BJean

"Do you guys think it is possible that my doctor MISSED PUTTING THE SALINE IN THE PORT WHEN I WAS AT MY TWO OTHER DOCTOR VISITS?" No I think that the saline leaked out at your port site. The missing liquid is seeping into your organs and they will soon turn green and pop. Just kidding. This has happened to me several times. Each fill process has resulted in different reactions by my body. I remember having one like yours where I decided I surely had a leak in the port or that the doctor took out the saline to measure it and forgot to put it back. As long as you are having positive results, I really don't think you have anything to worry about. Keep up the good work!

"But terminating the pregnancy caused her so much pain that she tried to cover it with "drugs, alcohol, partying and a promiscuous lifestyle," she told radio host Rich Buhler in an interview with KBRT AM-740." Great piece of "news" from our favorite "news" source: Fox News. Anyone besides me think that this could be another couple who are doing all they can to further their argument against women's right to choose, rather than a sincere effort for the man to "adopt" dead tissue - which, btw, makes no sense at all on the face of it. It's shocking, I'll give them that. But then methinks that is the idea. Last point being, I'm sure that she did no "drugs, alcohol, partying" and didn't have a "promiscuous lifestyle" prior to her first pregnancy. She was a totally virtuous young lady, who was simply taken advantage of by some big bad boy. Only after the first abortion did she ignorantly choose to have unprotected sex that resulted in a second unwanted pregnancy and second abortion. Great story. Heart warming.

And see there, plain has a great sense of humor too!

Where've you been for the past 8+ years? Employers and corporations got some tax relief, in fact more than lower wage earners. Your theories on less tax for corporations and employers as being beneficial to their employees, have been disproven. It just hasn't worked that way, unfortunately. Greedy people at the top have kept that from happening and now this country is in one hellofa mess. What's happened to your short term memory? And yeah, lots of very wealthy folks love to donate - they benefit from it by using it for tax write offs. Yay them. If they donate anonymously and don't take tax deductions for it, THEN I'm impressed. Or if they do hands-on charity work, that's impressive.

McMad, obviously I do not understand the earned income tax credit. Don't you have to have paid into the system to receive money back or are you saying that some people receive money from the IRS without ever having paid in any money?

Actually Teridoodle, in Florida many years ago, they decided to raise sales taxes rather than real estate taxes. At a time when many cities/counties had a lower (around 6%) sales tax and higher real estate taxes, places in Florida had 8% sales tax with lower real estate tax assessments. Homeowners loved it. It worked pretty well too, especially in high tourist areas that did an enormous retail business selling to non-residents.

Jack of course there is fraud. There are dishonest people everywhere. Tax cheats are perpetrating a crime against the rest of us tax payers who do not cheat. Why would you call monies they get through dishonest means, a refund? You and Beth have labeled me uninformed and shockingly obtuse so why don't you just enlighten me instead of expecting me to google something - you know I can't read.

Huh? How else would you get a refund check? The gov doesn't send 'refund' checks if it isn't a refund from funds already paid. And if somebody is getting a refund check, I imagine that most of them have definitely paid some taxes. I believe that it would be very rare for anyone to get a refund of the entire amount that they had paid in throughout the year. I am more concerned with those people who don't "believe" in paying taxes and just flat refuse to file and pay what they owe.

Jack you seem to be saying that nearly half the people in America get a check from the government. Wha, wha, what? Just because some people don't make enough money to owe taxes, doesn't mean that they are getting welfare checks. Or am I totally missing the boat on your point this time too? You and I have a very different way of looking at things and interpreting statistics - well not true statistics, but numbers. jenaj: good post!

It was definitely refreshing. I may not agree with the way she conducts politics, but I do respect that she lives the life she preaches. Her daughter "walked the walk" too. They obviously are a very supportive family and that is a very good thing because her daughter needs it now and will for a long time.

My heart goes out to you Carrie. I hope you had someone who came into your life and rescued you.

HeatherO you stated the case perfectly. No one can argue with that logic, that's for sure. luluc: yours is not the first case I've heard of about an abuser coming after someone who was trying to help the abused. That is one reason why neighbors do not get involved when they know that terrible things are happening behind closed doors. We tried to help a psychologist neighbor of ours when one of her patients tried to strangle her. We took her to identify him at the police station and after that he began to harrass us. I am really sorry that your guy was even more deranged than ours was. That must have been a nightmare for you!

Ebony I used to be more of a person who believed that most people are doing the right thing, no matter how it may look. I sure grew up and changed my tune. Those small things that you did may have made a real difference in those children's lives. Parents and other caregivers are sometimes so strung out from stress and raising kids and all the things that life throws at them, they just cannot cope properly. I don't believe that there are many people who actually set out to kill or maim a child. The monsters that do get off on harming children are sick and should be banned from society forever. Everyone else needs people like you to step in when things are getting out of hand. I wish I had done it and I wish I knew for sure that that little girl at the Smithsonian was alive and well today.

you got that right, plain. Btw, there are Americans who refuse to pay taxes - period. They do not file, they do not pay, in many cases they are not in jail. Eventually they may go to jail, but it usually takes a really long time for Uncle Sam to catch up with them. And when he does, it may result in a fine, which the culprit is allowed to pay out on a schedule. So Sammy gets the money, if and when they decide to pay that. I know that there have been generations on welfare because my Mother worked in a job where she was exposed to it on a daily basis. I did think that there had been some changes made to the system and that it had become much harder to take advantage of welfare over a long period of time. But let's face it, there are dishonest people at the bottom of the barrel and there are crooks at the top bilking the system. Honest people in the middle seem to be hit the hardest.

Good for you kat! You are so right about taking on the task of checking into suspected abuse. Once I was in the American History Museum of the Smithsonian. It was very crowded but I noticed a man along one wall seemed to be coercing a little girl who seemed terrified. He was very quietly tugging her to go with him and she was resisting. What he was whispering to her I'll never know. I watched for a few seconds while trying to decide what to do, trying to determine if he was her father. I made a decision and quickly walked over to someone who was working there to get help because I didn't feel that I could confront the man alone. By the time we turned around he and that little girl were gone. Vanished. We looked all through the room and they were no where to be found. Unfortunately a door to the outside was not far from where we were and that was that. They were gone. I have turned that scene over and over in my mind so many times wishing I had just approached him and asked a simple question. Anything to slow it all down. Anything to help figure out if she was being abducted or if she was being corrected by her father. It still haunts me. I will never hesitate again if I have a question about the safety of a child.

Beth you don't deserve a response from me, so this is all you're gonna get. lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala.

Point taken, Beth. You said: "In the cases I've heard and read about where children died, it was after multiple investigations AND proof of abuse -- removing the child and then returning it to the home." So you were not citing statistics. My bad. You were only referencing cases you've heard about. Having lived in a state that is famous for child abuse and deaths at the hands of their caregivers, I learned that usually no investigation was involved when children were killed. Of course I am not saying that it never happens the way you described. One doesn't have to google to know that it does occur - we've all read about cases like that - but it is not what happens in most deaths.

Silly is claiming that I am denying anything. This discussion was between plain and me. You obviously are out of the loop.

Jack, surely you aren't suggesting that "mistakes" on one's tax returns are limited to the current administration officials? IF so, where were you when all of the inquiries into similar "mistakes" of past administration officials and Congressmen were done?

luluc I did not know that. I am a big fan too and for the reasons you mentioned! Makes me proud to be a Texan... I guess. :-)

Yeah Jack I agree about government officials who don't get their tax returns right. Anyone can make a mistake, but those are pretty unforgivable by people who hold public offices. Anybody want to calculate how many people aren't paying their taxes because they simply refuse to pay taxes? Like the right wing extremists?

Me too. Good job, both of youse. Btw, children die when there is NO intervention more often than when there is intervention. At least in Florida where there are a lot of abused children and deaths caused by their caregivers. I'm not sure where Beth is getting her statistics.

Regarding shock and awe, I don't know how I can make it any clearer, plain. The reason you keep seeing me use it in my posts is because you challenged me and continue to challenge me on it. I've explained myself as well as I can. I don't think you choose to make an effort to understand my point. As far as I'm concerned, we can give that a rest. Congress dodged taking responsibility for the war in Iraq by giving Bush the power to go off and do it. You even cited stuff that indicated that. It's been done in the past, i.e., Vietnam. Congress did not decide that they thought it was right to declare war on Iraq. They decided to let Bush do it and take the heat for it. If you're talking about the Congress voting to extend the war and send more troops, commit more money, etc., they sure did do that.

I'm curious. Why are people becoming so furious about this now, under Obama's watch? Nothing has changed and I didn't hear all this ranting and raving when Bush was in office. Interestingly, Obama proposes that ordinary Americans' taxes not be increased. Yet those seem to be the people who are claiming that he is being unfair. Who do you think is inciting this riot? The wealthy people, like Rupert Murdoch, are doing a seroius number on us. They're actually making us feel sorry for the ultra-billionaires by using things like this to get us all riled up. I'm all for honesty and openness and transparency in government. But some of the stuff people are using to get people on their bandwagon is as much of a distraction as bellyaching about the illegal alien problem - as if it were something new that we didn't already know about.

Hmmmm, yes, and so could I.