The Oreo cookie malfunction

A state trooper in Connecticut has now heard probably one of the lamest excuses for a speeding ticket.

When the trooper stopped a 1993 BMW, its driver, Justin Vonkummer of Millerton, N.Y., blamed his speeding on an Oreo cookie malfunction.

The driver stated he accidentally dropped an Oreo into his milk and was attempting to retrieve it when he lost control of his speed.

Is this the stereotypical baby-boomer or “beemer” owner?

Even if it were the cause, I’m not sure how many people would actually admit that to the officer.

Indiana Healthcare Report

In a recent report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Indiana has improved its overall health care quality performance from weak to average.

These annual State Snapshots are based on data from more than 30 sources, including government surveys, health care facilities and health care organizations and the report provides state-specific health care quality information, including strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.

Ratings of "very weak" to "very strong" were given on these measures:

• Overall health care quality
• Types of care (preventive, acute and chronic)
• Settings of care (hospitals, ambulatory care, nursing home and home health)
• Five clinical conditions
• Clinical preventive services

The report ranked Indiana the strongest in:

• Care for adults on Medicare managed care
• Percentage of adults on Medicare managed care who always got an appointment for routine health care in the last 12 months
• Diagnosing advanced stage breast cancer
• Percentage of short-stay nursing home residents with delirium

Some of the state's weakest measures included:

• Percentage of diabetic adults over age 40 who had a retinal eye examination in the past year
• Number of low birth-weight infant deaths per 1,000 live births less than 1,500 grams and between 1,500 to 2,499 grams
• Percentage of long-stay nursing home residents whose ability to move about worsened
• Increase in the percent of long-stay nursing home residents with increased need for help with daily activities

All states had its share of problems and areas for improvement, but it is good that we have improved from last year.

National Health Insurance Survey

In a recent survey conducted by IU School of Medicine's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research (CHPPR) and published in the April 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine it was stated that 59 percent of doctors support government legislation to establish national health insurance.

This is up from a similar survey in 2002 which only showed 49 percent supported national health insurance.

Why the increase?

The survey did not ask any detailed questions and did not attempt to qualify what National Health Insurance meant.

If physicians were given a choice between fixing the current system vs. National Health Insurance, the results would have been very different.

The media has run with this and make it sound as if all physicians want a National Healthcare System.

This is very misleading and dishonest.

We have a system that needs fixed and we have a government that needs to define what its role is supposed to be.

Tamper proof prescriptions

Tamper proof prescription pads are already mandated by the government for Medicaid prescriptions and on October 1, the same requirement will apply to Medicare prescriptions.

Ordinary prescription pads are relatively easy to alter and people have found all sorts of ways to photocopy, use chemicals to dissolve handwriting, and forge signatures. After all, when you cannot read the doctors writing anyway, how hard could it be?

But I have to say that our local pharmacists are very good about questioning and calling when there is a potential forged prescription.

A cross section of interest groups has developed a list of prescription pad features to satisfy a Medicaid Rx security law that took effect April 1. Precautions are divided into three categories and written Medicaid prescriptions must have at least one feature from one category as of April 1. Pads must include one security element from all three categories by Oct. 1.

Category one: Features to prevent unauthorized copying
• Pantograph: The word "void" appears when the prescription is photocopied.
• Security back print: Words, such as "security prescription," printed on the prescription's back.
• Reverse "Rx" or white area: "Rx" symbol or white area that disappears when photocopied at a light setting.
• Watermarking: Paper with watermarks.

Category two: Features to prevent erasure or modification of information
• Non-white background: Paper's background features a solid color or consistent pattern.
• Quantity ranges: Boxes that can be checked by the physician to indicate the number of doses.
• Refill indicator: Indicates the number of refills allowed.
• Rx limit: A line specifying the number of prescriptions allowed for different drugs on the same form.
• Quantity and refill borders: For EMRs, quantity or refill limits appear between asterisks; quantity or refill limits also could be spelled out.
• Chemically reactive paper: Exposure to solvents, oxidants, acids or alkalis will leave a visible mark.
• Paper toner fuser: Special toner bonds tightly to paper, making modification difficult.

Category three: Features to prevent counterfeiting
• Features list: A complete list of security features on the paper (highly recommended).
• Serial number: Unique number for each prescription, which may or may not be sequential, but should be reported to the state to be valid.
• Batch number: For states with approved vendors, a number identifying each batch of prescriptions.
• Encoding techniques: Bar codes used to encode a serial number, for example.
Logos: Sometimes used as part of the background color or as a pantograph.
Metal strip: A strip of metal embedded in the paper.

Those using e-prescribing also have to meet these same guidelines if they print prescriptions but if they go electronically to the pharmacy via an intermediary, they avoid these hassles.

Frivolous Inmate Lawsuits

Inmate lawsuits from the jails are a common occurrence. Every jail has them and ours is no exception.

The vast majority are usually without merit and dismissed promptly but it still remains a real nuisance to everyone involved.

So far, we have not had a case like the one in Arkansas although we have had some pretty ridiculous lawsuits.

In Arkansas, an inmate filed his lawsuit against Benton County alleging the jailhouse menu was leading him to starvation.

Despite his claim, the man jailed for fatally stabbing and beating someone currently weighs over 300 pounds. But in his complaint, he says the jail's 3,000-calorie-a-day meals aren't enough and claims he weighed over 400 pounds when he was first arrested eight months ago.

He said that on several occasions he started to do some exercising and his vision went blurry and he felt like he was going to pass out.

He also claimed that about an hour after each meal his stomach starts to hurt and growl and he feels hungry again.

It is very difficult to feel sorry for this individual. I think the jail should consider charging him for a weight loss program that is actually going to potentially improve his health.

Competitiveness Strategy Survey

The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded a grant, Wired65, to the Central Kentucky and Southern Indiana regions to work together to create a regional competitiveness strategy.

This strategy will provide a blueprint for developing, retaining and recruiting talented people to our region.

Quality of life is important to anyone who chooses to live in a particular area and this survey will help establish what makes the 26-county region a vibrant place to live and work.

The online survey is being conducted through early June to gather information for our competitiveness strategy.

The survey is for current and former residents of the Kentucky/Indiana I-65 corridor region.

Information gathered from the survey, as well as through peer interviews and other means, will be presented in a report to regional leaders this fall.

Please take the time to fill out this brief survey and give input into shaping how our region can be more effective in the development, retention and recruitment of talent.

The survey is located at http://www.wired65.org/.

Choices we need to make

In 1953, the spending of health care dollars between the 35-44 year olds and the 75 years olds was almost equal. Now, for every U.S. healthcare dollar spent on the average 35- to 44-year-old, about $4.50 is spent on the average person aged 75 and older. Although this is intuitively obvious, it is somewhat concerning. More on these statistics can be found at http://www.signaturefoundation.org/Media/2007/Reischauer07.pdf

American healthcare has extended life expectancy since 1953 and living to 75 is now not uncommon. The life expectancy was about 68 in the early ’50s. People now expect active medical intervention to delay and diminish the physical decline that typically accompanies the aging years, but all of these interventions cost money.

Recent reports showed that 36 percent fewer Americans will die of heart attacks this year than did only nine years ago but with Americans continuing to get fatter, even the advances made to diminish heart disease deaths will be overwhelmed with a the new epidemic of obesity and its related problems.

More people are living longer lives despite chronic illnesses that would have killed their parents. The question asked is; Are we absolutely certain that this is a good thing? Can we — should we — continue to disconnect actions from consequences by extending lives ever-longer while our lifestyles remain sedentary and gluttonous?

There are only limited resources and we should at least think about how all of these advances affect our ability to disseminate these resources to the population

Of the $2.3 trillion we spent on healthcare last year, 64 percent was paid out to care for the sickest 10 percent among us and of that, only a very small percentage was paid by the individual.

We cannot continue this trend with the aging population and more personal responsibility has to be undertaken both financially and by lifestyle choices.

Fragmentation of Care

In a recent article in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, a study showed the number of physicians overseeing a patient's care has a significant effect on that individual's length of stay in the hospital.

There has been a lot of talk about how to balance work hours in physicians but much less focus has been given to the impact of discontinuity of care on patient length of stay and other utilization and quality measures.

This study looked at 1724 patients admitted to hospitalists with pneumonia and its complications and 8509 patients admitted with heart failure and shock between December 2006 and November 2007 at 223 hospitals across the country.

The results showed that patients with pneumonia had a mean length of stay (LOS) of 5.81 days, and those with heart failure had a mean LOS of 4.69 days, but for every 10% increase in fragmentation of care by the changing hospitalists, LOS increased by 0.45 days for people with pneumonia and 0.38 days for people with heart failure.

There was not shown to be an increase in the complication rate, but just in the length of stay.
Although this study only looked at hospitalists, fragmentation of care among all providers probably plays some role in increasing the length of stay.

I think for primary care physicians who typically are the coordinators of care; it would make sense to ensure continuity of care as much as possible.

Documentary explores physician mental health

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is sponsoring a documentary to address the issue of physician suicides.

There are many studies confirming physicians die by suicide more frequently than others in the general population and more frequently than other professions.

The documentary is called "Struggling in Silence: Physician Depression and Suicide," and is being aired on public broadcast stations (PBS) nationwide.

The program discusses how suicide impacts families, patients and communities through the stories of two physicians lost to suicide.

It also shares the accounts of those living with depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder, and explores the barriers that may prevent physicians and medical students from seeking help.

This film will probably be a benefit to any family member or any individual who suffers with one of these illnesses.

More information can be found at Struggling in Silence: Physician Depression and Suicide

Senior Care

Finding care for elderly relatives can be a daunting task and ingenuity is sometimes critical.

An England man found a way to get help for his retired elderly father and was inundated with responses.

He pinned up a poster advertising for a drinking buddy for his elderly 88 year old father residing in a local nursing home. He offered not only to pay for the pub beer, but also $14 an hour for the companion's time.

The response was overwhelming and he eventually chose a retired doctor and a former military man to be his father's paid drinking pal.

New Statistics Released

According to the recently released data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the teen birth rate in the U.S. for the year 2006 rose for the first time in 14 years.

This was up from 40.5 births per 1,000 in 2005, but still well below the 62 births per 1,000 recorded in 1991. It is too early to know if this is the beginning of a trend but it may be a concern.

This increase was accounted for by about 20,000 more births among teens in the U.S. in 2006 than the previous year, with a 5% increase seen among African-American teens, a 3% increase among non-Hispanic whites, and a 2% increase among Hispanics.

Other statistics from this report were:

• The overall birth rate increased by 3% to 4.26 million between 2005 and 2006 which was the largest single-year increase since 1989 and the largest total number of births since 1961
• The number of cesarean deliveries and births to unmarried women hit all-time highs
• Teen childbirths rose by 3% in 2006, to about 42 births for every 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 19.
• Birth rates rose by 4% among women between the ages of 20 and 24, to 105 births per 1,000 and by 3% among those aged 40 to 44, to 9.4 births per 1,000.
• It appears to some that an increasing number of families are made up of more than one or two children and when it comes to family planning, three may be the new two.
• The preterm birth rate rose slightly in 2006
• The rate of infant deaths remained at a relatively stable
• African-American newborns continued to be more than twice as likely as white and Hispanic infants to die in the first year of life.
• More than half of all infant deaths in 2005 were from birth defects, premature delivery, sudden infant death syndrome, and complications at delivery.
• There were 2.44 million deaths in the United States in 2005, an increase of about 50,000 deaths over 2004.
• Life expectancy continued to increase to a record high of 77.9 years in 2005, or 0.1 year more than the previous year.
• The life expectancy for a white female born in 2005 is now 80.8 years, compared to 75.7 years for a white male, 76.5 years for a black female, and 69.6 years for a black male.

New Breach on Ethics

British researchers have taken one more step into an ethical and moral controversy. They have created embryos and stem cells using human cells and cow oocytes but admitted the experiments would not lead to hybrid human-animal babies, or even to direct medical therapies.

So the logical question is; why do it?

Most realistic people know that once areas like this are breached, someone sometime will attempt the next step.

The researchers said they had enucleated bovine oocytes, inserted human DNA to create a growing embryo, and then taken it apart to get embryonic stem cells. They say this is just an interim step aimed at understanding the biology of embryonic stem cells and it will open the door to a better understanding of disease processes.

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania said "This is one of the most controversial ethical issues in all of cloning and stem cell research,"
He also noted that many people may be disgusted or frightened by such work but he doesn’t feel the fear is justified. I believe he is extremely naïve.

I believe in the sanctity of human life and admit that we will never be able to “scientifically know” everything. There are some endeavors that are morally and ethically wrong and we should acknowledge and accept them.

The Third Sex

Thailand is home to a large number of "lady boys," or "katoey" in Thai. This is a term that covers anything from a transvestite to a man who has undergone a full sex change. Thailand is now becoming the world leader in sex change surgery.

What are the ethical considerations of the “third sex”? Are we not just ignoring the underlying psychopathology? After all, there are only two sexes; male (46 X, Y) and female (46 X, X).

Anything else is a deliberate distortion of the truth. Changing the outward appearance does not change the chromosomal makeup of the individual.

But in the name of tolerance, we are denying these individuals an opportunity to live a more normal life.

Thailand's health chiefs have recognized the growing problem and recently barred hospitals and clinics from castrating would-be "lady boys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex change.

A full sex change therapy requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient and if doctors do not comply, they could face up to six months in jail.

The senior health official has admitted that policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation taking only 15-20 minutes and easy to conduct in secret.

But just as everywhere, it is a buyers market and lower end clinics have responded to the demand from teenage boys to look more like girls by posting Internet advertisements offering castration for as little as 4,000 baht ($125).

You can do all kinds of body work, engine modifications, and fancy paint jobs to a Volkswagen, stick a Porsche emblem on the front and convince yourself you have a Porsche, but the car is still a Volkswagen.

We need to help these people with their underlying psychopathology rather than just tolerate their poor decisions.

Simple Courtesy's

The technological age has many wonderful attributes, but it also has some not so wonderful qualities.

Physicians have gotten complacent when it comes to discussing cases with our colleagues.

There have been terms coined by Dr. Hoenig of "parallel" and "interactive" medicine. He defines the first as occurring when doctors who follow the same patient communicate indirectly, through consult notes or notations in a hospital chart. Medical care is provided in parallel by each of the physicians, who have no contact other than reading each other's notes. Frequently, the documentation is illegible or incomplete, and doesn't fully convey the physician's thought process.

In the second type of communication, interactive medicine, doctors discuss patient care with each other, either on the phone or in person. The interaction facilitates the exchange of information and communication is enhanced through body language, face-to-face conversations, and by word emphasis and the give and take of dialogue. This two heads approach can many times expedite the workup and diagnosis that may have been elusive otherwise.

Physicians cannot contact each other every time they see a patient, but in certain cases, this direct physician-to-physician dialogue should be the norm, rather than the exception.

Relationships among physicians are especially important and it is beneficial to our patient's care. I would love to see this part of medicine improve even as we advance technologically.

England Survey

Remember several years ago there was a commercial that asked common people the question; What would you do for a Klondicke bar?

With all television going to hi-def, and taking a similar approach, an electronics retailer in England thought it would be fun to ask everyday common people what they would do for a 50 inch plasma TV.

Half the male respondents said they would give up sex for 6 months and be celibate. Only about a third of the women would give up sex.

One fourth of both men and women stated they would quit smoking and about the same would give up chocolate.

So from a purely numerical standpoint, it would appear that in England, cigarettes and candy bars are more enjoyable than sex.

I always knew they had their priorities “screwed” up!

Pondering the Questions

A patient of mine is getting ready to make a life change and was pondering the question;should we no longer call a physician a doctor or an attorney a lawyer if they stop practicing or if they change professions? At what point does a person stop being what they were trained for?

If an accountant leaves the profession and becomes a carpenter, is he/she still an accountant? If a dentist leaves dentistry and becomes a high school English teacher, is he/she no longer a dentist?

Do the degrees earned no longer have meaning if you do not continue to practice in your field or once a professional; always a professional?

At what point should a person stop referring to themselves as the professional they were trained and does it really matter?

I am hopeful that some day I’ll have the opportunity to stop the full-time practice of Medicine and venture out to some other things. At that time, will I still be a doctor and do my multiple years of experience not count for anything or should I never use the title once I quit practicing?

What are your thoughts?

More Legislative News from the ISMA

This bill was signed and passed by the Governor. I had blogged on it a couple of weeks ago.

BILL: SB 159 – Silent PPOs
AUTHOR: Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield
SPONSOR: Phil Hoy D-Evansville
ISMA POSITION: Support

STATUS: The governor signed SB 159 into law on March 13.

The bill requires conspicuous language in a physician contract if a network intends to sell a physician's discounted reimbursement rate to third parties. The network also will be required to maintain a Web site or toll-free phone number listing all networks to whom the contracting network has sold the discount.

SB 159 additionally requires third parties who purchase the discount to include contact information on explanation of benefits statements for the network that sold the discount.
Finally, the bill prohibits aggregators from selling or leasing physician reimbursement rates.


The following is a list of bills that have ended up in the Legislative Morgue and will not move forward at this time. The ISMA was supportive of some and opposed to others. But at this time, they will have to be re-introduced before further action can be taken.

BILL: SB 3 – Dispensing Drugs by a Pharmacist
AUTHOR: Jeff Drozda, R-Westfield
ISMA POSITION: Neutral with concerns

This bill would have permitted a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription if he/she believed that it would cause an abortion, destroy an unborn child, or cause the death of a person by means of assisted suicide.

BILL: SB 181 – Order of Priority for Health Care Decisions
AUTHOR: Sen. Sue Errington, D-Muncie
ISMA POSITION: Oppose

As introduced, the bill would have specified the order of priority by which persons are authorized to consent to health care for an individual who is incapable of consenting to health care and who has not appointed a health care representative.

The ISMA objected to the measure due to concern that specifying an absolute order of priority would complicate the already difficult situation that accompanies end of life decision making.

Current law lists many individuals eligible to make such a decision in the absence of a health care representative, without specifying a pecking order. Such flexibility is viewed as important by the ISMA.

BILL: SB 221 – Warning to Pregnant Women of Tobacco Use
AUTHOR: Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington
ISMA POSITION: Support

The bill would have required tobacco vending machine owners and establishments that sell tobacco to post a notice stating that smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature death and low birth weight.

BILL: SB 270 – Jail Inmate Health Care
AUTHOR: Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne
ISMA POSITION: Support

SB 270 would have required a county to reimburse physicians, hospitals and other health care providers at the reimbursement rate of the county's health plan.

The bill also would have required that a sheriff could not release a person who was subject to lawful detention for the purpose of allowing the county to avoid payment of a person's health care expenses.

BILL: HB 1053 – Meningitis Vaccinations for College Students
AUTHOR: Rep. Tim Neese, R-Elkhart
ISMA POSITION: Support

The bill would have required incoming freshmen at any public university in Indiana to be vaccinated for meningitis, in addition to the current requirement of vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella.

The bill contained an exemption for qualifying students and repealed the notice requirement to students encouraging voluntary vaccination for meningococcal meningitis.

BILL: HB 1055 – Assignment of Benefits
AUTHOR: Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield
ISMA POSITION: Support

This bill would have required insurers to honor a patient's assignment of benefits to out-of-network providers.

BILL: HB 1057 – Smoking Ban in Certain Public Places
AUTHOR: Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary
ISMA POSITION: Support

HB 1057 would have prohibited smoking statewide in:
• Public places
• Enclosed areas of a place of employment
• Certain state vehicles

Although the ISMA supported the bill, there were concerns that this legislation would not have provided a comprehensive smoking ban. Language in the bill exempted private residences, family- owned and operated businesses, certain hotel and motel rooms, retail stores that provide 60 percent of their business from the sale of tobacco, a private or semiprivate room of a health or long-term care facility, private vehicles, bars, clubs, fraternal organizations, bowling alleys, live pari-mutual horse-racing facilities and their satellite locations, riverboats and casinos.

BILL: HB 1082 – Medical Exams for School Bus Drivers
AUTHOR: Rep. Bob Bischoff, D-Greendale
ISMA POSITION: Support

The bill would have allowed an out-of-state doctor to perform a necessary medical exam before a person was allowed to drive a school bus. Current law only allows an in-state doctor to perform this exam.

BILL: HB 1126 – Wrongful Death or Injury of a Child
AUTHOR: Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington
ISMA POSITION: Oppose

HB 1126 would have included a viable fetus in the definition of a child for purposes of the Wrongful Death Act (WDA).

This bill was sought to counter a decision by the Indiana Supreme Court in 2002 that prohibited recovery under the WDA for the mother's unborn child as the result of an automobile accident.
The ISMA does not have a position on the underlying issue the bill addresses, which is recovery under the WDA for personal injury to an unborn child. The ISMA's concern with this bill is its potential impact on the Medical Malpractice Act.

The bill would likely change current case law holdings that allow for only one recovery to the mother for losses of unborn children.

The ISMA was prepared to express concern with the impact this bill would have on an already problematic malpractice situation for obstetrics, emergency medicine and primary care.

BILL: HB 1167 – Hand-held Mobile Telephone Use
AUTHOR: Rep. Vanessa Summers, D-Indianapolis
ISMA POSITION: Support

The bill would have made it a Class D infraction to operate a motor vehicle while using a hand-held mobile telephone. It provided exemptions for emergency situations, operators of authorized emergency vehicles, medical service vehicles, volunteer firefighters and emergency services professionals.

BILL: HB 1268 – Regulation of Cigarette Retail Sales
AUTHOR: Rep. Bill Cochran, D-New Albany
ISMA POSITION: Oppose

The bill would have exempted wholesale cigarette vendors from the Cigarette Fair Trade Act, which does not allow wholesalers or retailers to sell cigarettes below cost.
The ISMA was concerned that this bill would allow wholesalers to sell cigarettes to retailers below cost, which could lead to a reduction in the price of cigarettes statewide.

BILL: HB 1342 – Electronic Health Records System
AUTHOR: Rep. Mike Ripley, R-Monroe
ISMA POSITION: Oppose

HB 1342 would have required health care facilities and practitioners to use electronic health records systems for purposes of billing and receipt of claim payment services rendered by the facility or practitioner by Jan. 1, 2010.

The system would have had to allow for the exchange of information between the system and the claim payment system of each third party to which the practitioner submitted a bill.

BILL: HB 1362 – Non-Profit and County Hospitals
AUTHOR: Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary
ISMA POSITION: Oppose

This bill would have required physicians employed or contracted with a non-profit or county hospital to accept Medicaid patients.

HB 1362 was forwarded due to concerns of American Health Network about non-profit and county hospitals' ability to subsidize physician employees and contractors with tax breaks and public funds without requiring those physicians to accept Medicaid patients.

Election Day

Please Remember to Vote today!

We are "The Home of the Free; Because of the Brave"

Utilize this privilege and do not take for granted what many other countries don’t allow.

Obama has some serious problems

I am all for freedom of speech and our other constitutional rights, but I also believe we have the freedom to challenge those who are using this right to make radical statements. We also have the right to state what is intuitively obvious.

When the Rev Wright speeches are put into context, as he stated wasn’t the case, it becomes even clearer that they are hate-filled and racist. If they were being said by anyone other than a black preacher, the outcry would be tremendous. This double standard is overwhelmingly clear.

Rev. Wright’s sermons “put in context” are far worse than the snippets we have heard previously. Rationally trying to defend the statements really shows the underlying bias. The statements put in context can be found here: Townhall.com::Blog

The speeches are clearly inflaming racial hatred. He blames America for 9/11, he blames the government for spreading AIDS to black people, he makes statements about how blacks are genetically different, he makes statements about how blacks learn differently from other races, he blames the government for suppressing black people from any sort of accomplishments all while promoting increased government intervention to fix the problems. The same government that is causing the problem is being escalated to having more power.

What kind of rational thinking is this?

Obama has a serious problem. You have to be concerned about a candidate who touts his Christianity, acknowledges this racially-biased minister as being his spiritual leader, and admitting he has been attending this church for ~20 years, then asking everyone to believe that he disagrees with this speech and hate-filled rhetoric.

Something seriously doesn’t add up.

In addition, Obama's wife would not answer the question when asked if she disagreed with Wright's statements. She continued to divert the conversation and never answered. This is very worrisome.

If I was exposed to this type of speech in my church and I truly disagreed with it as Obama says, there is no way I would continue to attend and financially support the church and preacher that radically opposed my thoughts and beliefs.

This cannot be rationally explained.

Someone is lying and Obama has a lot more explaining to do before we should trust him with the Presidency!

Dropping from above

The “sky is falling” might have been more than a cliché for a Georgia homeowner.

The owner of the house said he and his wife returned home to find pictures knocked to the floor and cracks in a hallway's drywall. He decided to crawl up into the attic and there he found a hole about the size of a loaf of bread in his roof, with a tire peeking through.

The explanation of how a tire could have fallen into his house with such force to cause this much damage was a mystery until the FAA gave them the explanation.

Federal Aviation Administration officials told the home owner that the wheel plummeted to earth from a helicopter owned by a landscaping company. The wheel is part of equipment used to haul the helicopter around the landing pad during maintenance but should have been removed before flight.

The Walton County Sheriff's Office traced serial numbers on the tire to the landscaping company and the FAA is still investigating the incident.

There was no indication of whose insurance was going to pick up the tab.

Our Nanny State

As we get closer and closer to the election, we need to consider the candidates carefully. There is no perfect candidate and never will be, but we need to really consider what the implications of each will be in the short term and what harm they can do in the long run.

Edward Gibbon, in his magnum opus Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, stated the five attributes that marked Rome at its end:

1.) Mounting love of show and luxury
2.) Widening gap between rich and poor
3.) Obsession with sex including homosexuality
4.) Freakishness in art masquerading as originality and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity
5.) Increased desire to live off the state.

Over the past 200 plus years of our history, we certainly are following a similar path. Will the USA “fall” in the near future? No, but can we acknowledge historical truths that have doomed other societies?

We are becoming a “Nanny State”. Election of either of the democratic candidates will only worsen this problem. We will lose more and more liberties with each increase in power we give the government and both democratic candidates have made it very clear they want more government and more taxes.

The current democratic candidates believe that the “state” (government) has a comprehensive duty to protect the citizenry from their own harmful behaviors, and both believe the state knows best what constitutes harmful behavior.

This is outrageous but seems to be a trend in this post modern thinking. "We can't know truth, but we know what is best for you!" This thinking is self-refuting.

We now allow government to dictate everything from mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws, what we can carry on airplanes, what we can taken into schools, gyms, buildings and allow the government to ban smoking in public places. We also allow the government to tax junk food, alcohol, ban fast food from vending machines, ban recreational drug use, implement more gun control, decide on the legal drinking age or legal smoking age as well as define political correctness, censorship, and content regulation.

I agree that some of these are for the benefit of society, but at what point do you draw the line and hold people accountable for their personal behaviors, choices and consequences?

What is and what should be the government’s role? The Government has overstepped its constitutional boundaries and our reliance on the government to make personal decisions needs to subside.

Think carefully as you fulfill your right and duty to vote. Who will grow the government the least and who has the moral clarity to make the best decisions based on the founding principles of this nation?