Usually, when someone is a room short of an apartment, or a bottle
short of a sixpack, it’s a liberal Democrat. You can always point to
an Allan Grayson, or Al Franken, or even our old, dear friend, Fat
Al Gore, who emerged this week to tell us that the extremely cold
December is the result of global warming. (He then retreated into
one of his 10,000 square foot homes to burn more electricity than
all his neighbors, combined. With his Google stock now sitting at
$600 + per share…Fat Al is sitting pretty…even when Tipper gets
her half.)

But the Dunce of the Week is Tucker Carlson, a young, and usually
fairly bright guy. He saved himself from outright damnation, because
he is no longer wearing that hideous bow tie that was a trademark of
his for years. Tucker was sitting in for O’Reilly or Hannity this
week, and he brought up the subject of Michael Vick, the quarterback
of the Philadelphia Iggles, who did some hard time for killing dogs.

After Vick got out of prison, the owner of the Iggles and the head
coach, decided to give Vick a second chance, after talking to the
former coach of the Indianapolis Colts and their own quarterback,
Donovan McNabb. They signed Vick to a 2 year deal, primarily to be a
backup.

This year the tables turned and Vick ended up being the starter in
Philly and a damn good one, at that. Until Tuesday night, he had a
chance to be the league MVP and this whole story, played for all
it’s worth as a redemptive parable, got under some people’s skin.

Tucker Carlson was one of them. He stated on the air that Vick
should have been executed for killing dogs. I watched the segment
three or four times to make sure that was what he said and that he
wasn’t kidding.

What really unnerved some people was the fact that President Obama
butted in to this story, thanking the owner of the Iggles for giving
Vick a second chance. I think this is what blew Tucker’s fuse,
because I agree that Obama had no business making a public statement
about this, no matter what he thought privately.

Now, I don’t think Vick should have been executed for killing dogs
and I’m a huge animal lover. I have more than a few, living here on
the ranch. What he did was horrid and he should have been punished,
which he was. He got a second chance, which the great majority of
those who go to jail don’t get, and he has made the most of it.

But what he did shouldn’t be buried either, like most sportswriters
are doing. The people in Philly have it about right. When Vick got
the quarterback job, the headline in the Daily News read, “TOP DOG!”
As Pete Rose once said, “People in Philly will boo the Easter
Bunny.” And on Tuesday night, they were booing Michael Vick, as the
Iggles lost to the Vikings.

We don’t execute very many people anymore, which is a good thing,
since we have executed too many people wrongly. The old country
lawyer Gerry Spence once said, “There isn’t a prosecutor anywhere,
on any level, city, county, state, or federal, who won’t lie to
make his case.”

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Maybe Tucker was just bomb throwing, trying to get the coverage
evened out. I’m all for that. But this isn’t Iran, where stoning is
still in vogue.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

With my best wishes for your optimum health,

Dr. Bill

This was sent to me by a psychiatrist. It just goes to prove that
what you’re taught isn’t always the answer:

“It was a late Fall Monday, during my third year of medical school.
I had just finished a horrifically boring month of Geriatric
Psychiatry at the VA hospital and now was doing a month of Adult
Psychiatry at the local psychiatric hospital. It was a locked ward
and every day, we had to be buzzed in to the unit and buzzed out, at
the end of the day.

There were three medical students working the ward. We each took
turns taking new patients and working them up, when they were
admitted. It was my turn to work up a new patient that had been
brought in on Sunday night.

The senior resident handed me the patient’s chart. It was a thin
chart, suggesting that this was her first stay at the hospital -
generally a good sign.

The resident quickly dashed that hope.

“Mrs. D was brought to the ER last night for severe depression.
There was no suicide attempt; her family was worried, because she
was staying in bed and not willing to move for the past week. Since
being brought to the ward last night, she hasn’t moved at all; she’s
just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.” She smiled a crooked
smile at me. “Good luck,” she said.

I looked through Mrs. D’s chart and ER notes. There was nothing
particularly alarming, or even interesting. She had been on
outpatient treatment for depression, on and off, for about five
years. No suicide attempts. No significant medical, or family
history. She was divorced, with two teen-aged children.

I walked to her room, the last door on the left, opened it up and
looked in. The room was dark and a large woman was lying, unmoving
on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Her breathing was slow and
steady and she did not seem to be in any kind of distress. I knocked
and entered the room.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m the medical student, Scott. How are you doing
today?”

There was no response. Not even a twitch of muscle, or a flicker of
eyelids.

I pulled a chair next to the head of the bed and sat down. I tried
again, “Are you in any discomfort? Is there anything I can do?”

There was no change. She continued lying in bed, staring at the
ceiling.

I pulled out the history form and asked the first question: “How
long have you been feeling depressed?” No answer. No movement. It
was like trying to talk to a brick wall. It was time to try a
different tack.

“Tell me about your children. How old are they?”

This time there was a brief twitch of the eyes, but no other
movement.

“Are you and your children getting ready for Thanksgiving?”
There was another eye twitch, but nothing else.

Clearly, she could hear and probably respond, but was choosing not
to.

“You were brought to the ER last night,” I said, getting no
response. “So you missed Star Trek, then.”

This was Star Trek–The Next Generation’s last season and it was
shown on Sunday nights in St. Louis.

Her eyes opened, and she turned her head my way. “Why? Did I miss
anything important?” she asked.

I laughed, and we spent the next hour talking about Star Trek. Once
up and out of bed, she recovered quickly and was home by the end of
the week. We established a good rapport and had many long talks. I
was glad to see her get to go home, but also sad, because she was
one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dreary rotation.

There was an important lesson to be learned: Where standard dialogue
had failed, where even family concerns were not enough, Star Trek
had triumphed.”

I’ll be back with my last message of of 2010 tomorrow.

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With my best wishes for your optimum health,

Dr. Bill

Today, I was watching FOX Business News, where I learned that many
of the banks that were given TARP money (billions of your tax
dollars), are going broke. Not only did these greedy sonsabitches
lose billions of dollars on their own…now they have lost the
bailout money. 98 banks are in imminent danger and another 100, or
so, are on a bad teeter-totter.

Worst of all, federal officials will not disclose which banks are
near collapse, or how much money those banks have burned up.
Financial markets are bracing for another round of record defaults,
which will make mincemeat of “Recovery Summer.” It may be that by
the end of the coming year, unemployment could top 11%.

Most Americans have never heard of the “tortilla riots” of 2007.
They were a little more serious than the French “retirement riots”
of 2010 (young French dullards…rioting about what may happen, 40
years into the future).

The “tortilla riots” occured when tortilla makers predicted that the
price of tortillas could rise by 50%, or more. Putting aside the
fact that Mexico is a narco-state, with incredible drug violence and
kidnapping, the Mexican people know what’s important and that’s corn
tortillas. Protesters hit the street gripping corn cobs and
chanting, “”Without corn, we aren’t a country.” (Not as good as
“Hope and Change,” but it will have to do.)

Well…the tortilla makers started talking about increasing the
prices again and the Mexican government jumped into the market,
buying corn futures by the boxcar and announcing that tortilla
prices will stay the same, through 2011. Not only that…the
government sent “tortilla police” into the markets, to make sure
that no one was selling tortillas above the government stabilized
price.

In addition, the government is also making sure that nobody gets any
foreign corn, which would be more expensive. The Mexican people seem
to agree that the government is doing the right thing.

Which is why Mexico will always be a third world country, controlled
by thugs. Before Mexico was a narco-state, it was a thugocracy,
controlled by the same political party for over 100 years. Harry
Reid and Nancy Pelosi couldn’t be pages in the Mexican Congress. As
corrupt as they are, by American standards, they wouldn’t get a
second glance in Mexico.

But keep your eyes peeled. It won’t be long before this reasoning is
resonating in California.

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I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

With my best wishes for your optimum health,

Dr. Bill

2011 is sneaking up on us faster than a fat man at a free barbecue
…so I thought I would send out my own resolutions early.

I resolve that: I will never again eat a large portion of broccoli
rabe before going to a public function.

I resolve that: I will not watch, read, or listen to anything
involving vampires, or the undead.

I resolve that: I will read all the technical installation manuals
…if I can find them.

I resolve that: I will try to remember to replace the gas nozzle,
before driving away from the gas station.

I resolve that: I will spend less than one hour a day on the
internet, even though there are no clocks on porn sites.

I resolve that: I will become “greener” and conserve water…by
bathing less.

I resolve that: I will try to stay within ten miles per hour of the
posted speed limit.

I resolve that: I will save exploited child textile workers, by
going “commando.”

I resolve that: That I will not eat candy on Halloween, even though
I can’t remember anything longer than three months.

I resolve that: I will not spray any vegans with deoderant for at
least two weeks.

There you go…I have that out of the way. I intend to work on these
resolutions for about as long as I do every year.

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I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

With my best wishes for your optimum health,

Dr. Bill

Just before Christmas, an honest politician, a generous lawyer and
Santa Claus all got in an elevator at a first class hotel in New
York. As they traveled down several floors to the ground level, they
all noticed a $100 dollar bill on the floor.

Who picked it up?

Santa Claus, of course.

The other two things don’t exist.

Merry Christmas to all!

Dr. Bill