Retriever Adopts White Tiger Cubs

The nurturing of mothers everywhere is so generous. This is Isabella, a golden retriever who adopted these white tiger cubs at the Safari Zoological Park in Kansas. The mother tiger had problems with them. Isabella licks and cleans her cubs, all the while thinking her babies are beautiful!

Witty Zoo and Tiglet Too!

Milk of Human Kindness

Why Apples Are Evil

An apple a day, helps you learn every day.

Why does the Western World consider the apple the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Very simple.

The apple is not mentioned in the bible, only fruit. In the fourth century, Pope Damasus ordered Jerome to translate Bible from Greek to Latin. The words for apple and evil (“malus” – apple, “malum” – evil) are similar and easy to confuse. As Christian tradition formed, Christians believed that the apple was the fruit that was eaten in Paradise.

With the regional climate of the Middle East, the pomengranate may be the more likely original fruit that Eve plucked to give to Adam.

Medieval apple recipes

My own tree of knowledge in my garden with fruit.

Oregon’s New Health Policy: Assisted Suicide

The future of nationalized health medicine is assisted suicide rather than medical treatment. I didn’t realize that Oregon had a “Right to Die” assisted suicide law. But doesn’t that mean that you have to want to die first, not be told to die?

Ask Barbara Wagner, a 64 year old women living in Springfield, Oregon. When her health insurance contacted her regarding her lung cancer treatment.

After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that would cost $4,000 a month, the newspaper reported, “Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover the treatment, but that it would cover palliative, or comfort, care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.”

A country with socialized health care system will have to depend on pseudo-triage assessment of who should live and who should die. The government won’t be able to take care of everybody. Those who want national health medicine should be careful what they ask for. If they get sick, they may have to die for their ultimate faith in the government taking care of them.

But what is shocking is to read the nonchalant attitude of the newspaper with the ethical challenges of the insurance company.

Predictably, critics of Oregon’s unique-in-the-nation law are aflame over Wagner’s story, some claiming it covers killing but not cancer. That’s not exactly true, of course. The program that rations subsidized health care for low-income Oregonians has paid thousands of dollars over the years for Wagner’s cancer care, and it will continue to do so.

It stopped short, however, of paying for a cancer drug that failed to meet the state’s long-standing “five-year, 5 percent rule.” It won’t approve payment for treatment that doesn’t provide at least a 5 percent chance of survival after five years.

In Wagner’s case, administrators of the Oregon Health Plan had to make a difficult call. But that’s what they do every day in performing the tough, thankless job of rationing government-paid health care to the needy.

What’s unacceptable, however, is that Wagner’s rejection letter included the offer of payment for doctor-assisted death. Such notification creates at least the appearance of an ethical conflict: state encouragement of dying as a cost-saving measure.

As the only state that both allows assisted suicide and tries to ration health care, Oregon has created a fine ethical line for state officials to navigate. In this case, they stepped over it. For the sake of ethical clarity in Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, the state health plan should stop offering to pay for those who use it.

They don’t mind that the doctor offered assisted suicide. They are offended that the insurance company should pay for it.

What’s next? Oregon liberal’s solution for the energy crisis: Soylent Biofuel.

Obama’s Up There With Brittany & Paris

These Fish Were Made For Walking

To parodize Nancy Sinatra…

“…And that’s just what they’re going to do.
One of these days these catfish are gonna walk all over you. “

I grew up with the tales of walking catfish in the 1960’s. It’s a sight that makes you have do a doubletake but don’t go and pick one up. Those barbels will sting.

Residents in a Pinellas County subdivision found about 30 catfish walking around their neighborhood on Tuesday.

The walking catfish uses its pectoral fin to shuffle up the street and can breathe out of water as long as it stays moist.

Dianna Fernandez maintains the lawns in the area and drove up on the incredible sight.

An exotic invasive species that’s not expected to overtake Florida any time soon but they make great photographs for the tourists and even the locals. We have enough great blue herons to pick ’em off one at a time. Let ’em come walkin’ around the yard.

MLS Professional Soccer Player To Enter Priesthood

What a great example for the next generation of Roman Catholic children! Hopefully this will be talked about in parochial schools this new school year.

In the midst of his professional soccer career with the New England Revolution, young, handsome, and Roman Catholic, Chase Hilgenbrinck will be entering Mount St. Mary’s Seminary to become a priest. Soccer must be in God’s perfect design, Pope John Paul II was a soccer goal keeper as a young man in Poland. Hilgenbrinck will spend the next six years studying theology and philosophy in the Emmitsberg, Maryland seminary to become ordained as a diocesan priest. Hilgenbrinck wants to return home to serve in his childhood parish.

Chase explains his decision to enter the priesthood.

Jerry Lewis Detained At Airport

The thought of an 82 year old Jerry Lewis carrying a gun in an airport is a little unnerving. Didn’t he realize that guns aren’t permitted in airports? How can you forget about a little .22-caliber handgun? What kind of past and experiences has he had that he needs a gun?

Obama Thinks United States Has Tragic Past, Too

Barack Obama knows how to play the audience. He knows what they want to hear. The anti-American, George Bush-hating audience of journalists and MSM’s want to hear their presidential candidate trash the United States.

President wannabe Obama thinks that only native American Indians and African-Americans deserve apologies (politicianspeak for millions of dollars in reparations).

The Hawaii-born senator, who has told local reporters that he supports the federal recognition bill for native Hawaiians drafted by U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, noted other ethnic groups but did not mention native Hawaiians when answering a question about his thoughts on a formal U.S. apology to American Indians.

“I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged,” the Democratic presidential hopeful said.

“I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it’s Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.”

Deeds? Another metaphor for millions of easy dollars paid by middle class tax payers who worked hard for their money to ethically victimized descendents who don’t deserve it. The journalists responded with a standing ovation as their Messiah left the stage.

Rich State, Poor State: The Reason Why

The American Legislative Exchange Council and Dr. Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore have a published a new study: “Rich States/Poor States: The ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index.” It’s an excellent map to proving why some states are economically more prosperous than others.

In page after page, they show the devastation to a state’s economy that is wrought by the enticing, hopelessly false promises of using confiscatory taxation to protect the poor and disadvantaged. All it does, in the end, is drive off the producers to freer states, leaving behind the poor and disadvantaged and a state budget in deficit, while growth – including growth in state tax revenues – accrue to the freer states.

More Sma’ Talk:
Democrats Never Take Responsibility
Don’t Hate Alcoa For Looking Out After Best Interests
You Get What You Deserve
Poverty Prozac

Bennigan’s Files For Bankruptcy

Ten thousand employees go to work to find restaurant doors closed.

One of my favorite almost fast-food restaurants.