Perri Nelson's LiveJournal

It’s worse than I thought

2009-03-31T14:54:25Z

I participate in opinion polls from time to time. One of the polling companies sends quick results of their polls to panelist via email after every poll is complete.

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about President Obama’s call to have Rick Waggoner, GM’s former chief executive resign. I can scarcely credit it. Even the most ardent supporter of monarchy in the days of our founders would never have dreamed of the President of the United States telling a private citizen where he could and could not work.

And yet, according to the poll I participated in yesterday…

Percentage who think the president's plan for Detroit is "fair" 58%

Percentage who think the president's actions with regards to the GM CEO were "appropriate" 51%

Either the American people have completely lost site of the purpose of government and are willing to give up their liberty for something as transitory as money, or I'm hallucinating. Over half of the people think that it’s “appropriate” for the President to dictate to private individuals regarding their employment. Over half of the people think that it’s “fair” for the federal government to be involved in the day to day operating plans of private enterprise.

Two and a quarter centuries ago, brave men and women fought and died for the right to pursue their own happiness in liberty. Today, we sacrifice that right for “economic stability.”

The founders would be ashamed of us. I know I am.

A new hope

2009-03-17T18:37:13Z

The Star Wars series of movies is a well known part of our popular culture. As most of you know (unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the past thirty years or so), the series began in the middle with Episode IV: A New Hope. As I recall this was advertised as coming “from the adventures of Luke Skywalker,” although The Internet Movie Database gives some of the working titles as referring to “Luke Starkiller.”

A short time after the series began, Berkeley Breathed featured a strip in his Bloom County series where Opus and the gang were fleeing from the Death Star, or AT & T’s logo. The entry from Wikipedia about Bloom County remarks…

A common gag in early strips was to have Opus and other characters riding on Cutter John's wheelchair, often in parody of Star Trek. One strip featured the gang turning and fleeing from the AT&T globe logo of the 1980s, calling it "the Death Star!" Bloom County was the first major pop culture outlet to point out the resemblance between the AT&T logo and the iconic Star Wars space station, and the analogy stuck for many years.

If I can find it (I have several of the books) I’ll see about posting a scan of that cartoon in an update to this post. Probably sometime later tonight.

Anyhow, the Death Star’s incredible ability to destroy planets has obviously struck a chord with someone at the Patriot Post. With our country set to run up trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future, they present “The Debt Star.” This incredible creation of government may well destroy our children’s inheritance, leaving them bereft of hope.

Where, oh where are the Jedi Knights when we need them?

There are altogether too many similarities between the universe of Star Wars and our own political situation that this reminds me of. Our nation was founded as a republic. In the beginning of the Star Wars saga, that distant galaxy’s government was a republic. Financial considerations, politics and the lust for power turned that republic into an empire. The majority party today is using an economic “crisis” as an excuse to grab power and implement many of the agenda items that they were unable to implement because of politics.

Will it take a new rebellion to rescue our Individual Liberties from the socialist empire that our federal government is becoming? Surely there are a few conservatives that haven’t yet turned to the “dark side,” aren’t there?

Or are we just a nation of droids?

http://perrinelson.com/2009/3/17/1325.aspx

I blame global warming

2009-03-08T21:32:22Z

This is the latest I personally have ever seen it snow in Washington. Well, except for a few years ago when I ran into a snow-shower on Tiger Mountain in June.

I love snow, especially when I’m watching it from indoors and don’t have to drive anyplace. Sidney loves it too. Earlier today she was out on the deck throwing handfuls of snow for fun.

It didn't take too long for those fat flakes of snow (more like clumps falling from the sky) to stick to the rooftops and the lawn. I'm just glad they didn't stick to the streets.

It snowed again last night

2009-02-26T17:37:26Z

We had snow in the forecast again last night, and sure enough we got it. We got maybe two inches of snow, although nowhere near that much of it remained on the ground. It started snowing pretty heavily about 10:30 PM.

This morning, when I got ready to start my day, this was the view out the window of my home office. It's not much snow, just barely enough to cover everything and still be visible. Still, this is as late in the winter as I remember snow since I moved to this state.

The Bees of Maggieknockater and more...

2009-02-24T09:32:33Z

One of the dances we're working on in the classes we're taking with the Plateau Scottish Country Dancers is The Bees of Maggieknockater. Here's a pair of videos showing what the dance looks like. The first one is relatively short, but shows several sets of dancers performing it. The second one shows a complete runthrough of the dance in what looks like a practice session. It's really a pretty cool dance.

While I was wandering through the Scottish Country Dance Videos, I found this video of Posties Jig — performed by none other than the Plateau Scottish Country Dancers! This is another one we've learned recently.

I'm looking forward to dancing with this group at the Seattle Scottish Highland Games and Clan Gathering this summer in Enumclaw!

How To Think Outside The Box When Given A Tough Job…

2009-02-21T08:18:58Z

This from my friend Brad…

A man named Jones applied to a finance agency for a job, but he had no experience. He was so intense that the manager gave him a tough account with the promise that if he collected it, he'd get the job.
Two hours later, Jones came back with the entire amount. “Amazing!” the manager said. “How did you do it?”
“Easy,” Jones replied. “I told him if he didn't pay up, I'd tell all his other creditors he paid us.”
Now That’s Thinking Outside The Box!

Canon in D

2009-02-12T17:46:08Z

Pachelbel's Canon in D is pretty popular. My wife loves it. Here are three different takes on it. First, the Tartan Terrors play it on the bagpipes.

Next, FunTwo plays a variant on JerryC's updated rock version.

Finally, there are some people that get tired of it.

Out of The Box Thinking!!

2009-02-11T21:55:34Z

My dad sent me another email that I found funny and worth sharing, so here it is (with just a minor amount of re-formatting).

JOB - URINE TEST

Like a lot of folks in the U.S.A., have a job. I work hard for my money (kinda), then they pay me for my hard work. I pay my taxes (lots of them) and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. But, in order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test, with which I have no problem at all. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.
Shouldn't someone have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check?
What the heck, I mean I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand, I have absolutely no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a big problem with helping someone who is just sitting on their BUTT, doing drugs, while I work… Can you imagine how much money the states would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?
Guess we could title the program, “Urine or You're Out.”

Scottish Country Dancing

2009-02-10T16:45:47Z

I believe I've mentioned before that my wife and I have joined the Plateau Scottish Country Dancers in order to learn Scottish Country Dancing and to have a good time. Last month, we attended the Burns Night celebration hosted by the Tacoma Scots Pipe Band and some of us (the more experienced members of the group) performed.

Not being one of the ones dancing, I took video and decided to host some for the group. I figured why not share it here too, so here's video of two dances —Posties Jig and Rothesay Rant.

Posties Jig

Rothesay Rant

The echo chamber

2009-02-09T19:42:02Z

How many ways can there be to say that something's either good for us or bad for us? I know that some issues arouse a lot of passion, but eventually reading dozens of rants about the same subject gets dull and passion wanes. This isn't necessarily a good thing. Some topics need to be kept hot, simply to keep pressure on the opposition.

But if the only people who are reading your rants are of a like mind, what good are they? Perhaps they serve as moral support, but somehow I think that sort of ranting might be more of a way to feel as though you're contributing something of meaning to the dialog, despite the fact that everyone you vent to already knows the things that you have to say. Or maybe it's a way to get validation for your ideas from the like minded.

Maybe, that's why some of us have the perception that the political dialog in our country is becoming more and more polarized over time. The left has its echo chamber with its strident voices, and the right does too. If you only pay attention to the voices from one side or the other, your views can become more extreme over time. Sure, this might arouse your passions for a while, but if all you hear is your own voice repeated over and over you aren't learning anything.

I wasn't always a conservative. I started life with a fairly conservative upbringing. My dad's pretty conservative. My mom on the other hand is more of a moderate with liberal leanings, but compared to today's liberals she was a staunch right winger when I was growing up. In spite of all of this, or perhaps because of it and my own cantankerous nature I was an anarchist at thirteen.

I was in full rebellion against the principles I was raised with. Not long after that, largely due to the influence of my “friends” in my own little teen-age “underground” which was mild compared to the attitudes I see in some of today's youth. In college I was attracted to the “romanticism” of the counter-culture — wishing for a protest akin to the foolishness of the sixties. I even ended up supporting (with my time and money) some rather dubious causes, like the “student” effort to depose the Shah of Iran.

As I got older, and after I moved out to the Seattle area I became a fairly committed liberal. This probably had more to do with the people I was exposed to and the release of restraints upon my behavior than anything else. Even through this though, I remembered a few basic things that I believed in. But, I wasn't really able to resist a good argument, and people like Dave Ross spreading his “drive-by wisdom to the masses, one listener at a time” kept me snowed and thinking like a liberal.

And then, one day I started listening to “the other side.” I caught the Rush Limbaugh show one morning on my drive to work. After a few minutes I started yelling at the radio and turned it off in disgust. For some reason I tuned my radio in to Rush again a couple of days later, with the same result. Rush seemed to me to be an arrogant, self-centered, self-aggrandizing moron. Still, I couldn't stop listening, and listening made me think about his arguments.

I'd like to say that I did my own research and changed my mind about liberalism, but that's not what happened. Gradually, listening to Rush I was swayed by his common sense about conservatism, and his criticism of not just Democrats but of liberal Republicans as well. It wasn't until some time later that I really started analyzing what it was I believed in and why. Believe it or not, it was a liberal that convinced me to start doing detailed research. Karl (by no means a liberal) over at Leaning Straight Up and NW Bloggers is right. “Iron sharpens iron.” For some time on NW Bloggers there was a regular blogger that went by the moniker “Playin' Possum” who offered a couple of challenges to the other bloggers there. Taking him up on those challenges required the extra research, and it was worth it. It changed the basic nature of my blogging.

When it comes down to it, the underlying principles of conservatism are pretty simple. Limited government intrudes upon individual lives less than a massive government run by central planners. Morality matters. People work for a reason, and it's not just so they can have weekends. Personal responsibility is a way to attain peace and harmony both within oneself and at home. Rewarding success and punishing failure is nature's own way of selecting for behaviors that work. Rewarding failure and punishing success leads to weakness and decay. Helping others when they are in need by offering a hand up helps us all, but a hand out ends up being wasted (or getting the beggar wasted on more booze). Recreational pharmaceuticals may seem like fun, but they impair your ability to compete or to enjoy anything else when you get hooked.

Liberalism on the other hand seems to me to be all about feeling good. Helping others by giving them a hand-out, looking down on them all the while. Feeling guilty about what you've earned and so needing to displace that guilt onto people who've earned more. Preaching tolerance while quashing dissent and having no tolerance for those that believe in and support your own culture.

Thinking on these things, I believe that I'm a conservative and will always (from this point onward) be one. I like talking to conservatives. I like reading the things that conservatives have to say. I like listening to them on the radio. At the same time, I have come full circle and pretty much loath much of the drivel that I hear coming out of the mouths and the keyboards of liberals. To some extent, I've exchanged the liberal echo chamber for the conservative echo chamber.

That's not quite what I want. I'm not looking to convince other conservatives to be even more conservative. I'm not really looking to get personal affirmation by having people praise me for holding the same ideas that they do (although I do enjoy personal affirmation). The pithy “me too” isn't dialog, it's just another echo.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about conservatism. I've spent a lot of time reading and re-reading our founding documents. I've written a lot about my own understanding of what's in them. I've gotten a lot of echoes as well as some very insightful commentary from people on this side of the aisle.

I think it's time to start taking the message across the aisle. I've got accounts on some left wing sites. Perhaps its time to start posting some of this there. I doubt that I'll get very many echoes there. Now where did I put that fire retardant suit? I'm not really looking for a flame war after all, just a dialog.

If we want to convert other people to our viewpoint we can't just stay in the echo chamber. We've got to talk to the people that we disagree with. Of course, doing so will take a lot of time and effort. I think I know myself. I wonder if I'm up to it.

http://perrinelson.com/2009/2/9/1313.aspx

My diabetes story

2009-01-31T02:17:51Z

As you may recall, I recently experienced a trip to the hospital. It wasn't the most pleasant experience I've had in my life to this point. The bills for my lodging and care have begun arriving in the mail in the last week or so. I'm quite happy that I have a reasonably decent insurance policy through my place of employment. I doubt that I could afford the treatment I received without it, at least not without sacrificing a few of the many luxuries that I enjoy.

The thing is, I realize now that the entire episode could have been avoided altogether. Laying in a hospital bed tethered to an IV bag and pump gives you lots of time for reflection and prayer. Not knowing what put you there in the first place is scary. Working it out from the things the doctors say to you and the numbers the nurses and assistants pull when they check your vital signs gives you even more pause to reflect.

What put me in the hospital was ketoacidosis. Often ketoacidosis leads to a diagnosis of type-1 diabetes, because it is the first symptom of diabetes leading people to see a doctor, so it's not that uncommon among type-1 diabetics. Ketoacidosis rarely occurs in type-2 diabetics like me, and it is usually triggered by a severe illness. I know that for about four days before finding myself in the hospital I was suffering from nausea and unable to eat, after having vomited several times one night for the first time in over 25 years.

Since nausea and vomiting are one of the symptoms of ketoacidosis, I'm not entirely certain what the trigger was in my case. I may have gotten the flu or some other illness which could have caused the nausea and vomiting leading to the ketoacidosis, or I might have developed the condition gradually with the first major symptoms being nausea and vomiting. Since I had had a flu shot about a month before all of this, I think that in my case it may well be the latter.

I was diagnosed with diabetes several years ago, I don't recall exactly when, but it was some time before I started drag racing, which puts it in the 1990s. At the time I had no clue that there was anything wrong with me. My health seemed pretty much as it always had. My appetite was normal, at least for me — I've always had a large appetite, eating two to three times as much as most people around me. One of my friends and coworkers noticed that I was drinking large amounts of fluids, and getting up from board games and card games frequently to use the bathroom. I didn't think much of it, but he recognized the symptoms of diabetes and suggested I see a doctor.

My wife is a nurse. When I told her about what my friend had said, she obtained a used blood glucose meter and brought it home. We checked my blood sugar that night and it was somewhere around 360 mm/dl. That was enough to convince her, but I questioned it, having just eaten a fairly large meal on the way home. So she told me what the “normal” range should be and tested her own blood sugar level. I made an appointment to see a doctor, and he confirmed the diagnosis with some lab work. I was devastated. I went through denial, depression, and anger when I found out I had diabetes.

My doctor prescribed an oral medication called glyburide. Oral diabetes medications are generally only useful for type-2 diabetics. This is because type-2 diabetics generally still produce insulin in their body. Oral medications like glyburide can stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin as well as lowering insulin resistance in the body's cells. Insulin dependent diabetics don't produce insulin, so oral medications aren't effective for them.

Lucky me, I didn't need to give myself shots every day. With regular testing of my blood sugar and the prescription for glyburide, I managed to keep my blood sugar levels under control for quite a while. Gradually though I needed more glyburide to do this, and so my dosage was increased. Soon enough though, other factors came into play.

One of these “other factors” is simply my own personal failings. I'm lazy, and I also like to eat more than I should. I don't know that these problems quite rise to the level of “sloth” and “gluttony” (you know, two of the seven deadly sins), but they're still problems. They're also not the only weaknesses that I am plagued with. I also liked to indulge in recreational pharmaceutical products and intoxicating botanicals. And, as we all generally know, one of the “side effects” of substance abuse is “paranoia.”

I call paranoia a side effect of substance abuse, but I don't think that what I'm referring to was actually paranoia, nor was it caused by substance abuse. Rather, I think it was simply the rather healthy fear of getting caught having used illegal drugs. After all, there are consequences to such behavior — from incarceration to unemployment or other lesser problems. I didn't want my drug abuse showing up in laboratory tests, and so I stopped seeing doctors.

When my prescription for glyburide ran out, I had also stopped checking my blood sugar on a regular basis. I fooled myself into thinking that there was no problem, that “diet and exercise” had mitigated my need for treatment. Because of my denial I went untreated for a while. I knew this wasn't good, and I tried to quit my drug habit. For some time I managed to do just that. After a few months, I returned to the doctor and ended up back on glyburide, and on a new (to me) diabetes medication, metformin. Once again my blood sugars were under control.

It didn't take too long though before I returned to my bad habits (yes, all of them). I again stopped the careful monitoring of my blood sugar. Why would I quit testing my blood sugar levels? Well, I can't really claim ignorance, but I made excuses to myself all the time. Testing your blood sugar involves puncturing your skin and drawing blood. The most reliable site for doing this is your fingertips. Pricking your finger once doesn't hurt so much. Doing it several times a day leaves your fingers rather tender though. You have to choose a different finger pretty much every time or your testing will leave your fingertips raw.

That minor pain isn't really a good reason not to check your blood sugar though, and newer meters have made it even easier. My current meter lets me test my blood sugar on my forearm. There's a very minor instant of pain involved with that, but compared to pricking your fingers it might as well be painless.

At some point, I went back to see the doctor, and ended up taking insulin and metformin. Sometime after that, I finally managed to kick my drug habit permanently. I've been clean and sober for many years now. I still enjoy an occasional glass of a fine single malt scotch or a beer but never enough to even become “tipsy.” In the process of cleaning up, I ended up suffering a clinical depression.

Lots of things went along with that depression, including an apathetic attitude toward my health. At the same time I ultimately ended up quitting my job, looking for a change. There were a lot of other reasons involved with leaving that job that I won't go into here, but one of the side effects was that my medical insurance lapsed. I could have applied for C.O.B.R.A. continuation health coverage when I left my job and continued to receive diabetes care and treatment. Remember though, one of my failings is laziness, so I didn't bother.

By the time I started looking for work after quitting my job (I had enough money set aside that I didn't need to work for quite some time) I was in an uncomfortable position. Not enough time had lapsed that I could obtain treatment for diabetes through my new health insurance, thanks to the fact that it was a “pre-existing condition” and that I no longer had coverage to transfer. That meant that I had to go without treatment for a while after that.

Most insulins are available by prescription only. “Happily” (or not) as it turns out, 70/30 human insulin is actually available without a prescription. Of course it costs more without one since insurance won't pay for it unless its prescribed. The cost runs about $60.00 to $80.00 per 10 ml bottle depending on where you buy it. Metformin on the other hand is available by prescription only. So I ended up continuing to take insulin while ignoring and letting the metformin prescription lapse. I was taking the same amount of insulin that my doctor had prescribed, but not taking the metformin. I also wasn't checking my blood sugar regularly.

When I finally had coverage for diabetes again, I saw a doctor, had lab tests done and received a new prescription for metformin to go with the insulin I was still taking. Again I resumed checking my blood sugar regularly and got it back under some control, although it wasn't nearly the tight level of control that I once had, and had abandoned on multiple occasions. This didn't last. Once again, I stopped regular blood sugar tests, and stopped seeing my doctor. Again I let the prescription for metformin lapse.

This was the state of my health care for a couple of years, and ultimately I think it's what put me into the hospital. Since I wasn't checking my blood sugar, I couldn't be certain that the insulin I was taking was keeping it under control. When I finally got sick and couldn't eat, I stopped taking insulin altogether. I did this out of the mistaken belief that since I wasn't eating anything, I couldn't have high blood sugar. It doesn't work that way though. Your liver continues to release sugar into your bloodstream even when you're not eating.

When I went into the hospital, they performed lots of tests on me, including a hemoglobin A1C test. The results of the test indicated that my blood sugar had been very high for at least two or three months prior to my ending up in the hospital. High blood sugar levels above 240 mg/dl can cause the body to start consuming fat and muscle in order to meet its energy demands. This results in an increased level of ketones in the bloodstream and, in my case, ketoacidosis. Whether I was sick with the flu and thereby developed ketoacidosis or whether it was the result of long term high blood sugar is of interest. I can delude myself, if I wish, into thinking that it was the flu that caused my problems, but I think we all know better. It was the lack of blood sugar control that put me into the hospital.

Ketoacidosis is scary. It can be life threatening. Laying there in a hospital bed and finally knowing that that was the problem made me realize how near things could have been. I might never have survived it if it hadn't been for the grace of God and the care I received in the hospital. I put myself there, but it took a while to understand that. Once I did, the importance of changing my life was hammered home.

When I left the hospital, the doctor gave me a prescription for an insulin only treatment regimen. That regimen included a long acting insulin called LANTUS® that I was to take before bed each night and a sliding scale for regular insulin that I was to take four times a day. The long acting insulin is intended to deal with the continual release of sugar into the blood accomplished by my liver. The sliding scale was meant to deal with post meal peaks. Under this regimen I had to check my blood sugar four times per day.

I'm sure it was an improvement over my pre-hospital control, but my blood sugar levels were still all over the map. In the first couple of weeks the were below 70 mg/dl twice (hypoglycemia), but more often they were well over 240 mg/dl and sometimes over 350 mg/dl (hyperglycemia)! Since complications from high blood sugar was what put me in the hospital in the first place, that was clearly not acceptable. The nurse working with my doctor taught me how to adjust the LANTUS dose, and asked me to check my blood sugar two hours after meals as well as the other four times a day I was already checking it (Oh thank God for a meter that lets me test in my forearm. Testing seven times a day on my fingers would have been a real pain).

For another two weeks, that's how things went. The nurse had me writing down the blood sugar readings, how much insulin I was taking, and comments about the food I ate. At my last appointment, my blood sugar levels were still out of whack, but they were starting to get better. But now the nurse had enough data to make some changes to my plan. She took me off of the sliding scale for regular insulin, and instead placed me on mealtime insulin using a rapid onset insulin called NovaLog®.

On a quick side note, for the past couple of years, I've listened to people talk about their friends and relatives with diabetes. One thing that struck me as odd is the attitude that some people have (and that I also held, remember, I was in denial) that diabetes isn't really that serious of a condition. Another was the notion that a person that adjusted their insulin dosage based on what they were eating was somehow “gaming the system,” or otherwise not handling their treatment correctly or taking it seriously enough. Part of this is, I suppose based on the warnings that diabetics are given not to make changes in their insulin regimens without a doctor's supervision, and part of it on the attitude that diabetics can only eat certain “diabetic” foods.

Well, I certainly found out that diabetes is a very serious disease with some alarming consequences. I'd known about potential complications like neuropathy, retinopathy, kidney disease, and heart disease, but always had that “it won't happen to me” attitude. Now I know better, in fact I'm taking lisinopril for high blood pressure (diagnosed while I was in the hospital) and simvastatin to keep my cholesterol low (it's actually normal, but my doctor is concerned because I'm a diabetic and my family has a history of heart problems).

The mealtime insulin plan my doctor prescribed for me is another eye opener for me, and it seems to be working although I don't have more than two days of data yet. I still have to check my blood sugar at least seven times a day for a while. I have to check it before every meal, and I have to determine how much carbohydrate my meal will contain. Then, I have to calculate the NovaLog dosage to take based on both values. I am supposed to take one unit of NovaLog for every 25 mg/dl my blood sugar is over 120 mg/dl, and one unit of NovaLog for every 10 grams of carbohydrates in the meal. Then I have to start eating within 10 minutes. That's right, I have to adjust my insulin dosage based on what I'm eating, and it's not “gaming the system,” it's the only way to get the correct dosage.

Two hours after every meal I'm supposed to check my blood sugar again, to make sure that the insulin dosage isn't bringing my blood sugar down too far. At night, I'm on the sliding scale still, but it's still NovaLog I'm taking — one unit for every 50 mg/dl my blood sugar is over 120 mg/dl. I go back to get my dosages/regimen adjusted again in two weeks, so this may end up changing and I may only have to test my blood sugar four times a day.

So far, this seems to be working. My blood sugars have been very close to the “acceptable” target range given to me by my doctor. They're still a little bit high, but they're very much closer than they had been.

Counting carbohydrates is a lot of work though. To do it, I have to read labels, and estimate portion sizes. If I go out for meals, I have to go armed with information about the food I'm about to eat, or ask for nutritional information pamphlets. It's all so much more involved than it used to be when I was able to take oral medications alone and control my blood sugar.

The doctor in the hospital told me that insulin therapy was the most natural way to control blood sugar for diabetics. After all, it's what your body does naturally when it's working right. It's also the only way to control blood sugar for type-1 diabetics. The interesting thing there is, most type-1 diabetics are diagnosed as children. They have to take check their blood sugar and take insulin their entire lives, starting at a very young age.

I'm forty nine years old. I'm alive. I've got nothing to complain about. My trip to the hospital really scared me. Like I said, it was an opportunity to reflect on a lot of things. I've decided that living beats the alternative. Although I do believe that the Lord is my salvation and that there's a better place for me in the end, I don't think I need to go before my time.

RePet?

2009-01-29T17:18:30Z

In the movie The 6th Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character considers buying a clone to replace his daughters dog. The company he approached for making the purchase was RePet.

Well, they say life mimics art. Now we know that it mimics science fiction…

“It truthfully is amazing to me that this process has come to be and that I am getting, if not my dog, certainly the essence of Lancelot and it looks so much like him that, well... He's a clone, so he should look like him,” said Otto. “Lancy was the first dog, commercially that they did clone because his DNA was frozen and very viable.”

Of course the movie was about human clones. Schwarzenegger's character was cloned, and the clone was attacked repeatedly by assassins that were also clones, and clones of clones — all to protect the business interests of a man that was himself a clone.

The adorable Lancy is cute as a button, but a clone is a walking controversy.
“People think that cloning dogs is a stepping stone to cloning people. Dogs are actually harder to clone than people,” said Hawthorne.

I only want to be here once. I've got other places to go when I shuffle off this mortal coil. Hopefully better ones.

Stimulating hypocrisy

2009-01-28T19:50:40Z

Does everyone remember the outrage over the $1.2 million that Merrill Lynch spent to upgrade its executive offices? How about the outrage over that $50 million corporate jet for CITI? You know, the one — the one that CITI had ordered quite some time back, and ended up canceling the order because they got money from T.A.R.P.

While spending “public” funds for that sort of thing on “private” enterprise might seem outrageous, just remember the size of the “stimulus” spending our government engaged in last year. Merrill Lynch's “outrageous” spending on decor rather than loans amounted to less than a millionth of the money our Congress and President extorted from the taxpayer. And, of course, since government is involved in this, there's no limit to the hypocrisy involved either.

Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

So, the very same government that is outraged over T.A.R.P. recipients spending money on refurbished office spaces and transport is going to spend huge amounts of money on refurbished office spaces and transport.

The hypocrisy is just stimulating.

http://perrinelson.com/2009/1/28/1305.aspx

Yet another reason to stay away from Tampa during Super Bowl Weekend

2009-01-26T23:33:05Z

I won't be going to see the Super Bowl this year. Not that there's much new about that. My wife and I generally watch the game on television, either at a casino/hotel, or at home. This year it's at home. We're not particularly thrilled that the Pittsburg Steelers will be playing. It seems that to some, the Steelers can do no wrong, but a city that threatens to erupt into violence if their team loses doesn't speak well for itself. And now, the Associated Press, through their Seattle outlet the Seattle Times gives us another reason to stay away.

There's Lip Stixx and Centerfolds and the Bliss Cabaret. There's Diamond Dolls and Bare Assets and the Wild Gentlemen's Club. In fact, there are, by one count, 43 strip clubs in the Tampa metropolitan area - one for each Super Bowl. And the week of Super Bowl XLIII is to Tampa's naughty nightlife what Black Friday is to America's shopping malls.

As Bob Buckhorn, a former city councilman notes “It's like cockroaches. If you don't stay on top of it, it will infect and run you over. And that's exactly what's happened.”

At least I won't need a can of Raid to watch the game at home.

Constructive Alternatives

2009-01-23T20:19:09Z

The left has got a legitimate complaint. There really are pressing social problems that need to be solved in our country and our world today. There really does seem to be a serious problem with our national economy, as well as the world economy. Despite the fact that America has finally elected its first black President, racism still runs rampant throughout our society. There's a growing perception among some that we are destroying fragile ecosystems and ruinously altering the very fabric our world is made of with alarming consequences.

And “the right” is out there obstructing every effort to address these problems. According to some all conservatives and Republicans do is obstruct progress and never offer any solutions of their own. Conservatives whine and criticize without engaging in constructive dialog. Considering that, I've decided to try and offer some positive, constructive ideas for how to deal with the problems that face us today. Lets start with just one of them.

Litter and The Environment

Let's face it. To say that people are pigs is actually an insult to pigs. Reports of the mounds of garbage left by celebrants after the Presidential inauguration on Tuesday don't surprise me at all. Nor am I surprised that this litter pile was left by a crowd that most likely was dominated by members of the party of the environment, Democrats. To be fair, the same sort of mess would probably have been left behind by a crowd consisting mostly of Republicans too. I recall well the mess left behind by celebrants at several Christian religious festivals I attended that were held in the Orlando area during the late 1970s. And we know how the left feels about the “religious right.”

Cigarette smokers are another group whose behavior with regard to littering is deplorable. In Seattle, arguably one of the “bluest” of “blue” cities (the Seattle area dominates the politics of the state of Washington, effectively countering the “red state” nature of that part of the state east of the Cascade mountain range) it is not possible to walk down a major street without seeing cigarette butts on the sidewalks, or in the gutters. Areas around designated smoking areas are literally covered with them.

Often, while driving home at night on the freeways I see people in the cars ahead of me throw lit cigarettes out their windows, despite the fact that the state imposes a $1,000.00 fine for throwing burning material out of a car on the highways. In many western states, this particular behavior has been responsible for starting wildfires that destroy homes and seriously damage thousands of acres of “fragile” ecosystems annually.

Can you think of what group or groups of people are most publicly active regarding the expansion of wilderness areas? You would think that these people would be most concerned with keeping our recreation and wilderness areas clean, as they're presumably the ones that will be using them. Why is it then, that just about every time I go for a hike in the woods, I leave carrying more trash than I carried in with me?

So, as I said, I want to offer some positive, constructive ideas to solve this problem. Obviously laws and regulations intended to deal with such deplorable behavior don't work. Perhaps public humiliation will serve to address this problem. I'm seriously considering carrying a video camera with me wherever I go. I've got a relatively nice one that can hold seven hours of video. I've got a tripod so that I can set it up in my car as I'm driving. The idea here is to have it continually recording the actions of the people around me as I'm out walking and driving. When it catches someone in the act of littering (a fairly common occurrence) or tossing a lit cigarette out their window at night, publishing the video to YouTube and sending a copy to the local police, complete with license plates, might serve to get the message across.

What? That's an invasion of privacy? It's not right to expose the hypocrisy of so-called environmentalists? Then YOU come up with an alternative idea.

I'm sure you've seen those signs on the roadsides, “Adopt a Highway.” This is a pretty good program. People and organizations volunteer to clean up a stretch of highway on a regular basis. The problem with this, is that it leaves the responsibility for cleaning up the environment to someone that's not responsible for creating the mess in the first place. It actually encourages littering, because “someone else will pick it up.” Another problem with this is that the volunteers expose themselves to danger while picking up other peoples trash right next to speeding traffic, and volunteers never have enough time to clean up after other people on a daily basis.

The best solution to the problem of litter, and other forms of pollution is for the offender to clean up after himself. If people would stop just dropping their trash wherever they feel like, we'd have a lot less trash to pick up. If smokers would take to carrying plastic bags with them to hold their butts after they've put them out (just as dog owners are required to do to clean up after their dogs when they answer the call of nature) there would be a lot less non-bio-degradable garbage lining our gutters and sidewalks. If they used the ashtrays in their cars instead of disposing of their ashes and butts by letting them blow away in the wind of their car's passage down the road, there's be fewer wildfires. If Starbucks swilling environmentalist hikers carried their empty latte cups out of the forest instead of dropping them on the trails I wouldn't have to pick them up for them when I go for a hike.

So, this is my first real recommendation to solve one of the problems we face today. Pick up after yourself, and if you see someone else littering, pick up after them as well. You might want to also talk to them about it, if you can do so safely. Some people are just plain obnoxious though, especially hypocrites that like to think of themselves as saving the planet while spreading their own pollution. If you see trash on the sidewalk, pick it up. It doesn't matter whose mess it is, pick it up. If we really want a cleaner world, the first thing to do is to take positive action to clean it up.

A few months ago, I saw a commercial on television that emphasized this concept. A man was walking down the street when he observed another man throw away a coffee cup. He stopped to pick it up. Several more similar incidents happened over time. At the end of the commercial, the man that was picking up after our littering friend approached him and presented him with a sculpture — made out of the discarded litter. Now that seems to me to be an effective way to clean up our streets and to get the point across to the offender.

It's a start anyway.

http://perrinelson.com/2009/1/23/1302.aspx

Burns Night

2009-01-18T09:52:03Z

Tonight (or was it last night), we celebrated Burns Night with the Plateau Scottish Country Dancers and the Tacoma Scots Pipe Band. Burns night is actually supposed to be celebrated on January 25th, the anniversary of the birth of Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, but January 17th seems to have been close enough. Naturally enough, it's a chance to dress up in semi-formal attire. Most of my kilt outfit has arrived, except the sporran and the kilt itself, so I'm still wearing a borrowed kilt. Sidney wanted in on the picture too, so there she is.

One of the more interesting things about Burns night is the opportunity to eat Haggis, and of course to listen to poetry by Robert Burns. Before the meal, the haggis is presented. It is escorted by the chef, a piper and a pair of escorts. Then comes the recital of the “Address To The Haggis,” during which the haggis is cut open.

Transcribed below is Robert Burns' “Address To The Haggis” as found on About.com.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut ye up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they strech an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve,
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit!' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o 'fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

This was my first time eating haggis. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be quite tasty, if a bit dry. I think I'll be trying it again at the next Highland Games.

Tell me again why they're still in office?

2009-01-14T22:28:32Z

The stupidity and sheer gullibility of voters in the state of Washington, and in particular the city of Seattle, never ceases to amaze me. But then, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since the vast majority of urban residents in the state of Washington are liberals who couldn't vote for a Republican without first checking into a psychiatric clinic to verify that they weren't losing their mind, or going to therapy afterward to assuage their “guilt.” And of course, the vast majority of voters in the state of Washington are urbanites. I present evidence of the stupidity and gullibility of Washington State's voters below.

Many years back there was a decent sized earthquake in the Puget Sound region. As earthquakes do, this one damaged some of the local infrastructure. That was the Nisqually Earthquake of 2001, and the damaged infrastructure was the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. The damage to the viaduct was so severe that it was called a “public safety emergency.” On February 13, 2007 I wrote about the six year-long public safety emergency mired in personal politics. That wasn't the first time I wrote about this mess, having previously written about the personal pride and childish behavior of mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council.

At the time, there were several options on the table to resolve this “public safety emergency.” One of those options was to simply repair the damage to the viaduct. Another option, estimated at the time to cost about $2.8 billion was to replace the viaduct with an elevated structure. A third option, favored by Nickels and the city council was a tunnel, estimated at that time to cost around $4.6 billion. The council and Nickels were acting childish about it too. They wanted the tunnel so much that they actually threatened to guarantee that an elevated replacement would end up costing more than the estimate for digging the tunnel.

Governor Gregoire stepped in. She called for a vote of the people. The city council, of course, balked. It was really a challenge to get a vote, and the city council tried to make the tunnel option more palatable by coming up with a way to save $100 million. Of course that wasn't really a significant savings. Going from $4.6 billion to $4.5 billion isn't really that much of a saving when your alternative (sans city council interference) plan only costs $2.8 billion. Nevertheless we got a vote — well, actually the city of Seattle got a vote. The rest of the state was excluded from the vote even though the funds would come from our taxes too.

Do you recall what the results of that vote were? The voters in the city of Seattle said NO! to both the tunnel and to the elevated replacement plans. That's right, they rejected the tunnel!

You'd think that an eight year long (It'll be eight years to the day on February 28th, not counting leap year.) “public safety emergency” would finally be resolved wouldn't you. After all it only took the Bush Administration 30 days (according to some wildly biased accounts) to respond to the state of emergency after Hurricane Katrina. Thank God that hurricane didn't swing by Seattle though.

Of course things are finally moving. Governor Gregoire, or “Queen Christine” as she's less than affectionately known by some of us on the right, has finally made up her mind what to do about this “emergency.” Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council should be happy. The public should be outraged.

We're getting the damned tunnel. According to the Seattle Times…

Politicians are suggesting as much as $1.4 billion in new local taxes, fees and grant requests to pay for all the desired buses, streetcars, a sea wall, road work, utility relocations and parks associated with the tunnel.

Although a toll hasn't been proposed for the tunnel, it remains a possibility.

The money could be collected without a public vote.

Just as in the past with extortionist sports teams, the vote of the people apparently means nothing to our elected officials and “representatives.”

Tell me again… why do we keep electing these people, these politicians? It's clear they don't represent us.

The electorate in the great State of Washington are fools.

http://perrinelson.com/2009/1/14/1296.aspx

More social engineering in Washington

2009-01-13T17:30:12Z

Washington State that is. Paula over at It's Only Words has got two new posts up with a bit of information about Washington's SB6900.

It seems that our beloved State Senators want to tack on some truly onerous fees to our car tabs, despite being told time and again by the electorate that we want them to be affordable. If you've got a 350 cubic inch V8 under your hood, you'll end up paying $325.00 extra in fees just for the engine displacement. So, if you own a classic car, it's going to really cost you. If it's got a big block you're going to pay through the nose to the tune of $400.00 or more.

Lord help you if you drive a truck for a living. Or if you want to take the sports car out for the spin a few times a year. Oh, wait... in that case there's still “trip permits.” I suppose with $30.00 car tabs (when did we ever actually only pay $30.00?) trip permits are a bit expensive, but with $355.00 car tabs, a $25.00 trip permit a couple of times a year is saving money.

But it's not just engine displacement that's going to hurt. They're also tacking on a carbon tax. Gotta help accelerate global cooling after all.

Does this make my wallet look thin?

http://perrinelson.com/2009/1/13/1295.aspx

Woody Guthrie Foundation supports illegal immigration

2009-01-09T07:55:33Z

“Social Justice” is a phrase I've been seeing a lot lately. One of David's (not so) recent comments led me to go look at Woody Guthrie's song This Land Is Your Land again. And that led me to the Woody Guthrie Foundation web site. There I saw a teacher's curriculum aimed at second through fourth grade children that is designed to indoctrinate children into the concept of “social justice.”

Children will love the positive, happy melody but be challenged by the harsh reality of the chorus. Let students write their thoughts in their journals or have them write letters to the editor pretending it's 1939 and they are migrants from Oklahoma. Then, examine issues confronting farm workers today in California. What has changed? What remains the same? Write letters to the editor right now regarding rights of Mexican farm workers who pick grapes in California wine country.

How manipulative can you get? Indoctrinate the children to support “social justice” for people that break our laws. After all, there's a significant difference between the illegal immigrants that “come here to pick the lettuce that American's won't” and the Oklahoma migrant's of the 1930s. That difference is lost on the Woody Guthry foundation though.

You see, the Oklahoma migrants were citizens of the United States. They didn't have to cross borders under cover of darkness to move about, because they had every right to live here. But the “Mexiacan farm workers who pick grapes in California wine country” did, because they aren't citizens, and many of them didn't come here legally.

So the Woody Guthry Foundation wants to teach our children that breaking the law is the way to achieve “social justice.” Funny thing is, it's just another way to perpetrate injustice.

I'm back (again)

2008-12-26T05:30:41Z

In case any of you are still interested in my ramblings, I'm back. I've been in the hospital for a while where the issue was in a bit of doubt.

It seems that a week and a half ago I fell ill with a massive sinus infection, which led to nausea and an inability to eat. Since I wasn't eating, I got stupid and stopped taking my diabetes medications. I developed Diabetic Keto-Acidosis and found myself in Urgent Care last Friday night. After a few hours and three liters of IV fluids I was released, and told if I wasn't better the next day to go to the emergency room.

Well, I seemed better. Until Saturday night. At about 3:00 AM I started vomiting regularly about once every hour to hour and a half, and ended up in the emergency room on Sunday. From there it was straight to intensive care. I didn't leave the ICU until Tuesday afternoon, and was finally released from the Hospital at about 6:00PM tonight.

Blogging will be light for a while, but I'm back.

It's cold outside

2008-12-14T18:51:30Z

Well, it's cold for here anyway. The temperatures are in the twenties. There's a bit of snow on the ground. The streets near here are icy. I think we got maybe a half an inch yesterday.

We get snow here maybe once or twice a year. It snowed on Friday night, and a little yesterday. The skies are partly cloudy now but the sun is peeking through. Temperatures are supposed to drop into the teens for the next couple of days and then start warming up by Wednesday. But there's snow in the forecast for Wednesday too.

Thank God I can work remotely. I hate driving on ice.

http://perrinelson.com/2008/12/14/1291.aspx

Here's a happy dog.

2008-12-12T22:51:24Z

Christmas Parade

2008-12-07T04:35:10Z

Tonight the Seattle Scottish Highland Games Association fielded an entry in the 27th Annual Enumclaw Christmas Parade. The Plateau Scottish Country Dancers joined the association for the parade, and Betty, Lucas, and I marched with them. Afterward we joined everyone for Pizza and Beer at the Pizza Hut. My kilt isn't quite ready yet, but I borrowed one from a friend. Betty took a couple of pictures after we got home, one to send off to my mother, and the other for her wallet.

Mt. Rainier

2008-12-06T02:03:36Z

Here's another reason for the new lens (Can you tell I'm having fun?).

Here's one reason I bought the new lens

2008-12-04T03:43:56Z

I was never able to take a picture of the moon that came out this good with the old one.

Percentage who think the president's plan for Detroit is "fair"	58%
Percentage who think the president's actions with regards to the GM CEO were "appropriate"	51%