May 7, 2022

God -- The most prolific abortionist known

Miscarriage Statistics

Sadly, miscarriages are a very common occurrence. Sources vary, but many estimate that approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; and some estimates are as high as 1 in 3. If you include loss that occurs before a positive pregnancy test, some estimate that 40% of all conceptions result in loss.

Although statistics can vary slightly from one source to the next, here is a general account (based primarily on information provided by the March of Dimes) of the frequency of miscarriages in the United States:

There are about 4.4 million confirmed pregnancies in the U.S. every year.

900,000 to 1 million of those end in pregnancy losses EVERY year.

More than 500,000 pregnancies each year end in miscarriage (occurring during the first 20 weeks).

Approximately 26,000 end in stillbirth (considered stillbirth after 20 weeks)

Approximately 19,000 end in infant death during the first month.

Approximately 39,000 end in infant death during the first year.

Approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; some estimates are as high as 1 in 3. If you include loss that occurs before a positive pregnancy test, some estimate that 40% of all conceptions result in loss.

Approximately 75% of all miscarriages occur in the first trimester.

An estimated 80% of all miscarriages are single miscarriages. The vast majority of women suffering one miscarriage can expect to have a normal pregnancy next time.

An estimated 19% of the adult population has experienced the death of a child (this includes miscarriages through adult-aged children).

May 1, 2022

Tired of the "Defund the Police" label

I know precious few Democrats that actually want to "defund the police" in this country. But none the less, this is exactly how the Right characterizes the Democrats every chance they get. It is a Right-wing tailor-made scare tactic that came along during the George Floyd pretests and they haven't let it go since. Defunding the police isn't the answer even as we witness video after video of police malfeasance across the country with few officers ever held accountable.

As a Democrat, I don't want to see the police defunded. What I want is far more civilian oversight and police accountability, and it is long overdue in my opinion. If you have any organization tasked with protecting the public and trusted with the use of deadly force, it is absurd to think that this organization should investigate itself and police its own. That is a recipe for corruption in just about any situation.

I couldn't agree more that police have a hard job. Police are being used to do work they were never trained to do. Nobody suggests that police work isn't difficult or even dangerous but when it is done with a lack of transparency, it just makes the job that much harder because you lose the trust of the public. You lose good officers that are unwilling to participate in the inevitable cover-ups, and you corrupt otherwise honest cops that go along to get along. It's a self-defeating dynamic that slides further and further into an authoritarian security nightmare.

A list of suggestions for improved community policing:

-Fund mental health personnel for domestic issues that do not need police involvement
-Extend police training from 6 weeks to one year
-Set-up civilian review boards with teeth to oversee individual police activities
-Put more cameras on the police, on their cars, and in high crime areas
-Hold officers accountable if they break the law and make them ineligible to serve anywhere if they are fired
-Embed non-police personnel with patrol officers
-Put their pensions on the line if they are found to have committed illegal acts as policemen
-Pay them more

The overall goal is oversight and accountability. Without such steps, we will only see the distance between community policing and the communities they serve grow wider.

April 19, 2022

Let's Put Bounties on Russian Soldiers

Hey Putin, the U.S. isn't funding Ukraine's war effort. We're just putting bounties on Russian soldiers and Ukraine decided to collect on those bounties. Payback is a bitch, eh?

April 15, 2022

Either by Ukrainian missile or Russian incompetence

Russia has no good spin on the sinking of the Muskva. When you have to lie about the reason that you lost your flag ship to enemy fire when you have the military advantage to such a large extent, you are a pretty pathetic military.

We've seen how badly Russian soldiers are on the battlefield. We've seen what the Russian soldiers can do to unarmed innocent civilians. We've seen how the only successful attacks on the Ukrainians are long-range missile strikes on civilian targets. How much longer can it be before this becomes a missile firing war exclusively? How will Ukraine obtain long-range missiles? How far is Moscow from the Ukrainian border anyway?

March 29, 2022

Breaking News: Rush Limbaugh still dead

"Now, you know, Vladimir Putin is saying that Obama and Kerry are lying. And I don't know about you, but I find myself to be in a really curious situation. Who do I believe, Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama and John Kerry?"

~Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh appeared to be impressed by the fact Russia had compiled a 100-page report blaming Syrian rebels for the chemical weapons attack, not Russia's longtime ally, President Bashar al-Assad. Limbaugh told his listeners: “Now, I don't know about you, but what does it feel like to have to agree with a former KGB agent?”

March 18, 2022

A turn in the Russian War in Ukraine nobody is talking about yet

Everyone knows that Russia has a much larger military than Ukraine and that the Ukrainians have a lot more motivation to defend their homeland. Those factors have seen this war drag on much longer than Putin had initially expected. However, if things keep going as they are, Russia will eventually overrun the Ukrainian Capital and most of the country and this will become a gorilla war situation just as the Ukrainian fighters have promised. They will never give up the fight.

My question is at what point do these Ukrainian fights take the fight to the Russian Homeland? Right now, I see the reasons not to take such an action as it would be an escalation that Russia could use to justify their aggression. But, at some point, blowing up Russian cities will help to pull back troops from Ukraine to protect Russian cities. It would also help bring Putin to his knees if the Russian military and the citizens of Russia turned on Putin for his aggression in Ukraine.

Nobody is talking about this scenario, and I wonder at what point Ukraine decides to take the fight to Russia?

March 3, 2022

What's wrong with airline passengers these days?

I haven't been flying a lot since the pandemic began. I've probably only taken 2 or 3 airplane rides since early 2020. I have however, heard quite a few stories about unruly passengers disrupting flights with stupid aggressive behaviors and have certainly seen the videos.

I was flying out west last week and about two hours into the flight, the flight attendants were pushing the drink/snack cart from front to back for the second time. I was about 7 seats from then back of the plane when this woman, probably in her fifties, but looked older due to a weathered face started bitching and complaining about not being able to use the restrooms in the front of the plane because the cart was blocking the aisle. They asked her to please use the restrooms in the back. She stood next to me complaining and swearing about how the line was so long and that she had to wait, and every other word was F-this, F-that directed at the flight attendants.

Eventually, the flight attendants made their way next to my seat. And just about then, this woman came up behind them and demanded that they move because they had told her to use the restrooms in the back. The flight attendant was nice to her right up to the moment this woman let go a "Fucking Bitch!" comment at her.

The more than capable flight attendant took this woman all the way to the back of the plane and read her the riot act. This passenger was either already drunk or was the crassest piece of white trash I have ever come across or both. The flight attendants moved their cart all the way back and told her to go to her seat and stay put or else.

I was stunned and so was my adult son who was sitting across the aisle from me. We couldn't believe what we just witnessed. What is wrong with these people? There needs to be a no-fly, one-strike policy for people like this individual.

The pattern that I have seen in society since Trump unleashed these morons on the rest of us is that these people think that their uneducated opinions and crass behaviors are their right. They act exactly like spoiled children. The more freedom they think they have, the more abusive they feel they can be. Any parent worth their salt would correct that behavior immediately and not let them ramp it up. Very disturbing trend in this country.

February 3, 2022

A cautionary tale about your next hospital visit

I have an upcoming surgery and got a call from the hospital from their financial estimates department to let me know how much I was going to have to pay out-of-pocket before the surgery and they wanted to know if I would like to pay the amount in full now or when I arrived the day of the surgery.

I was shocked to hear that my upfront costs were going to be over $2,100 since my co-pay for any hospital procedure at a Tier I in-network facility was only suppose to be $275. I declined to make any payment at the time of the call and hung up and called my health insurer. Now I have pretty good insurance and after speaking to the customer service people I was told that indeed my co-pay was $275 and they couldn't figure out what the extra $1,800+ charges were for. They did let me know that any over payments would be returned to me eventually. I just had to shell out the 1800 bucks and wait for them to return it at some point.

So, I called the hospital financial estimates office back and asked why my upfront out-of-pockets cost were so high. To my surprise, they said that they were charging a 10% advanced payment for a 23 hour observation period after surgery cost which of course the insurance company would pay for. They quickly removed the additional charge and dropped my out-of-pocket cost to the co-pay amount of $275 that it should have been in the first place.

I have to wonder how many elderly or extremely sick people there are that don't have the ability to figure out what they are being told by these smooth talking liars. I would have had to wait months for the insurance to pay the hospital and then wait even longer for the hospital to refund my $1,800 if they ever did. You are only responsible for your co-pay. You do not have to supplement the insurance payment because the hospital would like you to. They never tell you that. Universal Health Care NOW!