Public service announcement time.  No Politics, this is health related, and I am completely serious.

Those who know me, may know this about me, and for those who do not I am sharing this out my desire to help all my friends who could be having similar issues.

Simply put, I have a lousy time sleeping.  I mouth breath, I snore and I have been told I show signs of sleep apnea.  I never wake up rested and I am always tired.

The serious concern is sleep apnea.    What is it?

The Greek word “apnea” literally means “without breath” and that’s essentially it in a nutshell.  I literally stop breathing briefly at night, forcing my body to wake me up to regulate my breathing again.

While it may seem trivial, the fact is it is a serious condition, which unchecked has serious health effects. 

Risk factors include being male (Yo!), overweight (Guilty!), and over the age of forty (Sadly, yes), but sleep apnea can strike anyone at any age, even children. 

So after years of recommendations (and elbow pokes for snoring) I finally got an overnight sleep study done.

One of the stranger experiences of my life.  You stay the night in a clinic, and they hook you up to enough wires and monitors to make you feel like a science experiment nightmare, then expect you to fall asleep feeling like you are hooked into the wiring harness of a late model Cadillac.  They monitor you on video and by machines throughout the night and see if you are showing the signs of sleep apnea.  They also measure respiration, heart rate, O2 saturation and all manner of other things with all those electrodes glued to your head, face, chest and legs.

If you show the signs of apnea, they wake you and put a CPAP mask on you.  This provides a positive flow if air to your nose and mouth at all times (CPAP stands for Constant Positive Airway Pressure), and it keeps your airway open, and you stay apnea and snore free.

I will be off line for a day or so for some routine medical testing.  Nothig serious, but necessary.

I also need to do a site upgrade, so I hope to get that finished on Sunday, if all goes according to scheule.

I expect to be back online Monday.

LSU

He says everything that needs to be said.  Pity they won’t listen.  Here are some tasty tidbits:

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

…

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

…

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. “Housing-gate,” no doubt. Or “Fannie-gate.”

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

…

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO off Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was  fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate’s campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

According to Hillary supporters, it is:

Biden Gaffe Is Likely A Warning That Obama Will Impose The Draft Shortly If He Takes Office!

Obama made clear that he was a strong supporter of the draft at the ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University on Sept. 11, 2008 and I don’t know why the MSM or the McCain campaign let that one slip right by. Obama on the draft speaking at Columbia:

Quote:

But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some. http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/…ia-university/

The Obama campaign is playing down Biden’s “gaffe” by saying that international crisis is common when a new president takes office. They’re correct in saying that. The point that Biden was making was not that Obama will be tested but rather some very specific decisions that Obama was going to make that would be unpopular with Americans regarding the crisis. He’s warning that the decisions that Obama would make are going to be so unpopular that the polls will reflect a very low popularity rating for Obama. He explains that it will be a decision that people will claim not to have known that he’d make. I believe that Bidden is talking about Obama imposing the draft. Although Obama said he favors the draft at the forum, it’s never been in the MSM and the vast majority of people have no idea. A lot of his support is coming from people and groups who believe that Obama wants to keep us out of war and conscription contradicts that. Biden:

To be clear, this is not pointed directly at Obama, nor even necessarily his campaign, though one instance does feature Biden.

This is more pointed to his hidden campaign team, the media, who have taken over his campaign’s early race baiting.  He doesn’t have to do it any more, he has many willing accomplices.

First, USA Today has a piece on White Supremists, and inserts a slight twist:

USA Today Story on White Supremacists Subtly Suggests GOP Home to Bigots

In her October 21 article, “White supremacists target middle America,” USA Today’s Marisol Bello took a look at how hate groups are trying to go more “mainstream” by ditching Nazi armbands, brown shirts and white sheets and going for a more “middle class” look. While there is merit in covering such a story, Bello and/or her editors unfortunately chose to color the piece in a way that reflected negatively on the GOP by featuring with the article the photo shown at right with this caption:

Derek Black, left, gets help from his father, Don, on his Internet radio show Sunday in Lake Worth Fla. Don Black is a former Ku Klux Klan leader, and Derek holds a seat on the Palm Beach County, Fla., GOP committee.

The photo and caption appear above the headline on USA Today’s online edition. Yet the Blacks were just two of numerous white supremacists featured in the story and it took Bello until paragraph 26 out of 28 to note that the Palm Beach GOP is “trying to unseat him [Derek Black] after learning of his white supremacist ties.” 

Next, check out the latest racist word:

Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black

The word?  Socialist.  Yes, Socialist is a racist implication.  It has nothing to with the fact that Obama advocates policies and ideas that actually, you know, socialist…

 Next, The New York Times plays a little double standard:

NYT: OK for AFL-CIO to Bash McCain, But Anti-Obama Mail Racially Suspect

Captain Ed, Guy Benson and Mary Katherine Ham penned a complete and well documented summary of the case against Obama.  The article is divided into categories and complete with reference documents, links and videos to present a truly complete look at Obama, often in his own words.

I urge you all to read it.  Here are some highlights:

Abortion:

Finally, Obama argues against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act as an Illinois Senator in 2002. Despite Obama’s protestations otherwise, he voted three separate times against this legislation, which was designed to require life-saving care for infants who survive botched abortions. This is a matter of record. Not only did an identical bill pass Congress without a single dissenting vote, the explanation Obama has offered for years to defend these votes has been exposed as a lie. Furthermore, Hot Air has a long list of supporting posts on this very subject:

• Infanticide, revisited
• Yes, we can … elect a guy who votes for infanticide
• There are a lot of things above Obama’s “pay grade”
• Team Obama acknowledges infanticide lie
• Obama camp: He only voted against that born-alive abortion bill because it might actually have an effect
• Obama’s support for infanticide breaks into mainstream media
• Obama: Bill unnecessarily burdened doctors with … babies; Update: AOL Hot Seat poll added
• McCarthy: Obama’s moral failing on infanticide
• Obama’s ad lies about infanticide vote

…

Associations:

ACORN is a community organization whose fraudulent voter registration activities have drawn indictments and investigations in more than a dozen states. Their intimidation tactics in the 1990s forced banks into issuing unwise mortgage loans to low-income individuals, setting the stage for the recent mortgage crisis that send the economy into a tailspin. Barack Obama has denied any connection to ACORN beyond performing some minimal legal work on their behalf in the distant past. Once again, this is an intentionally misleading understatement. As it turns out, Obama was a top ACORN activism trainer for several years. The charitable boards he and Ayers controlled funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN. His campaign paid ACORN more than $800,000 to register voters in the primary, but tried to disguise the purpose of those spent dollars in official expense reports. He’s since scrubbed his “fight the smears” website after these untruths were exposed.

The presidential race this year has brought out polling as never before, and the numbers are all over the board.

It brings back to mind the Governors race in California a few years back where Contender Bradley was leading in the polls, then lost the election anyway.  This resulted in the creation of “The Bradley Effect”.

It suggests, in essence, that in a racially divided contest, that when white voters are polled they will claim to vote for the minority candidate so as to not appear racist.

It is hardly out of the realm of possibility, as many people use the stigma of racism to influence anything they can.  The Obama campaign and supporters have dropped the race card every chance they can, including this recent attempt by Joe Biden (via Sister Toldjah)  and the popular perception has already been put forward that if Obama loses, race is the reason.

Ann Coulter has a few things to say about it:

EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT SAY THEY’D NEVER LIE TO A POLLSTER

With an African-American running for president this year, there has been a lot of chatter about the “Bradley effect,” allowing the media to wail about institutional racism in America.

Named after Tom Bradley, who lost his election for California governor in 1982 despite a substantial lead in the polls, the Bradley effect says that black candidates will poll much stronger than the actual election results.

First of all, if true, this is the opposite of racism: It is fear of being accused of racism. For most Americans, there is nothing more terrifying than the prospect of being called a racist. It’s scarier than flood or famine, terrorist attacks or flesh-eating bacteria. To some, it’s even scarier than “food insecurity.”

Political correctness has taught people to lie to pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they’re not voting for the African-American.

…

In addition to the social pressure to constantly prove you’re not a racist, apparently there is massive social pressure to prove you’re not a Republican. No one is lying about voting for McCain just to sound cool.

I just watched the two skits over on HuffPo.  Watch yourself here.

First, I admire her for confronting it directly.  SNL has been ruthless in portraying her as a fool. 

Now that is nothing new, SNL portrays everyone as a fool, but even with that in mind, there is something slightly deranged about the depths that Tina Fey has taken it, followed closely by her own comments of dislike.

I cannot remember every political contest and how they were represented on SNL, but so far, SNL has favored the Obama campaign to at least a modest degree, reaching back to the primary fight against Hillary.

And certainly they have that right.  The producers and writers are under no obligation to be fair, and they have taken some shots at the other campaign.

But it seems to me that the old SNL would be a little more broad in its approach, if my memories of old shows are accurate..

Back to Palin.  I thought she held her own with dignity.  While I do agree with others that the skits marginal at best, as I said, I think she chose the right way to deal with it.  She cannot allow them to think it is upsetting.

Being a public figure requires you to accept a lot of crap from all sides.  In a way it is a compliment.  If her ideas were easily defeated, they would defeat them with their logic and arguments.  Personal attacks are a last resort.

A few people suggest that the best that can come form it is to suggest she is a good sport.  I agree.  nothing in this appearance was going to swing voters.

But in a sense, that works for me.  Why not let them know it won’t work to trash her with gross misrepresentations?

But I also agree with Sister Toldjah about something.  Rather then dig out the clips of Palin on SNL, I would rather post this video of Palin being Palin, and doing what she does best:  Defending family values and supporting special needs.

The subject of William Ayers has been one of great debate, with a lot of diverse opinions weighing in.

To some, he will always be a traitor.  An unrepentant terrorist and rebel who formally declared war on his country, who bombed his own country, who lead an organization whose activities caused at least three deaths and many injuries. 

I personally admit that I am sympathetic to this view.  His group targeted police and military, and as one analyst noted in 2003, only sheer incompetence kept them from killing more.  

I take personally violent attacks on police and Military.  Likewise, I take exception to the fact that his apologies and regrets are heavily nuanced and in reality he has never fully recanted his traitorous activities.

The penalty for treason is death, yet he is lauded as a pillar of his community.  I find it distasteful.  This is again the abandonment of consequences.

But there are those who feel his years offer atonement.  The submit he deserves recognition for the life he lead after his violent activities.  They showcase his accomplishments and laud his as a role model in his community.

I understand their points, and if he was expressing even simple remorse, I might agree. 

He has not to my knowledge made the oh so simple step is stating that remorse clearly, it is always qualified and parsed.  

So I have to look at him and wonder, has the leopard really changed his spots?  Or does a terrorist still lurk beneath his calm interior.

And frankly, that scares me more than anything.

If this guy still harbors his ends justify the means rationality, how does that affect his education philosophy?

It occurs to me that he, like many anti war radicals, are now considered the educational elite in our nation.

Think for a moment what that means. 

Should we be concerned that we have placed in positions of great influence those who actively sought war against their country?

A frank discussion of not just negative campaign ads, but also the media bias.

The punch line:  “It’s like running against God”