. (Figures. Always the guys with small dicks writing rules telling women to “deal with it.” How about this, bub – pull your own pud, I can’t find it! The coke bottle and tweezers must be in the slave’s room.)

If you are still in need of more information, don't hesitate to contact us. Do keep in touch. May Allah guide us all to the straight path! (Yeah, ok.)

Allah Almighty knows best. (I am speechless.)

thanksgiving, part one: honesty

Thanksgiving, a time to kill domesticated animals en masse, to demonstrate to ourselves that we can throw away more food in a day than many people around the world see in a month, and to become familiar with the combined deleterious effects of tryptophan and alcohol poisoning. Combine all of this with sharing a table with people you did not choose as friends but know through the accident of birth, and you have the makings for a day to be remembered for years. December 7, 1941, is also a day remembered for years.

That Holly Hunter movie, Home for the Holidays, accurately depicts most Thanksgivings. There is always an undercurrent of ultimate devotion, albeit like a dog is devoted to his owner through a leash, but devotion none the less. The truer aspect is that when choices were available through the preceding months, they were consistently exercised to stay away from these people. Yes, there are generational bonds that sometimes transcend closed doors and burned hearts – but, truthfully, those relationships are compromised because of their (necessary) blind devotion to their children. Want to see true generational relations? Watch grandparents with adult grandchildren.

Do holidays bring families together? Yes. So do funerals and other calamities in life. Some of us gravitate towards family because there is supposedly this unbreakable bound, some underlying level of trust that means no matter the issue, no matter the real or perceived red letter there will allows be an open door. Then some red letter does come to be attached, and sometimes those families ostracize. Then the true meaning of holidays becomes known.

Holidays are for reminding one another of bonds present, nor bonds past. Holidays future may have different bonds than today. Holidays are funerals only for the turkey, and dead bonds should not be honored. In fact, it is a dishonor to relationships that no longer hold love or respect to be presented across a table as if those things still existed. It is a time to look at a dying relationship and recognize it for what it once it was and what it presently is, not to galvanize either the present or future. If it was vibrant yesterday and dying today, it will be dead tomorrow. Enjoy the last vestiges, the life’s breath that is fading. Use the time to stop the grinding, yes, but do not share false love. That is insulting to an honest memory.

In the manner Holidays are celebrated, it is somehow fitting to kill an animal and make it pretty for the table, to tear into the cooked flesh, and consume it with gusto. But you walk away from the table, the bones remain there. Perhaps some chunks of meat go into a bag for you to consume later. Do not do all the disservice of taking the bones with you. Dead animals, dead or dying relations: recognize them for what they are; do not exhibit false sincerity. Leave it at the table. Better yet, eat somewhere else. The food will taste better.

cosmic dancer

I was looking up at the sky and idly thinking what would happen if, say, some space-originated hunk of iron (with a typical density of, say, 8000 kg/m3) with a diameter of something like 100 meters, crossed into the atmosphere at, like, a 45 degree angle at a speed of roughly 50 miles/second, and then slammed into some sedimentary rock (with a density of something like 2500 kg/m3) about ten miles or so from where I sit. Would I be safe?

When in doubt, go to the internet. It just so happens that there is a Earth Impact Effects Program just waiting for your variable inputs – and mine!

If you just want the math behind the results, go here. Otherwise, read on – looks like I’ll be ok. Maybe. Wait, no. I think. Not sure. Sounds bad, actually.

First, there is some garbage about, “Energy before atmospheric entry” being 1.36 x 1019 Joules = 3.24 x 103 MegaTons TNT. I could not care less what happened before entry. I want to know about the impact on my ass where it sits – and I may not be a math or science or space guy, but I do know that energy before entry won’t blow down my walls.

We next learn that one of these things will slam into whatever I said it slammed into about once in every 56,000 years. That is not comforting. I checked the records. Ain’t nothing hit about ten miles up the road in the last 56,000 years. I know the probability is calculated as “average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth,” but that is stupid – how am I supposed to figure that out? If it ain’t local, it didn’t happen – a true Appalachian attitude. Got a problem with that? Wanna squeal like a pig? Here piggy, piggy! So adjust the 1:56,000 for the proportion of the Earth’s surface up the road those ten miles. Something-a-helluva-lot-bigger-than-56,000 – still didn’t happen. So there.

There is a spot of good news in that the thing that’s gonna hit will start to break up about 128,000 feet away. That’s like over by Hazleton, a couple two three miles away. No problem. That’s the town that hates illegals. Good thing Jerry Farewell is dead else he’d be screaming, “God’s revenge!” That’s the guy that whacked off in front of prostitutes, right? Bet he’s already bought his season pass to the porn drive-in in Hell. All forty foot penises and sweaty asses – he forgot all about Heaven by the second half of the first double feature. He’s hooked up with some sleazy pharmacist already and is popping Viagra like they’re Tic Tacs. “If your erection lasts more than four hours, seek prompt medical attention”? Hell, no – he’ll be counting on it! Probably trying to negotiate a lifetime movie pass for him and his 12-year-old, um, son (that boy over there in the dress and pink bow – the one that knows the true meaning of Hell).

Here’s the best news. The resulting complex crater will have a transient diameter of 2.83 miles with a depth of one mile, and a final diameter of 3.47 miles and depth of 0.309 miles. With a decent rainy season, I may have another fishing spot pretty close. The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 0.0159 miles, and roughly half the melt remains in the crater, where its average thickness is 13.3 feet. Fishing may not be too good for a millennium or so until the iron content fades, but I’m patient. Also, tain’t no hole close to ten miles. I could not care less what happens over there.

So what do we see? Visible fireball radius of 2.71 miles, with the fireball appearing 61.6 times larger than the sun. We’ll see it for 56.9 seconds. That’s long enough to get a video camera and say all sorts of stupid things like, “Wow, do you see that? Thelma, go get me a beer! Shut-the-fuck-up-and-get-me-a-beer! I’m taping it, dumbass, you can just watch the tape!”

What’s really cool is the effects of the thermal radiation: Clothing ignites, much of the body suffers third degree burns, newspaper ignites, plywood flames, deciduous trees ignite, and grass ignites. Very cool! When! When! When!?! 0.0618 seconds after impact. Wow! Sucks to be them. Distance, as in ten miles, does make the heart grow fonder, eh? No, wait, the thermal radiation effects can’t be for ground zero – that would be a hole. This affects me? This sucks! You mean their hole is going to become my problem? WTF? At least I don’t read newspapers, so I don’t have to worry about that part. Won’t have to badger the boy to cut the subsequently non-existent grass, either. One less thing to worry about. That’s good. Wait. In 6/100s of a second it will get to me? That’s kinda fast. Could that really be ten miles away? But if like this thing slams into the back of your head and leaves a hole about three miles wide, what the hell is someone calculating that the newspaper would combust? Gotta be ten miles away. This really sucks. Let me try some math to see if I can figure this out. If a train leave the station traveling northbound for 6/100s of second and travels ten miles, toasting all the grass and newspapers along the way, how fast is it going in MPH? Damn. Um. Wait, I know this one. Um. Let’s see. If I take miles/hour, and substitute 10 for miles, and the fractional hour in that lower thingey on the other side of the slash. No wait. I don’t know. Gimme a minute! Um. OK, I think I’m right. 6/100s of a second, figuring 3,600 seconds in an hour is 0.00001667 hours or something like that. OK. 10/that number I just said is 600,000 MPH. But the speed of light is the theoretical maximum speed, and that’s 186,282.397 MP--, MP--. Damn! Miles per SECOND. OK, if a train leaves the station traveling northbound at 600,000 MPH, toasting clothes and trees in its wake, how many miles will it travel in a second? Um. 600,000 miles divided by the number of seconds in an hour, right? This seems familiar. Um. 600,000 / 3,600 = 166.67 MPS. Is that right? If I take 6 times 16, that’s 96, close enough to 100 (being one second) and then 10 times 16 is 160 … OK. Rough check correct. So the, what were we talking about? Thermal radiation, right – yeah, in less than a second it would fry everything around me. Damn. “On second thought, Thelma, here, you hold the camera. I’ll get my own beer.”

There would be a touch of seismic activity, of course, but I’ve ridden out a 7+ before. Let’s see what this would do in light of being 10 miles from the epicenter. I would feel it at 3.22 seconds after impact. Not bad. Would still be locked into the drop-and-roll thing to put my clothes out – or laughing my ass off as Thelma did it as I watched comfortably from inside with cold beer in hand. Richter 6.9 – pussy strength. What does Mercalli say about damage here? Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned. Piece of cake. Except that it followed the radiation thingey. This is beginning to suck. For Thelma.

There will be an air blast, too. Good – time to cool off. Get to me about in 48.8 seconds at 69.2 psi and a maximum velocity of 1,130 mph. Ouch! Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse. Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse. Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse. Highway truss bridges will collapse. Highway girder bridges will collapse. Glass windows will shatter. Cars and trucks will be largely displaced and grossly distorted and will require rebuilding before use. Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves. OK, this really sucks big time.

Before we get too depressed, we have to remember that ejecta is going to come. When? Approximately 57.4 seconds after the impact. So Thelma cooks in situ, add a little shake to the bake, turn on the cosmic-sized hairdryer, and then I have to dodge shit?!? How big? Average thickness of 36.5 inches and mean fragment diameter of 14.4 feet. That could hurt. Better go inside – Thelma can take care of herself. Are her clothes off yet? Didn’t mess up my hair, did it? I’m trying to grow it out. Damn!

This really blows. Maybe I should move about ten more miles away.

daylight-saving time

I just noticed that my posts e'd by FeedBlitz do not include the streaming audio. I’ll be sure to mention audio coming or going in the words of the post. I’ll also watch for video insertion when that comes up and see how FeedBlitz handles it. The audio issue is probably because it is calling up flash instead of just an HTML link. I wonder how Reginold would have distributed - that was flash, too. Anyway.

Daylight-Saving Time. Get my hoe ready? What she got to do with any of this?

I never thought through the complexities of Daylight-Saving Time. Seems to me to be a national policy, must be a reason – just like there must be a reason for Boston to be such a governmental dick to kids with lemonade stands: get permission from five different government agencies, pay $335 in fees and licenses, comply with dozens of complex food and building ordinances, and carry $500,000 in liability insurance. I find such policy areas to be easy to leave to others to decide. They want my clock to change, I’m fine with it. They want to require prostate exams for all left-handed men at or over the age of 48 with grey hair living in the northeastern United States that work at home and have blogs, then they got a fight on their hands. But DST? Easy stuff.

After reading a lot of the history of DST, the energy savings, and all that, I decided to gather some writings on the opposition to it. Let’s see what gets people’s panties all bunched up over moving the clock hands back and forth twice a year.

Let’s get some business out of the way first: It is Daylight-Saving Time. The term uses the present participle saving as an adjective, as in labor-saving device. The hyphen is needed because: “6.15. Print a hyphen between words, or abbreviations and words, combined to form a unit modifier immediately preceding the word modified, … This applies particularly to combinations in which one element is a present or past participle.”

OK? Grammar Retards all aboard? Cool. Let’s go to the tape …

The Stupid tell us the extra hour of sunlight (hunh?) means more global warming: Letter to the Editor, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Thursday April 18, 2007, Connie M. Meskimen: “ … As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. … Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.” Extra hour? You mean, Congress can change the whole Earth-Sun rotation thingey and, I mean, I’m getting brain freeze trying to figure this out, how it works. Do they slow down the rotation? I mean, like, you don’t create more Sun, do you? If we get more, doesn’t someone get less? Ah, the Chinese! No shit! Brilliant. But don’t they know? Wait, there’s something bigger here. I’m being set up for something. A Global-Warming Tax. Yeah, that’s it. The GWT. And here I thought that changing the hands on the clock was just the good-citizen thing to do. Man. Am I a fool. I bought right into in. Like a sheep to the stall at 2:00AM when Jim Bob holds the grain scoop: I should have known there was a fucking coming. Wow, those guys are smart! Wow. I had no idea. This Connie should get a prize of some sorts.

The Geeks tell us “VCRs, computers, some cellphones, and other devices will need to be updated to reflect the change, trashed, or have their shortcomings suffered gladly for a month out of the year.”. You mean, you guys didn’t anticipate something as simple as a shifting DST? I gotta throw it out? You people suck at programming.

Some Jews appear to have a conspiracy theory. Ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Jews have campaigned against Daylight Saving Time because they recite Slikhot penitential prayers in the early morning hours during the Jewish month of Elul. A writer in 1947 noted, “I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.” (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

The Others tells us something that I can’t quite figure out, but it sounds really bad: “Food for thought – Neptune, the planet symbolic of confusion and chaos, finally, after retrograding between the last degree of Cancer and the first degree of Leo, entered Leo, ruled by the sun, permanently on the first day of May, 1916, just a few hours after Germany put Daylight Saving Time into effect at 11 p.m. on the 30th of April, the night before!”

Connie teaches us that the Sun is up more, and Sammy tells us that the Moon is out less. The geek dude tells us to trash the devices we would use to record government-broadcasted messages on the television – so no record of their coded instructions to us. And now this Neptune getting cured of cancer thing comes in (and the government keeping the cure to themselves, so that they will be healthy, but not us). See how it all falls into place?

And you people wonder why I blog in the corner of a dark closet with hat boxes between me and the door and clothes draped over my head. Go figure. You people want to follow the scoop of grain, go for it. I'm gonna use a sundial from here forward.

The Doctor is In

I went through my old e’s and found that I have almost 20 of these case studies. So I have some catch up to do. I sure hope none of my patients died in the interim. That would be bad. I think.

Today we have, “Altered Mental Status in a Homeless Man.” Let’s start, as we always do, with the photographic evidence.

This here thing-a-ma-bob with the squiggly lines is called an “electrocardiogram.” It’s called that because of a little known story. It's a good story. Let me tell it to you.

It seems that a clerk in a Western Union office in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in or about 1884, was sending a telegraph message.

. .- - | -- .
.. | .- -- | ... . .-. .. --- ..- ...
. .- - | -- .

(If you're out of pratice with Morse Code - you have to do one line at a time.)

A bandit rushed! He was a particularly cruel bandit with yellow teeth and small feet. He told the clerk to give him all the money – he said, “Give me all the money!” The clerk said he didn’t have any money, except the few bits people paid for telegrams to be sent. “Well then,” said the bandit, “send one of them there electric telegrams and tell somebody to bring money here! Now!” The clerk agreed:

--. --- - | ... --- -- . | .-- .... .- -.-. -.- | .--- --- -... | .... . .-. .
... -- . .-.. .-.. ... | .-.. .. -.- . | .... --- .-. ... . | -.-. ..- --
-.-. --- .-- .--. --- -.- . | .. ... | .- | ...- . .-. -... | - --- | - .... .. ... | --. ..- -.—
... . -. -.. | - .... . | ... .... . .-. .. ..-. ..-. | --..-- | | .--. .-.. . .- ... .
- .... .. ... | --. ..- -.-- | -- .- -.- . ... | -- -.-- | .- ... ... | - .-- .. - -.-. .... | ..--.. | | | .... ..- .-. .-. -.-- | ..--.. |

“You be typing a lot, little man,” said the bandit.

“I am telling them to bring a lot of money. That takes extra words,” said the clerk.

“Oh,” said the bandit.

Soon the sheriff could be seen in the distance with his posse and the bandit knew he had been duped.

“Why, I oughta send YOU as a telegram!” he spit through his cracked lips with breath that smelled like he had sex with his horse in lieu of breakfast.

Then the bad bandit smiled a terrible smile. He tied the clerk to his chair – arms, legs, and neck – and gagged him with a dirty oil rag. He took out his Bowie knife and CUT the clerk’s shirt open with a flourish. He did a pirouette and clasped his hands together as his pants got tight across the middle section. He paused for a moment. His eyes glossed over. He looked at the clerk intently. "You married? Involved?" Drool leaked out of his mouth.

With a snap of his head, his eyes cleared. “You got a needle and thread?” he asked the clerk. The clerk nodded towards the cabinet on the far side of the wall. “Thanks,” said the bandit.

The bandit rummaged through the cabinet and found what he needed. He went to the desk, took the telegram button thingey that you hit to make that tap-tap-tap sound, and then sat in front of the clerk.

“This is gonna hurt. Sorry,” said the bandit. He threaded his needle. The clerk’s eye was wide open (he lost the other in a terrible accident that the family refers to simply as, “The Baking Soda Incident,” then they all lower there heads and they shift uncomfortably in their seats). With the swiftness of a mule on crack chasing the candy delivery cart, the bandit disconnected the wires from the telegram button thingey, tied them a few inches apart on the thread, made an incision with his Bowie knife just below the clerk’s rib cage, and reached up in there with the needle in hand.

He sewed the wires to the clerk’s beating heart in mere seconds, then used a blanket stitch to close the wound.

“Now, I want you stay in this chair for a few days. Drink lots of fluids, and come see me if it isn’t healing properly, OK?” said the bandit.

With his eye as round as a dollar coin and face as pale as a bucket of chalk dust, the clerk, through his gagged mouth said, “Hhm-uh.”

The bandit stood still, tilted his head, and listened intently. “Can you hear it? Can you?” he said.

“Hrmph vtoph,” the clerk seemed to say.

“You. You’re an electrical-heart-telegram! I made a fun—”

Before the bandit could finish his sentence, ”Zing” came a .50 caliber slug into the back of his head. The sheriff had saved the day! Unfortunately, the posse opened fire at the same time, and the clerk took no less than three pounds of lead from his belt up.

A little over 50 miles away in Laramie, Wyoming, a clerk was hunched over his desk. He was transcribing the dots and dashes he was receiving from Cheyenne.

“What the fuck is that?” his boss said over his shoulder.

“Can’t make sense of it, sir. Sometimes I think it says … wait … it just stopped.”

“Must’ve been rats chewing the line. Throw it away.”

“Yes, sir.”

The story spread to the universities on the east coast. Collectively, they thought it was rather amusing, but may also hold scientific value. So they got some government money and perfected the technique on prisoners.

The name of the procedure was changed to reflect the Latin base more illustrative of the seriousness with which they viewed themselves – electro-cardio-gram, or “ECG,” for short.

OK. Where was I? Oh, yeah, this guy’s ECG:


Notice how the lines kinda go up, and then down, with flat spots in between. Might be important. Note, “Lots of flat spots on the telegram thingey.”

See those little rises? Those are called “P waves.” You can calculate the Atrial rate from the distance between them. Them big spikes are called “R waves,” and have something to do with Ventricular rate. I have no skills with which to apply such knowledge, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with his heart.

Note, “Patient has a heart.”

OK, enough with the pictures. Let’s go interview the guy!

BACKGROUND. A 38-year-old man is brought by ambulance to the emergency department. The patient was found lying near the stoop of an apartment building (he was asleep? Why are you bothering the dude? Let him relax?). The paramedics were unable to obtain any history from the patient en route because the patient has an altered mental status (maybe because his “altered mental status” was REM sleep?!?).

On arrival, the patient’s vital signs are an oral temperature of 95.72°F (35.4°C) (a little cool), a blood pressure of 88/40 mm Hg (relaxed), a heart rate of 38 bpm (very relaxed), and a respiratory rate of 24 breaths/min (deep sleep, ok?). His oxygen saturation could not be obtained. The patient appears to be a homeless, disheveled man and looks older than his chronologic age, with a faint smell of alcohol on his breath (so he had a beers, found a nice doorway, and went to sleep. You people running low on patients or high on residents? Can’t you just let the poor man sleep?). He can be aroused but does not follow simple commands (neither do you, numbnuts, until your first cup of coffee. Did you give him a cup of coffee?). He has intact gag and corneal reflexes (“gag reflexes” WTF did you people do? You crammed something down his throat, he gags, you write “normal” on the chart? WTF?). His pupils are equal and reactive to light. No obvious signs of head trauma are noted, and the examination of his oropharynx is unremarkable (so … nothing wrong with the guy? I reiterate – why did you drag his ass in here? He was sleeping!!). The results of his cardiac examination are significant for marked bradycardia (smoker, lived outside – got a problem with that?). A lung examination reveals rhonchi in the right lower lung field. The patient’s skin is cold, and his blood glucose level is 104 mg/dL.

An electrocardiogram (ECG) was performed before the physical examination (see Image).

What is the diagnosis and treatment? (Drunk, asleep, no coffee.)

HINT. The patient’s rectal temperature is 87.7°F (31°C). (Here we go with the rectal again. You drag this guy out of bed, cram something down his throat to make him gag, and now you stick something up his ass to check his temperature?!? What is wrong with you people?!? But, hey, we have something here. Several degrees lower. Think, Dr. Clyde, think. Seems familiar. Think. New Hampshire. Snow bank. 1981. Drunk. I GOT IT! He has “Cold Ass.” Used to get it all the time when I got drunk and slept in doorways. What’s the problem here? Just give him a cup of coffee and maybe a hot shower.)

ANSWER. Hypothermia secondary to alcohol use and environmental exposure: The patient’s ECG demonstrates the classic abnormalities associated with hypothermia, the most evident being profound sinus bradycardia. … (We’re done here. Cold Ass. Drunk and asleep. Move on.)

(Only because I like you people, I’ll leave the rest of the text intact. Remember – Cold Ass.). In addition, all leads show classic Osborn waves (J waves seen at the junction of the QRS complex and the ST segment). As always, the ECG must be interpreted within the clinical context; in this case, the apparent elevations of the ST segment should not be misinterpreted as evidence of myocardial injury. Other common ECG findings associated with hypothermia that are not seen on this tracing include atrial and ventricular dysrhythmias, as well as prolongation of the PR, QRS, and QT intervals.

This case features the most common etiology of hypothermia (ie, environmental exposure or accidental hypothermia). Other conditions often coexist, such as infection, metabolic abnormalities (eg, hypoglycemia), drug or alcohol overdose, and endocrine problems (eg, hypothyroidism); on occasion, any one or a combination of these conditions may also be the etiology.

In general, the life-threatening cardiovascular complications of hypothermia are cardiogenic shock and malignant dysrhythmias. Typically, rewarming the patient is sufficient to restore normal myocardial contractility and cardiac rhythm. For patients in shock who do not respond to resuscitation with warmed intravenous fluid and other passive and active rewarming techniques, low-dose dopamine is the recommended agent because of its inotropic and peripheral vasoconstrictive effects. Atrial dysrhythmias are generally associated with a slow ventricular response; therefore, treatment with digoxin or calcium channel blockers is not warranted. Bretylium has long been recommended for the treatment and prevention of ventricular dysrhythmias, though little evidence supports this practice. The use of amiodarone has increased in recent years as a result of shortages in the world supply of bretylium. For refractory bradydysrhythmia, external noninvasive pacing is recommended in favor of transvenous pacing because insertion of pacing wires into a hypothermic ventricle can potentially cause a fatal dysrhythmia.

Hypothermia is often diagnosed before an ECG is performed; however, the ECG can provide important clues to the diagnosis and yields critical information regarding the overall severity of the patient’s condition, from an electrophysiologic standpoint.

Woodstock, NY

I went to Woodstock this weekend. Is it a pilgrimage for hippies, like Mecca for Christian-haters, er, Muslims? (You see, I always get confused when books fundamental to a religion reads, “Now when you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks until you overcome them fully...” (Qur’an 47:4).)(Continued digression – what is wrong with you people? “Smite”? “Smite” them? That’s a little extreme, ain’t it? And just because we are “unbelievers” in your version of the afterlife? Can’t we – can’t we al – [I can never get this phrase out without bursting out laughing][focus, Clyde][breath deep, stretch toes (it works!)][OK] Can’t we all just get along?)(Full Disclosure: I had a Muslim guy make some crack to me Saturday morning when I was pumping my own gas. Seems it was a semi-full service gas station. The Muslim guys running it were wandering around helping people pump their gas. I was mid-pump before he got there. He walks up to me and says, “Ah, typical American! You think you can do everything!” I said with a smile, “Not everything, but I can pump gas.” He did this good natured laugh and walked away. I looked at the back of his turban thinking, “WTF was that?”).

Whew, man, where was I? Woodstock! Oh, yeah. I went to Woodstock, NY, this weekend. It was, um, interesting. Screaming liberals caught in a 40-year time warp. I am so incredibly happy for them that we are fighting a war in Iraq – it gives them the perfect parallel for Johnson and Vietnam (well, let’s be fair, they still think it was Nixon, but that’s absurd to anyone who wasn’t tripping their brains out constantly from 1963 through 1973 … oh yeah! Nevermind – Nixon’s war. Got it.)

Everywhere you look you see condemnation of President Bush and the war: Store fronts, telephone poles, car bumpers. Surprisingly, there completely lacked any innovation slogans. The most common, which also made appearances on yard signs, read simply, “Impeach.” OK. Whatever. Free country, free speech (thanks to President Bush’s appointment of conservatives to SCOTUS). Isn’t “impeach” a transitive verb? It needs an object, right? I understand sentences in a continuum where the subject can be understood to avoid redundancy, but I never saw an object-understood sentence. I also did not see any of the bumper stickers popular with liberals down here: “I support the troops. Bring them home.” (Ah, you support them as long as they don’t have to do what they are trained to do. Yeah, OK. Whatever.) So in Woodstock, they support neither the war nor the military. Funny how some things don’t change.

So what does Woodstock look like? Here’s the “Corner Cupboard.” The red cans out front read, “Butts.” I think they are port-a-potties. See the paper-laden telephone poles? The white paper facing the road reads, “Lost dog today.” Funny. The sign outdates itself in less than 24 hours. There’s foresight! “Ah, Flower, you need to tell them when you lost the dog, so they know how long ago.” “Um, yeah, I guess you’re right, Moonbeam. What day is it?” “Today.” “OK, I’ll put that.”

So I got up at 630 or 700 this morning. The place was putting out coffee at 900. 900? You run this place and you sleep in? People staying there are, like, tourists. Tourists get up and, well, tour. Coffee is a staple. Tourists get cranky without coffee, and me in particular having to wait until 900. Had to walk three blocks to find the first open place. Here’s where I eventually had coffee this morning. Yeah, this pic was taken in 1969. That’s Bob Dylan in the doorway. Same place, still there. They keep the coffee pots in the walk-in freezer. Still can’t figure that out. Maybe it has something to do with making iced coffee. How do you make iced coffee if the pot is warm? Makes sense on some stoned-out-for-decades basis, I guess.

This picture of the waterfalls is from 1900 or thereabouts. Same falls, still there. Nothing changes in Woodstock, it seems, except the inventory of the consumables: Weed, acid, mushrooms, coffee, guitar strings, hair dye. The things that stay the same include waterfalls, coffee shops, late risers, glossy eyes, mindless stares, clothes now threadbare, publicly accessible port-a-potties. Even the people are the same people that have been there since 1969. You see, when you come into town from the NYS Thruway on Route 212, the road bends to the left and becomes Tinker Street. OK, no problem. But when you go back there’s like this other road that you don’t see when you come in. So if you travel back down Tinker, the 212 thing is, like, other there, but then in front of you is this road. It, um, well, it’s freaky, cuz, like, if you go out that road then, like, it isn’t 212. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t that 212 thing. So, I think we’d better turn around. Now, if you walk, it’s cool. The 212 thing comes up, and, hey, there’s “Not Fade Way”! Let’s go in! Maybe the new Janis shirt came in, or some new Jimi stuff. Then, like, before we know it, we’re on 212. But in a car, it just doesn’t work that way. Must be Bush's fault. So, well, may as well find a place to live, eh?

Doubt me? Compare these pics. See the guy in the BW, the one sitting up front? Same dude in color, just now he’s wearing a dress. Looks like the place he got to live is town square. Nice TV.



Woodstock, NY. Remarkable town.

muzzled

Yeah, o'er it froze. No comment. Next.

I'm thinking visuals are a good way to post given my present state of mind. You see, when I write I know that I cannot disrespect the words so much as to force them into nice, safe, tidy little containers. I let them breathe, I watch as they fly - then I describe what I see.

Thoughts come to me, like - who is googling me locally that uses Verizon as their ISP, then out-clicking to my daughter's site? Have I become a site of prurient interest for them? I notice that they bookmarked my blog. And it is several folks, not just one, like a party line of gossips. They read and im each other, methinks.

"Can you believe he wrote that? Did you read the bit about the grandfather teaching his granddaughter to masturbate"?

"Yes, I did! I was appalled! And the one about the crack dealer! Like it was a good thing!"

"And that Christmas Story with the inflatable Santa developing a crack habit, poor thing."

"But you know, I almost bought one of those Lil Reminders. You remember the commercial where the woman gets lost in the parking lot? Happens all the time to me! Well, his post on it was very informative."

"I know! And his three posts on that scam caller id 864-223-1911 have been referred to the FCC to put a stop to that menace! He's really been helpful!"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"gtt"

"k cya"

"hey!"

"?"

"^urs"

"lmao"

"lbug"

"oh yeah? FO"

"FU2"

"gud"

"gyhooya"

"wtf?"

"rufkm? rtfm!"

"smb"

"yeah, sh"

"rumcymhmd"

"qyb"

"otp"

"ooi"

"h&k"

"lol"

"b"

"b"

See the trouble I get in? (In case you need a cheat sheet!) Onward to visuals ...

Speaking of Darwinism in action, here is what happens when you don't eat"



Sometimes folks just don't think when they work - or is this what they mean by "pride in the union label"?



I've had this newspaper clipping for a while. Do you think the California Wine Grapes guy has a basis for demanding a refund?



I've been jonesing for a beer lately like you wouldn't believe. Don't remember the last one I had. I can relate to this guy:



Why do men need beer?


Did you know the annual budget of the National Weather Service is almost $900 million? Here is everything they need:



Yeah, reality creeping in. More words. Better git ...