TO: The Citizens of the United States of America
RE: Revocation of your Independence
We hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy much. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. There shall be a phased-in return to Proper English You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
     The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. You will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.
     Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "lik" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize".
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents. Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly? or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task #1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You shall stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
     Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.
     Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. You are to stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team stripes, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "Shit".
8. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
9. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
10. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
11. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
12. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French; they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
13. From 1st December 2004 only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager". The cold tasteless stuff you call beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Piss", with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Piss". This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
14. From 1st December 2004 the UK will harmonise petrol prices with the former USA. You will be permitted to keep calling "Gasoline" it until 1st April 2005. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).
15. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
16. Tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
17. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776.

Thank you for your cooperation.

¶ 09:28 0 comments

      I saw a program last night on C-SPAN about the impact that global warming is going to have on the polar ice caps (they’ll be essentially gone within three generations) and rising sea levels (good-bye Miami, eventually) that was also a presentation to a Senate committee of the major report of same by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , this report being the most un-biased, most broadly-based across all scientific disciplines and political dogmatisms spectra ever, by three hundred of the world’s most distinguished scientists. ...
     I wonder how many people have actually read the Kyoto Protocols? If they did, and agree with them, then their biases are anti-US and anti-Western Culture, plain and simple, and have nothing to do with concerns about anything else.
     If the Kyoto Protocols were meant to do anything other than kick the economies of the developing world squarely in the gonads under the guise of preventing global warming, then they wouldn’t allow China and India and Indonesia and all other so-called “developing nations” to basically pollute the atmosphere at will, to pump virtually unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide into our planet’s biosphere.
     Yet, The Protocols clearly state that the problem is that the US and Europe are too old and fat and greedy and being such mean old capitalists make us all evil and the developing world should be held blameless if they want to burn unlimited amounts of fossils fuels to make their respective economies stronger even though it will mean a net zero sum reduction in preventing burned hydrocarbon products that are the primary source of global warming. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander; what is required of the West should also be required of the East.

¶ 08:55 0 comments

The National Field Director and deputy political director for the Republican National Committee Daniel Gurley solicited unprotected sex and multiple sex partners in an online profile at Gay.com, in seeming contradiction with the Party’s call for abstinence and positions on gay issues.
     His adult chat profile soliciting men for unprotected sex and said he has sex three to five times weekly was discovered yesterday by activist Michael Rogers of blogACTIVE.com.

¶ 09:25 0 comments

     Medicine and politics are obligatory companions, as inseparable as tea and biscuits. Although academic reactionaries and purists may argue that medicine should not be tainted by political agendas, rarely has this been, or is it, reality. (1)
     Medicine--as practiced in times and regions as diverse as pre- Christian Hippocrates, Freud’s Vienna or Massachusetts’s Back Bay--invokes relationships, all of them illustrating a political connectedness to governing authorities.
     When I hear fellow Pennsylvania physicians speak of politics in medicine, the substance often reflects those controversies that attract media scrutiny and hefty emotional responses: Fee-for-service vs. managed care reimbursements, Darwinian evolution vs. creationism, stem cell research vs. right-to-life arguments, clean needles for IV drug users vs. moral objections, and/or financial support for AIDS prevention and treatment vs. financial resources allocated elsewhere. However riveting are those arguments, it is the day-to-day interrelationship of politics and medicine---those that border on the mundane—that cement the relationship. The existence of that bond makes the case, at least for me, that our relationships to, and with, governing bodies are fundamental to medicine and therefore critical to medical reporting. (2)
     In psychiatric medicine, the evolution of this interrelationship, particularly as it pertains to 19th and 20th century U.S. federal and state policies, is highlighted by involuntary commitment, deinstitutionalization, Federal, State and private sector funding sources, psychiatric epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology(3).
     As is true of both psychiatric and non-psychiatric medicine, our profession in Pennsylvania is licensed by authorization of the Department of State. The Secretary of State is an official appointment of the elected Governor. The regulatory oversight and management of conduct for practitioners of the healing arts (including medicine, dentistry, veterinary, podiatry, nursing, etc) is defined by Pennsylvania Code (applicable laws of Pennsylvania) as well as federal and local/community standards. Similar laws and standards define the compensation for our services from federal programs (Medicare), federally-subsidized state programs (Medicaid) and from private insurers who are under State and Federal licensing and regulation.
     Medical practitioners prescribe within the directives and guidelines of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and, where applicable, individual state agencies that monitor controlled substances. (Not all US states have separate registries for controlled substances; Pennsylvania is one that does not.)
Like its counterparts in the UK(MHRA, NPSA; others), our pharmaceutical and therapeutic prescribing habits have Federal watchdogs, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, multiple collateral advisory committees and Federally-funded programs that assist the process of research and information dissemination (National Institute of Health/National Institute of Mental Health/Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: NIH/NIMH/SAMHSA; others.)
     The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and its collaborative organizations devote a prodigious effort to legislative and political agenda. The current APA website’s Homepage highlights three “front and center” advocacy items: Endorsement of recent Congressional passage of an $83 million dollar ‘Suicide Prevention Bill’, and two subsequent links to the APA Advocacy Action Center and APAPAC, both sites that promote lobbying efforts on behalf of APA’s constituency. (4)
     Oversight regulation, advocacy and legislative agendas, investigatory and legal mandates underscore medicine’s inseparable coexistence with politics. With issues of medical record confidentiality, academic research freedoms, parity, tort reform, the involuntary commitment of individuals, the duty to warn, the continued evolution of Lyndon Johnson’s Community Mental Health Act of 1965 or George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission’s recommendation to screen American’s youth for psychiatric disease, psychiatry is as much about legal and political agendas as it is about mental illness and mental health.
     Whether the issues pertain to psychiatry or non-psychiatric medicine, it is crucial for journals to discuss political trends and counter-trends in medicine---just as it is expected that they deliberate the epidemiology and pathophysiology of heart disease, cancer or schizophrenia. Medical journals and physicians would be well served, I believe, by confronting-- not denying--the issues and the political forces that shape them.

¶ 08:59 0 comments

"If we follow perspectives too far, our minds grow smaller, too. It's better to gaze at the sky for an afternoon. Monster clouds looks like friendly farm animals. We can take a huge expanse of heaven into our minds this way.
     "Sometimes buildings line up like blueprint drawings along the perspective lines of hydro wires. The wires cross, confusing my sense of which way to go or look. I prefer the bird's eye view that makes everywhere possible. Maps are diagrams of possibility. I could set out in my car and follow lines for an afternoon, then follow them home without losing track of the world. No matter how many ways you want to go, you can only follow one path at a time. That's the physical reality, but our minds can go many ways at once. Somewhere I read we can hold seven distinct ideas in our minds at once."

¶ 02:27 0 comments

The nation's top cop [outgoing] rendered his opinion on the problems with judges who are ideologues

"Ideologically driven courts have disregarded and dismissed the president's evaluations of foreign policy concerns, in favor of theories generated by academic elites, foreign bodies and judicial imagination,"

¶ 13:55 0 comments