It’s hard to follow American politics from ten thousand miles away (I live in the rural Philippines, and we get the news a day late), but as a Democrat, I was bemused to read in today’s papers that Rick Santorum just won in the Republican primaries of Minnesota and Missouri.
Santorum? I wasn’t aware he […]

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This year’s hottest Thanksgiving event is being held in Minneapolis at the headquarters of Target Corp. The mega retailer, whose cheap designer duds keep Joe and Jane Doakes looking stylish even during a depression, will be celebrating T-Day in a novel way. Target’s chief execs and board of directors are ditching family gatherings in favor […]

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Paranoia kills. And the internet, which allows anyone to post any conspiracy theory without having to include minor things like facts, is a growing problem for doctors, because our patients who google sometimes end up at conspiracy theory sites for their medical information.
And this ignorance is one reason why Bachman is now no longer […]

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If you live in the US, mark your calenders: It’s the Great American Shake- out drill.

check out this link for more information.
so what do you do when an earthquake strikes?

when I lived in Minnesota, we always kept emergency supplies in our car (in case we got caught in a snowstorm or skidded off the […]

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Author John L. Betcher boldly places the existence of God on trial in his extraordinary new book A Higher Court: One Man’s Search for the Truth of God’s Existence.

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Ah, a British paper just pooh poohed the British victory at the Battle of Agincourt, saying that Prince Hal was not outnumbered 4 to 1, merely outnumbered 2 to 1.
Actually, the author misses the point, which is that the elite knights of France got slowed down by the mud and were massacred by ordinary British […]

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On January 28th, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano was in the East Room at the White House taking part in the stimulus show. Standing shoulder to shoulder with President Obama and an all-star cast of CEOs representing entities such as Xerox, Kodak, Google, Motorola, and Applied Materials. (Applied is a supplier to the semiconductor industry.) […]

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By Cynthia Ruccia, Special to The Stiletto Blog
Wow … flying to St. Paul, MN, for the Republican National Convention. I still feel like I’ve fallen down that rabbit hole in “Alice in Wonderland” and the world is upside down.
Honestly, when 2008 started, I had a whole set of New Year’s resolutions just like everyone […]

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No grandiose staging for John McCain’s speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president. At his request, convention organizers had reconfigured the stage to build a sort-of fashion model’s catwalk that jutted into the audience so McCain could be amongst them when he addressed them – a more intimate “town hall” type conversation rather than […]

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Senator John McCain accepted the GOP nomination for President this evening with a speech that was as about exciting as a defensive driving lecture. The fellow who sided with President Bush 95% of the time now claims when he and his pistol packing side kick get to D.C they will shake things up, new sheriff […]

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The Repubs were in fine fettle Wednesday night, showing off their sense of humor in back-to-back speeches packed with biting barbs, alliterative jibes and irony-laden vocal inflections by erstwhile presidential candidate and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (video) and vice presidential nominee AK Gov. Sarah Palin (video). Both speakers – especially Giuliani, who mugged his […]

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I for one was impressed and excited By Governor Sarah Palins acceptance speech. Praise Jesus It hit all the patriotic points and touched all the right emotions. Problem is what she says is far different from how she behaves.
The gal eager to head to Washington and reform it talks a good game, but the facts […]

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From 1995 to 2002 Todd Palin husband of She who would be the next vice president was a card carrying member of the Anti-American Alaskan Independence Party. The smoking gun came in registration records supplied by the Alaska Division of Elections.
This same woman who wants to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency told the […]

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Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson notes that Spike Lee has taken to “grandiloquently divid[ing] American history into two epochs, “B.B.” and “A.B.” - Before Barack and After Barack.” With John McCain’s selection of AK Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Obama went from making history to being history in the span of 12 hours.
The […]

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Just how did Barack Obama (D-IL), a rather undistinguished IL state senator, get elected to the U.S. Senate, and without doing anything noteworthy in that august body, go on to capture his party’s nomination for president before even finishing out his first term in Congress? A combination of heartlessness and happenstance - and some say, […]

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In a brilliant move clearly aimed at appeasing the Christian Far Right, John McCain stunned the political world by announcing that Bigfoot will be his vice presidential choice. The surprise announcement brought unified praise from Bush/Cheney Republicans, Pavlovian evangelical extremists, and knuckle-dragging pundits in what is being dubbed a bold political stroke.
Rush Limbaugh expressed mild […]

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 … But he’s going to make the media and punditocracy wait until he declares his choice via  text message on Saturday, after which he plans a joint appearance with his running mate at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL, where he announced he would run for president. [Update: It’s Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), according […]

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Here in the Philippines food poisoning is a common problem. We eat local veggies, and grow organic veggies that use a chicken manure based fertilizer.
So when we heard that the US was having a Salmonella outbreak from Tomatoes, my husband Lolo ordered our cook to wash the tomatoes well. No use taking a chance.
The outbreak […]

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Asbestos and Mesothelioma are foreign terms for many people but unfortunately asbestos exposure is a prevalent as ever. It’s not hard to see, as a quick “Google News” search will bring up hundreds of results, many of which are recent, in which asbestos negligence is abundant.
Government regulations help but are not assisting in public awareness […]

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Usually when I write “Grandmom’s guide to computer” series, I get a geek who corrects my ignorance.
That’s fine: I’m a doctor, not a geek, and the series is trying to explain basic computer stuff that I had to learn painfully on my own to others who might, like me, be from the stone ages of […]

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The other day, The Stiletto and a friend were debating the pros and cons of various McCain veep picks. The Stiletto posited a McCain-Lieberman ticket, while acknowledging the ambivalence Jews felt the first time Lieberman was tapped for the bottom half of a presidential ticket.  
The Stiletto’s friend added that he didn’t think the combo would […]

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Comedian Al Franken, who is looking to unseat incumbent senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), has a problem with porn. Not ribald humor created by someone else that he downloaded to his computer in the privacy of his home, but material he created for public consumption.  
A former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, Franken wrote a 1,478-word […]

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My jobs in the US tended to be in isolated rural clinics, where the nearest trauma center might be 300 miles away.
Thirty years ago, that meant either we docs send would have to transfer someone in a three plus hour ambulance ride (yes, sometimes at 100 miles and hour) or, if it hadn’t rained and […]

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It was a historic first, the nomination of an African-American presidential candidate. And what was the focus of the coverage? Hillary. Then Senator Clinton took the podium. What was the focus of her speech? Hillary. Token congratulations for the winner, but mostly more talk from Hillary about Hillary and saying it was all about us.
Obama, […]

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It’s over! It’s finally over!
Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) split the last two primaries between them – he won MT 56 percent to 41 percent, she won SD 55 percent to 45 percent. Exit polling shows that in both states, voting blocs – white working class, older women, college educated - aligned […]

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Autism campaigners around the world have called on Pope Benedict XVI to act on autism in the wake of the first ever restraining order on a teenager with autism issued by a church. Fr.Daniel Walz took out a temporary restraining order on Carol Race and her 13 year old son Adam Race on the grounds […]

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(The idea for this “satire” came weeks ago. But after the 5-21-08 stories reporting Hillary’s unnerving references to the 2000 recount, you’ve gotta wonder….) 
Back during Hillary’s third or fourth presidential term, someone explained her near maniacal tenacity: “Hillary Clinton is a pit bull who was chained to the tree too long when she was a […]

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A Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Daniel Walz has banned a 13 year old boy with autism from his church in Minnesota, on the grounds of disruptive behaviour. According to news reports the priest was worried that the boy’s behavior was “disruptive and dangerous,” according to court documents. The Catholic priest had filed a restraining order […]

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For All the World to See
You may have heard Becky Schlegel’s brand of country/Americana/bluegrass music on the renown radio show A Prairie Home Companion, or come upon her singing at an International Bluegrass Association showcase or at one of her many gigs in the American midwest. A native of the Black Hills of South Dakota […]

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New Jersey art dealer, George Wieschenberg of Lambertville, was sentenced to six years of prison for being a marijuana “farmer.”
According to MSNBC, Wieschenberg, pleaded guilty to “operating a marijuana production facility,” in which he grew marijuana plants, said State Attorney General Anne Milgrim.
Back in October of 2007, New Jersey State Police officers saw large marijuana […]

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