Sign of the Month - May 2014 - Truck as Sign

I am amazed and know not what to say. - Midsummer Night's Dream

See more Trucks as Signs HERE. 

Reading to Cats

This is the feel-good Pennsylvania story of the month. I love cats.

The Animal Rescue League of Berks County PA has a program called “Book Buddies.” Children volunteer to read to sheltered cats. Via Reddit.

Have patience if you go to their website. Everyone is going there for more information, more pictures and to donate to this great program. The boy in the photo thought he was "too dumb" to learn to read. Nope. His reading and grades have improved tremendously. And the cats are finding forever homes.

Asshats on Parade - Which ones are the Good Guys? Edition

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Hot damn I love Texans. A bunch of open carry Mofos showed up at the Jack in the Box and the employees called the Cops and hid in the freezer. Mofos were indignant that they were treated like criminals. Video at the link.

Open Carry Demonstrators Scare Restaurant Employees

By Ken Kalthoff

 “They locked themselves inside a freezer for protection out of fear the rifle-carrying men would rob them,” the email stated. “The demonstration had no signage that would have alerted anyone to their real purpose, and to our knowledge they did not attempt to contact anyone in the Fort Worth Police Department to advise us prior to the demonstration.”

Fort Worth police responded to the situation as if it was a robbery. 

Imagine if the employees were also big fans of open carry and 'stand your ground'. You want to be the Cop deciding who to shoot?

What are the PoPo going to do if some customer decides to stand their ground and shoots these Mofos? Charge the frightened customer?  Know how much a trial would cost?

Shaking my damn head. Not in my State. How much tax money do they have to waste in Texas? How crazy stupid are these folks? Maybe it is the heat? You have to admit that Texans have panache. What does Pennsylvania have to offer? Scrapple? Quakers? At least when we go out to get a hamburger, we do not end up hiding in the freezer. I will take it. I am getting a little too long in the tooth for hide and seek. And scrapple is delicious.

A Vast Wasteland May Be Soon Upon Us

UPDATE: I wrote the original essay below in October 2013. I so hate to be right.

Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat', WHO warns

By Pippa Stephens

We need the Affordable Care Act. Why is the government shut down to prevent us from having health care? I have nothing funny, happy or partisan to say about this debacle. I say this:

CDC Threat Report: ‘We Will Soon Be in a Post-Antibiotic Era’

• BY MARYN MCKENNA
 

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;

• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;

• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;

• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”

WPA Poster

We are in bad shape. We are 37th in health care outcomes among all the nations. And we pay the most for health care. That is bad, it is true. It is worse than folks think. Some Governors are resisting the ACA. Their solutions to these serious disease issues are, for example:

1. Defund women's health clinics which diagnose and treat men and women for STDs;

2. Close the only public tuberculosis hospital in the state and house the contagious patients in an old motel in a large city.

This creates active disease vectors in major population areas. These diseases will bubble upward from the poor, who cannot get medical treatment, to the rich and privileged. Disease is no respecter of gated communities, security guards, or wealth. Everyone has heard of Typhoid Mary, right? As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Do we really want to go back to 1940s? Those who do not remember and learn from history are doomed to repeat it.