Violence and Those wtih Bipolar Disorder

David Oliver writes,

During a bipolar manic episode, your loved one may become violent, even if they have never been violent before.  During a depressive episode, they may still show violent behavior, only it will probably be self-directed.  Either way, you need to be prepared for this eventuality.   There are several ways to do this, as I outline on my website devoted to bipolar disorder, but I will go over a few of them in this article.

Following are some suggestions to minimize the risks of harm due to violence during a bipolar episode: 

·         Get rid of any knives, guns, or other weapons in your home, or keep them locked up (with only you or another person having the key).

·         Keep your loved one away from alcohol and drugs – they will only make the situation worse.

·         If you become frightened by your loved one, you may have to call the police.

The Supreme Court Aided the Dems in the "Not a Tax" Lie

Justice Roberts, you lie!

You wote in your misguided opinion,  “it is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choice."  But the people didn't get to choose a tax increase!  It was loudly and repeatedly billed by Democrats and the President as "not a tax" but a penalty as they squeaked it through using every bribe and trick and arm twist they could in 2010.

It is Justice Roberts himself who has impaled the people on the consequences of a political con job.

Justice Roberts did not rule on Obamacare as written and passed.  From the bench he changed the penalty into a tax, in effect acting as the legislative branch, rewriting the law so it would pass.

The problem is that the bill was presented as "not a tax" to the voters by the President and the Democrats who controlled Congress. The Dems knew a "tax increase" would never fly with the people and the bill would be dead.

The people never got to vote on a tax increase.  But Justice Roberts single-handedly gave it to them!  Taxation without representation since the people's representatives did not pass a tax, as they so loudly and often repeated in 2009-2010.

Are Christians Anti-Liars?

Alex Crain states:

While many are saying that homosexuality should be accepted in the name of Christian love, such a position actually conflicts deeply with a coherent Christian view. When President Obama made history recently by endorsing same-sex marriage, he cited Christian reasons for doing so. Perhaps, in one sense, it's correct to say that Christians are not against those who practice homosexuality. Just as Christians are not anti-liars (we simply affirm that lying is wrong), so we are not against people involved in homosexuality. It is clearly not a Christian virtue to hate anyone who sins. But it is Christian to oppose sin. And on this point, Bible-believers must depart from the president's 'evolved' view.

I would go a step further on the point of Christians being anti-lying.  Imagine a society where suddenly some people started advocating lying as normal and acceptable.  They argue that liars feel from birth a need to lie at times and it is unfair to deny them this need. 

That is an exact analogy to the moral position the church finds itself in.  We are being asked to accept homosexual's morality as our own.  It is never about what they do "in the privacy of their own bedrooms" but about setting the social agenda publicly and demanding special privileges for their behavior, and demanding that all others, and we do mean all, accept their moral choices as normative for all of society.  In short, having rejected Christian morals they seek to proselytize and substitute their own. 

The threadbare logic of their moral reasoning is merely, "This is what I want to do, therefore everyone must accept it as normal."

Changing Strings in the Martin LJ Pro Acoustic Guitar: All at Once or One at a Time?

I've gone through several sets of strings with the LJ Pro I purchased last December at Gruhns Guitars in Nashville.

As I stated in a previous post, Laurence Juber uses his Signature GHS True Medium strings.  The LJ Martin, ironically, came strung with their Lifespan lights.  It sounded great, but I did notice the 1st string lacked proper umph and body.

Swapping out to a set of True Mediums starting last January resulted in a guitar just as playable but now with more body and the 1st string sounding balanced. 

But now I've done it.  This last string change changed something in my guitar's neck.  It might be temporary.  Wood is elastic and very subject to humidity and temp.  My last set was over two months old.  They still sounded great, but lacked some of the resonance.  And at just $6 per set from Sweetwater (free shipping too!) I decided to restring with another set of True Mediums.   But as I tuned this up with the new strings and began to play there was an annoying fret buzz at the 5th fret for the first time and several strings lacked full resonance and sweetness. 

The last two changes the result was immediate bliss and the thought of why didn't I do this sooner.  But not this time!  After tuning up, and playing/returning a couple times something was out of whack.

Barring at the fifth fret, now the 3rd and 4th strings has a distinct and annoying buzz even playing softly.  And the 6th string sounded dead and half volume.   I can't remember a string change ever affecting any guitar--electric or acoustic--in all my years of playing.

Can some guitars be sensitive to how you change strings?

I Googled "string changing and fret buzz" and found the age old discussion over whether to change your strings all at once or one at a time.  Personally, I've done both and have never given it a second thought or had it make one iota of difference---until perhaps now!  The Martin guide that came with the guitar implies changing them all at once, not one at a time.  And that's how I had previous changed the strings on it twice before with no ill effects.

But this time I had the TV going and it was something I wanted to watch and so, distracted,  I did half-and-half.   None of that should have had much impact one way or another--except that my guitar had spent 4 days at a beach condo.  It never went outside and it was air conditioned but perhaps the humidity and temps were quite different than my home.

UPDATE:  after two days with the new strings there is still the new buzz at the fifth fret and the one is still subdued on the 6th string.  Switched out the strings for a new set of True Mediums--doing them all at once like the previous 3 or 4 times.  Same result.  Obviously something in the neck has shifted.  

UPDATE:  GOOD NEWS!  a local luthier who does work for a number of famous guitarists as well made a very slight adjustment and literally a piece of paper shim under the bridge.  Presto!  It's back.  Just as playable and no abnormal buzz.  Tone is back to it's original too.  He said the neck indeed was razor straight so he put a very slight relief in it .032 of an inch.  Indeed, the neck must have rocked back on the string change and, being new, simply didn't return to it's original position.  By the way, he usually changes ALL strings at one time.

At First We Thougth Obama Was Jimmy Carter, Now He's Channeling Nixon

Yes, the Jimmy Carter comparison most adequately describes Barack Obama's lack competency for the job of President.

But now, with the invoking of executive privilege to try to cover up the Fast and Furious documents, he's acting a lot like Richard Nixon.  Let's also remember the bombing across the border.  Yes, he has drones instead of B-52's and it's Pakistan instead of Cambodia.

But the parallels are amazing.

Obama is sort of a Frankenstein mix of Carter's weakness and Nixon's ruthlessness, dishonesty and pride.

Remember, Obama's first pick for Chief of Staff was Rahm Emanuel.

Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC Doctored Video Transcribed Vs The Original of Mitt Romney

You can't appreciate just how deceptive Ms. Mitchell and the editors at MSNBC were until you see a transcription of the full video with the parts MSNBC used to give a totally false impression of Mitt Romney's "it's amazing" statement.

Here is Mitt's full example from the Wawa's, as recorded by someone's smart phone and posted to YouTube with the parts MSNBC used in bold red:

By the way, where do you get your hoagies here? Do you get them at Wawa’s? Is that where you get them? No? You get them at [indistinguishable]? Where do you get them?

***

Well, I went to a place today called Wawa’s. You ever been to Wawa’s? Anybody been there? Some people don’t like…I know. I’m sorry. It’s a very big state divide.  But we went to Wawa’s and it was instructive to me, because I saw the difference between the private sector and the governmental sector. People who work in government are good people and I respect what they do, but you see the challenge with government is it doesn’t have competition. The Federal government that is. The states compete all the time. I learned that. I learned how states compete.

*** (he shares an example of Gov. Schwarzenegger and he competing as governors)

[An optometrist who moved across town] got a form from the Federal government, this is so he can get reimbursement from the federal government for the services he provides for the poor and seniors. The form he gets to changes addresses is 33 pages long! He calls someone to ask how to fill it out. He calls someone in government. They tell him what to do. He sends it in. They send it back. Wasn’t done right. Got to do it again. Another 33 pages. He calls another person. They tell him what to do. Doesn’t get it right the second time. Third times the charm though. This takes several months, during which time he’s not getting the checks for the work he’s doing for people who need his care. That’s, that’s how government works.

Then, I was as a Wawa’s. I went in to order a sandwich. You touch the little touch tone key pad, alright. And you don’t…that sandwich comes at you….touch this, touch this, touch this. Go pay the cashier. There’s your sandwich. It’s amazing: people in the private sector have learned how to compete;* it’s time to bring some competition to the Federal government, and to get it smaller, and respond to the customers—which are you.

* MSNBC cut just the audio of the underlined  part above to silence but the video continuing for a couple seconds. Clearly they did not want to let the audience here that line and since they left the video they cannot claim it was due to time constraints!!  Total propaganda hack job!  They should be ashamed to call themselves a news agency.

Take a minute to read just the bold-red parts and you see how they doctored the video to make Romney look stupid and as Andrea Mitchell set the video up, like "a grocery scanner moment" chuckling to herself in disdain as she said it.

Even if Andrea Mitchell didn't know about the video hack job before hand, she clearly knows now and has not apologized.  They made the lame excuse that no one believes that the video had been edited "for time" etc.  No Ms. Mitchell, but not admitting the obvious bias and bringing those responsible to account, you yourself are part of it.

Is Obama the New Nixon? Why the Stonewalling over Fast and Furious?

Folks, here are the facts:

1. Holder has brought no charges or fired ANYONE over the botched Fast and Furious scheme
2. Holder has not claimed "on going investigations," "national security,"  or any other plausible reason for withholding the subpoenaed documents from Congress.
3. Obama weighs in with Executive Privilege at the last minute to block the release of these Fast and Furious documents.  Why?

It sounds very much like Richard Nixon trying desperately to cover up the truth.  What is Obama covering up?  And why is the "most transparent" administration ever stonewalling?

Was Fast and Furious merely a scheme to put US made assault rifles in the hands of Mexican criminals in hopes that they would be used in crimes and lead to a public uproar and ban on so-called assault rifles?

What are you covering up, Mr. President.  The American people want to know.

Here is what we know so far:

• Unlike "Wide Receiver" no tracking devices were installed on the Fast and Furious weapons.
• Unlike "Wide Receiver" Mexican authorities were not notified and involved.
• Unlike "Wide Receiver" (shut down in 2007 once the drug dealers started deactivating the tracking devices) Fast and Furious was not shut down until after many Mexican deaths and the death of a US Customs officer AND only then after a whistle blower blew their cover.
• Unlike "Wide Receiver" no effort at all was made by any agency to track any of the weapons that were allowed to be sold to drug smuggler straw buyers.  That's right.  No sting operation was set up.  They simply allowed these weapons to walk across the border.

Here is the conclusion:  What is being covered up by the Obama administration is very serious and condemning to it.  If this were merely a botched operation, hatched by Holder's underlings, it why not just investigate speedily and fire those responsible?  That sort of thing has been done routinely in various administrations and has little political fall out long term.  It would be no worse than the AFT-Waco debacle or for that matter NASA investigating the cause of the Challenger disaster.  But Holder has literally done nothing internally after nearly 18 months.  Conclusion:  major cover up of seriously bad stuff that will sink the Obama administration in shame.

Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC "Doctor" Romney Clip to Make the News

NBC is at is again.  This time it is their subsidiary MSNBC and Andrea Mitchell, highly editing together Romney's statements to make him appear to say something he was not.

NBC did it with George Zimmerman, splicing together widely separated sentences and omitting key parts to make him appear racist, when the whole clip clearly showed he was not making racists statements at all, but simply responding to the 911 officer's question.

Now they've done it with Mitt Romney in an attempt to make him appear out of touch with the common man.  But with all the smart phones shooting video they were quickly exposed when the entire clip was posted by a member of the audience and picked up by conservative news agencies.

Here is the highly "doctored" version MSNBC aired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JvJPG6KURV8

Here is the whole clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zTrmwDmOjy4

What did they cut out?  Romney was making a contrast between the efficiency of the private sector and the inefficiency of government in getting things done.  He used the example of the push button order system of the Wawa's convenience stores for how private industry can get things done quickly, unlike government.  But all of that was carefully taken out MID-SENTENCE even.  Mitchell commented that this was Romney's "scanner moment" because the resulting video makes Romney look amazed that they used push buttons....period.

Obama Oversteps Authority to Sneak Dream Act In By Fiat

Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. The officials who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it in advance of the official announcement.

Obama is going to stop deporting all illegal immigrants in certain cases and even give these free loaders work permits.

Free loaders?  You bet.  They got free education at our expense.  GW is not talking to the 49% of you who don't pay income tax...and are probably living in mom's basement, since you too are a free loader.

Liberals think that getting free or reduced tuition and dorm is somehow "paying back" America.

OK, let's get this straight:  their parents smuggle them in.  They are illegally here.  Stupidly we give them free education while their illegal parents work off the books paying no income tax or social security or medicare taxes at all.  Then some states foolishly allow them to enroll and subsidize their college education and liberals think that getting free or reduced tuition and dorm is somehow "paying back" America?  Uh, how to you figure that?  How is getting subsided college education paying back anyone?  It's not!  But if you are a lame brained Democrat, in your alternative reality universe I suppose it is, since you think anyone actually earning money by working is "stealing" it from everyone else.

Here is a better plan:   

1) Offer those 18-21 a chance to enlist for four years of military service (provided the above conditions are met).   Those who complete military service and are honorably discharged are given permanent residency.  They can then go through the normal track to apply for citizenship.  If they don't apply to the military #3 below will have cut off any economic incentive for them or their parents to remain in the US and they will self-deport.

2) At the same time close the borders and offer a much easier to obtain temporary or seasonal "work permit" for guest workers. And those workers have an automatic flat 10% income tax off the top taken out of each check by the employer. They are also subject to any state and local taxes, which also the employer deducts each paycheck.

3) Finally, come down hard on all employers who hire illegals of any age or duration. Stiff fines that are as easy to enforce as a traffic ticket, and severe penalties and even jail time for bosses and supervisors who are repeat offenders.  This will shut off the demand and the rest will self-deport when the illegal employment opportunities here are gone.  Of all the steps, this is the single most important and the most humane in all aspects.

You are already required by law to have all employees fill out an I-9 form when hired.  And the burden is on the employee to present proof of legal status and of the employer not to hire without it.  GW has had to do this several time even though our family goes back 7 generations in the US.  So this is not even new.

Vitelity, LLC A Leading Source of Spam & Fraud VIOP Calls

Vitelity is the conduit of choice these days for annoying overseas phone bank scammers who don't care if you are registered on the national Do Not Call List.   Hundreds of complaints have not motivated this company to do anything.  Not their problem I guess.

Don't do business with these scam enablers!

http://www.vitelity.com/

Here's an example of complaints:

Probably a phony debt collection scam.

Many such overseas scammers use Vitelity LLC for VoIP access to U.S. suckers. Some alter their caller id information to whatever they want to appear, and others just default to "Vitelity LLC".

File fraud complaints on overseas scam calls with the FBI.

 Vitelity you need to do something about this!  Meanwhile, use their competitors.

One number they use among many:
321-549-6379

Here are a couple comments from online complaints against Vitelity and these scammers:

321-549-6379
Country: USA
Location: Florida (Melbourne, Orlando, Palm Bay)

We are receiving continuing phone calls claiming to collect a debt for Retro Fitness. We do not owe Retro Fitness and when we try to get answers from the gentlemen on the phone about where they are located they hang up. We called our Fitness Center and they advised us of the billing company they use and it is not Vitelity LLC 856-879-6033. They have called three times in one day and dont even speak english!

 So what's the deal with Vitelity?  Here was a good write up by "TJ" on Complaintwire.org (April 2012) and why Vitelity needs to take steps to protect US consumers from these scams:

Vitelity is a telecom that sells VoIP services.

These types of phone services are commonly used by telemarketing and debt collection call centers, among others. They provide cheap and flexible long distance calling from anywhere, with many added services useful to call center, and easy expansion. They may show up on caller id under various area codes and phone numbers, even when the call may actually originate overseas.

When the caller id says "Vitelity", it may mean that the caller is a customer of Vitelity, who is buying their VoIP services, but has not set the caller id message from it's default value.

Legitimate call centers would set caller id to report their company name, or possibly their client's company name, and their 800 callback number.

You cannot trust caller id, since it can be spoofed. In fact, although YOUR caller id is set by your phone company to match your information, ANY call center PBX system can set it to whatever they want.

Fraudulent users of VoIP have been reported to set phony caller id settings, and might appear to be anyone they think might help them in their fraudulent scheme: the sheriff, your bank, your employer, a well known U.S. company, whatever.

Cell phones are frequent targets of sequential block autodialing by scammy telemarketers. The caller might not even have any information on you specifically, but just be systematically cold calling, even if it violates TCPA and the Do Not Call laws. In these cases, the caller id number might be some other company's number, to hide the source of illegal calls, or even a disconnected number.


Consumer complaints include many reports of fraudulent and extortionate calls from overseas scammers that show up with a caller id of "Vitelity LLC". Their services are being used by fraudulent telemarketers and overseas scammers, including fake "payday loan debt collection" scams.

Your debts may all have been discharged in bankruptcy, be legally unowed, you might not even owe any debt at all. Many debt collectors could care less. They will call, threaten, harass, and deceive, trying to con you into paying them anyway.

Vitelity, telecom to the scams.

 I couldn't agree more!  Vitelity is a large company and could easily take steps to prevent this.  So, use Vitelity's competitors.

NOTE:  Vitelity responded to this post.  You can submit complaints to them.  Time (and your phone) will tell if Vitelity lives up to their statement below.

UPDATE 7-7-12 -Despite Vitelity's comment above I still get calls from these phone banks using their service.

Facts Show It's State Government That's Doing Fine, Not Private Sector

Obama stated that the private sector is doing fine, and that it's actually state and local governments hurting.  But research by Investors Business Daily has uncovered the opposite. Here is a chart they prepared using the figures from the National Association of State Budget Offices: