patchandlersblog

All about me.

Pat Chandler — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:12:50 GMT

Stunt Double for a Rat.

As things look right now, now being Tuesday, July 29 about 3:00 PM, I will probably be going over to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance tomorrow and will be the first person ever to take an artificial hormone, modeled upon a natural hormone produced by the adrenal gland which has shown some promise in rats, mice and dogs to control prostate cancer..

I’ve agreed to take part in a clinical trial of a drug that might be ok for people to take and might help to control my own cancer.

There is some risk but I’m convinced the risk is less than staying the course. Modern medicine has managed to keep me alive for 4 or 5 years longer than was expected, in part because of an earlier clinical trial I was in and I’m happy to be going down that road again.

Since I was first diagnosed, I’ve understood there is no cure yet for my type and stage of cancer. The cancer was always going to try to bust every fence we put up and would eventually succeed. My goal has, from the first, been to keep myself alive until science would finally find the silver bullet. That being the knock out punch which would kill my type of cancer. They haven’t found it yet but they are looking and now they are trying this thing I’m doing. It will not likely be the knock out punch but I’m hoping it will set the cancer back and give me more time looking down at the grass while they look for better results.

So, I think I will start taking some pills tomorrow. The pills will either be or will create a hormone which should, if all of the animal studies mean anything at all, reduce the size of the tumors I’m host to. I might suffer side effects unknown or most likely less powerful than those of men taking Viagra, the pop up medicine.

I’m guessing on the benign side and Patsy is expecting the worst. She might appreciate a call of support once in awhile. Me, I’ll deal with it. I expect to go back to semi lethargic and then learn to adjust and suppose this will be less onerous than Chemo.

I’ll let you know when I do.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

******************

Sorry. I never sent the above letter.

Don’t quite know why I didn’t send that missive and it has now been a week since I started taking the little white pills.

I spent this morning at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. They took a few blood samples, made me pee in a bottle, gave me a free EKG and gave me another free physical. Then they asked a bunch of questions to confirm what I had already told them, "I don’t feel a bit different since I started taking the pills last week."

This was and is great news. Both for me and for them. They want for people, as opposed to rats, mice and dogs, to be able to take this brew. I for one am tolerating the pills quite well, at this dosage, the very lowest planned for the study. They also want to see if it has a positive effect on people as it did on critters. So do I.

What we don’t know is if it is doing any good. Someone later will get heavier dosages, that is if others tolerate this dosage as well as I have so far. At some point they will discover what, if any benefit occurs and at what dosage. Then they will try to make millions. I don’t care if they do make a killing as long as I can tolerate the stuff and I get some beneficial results.

It is my hope,and not quite clear understanding, that they might find a dosage with no draw backs and positive results. Then as a guinea pig, I will get free pills. Would that be sweet?

Anyway I’m in this for me first but if I can help someone else, I’d take that as a positive too.

Going into week two, all is well.

I’ll sleep well tonight. You too.

Pat Chandler

Aunt Georgia

Pat Chandler — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:24:14 GMT

According to reports …

My old Aunt Georgia, God rest her soul, never told a lie. She simply repeated them as if they were true. She would always preface her lies with " I don’t know if this is true but Thelma, Beth, Bessie or Gertie, I don’t remember which one told me that…" and then we’d get the gossip. Aunt Georgia’s version. She was as effective in my home town as Larry King is over the world. She’d repeat anything and question nothing. She was well respected and mostly wrong. She didn’t have a TV show but she had a powerful party line. (google that if you are under 40). Besides, she was a bitch. My guess is that Georgia never made it to heaven.

She might have come back as an advisor to the "straight talk express". Read this and laugh out loud:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902286.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

"I know that, according to reports, that he wanted to bring media people and cameras and his campaign staffers," McCain said Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

I know that " McCain saying, "I know that ‘according to reports’ he wanted the media to be there" is just like my old Aunt Georgia saying " I don’t know if this is true, but Thelma, Beth, Bessie or Gertie, I don’t remember which one told me that…"

Let me make this perfectly clear, John McCain was not telling a lie on Larry King’s show. He was repeating a lie he knew to be a lie. I thought I heard Aunt Georgia "I don’t know if this is true but Thelma, Beth, Bessie or Gertie, I don’t remember which one told me that…", His own campaign has filed/made up such reports. So did others of the right wing cabal. Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the whole right wing press. Look Ma, no hands, no facts, watch me go.

The fact is Obama never expected to take any publicity people into the vet’s hospital. The whole thing is a lie and anyone with a lot of time to do nothing but politics knows this. McCain has nothing else to think about than politics. He was repeating a lie he well knew to be a lie. He was being cagey about it saying "according to reports". He might have added, according to bogus reports my campaign has done everything in their power to foster… or he may have said. "I don’t know if this is true but Thelma, Beth, Bessie or Gertie, I don’t remember which one told me that…"

So John McCain aint a liar, not quite, but he’s someone Aunt Georgia would be proud to work with. I smell her ghost.

The straight talk express is taking the curvey scenic route. Georgia is driving.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Ok, Now I’m Pissed.

Pat Chandler — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:19:02 GMT

I’ve never been a very religious guy but I’ve pretty much avoided making fun of anyone else’s religion. Iin public at least. Without looking around first. I just consider it bad taste and know that I’m likely to get my melon thumped for doing so.

The right wing has knots in their knickers because the "press" is following Obama around instead of McCain. Well that’s not hard to fathom, Barack is exciting and McCain is like watching trees grow. The right is blaming Obama for McCain’s blandness.

Now I’m hearing parodies of the very underpinnings of Christianity, from self proclaimed Christians. Rush Limbaugh has been calling Barack Obama the "messiah" and talks of his "teachings to the multitudes." I don’t consider Rush a person of any taste except in his mouth so that’s not upsetting. Then there was an opinion piece on a blog where the author, I don’t remember his name, compared Obama to Jesus, in jest and hyperbole of course, and another suggesting that he "part the water" and walk home. On Faux they said he "had stopped in Bethlehem, the place of his birth". Then tonight I tune in late to Hannity and he’s got a thing going where someone is misquoting the bible as he shows pictures of Barack’s tour of Asia, middle east and Europe.

Two things rip my knickers. I’f I had done such a parody the right wing would be tearing my ears off. Another one is that all of them got the same memo. "Obama is wowing them all over the world and there is nothing wrong with what he is saying, the only avenue we have open is to claim that he is acting too big for his britches. He isn’t but ignore that. Act like he thinks he’s the second coming of Christ for Christ’s sake".

Ok, I don’t mind if they want to pimp their religion, I don’t mind if it becomes a cackle like everyone laid the same egg at the same time. What galls me is these same people are all united in that I couldn’t make the same snotty remarks about their god(s).

Well it seems the right wing Christians covet Obama’s drawing power. Tough apples.

Sleep well tonight

Pat Chandler

North Powder Wind Mills

Pat Chandler — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:09:50 GMT

North Powder Wind Mills.

I went to high school in North Powder, Oregon. Home of the Badgers. The building it’s self was built of granite blocks. The joke was that any other building material would have blown away. I hated the winds there. Worse than boring teachers, I hated the droning of the wind. The little valley my home was in didn’t have enough wind, though only 14 miles distant, that neither myself nor any of my siblings ever flew a kite that I remember.

I go to Eastern Oregon whenever I can. Last year I noticed some dozen wind turbines some miles back of my old school, when viewed from the freeway. This June I noticed what I guessed would be 2 dozen. Last week I think there were 4 dozen. I was told "over 50’.

I asked a laconic waitress what she knew about them and she said, "there are going to be a lot more" and fetched my coffee.

One of the local farmers told me that Union County had welcomed them and that Baker County had put up bureaucratic barriers so that even though the wind blows on both counties evenly all of the turbines are indeed smack on the Union County side of the line. I don’t know the real cause but the local farmer could be right on.

Another farmer told me each turbine brings in $1200.00 per month to the land owner. He has a place on the Baker County side and is disgruntled.

Someone else told me each turbine could supply enough energy for 1600 homes.

Patsy was told that the outfit running the turbines bought a home nearby because the owners didn’t like the hum. Again not confirmed.

I do know for a fact that these towers were put on sagebrush producing land, meaning pretty worthless real estate. Not every place lends itself to wind turbines, my home valley for instance. Other than this I know very little as fact.

Besides the $1200 rental per month per tower, a number I don’t actually believe, a road is scratched in to each tower, a power line is hung or buried, transformers are installed (this I know costs a lot) and then the tower is erected and then this huge turbine is mounted atop the whole thing. Even from a distance these things are enormous. These things cost lots of money to install. Maybe 1600 homes rings true and they could pay $1200 per month per tower easily. I’m not certain of my facts and don’t want you to quote them as facts, but it is damn big business.

I had an 8 hour car trip to chew on the wind turbines and what a good deal it is for Union County. Here is something that intrigues me, the energy company has leased the land to install the turbines, built the roads to service the turbines, installed the transformers and lines to carry the electricity away. Now why not put in solar panels? Use the same lease, service roads, same transformers and power lines. Any place that supports sagebrush gets lots of sunshine. Get twice the bang per acre.

This is what I thought about while I drove home and I’ve done no research on the subject, but to me it seems possible to meet the goal of energy independence if we try. 1600 homes will supply enough energy for 200 North Powders plus most of the country and there is plenty of wind and cheap land for more turbines. I know there are problems but so too does oil use have problems.

When I got back into radio range I heard that Al Gore had claimed we could become energy independent in 10 years and next I heard Rush Limbaugh say the price of energy would go up. Rush is right whether we go with renewable or not, Al Gore’s plan might bring some dollars to God’s forgotten places such as North Powder rather than Gods forgotten places such as Iraq.

We can become energy independent if we try. We can’t do it if we let oil companies help.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

I Guess We Didn’t Get it Right in Grade School.

Pat Chandler — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:16:06 GMT

Where I came from it was fighten’ words to say the President outranked the Courts or Congress. Actually that isn’t true because no one would have said suchb an outlandish thing where I came from. Where I came from was some time back. I came from before jet planes but I didn’t come from before the U. S. Constitution. Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Stall and a few others taught us about the Constitution when I was in grade school at Muddy Creek grade school, and I want to admit right now they are so last year, or the years before.

I just read this in it’s entirety: You don’t need too, but it is interesting. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/09/alharamain_lawsuit/print.html

Wherein you can see for your very own self that what I thought I knew about fair play in the courts went the way of propeller planes. Secrets so secret we can’t say their name.

Then I read that Karl Rove didn’t appear, as expected, in response to a subpoena from Congress, for the second time: Now that takes some nuts.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/10/rove.subpoena/

Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Stall, get a firm grip on the sides of your caskets, you are in for a roll.

I think the two of you would have been conservatives today, except, from what you told me you would never have gone along with the idea of a President Uber Alles. You would have balked at the idea of torture is ok even if the President says so. You would have raised a fuss about wire tapping and suspension of Habeas Corpus. Hell , 50 some years later I remember how to spell it because you both thought Habeas Corpus that important. You taught me how we had 3 branches of government, each equal to the other two and each responsive and accountable to the other. You would have said Karl Rove had no choice and in your time you would have been right, but now. Today’s conservatives don’t think the way you did. I don’t think they went wrong because you failed to teach them, they sold out to the siren songs of lower taxes and less government and more power.

I don’t think you have failed me, the system we once had, the one you taught me so much about, has faltered… at least for now. I think it will do better soon. For your sake, for my sake and for the country and the world we must get it together again. You have done your part, I try to do mine and others are doing their best, we will regain that land you taught me to love.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Are We What We Eat?

Pat Chandler — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:37:48 GMT

I just read a great book. "The Carnivores Dilemma", by Michael Pollen. It is about how we get the food we eat and isn’t, in general, a happy story. I am even more attached to it than most of you will be because I wrote one of my diatribes a few months back about the same subject and I’m always gratified when a major author comes right out and agrees with me.

If you can’t bring yourself to read the book, it is pretty long and no pictures, he makes the point that you should avoid eating or drinking anything that doesn’t look like a part of the original or has a list of ingredients that are only found in chemical books and never on a farm.

He goes on to show how most of our food is produced without your well being in mind. Corn is force fed to animals in feed lots, animals much better equipped to eat grass than corn and then we are force fed the results, meat. It doesn’t make much difference what sort of meat, chicken, pork, lamb, beef and farm raised fish is mostly corn. I’m proud to say I have never eaten a bigmac. After reading this book I’m really happy about it. I’ve eaten an occasional Pringles potato chip which turns out to be less than 50% spud. Oh, I’ve sinned.

Then he writes about how it could be done, like back to the past. I didn’t know just how lucky I was to eat the food produced on our ranch for the first 20 years of my life. You don’t have that option and neither do I anymore, but we can get better food by going to road side stands and farmers markets during the summers when they are open. When we do shop at mega food giants we can buy unprocessed foods and cook it at home. Don’t eat things with a shelf life longer than the expected life span of your dog. If you don’t recognize it, don’t eat it. If you can’t pronounce the name of over half of the ingredients it’s yucky for you. Make that 99%. If corn syrup is a main ingredient get a standby reservation for a fat farm.

Soft drinks, cheeseburgers, French fries and Twinkies are not the 4 major food groups despite what Brad claims.

That same list is a major component of the food industry’s profit. We should believe that our health comes before profit when it comes to marketing food but give up on that old idea. Profit rules. We can get exotic fruits and vegetables from across the globe but mostly these fruits and the vegetables taste about the same as one another. For starters each is picked before it is ripe so as to withstand shipping. Secondly, only varieties able to look good after days or weeks in transit and storage are selected for shipment. Look good is the key, taste good isn’t something you find out until you get it home. Too late. Good nutrition isn’t ever in the math. Only profit is.

You can do something about the food you eat.

It is summer now and no matter where you live there is probably a "Farmer’s Market" nearby. Drop in. You may pay more per pound or per sack but you will get fresh produce or canned goods picked and processed when ready to be eaten rather than on schedule to be shipped across the world. You can really enjoy a fresh salad because it will be fresh. Oh so good.

Too bad that we can’t buy meat a Farmers markets but government regulations preclude that pretty much. The Agriculture Department is afraid we might get some meat that actually tastes good. Can’t have that. Try grass fat beef for a real change if you get the chance. Not at all like corn fed, really tastes like beef.

I think back to the ranch where I was fetched up. We milked our own cows twice per day so our milk was always fresh, cream too. Eggs we had to find like it was Easter every day because the hens laid eggs when and wherever. Dad and Mom had a huge garden, 1 acre as I recall, and we ate the best during the summer. Fall was when the orchard came in and we did well then too. Winter we ate squash and root vegetables. Then it was spring and we ate whatever came up fast. Meat was likely chicken during the summer, free ranging too an extreme, because larger meats were hard to preserve during the summer. Fall was wild game, winter beef and/or pork usually shared with a neighbor or two to make it last. Mom would say go out and "higgle" a piece of meat off that hind quarter, and we did. We canned a huge supply of fruits and vegetables each fall and buried vegetables in the ground under layers of soil and straw. Home canned meats make good stew. Not once did we need to read the labels before we sat down to dinner. I wish you could have been there.

We can never go there again I suppose but we can strive toward eating better. We can ask our Congress and Senate to stop subsidizing the agriculture that is poisoning us for profit and if they can’t subsidize good nutrition at least don’t help the other side any more. We can patronize local growers once in awhile. That’s a win-win. We can stop buying crap just because it is cheap.

Enjoy at least one meal per week.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Diplomacy and Bush.

Pat Chandler — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:59:20 GMT

Bush said yesterday that he has made it clear to everybody involved, including Israel, that he would prefer to solve the "conflict" with Iran diplomatically. He has made it clear that talking to Iran isn’t going to happen either. That takes care of diplomacy.

If, God forbid, Israel should bomb Iran, Iran has promised to close the Strait of Hormuz and Bush has promised to call that an act of war by Iran and that he will keep the Strait open with military force if need be. You can see where this will lead unless God does forbid Israel from bombing Iran. God hasn’t ever stopped a war that I can remember but either Bush or Congress could do the forbidding. All we need to do is close Iraqi airspace to Israeli bombers. We do control Iraqi airspace to where nothing larger than a sparrow flies there without our OK.

Bush won’t do that but Congress could. Otherwise, welcome to World War III.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Want to Hear an Old Joke?

Pat Chandler — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:26:11 GMT

Once upon a time the price of gas was below a dollar. In 1957 it was below 30 cents and that was the summer I worked in LA. I spent a lot of time at the beach and remember we carried a can of paint thinner and some old rags in the car to clean the tar off our feet so we won’t track it into the car. It wasn’t actually tar, we called it whale snot and it wasn’t that either, it was crude oil that had washed ashore from the oil rigs out near and over the horizon. Crude on the beach was just something we accepted back then and I for one didn’t give it much thought, it was just a bit harder to get off your feet than a few things I had stepped in back on the farm.

But times change and people started to realize that drilling for oil right off the coast wasn’t a good thing. A few major spills, Santa Barbara Channel comes to mind, and folks started to understand that the oil was killing birds and fish and clams and Dolphins and everything else in the water. Oil became more than a dirty foot problem. Eventually the oil rigs were shut down because the hidden costs were just too high to be acceptable. They spilled too much gook.

But times change, most of the people on the beaches of California today have never stepped in whale snot nor have they seen dead birds covered with oil and the price of gas is over 4 bucks. Now they want to resume drilling. Now these people have either forgotten what they learned long ago or they are just selling out.

It was wrong then and it is wrong now. I could be convinced that drilling has become safer now, I’m not though. Governor Jindel R- Louisiana didn’t help the other day when he stated that oil wells are so safe today and that no oil was spilt during Katrina. He’s off by what the EPA claims was 1400 major leaks. That sort of thing just convinces me that some people will say anything or do anything where money is involved. Some want to drill in Anwar and offshore because of money, not because drilling would be safer or good for the environment, just because of money. Some think it may lower gas prices and the ones wanting to drill are looking to profits. No matter which, it was wrong before and it is wrong now.

So here’s the old story;

A guy asks a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars.She said " Sure".

He then asked if she’d sleep with him for 10 dollars.

She replied haughtily "What do you take me for, a whore?"

He replied, "We established what you are with the first question, now we are haggling about price".

If you are one who has changed your mind or support a politician who has changed his mind about drilling in Anwar and offshore now but didn’t when gas was cheaper, we know what you are.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

FISA

Pat Chandler — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:23:16 GMT

FISA

You haven’t heard from me in some time. I’ve been in a chemically induced haze for some time now. Yes it was legal. It is called Chemotherapy. I’ve been unable to string together a sentence let alone an idea, but I think it is over now, at least semi permanently. I’d like to think one of you missed me.

I’ve had to skip on some really interesting topics but I think I’ve come back to an important subject, FISA. FISA requires the government to get a warrant to eaves drop on us. To be responsive to immediate threats they, the FBI etal have 72 hours (3 days) after the wire tap, or whatever the method used, to apply for the warrants. Seems to me plenty of time, the government has millions of lawyers.

For some reason we haven’t learned yet, the Bush administration didn’t want to be second guessed by no "stinkin" court so he blew around it as he has other laws and had the NSA and all but Qwest of the major telecoms start spying on us without FISA notification.

I don’t know how that leaked out but it did.

I copied this bit of drivel from a right wing thing I subscribe to, HUMAN EVENTS, written by one Jeb Babbin.

The compromise has been in development since an interim FISA repair expired. It provides a face-saving level of success to the trial lawyers’ lobby and its dedicated ally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A bipartisan bill -- giving telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from civil lawsuits arising from cooperation in the National Security Agency’s program -- had passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote last fall.

That bill hit a wall when the trial lawyers asked Pelosi to preserve their chance to earn huge contingency fees in lawsuits against the telecoms alleging the sort of class-action tort claims used to blackmail big companies into high-dollar settlements. There are at least forty such suits already in the federal courts. The cases are brought on behalf of people who don’t know if they’ve been listened to and -- because they haven’t been hurt by whatever may or may not have been done -- can only speculate about how they might have been damaged.

Now understand that trial lawyers might make a profit if the courts find the Telecoms violated the laws of the land. Is there something wrong with that? Why are they spending so much to get immunity if they think they were following the law? Well that’s for you to decide.

No one will tell the extent of this illegal spying. To hear the Bush version it was all about "terrorists" but many, including me, believe he was spying on the Democratic party as well, just like Nixon. The telecoms know, but they won’t tell because Bush is promising immunity from the laws they violated if they don’t tell. Big bucks are at stake for the telecoms, they are paying millions for ads and lobbyists explaining how they were only doing their duty to their country. If it were true, they would be able to show exactly whom they targeted and why, but they don’t.

We will never know if immunity is granted.

The issue is before the Congress now. Write, call or email your representative and Senators and tell them to vote against the Telecom immunity plan.

Thank you.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

PS. Now I’m going to be on vacation for a week, see you then.

Good for Business...

Pat Chandler — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:05:00 GMT

Good for Business…

What is good for business? Whatever isn’t bad for business, I suppose.

We get this constant litany, we can’t do such and such because it would be bad for business. We can’t lower green house emissions. We can’t regulate banks. We can’t raise wages. We can’t have more air traffic controllers. We can’t have clean air. Hold the chalk right there. Why not? Did anyone ask if it is good for us?

Henry Ford had an idea we should revisit. He thought it was important his employees were making enough money to buy his cars. It worked for Henry. Today’s businesses don’t share that ideal (some exceptions). To most businesses the whole thing is to lower labor costs and sell to another market. We, the USA, are the largest market, so explain the thinking to me again.

Maybe we are allowing the wrong people to ask the questions. What if the #1 question were always, "what will be good for the country"? Or better yet what will be best for the people? Think of how much our world would have changed with just this little bitsy tweak in our thinking, working through time.

Here’s an example;

During world war II, companies started competing for workers and started offering insurance coverage as an incentive. Good for business back then. After the war was over they were stuck with it. Bad for business. Now with the war only in the memories of those like myself, too young then to work and too old now to work (exceptions), we are still saddled with the old idea that to be covered by insurance, your employer should cover you. No one noticed how times have changed. Health costs, and along with it, insurance have skyrocketed. Many people are self-employed now or want to change employers and the cost of individual health coverage is prohibitive. People are stuck in jobs they don’t want and employers are stuck with disgruntled workers. Bad for business and bad for people.

Employers are faced with a growing healthcare costs or they have jettisoned health care in favor of outsourcing or some other mechanism. We are now left with a growing number of uninsured and a number of companies unable to compete with foreign competitors because of health care costs. GMC has stated that each car they build has a $1500.00 added to the sticker for health care. They compete with foriegn companies where health care is paid by the state.

This is clearly bad for business and we get more and more uninsured, clearly bad for the country. Now for those of you wanting to call me a communist, I think it may make you feel better so go ahead. I’m not.

Here’s another example:

Just the other side of the border lives an enormous labor pool of hard working people living on $1 or $2 per day. Why should I as a businessman be paying union wages when these people will work for ¼ that and I can fire them when the harvest is in? I know it is illegal but the way around it is to insist they show me a set of ID, including a SS card. I then do the withholding. I then send it in to the Feds, they take several weeks or months before I’m told the numbers were phony. What can I do? My crop is in, those people are all gone by now.

Next year I will be careful not to use the same numbers with the same names. I get the same workers year after year, but they use different names and numbers. I don’t have a choice, my competitors do the same thing. It is not my fault 12 million illegal aliens are in this country, I only hire 20 or 30. If it weren’t for this system you would be paying $5.00 for a head of lettuce.

You know what? It isn’t any one person’s fault and there is no way a farmer can stay in business unless he plays the game. These illegals are willing to work for less and work harder than are our citizens. This is taking work from our people though. What solution would be good for all of us?

Another example;

Trial lawyers and frivolous lawsuits. It was almost true that lawsuits almost bankrupted the tobacco companies. Well I exaggerate. Tobacco companies spent years and years claiming no scientific evidence could prove cigarettes caused lung cancer or any other health problems. The government wasn’t about to go after them because of all the tax money tobacco sales netted. Then some trials ended with substantial settlements. Next some clever trial lawyers came up with the idea that states were paying out lots more money in health claims than they were collecting in tax revenue and the state attorneys started getting interested, then they started piling on. Tobacco companies lost in court. The result has been a marked reduction in smoking and a whole lot of money going to education. If it were not for trial lawyers and frivolous lawsuits this would never have happened. Bad for business but good for people

Now I promise, the last example;

I live near Seattle, home to the most expensive sports complexes and the worst teams on the planet. About 1 year in 5 we have another professional team threatening to leave town unless we build them a new sports palace. The argument is always the same, look how much revenue we bring into town. Well I’ve thought about it some and this may make me unique. Do sports teams really bring money into town or do they just suck money from what is already in town. Let’s see, should I go see the Sonics lose again in the arena we’ll be paying for until hell freezes or should I go to a play, or a concert, or a museum or a restaurant or fill my tank with gas. If this is disposable income people will think of some way to dispose of it even if the Sonics are in Oklahoma. We will have better support for more worthy endeavors. Could something be more worthy than 10 over paid athletes losing again and again? What would be best for Seattle? Your turn to think about it.

So what I’m trying to get at is how we should never, ever again fall for the verbal trap that something is good for business. Good for one business will in all likelihood be bad for another and doesn’t address whether it is good for us. We must learn to ask, will this be good for us? We must learn to just say "know".

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

An Arizona Land Deal.

Pat Chandler — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:52 GMT

I just read the article linked below, in large part because these deals interest me and it was printed today, May 08,. I find this interesting because it involves McCain but mostly because it shows how things work. The article is about a land swap.

If you are looking for a scandal I don’t think this will be one.

Now the whole point of any swap is one party has something the other party wants and they trade. In this case about 86 square miles of land were traded and some think the government didn’t get its’ fair share. Some do. I have no idea. The rancher who proposed the deal expected to come out ahead or he wouldn’t have proposed the deal, and the government could come out ahead too. This land swap didn’t suddenly make this rancher a millionaire, he already was one. Just about every one of our large tracts of public land have been cobbled together with swaps and purchases so there is nothing wrong with swaps. It is like the Cartwrights selling Bonanza though.

I think it will be tough to show that McCain has done anything out of the ordinary or illegal or immoral involving this transaction just like the Republicans could never show that the Clintons did anything wrong with White Water. This is how politics work folks. Not just everyone can spend $60,000.00 to hire a lobbyist such as Michael Jimenez, or another one ""We had a couple of meetings and I paid him a little bit."

What is really interesting is that nothing like this is illegal unless a politician agrees to do a certain thing for a constituent in exchange for that constituent doing something a certain thing in return, called "Quid pro Quo". That can be arranged with a wink and a nod but not a spoken word.

So read the article, it is only 2 pages and you will better understand how our government works.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050803494.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Then if you wish, here is a link to the answers McCain’s campaign gave to questions about the deal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/mccain_campaign_q_and_a_050808.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Do try keep this article in mind when the Republicans bring up some transaction Barack Obama has been involved with, you might be better equipped to keep your balance.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

And the winner is…

Pat Chandler — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:57:21 GMT

Well I don’t know anything you haven’t already heard on TV but it looks like Hillary Clinton is running out of track. I’m guessing she won’t drop out though and she has good enough reason(s) not to.

Barack could make a big mistake, he is prone to telling the truth and some times the truth can be turned against you, especially in politics. He has some pretty big money running a campaign against him and money can launch some pretty big boats, and swift ones too. He has refused PAC and lobbyist money and that scares the hell out of the top one tenth of one percent. It pleases me a whole lot, he will be more in debt to the average Joe than the millionaires and billionaires.

If Rush Limbaugh is right for once, Hillary would be easier to beat and she isn’t as likely to rock the big boats even if she were elected, so Barack may be swift boated before the convention and Hillary would be well positioned to pick up the pieces.

Then there is the historical fact, we have not been kind to charismatic leaders, Abe Lincoln, JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, and we’ve wounded the pope and Ronald Reagan and even killed John Lennon. Again, Hillary would be the logical choice to carry on. The back up quarterback. She’ll stay in the race as the back up.

Short of one of these events Barrack will be nominated. His lead is too substantial and his message is too clear. One of the first things I liked about Obama was the clarity of his mind and his ability to express himself so that anyone willing to try, can understand him perfectly well. No true patriot has any problem with him not wearing that stupid lapel pin. The same people with those ribbons on their SUVs think he should wear a lapel pin. We all understand the gas tax holiday is a scam. We all understand how frustrated we of the less than privileged few feel. We also know the difference between a really hard working bright guy and an elitist. We also got the message that Hillary is closer to McCain’s way of thinking than she is to Obama’s. I’ve never had the feeling that Obama is "fishin for a mission" as I see other politicians doing. He seems to know exactly what he is about, what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. I see no sign of him being ruled by dogma and I find that refreshing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always thought the Democrats had the very best candidates this time out. John Edwards was my man but I thought well of all of them. Hillary has never been my first choice because I’ve always thought of her as too establishment, maybe wrongly, but I have. Edwards aside, Barack has been my guy. I just admire his clear thinking too much to think otherwise.

So I think he’ll win the nomination and the election barring some tragedy or a really dirty trick. Barack is an idealist and we have usually thought of ourselves as an idealistic nation. He’s a good fit for what we need to do. We have a lot to do too. It would be pleasant to not listen to all of the hate speech for starters.

I’m not certain when it happened, when the first shoe dropped on political hate. Was it when Nixon was sent packing, or when Ford pardoned him to heal the nation’s wounds or was it when the Republicans decided to hound Clinton from office to get even or was it something else? At any rate the professional Republicans and professional Democrats act like they are working for two different countries. They play a game of tit for tat over the great and the small issues with the same hate and verve as two juvenile gangs. It has to stop, I hope it stops before our country is destroyed but I don’t know how it will happen. Barack wants to try and I’d like to see him try.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Mission Botched

Pat Chandler — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:29:40 GMT

Mission Botched.

Just about everyone able to express an opinion about "Mission accomplished" has or will have expressed his opinion before the week is out. That’s because it has been 5 years since the banner flew. I haven’t seen where anyone has come out and said "boy was I fooled" but most people were taken in by it. I don’t need to because I wasn’t fooled back then and to prove it, here is what I sent to some of you on May 15, 2003.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Jesus,

Jesus where are you when we really need you? I ask the same of Allah and The Buddha and all other gods? Big and small.

The world needs your help. Now. Leap into the breach. We have been listening to false gods. Geo. Bush, Don Rumsfield and Wolf Blitzer et. al. A pantheon of talking heads and blatherskites with no message of peace.

Give us a good old fashioned storm and a lesson on how to get along with one another, like you did in the old days. Lightning and thunder, throw in some huge hail stones. Get our attention. None of this shit about how you are on one side or the other, based on who has the fastest jets or smartest bombs, just you guys tell it like it is, you don’t have favorites. Do you? Am I wrong?

When an official from Syria explains that his country is accused of maybe having WMD’s the whole world knows the next door neighbor (Israel) is well endowed with everything possible to blow the world to smithereens, we should listen. With both ears. Maybe Syria has a right to protect itself even if Syria isn’t 100% on our side. If you read the papers, you know most of the world isn’t %100 on our side. We should wonder.

But you are Gods, and if you want to keep being part of my Gods, you better not be getting all of your information from the media. Stop and think.

This isn’t a good time for the world is it? One country (mine) has invaded another over a mere suspicion and the objections of most of the rest of the world. That nation (Mine) succeeded. We prevailed militarily, without so far, finding WMDs. So much for suspicion. But that is Okay, voters have short memories.

I’m proud of our military might.

You must be appalled.

Now we are threatening Syria. They are Muslim so what could you expect? The good news is they have very little oil.

Too much has already been done in the names of GODS.

Stop it if you can. It is about time for you to be GODS.

Pat C.

Justice Antonin Scalia

Pat Chandler — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:34:24 GMT

Justice Antonin Scalia

He was on 60 minutes with Leslie Staal. All in all he was charming and obviously he is brilliant.

He really burst a favorite bubble of mine when he said torture isn’t prohibited by the constitution. He went on to say torture isn’t mentioned in the constitution, yes cruel and unusual punishment is mentioned and prohibited but "torture isn’t punishment if it is being used to gain information". This is a great surprise to me and I’ll bet the framers meant to prohibit torture but he points out that it is his job to enforce what was written, not what we wish had been written.

So I suppose he’s right. He must be right because everyone is talking about Rev. Wright instead of what he said. I thought it would be a bombshell from the right. I thought the news would be about how Lawyer talk is destroying our country, instead the news is about how a black preacher talks. I must be out of touch but I’m catching up fast.

This got me thinking about how we could kill 3 birds with one stone.

If this is done properly, we could make a lot of money, gain intelligence and entertain the right wing sadists who want revenge for 9/11. First we put on E-bay the right to torture a captive in the war on terror. High bidder gets to work over a bad guy. That’s big bucks right there. As long as his motive is revenge or just for fun and doesn’t become punishment, it will be legal. Then we can sell tickets to watch the fun or revenge, the reason for this it is entertainment just like wrestling, no punishment here, again not prohibited. Broadcast rights would sell for billions, this is reality TV at its’ best and besides if some guy confesses, the evidence can be used in his trial because it will be public record. A new suspect each week, Fox will likely be high bidder. This will not be about punishment, we will be doing this for profit and therefore clear. This is a win win all the way. If you don’t like it, you won’t be forced to watch. So don’t complain, it will lower your taxes someday, maybe.

See how quickly I adapt.

If you really like the way Scalia thinks, we can get more like him on the Supreme Court by electing John McCain. When asked McCain will tell you he wants more justices from the Scalia mould.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Something is Missing.

Pat Chandler — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:54:33 GMT

I think nearly everyone knows, or think they know, that the war in Iraq is costing us about $200 billion per year. I think about every one knows that our National debt will have gone up $5 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. I think everyone also understands it is not all his fault, Republican leadership had an enabling roll to play.

But the fact remains that he took office with a $1/4 trillion surplus per year and has parlayed that into a $5/8 trillion yearly deficit. It is true that 9/11 set us back for a few months, Katrina cost some and the war and occupation of Iraq has been a biggie, cost wise. Bear Sterns got a chunk too. But there have been some very positive things that should have kept the economy humming. Interest rates were kept at all time lows by the fed, then this massive influx of credit from the borrowed trillions and finally the war itself, war has always been a short term boon for the economy in the past. Not this time though, nothing worked. Our economy is on the ropes. The Republicans are trying to blame it on the last year being in Democratic hands but it doesn’t wash.

What happened to all that money. None of it has shown up. Where has it gone? No one seems to know and no one seems to be asking. Well I’m asking but I really don’t expect an answer.

From everything I can learn, about $4 trillion is missing, pfttp gone. Borrowed and owed for and gone. It certainly wasn’t invested in infrastructure, it wasn’t invested in repairing our over used military, it didn’t get invested in the VA hospitals or in "NO Child Left Behind". Where did it go?

Oh yes, now I remember. I got about $400.00 in a tax rebate bribe when he first took office and I’m going to get another $600.00 bribe now that he’s leaving. It’s my fault.

Now just so you don’t think this is all harmless, that the debt will be paid by some magic and won’t cost you a lick when it is all said and done. Just because you believe the myth that Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter doesn’t mean this debt won’t cost you. It matters to you personally right now and is costing you in many ways.

Here is just one. OPEC took the cost of oil off the dollar standard when the dollar first started to slip against the EURO because Bush has qualified the entire country for sub-prime loans. Oil is priced in EUROs now. Since then the Dollar has slipped from about 1/1 to $1.58 to 1 Euro. This means that to purchase one $3.50 gallon of gasoline, you are paying about 1/3 extra. That $3.50 gallon of gas would be about $2.00 if Bush and company had not put us into the sub-prime market. If you have trouble understanding this let me know.

Maybe you are one who thinks Bush should avoid the Chinese Olympic games opening ceremonies, he can no more do that than not kiss the ring of the pope, who is coming to see him this week. Bush isn’t a Catholic but he will suck on the ring. His banker is more important than the Pope and Bush will be there to suck on whatever is offered.

Enjoy your bribe, you will be paying for it for a long time, with interest.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Looking at Iraq

Pat Chandler — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:57:57 GMT

Looking at Iraq.

Congress is looking at Iraq this week, mostly through the eyes of General Petraeus. We have to admit that he is in the best position of any one American to know what is going on there but that doesn’t mean that he understands or that he will tell us what we should know. Not that he is stupid or a liar, he is biased and he still has a limited view.

Would you expect to get the same report from the Brakeman, or the Conducter that you get from the Engineer about a train wreck?. The first guy runs the brakes and the last runs the throttle, one is at the front of the train and the other is way in back but both are intimately involved in the wreck. The conductor experiences the wreck too and has to deal with the damage as best he can.. Certain aspects of the wreck might damage the career of either one so certain facts might get glossed.

I reveal what I think about Iraq by using a train wreck as a metaphor.

Petraeus is being paid well to run this war. Congress is being paid to oversee this war. We are paying dearly for this war. We deserve some straight talk about it and we aren’t getting any from Patreaus or Geo. Bush.

Is this a war or an occupation? Is this to preserve Iraq or are we just preserving our power in Iraq? Is there a difference between civil war and wide spread sectarian violence? Why can’t we get an answer from the very people who should know?

Here are some questions I’m certain most of us wanted someone to ask during the hearings, if you watched them. I copied them from Bartcop.com;

"Fine, but could you please answer the question?"

"I'm sorry, but I still haven't gotten an answer to my question."

"So why can't I get an answer to my question?"

"What's it going to take to get an answer to my question?

"Have you been ordered to not answer this question?"

"Did the President or Vice President order you to mislead us?

We had two of the major players in Iraq on the witness stand (not under oath, so they may not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.) and Congress didn’t get one straight answer to anything important that I noticed.

Now you may not like this but everyone of them was barking up the wrong tree and they knew it.

The question we must all face before this election is: Will we let George W. Bush attack Iran in our name?

Think about that before you answer.

I don’t know that we have the power to stop him. He can order our military to do almost anything he wants. Only if the men ordered to execute the action can believe whole-heartedly the order is illegal or morally wrong can they refuse the order and they would then be in for some bad times.

One legal answer might be for Congress to proscribe such an attack without their prior explicit approval. I don’t have an idea how that is done.

Another is to remove him as Commander-in-chief, impeachment, that unfortunately isn’t being pursued.

I listened to Dick Cheney today, I’m frightened.

The war in Iraq isn’t small potatoes but it isn’t all that is going on. Bush is well known for saying look, look over there and then doing something quite different way over elsewhere.

He has said that he must neutralize Iran because the next President can’t be trusted to do it. He thinks he‘s on a Jihad or something, obfuscating in front of Congress is to get your eye off the ball.

God I hope I’m wrong.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Why Republicans are bad dogcatchers

Pat Chandler — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:11:40 GMT

This is only true if you vote for dogcatcher but I’m going to give you reasons enough to not vote for Republicans for any office at all. To be a Republican office seeker one must subscribe to some certain beliefs; (Republican voters just need to vote loyally and not think too much about it). For starters, you’d need be against both birth control and euthanasia, not a good start for animal control officers. Soon you’d be up to here in cats and dogs.

Office holders in Republican politics must at least pretend to believe in some basic dogma. If they don’t believe, of course they must pretend to, and that makes them hypocrites and since no one can believe all of the Republican principals they do have a large pool of hypocrites. Democrats are liberals, they don’t allow anyone to tell them what to think or believe and they sometimes lose elections because of it, but they don’t have to lie to themselves.

Here are some of the basic Republican dogma and talking points;

Government must be kept small.

Military must be kept huge.

Taxes must be kept lower.

No one should ever get something for nothing.

Abortion is bad.

Homo-sexuals are badder.

Everything should be good for business.

War is good for business.

Government should stay out of your life unless to prevent

abortion or homosexuality or to spy on you.

The second amendment mentions lots about guns but never mentions well regulated.

Our constitution is paramount and perfect.

The constitution can be changed by the President if he wants to torture someone.

Intelligent design should be taught in schools.

War is honorable and those who are fighting wars should be honored.

Those who are crippled in wars can’t fight any longer and shouldn’t expect something for nothing.

Regulation is bad for business.

Lawyers are bad for business, they enforce regulations.

Lawyers working for or running big businesses are ok. We put them in cabinet positions.

Sometimes things get rough and businesses need to lay off lots of workers, this is called "sad … or tough apples.

We offer tax breaks to businesses once they’ve trimmed the fat from their work force to help keep them in business.

Balancing the budget is something we strive for, it’s hard work because of Democrats.

A balanced budget is critical, and we are very critical of the last ones which were under Clinton.

We don’t know what the National debt does but we are trying to make it large enough that everyone will understand.

Democrats are always harping about raising taxes, they don’t understand how easy it is to borrow.

We don’t fix roads and bridges, we like things that go fast like bombers and rockets and fighters and….

Abortion is bad because it kills unborn cells.

Starvation is ok because most of the victims don’t look like us and have distended bellies and outsized heads.

Hard work and brains are all it takes to succeed in America.

Barack Obama must be stopped because he has come from nowhere.

Entering the USA without a visa or a passport is a crime unless you were brought here to be tortured.

Anyone who disagrees with any these points is filled with hate, hate for America, your freedoms and your way of life.

Be dismissive of hateful people.

A dogcatcher could be named head of FEMA if he’s been loyal enough.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

Bad dog food and lead covered toys.

Pat Chandler — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:29:38 GMT

China has been sending us some really harmful products. We’ve been buying them because they are cheaper to make over there than over here. You hear all sorts of reasons why this is true, low wages being a big one. Another factor is because China doesn’t regulate business hardly at all. China is hell bent on catching up and they don’t want anything to stand in their way, including restraints on quality or safety, thus they killed a lot of dogs and cats here in the US and dwarfed the intellectual capacity of children exposed to lead based paints. Oh well!

We have been going through an era of reduced regulation too. Everything from air-traffic controllers to meat inspectors to EPA have been affected by either reductions in force or reduced budgets or both. This really got started under Reagan, Bush, Clinton each did his share of damage too. Bush…

No one seriously argues that the sub-prime mortgage crisis isn’t tied to deregulation of the banking industry as a whole and lending in particular. Further, no one argues that we haven’t been letting millions of dollars slip through our fingers when we allow companies to bank in the Cayman Islands, Dubai or elsewhere. It is all a dodge of regulation and taxes. But it has been good for business, not us, business.

Bush favors an oxymoron he calls voluntary compliance. It just doesn’t work that way in business or on the personal level. Even my dog will comply right along until he wants to do his own thing, that’s why I have a collar on him and a leash handy.

So now in one the most crass examples of why we can’t trust the man, he wants the Federal Reserve to oversee all banking regulation. The Federal reserve is not a part of our government. I don’t know just what it is but it aint government. The thing is something, but not quite, like the Postal Service, a public corporation. Think about how well it would go if the Postal service regulated Fed Ex and United Parcel. You think about it, my head reels with the possibilities for deviltry.

I can’t believe how quietly this proposal is being greeted. If our Congress lets this thing happen we have very little hope. Privatization is a long standing goal of Republicans but once they understand how off the charts this proposal is, certainly they will know this as going too far by far. The Democrats, I can’t explain the silence.

If you read about this idea, it is touted as an idea that sprang unassisted from the Treasury Dept. Believe that if you want to, but this is a neo-con concept from egg to chicken. Bush or Cheney ordered them to come up with it. No bureaucracy ever suggested giving up some of it’s powers. Bankers, the people advocating this deregulation are the same people who advocated tighter restrictions on food stamps and personal bankruptcy. So regulation is good if it regulates the poor.

This is the Bush answer to today’s problem, tomorrow’s problems will involve credit cards and payday loans, neither industry very well watched. I dread hearing his response.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

I even can’t say I told you so.

Pat Chandler — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:26:44 GMT

This is getting a little worse than I expected.

I’ve been called negative more than once for pointing out that we are taking a ride in an economic hand basket. Starting a war and lowering taxes are two good ways to pump up the economy but not both at the same time.. Oh yeah, it’s the economy stupid.

Actually this is getting worse than I expected it would by a long shot. I figured it was only a matter of time before someone would figure out that the way to deal with the sub-prime crisis would be to deal with the sub-prime loans. They’ve taken a long time to get there and it may be too late by now.

We started hearing about this two years ago, people unable to make their mortgage payments because the phase 2 was kicking in where the adjustable part of Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) was sometimes doubling house payments. No one seemed to care because it only happened to the poor and dumb, those who hadn’t understood the contract and were too poor to hire a lawyer to interpret it and to dumb to not sign.

Anyhow, now everyone wants to do something about it, short of profit sharing, and it is a little late. Not long ago houses were worth what people were paying for them but not now. With two houses on each block going on the block as Repos the floor has dropped out from under all those homes around them.

So now a family able to make the original bait and switch payment is no longer able to make the suddenly bloated new payments. So they try to refinance but they can’t because of the new lower value of their home doesn’t qualify for a new loan. So, pride be damned they let it be repossessed and the rest of the homes around them decrease in value and more loans become more than the house is worth and the wheels go round and round.

This is called the sub-prime mess. Today it is bringing down banks at last so something will be done about it. It will be the wrong thing but it will be done. Banks are owned by rich people.

I would expect to look up in the sky and see people raining down except I don’t live near a tall building and this isn’t 1929. No that’s not going to happen now. This is 2008. We have safeguards in place that we didn’t have in 1929. Windows don’t open anymore.

We have a buffoon in place just like last time but his name isn’t Herbert Hoover this time it is George W. Bush. Don’t tell me there was nothing he could have done to prevent the problem, that will carry about as much water as saying there was nothing Hoover could have done. He didn’t care because it didn’t hurt his base.

He could have had Banks regulated at several levels. I’m one of the least savy guys in the world but I knew adjustable rate mortgages were nothing more than bait and switch. He could have regulated "bundling", I don’t know how that worked except it involves selling a pig in a poke. In this case when one pig dies as when a homeowner defaults because the interest rate jumped up beyond what he could pay, all the pigs start to stink. The whole "mortgage crisis" is just that, people with adjustable rate mortgages they can’t meet payments on (yes they signed them but so did the bank) Now who should get bailed out first? The people signing the paper or the people who wrote it in the first place.

Actually Bush set this up. He didn’t mean to, he just did. Some of you, those few younger than me, don’t remember what led up to the greatest depression until now. Without going into too much detail, here’s how it happened. Hoover relaxed regulations. The stock market became bullish beyond everyone’s dreams. People got giddy over stocks. Profits were to be made without really working. The more money one had the more they could make, so they borrowed to buy stocks, they sold their rings. Then they bought "on Margin". People mortgaged their homes to buy stock. As more money became available stock prices went up even more. Prices went up and a very few became fabulously filthy rich. One day the bubble burst. Sound familiar?

What Hoover failed to do was regulate what was going on. Those in power became even more rich and powerful. Those only trying to become wealthy lost their ass, the plow he pulled and the land he once pulled it upon. Money became concentrated it too few hands. Someone defaulted on a loan and the whole house of cards came fluttering to earth.

FDR was voted in and what he did to ease the problem was many faceted. Though not well known he fettered business. He put rules in place to regulate Banks, Banks were a problem then too. Then he created jobs. CCC, WPA and I don’t remember what all, they were make work jobs but for real wages and with many long standing results. Not nonsense like picking up dog doodoo at the park, but building parks and roads and things we still use. Real honest to goodness parks. One of my favorites is Timberline Lodge, but they are all over.

FDR didn’t just hand out welfare checks, he created jobs where men could learn skills and do real work of real value. This was some time ago, FDR did almost nothing for women. He didn’t bail out the Banks either, what he did was insure deposits up to $100,000.00 for each depositor, thereby restoring confidence in banks.. To this day, your bank can go tits up in the sun and you can still get your money back. FDR was born a rich man and died a rich man but he was able to think of the average and the poor and he helped us recover from the worst depression of all time. The war helped too, but we were on our way before the war kicked everything into high gear.

What Bush has done is give us welfare in the form of a tax refund. No job, no learning new skills, just a freebie check that when we get it he will have to borrow the money for. He expects us to spend it and whether we do or not doesn’t matter much to him. He’s going to be able to say, "See, trickle up doesn’t work".

Then this weekend he gave $1/3 of a trillion to banks and he guaranteed that Bear-Stearns didn’t pay with it’s so called life. Why didn’t he also slap a stop order on banks adjusting interest rates upward. Oh, that would help some little people, never mind.

No rich person is going to lose if Bush can prevent it, that’s his "base".

He thinks he can suspend Habeas Corpus and our constitutional right to freedom from unlawful search and seizure but he won’t declare a "bank holiday on repossessions" giving time for everyone to work together to solve this problem. We all have a dog in this fight, what is or isn’t done now will influence what sort of home you can afford to live in for the rest of your life.

Buy a roomy car that doesn’t require much gas.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler

On 60 Minutes

Pat Chandler — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:11:57 GMT

60 Minutes

Some 40 years ago I drove gasoline and other flammables around the Portland area. I had to keep a very strict log of my driving time and work time to at least indicate I was allowed to get enough sleep. Long haul truckers are required to log down time too. Of course if you fly much you’ve been kept waiting while the crew gets enough rest time. These rules are all in place to ensure that those in a position to endanger us don’t make stupid mistakes because of fatigue.

So I watched 60 Minutes Sunday night and they had a segment about the importance of sleep. They presented what to me looked like proof positive that sleepiness is almost as dangerous while driving as cell phone use and even worse than drunk driving. I wasn’t at all surprised.

I was surprised that the sleep segment followed immediately on the heels of the segment about the near death of the Dennis Quaid twins. Apparently at least 3 people were involved in the same mistake, I think it was the Pharmacist, the Dispensing Nurse and the Administering Nurse. Anyway 3 different people failed to read the label on the medication and the 2 babies were given adult doses. Of course this had to happen twice because even twins don’t share meds in a hospital, do they? The same exact mistake was made at another hospital about a year ago, killing 3 babies and endangering 3 more.

Dennis Quaid went on to make the point that more people die from medical mistakes than die in car wrecks. Wow. If he is right…?

What struck me was that there was a connection made between the long hours worked in the medical profession and the propensity for errors. I don’t know how many hours per week they work anymore, all I know I get from "Scrubs" but some shifts are grueling. It is a long standing tradition in the industry but perhaps it is time to change it. First I’d like to see some studies on the subject and then if something needs to be done, do it.

It was so obvious, watching the two segments right next to one another. The sleep study showing we need about 8 hours sleep per night and the previous segment with the claim that Medical errors are more deadly than traffic. The errors occurred on night shift. I remember that as being true of both cases

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler