March 1, 2004
The Iraqi Governing Council has finally agreed on a transitional constitution, two days past an American deadline but with broad agreement on its contents: Besides a comprehensive bill of rights, including protections for free speech, religious expression, assembly and due process, it also spells out the executive branch. Under the terms of the document, Iraq will have a president with two deputies, a prime minister and a cabinet. ... The document "strikes a balance between the role of Islam and the bill of individual rights and democratic principles," the official said. It also contains a "goal" of having the Iraqi Parliament consist of at least 25% women, although this is not a quota. The documents attempts to establish individual rights as the basis of government, including freedom of religion, and aspires to be not only historic for Iraq but for the entire region, one official said. The new constitution still...
Reports have surfaced claiming that Pakistan has finally agreed to allow US troops to operate on Pakistani soil in the upcoming Special Ops spring offensive on al Qaeda (via Drudge): Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washington's support of President Pervez Musharraf's pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue [of the New Yorker] that goes on sale on Monday. Musharraf came under fire earlier for his breathtaking pardon of the man responsible for nuclear proliferation to the "Axis of Evil" and seemingly everyone else. The Bush administration leveraged that into a sweeping deal which Musharraf publicly claimed he'd never allow. And without being able to freely operate on both sides of the border, we wouldn't be likely to get...
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote an extensive article on the Howard Dean campaign, revealing deep divisions within the ranks and a candidate afraid to win: In different conversations and in different ways, according to several people who worked with him, Dean said at the peak of his popularity late last year that he never expected to rise so high, that he didn't like the intense scrutiny, that he had just wanted to make a difference. "I don't care about being president," he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: "The problem is, I'm now afraid I might win." As Dean was swallowed by the bubble that envelops every major candidate, he allowed his campaign to sink into a nasty civil war that crippled decision-making and devastated morale. In the end, say some of those who uprooted their lives for him, these tensions hastened...
The Commerce Department reports today that consumer spending continues to increase, growing at a rate of 0.4% in January, in line with investor expectations and continuing to demonstrate the strength of the economic recovery: The over-the-month increase reported by the Commerce Department on Monday matched analysts' expectations. The advance came after a bigger 0.5 percent rise in December, which was slightly stronger than first estimated a month ago. Disposable incomes — what's left after taxes — rose by 0.8 percent in January, up from a 0.3 percent increase the month before. January's sizable increase was helped out by a number of factors, including a reduction in federal incomes taxes and pay raises for government workers and those in the military. The news gets even better when you look at non-durable spending, like food and clothing, and services, both of which grew faster than the overall rate. Personal savings is up...
The Star Tribune predictably shrieks with hysteria today about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act, which the Senate is about to pass after the House has already done so. For those not in the know, the PLCFA protects gun manufacturers from the same sort of tort extortion that the tobacco industry has endured over the past several years. Trial lawyers love these class-action lawsuits because they have the potential of nine-figure legal fees; Micheal Ceresi's firm received over $400 million from the eventual multi-billion settlement for Minnesota in the tobacco lawsuits. However, unlike true liability cases where a defective product was knowingly sold to consumers, causing injury, these lawsuits are intended on extorting huge sums of money from gun manufacturers for producing their legal products at all. The lawyers intend on banning guns by bankrupting their manufacturers -- while stuffing their own pockets -- and they're not even...
I wonder if the same people who screamed about government intrusion on First Amendment rights when Clear Channel Communications dropped Howard Stern's radio show will demonstrate any level of outrage over this: A Roman Catholic charitable organization must include birth control coverage in its health care plan for workers even though it is morally opposed to contraception, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. ... The high court said Catholic Charities is no different from other businesses in California, which is one of 20 states that require company-provided health plans to include contraception coverage if the plans have prescription drug benefits. In California, "religious employers" such as churches are exempt from the requirement. ... The Supreme Court ruled that the charity is not a religious employer because it offers such secular services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to the public without directly preaching about Catholic values. The court also...
Mark asked me a direct question yesterday in response to my post about the laughably transparent Iranian attempt to influence the election Friday: And what do you have against Kerry? Or has Bush really fought to improve your way of life? I wrote later that his question was valid, and rather than point to a collection of earlier posts on various incidents, I think it would be more honest for me to put together a comprehensive argument for my position on this election. I will address this in two parts, just as Mark asked: why I oppose John Kerry, and why I support George Bush. Primarily, I don't trust John Kerry, and I never have. He's spent most of his Senate career carrying Ted Kennedy's water and regularly competes with Kennedy for the most liberal voting record -- a contest he won last year, according to the National Journal. He...
March 2, 2004
Senator John Edwards, whose presidential run will likely run onto the shoals tonight, has made a lot of noise about refusing money from lobbyists, especially in the wake of a number of scandals involving frontrunner John Kerry. However, it turns out that Edwards and Kerry have more in common than first thought: While Democrat John Edwards boasts that he hasn't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists for his presidential campaign, he has accepted thousands of dollars from people in the capital's lobbying profession or their spouses and children. ... Even if donors lobby at the state level or run firms or organizations that lobby Congress, their money is accepted by Edwards as long as they are not personally registered. For instance, Edwards, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, received a $500 donation from National Education Association executive director John Wilson. Wilson himself isn't a registered...
Sometimes a post is difficult to categorize; this one could go under Sports or Science, I suppose. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on its website late last night that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds took steroids and human-growth hormone from a lab in the center of a federal investigation, according to information provided to the feds: Investigators also were told that New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, as well as three other major leaguers and one NFL player, were given steroids, the newspaper reported. Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, gave the players the drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, according to information given to the government and shared with the newspaper. ... The Chronicle reported that two of Bonds' former teammates — Marvin Benard of the Chicago White Sox (news) and Kansas City catcher Benito Santiago — and former Oakland infielder Randy Velarde also received...
For those of you who have been kind enough to ask about the First Mate, I just wanted to give you an update on her status. The collection of doctors we've gathered have decided that her kidney function has dropped off too much for her to wait for the transplant for treatment, and so she will be starting dialysis tomorrow. She'll go in to have a shunt installed in the morning, have a dialysis treatment, stay overnight for observation, have another treatment in the morning, and hopefully will be ready for release in the afternoon. While it sounds like a setback, this actually will help relieve the symptoms of kidney failure that trouble her the most, and should be a marked improvement in her quality of life. We're both optimistic. One of our friends from Twin Cities Marriage Encounter (where we volunteer as board officers) has volunteered to donate her...
Warren Grantham, executive director of the Minnesota Education League, has resigned his position from both the MEL and apparently the Taxpayers' League due to an inflammatory e-mail he sent to various state legislators: The executive director of the Minnesota Education League and an advocate of the No Child Left Behind law, resigned last Friday in a dispute over an e-mail he wrote that attacked several legislators for their opposition to the law. ... Grantham said the e-mail to legislators, which he characterized as "very, very critical, using some inflammatory images," led to a disagreement between him and his boss, Taxpayers League of Minnesota president David Strom. That led to Grantham's resignation. The basics of this story are fairly straightforward so far -- Grantham wrote an e-mail that somehow offended its recipients, among them current Minnesota legislators opposed to the No Child Left Behind federal law, including some Republicans. His boss...
Maybe we'll make these a regular Friday night feature at Captain's Quarters -- check out this photo below and give us your best caption! But be careful, because it looks like we may have hurt John Kerry's feelings the last time out ... The contest will be open until Tuesday at 6 PM CST. Enter as often as you like, no purchase necessary to win, rules at selected Captain's Quarters locations near you ... UPDATE: Bumping it up for the weekend ... UPDATE: Don't forget that the caption contest ends tonight! Get your entries in! UPDATE: I'm closing entries now, and thanks to all of you who entered. I'll have the winners posted by late tonight. Next Friday, we'll be doing this again, and The Patriette will guest judge the entries with me (I hope!) ......
It appears that the ghost of Howard Dean has appeared in Vermont to spoil John Kerry's dreams of Super Tuesday sweeps, according to CNN: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- who dropped out of the race two weeks ago -- won his home state, CNN projected based on the exit polls. It appears that Kerry will easily beat Edwards in most of the other contests. So far, Edwards leads in Georgia, but that's all. The only other state that Edwards had any momentum at all, Maryland, looks like it will go solidly for the Yankee rather than the Southerner. Breaking news has John Edwards withdrawing from the race tomorrow. Finally, we get the two-man race we always wanted: John Kerry vs Dennis Kucinich....
Thanks to everyone who entered Friday's caption contest! I had a lot of great responses, which everyone can see in the comments section of the original post. I'd tell you that every one of you is already a winner, but the Captain doesn't want to clean up after the massive bout of seasickness that would surely follow ... Here are the winners: Captain's Favorite: Bryan If I pretend to be napping, maybe I won't have to speak to that commoner. You Have The Conn #1: Dorkafork John Kerry tries to pry open his eyelids as rigor mortis sets in...again. You Have The Conn #2: Linda Presidential candidate, John Kerry, is suddenly struck by the fact that he is not drawing better looking volunteers. You Have The Conn #3: Dean Esmay Sen. Kerry wistfully remembers his days portraying Lurch on The Addams Family. Don't forget to check back again on Friday,...
The Commissar notes a story that has escaped attention from the ever-vigiliant mainstream media: Comrades, February has ended, and evil Amerikan forces lost 23 soldiers in Iraq. To date, MiniTruth has employed appropriate full media blackout on this development. ... As far as Commissar has been able to Google, there are no reports of February casualties in this context. Therefore, Commissar will award new dacha, Hero of Soviet Union medal, and bolshoi linkage to any comrade identifying traitorous, counter-revolutionary mention of low February casualties in any mainstream MiniTruth media. Full blackout, comrades; enemy bombers overhead! Jay Reding also notes that this has received no media coverage whatsoever. Why not? When we sustained a (relatively) high rate of casualties in November, it's all we heard about from the mainstream news media. Gee ... you don't suppose they've got an agenda, do you?? Try Googling it yourself, or use the search engines...
Speculation has swirled about the status of Dick Cheney in this election, with some suggesting that the Vice President may be an albatross in the general election. Cheney has been a lightningrod for controversy in the run-up to the war in Iraq, with the lunatic fringe -- and others -- charging that the war only served to inflate Cheney's Halliburton holdings. (Way out on the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, Ted Rall thinks that Cheney went to war in Afghanistan so his buddies could build an oil pipeline.) But today in Washington, Cheney told MS-NBC that Bush has asked him to run again: "He's asked me to serve with him on the ticket again for the next 4 years,'' Cheney told Fox News in one of a series of cable television interviews. "I'm happy to do that as long as I can be of assistance and he wants me...
March 3, 2004
I noticed during the Oscar broadcast that our local ABC affiliate, KSTP, began running a new commercial for its news shows. Ed Asner, reprising his Lou Grant role but without using the name, stands in front of the KSTP newsroom and gruffly tells them that the nonsense stops now, and if they're looking for dancing bears, they need to work somewhere else. I remember thinking at the time that the whole concept was pathetic; it's been twenty-two years since the Lou Grant character was last performed. Today, the Star Tribune explains it all -- the desperation, the dropping revenue, and the tortured explanation of how KSTP News sold its brain, if not its soul, in order to attract viewers: KSTP-TV, Channel 5, has launched an image-building campaign featuring actor Ed Asner, who reprises his signature role of Lou Grant, the gruff, no-nonsense news director beloved by Minnesota audiences since his...
When people ask me to identify a hero, sometimes I have difficulty answering. Sir Thomas More? General Anthony McAuliffe, who famously replied "Nuts!" to a German demand for surrender at Bastogne? The Canadian diplomats who risked their lives to smuggle Americans out of Teheran in 1979? All good answers, of course, but now one man can take his rightful place with these other people of courage: Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas. JB Doubtless writes today about how SP spoke truth about an evil, in the middle of the lion's den (er, Giants den) itself. Here is an excerpt of this inspiring display of righteous bravery: Something sent SP off (a Bonds dinger? the memory fails) and he yelled "HE'S JUICED". Embarassed, but laughing, TRAH and I continued watching the game. But he wasn't done. In what could only be described as drunken, maniacal boorishness SP launched into a ten minute...
Today is the First Mate's surgery to install a dialysis shunt, and the didn't start off too well. Her blood sugars were too low and her blood pressure too high, and so the hospital delayed her procedure for a while. Eventually she got settled down and they've taken her in for the surgery, which fortunately only requires sedation and a local anaesthetic. In the meantime, I'm waiting in the hospital lobby with a restaurant pager for them to tell me when the doctor is ready to talk with me. (You can't have a cell phone on, but you'll know when your table is ready, monsieur.) After asking about a dozen people if the hospital had Internet access, someone told me about a few workstations they have just off of the lobby. None of them had an access port, but a table nearby has a computer for job applicants. Above the...
In what could portend disaster for the Democrats in November, John Kerry -- the most liberal Senator in 2003 -- seems to fall short in attracting independent voters: Yet even in California, Kerry did not run nearly as well with independents — who were eligible to vote in the Democratic primary — as he did among party members. This trend was more pronounced in Tuesday's voting in Ohio and Georgia, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International. In that way, the results underscored Kerry's ability to mobilize Democrats and the challenge he may face with independents as the campaign's focus shifts to the battle against Bush. The LA Times exit polling showed the same trend throughout most of the contests yesterday and points out the folly of nominating a candidate from the extremes. John Kerry's record of attacking military and intelligence spending plays well in San Francisco...
Once again, I have been honored with a nomination in the weekly Watchers Council contest for this week. The Council has nominated my extensive post on my opposition of John Kerry and support for George Bush, which makes me feel pretty good; normally, I write posts quickly, but I struggled for hours over that one. As always, the Council has gathered a serious collection of excellent posts from around the blogosphere. Be sure to check them all out....
For those of you who are inclined to notice such things, Captain's Quarters passed 100,000 visitors this afternoon. Thank you to all of you who visit, who comment, and who blogroll me. I certainly appreciate your presence, and I'll prove it by finishing this post and blogging on something more substantial now ......
In the middle of all the heat and noise about same-sex marriage, the Bush administration is quietly pushing a same-sex solution for education that may wind up enraging some on the Left, but will make educating our daughters more effective: The Education Department plans to change its enforcement of Title IX, the landmark anti-discrimination law, to make it easier for districts to create single-sex classes and schools. The move would give local school leaders discretion to expand choices for parents, whether that means a math class, a grade level or an entire school designed for one gender. U.S. research on single-sex schooling is limited, but advocates say it shows better student achievement and attendance and fewer discipline problems. Critics say there is no clear evidence, and that single-sex learning doesn't get students ready for an integrated world. At least 91 of 91,000 public schools offer a form of same-sex education...
Hey, I know John Kerry has to say something to convince people to vote for him, and so far, all he's had to say was that he hates George Bush, Bush is evil, Bush is inept -- well, things like this: "This president has in fact created terrorists where they didn't exist," he said. "And I believe this president has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country. And we need to hold him accountable." Hugh Hewitt notes tonight that Kerry apologist Joshua Micah Marshall insists on validating that ridiculous notion on Hugh's show, so apparently this will be the catchphrase up through the convention, and perhaps beyond. Let's test this by looking at highlights of the past 40 or so years, which I assume would satisfy Kerry's "modern" qualifier. 1961 - President John F. Kennedy implements a leftover plan from...
March 4, 2004
Colorado Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell, one of the more colorful members of the Senate and a strong favorite for re-election this year, has abruptly left the race, citing health concerns: Campbell, 70, made the surprise announcement Wednesday, citing declining health. He was treated for prostate cancer last year. His Washington office also faces allegations that a longtime aide had taken kickbacks. Campbell's decision gave Democrats another open Senate seat to target in November and threw the Colorado Senate race wide open. Pollsters suggested heavyweights like GOP Gov. Bill Owens and former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart might get into the race, but there was no immediate word from them. Hart earlier declined to seek the seat. Obviously, this sets back Republican hopes of expanding its control of the upper chamber. This creates a vacuum and a relatively short campaign where name recognition may be the deciding factor. Pollsters are already looking...
The FCC will have the ability to levy much larger fines for indecent broadcasts if a bill approved by a Congressional subcommittee passes: A House committee voted Wednesday to increase from $27,500 to $500,000 the fines that could be imposed on broadcasters for airing indecent material. A House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee had approved a tenfold increase, to $275,000, in fines the Federal Communications Commission could impose for each indecency violation. But the full committee voted 49-1 Wednesday to nearly double that. The Super Bowl broadcast exposed CBS to fines that potentially reached $5.5 million -- or less than the revenue it received for three minutes of advertising during the event. Under the new rules, if adopted, CBS could have faced upwards of $100 million in FCC fines. Faced with growing anger in Congress over the perceived rapid degradation of broadcast material, perhaps especially in radio, the industry lobbying...
The Captain has been invited to participate in a new group blog that launched this week: Oh, That Liberal Media. Organized by Stefan Sharansky and including contributors such as Ombudsgod and Patterico -- who's been brilliant at holding the LA Times accountable for its egregious bias -- the aim is to create a clearinghouse of items that will not only demonstrate the leftist bias in today's mass media but encourage their readers and viewers to demand more balance. My first contribution to the effort is a cross-post of my earlier item on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's editorial against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act. I hope you get a chance to keep up with this exciting new project....
Glenn Reynolds notes an article from Reason which reviews the new book from Danny Goldberg, Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit. In the Reason review, David Weigel rightly skewers Goldberg's analysis that the problem is one of marketing instead of policy and Goldberg's insistence that musical tastes are particularly revealing of political philosophy: Convinced of the righteousness and appeal of Democratic policies, Goldberg skips over whether those policies might be the problem. Instead, for him, it’s all about effective advertising. He believes that a majority, especially a majority of young people, will rally around, say, abortion rights, affirmative action, and soak-the-rich taxes as long as they’re slickly packaged via pop culture. Thus, Goldberg’s Big Idea is a progressive reconquista of pop culture. Embrace Bill Clinton’s "boxers or briefs" MTV interview, and be irreverent. Join forces with the hip-hop stars whom Al Sharpton is taking for...
Since I work in the security industry, stupid criminal stories like this never fail to amuse me. In this case, the police did this guy a favor by arresting him before he killed someone -- namely, himself: A Brazilian crook shot himself in the foot while trying to burglarize a bar, then left a trail of blood that led police straight to his home, police said Thursday. ... Police said Auad had broken into the bar several days earlier and had stolen a television set. He broke into the bar through the roof again on Tuesday night, but fell down and accidentally shot himself in the right foot, police said. Not only does crime not pay, sometimes it hurts like hell....
Sean's excellent blog, Everything I Know Is Wrong, explodes the myth of the three-million-job loss during the Bush administration in a funny and well-sourced post from last night. Apparently, Sean did what John Kerry's entire staff was unable to do and check out the data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics: It took about as long to do it as it took you to read about it. Take a look at the left side of the table; the column marked “Jan”. Now look down to the rows marked 2001, 2003 and 2004. The Jan 2001 figure is 137,790,000 (the numbers are all in thousands) and the Jan 2004 figure is 138,566,000. That means that there are 776,000 more jobs now than there were in the first month of George Bush’s administration. Look at the Jan 2003 number, 137,477,000, which means there are 1,119,000 more jobs than this time last year....
Last weekend, I incurred the ire of Pandagon readers by suggesting that the Iranians were attempting to influence the presidential election by claiming John Kerry sent them e-mail and then putting out a phony report that Bush had Osama locked up but was waiting until the fall for the maximum political impact. Readers on the Left interpreted my post as an attack on John Kerry's patriotism, for some reason, instead of an attack on the Iranian leadership's intelligence. Now another member of the Axis of Evil has publicly made its choice for the American President known, and surprise, surprise, it ain't W (via Hugh Hewitt): North Korea's state-controlled media are well known for reverential reporting about Kim Jong-il, the country's dictatorial leader. But the Dear Leader is not the only one getting deferential treatment from the communist state's propaganda machine: John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is also getting good...
The Watcher's Council has made their selections for the week's best entries. My post on my opposition to Kerry came in an honorable second place in the non-Council entries, behind Kim du Toit's great post, Never Again. Congrats to Spiced Sass and King of Fools, who provided the one-two punch for the Council entries. Big thanks to the Council for the nomination and the votes!...
March 5, 2004
The Washington Post tells about a teacher in the DC area who somehow got a copy of The Passion of the Christ and showed it to his students in class -- at an elementary school: As a teacher showed sixth-graders at the District's Malcolm X Elementary School parts of the movie "The Passion of the Christ," 11-year-old Cutairra Ransom was growing upset by the violence unfolding in front of her. ... After about 15 minutes of watching the R-rated film about the final hours of Jesus's life, Cutairra said she walked out of the room. She was one of the 16 to 20 students who were shown the movie Tuesday at the public school, which is in the Congress Park neighborhood of Southeast Washington. D.C. school officials, who said sixth-graders should not be shown R-rated movies at school, have placed the teacher, Ronald Anthony, on leave with pay pending an...
While President Bush still regularly polls below John Kerry in the Golden State, the LA Times publishes an op-ed today by Robert Grady that analyzes the state ballot results from this week and sees red flags for Kerry's campaign: The state Democratic establishment, which backed and advises Kerry, also put its full weight behind Proposition 56, which would have reduced the vote required for the Legislature to pass the budget and taxes from two-thirds to 55%. ... The voters were not fooled. Proposition 56 was crushed 65% to 35%. It lost by well over a million votes. The message is clear, both for Kerry and George W. Bush: California voters — like voters nationwide — are overwhelmingly against tax increases. If Kerry thinks this is a fluke, he might consider the results of California's recall election last year. ... Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock captured 49% and 13% of...
George Bush's alliance with Tony Blair in using force to unseat Saddam Hussein continued to bear fruit as Libya revealed the extent of their chemical weapons programs at the Hague earlier today: Libya acknowledged stockpiling 44,000 pounds of mustard gas and disclosed the location of a production plant in a declaration submitted Friday to the world's chemical weapons watchdog. Libyan Col. Mohamed Abu Al Huda handed over 14 file cartons disclosing Libya's chemical weapons programs to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said general director Rogelio Pfirter. ... Libya also declared thousands of tons of precursors that could be used to make sarin nerve gas, and two storage facilities, Pfirter said. The production and storage facilities were near Tripoli and in the south of the country, Pfirter said. Even Moammar Gaddafi acknowledges that the military action by the Anglo-American Coalition, which included support from over thirty other nations,...
We're almost exactly 24 hours away from the debut of the Northern Alliance radio show on AM 1280 The Patriot here in the Twin Cities. Mitch Berg will play center and moderate the three-hour talkathon; I'll be on in the first hour tomorrow, discussing events from the past week and interacting with callers. I'll join Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas and Hindrocket from Power Line. Mitch has the rest of the schedule on this post, and I may duck back in for a segment during the last hour, depending on availability (and whether I have anything intelligent to say). If you're in the broadcast area, make sure you tune in to The Patriot for the launch, and call in. For those outside of the Twin Cities, we're hoping to get a streaming service for the show very soon. Keep checking at the Northern Alliance site for more news and information....
The Commissar at the Politburo Diktat links to an insipid article in yesterday's Independent that begins with this statement: If the human race as a whole, rather than 50 states plus the District of Colombia, could cast a ballot this coming November, John Kerry would surely win the presidency by a landslide. Unfortunately for President Bush-haters around the world, only the 200 million United States citizens of voting age will have that right - and the outcome is anything but sure. As I responded in the Commissar's comments, if the human race as a whole could cast a vote, we wouldn't need George Bush in the White House. Until that time, we can't afford John Kerry....
Thank you to all who kept the First Mate in your thoughts and prayers -- she's back home, tired but feeling much better, and significantly lighter, too, after three dialysis treatments. We've made the arrangements for her continuing dialysis treatments, so she should do fine right through to the transplant. However, we got the list of what the First Mate can't have as grub any longer -- and I'm scratching my head as to what the heck she'll be living on. She can have as much protein as she wants, but not prepared or preserved meat (too much sodium). She can't eat bran, beans, or nuts and only a half cup of dairy a day (too much phosphorus). You'd think that fruits and vegetables would be a good idea, but there's half a page of veggies that are off-limits (too high in potassium). Geeeeeez. I thought diabetes was difficult....
With all of the health issues at the home port lately, this story from the St. Paul Pioneer Press jumped out at me today: If a bill to give a tax break to living organ donors had been a football, its supporters would have scored a quick touchdown Thursday during a House Tax Committee hearing. ... Under the proposal, Minnesotans who donate a kidney, lung, bone marrow or part of their liver, pancreas or intestine would be able to deduct up to $10,000 on their taxes for out-of-pocket expenses, including travel, lodging, time off from work and extra baby-sitting fees. "People should not suffer financially for giving the gift of life to others,'' said Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, the bill's author. Najarian said the tax break would not entice people into becoming organ donors but it would remove the financial disincentives that prevent some from making the commitment. We...