The Story of Adam & Eve's Pets

Adam and Eve said, 'Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you any more. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us.' 

And God said, I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.'
 
And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve.
 
And it was a good animal and God was pleased.

 
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.
 
And Adam said, 'Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.'

And God said, 'I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.'

 
And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them. 
And they were comforted. 
And God was pleased. 
And Dog was content and wagged his tail. 
 
After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, 'Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.'
 
And God said, I will create for them another companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.'
 
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.

 
And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.

 

And Adam and Eve learned humility.

And they were greatly improved. 

And God was pleased.. 
And Dog was happy.

And the Cat?  . . . 

Well, the Cat didn't give a shit one way or the other.

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A few words about computer security

I wrote this in 2010. The details may have changed but the importance of computer security is eternal!

Computer Guy here…. I have received several requests from some high profile people inviting me to befriend them on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Such sites are referred to as Web 2.0, referring to their primary function as social networking sites. I wanted to give everyone a heads up about security. Social sites do not provide an acceptable level of security for discussion of sensitive information! The sites are commonly watched by law enforcement as well as by the criminals. For example, if you mention on your page that you will be on vacation during October, don’t be surprised if you come home to find all your stuff gone! If you use Facebook to discuss your current legal woes or defense plans (even if you are careful who your “friends” are), don’t be surprised if the other side already knows your strategy when you go to trial. If you mention that you are filing for back child support don’t be surprised if Child Protective Services shows up at your door because someone(!) filed a complaint!

Even potential employers and landlords probe your online posts and information! 

File sharing sites like Googledocs, acrobat dot com, scribd and Microsoft Live Workspace are dangerous! You have no idea where your documents are stored. They might be on a server in Dallas, Seattle, Singapore, Bogata, Tokyo, Moscow, Fairbanks or hundreds of other cities around the world. You have no idea who the administrator might be or which terrorist group he/she is sympathetic to! If you use a document sharing site don’t be surprised if documents you thought were private show up in the prosecutors evidence book. Password or otherwise encrypt or don’t use the sharing sites!

“Peer to Peer” or P2P applications can actually open your computer to crackers. P2P applications like Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and Kazaa can poke a hole in your firewall and effectively terminate you security measures.

Online mail sites (Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, etc) are also questionable. Sarah Palin’s YahooMail was cracked during the last presidential campaign and her private and personal emails were made public. If you use an online mail site you should use a strong password and change it often. A strong password would be long (like 10 or more characters) and include UPPERCASE, lowercase, numbers and special characters. (Example, Y2&18~gvA*) Note also, online email sites READ your email without regard to your PASSWORD, ostensibly so they can target advertising to your web surfing preferences. The important point is, if Gmail, or YahooMail can read your email with a computer for advertising purposes do you actually believe that the government will not spy on you! Caveat Emptor!

The internet is like the wild west in the U.S. Be careful out there! There are bad guys lurking behind the next router. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly really do exist! The internet and all its assets are very useful but are also very dangerous. Be advised!

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David D. Johnson

My Experience with Testicular Cancer

Many of my adoring fans know I had cancer in 1995 but some do not.   It was "Seminoma" a.k.a. Testicular Cancer.  I had been feeling poorly for a few weeks.  In late August I started having a dull ache in my groin but it would go away after a while.  I didn't think much of it.  On Wednesday the pain became much more intense.  It was more intense than any groin injury I ever had from playing sports!  It hurt from my groin to my diaphragm and into my shoulders!  My wife got all upset but I said, "Aw it ain't nothing.  Just pulled a muscle or something." (Yeah, that was dumb!)  When I got ready for bed I discovered that I was swollen up at least double my normal size!  My wife called "Ask a Nurse.  They said I needed to get to the doc.  Sleepless night!  Next morning I went to see my doctor.  He took one look at me and said, "Dave, I'm going to call the hospital and get you scheduled for an ultrasound as soon as possible!"

Friday morning at the hospital I was ushered into the treatment room.  The tech was a cute little babe named Scarlett.  Damn she was pretty!  I climbed up on the table.  I had on a hospital gown and nothing else.  Scarlett draped a towel over me to preserve my modesty and proceeded to probe my scrotum with the ultrasound wand.  She kept going over the same area repeatedly.  She would erase the image from the screen and scan the same area again.  Finally, I interrupted her and asked, "Scarlett, are you having problems getting a clear image?"  She said that she was having a problem getting the picture she needed.  I said, "Scarlett, I'm pretty sure I have cancer. Modesty is the least of my worries right now. Move the towel and get the picture you need."  She moved the towel and the procedure was done in five minutes.

I tried to get her to tell me what she saw. She said she is not a doctor and could not discuss the images with me.  Maybe I was a pest but she finally turned to me, put her hands on her hips and said, "Mr Johnson, I cannot discuss it with you  but I will tell you this, 'It is important enough that I am going to go get the radiologist to talk to you!'"  Well, that really made my Friday!  The radiologist came in and looked at the images and did a couple scans of his own.  Then he said, "Dave, it is consistent with cancer.  He gave me a referral to a urologist.   I was scheduled for a "Right Inguinal Orchiectomy" which is doctor speak for surgical removal of the testicle.

I should mention that testicular cancer is one of the most curable cancers a man can have. The doctor said, "If you have to have cancer, this is the one to pick!"  Seminoma is rare, only about 6,000 cases in the US per year and of that number only about 4% are fatal.  Even in later stages it is usually curable.  Mine was early stage.  It hurt a LOT when my nad exploded and bled but it was probably the best thing that could have happened!

I asked the doctor if I could have the testicle in a bottle of formaldehyde!  He said "WHY!!??"  I said,  "I'd love to be the only person around with his nad in a bottle on the fireplace mantel!"  He laughed and  said that Kansas has bio-hazard laws which will not allow such a thing and besides after the pathology lab was finished slicing it up it would look more like hamburger than a testicle.  So...I have a big blue marble in a baby food jar!  

My surgery was on Monday, just a few months after a surgeon in Florida had amputated the wrong leg of a diabetic patient.  When my doctor pulled back the sheet to prep me for the procedure he found a piece of tape with the words "THIS SIDE!!" taped to my right leg!  LOL.  I didn't want the wrong nut on the floor!

After I recovered from the surgery I had radiation.  My total dose over 22 days (weekends off) was about 2,500 rad.  The doc said a dose that large could be fatal if it was received in one dose!  He also said there was about a 60% chance that the surgery cured the cancer entirely but having the radiation would raise the cure percentage to 96%!  I thought it was worth it!  The radiation made a mess of my intestinal flora!  You can figger that one out for yourself!

After the radiation treatments I had another CAT scan.  The urologist said, "Dave, the CAT scan detected an unexplainable thickening in you large bowel."  He referred me for a colonoscopy!  YUCK! The prep for that was awful but, again, I am sure glad I did it!  I had three pre-cancerous polyps removed.  I had follow up colonoscopies two years and ten years later and was clear!  I would have developed colon cancer if not for the CAT scan and colonoscopy!  I would not have had the CAT scan if I hadn't had Seminoma!

If you are male learn to do a testicular self-exam. CHECK YOURSELF OUT! Click Here for the WEBMD page about testicular self exam.

In that regard, I submit the following.  In 2000 or 2001 an MTV on-screen personality, Tom Green, was diagnosed with testicular cancer.  His cancer was much more advanced than mine.  He had the whole thing filmed by MTV film crews!  His surgery included the orchiectomy and removal of abdominal lymph structures. After his surgery and recovery and his return his MTV show, he aired the Tom Green Cancer Special.  The videos are on Youtube.  Tom is very frank and open about his cancer.  Some of you may be shocked at the videos or the song he wrote, "Feel Your Balls Feel You Balls! [so you won't get cancer!]"  The surgical procedure is quite explicit!  It was also much more extensive than mine! WATCH IT!  Green knew his audience.  His goal was to send teenage boys into the bathroom to perform a testicular self-exam (TSE). This is not like any cancer show you have seen on Dr. Oz or Discovery Health!  Thanks to Tom's special, many cancers in teenage boys were found and treated!

This link is to the Tom Green Cancer Special that ran on MTV. Click Here for the Tom Green Cancer Special video on Youtube.

Also Of Interest...

Olympic Figure Skating Champion Scott Hamilton also had testicular cancer. .  Click Here for the Scott Hamilton story.   

John Kruk played baseball for the Phillies.  The Phillies wanted him to spend more time in recovery but he wanted to play baseball.  He had a t-shirt made that said [Front] "If you don't let me play" [Back] "I'm gonna take my ball and go home!"

The movie "Brian's Song" was about Brian Piccolo and his losing fight against Germ Cell testicular cancer.

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The Leadership of President Trump

The left is angry at President Trump over his walk to St. John church and his statement holding the Bible at the steps of the church. They are calling it nothing more than an inappropriate photo op.

Here is what I thought of the walk and his comment in the Rose Garden and at the church. It was an all too rare display of raw leadership. The same sort of leadership we had when President Truman warned the Japanese of the rain of destruction from the sky such that the world had never seen before. And then he did it.

The same sort of leadership we saw in President Reagan when he said he was going to fire ALL of the air traffic controllers that did not report to work. And then he did it.

President Trump is percolating to the top of the Presidential leadership ladder. He said he was going to build the wall and even with the democraps doing everything in their power to stop it, he is doing it anyway! He said, he was going to drain the swamp, and even with the democraps doing everything in their power to stop it, he is doing it anyway! He said he was going to devastate ISIS and even with the democraps doing everything in their power to stop it, he did it anyway!

Now he told the wimpy governors to stand up for law and order and shut down the American ISIS terrorists (BLM, Antifa) or he will do it for them.

I believe he will do it...He has a record of accomplishment.

Thank you Mr. President for bringing leadership to the White House.

TRUMP 2020!

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President Trump, The American Economy and COVID-19 Panic

I am 73 years old. I have followed politics since 1968. I distrust anything and everything government has done, is doing, and will ever do. Having said that I make this observation.

The problem with government imposed intrusions into American life is that they never end. I was disgusted and angered when Richard Nixon used emergency executive power to impose outrageous restrictions on American life. The problem was that OPEC was manipulating oil prices to the point that the American economy hovered near collapse. Prices of goods and services were skyrocketing, gasoline tanks at stations were empty, lines of cars waiting for gas stretched for miles, and grocery stores were empty of everyday items; bread, milk, and toilet paper. Panic buying was even more out of control than it is today. (The picture is a gas station in 1974 in Brooklyn, NY.)

President Nixon imposed wage control, preventing employers from raising salaries. He imposed rent restrictions, preventing landlords from raising rents to cover increases in operating costs. He froze prices on basically everything in the country; food, clothing, gasoline, restaurant prices, car repairs, everything. He also imposed the infamous fifty-five mph national speed limit with the stated goal of maximizing miles per gallon for motor vehicles! I remember thinking, "Hell, I can run faster than this! " All these impositions were enforced at the federal level! Essentially, Nixon froze the American economy solid as an iceberg! Nothing went up and nothing went down.

My conservative blood was boiling but whatcha gonna do? The important takeaway is that after OPEC lost the fight President Nixon rescinded all of it! I had never known a government regulation or program to end! (Don't get me started on that subject!) My respect for Nixon went through the roof with the rescission! (We can discuss Watergate some other day.) Nixon took over an out of control and panic driven society. In my opinion he prevented a major collapse of American and perhaps worldwide economies.

This COVID-19 thing appears to be a real crisis and emergency. History will tell us if COVID will be "worse" than SARS, MERS, or the annual flu seasons. I absolutely believe that President Trump is taking appropriate actions to blunt the impact of the Chinese virus. I will give President Trump a pass until the crisis ends. If he rescinds these government intrusions then my respect (already high) will soar. We shall see!

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State of the Union Address

OK...Let's clear up a few things.

1. Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, TRADITIONALLY issues an invitation to the President to deliver the State Of The Union Address (SOTU.) It is a tradition, not a Constitutional requirement.

2. However, the Constitution does require the president, "from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient...."

During the first half of our history the president delivered a WRITTEN document to fulfill this Constitutional requirement. Woodrow Wilson began delivering the SOTU address as a means to rally support for his political agenda. (All conservatives should disdain ANYTHING and EVERYTHING Wilson did or even thought. But that is a different discussion!)

The SOTU address is problematic. The opposition party delivers a rebuttal address. In the current political environment it is guaranteed that the democrat response will be a direct attack on Trump, with little or no regard to policy differences. The democrats will attack the man, not the policy.

Also, the Constitution gives the president the power to convene a joint session of Congress if he deems it necessary. President Trump does not need permission from Nancy to deliver the SOTU address.

Since most presidents of the 19th century and President Hoover of the 20th century delivered a written document to the Speaker, I would love for President Trump to put the SOTU information on the White House web site.

Why play Botox Pelosi and Upchuck Schumer's game!