Why I can't vote for Obama

Randy Alcorn gives tremendous detail and insight into something that I've been trying to get my head around... There are plenty of reasons for even Republicans to not like McCain and instead vote for Obama, but in my beliefs, disagreement with one of Obama's views trumps all others. It also helps me better explain to my non-Christian or pro-choice friends that if we cannot agree on the basic, fundamental, scientific truth that life begins at conception, then they will never be able to understand my beliefs and stance.

Eternal Perspectives (Randy Alcorn's blog): I'm not Voting for a Man, I'm Voting for Generations of Children and their Right to Live

Parody - "I'm Voting Democrat"

Nice...

Howard Stern - On the Street

Got this link along with the following note from a friend:

Listen to the Howard Stern excerpt here

Check out this brief recording. You all know that I think you should own land, a business, or pay taxes in order to be allowed to vote. Oh yea, and actually be a living citizen of the US. Maybe knowing any of the candidates positions and minimally their running mates should be a requirement as well… Obama, et. al., have accused us (Americans that is) of being racist and many of us will not vote for him, because he is 50% black. Well, after listening to this recording, we have direct proof of what we already know in that racism cuts both ways.

We are a country of non-thinking sheep.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

Fantastic article about journalism and hypocrisy re: what is reported

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

I wish I could find a way to have everyone in the US read this article...

Charlie Daniels

You know, I had forgotten about Charlie Daniels' soapbox until my friend Arron linked it on FaceBook. Love this entry, since I love my God and my guns too.
Charlie Daniels' Soapbox
An excerpt:

Since I identify with the people who fall into Barrack Obama's elitist description about of people of faith who keep firearms I'm not very happy with Barrack Obama's recent remarks.

He said something to the effect that us rednecks cling to our guns and our religion when we get frustrated and I would like to take umbrage to these remarks. My faith goes much deeper than his superficial explanation and I love my guns even when I'm not frustrated.

one of my favorites

Don't want to lose this one, ever. He's awesome.

wow

so she's barely 4 and already this good... imagine what she could do.

Christian the Lion

Very cool!

freecreditreport.com

Ok I'll admit that I love this guy because of the freecreditreport.com commercials: Eric Violette

The Other Side of Obama

I have complete respect for my Democrat friends who will vote for Obama, and am grateful that we live in a country where we have the privilege of voting for our leaders, but this look into his life really scares me.

Feeling neurotic?

Next time you're feeling neurotic, check out this site. You'll either feel better, or you'll make a contribution.
I am Neurotic

Now, that's funny!

Don't be surprised if your Christmas gift comes from this site.
T-Shirts for the Irreverent Patient

Heart issues

Too bad women don't experience stereotypical symptoms for MI. This is a great story about listening to your body even when it's telling you something that you don't think can possibly be true...
Tim Russert Syndrome

Hospital Rankings

Fantastic site - allows you to find hospitals and see how they rank based on standard of care scores. Warning - results may be scary.
Hospital Rankings

No More Diet Coke?

I'm catching up on blogs / readings / email today...
Disturbing news:

Drinking diet soda (specifically) raised your changes of getting the horrible threesome of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol (called the metabolic syndrome) by 34% among people who drank one diet soda a day–even when everything else (including diabetes) was taken into account. Eeks. Diet soda was a greater metabolic syndrome risk than the risk associated with eating red meat OR fried foods!

Read the article from Doc Gurley along with the article about the evils of artificial sweetener.

So now I'm calculating how long it'll take me to drink through my Diet Coke stash. Then my Nestlee flavored water stash (also artificially sweetened). Then my Diet Mountain Dew stash. Then my sugar free Kool-Aid stash.

Abundance of Leisure Time

Interesting culture we've created -
People who make less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those making more than $100,000 a year (I would call them affluent, not wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure.

Found courtesy of The Happy Hospitalist
via AllFinancialMatters via WSJ(Yahoo)

Fascinating Article About Itching

Wow, this is one of the most interesting articles I have read in a very long time. Just grit your teeth through the first story, as it's a bit gruesome.

Itching

Motivation? Comisseration?

I have always loved Hoops and YoYo, those adorable little Hallmark characters. My friend Melanie introduced me to "I don't care Fridays" several weeks ago, and I now have a theme for each day...
Hoops and Yoyo

Best Prank Call EVER, hands down

I think I hurt myself laughing...

Fight?

Evidently I could take on 21 5-year olds in a fight... who knew?!
21

Created by OnePlusYou - a Free Dating Site

Tequila

Wow.

Lyrics, misunderstood

So I've always enjoyed making up my own lyrics... this takes my "Oh, for tuna" to the next level.


This one wasn't much of a stretch - Eddie never had the best enunciation.

Blast from the past

So my friend Susan emailed me with a picture from the Duran Duran concert in Cary... I can't even imagine what it would have been like had she actually met, let along *touched* Simon back in junior high... Definitely some serious swooning!

Neat Sound Machine

Ok now this is just fun... a sound machine with bubble gum as the primary tool.

Tired of the BS

I'm tired of hearing about BS things from the media when there is so much more important news (like cyclones and earthquakes)...

1) Hillary Clinton
2) steriods in Major League Baseball
3) Brittney Spears - is she pregnant/her breakdown/her custody battle
4) either Hilton sister
5) either Simpson sister
6) Hillary Clinton's pant suits
7) being "Green" because it's trendy
8) ED medications
9) gas prices
10) Hillary Clinton's northern/southern/mid-western childhood

91% Enjoyment

Here's my 91% for the day, courtesy of Dr Troublemaker :-)

Evil Eye

Wake County & Year Round Schools

I'm having a hard time understanding why some parents are so adamantly opposed to sending their kids to year-round schools. Studies have proven that students retain more of what they've learned with the shorter track-out breaks. Kids (especially older ones) get into more and more trouble as the long summer break progresses and they get bored. We can increase efficiency of school facilities by 30%... plus you can take family vacations at off-peak times! I know I would have loved year-round schools as a child, and if we ever actually get around to having a kid, we'll be planning on sending him-her to year-round schools as much as possible.

See the Triangle Business Journal article: year-round schools

Bill Gates' Lessons for Life

Rule 1:
Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 :
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 :
You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 :
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 :
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6:
If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7:
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8:
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9:
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10:
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11:
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

MedPage Today Genius!

Wow, if only I knew these golden rules years ago!
MedPage Today Blogs

Getting a Joy Habit

Boy, did this advice come at a needed time. Gotta take the Doc's advice:

The Joy Habit–Joy empowers people. It is a source of energy that enables people to hope and plan and change their lives for the better. Spend some time around someone who is relentlessly negative and how do you feel–drained, right? More and more research shows that joy is not something that just happens to you, like a bolt of lightening out of the blue. Joy is, instead, a habit to cultivate. Negative thinking and despair are the crabgrass of our souls–weeds that take root and spread, sometimes to all areas of life. Joy, in contrast, is a soul’s rose–hardy when cared for, able to put down roots over time and withstand disease and extremes. Like a rose, however, your joy can become blighted from neglect or harsh conditions. We all need to tend to our joy–to prune away the badness, and to know that, even though it may look like a prickly bare root, if you invest time in a joyous outlook, gorgeous things will bloom, even in the harshest conditions. The Joy Habit are posts to help remind us all of the joy potential in our lives.

Doc Gurley

Le Nozze di Figaro

I give credit to The Shawshank Redemption for introducing me to opera... Duettino - Sull "Aria"

TaskAnyone.com

interesting... I've seen plenty of online tasks lists for individual use, but not one with assignments!
TaskAnyone.com - Email a task. We'll follow up 'till they follow through.

XM Woes

So when I bought my car last January (2007), it came with XM Satellite Radio. After the 3 month trial, I renewed for a year.
Just got the letter re: renewal, and want to expand to 3 years. Tried logging in yesterday, to no avail. Tried retrieving my password, tried retrieving my user name, nothing found.
Called XM customer service today from work between meetings. Now mind you, when I call anywhere from here, it shows the generic (919) 847-8102 main Misys number. Of course the IVR immediately told me that my credit card was expired - guessing someone gave that main number as their phone number so the IVR thought it found me. So, I pushed a bunch of buttons until I got someone in India.
I explained to her that she probably wasn't looking at my account, since the IVR thought it had found me. I gave her my radio ID and she asked "Is this Jennifer?"
No, this is not Jennifer.
Yes, I've had this radio for over a year.
Somehow she found me, and wanted to confirm my address. I gave her my current address (since it IS on the renewal letter), that didn't work. I gave her my old address, and that wasn't a match either. WTF? They had my old Stadler Drive address. I haven't lived there in over 4 years. I was never an XM customer at that address.
3 times I gave her my new address.
So I told her that the reason I was calling was to extend from 1 year to 3 years. She assured me that she extended it. We'll see what my credit card gets charged.
The scary things:
1) she had the right last 4 digits from my credit card, and the right expiration date.
2) the renewal letter had the right address / name (ME) with my radio ID.
3) she could not retrieve my user ID... the Radio ID and Zip Code are the 2 items you use to retrieve it. They're supposed to be correct now, so I'm a little worried.

Of course, Big Brother blocks XM from work. So I'll have to see if I can actually log into my account from home tonight. In theory, I should be able to log in.

Fantastic blog

This is a fantastic blog entry about how a physician works differently post EMR implementation. I'd say these are good things!
The Blog that Ate Manhattan: EMR Purgatory - Not a Bad Place to Be

Painfully true...

Sadly, our code and it's evolution over time is a true reflection of our organization (or lack thereof...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Law

Awareness Test

This is so cool.



DOTHETEST

Real Estate Valuations, Homes for Sale, Free Real Estate Information | Zillow Real Estate

OK this web site is REALLY cool!!!
Real Estate Valuations, Homes for Sale, Free Real Estate Information | Zillow Real Estate

cool meeting coordinator

Find a time for meetings, conference calls, webinars, events - this is neat.
Find a time for meetings, conference calls, webinars, events

Really cool tickler / alert

LinkBlip - Send a link to someone, get an email when they click it. This is pretty sweet!
LinkBlip - Send a link to someone, get an email when they click it.

Eve

Two days before she was killed, Eve Carson and 19 other student leaders at UNC answered the question: Why do you do what you do? Eve's is the first hand in the slide show.


Find more photos like this on wdydwyd?

Who'da thunk? Guns best crime deterrent after all

I think I need to buy a gun before some liberal removes my right to do so...

Who'da thunk? Guns best crime deterrent after all

Project 19.20.21

This is fantastic - very cool reading.
19.20.21.

Jott™ - Official Site

Another site to research - a personal transcription service!
Jott™ - Official Site

Sandy — your free personal email assistant

I may need to take a look at how this really works...
Sandy — your free personal email assistant

How Much Does it Buy?

What a fun site!
How Much Does it Buy?

keybr.com - Typing at the speed of thought!

Ok THIS is really fun! Try it... my highest speed was 87 wpm.
keybr.com - Typing at the speed of thought!