The election was a sad affair for us in ‘08 and because misery loves company so much, I’m really happy all you other folks were here to share the angst.

You’re a terrific bunch of people, no kidding. 

Fireworks will be starting in about an hour but unlike last year when it was very cold, this week has been FROZEN. The frost has frost and I for one will wrap up in an extra blanket and curl up with HTML Made Easy.  HAHA. ROTFLMAO!

Cheers again and again thanks to all at BMEWS.  Have a SAFE NIGHT ppl.  And oh yeah ....

The first thing of course, even before coffee is to pull the morning paper through our letter box in the front door, turn on an extra heater in the room I’m in and do a scan of the paper before actually settling down to read it all.  Sometimes there are two papers.

Well, scanning the paper today I came across this story and was just floored by what I’d read.  So I immediately booted because I want this story shared before I get bogged down with other things.

This was just one hospital out of hundreds and hundreds that I am sure would not have acted this way.  But then I have to wonder.  Is that really true?
Given the state of thinking in today’s world, who is to say with certainty that the same might not apply somewhere else.  The USA as well?

This really is so totally outrageous it needs a category all to itself.
Where’s the common decency? Where’s the humanity? The common sense?

If there were no other way to transport this poor old man who once served his country well, and even had he never been in the army, never mind.
Is this any way to treat an old man?

People who know me well enough also know that of all the folks I have ever disliked in my life, I have never disliked anyone so much as I do the MIL, and with many a valid reason.  However, as much as I loath her, even I would not condone treating the miserable old bag in this manner.  Even I know better and flinch at the idea of this sort of callas behavior on the part of people who are supposed to be “care givers.”

If there were NO OTHER way of sending this dying old man home, could they not have spared just one person to accompany him so he wasn’t alone?
Couldn’t someone have reached a family member?

Oh good.  They said “sorry.” In a pigs ass!  They’re only sorry because of bad publicity and how long will that last?

Saying “sorry” seems to be the password for everything in this screwed up world.  Thugs arrested for god awful crimes only need to say sorry to get a lighter jail term if they get that at all.  “Sorry.” Who really believes that? 

This story bothers me a lot.  Maybe I’m not as cold blooded as I thought I was. Or maybe I see myself in the same situation some day in the future.

For the first time in my life I’m seriously beginning to wonder if just maybe we really need MORE, not less religion in our lives.  Perhaps if Christian charity
or compassion were at work here in this Christian country, someone would have known this was not right on any level.  And you need not be religious to see how terribly wrong this was.  But perhaps if the staff at this hospital had a bit of old time religious feeling and charity, they would have acted otherwise.

I feel very bad for the victim here, and I see him as exactly that.  A victim not just of the hospital, but of a Godless culture as well.  He deserved better at the end of his life.  Much better.

Dying World War Two hero ‘stripped of human dignity’ by hospital care, family say
A decorated Second World War hero aged 101 was sent home to die by a hospital in a taxi wearing a nappy and a set of ill fitting pyjamas, clutching a bag of soiled clothing.

By John Bingham
Last Updated: 8:17PM GMT 30 Dec 2008

Brigadier John Platt recieved the DSO bravery. The family of Brigadier John Platt, who won the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership in one of the fiercest battles of the Italian campaign, told how he was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital, unable to feed himself.

They said he was in a confused state and incontinent, after a stay which left him “degraded and humiliated”.

During his five-day spell in a mixed-sex observation ward, his hearing aid was crushed, his false teeth went missing and soiled pyjamas were piled up unwashed in a locker by his bedside, they said.

Knowing he was dying after losing the ability to swallow food, he asked to go home. But no ambulance was available so he was sent in a taxi on an hour-long journey to the care home where he died a few days later.

When his family later complained about the hygiene issues around the soiled pyjamas, the hospital wrote back to say that it was unfortunate that he had been “unable to avail himself” of its laundry service.

It has since apologised to Brig Platt’s family for the “unacceptable” nature of his discharge in a taxi in late 2006 and vowed to learn lessons from his ordeal.

His case came to light as Nial Dickson, chief executive of the health thinktank the King’s Fund, warned of a deterioration of compassion from under-pressure staff in NHS hospitals.

Brig Platt’s daughter-in-law, Amanda, said that his case highlighted a “shocking and disgraceful” lack of care.

“All that he had at the end of his 101 years was his dignity and they took that away from him,” she said.

In May 1944 Brig Platt, then a Lieutenant Colonel, personally led the men of the 2nd Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry, in the heroic assault across the River Gargliano.

He was wounded twice during the operation and later received the DSO for his bravery. In later life he wrote books about military history and hunting.

“It wasn’t the fact that he was my father-in-law and a dear old soldier, it was the complete lack of respect for a dying person, for a human being, that I thought was so terrible,” said Mrs Platt.

“They packed him off without so much as a by your leave in the back of a non-medical car taxi, sitting bolt upright with somebody else’s pyjamas on and a nappy so tight that he could hardly breathe and two cotton blankets on his shoulders.

“They had lost his false teeth which were brand new, I never saw my father-in-law without his false teeth ... and somebody had stood on his deaf aid, which was crushed.”

But she said that what angered the family most was the soiled clothing.

“I just can’t believe that any hospital would keep excrement-covered clothing in a locker for five days ... I got the impression that this lack of attention must be endemic because it was so lightly treated.”

In a statement, the hospital said: “Clearly some aspects of Brigadier Platt’s discharge from hospital in 2006 were unacceptable and the trust apologises for any distress that this caused the patient and his family.

“In apologising, the trust also acknowledges the concerns raised about some of Brigadier Platt’s personal effects.”

TELEGRAPH

“I just can’t believe that any hospital would keep excrement-covered clothing in a locker”

Well I can because something close to that happened here. 
Back in 2005 the wife’s mother fell, broke hip and had other serious ailments and was carted off to the hospital.

When my wife paid a visit she was given what appeared to be a transparent, pink plastic bag containing her mothers soiled nighties. These were meant to be taken home and washed and then brought back to the hospital. 

Well, that pink plastic looking bag was in FACT, made of soap and was dissoluble in water.  But we weren’t aware of that at the time. That bag contained more then a nightie that needed washing. You can guess what.

After that experience we asked that the hospital laundry do her soiled garments.

Here’s the kicker.  Sure, the hospital can do the laundry. But you have to know ahead of time that, you should ask if they will.  See, you might take for granted that they will.  They won’t volunteer the info.  And nobody told us that the bag would dissolve in water.  We may have been lucky in that.

Thankfully, we never put that soap-bag in our washer. It was done outside in a bucket.  Foolishly perhaps, we hadn’t expected the extra ingredients that bag contained.  But we kind of suspected.  It wasn’t until we opened the bag that we found it all.  It did however confirm my belief that the old lady was full of it.

Finally, wife has just informed me that the hospital in question here has had a number of problems in the past.  This hosp. trust is one of the worst in the country, so she tells me.

While not exactly in the very same league as this article, I did once witness in an American hospital in Riverside, Ca., the same sort of gross indifference and callousness towards an elderly patient in my room when I was recovering from back surgery. And that was over 20 years ago.

I am leaving this posted here for awhile.  I want people to see this. Lots of people. PLEASE pass this one on.

Posted by peiper     on 12/31/2008 at 04:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Health-Medicine • Heroes • Medical • Outrageous • UK •  
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   Tuesday - December 30, 2008

A Miracle

A guest post by Rancino ...

In a few short days, an African-American man will move from his private residence into a much larger and infinitely more expensive one owned not by him but by the taxpayers.  A vast lawn, a perimeter fence and many well-trained security specialists will insulate him from the rest of us, but the mere fact that this man will be residing in this house should make us all stop and count our blessings - because it proves that we live in a nation where anything is possible.

Many believed this day would never come.  Most of us hoped and prayed that it would, but few of us actually believed we would live to see it.  Racism is an ugly thing in all of its forms, and there is little doubt that if this man had moved into this house fifteen years ago, there would have been a great outcry - possibly even rioting in the streets.

Today, we can all be both grateful and proud that no such mayhem will take place when this man takes up residency in this house.

This man moving into this house at this time in our nation’s history is much more than a simple change of addresses for him - it is proof of a change in our attitude as a nation.  It is an amends of sorts - the righting of a great wrong.  It is a symbol of our growth, and of our willingness to “judge a man, not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character”.

There can be little doubt now that the vast majority of us truly believe that this man has earned both his place in history and his new address.  His time in this house will not be easy - it will be fraught with danger and he will face many challenges.  I am sure there will be many times when he asks himself how in the world he ended up here and, like all who have gone before him, the experience will age him greatly.

But I, for one, will not waste an ounce of worry for his sake - because in every way a man can, he asked for this.  His whole life for the past fifteen years appears to have been inexorably leading this man toward this house.  It is highly probable that in the past, despite all of his actions, racism would have kept this man out of this house.  Today, I thank the lord above that I am an American and that I live in a nation where wrongs are righted, where justice matters, and where truly anything is possible.

What, you thought I was talking about Obama?

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Drew458     on 12/30/2008 at 10:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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This kid will be a millionaire by the time he hits 30

A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It’s an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls “an almost unheard-of feat.”

Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday in November. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout.

He says he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a matter of months. He did it with the encouragement of his grandmother, who died shortly before he reached his goal.

The Binghamton University freshman was awarded his final badges on Dec. 19. He says he hopes to become a businessman and politician.

Wow. That’s mighty impressive. When I was a kid in Cub Scouts, I earned every badge available to the Webelos. I think there were 14 at the time. Then I dragged Tom G. along with me so I wouldn’t be the only kid who earned the Arrow of Light Badge. The scoutmaster had to drag the AOL totem pole out of the basement and dust it off, as they hadn’t awarded one in 20 years. I was considered a pushy overachiever. Young Mr. Goldsmith took the much tougher path in Boy Scouts, and outdid my meager achievement by nearly a 9 to 1 ratio. Horry Clap! He’s enrolled at my old alma matta, so if the weather doesn’t get to him I’m sure the business school there will turn out a super shark in record time. Congrats to this young man for a most remarkable achievement.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/30/2008 at 10:33 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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This is the Hamas McKinney supports

via LGF

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed. On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari’a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.

Hamas’s endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn’t feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Teheran’s sense of ascendancy this week was Britain’s Channel 4 network’s decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad’s speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II’s traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.

Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, “We’re offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don’t often get the chance to see.”

Channel 4 should be flogged. Much more in the article at the link, so go read. The author shows very well how the “realist” fantasy Obrainless is about to partake in is pretty stupid. Shari’a law in palestine. With legalized crucifixion. Probably for such heinous islamic crimes such as being female, or scraping your ass clean with 2 rocks instead of the required 3. Subhuman barbarians. Yeah Obama, open a dialogue with these creeps. Without preconditions. Naive much, our new halfrican ruler?

Posted by Drew458     on 12/30/2008 at 06:03 PM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • War On Terror •  
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Israeli Navy rams Gaza-bound aid boat, forcing it to dock in Lebanon. ( They shouldda sunk it! )

UPDATE: Lunatic ex-Congressman Cynthia Mckinney was on board the ship at the time of the incident!

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, standing beside a damaged yacht in the Lebanese seaport of Tyre, Tuesday accused the Israeli navy of ramming the vessel to halt the delivery of medical supplies to the embattled Gaza Strip.

“Our mission was a peaceful mission,” McKinney told CNN. The recent Green Party candidate for U.S. president and frequent center of controversy is the most prominent political figure to join the relief voyages sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said Tuesday that U.S. diplomats had issued no protests to Israeli authorities. “When you enter a zone of conflict, then you have to realize that it’s very, very dangerous,” the spokesman told reporters.

In a news release Tuesday afternoon, one of the 16-member mission, Caoimhe Butterfly offered a conflicting version. The Israeli gunboats “gave us no warning” and “rammed us three times,” she said.

The jerks should consider themselves lucky they weren’t fired on.  I’m much disappointed that the Israelis didn’t blow the bastards out of the water.

On the tired side, it’s late so pulling the plug on my puter till the morning.

Cheers All.

By Michael Theodoulou
Last updated at 6:26 PM on 30th December 2008

The British skipper of a boat carrying medical supplies and peace activists to the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade told today how his vessel was rammed by an Israeli gunboat.

Denis Healey spoke of ‘panic stations’ on the Gibraltar-flagged Dignity after the pre-dawn collision in international waters.

Two Israeli gunboats had been shadowing the 20-meter motor yacht for half-an-hour, ‘shining powerful search-lights at us, blinding us,’ Healey said.

Then, without provocation or any warning we were rammed. It was a blow to the front port side. It wiped out the wheel house and took away some of the upper deck.’

Healey, a 53-year-old Cyprus-based marine engineer from Portsmouth, said the Israeli Navy had made no radio contact before the collision nor fired any warning shots.

‘They told us to turn back to Cyprus. They claimed we were involved in terrorist activity,’ he said.

He managed to guide the limping Dignity into the Lebanese port Tyre.

‘Initially, we took in quite a bit of water but managed to stem the flow once we got the pumps working.’

There were no casualties among the 15 passengers and crew, among them four Britons, including Dr David Halpin, an orthopaedic surgeon who had volunteered his help to Gazan hospitals and clinics.

Israeli officials portrayed the collision as an accident and insisted the patrol boats had radioed the Dignity to turn back before the collision occurred.

They accused the international activists on the boat of ‘being intent on creating a media incident’.

Karl Penhaul, a Briton correspondent for CNN on the Dignity, said suggestions it was a mere collision ‘doesn’t square with what we saw here at sea’.

The US-based Free Gaza Movement, which operates the Dignity, said it was intercepted 90 miles from Gaza in international waters and accused Israel of an act of ‘piracy’.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said that ‘the UK is internationally responsible’ for the Dignity because it is registered in Gibraltar.

He said: ‘We advised all British nationals on the boat to Gaza that it would be reckless and dangerous at this time. At the same time, we told the Israeli government that we take the safety of our nationals seriously and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.’

PEACE ACTIVISTS

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 02:07 PM   
Filed Under: • International • Israel • Paleswine • Stoopid-People •  
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Council disregard objections of 3,000 residents to traveller site as ‘they are racist’.

This is a small example of the BS people are FORCED to put up with here in the socialist paradise.
This reasonable group of comments that were solicited by the council to begin with, are “racist” because the pc district council didn’t like the question or the comments from .... oh. Nobody really important.  Just the folks who pay the taxes is all. Just the people who were living peacefully in their neighborhoods.  Small potatoes what?

For those at BMEWS who might not know, “Travelers” is the oh so pc title now given to Gypsies. And let me tell ya, these folks ARE organized. They move their campers,trailers, diggers and trash onto public ground, they do it on weekends before anyone can do anything, council offices are closed, they immediately enroll their kids in local schools first thing which then make it even harder to evict them, they install electric, septic tanks, and whatever else is needed to live on a site.
Once installed, it can take forever to get rid of them legally as things slooooowly move through the courts.  And I haven’t covered it all by any means.

So then, object to the noise and the filth and question what their presence does to your property value, not to mention crime, and it’s automatic. You’re a racist.
BTW ... I don’t even pretend to understand the racist tag since “Travelers” are mostly white and very,very many come over from Ireland. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you.  They have lawyers these folks do.  Lots of em.

By Dan Newling
Last updated at 8:14 AM on 30th December 2008

When residents were asked to provide feedback on council plans to build traveller camps on their doorstep they dutifully responded.

More than 3,000 homeowners filled in forms outlining their views, many raising concerns over a possible increase in noise, traffic, rubbish and a detrimental effect on property prices.

However, such objections were not appreciated by Mid-Bedfordshire District Council, which partially or fully rejected nearly nine in ten of the replies for including comments ‘of a racist nature’.

(and btw, things of a racist nature can be ANYTHING they (council) deem it to be)

Weeks after asking for residents’ views earlier this year, the council posted an article on its website entitled ‘Racist Comments Not Welcome’.

It claimed the council’s ‘duty of community leadership’ meant it had to crack down on the use of racial stereotypes, and revealed that while 400 responses would be considered, 3,100 were in some way racist and would be rejected.

The council even sent letters to objectors telling them their views had been deemed offensive and would not be taken account of.

Retired company secretary Lucy Clarke from Stotfold - one of the six small towns and villages mooted as sites for the 25 traveller families - was astounded to receive her letter.

Mrs Clarke, a grandmother of three, said: ‘As far as I am aware I objected to the camp for entirely reasonable grounds. And yet I then get this letter from the council.

‘They even accused me of incitement to racial hatred. It’s ridiculous - like putting me on a par with Abu Hamza.’

She added: ‘I am not racist, but I am concerned about what one of these camps could do to our town.’

Even the local town council could not avoid falling foul of the censors.

Brian Collier, chairman of Stotfold council said: ‘We wrote a detailed response in which we summarised locals’ concerns.

‘There is another gipsy site not far from here that has a well-known crime problem.

‘As part of our response we echoed people’s worries that the same may happen here.

‘We were totally shocked when we then received a letter from the district council saying that was racist. There are lots of people here who have had the same treatment.’

The district council’s attitude has been criticised by local campaigners, politicians and civil liberties groups.

Tory communities spokesman Eric Pickles said yesterday: ‘I hope that they write a letter of apology to everyone they have accused of being racist. Otherwise, people simply aren’t going to feel able to object to these camps without the fear of being branded racist.’

When contacted by the Daily Mail, a spokesman for Mid-Bedfordshire council admitted that it had been ‘somewhat overzealous’.

He said: ‘We were worried that many of the letters contained racist slurs and objectionable comments that we felt could not be published under current race relations legislation.

‘We had no intention of offending those who took the time to respond to the consultation and certainly were not trying to label residents as racist.

‘Only a small proportion (around 5 per cent) of the comments were actually discounted in their entirety. The remainder were taken into consideration, either in whole or in part.’

TRAVELERS

Posted by peiper     on 12/30/2008 at 01:11 PM   
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs • Nanny State • UK •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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