Hippyfied health care

CVS won't sell tobacco products but medical marijuana dispensaries seem to be sprouting up everywhere these days.  Alcohol continues to be heavily demonized (e.g. nearly every insomnia website warns don't drink before bedtime) but hemp use is actually being medically encouraged within a limited for now framework of course.  Granny don't smoke, Granny don't drink, Granny light up a joint in the cancer ward.

Medical apps and insomnia, sometimes just technically wrong

The Web MD and Home Remedies apps both have a variation on the same official formula when it comes to insomnia. WebMD says if you don't fall asleep by 20 minutes get up and perform a quiet task (??) and Home Remedies advises if you don't fall asleep within 30 minutes go in another room and start reading but keep the tv off (maybe the book Stephen King's Insomnia?) Traditionally and down through the ages we've always defined "falling asleep" as that sharp and definitive moment when the curtain magically drops and you lose consciousness and awareness. For practical purposes that definition is fine and works most of the time but many times it doesn't work that way. The best starting point for managing your insomnia is to simply lie in bed the whole night with your eyes closed. It's a scientific fact which the apps somehow neglect to mention that if you do this you will have brief periods of sleep which you're unaware of hence the feeling of being awake all night. You'll make it through the next day adequately as opposed to following their advice and getting up every 20 minutes performing quiet tasks and going in the next room and picking up a copy of William Manchester's The Arms of Krupp. It helps if you have or cultivate good dream recall because during such torturous nights you can often remember brief dreams you've had and you can use this as a kind of yardstick. The other thing which I've never understood is the official medical line mandating that everyone needs 8 HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT otherwise bad medical things are gonna happen like maybe five years from now they'll have to remove a couple of diabetic toes. At this point you're working on your sleep and doing the best you can and you don't need this added pressure. Chuck it and while we're on the subject I've been wondering what else the medical apps which are so popular these days are wrong about. TIPS - Next time you have trouble sleeping count all the names of the Republican presidential contenders over and over again in your head. Charlie Rose also works for me or maybe you can DVR a late Sunday afternoon golf game:)

Defunding Planned Parenthood

I have sincerely tried to understand this liberal apoplexy whenever the subject of defunding Planned Parenthood is broached but when I've posed the question throughout the years I never get a clear answer or quite often no answer at all.  WHY is Planned Parenthood entitled to or why are we morally obligated to subsidize this organization through millions of dollars in federal taxpayer funds every year???  Even if I were pro-choice I wouldn't automatically come down on the side of the federal subsidy.  There are quite a few organizations in this country who do yeoman's work on the side of good and yet they don't receive such a subsidy and yet it is mostly a Democratic Article of Faith that PP needs to be federally subsidized and if you don't quite morally calculate it this way you're on the side of darkness and devils.  I have to say though I have always found the pro-abortionism of the NY Times editorial board to be quite stunning even with the string of undercover sting videos by the pro-life although I'm supposed to say the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. So throw your coins in the fountain here or if you prefer just walk by and glance and give the old Sitemeter an uptick.

Thoughts on the Ashley Madison hacking issue

Ashley Madison has 37 million users? Why get married? play the field if that's your thing. I can't believe nobody but nobody saw this coming! OK so the hackers are threatening to release ALL the account information on all the millions of users of this online adultery website. That'd be real interesting when the List finally does come out. I wanna know if anyone I know is on the list. Don't tell me you're not curious. Reminds me of typing your VIN# on the government safer cars website to see if you have an open recall. How many open recalls on marriages are there gonna be in this new and massive adultery database? They can't be fixed either by ordering an airbag inflator or ignition part. Notice your spouse suddenly having more bouts of diarrhea? skid marks in the drawers? anxiety/stress, poor sleep? kinda quiet lately? goes for that extra tumbler of Scotch and made stronger than usual without the ice cubes and the ginger ale? Wanna see the doctor honey? Yup it should be interesting.

Auto recalls - the new normal

Car recalls are not unheard of but there's been too many of them in the news of late.  A good chunk of them have to do with airbag defects like the notice I got in the mail just yesterday for my 2005 Honda Civic.  Now let the year sink in for a minute, roll it around  as my notice also said the recall covers the years 2001-2005!!!  I've had my car for a decade now and I've driven it practically everywhere.  Danbury Mall, Poughkeepsie Galleria, Middletown New York among other daytripping destinations  and Honda Corporation tells me now?!?  Now picture the poor mechanics who work for Honda.  IN ADDITION to their normal regular daily work schedule they now have to do the recalls.  Parts may run out and then Honda offers to reimburse you for any alternative transportation you may have to take.  Total clusterf*×k.  Thanks guys.  May my next car not be a Honda.

Planned Parenthood, fetal harvesting and a roomful of beagles

Liberals have always acted like you're emotionally, morally and spiritually obligated to support Planned Parenthood. Actually that's not true, it's up to you. I'm not against birth control but I am personally against abortion so for me to support Planned Parenthood is a logical impossibility and the extended topic of fetal harvesting is definitely out of the question.  Doesn't make me a bad person. It's a larger issue for me than the latest undercover viral video made by the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress showing PP not in the best light. We can discuss that and folks are sure to bring up PP health clinics are big on breast cancer screenings, STD prevention and whatnot but now we got a little beagle problem on our hands. Let's say your local animal shelter does exemplary work for the most part, placing adoptions of pets, spaying and neutering and shots but in the room in the back they gas beagles maybe once a week. Some will support the shelter 100%, some will support part of the shelter and pretend the other room doesn't even exist and some may not go there at all because they're morally opposed to cat/dog euthanasia on principle. The grisly room in the back overrides everything else for some people. In my view that's perfectly valid and needs to be respected. Ditto those who withhold their moral support for PP because an integral part of their daily work is they do provide abortions. Again I'm not getting why I'm a bad person if I don't support the organization.

Greek Mythology

...that you can get endless freebies from the government and not have to pay the price in the end.  Now where can I get myself a gyro?

The Dukes of Hazzard problem

To start off I don't think this old show was particularly great but it anchored my Friday night tv schedule when I was growing up.  I remember it well, Dad and Mom would come home from food shopping and Dad would give us a box of Devil Dogs but Mom would say go eat an orange.  So TV Land is yanking the show because of the whole Confederate flag controversy which wouldn't be that much of a controversy had that young Aryan racist not shot up that black prayer meeting.  Wondering does Katy Perry now have to tweak her hit song "California Gurls" because it includes a line about Daisy Duke bikinis?

Take me to your 9 Leaders

Thoughts on the SCOTUS' latest rulings on ObamaCare and gay marriage...

More from the Opining Pope

Maybe after he's done with the environment and maybe the $15 minimum wage he can promulgate an encyclical on Donald Trump after he excommunicates Hannity.

Obama, man in search of a legacy

In a way you can't blame him, every president wants a legacy and not a Carter legacy.  In the twilight of his second term his motivation is obvious from his opening up relations with Cuba to his attempted but failed for now trans-Pacific trade agreement.  It's not that these things make the most sense necessarily but in terms of legacy he needs stuff.  Probably as his last term comes closer to winding down he'll come up with even more things from his grab bag of Ideas one of the latest being he's somehow trying to tie in climate change with national security.  Not sure how this works, should ISIS go green?  Can he do something on race and the police? doubt it.  Your ponderings......

Why throw rocks at a junkyard dog?

The Garland TX Mohammed cartoon shootings, our little version of Charlie Hebdo - ISIS is now claiming responsibility which even if true you'd think they'd be a bit hesitant as it hardly came off in their favor, not their best work you could say. Pamela Geller of her American Freedom Defense Initiative coordinated this event in TX and from what I understand it was some sort of cartoon contest for who could come up with the best sketch of the Prophet Mohammed I guess. I might be in the minority but her subway ads in NYC which the MTA had a huge problem with I don't find them the least bit offensive. I'm sure you've heard of them and they always have the angle of radical Islamists are anti-Semitic which they are so it's kind of hard for me to unravel just why the MTA has their collective knickers in a twist. However having said that what was the point of this little sketchathon in Garland TX? Are they suddenly interested in this particular faith system? Are they contributing to global culture? Was the whole affair designed to be provocative? (x) I'm thinking we have enough to worry about. Thanks guys and gals and all you Bob Ross wannabes.

What's up with the cops in this country?

If Eric Garner were a coyote roaming around one of the five boroughs of NYC he'd be alive today but professionally and humanely relocated - I wanted to work this thought into some kind of workable blogpost-title but it's somewhat unwieldy. Watching the coverage of the Baltimore protests/riots on the Today show this morning and a very conservative person said to me "you can understand their frustration" to which I nodded and said they (black folk/African-Americans) hardly ever get justice. These controversial cop cases involving unarmed black man who later die are mounting in this country and while I like to take them individually and analyze them at my own pace and I do have a fairly strong law-and-order bias cumulatively I find myself asking what's up with the cops in this country? Now practically everybody and their grandmother has a built-in video camera in their cell phones these days but the cops don't seem to care, they keep doing what they're doing whatever they're doing and it usually doesn't wind up good for the unarmed black man. WHY should 25-year old Freddie Gray have a broken spine while in police custody??? Now your typical conservative response will be but we don't know all the facts yet (tin ear on Race those conservatives) but ya wanna know something? What's up with the cops in this country?

Battle of the Dynasties

Now that Hillary has made it official let's just say it's Jeb Bush finally on the Republican side. Yeah the normal one in a field of Huckabees, Walkers and maybe Trumps Bush coming across by default like the blonde woman on The Munsters and so is dynastic politics ultimately good for the country? Already the GOPers who are officially in the ring are salivating to talk about Hill's character and baggage but the usual Samsonite way when dealing with the Clintons ain't gonna wash imo. Folks who vote straight Democrat always vote straight Democrat and so it'd be much better for Rand and Cruz and co. to put some Ideas on the table, visions, foreign policy conceptions. Yeah yeah I know Hillary is from leafy Chappaqua and not Getty Square in Yonkers and she's gonna make it a cornerstone of her campaign to talk about economic fairness and the average American. Hypocrisy thy name is Clinton but get over that and tell the country where YOU stand. Hillary bores me I can't tell you and she looks like she's doing it because she has to. BTW has Obama tried a Cuban cigar yet?

A guy flies a plane into the Alps and now this

The al-Shabab attack on Garissa University in northeastern Kenya - Should we start studying verses from the Koran at night before we go to bed just in case someone knocks on our door, points a gun in our face and starts doing a terrorist version of "Jeopardy"? Will a Koranic app on our smartphone suffice for the al-Shababster? How long will Obama go on pretending there's no religious dimension to this conflict?

Tragedy in the French Alps

The horrible news today, that Germanwings Airbus that crashed into a remote region of the French Alps was brought down deliberately by a kamikaze co-pilot killing all 150 passengers on board. He locked the other pilot out of the cockpit so that he couldn't even use the code to get back in and then pressed a button for a swift descent into the Alps. Of course the vast majority of suicides are just that, suicides and he could've simply downed some sleep aids with a bottle of Scotch so why this mad exit? Was he a lone wolf or part of a larger ISIS plot? Was he none of this but simply wanted to take others with him? The news gets stranger by the day.

It's not that I don't care about the Hillary e-mail scandal, it's that I don't care

Conservative commentators are sure riled up about this one and it doesn't even involve Sex. I have the barest skeleton knowledge of the scandal and that's because, well the title says it. For me it's like a scandal totally revolving around some technical violation like a worker not washing his hands after he comes out of the stall. Now there are still people who won't vote for Hillary Clinton because they feel the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered but at least this is more interesting subject matter. Look I watch quite a few of them true-crime shows like Snapped on the Escape channel and cops today are pretty sophisticated in these matters. A few of them are quite good at sniffing out the vaguest, the most subtle wisp of a major crime what with advanced forensics and all and believe me if there was really something there we'd hear about it. A couple conservative commentators are focused on Russell Brand's porn addiction and his new anti-porn stance (now there's an old subject I thought was kinda settled) but conservative commentary in general has been well-dispersed in its topics over the years. Instead of focusing on the things that really matter you'll get one that really goes off on a tangent, say Maggie Gallagher who starts ruminating about all things marriage and why this demographic group that never married is gonna be more unhappy and...it's just gets tiresome and all like this is gonna defeat ISIS. OK so about the scandal tell me why I should care.

Winnowing down the Republican field

The ones I would vote for: Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney (not running as of now). The one I would NOT vote for: Jeb Bush as I simply don't like the notion of dynastic politics. Christie seems hopelessly tarnished by Bridgegate even though final reports have come out exonerating him of any knowledge of the scandal. Rand Paul? gosh I gotta think about that one. I suppose push comes to shove and on the other side why it is mandatory and in the stars that Hillary HAS TO be the Democratic nominee positively escapes me. She seems dull and tired even though she's trying to jazz up her image of late by being more peppy or something. Perhaps Bruce Jenner can be in charge of LGBT outreach in a Clinton Administration. Our old friend George Zimmerman has been totally cleared by the DOJ so he can continue going on messing up his life in private. Wondering how a President McCain would have dealt with the problem of ISIS. He'd probably just nuke the whole of Iraq and Syria and start over. "Jihadi John" has finally been positively identified according to all the newswires today, an educated man in his mid-20's from West London with a computer degree who went radical somewhere along the line. I fail to see the attraction of a 7th century-style caliphate and why some bored teen girls wanna join up so this is well over my head. Take it from there......

Radical Islam explained (sort of)

The best analysis I ever came across is from Pat Buchanan's book Where the Right Went Wrong (Thomas Dunne 2004) in the chapter "Is Islam the Enemy?" This short and very readable chapter (without footnotes thank God) gives a quick history of Islam from the Prophet Muhammed to the various caliphs which followed his death, the Crusades and the Ottoman Empire. Minority view on the Crusades here: they were originally the Catholic Church's response to the original aggressive and conquering behaviour of Islamic warriors (e.g. retaking Jerusalem from them). That's the history here's the theology. Islam along with Judaism and Christianity is a monotheistic and Abrahamanic faith system. Muhammed greatly revered Jesus as a great prophet and held in high regard His mother Mary but Islam fundamentally rejects Trinitarianism (big deal you say) so at first glance this presents a major puzzlement as to the radical Islamists' hostility to Christians in general as shown in that recent mass beheading of those 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. Buchanan sheds light on this. Early in their history both Islam and Christianity were gaining millions of followers and so it wasn't the minor religions that presented the greatest threat to Islam's hopefully worldwide influence and dominance but Christianity. This is like a theological business model if you will where one major brand hates the competition and attempts to drive it out and would certainly explain why they focus on the Pope and Rome so much. Lest this become too long a dissertation we'll save everything else for the Comments section.

The conservatives' wet dream - Brian Williams suspended for six months

God they go on and on about it! Then the other thing you hear about ALOT is what is Obama doing exactly about ISIS and terrorism in general? Obama is the DroneMaster (sounds like a good name for an app) and has more hits of top terror leaders under his belt than Bush ever had and is leading that international coalition against ISIS in Iraq and northern Syria so I don't understand the nature of the question, in fact it verges on stupid. Bruce Jenner - I honestly think the man/woman has too much time and money on his hands. Maybe Kanye West can make a song about it. I've been doing alot of walking in the snow lately and people don't hike in the snow as much as they used to seems to me. They leave half-hearted footpaths in the snow and don't maintain them by walking everyday or maybe it's the coyote snowtracks I've been seeing lately so they turn around and go home and play with their smartphones and pack on a few more pounds that they could've lost by following the coyote tracks. Let's see what's going on in Space? For you eggheads out there they found these twin stars in some nebula out there that are gonna merge soon and die or explode or something. God a six-month suspension and he didn't even use steroids!! maybe he was just trying to get women with his barroom tales:)