Virginia Tech shooting

I know little to nothing about today’s event - neither does anyone else, really, but if you want to try to follow it, I suggest Wizbang.  Here’s their first post that has many, many updates.  It seems that it may have started when the shooter found his girlfriend in bed with another guy.

Here’s their second post, made now that the breaking aspect of this news has slowed down.

Two things: Let’s not operate as if we know all the facts yet...show some restraint in theorizing while discussing this.  More importantly, keep the victims and their families in your thoughts.

Cuban Refugees, or How Moore Tried Yet Again To Fool You

It never ends.  I actually thought, given how screwed up our health care industry is, that Moore would have plenty of material and be able to make a compelling documentary filled with the truth.  It wouldn’t be necessary to resort to cheap stunts, abusing people, misdirection and flat-out bullshit in order to tell the story of American health care.

Many feel that with all the flaws, the system of health care in America is better than anywhere else.  Proof of that would seem to be that historically, the wealthier a nation grows and the better overall health care it provides, the fatter the citizens get.  Well, me and Mikey are proof walking of that theory.  Well, proof waddling, anyway.

Still...insurance companies make medical decisions and lawyers have made it insanely expensive to practice medicine.  Those two things alone could have made for truthful, compelling footage.  Instead...Mikey pulls another stunt.  This time, he took a bunch of people who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 to Cuba for medical care.  I suppose his intention was to prove how wonderful socialized medicine is as opposed to the way we do things.  Only Moore would think that a third-world communist dictatorship has better health care than America.  If he loves this country so much, why is he constantly, without exception, putting it down?  Does he ever have anything good to say about America that isn’t a ploy to set up his next insult or criticism?

But I digress.

Here’s the problem(s) with this typical Moore trick: One, we have no way of knowing who has access to the hospital he chose.  Can the average poor person in Cuba walk in like he did?  Two, he’s co-opting 9/11 again to make another dump truck full of cash, just like he did the last time.  Three, one can walk in to any hospital in America and be treated.  They cannot refuse to treat you.  Four, it’s quite possible that Moore lied just to get these people involved:

Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.

Yeah, you hear about new medical breakthrough coming out of Cuban hispitals like, every week, don’t you?  Where’s the stories about these breakthrough techniques?  Does Moore expect us to believe that not one single New York reporter would have gotten wind of it, and being a New York reporter - which, in case you’ve somehow forgotten, is where the frigging towers fell - wouldn’t have shouted it from the rooftops?

I’d like to see some data about these new techniques.

Regardless, some ill 9/11 workers balked at Moore’s idea.

“I would rather die in America than go to Cuba,” said Joe Picurro, a Toms River, N.J., ironworker approached by the filmmaker via an e-mail that read, “Joe and Mike in Cuba.”

After helping remove debris from Ground Zero, Picurro has a laundry list of respiratory and other ailments so bad that he relies on fund-raisers to help pay his expenses.

He said, “I just laughed. I couldn’t do it.”

First of all, to make a donation to Joe Picurro to help him with his medical expenses, donations can be made through the FealGood Foundation.

WAYS TO GIVE
Donations

100% of the operating income for the FealGood Foundation is provided by undesignated contributions.  You can help improve the lives of 9/11 first responders and their families by supporting the FealGood Foundation and making your tax deductible gift today.  Donations are accepted via Paypal (please direct payments to [email protected]) or by sending a Personal Check to the mailing address listed below.  Credit Cards (Visa/Mastercard/Discover) can be accepted via phone only at (631) 724-3320.

FealGood Foundation
144 Shenandoah Blvd
Nesconset, New York 11767

If you wish to contact us with questions please send an email to [email protected]

The website also sells t-shirts and posters.

That would be helpful to Joe Picurro.  Not promising him a miracle in Castro’s tinpot little dictatorship.

Of course Moore being the sleazy, opportunistic, nihilistic selfish prick that he has always been, you just know someone got screwed over.

Michael McCormack, 48, a disabled medic who found an American flag at Ground Zero that once flew atop the Twin Towers, was all set to go to.

The film crew contacted him by phone and took him by limo from his Ridge, L.I., home to Manhattan for an on-camera interview.

“What he [Moore] wanted to do is shove it up George W’s rear end that 9/11 heroes had to go to a communist country to get adequate health care,” said McCormack, who suffers from chronic respiratory illness.

But McCormack said he was abandoned by Moore. At a March fund-raiser for another 9/11 responder in New Jersey, McCormack learned Moore had gone to Cuba without him.

“It’s the ultimate betrayal,” he said. “You’re promised that you’re going to be taken care of and then you find out you’re not. He’s trying to profiteer off of our suffering.”

Moore’s publicist did not return calls from The Post. But McCormack played a tape for The Post of a telephone conversation between himself and a Moore producer. The woman is heard apologizing for not taking McCormack, while saying the production company was not offering anyone guarantees of a cure.

“Even for the people that we did bring down to Cuba, we said we can promise that you will be evaluated, that you will get looked at,” said the woman. “We can’t promise that you will get fixed.”

Can you imagine?  Imagine the feeling of thinking that a famous rabble-rouser was going to grease some wheels and get you to a new breakthrough treatment in a foreign land, only to find out that bastard left you out of it.

Anyone want to guess why McCormack was left out?  I will make a wager that he didn’t say the right things in the interview, and Moore simply cut McCormack out of the loop out and never gave him a second thought.  This was a very stupid move on Moore’s part, by the way.  McCormack is a very outspoken opponent of the way first responders have been treated by everyone from the City of New York all the way up to the Feds.  He was a medic at Ground Zero.  He’s a whistleblower of sorts who allegedly “leaked” EPA records about the toxicity of the dust surrounding Ground Zero.  He’s connected to the 9/11 “truther” movement.  In fact, he’s often a featured speaker at Truther gatherings.

In other words, he’d have been perfect for Mike’s movie.  Unless...Moore’s scared of being too connected to the Truthers?

Participants in the Cuba trip were forced to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting them from talking about the project, the sources said.

Yeah, there’s a surprise.  I wish one of them would have the balls to break it...what could Moore and Weinstein do?  Attack a sick Ground Zero hero because they told the truth?  Yeah...I’d LOVE to see that play out in the press.

If you were on this Cuban trip...speak out.  Moore can’t touch you without ruining his chances of making another Brinks truck full of money.  Money is more important to him than anything else, and that means you would be safe to speak out.

Travel to Cuba is severely restricted from the United States, but Moore’s crew was granted access, the producer told McCormack, through a “general license that allows for journalistic endeavors there.”

Hmm.  Does that sound like lying to the government to get a visa to anyone else?  I think taking Americans for medical treatment falls well outside the purview of “journalistic endeavors.” I’d like to see some legal-minded folks take a glance at the necessary laws pertaining to travel to Cuba and see if maybe he didn’t break one or three.

Like all documentary filmmakers these days, Moore isn’t concerned so much with the truth as he is selling his work.  This is nothing new for Moore, and it’s not even a surprise.  However, like an idiot, and not for the first time, I had hoped for something better.  I know, I need to learn to stop putting faith in documentary filmmakers.  No matter how nice they seem, it’s never about the truth or the subject...at some point it becomes about the money.  At least we know with Moore, it’s like that right from the beginning.

Cuba.  He is really going to try to sell Cuba as a better alternative than the United States for health care.  And the morons that wear Che Guevara t-shirts will eat this up with a spoon.

Sometimes I wish I was utterly ignorant of the world and only cared about what Britney Spears was doing.

The Global Warming Fascists

It seems to me that the Global Warming moonbats in this country and in the world in general are getting more and more dangerous.  First, it started with simple ostricizing and finger pointing:
Storm Hits Weather Community Over Climate Expert’s Global Warming Claims

Climate expert Heidi Cullen defended herself last week in The Weather Channel’s One Degree Climate Change blog after questioning the fitness of meteorologists who disagree with her conclusions.
“I’ve read all your comments saying I want to silence meteorologists who are skeptical of the science of global warming. That is not true,” wrote Cullen, host of “The Climate Code with Dr. Heidi Cullen,” a weekly global-warming program on The Weather Channel. ”The point of my post was never to stifle discussion. It was to raise it to a level that doesn’t confuse science and politics. Freedom of scientific expression is essential.”
Cullen raised Cain last month when she suggested that the American Meteorological Society decertify meteorologists who don’t warn about climate change.
“If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming,” Cullen wrote in the blog. ”If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a seal of approval.”

Then it went to actual threats toward anyone who didn’t agree with the goose-stepping global warming chicken littles:
Scientists threatened for ‘climate denial’
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.

And now it has turned into actual physical violence and assaults:
Eco-Bikers Attack Woman and Children

Susan Ferrando, her husband, their two children and three preteens had come to San Francisco from Redwood City to celebrate the birthday of Ferrando’s 11-year-old daughter. They went to Japantown, where they enjoyed shopping and taking in the blooming cherry blossoms.
Things took a turn for the worse at about 9 p.m., when the family was leaving Japantown—just as the party of about 3,000 bikers was winding down its monthly red-lights-be-damned ride through the city.
Suddenly, Ferrando said, her car was surrounded by hundreds of cyclists.
Not being from San Francisco, Ferrando thought she might have inadvertently crossed paths with a bicycle race and couldn’t figure out why the police, who she had just passed, hadn’t warned her.
Confusion, however, quickly turned to terror, she said, when the swarming cyclists began wildly circling around and then running into the sides of her Toyota van.
Filled with panic, Ferrando said, she started inching forward until coming to a stop at Post and Gough streets, where she was surrounded by bikers on all sides.
A biker in front blocked her as another biker began pounding on the windshield. Another was pounding on her window. Another pounded the other side.
“It seemed like they were using their bikes as weapons,’’ Ferrando said. One of the bikers then threw his bike—shattering the rear window and terrifying the young girls inside.
All the while, Ferrando was screaming, “There are children in this car! There are children in this car!”
She had the presence of mind to dial 911 on her cell phone—and within minutes, the squad of motorcycle cops who were assigned to keep an eye on the ride descended on the scene.
The cyclists were loudly demanding that Ferrando be arrested for hit and run.
According to police, Ferrando had allegedly tapped one of the cyclists’ tires.
When the alleged bicycle victim was approached, however, he said he wasn’t hurt. He also refused to give his name or any other information.
Then, after a few swear words, the alleged victim took off on his bike while the rest of the crowd continued to yell at both the cops and the van.
Sgt. Ed Callejas—the lead cop on the scene and a veteran of Critical Mass rides since their inception—said he’d never seen anything like it before.
“I’ve seen the bikes swarm cars, and scratch them as they go by. I’ve seen guys get out of their cars and start fighting with the bikers, but if you had seen the faces on those little girls in tears,’’ Callejas said. “All I could do was apologize for what they had been through.”

What is wrong with these people?  Aren’t these also the same ones who go to the peace rallies and say they are against violence?  Is this their intended method of “informing” others about global warming?  By threatening and attacking anyone who they view as “getting in their way”?  Hmmm, seems like we’ve seen this same tactic used before.  Like in Germany from 1933 to 1945.  Next thing you know, Al Gore will call for ‘reeducation camps” where those who don’t believe global warming is a threat will be sent to be “enlightened” about the dangers.

Shameless Self Promotion

Aloha everyone.  I know I haven’t posted anything here in a while.  Not that I haven’t tried to get some material.  I’ve written a few e-mails to Mikey asking why he isn’t living up to the claims he made in his letter to conservatives in this country: Moore’s Novermber letter to Conservatives
12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.
So, I have asked him why they (and especially he) haven’t gone after this one:
Corruption!?
As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband’s firms
Still no response from Mikey and no mention of it on his website.

But I digress.  I am actually here to shamelessly promote my appearance on the television show “Lost” this Wednesday.  Watch for the Kate flashback where Marshal Edward Mars and a ruggedly handsome federal agent arrest a girl.  The federal agent with the shotgun coming out of the car is none other than yours truly!  Hope you all enjoy!