Black Shards, In Your Eyes, Blinding

Desperado says that the “extreme right-wing” has gone of the deep end because Rush Limbaugh said that Barack Obama might not give up the reigns of power in 2016.

I have three specific problems with the article beyond its general aim of inciting the liberal crowd.  First, Rush Limbaugh is not the extreme right.  Not even close.  I haven’t listened to his show in at least 10 years but I know that he’s not prone to shaving his head and putting on the silly white robes that the KKK wears or fantasizing about installing the Fourth Reich here in America.  That’s the extreme right and they are people who need to be feared and marginalized.

Second, Curtis Coleman’s fears of a future in which Americans do not remember what it was like to live in a truly free republic are not without a basis in reality.  The Bush administration opened the door to warrant-less wiretapping and the Obama administration will, if at all possible, eliminate the private medical system as we know it after having already nationalized GM and Chrysler.  Where will the liberal agenda end?  It won’t, given the current political make-up of Washington - not until the money runs out, which might not be long.

Third, it has been less than a year since “extreme left-wing” pundits and wanna-be’s were accusing former President Bush of plotting to declare a state of emergency that would somehow have allowed him to stay in office.  Such reports ran rampant on liberal web sites last year and were not checked by saner voices on the left.

How quickly they forget.  How convenient that is.

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Politico exposes WaPo; paper cancels event pimping access to “those powerful few” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html

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Iranian protesters may need to re-group. Replacing a corrupt gov’t takes months and years, not days. Misdirection counts too. #iranelection

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There may be no legal reason for Mark Sanford to resign as governor of South Carolina, but that only demonstrates that there’s a difference between the law and what’s right. Mr. Sanford should have a little more respect for the people he serves and for the Republican party that he’s damaged.

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Helen Thomas says “Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try. “What the hell do they think we are, puppets? … They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them. … It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

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Seems Hillary Clinton got Obama to do what was right re Iranian protesters. Not my personal candidate, but she should be president now…

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RT: Don’t believe us if we confess on TV, said prisoners in Iran to friends, its b/c of torture. #iranelection

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So there’s no confusion, I’ll make my position clear from the beginning: The idea of government-run healthcare is a bad joke.  Michael Merritt’s personal saga of his interaction with small-scale government programs is one piece of evidence.  The horror stories that all-too-regularly come out of the Veteran’s Administration hospitals are another.  But it’s not just the bad healthcare that government agencies give that’s the problem.  It’s also about the medicine and the healthcare options that they take away.

A panel of advisors to the Food and Drug Administration has advised that agency to forcibly ban the use of drugs like Vicodin and Percocet that combine acetaminophen and narcotics.  The reason for their elimination?  Risk of overdose.

It’s noble of the government to regret the 458 people whose deaths were documented as being caused by OD’ing on acetaminophen during the 1990s.  It’s unfortunate that sometimes bad things happen to good people when safety rules aren’t followed.  Obviously we should, as a society, do a better job of understanding what we put in our bodies.  Ideally commonly used pills would be perfectly safe.  Failing that, this panel, while divided, seems to think that such life-improving drugs should be verboten.

Frankly that reasoning isn’t worth a damn to a someone with chronic pain, severe migraines, or other source of major discomfort.  There is a risk-reward calculation involved any time we ingest a painkiller or other drug.  Who should make the determination of whether the relief is worth taking a chance on?  No one is better qualified to make the right decision than the person whose life has been disrupted by pain, a panel of detached government bureaucrats least of all.

I predict a huge run on these drugs in coming weeks.  Get down to your local drug store ASAP.

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Dave Winer says “Everywhere you go in Berlin they’re rebuilding” http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/07/01/whileYouWereAsleepFromCope.html

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Iranian gov’t hangs six protesters? http://bit.ly/iwMPi

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