I WENT INTO THE HOSPITAL FOR A WHAT!

(Surgical Procedures, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute)

(Department of Health and Human Services, Frazer Chronicle)

 

So my medical malady has been pretty much chronicled by now in all the major news outlets, like the Hone Kong Times, (Alternative Electronic Information Network,) or AEIN, and the Axis of Logic. I’d known for a while that something was maybe wrong with my inner-workers, and a final aching in my left arm ending in my left chest, and the failure of a stress test put a date, time, and heart specialist in my short future.

My blood sugar count was so high…..391 that it was determined that I’d need a few days to rectify the upward arc of this really important part of my blood make-up. Insulin was a dirty word…..at least to me was going to be used to get my blood sugar under control…..and there wasn’t going to be any arguments, or conversations…..it would be a drip, drip, drip.

After years of fooling myself, (the worst one to fool) here I was, under the gun and being thrown under the bus in an all-out effort to lower my blood sugar into the reasonable and acceptable levels so that I could continue to live. You know, usually we do things to ourselves, and pay for them years later, well, 69 is my years later and I’m going to be paying the piper right now.

It took four days for the hospital staff at St. Vincent, here in Green Bay to corral, and then lower my blood sugar readings, but lower it they did. My by-pass procedure was scheduled for Tuesday, October 8 at 6:30 A.M. I scored a jewel…..an all-star, and an all pro, Dr. John Seccombe was all of these things and more.

He and his able staff had my sorry carcass on the St. Vincent operating table for more than seven hours, they hacked and wacked, cut and sawed, induced a pump to breath for me, and another to distribute blood to the critical parts of my body. In the end…..it was a no hitter, a perfect game, no errors and no walks…..a perfect procedure.

And ya know what else…..they do every one of these procedures with the same proficiency every day of the week…..more than a thousand in a year. My procedure was a Coronary Artery By-Pass Graft, (a Cabg or “cabbage” as it’s called) and I needed not one, not two, or even three by passes…..I needed five…..St. Vincent was having a 5 for one introductory offer…..and I accepted.

Actually accepting the suggestions of my medical team, (which I really didn’t know that I had) tended to save my life, and will allow me to possibly regain some of the things that I have enjoyed since I turned 60, like enjoying my granddaughters and watching sunsets as well as sunrises. My medical team and their proficient efforts to offer my heart a second chance, in effect has offered me another chance at life’s beautiful little choices at love, my wife’s happy face, and to rekindle some old friendships.

 SCANNED LIKE A SUPERMARKET PIECE OF MEAT

I have been an active voice in the health insurance debate, and my opinion has remained steady in the fact that everybody needs access to health care…..and that opinion has been strengthened not only by my experience, but by that of my sister who resides in Michigan.

During my eleven day stay in the hospital for my by-pass procedure I became aware immediately that everything that was administered to me, my case, food, and medical supplies carried a bar-code as did my wrist band. It’s how hospitals bill patients, insurance companies, or vendors.

I am waiting for some sort of detailed bill that will tell me how much different supplies, equipment, procedures and medications have cost me, and my insurance company. It’ll be interesting to see how much a band-aid costs, an aspirin, or stool softener.

Hospital staff members really are masterful at commingling bed-side-manner and the administrative part of the equation. Florence Nightingale is not dead; she now carries a bar-code reader which, in today’s modern health care world is a necessity.

Whether it’s the Affordable Care Act, a derivative Obama Care, or some other government insurance plan that is devised to cover each and every American…..it needs to be a priority of not only our government, but every American as well. And for people to talk about them (not wanting the government telling them what to buy, how to be covered, or what to pay) is…..well, ridiculous.

Without an all encompassing health plan, as a nation, we will remain largely in flux, not quite as strong as we can be, and unable to operate in today’s twenty-first century technology. In my opinion for government to debate this issue is a waste of our time.

I haven’t talked to my sister, Elaine who had surgery yesterday, but I can tell you this, she’d agree with me when I talk about taking the business out of health insurance. At one of the most venerable times in a person’s life, other than a bar code gun, all of the business needs to be kept to a bare minimum.

I met some fascinating medical workers during my time in the hospital, from those folks who cleaned the floors, to the CNA’s, the LPN’s, RN’s, department directors, doctors, and their assistants, none get enough money…..not for what they do, and what they mean to people’s health.

I had the two cutest  little day-time health care givers, Shannon and Allison…..you guys know who you are, they treated me with dignity and respect, and made my stay on the heart ward much more then tolerable. Nurse Sarah was my P.M. and early A.M. health care provider, and she was every bit as competent as my day-time nurses.

I single these people out not because they where head and shoulders above any of the other care-givers, but because these women seemed to have a bed-side personality that was special…..at least for me. I hope that I wasn’t a demanding patient, but because if I was, they would have switched to a different gear and done the same great job.

RECOVERY MODE

It’ll take me a while to get my sea legs back, hey ripping a guy’s chest open, unplugging the lungs and re-routing the blood flow through a mechanical apparatus ain’t no small feat. I’ve been at this piece since Wednesday, and it’s already Friday.

During the course of my recovery I’ll be able to further research this animal that we call health insurance, cause I need to understand its issues. All I know is that I’m thankful that I and my sister have ample health care insurance and both have loving family’s members to help ease us back into our past lives.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Frazer Chronicles will be taking a break from blogging.  I should be back up to speed in a month to six  weeks.  Thanks for your interest in what I have to comment on about the world at large.

HAVE A NICE DAY!!

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE MESOPOTAMIA WAS?

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE MESOPOTAMIA WAS?

(Ron Duncan Hart, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Luke Johnson)

(Huffington Post, Michael Beschloss, Harbutt J. Fraser, Alan Bullock)

(Zbigniew Brzezinski, Michael Klare, Owen Berg, Green Bay Press Gazette)

(Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Thomas Ricks, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Owen Berg of Algoma, Wisconsin in a Community Views article printed in the Green Bay Press Gazette raised an interesting question about what would be done with apparently hundreds of Army vehicles that are being stored at the Oshkosh Corporations, Wisconsin storage area. According to Berg, there are (over 2000 parked at the Oshkosh airport.)

 

Gee pal, I have absolutely no idea or clue what’s gonna happen to them, your guess about scraping them or selling them at a public auction is probably pretty damn accurate. However your actuation about the scrap sale being rigged seems a bit premature, those 2000 trucks will be piles of rust long before your targeted sales date of 2033.

 

There is a history of Iraq that needs to be understood…because the violence has not subsided, but has gotten worse. Iran, known in classical antiquity as Mesopotamia, was home to the oldest civilizations in the world, with a cultural history of more than 10,000 years, hence its common epithet…..the Cradle of Civilization. Mesopotamia as part of the larger Fertile Crescent was a significant part of Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

 

Successively ruled by the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Medo-Persian, Seleucid and Parthian empires during the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity, Iraq was conquered by the Arab Rashidun Caliphate in the 7^th century, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age during the medieval Abbasid Caliphate. After a series of invasions and conquest by the Mongols and Turks, Iraq fell under Ottoman rule in the 16^th century, intermittently falling under Mamluk and Safavid control.

 

Ottoman rule ended with World War 1, and Iraq came to be administered by the British Empire until the establishment of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932. The Republic of Iraq was established in 1958 following a coup d’état. Iraq was controlled by Saddam Hussein from 1979 until 2003, into which period falls the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf War.

 

Hussein was deposed following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country, and the situation deteriorated to the extent that by 2007 Iraq was on the brink of a civil war. Even with a U.S. surge of troops, and the war being officially declared over in December, 2011, and U.S. troops beginning a draw-down of forces, conditions have continued to spiral more or less out of control.

 

THE POINT HERE IS SIMPLE

When the Bush administration decided to go to war with Iraq, the Pentagon, the Vice President, and his cronies should have read a bit of the Middle Eastern history. For the entire region, war is a way of life; it’s not that the populous want war, it isn’t that there has been industrial or manufactures’ profiteering, far from it. Actually the Cradle of Civilization has suffered mightily, thousands of civilians have died, and hundreds of thousands have been injured, wounded and broken beyond repair.

 

With little exception, loss of life and the carnage that war brings has been endured by the locals of the country for what must seem like eons, because there’s always seems to somebody who wants to invade the country.  

 

Fast forward to 1990, the Gulf War, and President George H.W. Bush, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 661 which imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, providing for a full trade embargo, excluding medical supplies, food and other humanitarian necessity, these to be determined by the Security Council sanctions committee.

 

After the end of the Gulf War and after Iraq withdrew from Kuwait, the sanctions were linked to the removal of weapons of mass destruction by Resolution 687. From 1991 until 2003 the effects of government policy and sanctions regime led to hyperinflation, widespread poverty and malnutrition. During the 1990’s the U.N. considered relaxing the sanctions imposed because of the hardships suffered by ordinary Iraqis. (I’m not sure what is meant by ORDINARY IRAQIS,) but President Clinton devised an oil for food program in 1996 to ease the effects of the sanctions, however there is little evidence that the food got to where it was supposed to go.

 

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Iraq was squarely in the cross-hairs of the Bush administration, Cheney and the Pentagon. The Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Carter Doctrine of 1980, the 1990 George H.W. Bush’s Gulf War, and then the junior Bush’s Desert Storm in 2003 really sealed the deal for the United States…..or so the conventional thinking went.

 

TRUMAN, CARTER, CLINTON AND THE BUSHES

These dogs do hunt, Truman, Carter and both of the Bush presidencies all held one theme with regards to Iraq and really the entire Middle East…..everybody keep your fricken hands off Iraq…..it belongs to the United States, it’s in our best interests!  Since 1947, and the Truman Doctrine, it has been the United States stance that Iraq was ours…..you don’t think so, look it up like I did.

 

The presidents, the Congress, the Senate and the cop on the corner don’t really give a crap with John Q Public thinks, or wants…..it’s our way or the highway! It’s the old (we have information that you don’t; therefore we’ll call the shots and make the moves.

 

Sadly the shots called, and the moves that have been made over the past decade and more have almost all gone horribly wrong…..the consequence, thousands of Americans killed, hundreds of thousands wounded, and trillions of dollars wasted on a fool’s gold mentality.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how inter-locked the (interests of the United States) are linked, President Truman couldn’t have foresaw the millions and millions of cars that would one day clog our roadways. Jimmy Carter was a stinking wimp, and needed his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski to model a Carter speech with words from the Truman Doctrine.

 

Clinton did his food for oil deal with most of the food and money going to Hussein’s bank accounts, leaving the poor Iraqi civilian population almost in the same shape as before the Clinton band aid fix program.

 

Just for a minute let’s stop and take a look at what’s been going on in Iraq in 2013 with regards to the number of civilian casualty figures, based on the Lancet study, they are listed as follows;

January, 177

February, 136

March, 163

April, 205

May, 630

June, 240

July, 921

August, 356

September, 885

Total casualties thus far for 2013, 3713, meaning that Iraq should not be very high on the list of vacation spots to visit in the Middle East.

 

So, Mr. Berg, with regards to your statement about locking the former president and his running mate vice president up in solitary on bread and water…..you’d better go back and dig up President Truman’s bones, maybe even further back…..I’m not sure. Whatever you decide to do Owen, good luck, you’ll need it.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

BREACH OF PRIVACY AND THE 19 WHO COULD!

BREACH OF PRIVACY AND THE 19 WHO COULD!

(Michael Janofsky, Joe Kay, Kevin Seifert, Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY)

(Kevin McCauley, Brian McIntyre, Commissioner Roger Goodell, Tom Pelissero, Frazer Chronicle)

 

For some…..in the private sector, if you get busted for illegal drugs, there’d be the old heave-ho and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out. But, with rare exceptions, that does not happen in the world of sports…..really the fantasy world of sports. How else could you explain working in an environment that actually condoned the use of drugs with such bizarre results as some of the growth enhancing drugs cause.

 

And sadly much of the sports world condones those who are users, as does the sports fanatics; it’s how important our sports teams’ success means to us. It’s week 5 in the National Football League which means the annual influx of players eligible to return from their four game suspensions. This year is no different than past years…..except there are more incidents of abuse…..that’s right…..MORE!

 

Try some of these figures on for size;

2013…..23

2012…..20

2011…..5

2010…..10

 

What’s the problem, only those players know…..but you can’t tell me that team officials and league hierarchy isn’t aware, and hasn’t been aware. Some of these guys are stars in the National Football League, while others are at, or near the top of, their respective teams and their playing positions. For so many to be suspended leads me to believe that there are more…..and the 23 so far in 2013, who have been suspended, are just the tip of the iceberg.   

 

And what happens when these footballers come back to their respective teams…..(hello, how are you, we’ve missed you, suit up…..and let’s go). I guess somehow I’m missing something here, in the real world things would definitely not be like that. Management would cast a weathered eye towards anybody who had been busted for drug use of any kind, but wait…..this is the National Football League where field results are the only thing that means anything.

 

THE VERY FIRST VERY BAD BOYS OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

As with anything else, NFL suspensions has a beginning, and Frank Filchock and Merle Alison Hapes will always be the first professional football players to be suspended, initially for life, for fixing and betting on the National Football League’s championship game.

 

The day before the championship game, which was played at the Polo Grounds in New York City between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, word got around that Filchock and Hapes had take bribes from Alvin Paris (New York bookmaker), to fix the game. 

 

New York Mayor William O’Dwyer had Giant owners Jack Mara, Wellington Mara, and Bert Bell informed of the police evidence against the two. Hours later the four met at Gracie Mansion (home of the N.Y. city mayor) and the mayor interviewed the players one at a time. Hapes admitted taking the bribe; however Filchock denied being offered any money.

 

 

 

Several hours after the players interviews by the mayor, Alvin Paris was arrested and confessed to bribing both players. Hapes was suspended by Commissioner Bert Bell, but Filchock was allowed to play. However during the Paris trial several weeks later, Filchock admitted under oath that he did in fact take the bribe money, oh and by the way, the Chicago Bears prevailed in the championship game, beating the New York Giants by a 24-14 score.

 

It would be another 16 years before the next player suspensions would take place…..and I vividly remember both players involved, Detroit Lion’s defensive tackle, Alex Karras, and Green Bay Packers, Paul Hornung, both for betting on games. The suspensions were for one season, and really sent a message to the players about gambling on NFL games.

 

Stanley Wilson, Cincinnati Bengal’s running back was suspended for using cocaine first in 1985 for the entire season, and again in 1989, this time the suspension was for life from the NFL. Wilson was a 9^th round draft choice of the Bengals, and played in 1983-84, 86, and 1988. His spotty career figures weren’t caused by injuries, rather by a weakness of cocaine. Following the 1988 Super Bowl, after an internal investigation by the NFL, Stanley Wilson was banned for life from any participation in the professional league…..he now resides in the Lancaster, California State Prison…..at least until 2021.

 

THE LIST IS ENDLESS

From body slamming quarterback, to stomping on a players head, to shooting one’s self in his leg, to being involved in his college scandal…..the list really is endless.  The first violator in a weapons passion was Terry “Tank” Johnson; a defensive lineman for the Bears was alleged to have six firearms and was (of course) in violation of a previous probation on other charges.

 

Detrimental conduct, violation of the player conduct policy, altercations against…..almost anybody, involvement in bounty hunting program…..of opponents, and a total of 141 player suspensions for illegal drug use.

 

Coaches aren’t immune either, Chuck Fairbanks, Head coach of the New England Patriots was suspended one game in 1978 for breaching his contract with the Pats. Quarterbacks Coach Wade Wilson was suspended five games for purchasing and using performance-enhancing drugs…..the information that I got did not state whether the drugs were for him, (Wilson) or for one of his quarterbacks.

 

And then there was the New Orleans Saints bounty program that was orchestrated by defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, whereby hitting certain opposing players, taking them out of a game…..and I suppose ending some careers, was rewarded allegedly by Coach Williams monetarily.

 

If players behave poorly, using unbelievably bad judgment, when coaches use poor judgment, it should be magnified because of their position in the pecking list of authority figures. When Gregg Williams admitted to conceiving a system whereby his players were paid for abusive unnecessary hits his professional career should have run its course.

 

However after a year’s suspension, February 2012 to February 2013, Williams was hired by the Tennessee Titans as a senior assistant defensive coach. I completely understand that professional football is a results driven operation, but according to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Williams’ acceptance of responsibility for his role in bounty-scape makes him (Williams) all better, and anyways, Gregg Williams’ says he’ll never be involved in any such “pay for performance” system again…..HONEST!

 

FIRST AND FOREMOST

Professional sports figures are thrust every day into the public venue, first by their professional position, and then by all manner of media. In fact, maybe the media should be held responsible for some of the activity of players, then the players themselves.

 

Professional athletes, with the possible exception of tiddley-winks players are given specialty care almost from the minute they don their chosen uniforms, and begin their journey through life. Many, many athletes come from diverse backgrounds, some from ghettos, some from broken homes, and some from single parent situations.

 

For many professional athletes, their first taste of success is through their sport in high school, for some the adulation must be intoxicating. And it’s a high that will only get higher as they make their way through the college ranks.

 

In many instances professional football players…..especially black football players can be susceptible to the lure of all the stuff that is being pushed at them. Some do not get a proven, capable, and honest mentor to help guide them through the maze of the business world that is connected to professional sports.

 

Down at the end of the line, a football player’s career can be measured in years…..three to five years to be exact. So obtaining a rock solid contract should become the very first goal that a player should want and trusting a ball club…..and to a degree a player agent should be approached with much caution.

 

Should we as fans be surprised by some of the antics that our professional hero’s exhibit…..of course the answer is no. Should we put our sports hero’s on some sort of pedestal, absolutely not…..at least in high school, that kind of affection and attention is setting them up for a possible fall from grace!

 

Getting back to Gregg Williams the coach, the first stop on the road to his professional career was of course at a high school program, a place where he began to hone his attitude and style of how he approached the game of football, I wonder how many of those impressionable kids he defiled.

 

THERE IS NO PLAYER PRIVACY

And then there’s Josh Freeman, squealing like a little bitch baby because somebody leaked the fact that he flunked a drug test that resulted in his suspension. Ya know JOSH your getting paid major league dollar bills to run up and down a football field…..get over it, take your punishment, and move on, hopefully clean.

 

There has been, for me, a sad feeling for football players that get caught up in drug mis-steps; it shows that for many, the support system that many trumpet really really isn’t there. Then to, there are simply bad actors who march to a different beat, figure that they are above the rules, and in fact aren’t smart enough to know when to stop their destructive activity.

 

Of course I never had the ability that these guys have, the only person who idolized me for my athlete ability was my children…..and they didn’t know anything at the time…..they were babies.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

AND THE ANSWER IS

AND THE ANSWER IS

(Wall Street Journal, Dylan Stableford)

(Bernice Napach, The Daily Ticker, Rick Newman)

(Lauren Lyster, Morgan Korn, Barbara Heins, Sean Goldrick)

(Al Brecken, Robert Finney, Health and Human Services, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Way to go Affordable Care Act October 1, 2013, you didn’t let those people who oppose Obama-care down, they’ve said for months that “government can’t operate anything smoothly” and already, on the very first day…..glitches appeared kind of like when you call a big box store to inquire about fixing your computer, it’s a sit and wait while your call is re-routed to…..India and some really bad music is played while you wait for somebody that can’t speak English and really has no idea what you’re talking about.

 

Look I personally want Obama-care, or the Affordable Care Act to succeed, I gotta go into the hospital this coming Friday for a week and more, and the stay is gonna wipe my butt out. Oh sure the Affordable Care Act won’t save me the $500 a day it’ll cost me for my stay, and some doctor and his team to break into my chest and fiddle around with my heart…..but it wouldn’t hurt either.

 

Of course those officials that were fielding questions about the foul-ups with the computer programs talked about the possibilities of what happened, and how the “technology (not) doing what it was supposed to do.” People simply did not want to hear that response, especially when some people talk about the negative with regards to government run programs.

 IN WISCONSIN AND MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Roughly 490,000 people under 65 are uninsured, one in every ten, in Milwaukee County one in 7 of those under 65 are uninsured. Unless these people are opting out of health coverage…..for whatever reason, Wisconsin must be a microcosm of most states throughout the country.

 

If one in every ten people is chancing not having to seek medical repairs during their early years (under 65), the United States is in deep trouble. Figure that one in every ten people you meet during the day is unguarded with regards to health care, that my friend is scary in and of itself.

 

I do know that there’s Badger Care here in Wisconsin that is a state program for those people who aren’t insured, but what about those people who fall between the cracks? Wisconsin’s fearless leader, Governor Scott Walker has set a goal of no more than 200,000 uninsured, how he choice that figure escapes me, it doesn’t make any sense.
 

Why is an acceptable number of Wisconsinites who don’t have health insurance set at 200,000, why not 171,000, or 301,000…..and how about -0-, isn’t that a nice round number. Does a broken leg hurt less if you have health insurance; is delivering a baby less complicated if you have health insurance?

 

Everybody needs to have access to health care, and under an all encompassing plan, and no, health care, and the access to…..is not a constitutional right…..but it is the right thing to do. Enough of this weak bull-crap about small business suffering, and having to shuffle around looking for a plan that they can afford…..we need to take the problem out of everybody’s hands, and put it squarely in the Federal Governments domain, where it belongs.

 

 THE GULLIBLE OF YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED

Obama-Care is the law of the land, and the Supreme Court reaffirmed Obama-Care, or the Affordable Care Act, yet many Republican Congressional members are hell-bent to defund it. Lost in the battle are those people that will be affected by it.

 

Health care premiums won’t necessarily rise; it’ll depend on where you buy your insurance, and will include the state you live in and the locality, also your age as well as your income. If you have a health condition you may see a decrease and if you don’t, you may see an increase.

 

Another myth of Obama-care is that its enactment will cause a vast number of small businesses to cut back employees hours, and some bigger companies to eliminate positions. It’s simply not true, the extra costs will be passed on to you-know-who…..us, the consumer. I really can’t understand these scare tactics that are used whenever one political party opposes the other over a controversial issue…,.and both sides of the aisle are guilty of this practice.

 

And Congress is not exempt from the law…..the law is for everybody, white, black, green yellow and red, and capitol hill officials aren’t above the law…..at least in this instance. However the Federal Government can help pay for the premiums of that coverage, just as it does now under the Federal Employees Health Benefits for Congress staffers.

 

It is a fact of our lives that a vast majority of us simply do not trust government, so it makes it easy when we get conflicting messages from our government. So we have to be willing to take the time to examine what information we do get before we make an assessment, and finally formulating our opinions, and sadly we aren’t very good at assimilating the information that we do get.

 

HERE’S WHAT TO DO

Here’s how to approach the question(s) of the Affordable Care Act, it’s not a secret, or a special recipe for success…..and opposed to what some people are saying, or thinking, neither Republicans nor Democrats want to see our government FAIL. I’ve heard that ludicrous and frankly bizarre accusation from conservative talk show hosts as well as sources from the printed media…..and television stations like Fox and Friends….. it’s simply not true, quit being so gullible.

 

Picture a new restaurant that opens on your block, do a majority of people rush down to sample the bill of fare or let a neighborhood friend take the initial plunge. That’s right, most of us wait until we hear how things are, menu winners are perfected and the dogs or flops are remedied.
 

Health insurance exchanges will need time to sort out the bad apples and practices just like any other brand new program. If we do it for the restaurants or a tool that we are considering purchasing, why can’t we do the same for an issue as complicated as health care.

 

And yes, you heard it here first…..the Affordable Care Act is complicated, there are millions of families that are going to be effected by this brand new way of dealing with a health care program, so we need to give it some time to smooth out the rough edges…..we owe it to OURSELVES!   

 

The Affordable Care Act has worked…..in Massachusetts as well as Connecticut, initiated by none other than Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney…..and copied several years later by another Republican governor, Jodi Rell of Connecticut. How did it work, exceptionally well, attested to by both Republican governors as well as a vast majority of the citizens in both states.

 

Yet when Romney decided to run for the presidency, he decried the plan and a state Republican Senator, Scott Frantz called the health care act that had been in place in both Massachusetts and Connecticut anachronistic, out of touch and potentially devastating to the economy and to business.

 

This is classic mis-information…..and needs to be addressed for what it is…..bull----, it’s the kind of dribble that happens all the time in Washington…..and we need to have our facts straight to debunk the accusations for what they really are.

 

After the dust settles (there is a time set aside for just that) we can individually decide what is best for each and every one of us. I for one can’t afford $500 a day charges for a hospital room, $75 band aids and $25 aspirin. Oh yeah, don’t forget that gauze and athletic tape at $10 an inch, or the food @$%*&^+ that I’ll be eating for (God only knows) how much.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

HELLO…..CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME OUT THERE!

HELLO…..CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME OUT THERE!

(Al Jazeera America, Reuters, National Wildlife Federation, Rick Jervis)

(noLa.com, United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration)

(Agence France-Presse, Naoki Swartz, Chris Kirkham, Jessica Leader, Julie M. Rodriguez)

(John Charles Milne, Department of Commerce, Land Management, Jo Tuckman, Frazer Chronicle)

 

And so it begins, after three years, and billions of dollars in reparations to countless recipients, British Petroleum has come to the realization that money, in fact can’t buy happiness. Major industries, manufacturers, and those Captains of Industry should learn a lesson from the disaster that was the Deep Horizon oil spill.

 

I will say one thing about the United States…..and her drive to be the leader in all that she surveys, the Gulf of Mexico spill, or the (Deep Horizon oil spill, the BP oil spill, or the BP oil disaster, or Macondo blowout,) began in April 2010 at the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, estimated to be between 8% and 31% larger in volume than the Ixtoc 1 oil spill.

 

The resulting oil-spill, (over 87 days,) spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels, (210 million U.S. gallons of crude into the sea.) There was a massive response as attempts to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1.84 million gallons of Corexit oil dispersant.

 

The above recites the problem that initially plagued British Petroleum, and the United States Government and the fisheries on the coastline of Louisiana. In June of this year, British Petroleum declared that it had wrapped up (active) cleanup operations in three states, but continued to patrol a stretch of beach of Louisiana.

 

Despite the massive initial response and cleanup, the effort did not collect huge amounts of the oil, which kept washing back upon shore when storms churned up the ocean floor. BP wrapped up cleanup efforts in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama as well as Florida. I’m not sure what that means, I can remember a time when I said that a (job was done,) I didn’t monitor anything, wasn’t aware of long term problems or damage…..is this what British Petroleum  means, or will they throw hundred dollar bills at protesters like a hospital throws band-aids to patients who have a cut on their finger?

 

BP has been around for a while, since 1909, like the chicken and the egg; BP was founded after the automobile…..1909 to be exact. The company has gone through growing pains, just like any other company, Anglo-Persian Oil Company, 1909, Angelo-Iranian Oil, 1935, British Petroleum, 1954, BP Amoco, 1998, and BP in 2001.

 

The company today is a multinational oil and gas company, and is the 5^th largest energy company by market capitalization, and also the 5^th largest company in the world measured by 2012 revenues, and the 6^th largest oil and gas company measured by 2012 production. The company operates in more than 80 countries, and employs in excess of 85,000 people.

 

BP produces petroleum, natural gas, motor, aviation fuels and petrochemicals, derived from more than 3.3 million barrels of crude a year. In addition the company has a $19,733 billion dollars operating budget with revenue amounting to $388.285 Billion, and a profit of $11.816 Billion.

 

Is BP too big to fail, well you be the judge, it is estimated that in the United States alone, the former British Petroleum Company operates 300,000 gasoline stations just in the United States…..and the number is growing by the day.

 

If BP were to go out of business tomorrow…..for any reason, the impact would be felt around the world, and more than two million people would suddenly be left without a job. Also if BP ceased operations tomorrow, a goodly chuck of reparation activity would also come to an end, the repairs to the environment, to industrial sites, and to those people who are counting on their financial future because of the financial settlements paid would probably end.

 

DEEPWATER HORIZON, AND IXTOC I OIL SPILL

The IXTOC I oil spill occurred on June 3, 1979 in the Campeche Bay of the Gulf of Mexico which was being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling red Sedco, about 60 miles northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters that were 160’ deep. A blowout resulted in the largest oil spill…..at that time, in the world.

 

Mexico’s government-owned oil company, Pemex, (Petr’oleos Mexicanos) was drilling with the also government owned Sedco 135-F submersible, when an equalize pressure operation failed at the 11,800’ depth, blowing out the well causing more than 3 million barrels of crude, (130,000,000 gallons) to contaminate 1,100 square miles and 162 miles of shoreline.

 

The aftermath was that Premex spent $100 million dollars to clean the spill, but avoided most compensation claims by asserting sovereign immunity as a state-run company. The U.S. government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets and the Texas shoreline.

 

Where did all that crude go.....well, a great question, some went to the Mexican beaches, about 36,000 metric ton, and approximately 4000 metric ton landed on Texas beaches. And the rest of the oil, about 120,000 metric ton, or about 25% of the spill sank to the bottom of the Gulf, where it remains to this day.

 

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon accident, nobody lost their life in the IXTOC 1 disaster, but the Deepwater Horizon proved to be a real gusher, as estimates run from 1000 barrels to more than 62,000 barrels per day. All told the spill affected 68,000 square miles and more than 500 miles of coast-line have been defiled by an industrial accident the likes of which human-kind has never experienced.

 

DEEPWATER HORIZON STILL LEAKING

Researchers think not, they figure that although the oil slicks that appear periodically were produced by the Deepwater workings, but not from the blowout, but from tanks, and the Gulf floor. While the news of where the oil slicks are coming is depressing, the damage has already been done to the marine life. The Corexit dispersant and the four million barrels of oil released into the environment have already worked their devilish damage.

 

However by far the most stupid thing that BP has been doing here in the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico is to dispute facts, figures, and the long boney finger of justice. What  BP did in the Gulf of Mexico was criminal, should the company be broken for what they and other venders did…..well I don’t know, I guess others will have to judge that.

 

What happened Monday, September 30, 2013 will go a long way in determining how our judicial system is going to work against the big bad corporate world…..of the world. The damage that has been done just might be irreversible…..and that is scary…..and that’s coming from a guy who doesn’t really give a crap about the future generations of the world.

 

But gee, come on…..which kind of dumb do we really have to be as a people not to understand that tapping into a huge underground reservoir of…..anything might kick off a chain-reaction, putting us all in danger…..me included…..and I don’t like that.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!