08:54 – Yesterday, the morning paper reported that the driver I mentioned some time ago who’d hit and killed the little boy running to catch his school bus had been sentenced on a plea bargain for a misdemeanor charge, with a 60-day sentence and 30 days of active jail time. No matter what actually happened, this was a complete miscarriage of justice. If the guy was guilty of the felony he was originally charged with, a 30-day jail term is completely outrageous. If he was not guilty of any crime, as I suspect was the case, he should have been freed.
The prosecution originally claimed that the driver had passed a stopped school bus with its stop-arm out and its red lights flashing before striking the child. The defense accident reconstruction expert testified that his review of the evidence established that the stop-arm was not out nor the red lights flashing. The prosecution expert, an accident reconstruction specialist from the state police, originally testified that the stop-arm and red lights had been activated, but later reversed his testimony based on additional evidence and testified that what the defense expert had said originally was in fact true. He testified that the school bus had in fact been stopped for at least 20 seconds, but without the stop-arm or red lights activated. So when the driver passed the school bus in the opposite lane, he violated no law.
Most of the prosecution’s case depended on the testimony of the school bus driver. Part of the additional evidence was her record, which was so bad that she shouldn’t have been driving a regular automobile let alone a school bus. The school system had fired her for cause in 2006, only to rehire her later in 2006 in violation of their own policies. Her record has numerous traffic violations and infractions, including one incident where she missed her stop and backed up the bus (in violation of policy) and ran into a car stopped behind her. She claimed she couldn’t see the car because her school bus blocked her vision. Geez. So, this woman has zero credibility as a witness, and without her testimony the prosecution’s case fell apart. I suspect the prosecution knew they couldn’t convict the accused, so they salvaged what they could by offering him a plea bargain down to the misdemeanor. And I suspect the accused’s attorney told him he’d be better off accepting the plea bargain than risking being convicted of something he hadn’t done.
12:12 – I knew I’ve fired too many different automatic weapons when I instantly identified the machine gun in this image, without so much as a second thought:
I’ll speculate that the bus driver was rehired to avoid/settle a wrongful termination lawsuit.
You could very easily cripple the criminal justice system in this country if everyone accused of a crime both refused plea deals and refused bench trials. The entire justice system is reliant upon a majority of cases pleading out or having a simple bench trial and skipping jury selection.
I got charged with selling alcohol to a minor back in 2004 when I was working part time at a gas station while finishing my undergrad. It’s was a MADD-funded (hate those c*nts) sting conducted by the local Sheriff’s office. It was an honest mistake. I actually asked for the customer’s ID and checked the birthdate, but I absent-mindedly checked for the tobacco birthdate and not the alcohol birthdate. So, the customer walked out the door and 30 seconds later a deputy walked in and said, “Chad?” and I was like, “Yes?” and the deputy said “You just sold alcohol to a minor” and wrote me a ticket.
I went to my arraignment and plead Not Guilty. Then I refused to sign the jury trial waiver in favor of a bench trial when the Public Defender handed it to me (I figured a judge would follow the letter of the law where a jury might be sympathetic). He was a little taken aback at my refusal. I then told him there was no criminal intent and I have a spotless record and I was perfectly fine dragging this thing out forever in the hopes of a jury acquittal. What was the alternative? Every time I fill out an application for the rest of my life I’d have to check the “Have you ever been convicted of anything other than a minor traffic violation?” box? I got a call a week later that the prosecutor was dropping all charges. The Public Defender was shocked because he had never seen the charges dropped on an alcohol sting related charge in the 20 years he’d been with the Public Defender’s office. I was like, “That’s because you pressure everyone into either pleading guilty or taking a bench trial and the morons that typically work low-paying retail jobs that get nabbed in these stings don’t have the brains to know any better.”
Got me out of a $3,000 fine, a possible 30 days in jail, and a criminal record.
Sting? Isn’t that just a shorter term for entrapment?
Good call on your part, Chad.
Wow, that case down there on the school bus and the new info changes things bigtime. I’d say the driver was technically and legally not guilty and should have been let go; but I will also say that even if there are no red lights flashing and signs popping out, if I see a school bus stopped ahead of me, I am at least slowing to a crawl right up to the front of it until I am positive no one is darting out from there. I am certainly not gonna barrel past at 30, 40 or whatever MPH. He now has to live his life knowing he snuffed out a little kid in his big rush to wherever; I’d also say the bus driver should get some kind of punishment, but it looks like a typical half-ass legal compromise.
Rained all day here yesterday and then stopped, no wind at all, extremely humid and buggy. Clearing out this morning and sunny with blue skies again; should be a nice weekend. We’ll do some house stuff and then head out to recon CSA farms in this and the adjoining county (Grand Isle out in the lake) and next week we have Princess coming down to take her road test for her VT license, followed by the conspired and plotted big July 4th BBQ at MIL’s place on that weekend before Mrs. OFD leaves for a week down in Manchester. With son and DIL and grandkids driving up from MA. It means me dismantling our grill and hauling it down there and we’ll naturally be buying all the food and doing all the cooking and cleaning; the hens plot all this stuff and then dump it on us with zero regard for any of our plans or the fact that wife has to then leave right after all that, etc., etc.
Pretty much. They get underage kids who were busted for “Minor in Possession” (MIP) and part of their community service can be worked off by going around with a deputy and attempting to purchase liquor.
Seems to me that the deputy was guilty of encouraging/compelling a minor to commit a crime and should be arrested and charged accordingly, along with ancillary charges like contributing to the delinquency of a minor and so on.
OFD wrote:
“It means me dismantling our grill and hauling it down there and we’ll naturally be buying all the food and doing all the cooking and cleaning; the hens plot all this stuff and then dump it on us with zero regard for any of our plans or the fact that wife has to then leave right after all that, etc., etc.”
Just Say No.
Yep. People can’t take advantage of you if you don’t let them.
That defense was actually tried by someone and escalated to the Nebraska Supreme Court and struck down. Apparently, using a minor in stings is allowed. That is, committing a crime to catch a criminal is acceptable. The underage persons they use are minors for alcohol purposes (under 21) but adults for all other legal purposes (19+ in Nebraska).
When a citation is issued for breaking liquor laws there are actually TWO citations handed out. One to the individual that broke the law and one to the business that holds the liquor license. If a business has a certain number of violations in a given period of time they lose their liquor license. They could care less about their employee’s citation (dismissal of one does not mean dismissal of the other). Losing their liquor license is the death of many businesses that sell liquor and some business owners have very deep pockets to fight it out in court. So, there is quite a bit of case law on the subject.
With son and DIL and grandkids driving up from MA
And a good time will be had by all! OFD will have to force himself to carry those grandbabies around while SIL gets to assemble the grill conveniently left for him.
I am beginning to doubt that we will have any grandbabies. The son is looking for the perfect woman and the daughter’s disabilities are not getting any better after three years of treatments (she has Lyme disease destroying her body).
Has anyone else noticed that the three women in SCOTUS vote with each other? Always.
Not because they are women. Because the are ultra-liberal.
“Has anyone else noticed that the three women in SCOTUS vote with each other? Always.”
What we need to understand is that not all forms on non-diversity are bad, even if they are non-PC.
The acronym SCOTUS, reminds me of a band that I favor abbreviated as SCOTS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Culture_on_the_Skids, and
http://www.scots.com/
That MG42 looks to be in good condition. Probably the best MG used in WWII. Depending on the mount and crew, could be used as a light, medium, or heavy MG. I was in London on June 6 and saw a BBC program on D-Day that tried to argue that the Bren was a better MG. Don’t think so.
I’ve tried the ‘just say no’ routine here for seventeen years; it rarely works; I get nearly zero support from Mrs. OFD on that score, who blows it all off and just knuckles under to whatever onerous tasks and errands and chores MIL and Princess set for her, regardless of her state of exhaustion and other things she planned to do here. I no sooner whined and ranted in the above post when MIL called; she’s selling her house (finally!!!) down in Montpeculiar (65 miles southeast of here) and now needs wife to drive her down Monday and do mulching and painting there ALL DAY while wife also has a med appointment at the health center in town on top of that, and prior to no doubt spending ALL DAY Tuesday dealing with the endless demands and nagging of Princess and the road test ordeal that day.
So wife and I have plenty to do here, much of which requires the two of us together, yet every time she gets a week or two weeks off, the other two monopolize her for all their stuff. She blows it all off, and then after it’s all done, after beaucoups angst and melodrama and hassles galore, I get her back exhausted, annoyed, pissed-off, and cranky for days afterward and very little ever gets done here.
As it is, she had to tell MIL that she couldn’t drive her twelve hours up to the cottage in NB next month ’cause she wants to be here for my birthday (which I don’t give a shit about), but otherwise that was in the works for her next week she gets off. Which would have involved a ton of hassle and more angst and melodrama.
“…the daughter’s disabilities are not getting any better after three years of treatments…”
That really sucks. I take it there are no treatments that can help someone with that yet? They’re just screwed? Damn. Prayers and best wishes from Vermont.
“The son is looking for the perfect woman…”
Yeah. Let us know how that works out for him. And is he himself perfect? LOL.
1.) That liquor control/arrest/sting business is plain and simple entrapment but it has a very long history in Anglo-American legal/law enforcement; using criminal scum to commit crimes to supposedly catch worse criminal scum. They ran one of them capers with the Whitey Bulger crowd in Boston back in the day and ended up with dirty cops, dirty lawyers and dirty Feebies. Check out Howie Carr’s series of books on all that; it makes for riveting reading.
2.) SCOTUS means nothing. It’s all just a joke. On us. They laugh at us openly now.
3.) That southern band could kick up its web site a notch or two.
And that MG42, or part of it anyway, later become the M60 pig I hauled around Uncle’s plantations in SEA; it was a fine weapon but had a couple of glitches, like the overheating barrel and awkward swap procedure for it. Only one spare barrel so if they both got hot you were SOOL and may well see rounds cooking off in the chamber and the belt from the heat, which is a little disconcerting.
Can be fired from the shoulder, even by petite chicks but not recommended. Mine was accurate out to 1,200+ yards.
I’ve put maybe 5,000 rounds through an MG-42. Which didn’t take all that long since the cyclic rate was between 1,000 and 2,000 rounds per minute, depending on which bolt was installed. (The heaviest bolt yielded nominally 900 RPM and was intended to reduce ammunition consumption; the standard bolt was around 1,200 RPM and was by far the most often used. There was a third, light bolt that was intended for antiaircraft use and was nominally rated at 1,500 to 1,800 RPM, but actually often did 2,000–which meant it ran through a 250 round belt in something like 7 or 8 seconds.) The display was particularly impressive with tracer every fifth round. It was like pointing at the target with a laser beam. That is, you didn’t see individual tracer rounds, but just a constant lit trace out to the target.
Changing barrels, which you had to do about every belt if you were shooting a lot, was very simple and took only a few seconds. The barrel-change kit include asbestos gloves, which were mandatory because that barrel became literally red-hot.
A buddy of mine owned the MG-42, which he’d bought back in the 60’s. While he was at it, he also bought literally a million rounds of WWII surplus 7.92 for something like 0.1 cents/round.
I should also point out that I suspect normal guys notice the red-haired cutie first…
Whereas I, to be honest, first noticed the machine gun, second notice that she had her left hand properly positioned on the butt, and only then noticed that she was a real cutie. (Click on the thumbnail to zoom.)
“I should also point out that I suspect normal guys notice the red-haired cutie first…”
Amen brother!
Red hair is always a bad sign.
(Sez the redhead with two redhead brothers, deceased redhead grandma and grandpa, and redhead wife).
So this redhead oughta know.
Beware.
“…the daughter’s disabilities are not getting any better after three years of treatments…”
That really sucks. I take it there are no treatments that can help someone with that yet? They’re just screwed? Damn. Prayers and best wishes from Vermont.
We think that she has had Lyme disease for 10 to 12 years before diagnosis three years ago. It is deeply embedded in her body in cysts under her skin, her organs and her brain. The doctor is trying cyst buster medicines for three weeks out of nine week cycles but they are not very effective. She can walk 10 to 20 feet before she needs a cane. Any extended distance walking requires a wheelchair as the Lyme has destroyed all the joints in her body.
My son is perfect! OK, not totally perfect. OK, way less than perfect but still my son. He watched a lot of his buddies in the USMC get divorces while they were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and has a low opinion of most women except for his mother.
The USMC would give them their reenlistment bonuses while deployed so they did not have to pay income tax (USA law). The wives would get the money and spend every dollar of it by the time they got back. “Honey, see my new convertible” was heard a lot. Or, they snorted it up. One buddies sister got access to his bank account and blew $85K on cocaine in three months while he was deployed.
I hope and pray that the docs and scientists can find something ASAP for your daughter, Lynn; nobody deserves that.
I saw some of that marriage stuff during my time in ancient days; girlfriends and young wives back home had many temptations and lots of boredom; seemed to be more prevalent among short-timers like me than the career enlisted and officers, though. Back then it was jocularly referred to in the cadence songs on the drill pad, as in “Jody’s got your girl and gone…etc.”, “Jody” being the fictional Lothario who snagged your gf or wife back here in The World. Then again, back in my time, many of us enlisted scum were also doping up and shacking up with local wimmenz.
It’s a real kick in the teeth when they get those little nooz items from Home that wife or gf has blown all the money, left, or gotten hooked up with somebody else, or all of the above; has led to more than a few suicides.
Our little vet group had a meeting yesterday and commiserated about the kids coming back now having the same shit happen in the countries where they had fought as happened to us, and of course being all bummed out about it. The moderator/therapist allowed as to how maybe we all ought to get together and try to educate people that none of this stuff is working and basically, and I agree with this in most circumstances that we’ve faced over the centuries, ‘war is not the answer.’ My jocular and sarcastic answer to that is usually “Well sometimes war IS the answer,” but I go on and say “rarely.” Self-defense, period.
But how do you stop this repeated generational participation in endless wars that solve nothing, in a country that worships its military, no questions asked?
My answer is that we have to stop enlisting, stop serving, stop signing up for this stuff. Like I’ve said before; if Al-Q or Red Chinese paratroopers are dropping on Saint Albans, Vermont from the skies, I’ll be the first son-of-a-bitch out the door with a fucking rifle. Otherwise count me out. Try negotiation. Try diplomacy. Try every possible means at your disposal, all you goddamned bureaucrats and political hacks, before you commit one citizen to a military course of action. Study the Catholic Catechism’s definition of what constitutes a just war; I can’t improve on it.
The parades and hoopla don’t thrill me anymore, not when I see stuff like in the nooz today that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton raked in $37-billion from the Sandbox wars. Pure profit.
Did that fine American family in Sugarland, Texas see any of that loot? How about the guy sitting next to me yesterday who’s a Gulf War vet and has prostate cancer and can barely string a sentence together? Did he get it from depleted uranium warheads in the desert? Do I have asthma because of exposure to areas where Agent Orange was sprayed? What did we solve? The Sandbox countries are more fucked now than ever, and Vietnam is not only all Communist now but they’re our trading and tourism buddies!
Stop. Signing. Up.
That’s obviously terrible, but I have a great deal of sympathy for girls and women. I realized when I was a teenager that evolution had made men large, strong, fast, and aggressive, while it had made women small, weak, slow, and submissive. The deck was stacked against them from the start. They can’t compete on our terms to get what they want, so they operate by their own rules. I don’t begrudge them that.
Lynn, your daughter’s situation is just one example of why I do what I do. We need more scientists and engineers to eliminate cancer and other diseases, along with all the other things that need to be done. I figure if our company can help get 1,000 or 10,000 kids started out right in science, it might someday make a difference.
My best for your daughter Mr. Lynn.
while it had made women small, weak, slow, and submissive.
The military has solved this problem by recruiting transgendered males.
Go SEAL Team 6!
A former member of SEAL Team Six has become the poster girl for a Pentagon effort to include transgenders — people who have undergone sex-change operations — in the ranks.
Kristin Beck, formerly Senior Chief Petty Officer Christopher Beck, spoke recently at several high-profile events at intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to promote the integration of transgenders.
I realized when I was a teenager that evolution had made men large, strong, fast, and aggressive, while it had made women small, weak, slow, and submissive.
Evolution gave men testicles, which often gives women the upper hand. It almost makes me think there’s a god with a wicked sense of humor.
Rick in Portland
That’s one woman I wouldn’t mess around with. And take that however you please.
I remember when the coolest thing was to be a member of the Green Berets. When did being a SEAL become so stylish? 🙂 There’s also the USAF Combat Controllers and Para Rescue, but most people have never even heard of them. There’s also Delta Force of which, IIRC, the DOD still will not confirm nor deny the existence.
“There’s also the USAF Combat Controllers and Para Rescue, but most people have never even heard of them.”
Oh, OFD has heard of them. And worked with both sets of great people back in the day, providing machine-gun and cannon fire cover for their activities. The ParaRescue dudes had cool maroon berets back then. The FACs were guys like us, but usually senior NCOs and officers; they had some hairy effin gigs out there; I got a taste a few times during assignments to remote “listening posts,” way off the friggin res. All by my lonesome, not able to smoke, talk, use a radio, use a light, etc. But Charles or his buddies in the Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao and Thai Cong could probably smell my large meat-eating farang carcass out there from miles away.
Could this only happen in California? A couple can’t get rid of their nanny.
The couple, Marcel and Ralph Bracamonte, told Johnson the first couple of months with the nanny “were good,” but she soon stopped working and complained of health issues.
At this point, they said they asked the 64-year-old nanny to leave, but Diane Stretton refused to go. They said they served her with legal papers, but they turned out to be the wrong legal papers.
For the time being, officials told the couple the nanny can come and go as she pleases.
Police told Bracamonte there was nothing they could do.
“They told me it was now a civil matter,” Bracamonte said, “and I have to [legally] evict her. So this lady is welcome inside my house, anytime she wants, to eat my food anytime she wants and harass me basically. I’m now a victim in my home and it’s completely legal.”
Maybe they could invite the nanny to take a nice long dirt nap.
Paging SteveF…paging SteveF….
I certainly would not murder anyone simply on the basis of a news report. I have too much experience with inaccuracies in reporting, let alone police reports, press releases, and ridiculous court orders.
Hey Mr. Lynn! Enjoy Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Tejas this Saturday. Maybe she will bring some of her undies for all the kids. I wonder how they will control all the little urchins from pawing all over her with their dirty, pox ridden hands. Fire hoses at the ready!
Good to know, MrSteveF, good to know! I will call off SWAT now.
PlasticFace Pelosi gon be in TX, eh? Wot a treat for TX! Fire hoses, dawgs and truncheons at the ready! Maybe all the pols can hold hands and sing and cool chit like dat?
We ain’t had no bigtime pols visit us up here in a long time; last one was Barry. I couldn’t make it that day.
Lynn — really sorry to hear medications are not helping your daughter. I hope they find some course of treatment that gives her an upward swing to life. I can only speak for myself, but watching someone close degenerate is most definitely the toughest thing I have ever faced in life.
My kids are both healthy and with someone of the opposite sex, but neither seems interested in producing offspring, and have taken steps to insure it will not happen. I must sound like a Jewish mother telling them to hurry up and get on with it. They ignore me. I had kids later than most of my friends, but two more years, and they will be later than I was.
I am a sucker for redhead girls. My first serious kiss in early teen years was from a redhead — truly my best friend then, although I did not fully appreciate that in the right way at the time. We both moved and lost touch completely. I was immature and stupid. Subsequently, redheads and the smell of Toni hairspray did unspeakable things to me in junior high and high school. Have not smelled anything like Toni since hair so stiff it might break, lost out to long natural hippie hairdos.
Economy must be good. I’m so busy the grass was calf-high when I had time to cut it a few days ago. Linux is giving me fits, but no show-stoppers. Audacity showed only “pulse” and “default” this morning when I had only 20 minutes to record something and send it out, where it should have been showing me at least 6 different options, including the USB adapter for my Shure SM7B mic. Had to get on the road, so I gave up, and some other voice got the job. Plugged the computer back in after returning tonight, switched on, and all the options were there. I know the boot order of Linux is both important and seldom done in the same order twice. Lots of people in audio have to put in sleep or other commands to get things to load in the proper sequence so all things work, and this is probably one of those.
Funeral tomorrow for a close college friend’s father, who passed early in the week at 110. Sharp as a tack mentally, right up to the end, but he suddenly decided he did not want to continue living, and just quit eating. Fourteen days of that and he was gone. He was not particularly mobile at the end, which likely contributed to the change in his mental outlook.
110 is pretty unusual for a guy. Just read that the 98-year-old co-founder of America First and the former CEO of Quaker Oats died last month. I thought that was exceptional.
Finally got subscribed to RH and the updates working OK. Next up are the three vm’s to install and continue onward to a probably worthless cert at my age, having now been outta work fourteen months and only Windows jobs out there for which I get zero acknowledgement for resumes. I just need another gig for a year or two longer as I transition into something else here.
Off now to the Land of Nod and then another day of house chores, errands, etc.
Me Mum just turned 89. I just turned 59. I hope to live at least as long as me Mum. Her mind is still sharp, but the body is failing. I hope to miss that by “living long enough to live forever” as Ray Kurzweil says.
This guy has to be in line for a Darwin award…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-27/train-surfer-man-electrocuted-at-baclava-station-melbourne/5555738
Yeah, this older fellow’s wife died when she was in her 60’s. He just passed the point a few years ago of living as long without her after her death, as he had lived with her when they were married.
Electrocuted trainsurfers happen about everywhere where electric railroads operate. Being naked has no real effect on the risk.
The MG42’s high rate of fire was actually its weakness, causing the barrels to heat up too rapidly and using up too much ammunition.
That’s why the Austrian army now uses the MG74, which is just the 42 with a firing rate of 850 rounds per minute and a selective fire option for single shots.
Well, obviously the light antiaircraft bolt was intended to put as much lead in the air as possible, and even firing the 8mm round rather than 12.7mm or 20mm, that volume of fire must have been intimidating to ground-attack pilots. Particularly since the Germans sometimes used quad-mounted MG-42’s on half-tracks and other vehicles for mobile point air-defense. The idea of flying into 100+ rounds/second must have discouraged all but the real lunatic ground-attack pilots.
As far as volume of fire, the MG-34 was around 900 rounds/minute and IIRC one of the design specs for the 42 was that it have a higher rate of fire than the 34, mainly for suppressive fire during assaults because as we all know Hitler was an offensive sort of guy. That’s also why the German ordnance folks re-designated their prototype MP43/44 to the StG 44, because Hitler considered the Maschinenpistole (machine pistol or SMG) a defensive weapon, while the Sturmgewehr (assault rifle) was nice and offensive sounding.
As far as barrel changing, yes. The high cyclic rate of the MG-42 overheated barrels quickly, not to mention wearing them out. My buddy with the MG-42 had purchased the full range of accessories with it, including the tripod that convered it to a medium machine gun and the full barrel change kit, which included the tools, asbestos gloves, and six-count-’em-six spare barrels. I remember him saying that the guy he’d bought it from had served on the Eastern Front during WWII on an MG-42 crew and had told him that when they were defending a fixed position they always tried to have a tank of water near the gun. When the assistant gunner/ammunition handler pulled one hot barrel he’d toss it in the tank. Even with a substantial amount of water in the tank, it’d soon come to a boil.
Kurt B wrote:
“Electrocuted trainsurfers happen about everywhere where electric railroads operate. Being naked has no real effect on the risk.”
Yeah, I know, but like reaching out from a moving train and spraying graffiti it has the desired effect of reducing his chance of transmitting his genes to the next generation.
Hey Mr. Lynn! Enjoy Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Tejas this Saturday.
We used to string up carpetbaggers to the nearest tree here in Texas. I gather that it is frowned upon nowadays.
Lynn — really sorry to hear medications are not helping your daughter. I hope they find some course of treatment that gives her an upward swing to life. I can only speak for myself, but watching someone close degenerate is most definitely the toughest thing I have ever faced in life.
Thanks to all for the prayers and best wishes!
Actually the medications are helping her keep going on some level. A year ago we took her off all medications for two months. She went borderline catatonic on us after six weeks or so, still somewhat responsive but would barely do anything. She said that she felt like she was moving in molasses, etc.
The latest scientists are starting to think that Lyme is a bacterium with a viral payload. Sounds crazy but is an explanation why so many people cannot shake it with just antibiotics. And long term antibiotic usage is dangerous to the system and habit forming.
We have been taking her for deep tissue massages two or three times a week for the last three months and that seems to be helping, maybe breaking up the cysts. I am paying for that out of my pocket. Not cheap.
Actually, we are fighting with our insurance company over her treatments. She takes almost $1,000 per month of various medicines. Last year they disallowed one of the two tests that her doctor uses so I pay $80 for that every six weeks. The other test is a test for Lyme antibodies and showed negative over the last year. The last test showed positive and the insurance company letters about drugs and doctor visits suddenly stopped. It is has been most frustrating.
Chuck, I feel some of your pain in losing a spouse. I have been watching my daughter waste away for eight years now (she is 26) and the only thing that I feel that I can do is make her comfortable. We have had a diagnosis for three years but no cure. This all started with three goiters (two golf ball sized) on her thyroid requiring complete removal when she was 18. All downhill since then. She has not driven her car or any car in the last two years.
BTW, we are also fighting the CDC. My daughter’s doctor has reported her case to the CDC since she is so unresponsive to their treatment protocol and they have made a few suggestions. The CDC is why we took her off drugs a year ago and that was a disaster. They have filed malpractice criminal cases on some doctors for long term Lyme treatment, we are hoping and praying that this does not happen in this case. I understand now why AIDS sufferers were screaming so loud back in the 1980s and do not understand how disease treatment can be political.
There’s also Delta Force of which, IIRC, the DOD still will not confirm nor deny the existence.
They sort-of confirm that it exists on the SOCOM web site, just not by that name. Their current name is 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, and is part of their “airborne” units.