Bug bites can be irritating. Even if they aren’t serious like a Black Widow or Fiddleback spider bite, or super painful like a hornet sting, if you have an allergic reaction to one it can be a bit, shall we say, concerning. This was the case about three weeks ago for me. I had two bites, one on my inner right bicep and one on the middle-left side of my back. The one on my arm was swelling up a lot and getting discolored so the wife makes me go to the dermatologist.

Well, our usual Doc was booked, and couldn’t see me the next day either, so from a friends referral I went to another medical group and at least got in to see a physician’s assistant. Nice gal, very personable, very thorough. When she looked at my back she said that there was a little something that she’d like to biopsy, just to be on the safe side. Why not? She gave me a script for creme for the bite and all was fine and dandy in a day or two.

Two weeks later, on a very busy day, I get a call from her — she didn’t sound so perky which threw up a few red flags on my end.

The biopsied tissue had come back malignant — it was a melanoma. My stomach was starting to churn a bit on hearing that. However, she said that it appeared to be a very early-stage malignancy so not to be freaked out, but she gave me the number of a recommended surgeon and strongly suggested that I call him, like right after hanging up with her. Which I most certainly did.

I had surgery yesterday to get that crap off and out of me. The doc said that everything went extremely well, and it looks like all will be good. We’ll know after that chunk of my back is analyzed. I see him on Thursday and should find out then.

When I first met the surgeon he told me that I was a very lucky man. I wasn’t due for another full dermatological exam for another six months, and that six months might have been the difference between being able to blog for another five years or . . .

Don’t put off getting looked at. I’ll get to know my new gal pretty well as I will have to have quarterly exams for a year or so to be on the safe side. The only rub at this point was that before the surgery date the surgeon had me go back for another look and they biopsied two more little buggers. I’m thinkin’ good thoughts though. Don’t need to be payin’ for a new addition to the surgeon’s house don’t ya know.

Seriously — get yourself checked. Your life does depend upon it!

Like it’s a real stretch to figure out that one?

For whatever reason, and I mean whatever ’cause there have been a myriad of opportunities to get this done over the past 32 years — Roman Polanski was finally arrested as he entered Switzerland. If you need a refresher of why the perv was collared this Salon piece details his drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year old girl. I agree with what Bob Beckel said on Hannity the other night, “If it had been my daughter he’d be dead!”

Lefties out here in media-sotted La La Land are rushing to Polanski’s defense, begging for mercy and forgiveness as the old bastard is 76 years old, the girl’s mother was all for the deed in the first place, the victim doesn’t want to go through any of this again, and the trial judge was a bit “hinky”. I think Ace has that last point covered quite well:

One can make a reasonable case that Polanski had reason to flee given this weirdness with the judge, but, again, the judge was then removed from the case and he had every opportunity to negotiate his return to the American criminal justice system.

At the end of the day: He forcibly (or at least statutorily) raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl and we’re supposed to get all weepy about his plight because in the interim he’s delivered such major cultural contributions as Frantic and Pirates!

Oh, Here’s My Proposal: Because the judge tried to stage-manage the trial and so it wasn’t really “justice” at that point but a scripted faux reality show, we give Polanski a pass on any additional charges he might get for being a fugitive from justice.

So, we toss that stuff. Done. The judge acted badly, so we don’t prosecute for actions that one can reasonably say were connected to the judge’s bad behavior.

Now, we simply proceed to sentencing him for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old child, as should have been done 32 years ago, rather than letting him vamp off to Europe to direct a movie.

Exactly! This old used-up child molester deserved to draw his last breath in a dank cell with some hairy Bubba buggerin’ him up the old wazzoo!

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Reader Paulo Stool is the man and has identified the Mystery Car this ol’ Okie has been seeing running around Santa Monica uncammoed as a Korean SsangYong Actyon sport SUV. For a couple of months I didn’t see it again, but in the last week it’s been parked within the same block almost every AM. Even saw it yesterday and commented about it to the guy who is helping me with Missy’s walk for a few days — more on that later.

Digging a bit deeper it’s now apparent that it actually is an all-electric SUV from Ontario, California based Phoenix Motorcars. Looks like some have known about this since 2006 so it’s really not very new news. Since the website is public and they are taking advance orders I’m not sure why it’s running around without badges — maybe they don’t need no stinkin’ . . . no, I can’t finish that sentence.

Here’s the skinny according to the company:

Introducing the revolutionary sport utility vehicle (SUV) from Phoenix Motorcars. Designed and engineered to fit your lifestyle, the four-passenger, zero-emission, advanced battery electric SUV can travel at freeway speed. Equipped with a revolutionary lithium titanate battery, this SUV will travel over 100 miles on a single 10-minute charge.* And, with a sophisticated chassis and regenerative braking, this fully electric vehicle is not only powerful, it’s practical and really cool.

• * Off-Board High-Power 250kW Charger required for 10-minute charge.

It uses the same type of batteries as the Tesla. Here a pic of the SaangYong in red — I like red. The Phoenix is available in red.

Here’s the little Korean sucker showin’ off its 4WD moves at a SsangYong Actyon trial race at Attart off road Park in Greece:

These Phoenix Motorcar vehicles are front-wheel drive only, so they aren’t gonna be able to do that. However, for the Southern California freeway market, especially when there are more rapid-charging stations available, this looks like it might just be a trippy little ride. It’s a real car, with a real back seat and a real cargo area. Nice looking inside, too. Now the sprout-munchin’, Global-Warmin’-afearin’ enviro-nuts among us won’t have to drive around lookin’ so dorky. Dang, that’ll make ‘em harder to spot — Heh!

Wait a sec — they got ‘em a trucklet, too. OK, enough already . . . mystery solved. Thanks Paulo for the tip. Now I don’t have to think about this one anymore.

Technorati Tags: SsangYong Actyon, lithium titanate battery

Long time readers of this blog know that I believe that the whole new religion of man-caused climate change is a lot of manufactured hooey. Still, even though many early believing scientists have left the faith, many more still cling to this belief and continue suckling at the AGW-funding teat. And, they still throw up that CRU Archive “hockey stick” graph that shows extreme acceleration in global warming in the 20th Century as evidence, as proof that they aren’t just blowin’ expensive, tax-laden smoke up our butts. Gee, wonder what would happen if it could be shown that the data-set used for that graph was so blatantly cherry picked that calling the results a lie would be an insult to lying?

No wonder the AGW powers that be tried so hard to keep Steve McIntyre from getting his hands on the core data! When he finally did, what he found out was . . . there IS NO HOCKEY STICK:

McIntyre, of Climate Audit (site is currently understandably SLOW!), writes the following about the above graph:

The next graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red – the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black – the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive. The difference is breathtaking.

Breathtaking indeed. In a fair-and-balanced world this would provoke mea culpas all over the place and those scientific folks would be reexamining everything to help make sense of the Global Warming panic they’ve caused world-wide. The reality is that there is no such thing as fair-and-balanced in the catechism of the Holy Order of the Global Warming Believers. More detailed info of McIntyre’s discovery can be found at What’s Up With That including a Cliff’s Notes version of this revelation for the less technically minded.

So, any chance that the Main Stream Media will cover this revelation before Copenhagen? Not very damn likely. In the comments section one Cassandra King writes:

This scandal will never be shown to the public at large in any form, the Mann ‘creation’ will be allowed to fade away silently until the Mk 3 version can be invented.

The MSM (main stream media) has been largely bought off, can you imagine the BBC/CNN/ABC allowing this to air? Editors are already being leaned to peddle a whole raft of bogus/rehashed reports in time for the Copenhagen festival of lies’N’denial.

The conference is dedicated to one goal, the actual truth doesnt enter into the equation, the political classes have bought themselves a consensus and that is what they will see, nothing will be allowed to tarnish and undermine the political show.

The atendees will only be shown what they want to see, the ‘evidence’ has all been manufactured beforehand, they will be shown flooding/droughts/melting in easy to digest visual format.

Anti ’science mumbo jumbo for dummies’ the equivolent of a flashy powerpoint display/hardsell by a producer of junk bonds, it wont matter to them if the venue is snowed under 10 feet of snow and if the polar ice caps reach Newfoundland and the Falklands island chain, it wont matter if the global temp avg plummets.

The constructed man made global warming narrative is sacred now, without that narrative the polititians do not have the excuse they so desperately need to create a whole new political reality, the wholesale theft of democracy, the huge transfer of power to the new political paradigm.

The political classes have worked too hard for too long to give up just because of a small unimportant thing like actual reality, the stakes are just too high, the amount of time and money too great for the AAM based narrative to be allowed to fail, the political classes need and long for the endless power that will flow to them if they can hold off reality long enough to enact their new world order.

Methinks Ms. King is on to something. As for the MSM, this is just another one of those Greatest Stories Never to be Told.

It’s up to us — Spread the word!

Technorati Tags: hockey stick, Steve McIntyre, RCS chronologies, Schweingruber Yamal sample, Global Warming

About a month ago The Anchoress took off from blogging for a personal retreat. Evidently she has been having a bit of trouble putting into adequate words what was gleaned from that period of contemplation. However, in a post today she wrote this:

And increasingly, even when my kneejerk instinct to a headline or a piece of news is to snarl, or rage, or smirk, I remember:

“Everything” is about nothing.
Everything ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb.
All is consummated.
We are forever and always at the Last Supper, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.
Time ended with the tearing of the veil and the rolling back of the stone.
The rest is illusion and catching up.
There is nothing to be afraid of.

And when I remember that, I dash all of my fury, all of my love, all of my passion against the cross of Christ, and settle beneath their shards and fragments as they rain down upon me, and pass and bite and dissolve. And I pray, most particularly for the event or the person or the feeling that has roused my headstrong, foolish passion and lured me toward the illusion, and away from detachment, wherein is found humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace.

I have to admit I was struck by the wisdom and the rebuke waiting for me in these words. Although I will never find true depths of “humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace” that she will, (trust me on this), I do need to remember that as crazy as the world can seem, and as terrible a future that can be imagined — Mankind only thinks it’s in control.

Gotta remember that a lot more often . . .

Lowell Brown over at Truth North News & Commentary takes a look at Switzerland’s health care system and likes a lot of what he sees. Here are the bullet points of his analysis of the Swiss system.

1. There is an insurance mandate for all individuals.

2. The government defines a what the insurance benefit will be for all standard health insurers.

3. Insurance companies are not allowed to deny coverage to any individual.

4. Health insurance and medical procedure prices are made publicly available.

5. In exchange for providing health insurance to consumers, insurance companies receive premiums from consumers and risk-adjustment payments from the government in order that insurance companies are not punished if they decide to insure a sicker population.

6. Premiums are community rated, meaning that sick and healthy individuals pay the same price within each age group {…}

7. Individuals are allowed to purchase supplemental insurance as well (there is no regulated benefit for supplemental insurance).

8. There is significant cost sharing in all insurance plans (i.e.: deductibles, 10% coinsurance rates up to an annual ceiling).

9. Open enrollment occurs twice per year (June and December).

Could something like this work here for US? Lowell comments:

A Swiss model for the USA might even be great for us. No, it doesn’t follow free market principles strictly, but that’s not possible with healthcare — or, at least, in the USA we’ve made a decision as a society that we will not let the market alone decide whether people get medical care. {…} Switzerland has made the same decision, but has insisted on competiton among insurance companies, individual involvement in choosing insurance, and transparency of cost — all core free-market principles.

And “core free-market principles” are what’s missing from the Obama/Democrat’s plan. Speaking of the Congressional Demwits, now we’ve got Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, claiming that it’s too difficult to put the full text of the health care bill online for the other Congressfolks, let alone any of us that might be interested, to read.

If that sounds like the Senate Dems in the Finance Committee are hiding something, well —

If it looks like BS and smells like BS . . . it’s BS!

They’re hiding a lot of somethings. Call and write that load of blithering idiots whose salaries you are paying and tell them to READ THE BILL!

We’ve got lots of time and if there are going to be changes in the delivery of health care in America — we had better get this one right.