CUPCAKE’S FAMILY REUNION

Posted on August 3, 2012 by asknod

Once a year we have the Belles family reunion. We didn’t when I was enjoying the fine dining at the vAMC for the last two years. Nevertheless, it is that magic moment again. I look forward to seeing all my wife’s relatives. They’re certainly more agreeable than mine. My eldest sister screwed us all out of our inheritance and my next oldest one won’t speak to me because I refused to divide mine in half and share with her. Somehow she failed to notice I’m still a pauper and  my vA compensation wouldn’t even cover her bill at her country club.

What concerns me is the insane urge to clean and rearrange what I consider to be acceptable. Just when you become accustomed to where all the furniture is and can navigate it in the dark without creaming a toe, you have to relearn it. I compare it to waking up and discovering someone has changed the English language and it requires remedial education to remaster it.

Nowhere is this enunciated so clearly as in the Bedroom. For six long years, the bed resided in its usual spot. This placement was carefully thought out with much incense and Feng Shui. Our heads would align to the North and the television would be to our immediate south. The CATV outlet was thusly placed accordingly. What to my consternation should I be met with upon returning from gardening yesterday than the realignment of the most important facet of my life where I spend an inordinate amount of my time?

Men will understand the complexity of this. We are only recently potty trained indoors in the grand scheme of Time. This was accomplished by the cupcakes of the world over many eons. We are really only a stone’s throw from the cave in their minds. I personally think this stems from women’s frustration that they cannot claim the whole of outdoors as their urinal as we men can. Now imagine relocating the sleep vessel such that one arises in the middle of the night and is forced to navigate to the water closet from a strange perspective that in no way comports with his geographical remembrances of yesteryear. Compound that with sleep interest and you have confusion piled on top of mental deficiency.

Of far more import is the location of the telecommunications device. As there is now a window due west of my feet, this precludes locating it there. It will have to be at an acute angle to the left or right of it. Naturally the choice has been predetermined without my input to locate it as far from where it was originally. Since I am the designated communications expert and head installer, this will require my relocating the CATV outlet. It would be unsightly to simply tuck the cable along the perimeter of the room.

Electrical outlets now are in the wrong location too. None are accessible since the bed location blocks their access. This, too will require amelioration. I’m praying for an extension cord repair order but I sense it will be far more.

Since we are now looking out over the pasture when we greet the dawn, a whole new paradigm will have to be employed. Landscaping will have to be altered to facilitate a proper view from the prone position. New curtains are in order to frame this properly. Curtains that cannot be purchased at a NORMAL store. A curtain expert must be summoned to pontificate on this new phenomenon and eviscerate my bank account.

I feel conservatively that I will be out many thousands before this is over. I suspect prostate/urinary difficulties too. My first foray at 0300 took upwards of 7 minutes to correctly identify that I was in the walk-in closet and not the bathroom. By then my urinary distress was imminent. Trust me when I say I take no humor in reciting scatological humor. I consider it a medical emergency when I am in that state.

I  politely discussed the incongruity of the feng shui ceremony since we are no longer properly aligned. Cupcake smiled and said “You can’t honestly say you believe in that, can you?” My rejoinder is unprintable but consisted mainly of implying that she certainly did when she designed the house. I now understand that is no longer an operable statement. Feng shui apparently is malleable. What is also glaringly apparent is that I am not allowed to contribute my valued but unsolicited opinions on something I don’t believe in.

I wonder if other men suffer similarly. Is this a female aberration or simply a phase Cupcake is going through? Judging from the past, I will get three or four years to become accustomed to this new arrangement in the bedroom before we revert back to the original format.

 

Fortunately for me, I kept those handy little urinal jugs the vA gave me when I was discharged in 2010.Feng shui can be an art form.  Two can play this game, you know.

Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

vA–COMPLAIN AND IT’LL COST YOU

Posted on August 3, 2012 by asknod

Member Kel submits this for our observation. If readers wonder why I remain anonymous pending resolution of my claims with the vA, they need look no further than this example of recrimination. Criticizing the vA is bad for your health. It impairs your earnings potential, causes loss of face and is often a reason for being marginalized right out of your job. Thus losing you job and its attendant financial security can cause health problems when you don’t get enough to eat and suffer mentally.

Michelle Washington is about to discover just how strong her union is -or isn’t. AFGE has been described by some officious former vA employees as being a farce. Their feelings are that it does not represent the rank and file vA workers. Readers will recall the AFGE was the motivating force behind the recent protests outside the Columbia, S.C. VARO.

I make no judgement calls here. I simply report it. But it does strike me as being short-sighted to come down on a whistleblower. What could be more foolish than to exert ham-handed tactics on a woman who testifies before Congress? Subtlety would carry the day here without resorting to an Omaha Beach frontal assault on her. Marginalizing employees for legitimate activities, no matter how injurious to the Agency, is an art form that vA has never attained. Their excesses are legend. Witness the Keith Roberts imbroglio and his subsequent imprisonment for almost four years. After extensive litigation, they admitted their error but who paid the price for their flying off the handle? vA has rightfully earned their sobriquet as an Agency who shoots from the hip and asks questions later. Much later. This is an important precept in the “team” method of accountability. It consists of twenty officials in a circle pointing at one another as the culprit. The obverse is to blame it all on the Veteran and imply that his actions brought this on.

Even money says Michelle will continue to be ostracized sotto voce while accompanied by protestations on Uncle Eric’s part that no such thing is afoot. Once caught with the hand in the cookie jar, the response has almost universally been to adamantly deny the wrongdoing and promise that, even were this the case, it has been looked into.  No further violations can possibly ensue because everyone is aware of it and a Training Day was scheduled to brief everyone on proper deportment in these matters.

Michelle will never regain her place in the sun. Her reputation as a loner who refuses to be a “team player” is now cemented. The approbation of her superiors can never be recalled. Eventually she’ll realize like many did in the military, that this seminal event will preclude any possibility of advancement or promotion in her career.  File this under “Open Mouth. Insert Career.”

Posted in vA news | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

On a pinhead

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Laura

I’ve been reading a biology text book (c. 1987) that we own.  These sentences struck me:

“A virus is a genome enclosed in a protective coat.  The tiniest viruses are only 20 nm in diameter–smaller than a ribosome.  Millions could easily fit on a pinhead.  Even the largest viruses can barely be resolved with the light microscope. “

A chart tries to illustrate nanometers.  An atom is .01 nm; small molecules might be 1 nms; lipids, then proteins, up to 10 nms; ribosomes are a bit bigger and then we have the small viruses.  HCV viruses are different sizes–some are 50 nms, some a bit bigger.  They can only been seen with an electron microscope.

The CDC writes:

“How long does the Hepatitis C virus survive outside the body?

The Hepatitis C virus can survive outside the body at room temperature, on environmental surfaces, for at least 16 hours but no longer than 4 days.

How should blood spills be cleaned from surfaces to make sure that Hepatitis C virus is gone?”

Any blood spills — including dried blood, which can still be infectious — should be cleaned using a dilution of one part household bleach to 10 parts water. Gloves should be worn when cleaning up blood spills.

Our blood is the chemical soup that transports these zombies.  Since HCV can survive on surfaces for days–wet or dried up–then blood spills need be no bigger than a pinhead to house millions of them.

Media images from the Vietnam war period come to mind: outdoor village barbers with their busy clippers and razors; clunky jet-guns pressed into recruits’ bare arms at boot camp;   Vietnamese and American wounds getting dressed in the bush,  hamlets, and compounds.  Such a mixing up of blood and its then undetectable payloads of HCV.

Posted in Guest authors, HCV Health, Medical News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

FORT LEUKEMIA PRESUMPTIVE DISEASES

Posted on August 1, 2012 by asknod

Here’s the list of diseases associated with the carcinogens found in Fort Leukemia’s water.

‘‘(i) Esophageal cancer.
‘‘(ii) Lung cancer.
‘‘(iii) Breast cancer.
‘‘(iv) Bladder cancer.
‘‘(v) Kidney cancer.
‘‘(vi) Leukemia.
‘‘(vii) Multiple myeloma.
‘‘(viii) Myleodysplasic syndromes.
‘‘(ix) Renal toxicity.

‘‘(x) Hepatic steatosis.
‘‘(xi) Female infertility.
‘‘(xii) Miscarriage.
‘‘(xiii) Scleroderma.
‘‘(xiv) Neurobehavioral effects.
‘‘(xv) Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.’’.
We shall see how they rate this. Even money says they’ll do what they already to and deny most claims as being too tenuous to prove.

Fort Leukemia Wastewater Treatment Plant

Posted in Camp Lejeune poisoning, Medical News, vA news | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Class Action: Against the VA

Posted on August 1, 2012 by joeaveragevet

Hmmmm…I wonder if shredded evidence amounts to “denial of due process”.

This Vet has launched a class action suit, and we are apparently asked to join him.

I would be very interested in Vets comments on this!

For more information contact:

gary001ok@yahoo.com

 

Posted in Fed. Cir. & Supreme Ct., Guest authors, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

ASKNOD @ KINDLEBOOKS

Posted on August 1, 2012 by asknod

Gee, I guess I’m officially published. I was looking on line to see if it had showed up and up sprang this. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=ASKNOD.

If you use the Kindlebook phenomenon, you can download it from your computer.

I still don’t have any copies yet in paper form. The publisher says “It’s in the mail”. Barnes and Noble has the paperback

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/asknod?keyword=asknod&store=book

Posted in ASKNOD BOOK | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

CAMP OF THE YOUNG BILL PASSES BOTH HOUSES

Posted on August 1, 2012 by asknod

Good news for CDNEH and her spouse Chase. Both Houses of Congress have passed a Camp Lejeune Bill that will mean the same litigation path all we Vets must pass through. 750.000 Vets, wives and children will be affected by this. I note with dismay the usual “except for” we all saw in the  1991 AO legislation when the coverup on that poisoning became apparent.

The bill provides health care to sick military personnel and their family members provided they had lived or worked at least 30 days on the base from 1957 to 1987. They also must have a condition listed within the bill that’s associated with exposure to the contaminating chemicals.

The trouble with all these Bills is that the Senators and Congressmen all get together and do  that serious head-bob thing like my Hawaiian Hula dancer girl on the dashboard but nobody reads the thing. Thus you get “Veterans with boots on the ground in RVN are presumptively assumed to have been exposed …etc. , the the link to Porphyria Cuatana Tarda, Chloracne, and Sub-acute, Peripheral Neuropathy will be service connected IF… you manifested it within one year of departing RVN. Whoa, dude. Run that by me again slowly. Some  raters will even throw in May 7th, 1975. Remember that? The rooftop Olympics over at the Air America Apartments trying to get a ride out on a Huey?

So you see the problem. The Marines are going to take it in the shorts when they publish the list.  I see a bunch of tricky language with the time limits “must have been disabling to a compensable degree within one year of transfer away from Fort Leukemia”. God forbid if your symptoms don’t metastasize for 15 years. The vA will undoubtedly trot out the Fed. Circus  Maxson vs. Gober decision  and conclusively prove 85 % of these souls don’t meet the criteria because it happened 40 years ago.

Typical male chauvinist portrayal of Native Hawaiian Islander in traditional garb

She could be a Senator. I’d even vote for her.

Posted in Camp Lejeune poisoning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

CAVC–BATSON V.SHINSEKI– CURED HEP=NO DICE

Posted on August 1, 2012 by asknod

Much has been published here about representing yourself. When the evidence is so dispositive as to leave no room for doubt, we advocate it wholeheartedly. This is always true but only up to a point. When going before the CAVC, it behooves one to be very erudite on law. More importantly, before pushing the claim boat off the shore and embarking on the process, it is important to have all the condiments needed to prevail.

Meet Tommy H. Batson, [Click here . Erase the word {query}then enter 11-2405 and hit search. Click on Download in upper left to view normally]  the latest victim of pro se justice at the Court. Tommy, I’m sure has a lot of legal acumen to have made it this far on his own. To date, he has been unavailing in his pursuit of SC for his HBV-yep-Hepatitis B virus. While it isn’t unheard of, HBV can manifest itself in a chronic state that never completely resolves. These cases are few and far between but not so rare as to be an anomaly. Tommy doesn’t fall into that category. His was the mundane,  acute variety that resolved long, long ago. So long ago that he isn’t exactly sure when he got it. He insists it was from tattoos in the military. Nevertheless, it isn’t impacting his enjoyment of life now and that is the problem.

Tommy has petitioned the Court to grant him SC based on… what? The fact that he cannot donate blood at the Red Cross?  This is where he legally stubs his toe. Caluza, followed by Hickson and Shedden, enunciated the most important precept of the triad of components needed to begin a claim. That, of course, is an actual physical disability. Simply put, absent any active disease process, you have no claim. Tommy  Twotones arrived at the RO with antibodies to HBV and little else. He is otherwise healthy. Rarely do we see a Veteran arrive with no disease. Quite the contrary. Most arrive without the nexus and spend years trying to satisfy this shortcoming.

Part of the reason Patricia asked me to start this site in 2008 was to avoid this of which I speak-to educate Vets on how to win. In the process, we have branched off and tried to shed as much light on the process as possible to help you avoid wasting your time. Tommy missed that briefing much to his chagrin. Knowledge of the process is essential to formulating a game plan. I had no idea you needed a nexus letter in 2007 when I started over with my claim. You didn’t need one in 1994, but I didn’t know that either. In fact, my VSO wasn’t very forthcoming about it until I mentioned I had just uncovered it. Then he acted like I was raised by wolves for not knowing it.

I suppose this would be filed on my old site under Frivolous Filings in that it had no chance of winning-ever.  In light of the horrendous backlog that engulfs us right now, I feel it belongs in a new category-one called Depriving Fellow Vets of Justice. By carrying this appeal forward not just to the BvA, but further up to the Court, Mr. Batson has aided and abetted the backlog single-handedly. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t someone appointed by the judiciary to take the Batsons of life aside and explain reality to them-i.e. that they have no chance of prevailing. Better yet, wouldn’t it be nice if someone counseled him on the prerequisites for prevailing? I hesitate to suggest imposing monetary fines or punishment for gumming up the wheels of justice but this comes as close as I have seen for some form of intervention. Every dog must have his day. Make no mistake about it. That day should have ended at the RO. Instead, with the full force of the legal system in his corner, Tommy has usurped the place of another Vet for 8 years, received a C&P examination, extensive PCR testing for HAV, HBV and HCV antibodies, and generally pursued a claim for a nebulous condition. Along the way he has taken up the time and resources that would have been spent on someone genuinely diseased or impaired.

Assuming arguendo that he had prevailed and won, his reward would have been an ice creme cone with a scoop of air-0%.  He would have been entitled to medical care at VAMCs for what? HBV-resolved with no chronic symptoms. While we may sit back and grumble about the backlog, be aware that it is a double-edged sword. Veterans certainly aren’t the problem with today’s record backlogs but the Batsons of the world do nothing to improve the timeline to a resolution of your claim. While being unable to donate blood to your favorite charity may seem like a disability to some, rest assured that it is not.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Posted in CAvC HCV Ruling, Frivolous Filings, Veterans Law | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

JANUARY 2013 SEQUESTRATION TO IMPACT VA

Posted on July 31, 2012 by asknod

As usual, those chuckleheads in DC have had a few too many martinis at lunch before the afternoon vote. They wanted to immunize vA spending against what was going to happen but somebody forgot to write it in. Shit happens. As usual, we get the short end of this punji stick and everyone will cry in their beer about how it was an “unforeseeable error”. What won’t happen is the repair order. The donkeys and the elephants will argue right on through until it kicks in. They don’t want to be seen as increasing the debt on their constituents in an election year even though they’d like to build more bridges to nowhere.

Congressman  Jeff Millers VA Blunder

On July 25, Military.com reported on the coming cuts to the DoD budget. This report includes the statement that “[a]s For the Department of Veterans Affairs, which was given an exemption from any sequestration cuts, Secretary Eric Shinseki told a somewhat surprised committee that departmental administrative costs would still be subject to mandatory cuts.”

It seems that the people who voted for the Budget Control Act of 2011 failed to read before voting. The full text (see rules.house.gov) includes definitions of categories subject to sequestration. These categories include a security category and states that “discretionary appropriations associated with agency budgets for the … the Department of Veterans Affairs…”

Republicans, including our Congressman Jeff Miller, voted overwhelmingly to approve this bill. Now that a financial disaster looms for his constituency, the Republicans are calling these cuts Obama’s. It would be more appropriate to call the coming cuts to Veteran’s Affair’s Congressman Miller’s. As the chair of the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, Congressman Miller has no excuse for not realizing the implications of the bill he voted for and no excuse for not assuring by now that cuts to this important department would not occur.

Congressman Miller and the Republican party can blame President Obama and the President can say that cuts will not be made to Veteran’s Affairs, but in actuality President Obama does not control this budget. With its passage and their failure to assure necessary services provided by Veteran’s Affairs, the Republicans bear the responsibility.   This info has been public for a Yr.

I guess we have to give it July’s Ruh-oh, Rorge award. Asro sorry.

P.S. Here’s another take on it. Define “administrative costs” if you can. vA apparently cannot. It’s a rather nebulous concept that will require tea leaves, chicken entrails and a lot of prognostication.

Posted in vA news | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

MORE BIG BROTHER AT THE VA

Posted on July 31, 2012 by asknod

Just when we thought we’d heard it all about spying on 80 year old VAMC patients, out comes this tidbit spotted by Bodacious Bob, our FAC spotter in the Northeast. It shows the lengths vA is willing to go to in order to obtain deleterious information on us.

I have been chided for suggesting that vA would employ Criminal Background Investigatory techniques to discover a Veteran’s history when he or she has a checkered career in the military. I know this because vA has obtained information on several of the Vets we have helped that could only have been garnered by such methods.

As an employer, we were forced into this by several employees who used us to get Workman’s Compensation. They “fell” down or were injured a few days after being hired and we paid through higher premiums for years. We started becoming more careful after that. It costs $39.95 a year to subscribe to the CBI service and you can find out anything and everything about your prospective new hire.  With the SSN, it even reduces the error of misidentification to 0%. I’m sure vA gets a break on the fee based on their extensive use of it. It reveals interesting things like drug busts, any staycations at the Graybar Hotel and in some cases even the employment history.

VA has used this for denigrating your claims for jetguns by showing intercurrent drug usage after service as a plausible risk. Time spent in prison is considered a major risk due to you becoming the unwilling recipient of a fellow inmate’s affections.  An arrest for driving under the influence is all the proof they need that you have an ETOH abuse problem and we all know that is a risk for HCV.

Keep this in mind when filing so as to avoid having it rear its ugly head later on down the road. Better yet, run your own CBI on yourself and see what the government has on you. The era of Big Brother has arrived whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Sadly, vA is overwhelmed with requests for compensation and ill-prepared to separate the wheat from the chaff. What better way to keep up on the goings and comings of us Veterans with shady pasts and questionable morals?

P.S. I received an email to the effect that the type of surveillance (if any) would be in the nature of reading your emails. This is taken from the information published in this article.

Posted in All about Veterans, vA news | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment