A Modest Proposal

I propose that anyone discgusted with our ethically challenged representatives insert the following links into any web pages, blogs, etc. that they maintain. The goal of this is to raise the ranking in Google so that someone searching for "Pete Demenici" (for example) will have this page as the first result.

That's it. It will take a minor amount of effort from a large amount of people. The result will be only to provide the voting populace to easy information on the corrupt activities of their representatives.

Pete Domenici
Mitch McConnell
Lisa Murkowski
Ted Stevens
Ken Calvert
John Doolittle
Tom Feeney
Doc Hastings
Duncan Hunter
William Jefferson
Jerry Lewis
Gary Miller
Alan Mollohan
Timothy Murphy
John Murtha
Steve Pearce
Rick Renzi
Harold Rogers
David Scott
Jerry Weller
Heather Wilson
Don Young
Larry Craig
David Vitter


How do I participate?

First, click every link above and read. You want to know what it is you are linking to, don't you?
Second, copy and paste the following HTML text into your web page, blog, etc... If you want, you can make it small, or invisible, or whatever. It just has to be visible to the Google bot.
Third, test your links.

That's it.

HTML Code for Copy and Paste

<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/311">Pete Domenici</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/308">Mitch McConnell</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/315">Lisa Murkowski</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/307">Ted Stevens</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/calvert.php">Ken Calvert</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/doolittle.php">John Doolittle</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/feeney.php">Tom Feeney</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/310">Doc Hastings</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/313">Duncan Hunter</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/jefferson.php">William Jefferson</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/lewis.php">Jerry Lewis</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/miller.php">Gary Miller</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/mollohan.php">Alan Mollohan</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/314">Timothy Murphy</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/murtha.php">John Murtha</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/309">Steve Pearce</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/94">Rick Renzi</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/306">Harold Rogers</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/317">David Scott</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/336">Jerry Weller</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/312">Heather Wilson</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/305">Don Young</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/316">Larry Craig</a></p>
<a href="http://www.beyonddelay.org/node/318">David Vitter</a></p>

The Problem with Christianity

The problem with Christianity (and a good many other religions, no doubt) can inevitably be traced to the point where it stopped being a philosophy and started being a religion.

This change can be charted both historically and individually. Fortunately, it is not irreversible.

There is nothing wrong with ritual and worship, but this must be secondary to active thought and action as requisites of existence. To replace the latter with the former does a disservice to mankind.

The Golden Rule

The problem with The Golden Rule is that it that it posits an extremely selfish way to interact with the world. Selfishness, of course, is hard-wired into our existence. Though it comes as no surprise, there surely must be a better way.

Broken Shield

Perhaps it comes as a surprise to learn that it was a relief to hear the word, the diagnosis, the conviction: "Hypothyroidism". First and formost it was a label, and this label was better than the others I had recieved thus far. Namely, "anxiety disorder". Fuckin' Doctors.

I really shouldn't be so hard on them, as some of the symptoms of hypothyroidism do overlap with anxiety disorder...or to be more accurate, anxiety (and a whole bevy of other mental and physical maladies) are themselves symptoms of hypothyroidism.

What pissed me off is the fact that the Doctors clearly were not listening to me. Or rather, they listened to only part of what I said as I sat there in my hospital mumu. They latched on to the low hanging fruit and issued their verdict: "Anxiety disorder." If I wasn't such a dick about it, I probably would still be feeling worse and worse, taking their prosac, and suffering immutably.

As it was, it took a "Listen, there is something seriously wrong with me. . . something that has a tremendous effect on my day to day life and my ability to get through the day. It isn't anxiety." That, and an outright rejection of their prescription for prozac coaxed them in to performing a bevy of lab work. For christ's sake, it had gotten to the point where I had to be driven to the hospital. I couldn't even drive myself 4 miles to see a doctor. That's how bad it was, and that's the state I was in when I went to see them.

In fact, that's not the whole story. I felt more than that. I felt dead, or dying. When I got out of bed in the morning, I felt more exhausted than when I got in to bed the previous evening. Sleep, when it came, was fitful. Various aches and pains appeared in my muscles and bones. But most of all, most profoundly and frighteningly of all, was the mental fog that had descended upon me.

When I say mental fog, I'm talking about real pea-soup here. I couldn't understand basic things that were going on around me: conversations were the most frightening. I took to taking a voice recorder around with me everywhere I went, because I couldn't understand what was being said in real-time, this at least afforded me the opportunity to listen to a conversation five, ten times over again after the fact, in order to eke a glimmer or two of meaning from it.

And I'm sure it seemed to others that I was perpetually fucked up as well. God knows what my colleagues thought: perhaps I was drinking too much, or was stoned every day, or god knows what other explanations they came up with to describe my behavior.

So as I said, the label came: "Hypothyroidism." It came after my visit. It was 6:30pm. I had just returned from the pharmacy with, of all things, my perscription for Prozac. Indeed, the doctors paid little heed to my refusal. In exchange for the lab work, I agreed to consider the SSRI they wanted me on.

It's not that I don't believe in the fact that SSRIs are helpful to many people, nor do I think they are inherently evil. I just felt, at the time, that an SSRI would do nothing at all for the health problems I was having.

So I came home from the pharmacy and sat pondering my amber bottle of tiny little pills. My dog lay snoring against the door. Was she guarding the exit? After a goodly while, I got up, filled a glass of water, popped the white lid off the bottle, and popped my first prozec.

I just got it down my gullet when the phone rang. It was the doctor, my doctor, and she was excited. "Michael!"

"Yes?"

"This is Dr. Strangelove from the Hospital calling. I just got some preliminary lab work back." She was nearly out of breath.

"Yeah?"

"You have hypothyroidism!" She was so excited by this, thrilled almost. "I'm going to call a prescription in for you right away and I want you to start taking it today."

"OK."

It was the fog that had subdued me. I didn't really understand everything she was saying, so I tended not to ask a lot of questions. I got off the phone and tried to remember what it was she wanted me to do. Oh yeah, go to the pharmacists and get a prescription.

So I started synthroid. And waited.

Things have been getting better, but I'm still fucked up. I'm relieved that some of the fog has lifted, but I still feel like shit. I can't move like I used to (no energy), can't walk to work, can't go for hikes, etc... I get headaches, and I sleep a lot. This is what life is like with a broken shield, a nonfunctioning thyroid I guess.

I'm reading more about it, and wondering if it isn't time to add a little bit of T3 into the mix of drugs I take.

Fuck.