Our
lead story has to be what Randy Rhodes has been talking about on her program
today. It’s time for us to kiss and make
up after a few days. Randy like me is a
smoker, and so is a tobacco addict. But
it seems CVS pharmacies won’t sell tobacco products after the end of this year,
but they will still sell Oxy-conton. But
it isn’t an economic decision not to sell tobacco products because that’s how
they get customers. They’ll come in for
their “fix” be it drugs or cigarettes, and then they’ll see the Maybeline
display counter or perhaps buy picture postcards or something, too. It seems as a provision of Obama Care and “outcome
based treatment” CBS pharmacies has teamed up with the Obama administration for
these clinic things- - and get funding but as a provision they are incentivized
not to sell things which could adversely affect your health. Meanwhile Oxy-conton is basically the same
synthetic heroin they invented in 1916, nearly a century ago, but the patent ran
out, so they just renewed the patent on it by making it a “time released
formula”. Lovely. But now apparently there is a new heroin
antedote drug called Narcan. That’s the
brand name. This drug immediately blocks
the opium receptors in the brain so that of you are in the process of
overdosing on an opoid, then this drug can intervene and block further damage
and keep you breathing and hence from dying, so you can live another day to go
on to rehab. However it seems the tea
party republicans are against the selling of Narcan because they rationalize “If
you have an antedote available to you, then it will just encourage further
narcotic usage.” Meanwhile Heroin has
become a problem because doctors are cracking down on pain killer prescriptions
so addicts are turning to Heroin because it’s cheaper. I suspect our war in Afghanistan has “restored”
a lot of the opium crop trade that for a while that mean old Talliban shut down
for a while. That’s another story. People will not deal with the underlying
problem in their lives if they can mask it over with drug usage.
It
seems that one athlete is saying he won’t participate in this Ski jump run or
something at the Sochi Olympics in a few days because he considers the course
unsafe. I really wonder about the lack
of snow there people have been talking about and whether a lot of sky runs
might be unsafe to hold championship level events on because they are
unsafe. Meanwhile around here we still
haven’t gotten rain. Of course as you
know 350 parts per million CO2 emissions are the highest levels considered safe
and we are already above that number and the level is rising every day. As such we have Ed Schultz and his new found
love affair with the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
This is not just some passing position Ed has taken to garner a few
outraged phone callers for his show. He’s
committed to his position. He is “dug in
for the Duration” to use a war metaphor.
Ed has raised other quite preposterous arguments for his position we
haven’t even gotten to. For instance - -
Ed says we need this Canadian pipeline to help prevent war, because it will
keep us from going and fighting in places in Iraq, which Ed says “Mainly we did
for the oil”. This is strange because I’ll
bet you oil prices were a lot higher in 2011 at the War’s end than it was in
2002 when were just considering going to war.
But the bigger point is that conservatives have argued that ‘The United
States is a good country because we never go to war as other nations do, for
selfish and exploitative motives, but only for the most altruistic of
reasons. Of course it is true that
Occupation Iraqi Liberation spells out OIL, but that’s why George Bush changed
it. Neither Gulf War I nor it’s larger
2003 successor, was fought for the acquisition of cheap oil. Some will argue that we did not go to war
with Syria because Syria doesn’t have a lot of oil. Now we hear that Syria may be waffeling on
its deal to get rid of their toxic substances “weapons of mass destruction”. Some may argue that the Keystone XL pipeline
is a “weapon of mass destruction”. It
stands as an open question whether President Obama really screwed up or not by
drawing that line in the sane with Syria and then saying ‘never mind’ and then
Putin had to bail him out and be the hero.
I digress. Another argument waged
by Ed Schultz as to why this Canadian oil pipeline is so wonder is “because we
are already getting dirty oil from Venesuela and so that makes it allright”. That argument makes about as much sense as “We’ve
already legalized pot, so we might as well legalize Heroin”. Just to put to question to Ed here, “How is
having a little of a bad thing- - - improved by having a lot MORE of that bad
thing?” First of all since when was the
United States so cozy with Venesuela anyhow?
Besides that is a mixture of clean and dirty oil. Then we have Ed’s third argument. Well- - we need the pipeline as security in
case we go to some kind of an all out world war. This sounds like something Glen Beck would
say. Everybody on the right is expecting
all Hell to break lose in the next two years.
It’s either going to be a war, or a debt default, or hyper inflation, or
a complete collapse of the economy- take your pick. So for this reason we need the Canadian
pipeline even though in Congress someone tried to get a provision in that the
United States would get some of that oil, but the Canadian oil company refused
to guarantee that. But as it stands not Europe
is willing to pay more on the open market for Dissel fuel- which the stuff will
be refined as- - than we in America are- - hence this oil will not stay
here. Then we have a fourth argument
advanced by Ed that “Well the Burlington Northern railroad and Warren Buffet
stand to make a tidy profit from all this oil transfer from Montana and North
Dakota, therefore we need to build the pipeline to keep Warren Buffet and
Burlington Northern from making a few extra dollars profit each month. Does Ed even listen to himself? He’s in the back pocket of somebody, but I’ll
guarantee it isn’t Burlington Northern. And
he says “I’ll take calls on this subject but only if you’re intellectually
respectable and not just spouting liberal talking points”.
Then
we have the thing with the militarization of local Police Departments. Glen Beck this morning played a tape of Obama
saying “We need other military in this country other than our standard military
to deal with all of these internal problems of terror and such”. It almost sounds like he’s advocating a
domestic military force to wage war on our own people. Even some Police departments say “All this
heavy military gear is more than we need”.
And you know how fond tea baggers are of saying “And anything you get
from the Obama administration comes with a price. It comes with strings attached”. But now there is talk of police throwing you
out of your own house- - commandeering it to “deal with a problem”. Glen Beck as much as said this almost seems
a violation of the third amendment of the Bill of Rights about no troops
quartered in private homes in time of peace.
But then again- - when is the last time we have ever been in “a time of
peace’ in this country? The tea party
of course has forever tormented us with talk of the President declaring “A national
emergency” and turning this into a police state.
Then
there is this lie that FOX news couldn’t wait to jump all over. It’s claimed that the latest report on the
Affordable Care act declares we will lose over two million jobs because of
it. This of course has it turned around
a hundred & eighty degrees from the Truth of the matter. What it will do is free up as many as two
million employees form the “Labor Market” which means that the balance will
swing in favor of those looking for jobs and not the “job providers”. This is because people will no longer be
locked into their full time jobs because they dare not make a change for fear
of losing their Health Care. The Obama
Care act gives part time workers a lot of health care leverage they never had
before. You can take a little time off
and spend more time with your family.
Ironically fifty years ago this is what people were predicting for the
grand and glorius future - - that people would be working thirty hour weeks and
kicking back a little. This causes
people like Mark Stein to pull their hair out.
Remember that Newt Gingrich two years ago wanted to dump even more
people on the Labor Market because losing employment would force more people,
in vain I suspect, into the job hunting market.
This of course would drive the Unemployment numbers reported by the
government UP, which in turn could be used as evidence by the tea party as
saying “Look, the unemployment figures have gone up in the past few months”. However what this provision of Obama Care
does will be just the opposite. It will
take people OUT of the labor market. No “jobs
will be lost”. Instead that full time
job you don’t want any more will be freed up for someone else to take it, and
get them off the unemployment rolls, who really wants that job. But again if you’re FOX news you lie for a
living. I repeat “No jobs were harmed in
the implementation of this statute”.
Apparently
the Catholic Church came under scrutiny from some Human Rights organization for
its laxness tword child molesting Priests.
The Church in turn shot back saying that “You are trying to get us to
compromise on our doctrine- - but we’ll never do that”. In other news, today February fifth, is national Weathercaster
day. President Obama wants to help out
America’s famers so has set up seven regional “Climate control centers” to help
the local farmers deal with the perils of Global Warming. For those of you worried about the Stock
Markets - - two words - - Don’t Be. It’s
not a problem. We are so NOT in danger
of any stock market decline it isn’t even funny. I thought we were in danger at the end of
last August, and happily I report that for once I was off my game. We came down to that same low level again in
mid October, but since then we’ve shot upward and never looked back. Those people who imply otherwise are blowing
smoke out their ass. At this point I
would say to sit tight in your stocks if you are invested. Given astrological signs - - I think after
the next few months we should begin to see a major rise in all stock prices
about the middle of October of this year.
Finally for those of you looking for more Cosmic Secrets- - today is not
your day to hear that. Sometimes you
have to almost work at avoiding certain topics.
Sometimes though you tell your adversary, “I’ve got something on you
now. I won’t tell your secret if you don’t
tell mine”. But this strategy of the Mexican
stand-off or “mutually assured destruction” won’t work on certain people, if
they happen to be totally Insane. They’ll
just stare you down and then say to your utter horror “I don’t care if you
bring me down- - because it will be just WORTH IT to me to bring You down”. So sometimes the Soap Opera of Life can throw
you a curve ball like that.
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