This BBS News report speaks for itself. There are just some words I don’t want to hear from my doctor when I’m on the operating table. Then again, under Obama-Care, maybe we better get used to it.
“Get the Black and Decker” - Dr Rob Carson takes drastic action to treat a boy with a blood clot on the brain.
These are five words not often heard in the operating theatre and enough to terrify any patient. But Nicholas Rossi, 12 at the time, was losing consciousness after falling from his bike and the small city hospital in Victoria, Australia, had no neurological equipment. The household power drill found in the hospital maintenance room saved his life.
ATLANTA (AP) – It’s been two months since 2-year-old Cori pulled the gold stud from her left earlobe, and the piercing is threatening to close as her mother, Maggie Anderson, hunts for a replacement. It’s not that the earring was all that rare-but finding the right store has become a quest of Quixotic proportions.
Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The “Empowerment Experiment” is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather when she washes her hair. A grocery trip is a 14-mile odyssey.
“We kind of enjoy the sacrifice because we get to make the point … but I am going without stuff and I am frustrated on a daily basis,” Maggie Anderson said. “It’s like, my people have been here 400 years and we don’t even have a Walgreens to show for it.”
So far, the Andersons have spent hundreds of dollars with black businesses from grocery stores to dry cleaners. But the couple still hasn’t found a mortgage lender, home security system vendor or toy store. Nonetheless, they’re hoping to expand the endeavor beyond their Chicago home.
Plans are under way to track spending among supporters nationwide and build a national database of quality black businesses. The first affiliate chapter has been launched in Atlanta, and the couple has established a foundation to raise funds for black businesses and an annual convention.
Don’t have a Walgreen’s? What’s stopping you? Open one.
I know that Martin Luther (and his wife) were brewers, but now Thank Heaven for Beer has unearthed this:
From the Rituale Romanum (Roman Rite), a text comprised of services and prayers performed by Roman Catholic Priests, comes this consecration (translated from Latin):
Lord, bless this creature, beer, which by your kindness and power has been produced from kernels of grain, and let it be a healthful drink for mankind. Grant that whoever drinks it with thanksgiving to your holy name may find it a help in body and in soul; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Ah, it’s things like this that can break down the walls of sectarianism.
I don’t see the purpose. You have your own space where other people can write and tell you their favorite color? What’s the point in that? Where’s the actual content?
Things Overheard at the National Council for a New America (HT: Frank at IMAO)
A lot of people say the GOP needs to take a new direction and be less radical to attract independents. That’s why such trend-setters as Eric Cantor, John McCain, and Mitt Romney recently launched the National Council for a New America at a pizza parlor to figure out how to rebrand the Republican Party. Here’s some of things overheard at the meeting:
“Freedom, liberty, small government, individualism, personal responsibility… these are the stale ideas that have been holding back the GOP!”
“The key to victory is principles – we need to avoid those. They scare people.”
“Let’s not say ‘Republican’ – that has has negative connotations. Let’s call ourselves ‘the other Party.’”
“If we criticize the spending too much, then it comes off as us being too critical of Obama… and we already have enough problems with racism.”
“Actually, I don’t know about this name ‘National Council for a New America.’ Do you really need the ‘America’ in there? A lot of people are turned off by jingoism. Can’t we just be ‘National Council for Newness’?”
“We should never be afraid to praise a Democrat when he does something right. I wouldn’t praise Republicans, though; that just makes you look intolerant.”
“I think we’ve had enough talk about ‘Reagan’ in this party. We need a new Republican leader to rally behind. Like Chuck Hagel.”
“We need to get away from things that are scaring young people from our parties, like social issues. Also, he can try handing out meth.”
“Without Arlen Specter in this Party, it’s like we’ve lost our soul.”
“Maybe me need a new symbol. An elephant is big and lumbering and threatening. How about a hamster?”
“If people like Democrats right now, I bet they’ll love a watered down version.”
“We have to be careful of our image. If you’re at a rally and someone mentions ‘illegal immigration’, you then need to get as far away from those racists as possible.”
And my favorite…
“Anyone you ever figure out what those ‘Tea Parties’ were about?”
I’m not sure I would say that people are figuring out that global warming is a bunch of hooey. Maybe they’ve just figured out the next big scare: global cooling.
A prolonged lull in solar activity has astrophysicists glued to their telescopes waiting to see what the sun will do next-and how Earth’s climate might respond.
The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850.
The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being misinterpreted.
“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K. He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.
Ah, I thought not. Never let a major period of global cooling get in the way of global warming.
