Oh how I wish I could take credit for this.....but Loren Adams gets it all! I found it on TPJmagazine.

Phone Call from God

Bush
Receives a Call from the Almighty

by Loren Adams - December 10, 2008

GOD:
Gabriel, do me a favor. Would you
dial up George W. Bush for me, please sir?

GABRIEL:
Your Excellency, do you mean Bush? George Walker Bush, the 43rd U.S. President, the one who stole
elections, lied his country to war, and set the world
on course to depression?

GOD:
Yeah, that one. I believe his
number at the White House is 202-666-WARS.

[Phone
rings at the White House; George picks up.]

GW:
Howdy!

GOD:
This is God speaking, George. You
know, "Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, Alpha & Omega, the Beginning and the
End, the Everlasting Father, the Almighty...."

GW:
Yeah, yeah, I know. I talk to ya every day, hold
Presidential Prayer Breakfasts all the time, attend Bible studies, and pray
lots. I got my instructions to bomb Baghdad from you, remember?

GOD:
Well, no, son. I never gave you authority to commit a million souls to eternity
in My Name. That's your acquaintance Lucifer's department. Mine is to bring
life and purpose for existence. Have you ever heard of the commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill"?

GW:
Why, shucks! I thought you was talkin' - orderin' me to make
war. Does that mean I got it wrong
'bout you wanting me to be president?

GOD:
Yes, you got that wrong too. Really wrong! Why, no, I never meant for
you to be
president. That's why Albert Gore got the most votes the first time
around and
John Kerry won more votes that weren't counted. I prefer democracy.
And, no, I never ordered you or anyone else to make war in my name.
That's sacrilegious, son. You hear? Blasphemy.

GW:
But Daddy & Mommy taught me it was all right to make war -- just so long if
it profits corporations that make people rich and powerful.

GOD:
No, that was Lucifer talking to you, your friends and relatives, not me. You know the guy -- Beelzebub, Angel of
the Morning, the Prince of Darkness, the Author of Confusion, the Accuser of
the Brethren, the Great Divider & Deceiver, Scratch, Satan, or commonly
known as the Devil? Yeah, that
guy. He's the one who likes wars,
death and destruction. Not me.

GW:
Oh. (Long pause) But what about
your son Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers?

GOD:
You mean you want to compare turning over a few tables in the temple to
mounting wars and murdering millions of people?

GW:
Well, I gotta problem. I thought for sure you had ordered me
to bomb Afghanistan. Then
Iraq. Then go after Iran if I get
'nuff time. They had weapons of mass destruction that weren't accounted for and we
didn't know how to find out if they had `em....

GOD:
So, why didn't you ask me? If they
had them, I'd be the one to know. Inspectors can't see under rocks. I can. I'm your
"source," right? You
claim to have had divine instructions to go to war, yet you didn't have the
same divine intelligence whether or not those weapons were there, right? What it boils down to, you were so
gun-ho about using my name to legitimize war, you didn't ask Me if they had WMD in the first place.

GW: Oh.... (Long pause) Well, I never thought of that.... I just knew that Daddy sold them to Saddam back 25 years ago, so I assumed....

GOD:
You did what? "Assume"? That's
a 6-letter word — when broken down, the term makes an ASS out of U &
ME. I never "ASSUME"
anything, son. I know. 'Omniscient' -- they describe me.

GW:
What about "faith"? I
had "faith" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was ready
to use them on us. Shouldn't we
act on "faith"?

GOD:
Now, you're getting your terms mixed up, son. "Faith" is the substance of things HOPED FOR, the
evidence of things not seen, for sure. Did you HOPE for war, or were you just HOPPING to war? "Faith" is referring to
ME! Not some
rusty old weapons out in the middle of the desert that any smart Boy Scout
could verify weren't working for 15 years. Naw, I believe you were just wanting to play war and see others die because you
never had to face consequences yourself.

GW:
What about Saddam? Didn't I do the
right thing catching and having him executed?

GOD:
You caught him?

GW:
I mean, the Kurds caught him a few days before and told our guys where to pick
him up. Then an Iraqi kangaroo court had him hung.

GOD:
That's better.... No, Saddam was scheduled to depart earth in three years
anyway, according to St. Peter's calendar. So capturing him was just a show for your right-wing
base. I don't mean to jerk the
applause button from under your "accomplishment," but there was no
need. I had it covered.

GW:
I thought you told me to strike Saddam....

GOD:
No, like I said before, that was Satan. Obviously you get voices mixed up. Lucifer disguises his to sound like Mine -- the
peacemaker, when all the time he's out to start wars and kill people. Adolf Hitler claimed to hear from me
all the time he attacked one nation after another, sending 50 million souls to
eternity prematurely. You've
obviously fallen into the same old trap that Adolf did. You get confused by
listening to guys from CARLYLE and PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY. You, know, the guys who wanted to make
a new Roman Empire out of America? The guys that planned the war before 9/11? The war profiteers? Out to make a buck on somebody else's
blood?

GW: Oh.... (Long pause) Hey, I'm your "faith-based" guy on earth! My pals are uh Ted Haggard and uh Pat
Robertson and uh James Robinson and uh....

GOD:
Forgive me, but I don't know any of them. Who'd you say they were?

GW:
Well, uh, uh, I ASSUMED they were with you! You know, the fundamentalists....

GOD:
There you go again.... ASSUMING... Fundamentalists think they have a
monopoly on Me; think they have all the answers and
therefore don't have to ask anything these days. For instance, I created the world and universe the
equivalent of billions of earth years, yet the time-span was only days in
My-time. They assume I established
the universe in 24-hour earth-day increments to coincide with their narrow
views. Such stupidity! I confess,
fundamentalists evolved from monkeys.
Now, go tell that to your
political base and see what kind of reaction you get. Makes me almost
want to repent I ever created them. They don't speak for me. I speak
for me. And by the way, I don't
like you serving plastic turkeys on Thanksgiving to my troops. Who's
stupid idea was that?

GW:
Karl and Dick do all my planning. Karl told me photo-ops are most important in keeping power. And I, uh,
and I take no responsibility.

GOD:
Now, how do you propose getting out of this war?

GW:
Well, I ... and uh... I don't know, God. Think I'll leave it for the next guy....

GOD:
Now, that's the smartest thing I've heard you say all day! The next president will be in charge of
cleaning up all your messes. You've stirred up the hornets’ nest but don't have
a clue how to keep the hornets from stinging your people. If you would have studied Proverbs instead of right-wing rags you
wouldn't be crying about a tarnished legacy.

GW:
May I ask one last thing, God?

GOD:
Sure, what is it?

GW:
Did I cause the end of the world? Armageddon?

GOD:
No. I decide the end of the world,
not you. Especially not you! You're not bright enough. Now, get to packing so the next
president can come in and start trying to repair the damage you've made! And remember: I never order anyone to
make war and murder. The thief
comes not but to steal, kill, deceive, and destroy, but I have come to bring
life more abundantly. He that
loves not, does not know me, for I am the source of
all love. Have you not read the Bible I gave you?

Original article is here.

30-mile pile a symbol of FEMA delays

This is disgusting!

30-mile pile a symbol of FEMA delays

SMITH POINT, Texas - A 30-mile scar of debris
along the Texas coast stands as a festering testament to what state and
local officials say is FEMA's sluggish response to the 2008 hurricane
season.

Two and a
half months after Hurricane Ike blasted the shoreline, alligators and
snakes crawl over vast piles of shattered building materials, lawn
furniture, trees, boats, tanks of butane and other hazardous
substances, thousands of animal carcasses, perhaps even the corpses of
people killed by the storm.

State
and local officials complain that the removal of the filth has gone
almost nowhere because FEMA red tape has held up both the cleanup work
and the release of the millions of dollars that Chambers County says it
needs to pay for the project.

FEMA says they are working as fast as they can, given the red tape and regulations. Apparently they have to figure out who's land it is before they can clean it up!

The federal government is responsible for public lands or hazardous
waste, while private landowners must handle their own cleanup but can
apply for assistance. Much of the debris has been left to rot while
crews determine whose land the junk is on and what's in it.

What?? After a storm like Ike? Shouldn't this be a case where the government goes in, does what needs to be done. It's not just a matter of debris, there are also chemicals and animal remains in this mess!

Mold is a danger after disasters like this. We all remember pictures of New Orleans after Katrina. This is also an area where mold can take off overnight, and this debris is wet from the storms, and the area is still warm enough to promote the growth of mold.

This is disgusting! Will January 20 ever get here?

Link to full article

Get another job or turn in your license!

Recently, in an effort to push through as much as possible before leaving office, Mr Bush has passed an abortion ruling that will "sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds" It will prevent anyone receiving federal moneys from discriminating against anyone who doesn't want to participate in these areas due to religious or moral convictions. The fear is that this is going to empower pharmacists and others who take the same stance with birth control, the day after pill, etc as they do with abortion.

With this ruling, there is an increased chance that a woman in an ER that has been raped will not be given the choice of getting a prescription to Plan B ("the morning after pill"), or a woman going to a local pharmacy (maybe the only one in her neighborhood or for miles around) being refused when trying to fill such a prescription, or even a woman being refused birth control pills! Simply because the person she deals with is against abortion, birth control, etc.

OK.....here's my real problem with all of this. These people should get out of the business or at least find another job! If you do not want to, or cannot perform these duties, find another job. Simple.

I am a RN, and have been for over 32 years. As a RN it was my duty to follow doctors orders, even if I disagreed with them, unless I knew it would cause a patient harm. For example, a patient comes into an ER with flu symptoms. This patient has no other medical problems....no diabetes or heart disease, no chronic conditions, pretty much a healthy adult with the flu. If the ER doc orders an antibiotic, which is useless against viral infections I must administer it. I can argue with the doc, but if he insists and writes the order, I am required to follow it. Now change the story to a person with a known allergy to penicillin and a doctor's order for penicillin, well now it is my duty to refuse to give the medication. The difference is that in the case with the allergy there is a very good chance this prescription will cause harm, while giving it for the flu with no allergy will not likely cause harm.

Now, what would happen if, in the first case, I refused to give the medication? At the very least I would be disciplined, at worst I could be fired.

I have a cousin that is a Jehovah's Witness. She doesn't believe in receiving blood or blood made products. She should she be able to refuse to give a patient a unit of blood? It is her religious belief that no one should be given blood products....but how long do you think it would take for her to be fired if she claimed it was against her religion?

I have no problem with people having religious convictions. I just have a problem with them imposing those convictions on others.

If a doctor or nurse doesn't want to be involved in abortions or birth control or the morning after pill, they shouldn't work in areas where those issues will arise. If a pharmacist has a problem with birth control or Plan B they should get into another business.

Disgusting!

Disgusting!

I almost cried when I read this article today:  Acid attack keeps Afghan girls away from school

Men on motorcycles splashed acid on young women (girls actually) who were apparently going to school. Simply because they were headed to school, to learn, they were attacked, viciously attacked. Men with bottles filled with acid stopped and threw it at groups of girls on their way to school. Some of them were with teachers. Some of the girls were lucky, but at least one will be scarred for life and one still cannot see....she may be blind for life.

Horrible, disgusting. But it's even worse. This was a planned attack. According to MSNBC, at the same time, in 3 different places men on motorcycles attacked girls simply because they were going to school. A planned attack!

Olbermann: Gay marriage is a question of love

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

The future of health care?

No matter who wins the presidency, there will be some major changes in health care in the coming years.....are they going to get it right?

I have been a Registered Nurse (RN) for over 32 years (ugh!) and have worked in several different areas. My first job was working with handicapped and developmentally delayed children, then I worked general medical and surgical floors in a couple of fairly large suburban and urban hospitals. I've worked in cardiac and intensive care as well as a cardiac monitoring center. I've worked in dozens of nursing homes. In addition to direct patient care, I've done utilization review and case management for an insurance company, a physician's group and a large, nationally known hospital. Currently I work for a company that has several electronic products for doctors, nurses, case managers and others in health care fields.

I've also been an avid reader and researcher of several medical issues including new drugs, vaccines, and devices; the pharmaceutical industry; the management of diseases like heart disease and diabetes; and various other health related issues. With the Internet it is possible to get more information and varying opinions, which allows one to make informed opinions.

It's very disconcerting to see some of the issues and realize that the very people that are making these bad policies are likely going to be the ones that will advise our next president. The very people that advocate drugs, drugs and more drugs are going to be making their recommendations. The people that are advocating treating diabetics with high carbohydrate diets, the people that are in favor of treating cholesterol levels that have no influence on heart disease, the people that are claiming fat is bad for us and grains are good, and the people that want to vaccinate everyone against everything (even if the vaccine isn't effective or the risk is minor).....these are the people that are going to be having their say about what the future of health care should be.

Are we going to hear from the people that have been damaged by unnecessary and/or ineffective treatment? Are we going to hear from those that have serious doubts about the healthfulness of certain diets? Are we going to hear from those that believe that currently the health care industry is broken? That the FDA. ADA, AMA and others are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry? Probably not.....and even if we do, they will be the minority and ignored.

Our costs are out of control because of poor policies. Our costs are out of control because anyone with insurance can get almost any test, drug or device they want. Our costs are out of control because there is too much emphasis on something that doesn't matter (high blood cholesterol) while something else is ignored (high blood sugar), and the ignored factor is much more dangerous and damaging!

Does this make sense?

OK....so I went to the local library today to register to vote....yea I know it's late, the deadline (tomorrow) kinda snuck up on me.

So anyway, I go into the library, get a form, fill it out, seal it and give it to one of the clerks. Nice, simple, no problem.

Now.....I figure as long as I'm there I should ask for a new library card. Here in NC the cards are by county, and I've moved to a new county.

So, I go back to the clerk, who pulls up something on her computer, asks for a photo ID and at least 1 item that shows my current address....and a phone number.

So I can vote by just filling out a form, but I have to prove who I am to borrow a book??