The Coming Doctor Shortage

There are polls showing that perhaps as many as 45 percent of physicians in practice today would make plans to retire, or to go into another line of work, should Congress force a government-run health care system upon us.

That would translate into more crowded waiting rooms even before you add millions of new patients into the system.

Think that news is bad?

Consider another fact of life: the Baby Boomer doctors themselves are nearing retirement age. And since medical schools "capped" enrolments for years in the mistaken belief that we were going to have too many doctors, there are not enough new doctors coming into the system to avoid future shortages, with or without government-run health care.

Government-run health care -- Socialized Medicine -- will make a bad situation into a nightmare.

And yet Congress marches on toward enacting top-down centralized medical planning that the American people do not want, and that the U.S. Constitution does not permit.

Mass insanity.

Manure Meter Alert!

The Manure Meter went off scale this morning before church as I made the mistake of reading this report from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

There must be" resentment against America, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Center Plaza. "The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was such a turnaround after last November. The world now feels better about America and about Americans. That's why I thought the president's going was the deal-maker."

State Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago) said she saw firsthand the resentment against America five years ago when she was in Rio de Janeiro. "I feel in my gut that this vote today was political and mean-spirited," she said.

See what I mean?

It couldn't be that Olympic committee voters were troubled by the sweeping changes in the U.S.O.C. leadership, putting non-Olympic corporate people in charge. (Kind of like our government installing a new president for GM who had never built cars, but I digress ...)

It couldn't be that maybe Rio just had a better presentation, a more appealing venue, and that the Southern hemisphere is somewhat overdue.

It couldn't be that President Obama and the Chicago entourage were seen as political grandstanding, in a ham-handed, "this is our biographical destiny," sort of way.

Naw! It's the fault of George W. Bush and all those evil (white) presidents who came before him. The world hates us. Now it's the world that is "mean spirited." Poor Barack may need three or four presidential terms to heal this wound!

Power seems to be hastening the Left's slide into complete lunacy.

Lindsey Graham, Clueless Politician

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham is a case study in what it means to be a clueless politician who does not understand that the world he once thought he knew has irrevocably changed.

Graham, interviewed by CBS News, denigrates Glenn Beck and other conservative talk show hosts, as well as most of those he would need to merit re-election next time around. He says that Beck is "aligned with cynicism" and that "cynicism sells." He paints with a single brush all those who attended town hall events as "crazies" because a handful are pushing for President Obama to reveal his actual Hawaiian birth certificate. Obama has fought in court to avoid doing so.

I leave it up to you to decide what is crazy about this issue. If there is nothing to hide, why fight? And the U.S. Constitution does require a president to be born on U.S. soil. My personal stance is that this horse is long out of the barn, and even if Obama has no birth certificate, are you ready to face the upheaval of a constitutional crisis as the Supreme Court orders him out of the Oval Office? Perhaps worse, are you ready for a President Joe Biden?

But I digress. Graham is lauding Obama for his achievements, declaring that The One had passed the "ready to be commander in chief test" during the presidential debates. For a guy who supposedly backed John McCain, that's a big "Say what?" admission -- and inexplicably weird. Graham goes on to defend his own radical views on allowing unrestricted immigration.

Worse, however, is that Graham licks his chops at the thought of what disgruntled voters will do to Democrats in 2010 without displaying any contrition or humility for the fact that Republican progressivism set the stage for the nonsense we are going through. He has learned nothing. You can tell when he says this:

"... we became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers."

So what do you believe in, Sen. Grahamnesty?

Winning political elections. Adopting policies that will guarantee the allegiance of voting groups. This is the old "party first" formula that has led America to the thresh hold of disaster, a sellout on both sides of Constitutional principles for the expediencies of the moment. The short game, not the long game.

Glenn Beck is popular because he, and others, are voices that reflect a growing sentiment among Americans that both parties, in different ways, have ignored the Constitution and are selling our individual liberties down a progressive, socialist river. Beck believes in the Constitution, in freedom and liberty, in limited government, in an educated and informed electorate.

Lindsey Graham believes in playing the political game in Washington, where you compromise principle to achieve consensus and then wait for a policy to fail so that you can bash the other party.

That's cynical.

That he would invoke Benjamin Franklin to attack Glenn Beck is damn near blasphemy. Franklin may have been a master of political compromise, but it was never at the expense of the principles of liberty.

Americans are waking up to the political opportunists in both main parties and are realizing that just because you have a D or an R after your name doesn't necessarily mean anything good. We are entering a new era where politicians are going to be judged on their actions, not just on their rhetoric at election time.

And no one gets a pass.

Obama Surrenders the Internet

Don't look now but the "world community" is about to take control of the Internet.

The Obama administration has relinquished U.S. control of a system invented and developed by this nation, and up until now run under the concept that freedom of expression and capitalist development reigned.

... the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet.

Icann chief Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Washington insider who took over running the organisation in July, said there had been legitimate concerns that some countries were developing alternative internets as a way of routing around American control.

[SNIP]

Beckstrom suggested that bringing more countries to the table was the best way of ensuring the long term future of the internet.

"We're more global, period. The chances of the internet holding together just went up, the cohesion just went up," he said. "We expect more active involvement from governments, a higher level of participation from many governments and we're already hearing about more governments joining the team… This was, ironically, a power move from the US."

Power move?

That remains to be seen. From here it smells more like surrender.

To a "virtual" United Nations, no less.

Without a shot.

Unemployment Number Gets Even Worse

The news is grim: Another 263,000 non-farm workers without jobs, and nation's official unemployment rate at 9.8 percent, the worst since June 1983.

Unless, of course, you view the "real" unemployment rate that includes the long-term laid off workers who have taken bits and pieces of part time work or have given up looking.

That's 17 percent.

That's 1930s, Depression-era, FDR meddling type unemployment.

Just so that we're clear on this.

By the way, they began excluding this category of worker back in 1994 to make the numbers look better. It worked for the Clinton administration, so the Bush team followed suit, and most assuredly the Obama numbers-massagers are probably wondering who else can be tossed out.

It's obvious they haven't a clue as to what creates jobs or encourages productivity in a free society.

No Gold Medal for U.S. Olympic Bid

The Olympics and the attendant corruption planned for Chicago will not take place unless President Obama declares war on the International Olympic Committee. The United States bid was rejected in the first round today.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that the billions of dollars that were to be "skimmed" by the Chicago political insiders, Friends of The Obama, are now off the table. Thus there are some very pissed off slum lords who will be looking for alternative sources of filthy lucre.

Watch your taxes.

When Pigs Flu ...

It's been an interesting, if uncomfortable week, suffering from what I first thought were ragweed allergies but quickly evolved into muscle aches, fevers and chills. But not a cold. I am reasonably sure, based on how many others around me who have had it, that I am a recovering swine flu victim.

It wasn't fun but it wasn't that bad, as flu goes, and the better news is that I am pre-disastered. Don't need no damn vaccination. I still remember what happened in 1976 and then there are various other warnings and rumors of warnings out there, for your discernment.

My view? Take your vitamins C and D, build your immune system and take your chances while H1N1 is relatively benign. Unless you have a serious secondary infection or other underlying health risk, you may well be better off with the flu than with the shot.

But that's just a non-doctor's opinion. You may wish to consult your congressman for a more informed medical judgment.