Friday, January 3


Obamacare Is Poised to Kill People


‘They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!’ 
Obamacare confusion reigns as frustrated patients walk out of hospitals without treatment.

Doctor’s Office Spends 2 Hours On Hold With Insurer For Surgery Authorization, Before Giving Up.
Dr. John Venetos decided to operate without a routine go-ahead from the insurance company. That was after Venetos’ office manager spent two hours on hold with the insurer Thursday, trying to get an answer about whether the patient needed prior authorization for the surgery. The office manager finally gave up.

Thursday, October 3

INTERACTIVE MAP: PREMIUM RATE INCREASES FROM 2013 TO 2014*

Monday, April 22

Happy Earth Day



 Earth Day Predictions:
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."  — Harvard biologist George Wald

"In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… (in 15 years) air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." — Life magazine

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich

In 30 years, if present trends continue... there won't be any more crude oil.  — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

These predictions were made 43 years ago on the first "Earth Day" in 1970. Here are my 2 favorites:
"The earth's cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born." — Newsweek magazine

"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." — Kenneth Watt

Monday, November 19

.: Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today.

Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

  Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truely recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn’t do the green thing back then.

  We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

   Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

  Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

  We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

  Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

  But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Found HERE

Saturday, June 30

.: Pazzesco's Potpourri #10

"Wave of Spheres" Abstract Glass Sculpture is hand flame-worked and sculpted from solid borosilicate (Pyrex) glass and solid colorsilicate spheres. It was then sandblasted
Willem de Kooning, Composition, 195
Hans Hoffman "Fantasia"
Fish Bone Glass Sculpture
Totem Pole Glass Sculpture. This Totem Pole Glass Sculpture was made with borosilicate (Pyrex) glass and stands 14" tall, and has a wing span of 8".
Julie Newmar

Friday, June 8

.: Transit of Venus


In this composite image provided by NASA, the SDO satellite captures the path sequence of the transit of Venus across the face of the sun at on June 5-6 as seen from space.
The last transit was in 2004 and the next pair of events will not happen again until the year 2117 and 2125.

Wednesday, June 6

.: Quote of the Day

The resounding failure by unions and Democrats to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Tuesday is a significant moment for democratic self-government. It shows that an aroused electorate can defeat a furious and well-fed special interest that wants a permanent, monopoly claim on taxpayer wallets.
~ Wall Street Journal

Wednesday, May 23

.:CC (Cool Capitalists) Immunity

The Power of Cool 
From Barack Obama to Mark Zuckerberg, cool buys exemption.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Last week 28-year-old, $17 billion–rich, jeans-clad Mark Zuckerberg took Wall Street for a multibillion-dollar ride, making his original buddies instant billionaires and his loyal larger circle millionaires. Note that there is no Occupy Wall Street protest at Facebook headquarters. Just as there are none at Oprah’s house or the residence of Leonardo DiCaprio, despite their take each year of between $50 and $100 million.
[...]
Steve Jobs found ways to dodge taxes comparable to those deployed by any Wall Street fatcat, but he was iPad cool, and so his iPhone billions were exempt from the Occupy nonsense. Cool capitalists are immune from the neo-Marxist critique of capitalism...