The ‘Under the Bus’ catchphrase- according to liberals- is being overused, so should now be dropped. Of course, if their political Messiah Obama would quit committing the act, the phrase for that action would not be being over used.  For simplicity, I will create an Executive Summary listing, which may need updating (at least weekly at the rate Barack is working).

Bottom line (to paraphrase ‘Jaws’): “We’re going to need a bigger bus!”

Who’s gone under the bus so far:

• Update 2: A big one; ‘Refining’ his Iraq Strategy (by rolling over it with the bus)
• Update 1: Opposition to Welfare Reform (now taking credit for it??)
• Update 1: State’s Rights on the Gay Marriage Issue
• Originally, Obama’s grandmother for being inherently racist
• Obama’s pastor Wright, Pfleger, and now the entire church
• VP Committee members with the wrong ties
• Obama’s position on public financing
• The Obama Seal (but if they want to get the tires off it, here are a few fitting Latin revisions)
• Obama’s FISA position
• Obama’s long-held gun control beliefs
• One supporter with Maoist tendencies 

Is it any surprise that (no matter how much lipstick they slap on this statistical pig) that the percentage of Clinotnistas leaning toward McCain (23-24%) is unchanged in several months?

And we thought Gov Spitzer paid a bunch for the services of his women; Obama’s gang is going to pay $20+ million for the services of just one.  And please don’t try to say Hillary’s support is not being bought.  Follow the time line

1. Obama ends up with enough delegates to lock it up, with Hillary $20 million in debt.
2. Hillary falls off the face of the map for a few weeks, with no public appearances or statements; none of typical typical prolonged congratulations, handshaking, good loser, unity stuff.
3. Hillary’s minions snarl continually that there’s no way they’ll vote for that mean, sexist Obama.
4. Obama comes out and asks donors to contribute to Hillary, and makes a $4,600 show contribution for he and Michelle; Michelle must have loved that. (I just heard that Barack pledged to get her entire debt paid off)
5. Hillary is slated to campaign with Obama, but only after the money starts to flow
6. Next, expect the 70’s feminist troops of Hillary start to quiet down and start to- somehow- redirect their ire to that ’sexist’ McCain, since- magically- ‘Sweetie’ Obama no longer is one.

Two things not to expect:

• Hillary as VP candidate
• And Hillary shilling for Obama once the money flow stops.

Indeed, Obama will probably assure that the payout will continue long enough to get optimal campaign value out of her (I’d say about the time the GOP convention wraps up), then end the charade so he can be sure the campaign focuses on him and his running mate.  This also leaves little time for covert Clintonian shock troops to damage him to give Hillary a clear run in 2012.  However, I actually expect those shock troops to be doing some backstabbing if Obama shows any weakness (very likely), even while Hillary’s on stage smiling.  Especially if there isn’t an appropriate feminist running mate at Obama’s side (and what Clinton loyalist feminist would dare show up Hillary by getting on the ticket?)

This is a basic selling of service that the Emporer Club must look at with awe and envy.

UPDATE: Looks like the money pimps on both sides aren’t very happy with the ‘accomodation’.

OK; now I’m dangerous since I found this site that creates bumper stickers.  With my warped mind, that’s a dangerous thing.  I’ll start with a matching pair:

Which naturally leads to:

Some interesting people overseas seem to have some perspectives on our upcoming election.  Barack got a pretty clear endorsement from Asia, an expression of concern for his well-being from Africa, and a non-endorsement endorsement from nearer to home.

John McCain picked up one from someone I’m sure John would have appreciated not getting to know so well.

Add all this up and throw in my ‘enthusiasm’ for an open-borders RINO as the GOP nominee and I’ve come up with the bumper sticker for my car:

And of course, someone came up with this recycling of the Seal that Obama just clubbed:
 

(Great job by Commenter Tennyson at Michelle Malkin’s site)

Obama is a ‘new style’ politician?  What a joke!  He becomes the first Presidential candidate ever to reject public financing (and the constraints contained within).  This breaks a very clear pledge he made last year. 

Breaking promises is nothing new for a classic politician (which is exactly what Obama has turned out to be).  But doing so with such laughable explanations (and having his staff clearly lie on one issue) indicates he really isn’t ready for prime time.  Let’s address then in outline form:

• “The system is broken’; since April?  Yeah, right.
• “The 527s give the GOP the advantage.”  Can you say MoveOn.org?  How did your meeting with George Soros go?  Who has benefited from $500K of attack ads already?
• “The GOP takes money from lobbyists.”  As did the DNC, as well as the heaps they give you directly, rather than as a ‘group’.  And they represent not 2% of anybody’s funding.

Generally, its a really bad job of putting lipstick on this pig.  And Obama is a pretty poor makeup artist.  Just ‘fess up: “It’s the money, Stupid!”

And, Ironically, they were embarrassed enough about their actual fund-raising in May being so far aff from the rumors that they waited until late on a Friday Night to release the $22 million total (missed the $100 Million by a bit, I’d say).  Fourth month in a row showing significantly reduced donations, while McCain raised a new record.  And, naturally, Obama’s crew hasn’t managed the money as well as McCain’s; they lost $5 million in available cash on hand, while McCain was gaining ground.  Plus, the RNC is in way better shape to help than the DNC; $53 mil to $4 mil.  Not to mention Hillary’s debts that she will be scrambling to pay off.  Barack is not helping his case among Hillary female fiundraisers when he tells them to “just get over it“.  And the most idealistic of his early supporters (lots of college kids) may be catching on to his habits of taking far more creadit than due and flopping around like a fish on things like trade.

So the monetary tsunami may not be all that bad for McCain and he only has to be in the ballpark, given the Democratic tendency to get only half the ‘bang for the buck’ the GOP always seems to manage.  The game is on, The halo has slipped a fair amount on St. Barack and people are starting to get a nagging suspicion that this emporer really doesn’t wear any clothes (or, more appropriate, the suit really is walking around with no content.)

First off, the great news.  My son’s condition apparently is not as bad as first feared: it is not likely his condition has turned malignant, according to the most NF2 knowledgeable in the field.  Dealing with a rare condition is often a lesson in learning how much people of high specialty don’t know, as is seems to be in this case. 

Specifically, they performed a test (PET CT Scan, which measures the uptake of radioactively tagged glucose) that is rarely done on NF2 patients and spoke with a level of assurance not warranted on the meaning of the result.  Had we not been the types to do ‘due diligence’, as one doctor put it, we would have gone with the opinion of the first two doctors (the radiologist and neurooncologist) and had Alan scheduled for surgery that would cause permanent debilitation of his right leg.  Even the severity of that debilitation is an issue: one doctor said it would be mild, while two said it was dependant on nerve dominance, with one fairly sure that leg bracing will be required. These last two doctors expressed more concern about Alan’s other tumors that the one in the leg; one more concerned about the slow growth of the acoustical neuroma that affects his left hearing, the other a small ependinoma in the spinal cord. 

Bottom line: we have 5 highly-specialized, top-tier doctors, all with differing views on what is to be concerned about. (Note, I mention no names: that’s to prevent people thinking lesser of any of them.  They are all excellent doctors, in their own ways.)  The issue of what to do about it has become a little more clear, based on the more expertise that the doctor has in NF2.  The more experience they have, the less they actually want to do about it.

UPDATE: This study from England says it all.  Some pretty depressing graphs in here, until you get to the last one; the mortality differences between ’specialty’ and ‘non-specialty’ centers.  A 20+ year difference at to 80% level???  How much of this is the inherent incompetence to be found in a socialized system is anybody’s guess.

It all has to do with normality.  Tumors like Alan’s are far from normal, and the natural reaction of the inexperienced is to get them out.  The problem is, there is cost associated with removal; cost in neurological function.

Surgeons are point-source ‘fixers’; they resolve an issue at a fixed point of time and generally do not follow the patient through passed the post-op recovery.  Rehab gets shuttled off to others. Without the followup of those who track a rare condition from beginning to end, the tendency is to ‘remove abnormalities’, even when abnormality is the norm due to a given condition.  My son’s PET scan shows abnormality that looks like some abnormalities in other conditions; therefore, it should be removed.

Really, it comes down to two factors that are of paramount importance: the rate of malignancy in NF2 cases and the growth rate of malignant NF2 tumors.  Information on the latter was finally supplied by the 4th doctor; those tumors generally double in size in 3 months which is NOT a characteristic of Alan’s at the moment.  The former, is not well documented, but the rates I’ve struggled to find on the internet are in the 5% of all NF2 cases.

What most concerns me is those people without the resources- by location or financial- to get the multiple opinions and/or the views from NF2 specialists who follow the full progression.  Or they were diagnosed early on, and their doctors started them on a path of repeated surgical interventions and these doctors are now convinced- by their own early experience- that this is the only path.  Many NF2 people I have been in contact with are massively debilitated by the surgical interventions; deafness, unable to walk, blindness, multiple combinations.  Sometimes I have to wonder if this ‘striving for normalcy’ was always necessary.  Unquestionable in many cases; these tumors can get very big and sometimes very painful.  But I seriously doubt all.

Part of it is the fault of the medical practice of the day.  Doctors almost never say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t help’.  A lot of that problem is societal; people don’t accept those answers.  ‘It’s God’s will’ used to be an acceptable answer when there is no answer; no longer.  So the medical community goes to great length to ‘return things to normal’ (or to something that they understand and is non-changing).  That sometimes is exactly the wrong approach.  Intervention, in medicine and in government, is often the wrong answer.

And what if Alan were to fall into that rare case (less than 5%) of NF2 cases that develop malignancies sometime in the future?  Well, the prognosis based on those few cases studied is not good; one study of 8 had no survivors at 5 years.  Radiation and chemo seem of minimal help.  Treatment options will be up to Alan, but my advice to Alan will be based on my family’s extensive experience with fibroblastic styles of cancer.  Of seven of my mother’s family to contract various forms, only one survived it: my mother, going on 25 years after colon cancer.  That 91-year-old chainsmoker is also the ONLY one who refused chemotherapy.  Chemo and/or full-body radiation seems to do more damage than good in these undifferentiated malignancies; damaging to the body’s own anti-cancer capabilities more than killing the cancer.  Differentiated malignancies like my father’s prostate cancer are completely different; chemo can be directed and definitely worthwhile.   Considering the survivability figures on fibroblastic malignancies, that might be more general than the medical community would like to admit.

The DNC cart is coming by Hillary’s place and her senior advisors have to bring her out.  Barack also makes a cameo at the end.

My mother is 91 next month and smokes a pack a day.  A few days ago, we found out she has an outside shot at outliving my 20 year-old son.  Alan has NF2, a genetic disorder leading to normally benign tumors on the nerve sheaths.  In the last two years we’ve been dealing with this, all it’s cost him is about 75% of his left ear’s hearing, some facial palsy and a weak left foot.  But tests came back a few days ago that suggest his largest mass may have gone malignant; meetings with the surgeons start next week.  The best outcome likely from the removal is significant weakness on his right foot and abdominal muscle.  If it is indeed malignant, prognosis out just two years is poor and not much fun during that time.  Still, some make it out 5 years, a handful to full remission.  Hard to know when you’re dealing with a condition that they see in maybe one in 250,000 at most.

So what are we doing this week?  What we had planned to do before; go whitewater rafting in Colorado, clearly for Alan’s last time.  These things are like the river we’ll be rafting:

• You have very minimal control of the actual end point, but you try to use skill and a cool head to ride it out the rough stuff the best you can.  
• You try to look like you know what what you’re doing and that this is the most normal thing in the world, even when it isn’t.  
• You realize that maintaining the quality of the ride is far more important than the duration.

Needless to say, my posting frequency will likely suffer and the contents will definitely take on a different tone.  I will add one quasi-political note: say what you want about American health care, but my boy would pretty much have no chance anywhere else.

I guess all it’s taken to cure global warming has been Al Gore to fly around the world in private planes, spewing his contested malarkey (in private presentations, so uncomfortable questions aren’t raised).  Looks like we’re in for at least another decade of cooling.  Good thing, too, since the list of things ‘definitively’ caused by Global Warming certainly reads like the Apocolypse.  After all, it’s ’settled science’, since the measurements are so consistent and accurate.

Now, if we can just send Al and his other ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ minions to the other places suffering Global Warming (like Jupiter, Mars, and Pluto) , possibly  we can actually improve the environment here.

He shot a movie and flew around in private jets promoting a scientific viewpoint.  She saved 2,500 children and was tortured by Nazis for it, then continued the work.  He was considered more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than she was.  The result was Mother Nature continued the record of Peace Prize winner futility via the coldest winter in decades for much of the world. 

May Irena Sendler be fondly remembered much longer than Al Gore.