The Orlando Massacre- A Couple of What Ifs

What if even one of the federal authorities who interviewed the mass murderer prior to the Orlando massacre had a brain in their heads? What if someone in that nightclub had a concealed weapon which could have been used to defend themselves when the rag-head went berserk? These are important questions that should be answered by the authorities and politicians who run this country. First the brain issue. Less we forget, a relatively low level female working for the FAA in Minneapolis concluded that something was a little fishy when she observed that the 9/11 rag-heads who were attending aviation classes there had no interest in learning how to land an airplane, they were only interested in learning how to fly them. When she brought this concern to the attention of her superiors they simply ignored her and, as a result, over 3000 people died. Just a smidgen of common sense by these mid-level bureaucrats might have avoided this disaster. Similarly, the feds had interviewed the most recent lunatic rag-head three times since 2013 and did nothing. During this time they also ignored numerous complaints from the ISIS murderer's associates who told them, in no uncertain terms, that this guy was as nutty as a fruit cake and a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. Again the authorities did nothing but sit back and suck their collective thumbs! You have to ask yourself, when will these overpaid incompetent federal employees be held accountable for their negligence and lack of good sense? When will they start employing some kind of reasonable judgment, including racial profiling, to assure public safety? Let me assure you, the simple minded, time consuming screening of white grandmas and grandpas at airports is not the answer! Rather, it is an example of the stupidity of ruling class! Now, to the second and more important issue. How do we minimize the carnage at these increasingly more frequent ISIS terrorist attacks? Forty nine dead and a similar number wounded and scared for life, certainly we can do better. At this point in time, given the present liberal administration, eliminating the radical Muslim element from society is not feasible, so we must concentrate on reducing the damage caused by their irrational attacks on innocent civilians. For the same reason we have fire exits in large buildings and stairs in place to allow exit if the elevators malfunction during a disaster, we need to arm those working in the public sector, not disarm them as is the goal of most of the witless wonders running our country. There should be armed guards or, better yet, armed teachers, in every school, no exceptions. The pilots on all commercial airline should be armed as well as a significant number of their cabin attendants. All large establishments such as restaurants, nightclubs, grocery outlets and sporting events should have armed employees at the ready as well. They should be trained to shoot to kill and ask questions later! Finally, an of equal importance, we should encourage liberal gun carry laws in every state. Anyone who does not have a criminal record should be encouraged to learn how to shoot a gun safely and to carry a concealed weapon. There is a reason crime rates are down significantly in towns and cities that allow their citizens to carry a concealed weapon. Along these same lines, requirements for gun safes, trigger locks and all other gun safety devices should be declared unconstitutional. There is little use for a gun with a complicated trigger lock, or worse yet, a gun locked away in a gun safe, when the bad guy comes crawling through your bedroom window at three AM on a moonless night. You should be able to shoot the bastard to protect your family, it's as simple as that! Of these suggestions, the most important is the liberalization of our gun carry laws, especially for those working in the public sector such as school teachers and people employed in the transportation sector. In this respect, how many innocents, do you think, would have been killed in the most recent Jihadi Orlando massacre if even one or two of the people in that nightclub had been carrying a concealed weapon? Yes, I know drunks should not be allowed to carry firearms in public places but what is the alternative, 49 dead and an equal number badly wounded? When all is said and done, our government will not, or cannot protect us, from those who are intent on killing every last one of us! More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is the only feasible answer to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Strict gun laws that disarm the citizenry have not worked in France, Belgium or England and they will not work here either!

Was Muhammad Ali Really The Greatest Boxing Champion Ever?

Who knows. In the first place, it's difficult, or impossible, to compare athletes who lived in different eras. For instance, in Joe Louis's day the average weight of a heavy weight boxer was around 195 pounds, today it's closer to 235. Thus, any comparison between Muhammad Ali and any previous champion is meaningless. Pound for pound though, I believe Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest price fighter to ever set foot in a boxing ring. In any case, I want to address this issue from a slightly different angle and ask the question, "who was the most significant boxer ever?" Certainly it was not an earlier version of Donald Trump, the braggadocios Muhammad Ali who was behind another door when the humility genes were being passed out. No, the award for most significant boxer ever would have to go to the legionary Joe Louis. The stage was set for Louis by Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. Owens, a black man, ran away with the 1936 Olympics winning four gold medals and he did it on German soil. More significantly, Owens's feat was the first nail in Adolph Hitler's coffin since it brought into question Hitler's claim of Aryan superiority in all things, big and small. Joe Luis drove the second, and final, nail in Hitler's intellectually deficient coffin when he knocked out the German heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in 124 seconds of the first round at Yankee Stadium on June 22, 1938. Because of its political implications this, arguably, was the most important sporting event of all time.It took a few more years for the west to eliminate Hitler and his axis partners but the bloom was definitely off the Aryan rose when Joe Louis made mincemeat out Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium on that summer evening in 1938. As for Muhammad Ali, great men do not wave their hands and gloat over their fallen opponents, only real low lives behave in this fashion.

Veteran Administration Hospitals- What To Do With Them

I worked in a VA Hospital for 22 years and never understood the need for a separate hospital system for veterans. Today, with administrative incompetence from top to bottom, there seems to be even less justification for VA hospitals than when I retired in 2000. I expect there are several reasons why, despite their deficiencies, these reflections of the distant past persist in 2016. First, the Veteran's Administration and their hospitals represent a giant corrupt political organization, much the same as the IRS, which is almost impossible to change despite, its obvious faults and multiple short comings. Second, VA hospitals exist because many, if not most, veterans cannot afford private medical care and do not have health insurance. In this respect, I rarely encountered a veteran who came to our VA hospital because they liked the care they would receive at out institution; rather, they came to us because they had no other choice. So, why don't they have another choice? As veterans who served our country, and put their lives on the line while doing so, they should have a choice, don't you agree? The solution to this problem is simple, straight forward and most importantly cost effective. All veterans should be given Medicare A and B and the VA medical care system should be phased out over a 5 to 10 year period. This would allow time for VA employees to relocate in the private sector. There is absolutely no reason for us to continue a two tiered medical system when there is a reasonable doable alternative. At least I can't think of one. Now, most doctors, worth their salt, will not accept Medicare patients who do not have supplemental health insurance because Medicare reinvestment for their services is inadequate to cover the costs inherent in running their practices, let alone allow them to make a reasonable profit. Thus, we will have to provide veterans with a supplemental insurance plan such as Federal Blue Cross and Blue Shield. This coverage will be expensive, but not nearly as costly as funding the 152 VA medical centers and 1400 VA outpatient clinics that now exist. The cost for running this bloated bureaucracy in 2014 was a whopping $152.7 billion. More to the point, it will provide veterans with the finest medical care possible, in a timely fashion, and eliminate a giant incompetent government institution whose sole purpose seems to be to provide jobs for incompetent administrators who can't cut it in the private sector.