Reporting All the News Stories Fit to Print

If there is any big story of the day it’s the fact that the Republicans in congress have proposed what I consider a rather apt compromise bill as to the Sequester crisis.  They proposed that President Obama himself be put in charge of the funds in question to be distributed to government agencies as he sees fit.  Some claim the Republicans are doing this to make the President more culpable and “involved” in blame should the Sequester tank the economy.  But I say “bring it on!” because to me its well worth the risk to get off dead center.  Governor Rick Scott of Florida has also done the unexpected in that he now agrees to accept government medic aid funds he had previously “rejected in principle”.  He says “As long as the government is one hundred percent funding the thing it’s fine with me”.  This of course has always been the case.  Still it’s nice to see a reactionary Republican governor exhibit a moment of lucidity.  The other day Randy Rhodes was talking about this fraud and abuse with doctors prescribing these motorized “Hove Around’ chairs that are expensive, for patients who don’t need them.  This is kind of the thing that is invited by the way Medicare is structured.  But it would not happen under Obama-Care because you have a private insurer.  By the same token this talk of “Death Panels’ is silly because, besides a few general government guidelines about who must be covered, there are no specific regulations- - -  that would necessitate “Death Panels” because the Insurance companies themselves, as they always have, been the arbiters of what is covered and made these “Who lives and who dies’ or some might call “Death Panel” decisions.

The mayor of Bell - - is guilty of pilfering a lot of money from that city and jacking property taxes way up to finance the Mayor and his cronies.  I heard the figure of six million dollars.  Talk show hosts point out that the mayor is an elementary school drop out- - but supposedly “a nice guy”.  Of course as Moe Kelly says, ignorance of the law is no excuse, if he’s trying to claim that.   Certain talents and aptitudes are needed for certain jobs.  For instance for computer programming you need the ability of mental abstraction and organization.  But a Supreme Court justice like Clarence Thomas also needs a certain “mental capacity” which he seems to lack.  You need that thing called “seasoning’ and a “judicial temperament”.  You have to be able to organize your thoughts to ask the right, relevant questions.  It’s a legal reality that a juror who refuses to participate in the dialog interchange, as Clarence Thomas repeatedly fails to do- - can be dismissed from the jury for “failure to deliberate”.   Did you hear that, Thomas?

I had Dr. Oz on today in part because he had promised his big anti-oxidant exposee today.  I couldn’t wait for information and last evening went on line and basically got the same information that was presented on the Dr. Oz show today.  It seems that Vitamin E raises the risk of prostate cancer by seventeen percent.  Beta Carrotine is the worst because he raises cancer risks in general, particularly that of lung cancer in smokers, which I should bear in mind.  Dr. Oz said that you get all the Vitamin A you need in one third of a carrot.  It seems that anti oxidents actually remove too many of the self produced “free radicals” in the body.  Because it seems that free radicals are things the body itself uses to fight infection.  Vitamin C does absolutely no good at all in fighting cancer and Dr. Oz maintains you need only 60 mg per day and not five hundred or a thousand as Judy recommends.   250 mg should do it.  It always puzzled me that a natural biological metabolical process the body does should now be considered an “abnormality”.

That Oscar guy who was an amputee Olympic star of South Africa accused of murdering his wife - - got bail in a South African court today.  He only had to put up the equivelant of a hundred thousand dollars, which would be an unheard of small amount for anyone so accused in this country.  Medical considerations may have played into the decision since his prostheses need constant attention.  This is the guy who fired a gun through a bathroom door repeatedly because he thought an intruder was in there- but it was just his wife.  When I first heard this story I thought it referred to excessive force used by the police- - since they do this sort of thing all the time and can get away with “I was fearful and tense so I started firing”.  How many times have you heard that one.  To me the charge should be “excessive force” in other words manslaughter.

A gigantic car bomb explosion went off in the streets of Domascus Syria yesterday and it was just the latest stunt by “the rebels’ to show that Bashier Assad can’t rest easily, even in his own capital city.  Of course it’s not an action guaranteed to win friends and influence people.  And meanwhile in Iran today they held a wrestling match between the United States in Iran and Akmadenejab was in good spirits.  So is this the start of “wrestling diplomacy”?  And the U S Postal Service is suing Lance Armstrong for all the money they spent promoting him.  If I were Lance Armstrong I would do everything I could to keep my name out of the news.  Drew Peterson was officially sentensed 38 years for killing his third wife, Kathleen Silva.  He told his fourth wife Stacy Peterson about it, and then he "made her disappear" because he believed as a former cop that in court they didn't allow heresay testamony.  But now they have changed the law so that "witnesses who are no longer available" may bet their testomony related in heresay fashion.  Many of the women associated with Drew Peternon don't believe that 38 years in prison is a long enough sentense, ans I am inclined to agree.