I Might as Well Retire Early

It doesn't pay anymore to go thru 24 years of school only to give all my income to the government, so that others can have a piece of my pie.  In today's world, the parable of the little red hen would end up that the little red hen would not only have to give her bread to everyone else, but she gets chopped up for dinner as well.  Thing is, if the little red hen gets chopped up for dinner, no one's going to make bread anymore.  If Obama is elected, I'm retiring early.  All you socialists will just have to go to work to share your pie, cuz I ain't pulling the plow anymore for you.

Subprime Lending and Artificial Housing Booms

I know my friends in California are having a hard time with mortgages and houses they've bought.  But I am always amazed at how the media distorts the housing market.  Here in Texas, the housing market is booming.  I think people on either coasts forget that this country is really big.  And just because thousands of Californians made bad decisions buying 1700-square-foot houses that cost $2-million dollars, that doesn't mean that people in other parts of the country were that insipid too.

Seriously, does it take a genius to figure out that if you're only making $60,000 a year, you really shouldn't take on a variable rate mortgage.  Or have California schools dumbed down people *THAT* MUCH?

What amazes me is that people have the balls to blame this on Bush.  Which means that it will just happen all over again, because no one has learned a thing.

Hurricane Ike


The last part just cracked me up:

"

"It's kind of like riding a bike," Dr. Mark Burns told the New
Braunfels Herald-Zeitung after he helped Ku Paw welcome her fourth
child."


Excerpt from href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080913/ap_on_re_us/ike">Yahoo
News
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080913/ap_on_re_us/ike).


"So, how do you feel about what just happened?"

Dive Medicine

Air Time

Pattern Recognition

Yesterday, Matt and I went out to eat.  We didn't realize, until we got to the planned restaurant, that it was Prom Night.  Hoards of couples and stag groups dressed to the nines were waiting in line with us.  I was happily comfortable in a newly broken in pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.  He was wearing his usual ratty collared-knit (to call it a polo shirt is kind of an understatement) and baggy shorts.  I was so happy that I wasn't in high school anymore.  It's nice to be grown up and self-employed.

It wasn't but a few weeks ago, we were discussing how most of the kids who are voting in this upcoming election do not remember the first Gulf War.  Most of them were not even born until after the Cold War ended.  They don't remember the Berlin Wall.  Pink Floyd's song. . . probably doesn't mean the same thing to them.

I have some colleagues from Eastern Europe, who remember the days before the Cold War ended.  They remember rationing.  It wasn't so very long ago.  But Matt's right.  Kids today know nothing of that.  I say "kids" as if they are babies, but they're not babies.  They're just of another age.  They have always known CD's, not cassette tapes.  They have always known cable television.  For most, this Gulf War is their only war.  Although they were alive when it started, few are able to remember a war we fought in Bosnia.  For them, war is something that is only created by Republicans.

Today, I saw a map of eastern Europe, and it looks so different.  I don't think there are many people my age who can appreciate how different it looks.  I remember having to draw a map of eastern Europe in 5th grade, and to memorize the borders of the countries.  That knowledge does me no good any longer, because there are countries there that didn't used to exist in maps.

What a wonder it is!  Political boundaries are so changeable, and people delineate so carefully, and yet dispute it so rabidly.  In another 18 years, another group of prom go-ers will flock to restaurants around the country.  And perhaps last night's party-goers will look at them, and say, "None of these kids remember the Iraq War."

95% of the Time Fixing Sailboats, 5% of the time Sailing Them

I had a chance to go sailing Saturday, for the first time this year, and although I couldn't get out of the fricking channel, because of the direction the wind was blowing, I had fun.  It also made me realize how much I've procrastinated in getting the sailboat rigged the way I want it.  Things I plan to do include the following:

1.  Make a topping lift. This requires that I purchase some hardware and some quality rope, for a change.

2.  Get a good halyard.  When I purchased the boat, I was in a hurry to sail it, and I bought some cheap clothesline at Farm and Fleet -- stretchy stuff. . . NOT at all good as a halyard.  But for four years, I've put off actually purchasing some quality rope.

3.  Replace ALL the blocks.  The blocks suck.  They catch on things and are spaced too close together on the traveller, which means that every time I tack or gybe, things get all caught up on the blocks -- meaning I waste valuable time straightening out sheets, such that in a blow, I could easily capsize if I can't let the mainsheet out.

4.  Install stern cleats.  Just useful.

5.  REMOVE THE FUCKING BROKEN RUBRAIL.  This is something that I've put off for four years, because I harbored some kind of notion that I could fix it.  Others have told me that they just removed it.  As it is now, the end snags on EVERYTHING, including my pants!!!!!!!!!  Very dangerous.

6.  Install halyard cleat.  For four years I've been tying multiple knots with my stretchy halyard, after hoisting the mainsail.  Also dangerous, as there's no way to let the main down in the hurry, if I need to, with a sail that cannot be reefed.

7.  Lastly, I've been wanting to build a gaff rig for this boat.  I'd like to have sail options, such that it's not all-or-nothing.  A gaff rig would be easy to hoist and if I make it myself, I can put reef points in the mainsail.

Hypocrisy

Matt and I have been quite disgusted by the Manchurian candidates for both of the major parties in the upcoming election.

The only thing amusing about this coming election is how the Democrats' incredible push to support "diversity" has overcome their ability to pick a candidate based on qualifications, instead of race or gender.  And as a result, their own Politically Correct machine is biting them in the butt.  Lord knows, I've heard racist comments from my own non-white relatives.  So all Matt and I can do is go about our lives, spending time with our coworkers, because sadly, the hashing out of race and gender inequality is only occurring on television.

Just because Obama is part-black, people seem to think he is immune from scandal.  Honey, all one needs to do is look up who ran against him for the Senate.  Does no one remember?  Of course not.  Chicago's political machine sees to it that it's not brought up again.  Godfathers are nice that way.

Also no one need question what Obama has done to help the citizens of Southside Chicago.  Just contain them all there, and it'll be alright.

I can't understand why African-Americans in the South continue to vote for someone who did *NOTHING* to improve their conditions during her husband's many years as governor of one of the poorest states in the Union.

My female and black (and female *AND* black) medical
school classmates are still happily getting paid over $200,000 a year. 
I dunno where this feeling of gender and race "inequality" is coming
from.  No one kept us from graduating from medical school.

Freedom of Choice

Maybe
it's because I see life and death every day that I get bored watching
T.V. shows these days. Maybe it's because I see people without any real
choices in life other than to accept that they have a terminal disease
that makes me scoff when I listen to people complaining about the U.S.
government taking away their freedom to smoke pot or to go above 45 in
a 20 mph school zone. Maybe it's because a lot of the patients who end
up in my hospital have diseases that are fully preventable, by their
own choice of what they've done in life.

And every day, I attempt to fix the results of poor choices. That is the price we pay for freedom -- poor choices.

I
still remember when I was just a medical student, a man came in who had
serious liver cirrhosis (from drinking) and COPD (from smoking). As I
was taught, I counseled this man (old enough to be my grandfather)
about the hazards of continuing to smoke. I offered him two options --
the patch or the gum. He wanted neither. Only oxygen by nasal cannula
was what he wanted and needed to stay alive (for the meantime).

He
was discharged from the hospital in stable condition, but we sent him
to a veterans facility because 1) he was homeless and 2) he probably
had liver cancer and would need further evaluation and treatment.

While
he was in the hospital, he was visited a total of 1 time, by his
sister. When he was discharged from the hospital, she paged me, and
then asked to talk to me. The entire conversation consisted of her
yelling at me for not making him stop smoking. I explained to her that
I discussed the dangers of smoking and offered him smoking cessation
aids, which he refused. "You didn't do enough," she yelled. And
proceeded to emit a series of foul words which I will not repeat on
this site.

I was quite livid at the time, but looking back on
it, it was easy to see why she was angry. First, she was probably
feeling guilty that her brother was in the hospital. Alone. After all,
he'd been homeless for who knows how many months. Even he didn't know how many months. She had to find someone
to blame for the fact that her brother was not well. Nevermind that
before his hospitalization, I had never even met the man, and she had
known him for nearly all his life (which is maybe why he chose to be
homeless rather than to live with her).

Secondly, control freaks
like her are the reason Singapore has outlawed smoking completely. And
outlawed chewing gum, as well. I'm happy to say that America is still a
free country, and that as much as I deplore the effects smoking have on
my patients who started this absurd habit of inhaling partially
combusted material. . . I'm not fascist enough to tie a man down to a
bed and force him to use a nicotine patch.

Nor am I schizophrenic enough to go blaming health professionals for refusing to force a man to accept elective medication.

Next
thing you know, this lady will be lobbying in the Senate to impose
nicotine patches on people against their will. "Chew that nicotine gum!
Chew it! NOW, I SAY!"

Control freaks. They know how you
must live your life, and they will force you to live a "good" life,
even if it means making it a law.

The Role of Government

"It is not the business of government to make men
virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of
his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is
necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from
aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental
prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating
the very ends they are intended to serve."

-- Henry George*

*author of Progress and Poverty