Long time, no see..

 Does this thing still work?

Who is at fault?

I recently overheard a discussion about a young man who injured his foot under a fairly unusual set of circumstances. He suffered a broken foot, the fracture being just below the ankle on the outside of the foot, however it was the way in which he broke the ankle that was the focus of the conversation. Specifically, some interesting questions about who is liable and/or responsible for picking up the tab for the young man's medical expenses, which included a visit to the emergency room, to office visits with an orthopedist with at least one more scheduled, x-rays, a cast, crutches and an Aquashield water-proof cast protecter (a device used to keep casts from getting wet while showering and/or from rain).

The young man was enjoying some adult beverages with his friends at a one of the popular establishments in the college town in which he lives (he is a 21 year old senior in college, for what it's worth). When closing time rolled around, a bar employee hastily ushered everyone out of the high-ceiling second-floor establishment and onto the staircase leading to the exit. This created a crowd of people near the top of the staircase.

One of the more inebriated gentlemen towards the back of the pack stumbled, creating a domino effect of people tumbling down the stairs. The young man who sustained the broken foot was positioned toward the front of the pack when the collision occurred, and sustained the injury during the fall - possibly due in part to the weight of the other people who fell on top of him as his foot was positioned awkwardly due to the fall.

The question that was being debated was whether or not the bar should be held liable for the young man's medical expenses incurred as a direct result of the injuries he sustained in a fall that occurred under circumstances in which an unsafe number of people were herded onto a staircase by employees of the establishment. Does the fact that employees of the establishment in a sense were responsible for the crowd at the top of the stairs that prompted the fall render them liable for the medical bills for injuries to patrons hurt in the fall?

At first glance, this seems like a fairly easy question. However, there are other factors that could have contributed to the man's broken foot. For example, was the man getting sufficient amounts of calcium, vitamin d3 and magnesium through his diet and/or supplements? It has long been established that these three nutrients help to built and maintain strong, healthy bones, and that deficiencies of any and/or any combination of the three renders one more vulnerable to osteoporosis, broken bones and a host of other diseases and conditions, especially in the case of vitamin d3 (the form of the vitamin obtained through sunlight and more recently supplements). It has been shown that when people are deficient in vitamin d, the likelihood they'll be stricken with a whole host of diseases, illnesses and other health maladies skyrockets.

Can it be proven that the injury occurred in the fall? Does it have to be proven outright, or would overwhelming circumstantial evidence be sufficient to win a decision in court?

All-in-all, is the young man responsible for footing the entire bill for the more than one thousand dollars in medical expenses incurred as a result of the fall, or should the establishment at which the injury occurred pay for some or all of the man's expenses?

I welcome any and all input from those qualified to answer a question such as the one posed here.

Companies Pass Exorbitant BBB Membership Fees Along to Customers

Think You're Being Smart by Shopping an A+ Rated, BBB-Approved Comopany? Think Again!

BBB Membership Dues (the Only Criteria for Acceptance or Rating) Drive Up Prices Among Members of Extortion Club

By: Fat Lester (FREE Consumer Advocate)

You’re proud of the fact that you need a herd of other sheep surrounding you in order to make decisions? You’re proud that you’re a big enough sucker that you gave $400-$500 to a gang of wanna-be mobsters who aren’t cool enough to have guns and wouldn’t know what to do with them if they did just so they wouldn’t make fun of you?

Wow Jason! That’s pretty pathetic!

Is the feeling of acceptance you get hanging out with a bunch of parasitic dweebs who didn’t move out of their mom’s basement until they were in their 40′s and even still managed to avoid getting a real job worth the $500 you take away from your little girl’s education fund each year so that you can remain a member of the lamest club on earth?

What would you do if someone were to tell you that your buddies will in all likelihood be indicted before the end of 2014 on charges of fraud, racketeering

and extortion? Would you fear for your own safety or would you become psyched by the opportunity to be one of the “inner circle” of ‘mid-40′s-but-still-not-self-sufficient dweebs’ by default if the current group of super-sized maggots were to be sentenced to a federal prison term?

I got news for you Jasey… Your mom’s the only person who thinks you’re cool. Paying $500/year to be a member of a fake-club wherein the club’s upper-echelon agrees not to make fun of you of call you names if you pay them doesn’t make you cool. It’s still not the same thing as a fraternity (which aren’t cool either — just a less uncool group of conformist twits). The difference between someone like you and someone like me is that you’ll shell out big bucks for approval, whereas I go out an earn mine through my work and my character.

Then again, I don’t expect you to know anything about that… Character and the doofuses who make up the BBB are mutually exclusive. I’d rather be among the former (someone with character and principles) than a wanna-be tough-guy gangster only fat from drinking too much beer on mom’s sofa any day of the week.

Good luck in federal court… I hope you all get at least six months. What I’m really looking forward to though is the class-action civil suit that’s going to issue divine comeuppance to your oversized kindergarten class full of adult twerps.

You might as well let mom know what’s coming, as your snarky little badge means nothing to anyone aside from you, mommy and the other twerps who have convinced each other that you actually did something besides pay someone smarter than you (smart enough to get you to pay $500 for a $0.30 badge) three days salary so you could pretend to be important with the other manboys in the little clubhouse.

Better Business Bureau: Criminal Extortion Racket

Better Business Bureau: High-Ranking Members May Face Charges

The Better Business Bureau, often mistaken by ill-informed consumers for a "consumer protection" agency, is under fire in the latest chapter in a series of flare-ups involving irate small business owners who are becoming increasingly vocal in expressing their unanimous belief that the BBB and the individuals who grow rich charging businesses for "protection" are guilty of the felonious crimes of fraud, extortion and racketeering.



 Many of the small business owners whose companies have been the subjects of BBB bullying and fraud are joining together to present a united front against the criminal enterprise in hopes of amassing sufficient lobbying power to have federal prosecutor issue a blanket indictment against hundreds of individuals on whom the working class believes it has proof of criminal association based upon their Better Business Bureau ties.

"Essentially, the BBB is a criminal enterprise consisting of parasites of men who don't work for a living, opting instead to target those who do work and threaten to lie and besmirch their hard work, hopes and dreams if they refuse to hand over their wallets in a 'pay for protection', traditional Mafioso-style extortion scheme," ~ Fat Lester - GoDOTyourself Enterprises

Many with common sense and the ability to think independently of a herd are the most adamant that anyone and everyone with recent BBB affiliations go to prison racketeers and extortionists who don't care about honesty or credibility so long as there are suckers out there dumb enough to think they're anything but a criminal racket and cowardly enough to succumb to their threats/extortion.




Entire national organization should be under indictment with plans to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any member past or present who (obviously won't be testifying against them in either criminal or civil court) and who has ever taken part, either directly or indirectly in an extortion scheme involving the deliberate spreading of lies, distortions and/or falsehoods with respect to a privately-held company in order to coerce the owner of said company to grease the pockets of those spreading said lies as a means of offering incentive for them to cease harassment of a given victim-organization.

When criminals band together and claim to be acting in the best interests of the consumer, those are some of the instances in which the consumer had better either run fast or bend over, grab the ankles tight and brace himself because what comes next is neither pleasant nor believable, but it is real.

ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis): Letter From a Man with ALS

A Random Letter From a Victim of ALS

By: Fat Lester

The following are the contents of an email that a friend and colleague passed along to me. He is raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) to help find a cure for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

Out of nowhere (he does not know this man - hence the anonymity - nor does he know how the man obtained his top-secret email address. That said, he found the letter quite the motivational tool to summon his best efforts in attempting to solicit donations from family, friends and social media contacts, and as one of those whom he asked to help spread his message, I was given his permission to publish the contents of the letter he received from an actual ALS victim provided I keep the gentleman's identity private and include no information that could lead to his identity being tied to the substance of the message itself.

Without further adieu, here is the letter minus the greetings and signatures:

Dear Peter,

On January 25, 2012 I was diagnosed with ALS. From that evening on-my life has changed drastically. I have always been a very active person but due to the progression of the disease, my activities are limited. I left work shortly after finding out I have ALS to spend more time with my family and to acquire much needed rest. My symptoms were, and still are, muscle aches/twitches, headaches, stiff neck, noticeable muscle loss in my chest/back, cramps in my legs/feet and general fatigue.

My upper body is my weakest and biggest problem at this time. It is now getting difficult or impossible to do some of my everyday activities because I can barely raise my arms. Shaving, bathing, dressing, getting in and out of the bed are all a challenge and require assistance.

The people at MDA of Greater New Orleans have been a Godsend. They are so helpful and are always willing to help you with any issue you face. The staff at the MDA clinic that I go to every 3 months is also wonderful – they are friendly, knowledgeable professionals that will do anything to help.

I have a very supportive family and close friends that are always there for me no matter what my needs are. My wife and I have met some great friends, other pALS (People Living with ALS) and their wives. We get together often for dinner and other activities and find that these are the most wonderful relationships. We are all dealing with the same struggles, even though we are at different stages with ALS, but understand what each other is going through. This group bond that we have as made a huge difference in our lives.

If it weren’t for organizations like MDA I would not have had the opportunity to meet these pALS and receive the help we need. I know there are more hard situations in the future, but with all the support I have, I will get through it all.

Thank you for supporting the Covington Lock-Up, MDA and my family.

Since we're keeping the author of the message anonymous, there will be no signature or goodbye message included here. That said, if that does not touch upon a soft spot in your heart, one must wonder if you even have one.

That disease (ALS) is among the most debilitating and torturous illnesses in the history of mankind, and my heart goes out to everyone and anyone who has ever suffered from it, God rest their souls.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

The friend posted a blog about ALS, why he is motivated to help find a cure and why he feels that you and anyone else reading his blog should donate to the MDA Lock-Up event Thursday, May 23 in Covington, Louisiana. The friend will be "arrested" as a "repeat offender" and will need to post "bail" (your donations) in order to be granted release from the makeshift holding cell at the restaurant at which the event is being held.I will ask all readers of this blog though to please consider donating anything you can --- even if its just a single dollar --- to his "bail bond" as finding a cure for ALS is about as good a cause as one could conceive of to financially support.
If you can afford to help out, please do so, and know that his company, EGAN Medical Equipment, will be matching each and every dollar donated up to $1,000.

Unruly Women's Threats, Demands: Criminal Fraud or Postpartum Psychosis?

Crazy Postpartum Moms Make Company Rethink Generous Return Policy

By: Fat Lester

This article began as a comment in response to an article written by Jennifer Moyer about postpartum psychosis.

Reading Ms. Moyer's article left me wondering whether or not a disgusting behavior I've experienced at work far too many times is the product of a sociopathic scam artist engaging in criminal, fraudulent behavior; or a mentally ill woman desperately in need of some help. Prior to reading Moyer's article, I had always presumed that the behavior was the former, never even so much as considering the latter.

I work for a company that sells maternity and postpartum supports (orthopedic undergarments designed to provide physical support to women during and post-pregnancy).

We often receive requests for refunds months after women order a maternity support such as the Prenatal Cradle. The obvious suspicion here is that these women want to have their cake and eat it too, using the product until it is no longer needed, then attempting to return it for a full refund after giving birth.

These women all seem to have one thing in common: a mentality that that they deserve and are entitled to receiving their money back despite our company totally fulfilling our obligation for the initial transaction. It's not like these requests come days or weeks after the orders are placed (we do receive such requests, but these often are eligible for an exchange or refund).

The ones that come months afterward are those to which I am referring. The women will call with a tone-of-voice clearly meant to bully the person on the other end of the line. They threaten everything from writing negative reviews to filing chargeback disputes with their credit card companies (we've yet to lose one when they follow-through on these requests). Each time, it appears as though the woman genuinely believes she's the first to ever think of the idea, and thus should be able to pull the wool over our eyes without any problem.

When informed that requests made so long after the initial transaction are ineligible for a refund, they have been known to become so abusive that the owner of the company ordered all customer service personnel to immediately discontinue such calls when the customer becomes abusive and/or threatening.

Anyway, do you think that this behavior would fall into the category of postpartum psychosis? That certainly would explain this rage-fueled mentality that until now we've only been able to explain by writing them off as lunatics, bullies and/or scam artists.

The question is whether or not they planned to attempt to get their money back prior to giving birth, as that would answer the question of whether or not they are simply scam artists who have realized that they can often have their cake and eat it too by threatening online retailers, many of whom simply give in to such uncivilized behavior. My employer stands firm on principle, insisting that such demands constitute fraud, and has even suggested that the act is criminal in nature.

What is your opinion about this? Are these women really merely suffering from a legitimate mental illness or are they simply dishonest scam artists who have figured out how to abuse the system successfully?

Vitamin D3 and Chronic Hair Loss

Vitamin D3 May Help Reverse Chronic Hair Loss

By: Peter Egan

Chronic Telogen Effluvium: Can Vitamin D3 Reverse It?

A particularly interesting post appeared on the Vitamin D3 blog Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Unlike the other articles and news stories detailing scientific research and clinical trials in terms normal people can understand, this post was actually a lengthy comment submitted by a reader in response to an article confirming a link between vitamin D deficiency and alopecia, a form of premature hair loss.

The lady detailed her experience with Chronic Telogen Effluvium, a hair loss condition considered to be among the most severe, with little known about the condition, its cause or how to fix it.

According to "Elle", she had tried every solution under the sun to try to regrow her hair after being diagnosed with chronic telogen effluvium to no avail. She checked her own records from all of the blood tests she'd had conducted over the years, and was shocked to learn that despite her doctor(s) never once mentioning anything of the sort, her vitamin D levels were alarmingly low in each test in which they were measured.

For the past three months, she has been on an intensive vitamin D3 supplement regimen, and claims that her hair has not only stopped falling out, but also has started to grow back.

Gun Ban News: Tulane Students Cite "Widespread Rape" in Calls for Security

Tulane's Campus Gun Ban Leads to "Widespread Rape" of Female Students

Tulane University's female students have been among if not the most commonly raped demographic of people in the entire world for at least a decade now. When I was a student at the institution, I took note of this, and being a women's rights advocate did the only rational thing I could think to do: request the school eliminate its campus-wide gun ban in an editorial which was featured I the campus newspaper.
Thinking I'd done a good deed in helping protect the poor women being victimized while leaving campus, you can imagine my surprise the next week when I saw this: http://www.thehullabaloo.com/views/article_5021235c-7d42-56b3-9425-f25942f0800a.html.

The paper received a record 450 responses by the print deadline and countless more afterwards. They dedicated the entire op/ed page to the least vulgar of the hate mail that poured in for weeks afterwards. I received one email from a fellow student who commended me for standing up to the liberal institution and fighting for what is right.

For what it's worth (for those who read the hate mail linked to above), Kira McAllister refused to accompany me on my walk home from campus. I did email her and request that she do so.

The fact that this has gone on for a decade because the criminal waiting two blocks away have guns and the students do not is heinous and I hope that eventually one of those rape victims has the courage to sue the school for the physical and psychological harm she had to endure because Tulane threatened to expel her if she dared protect herself.

For anyone interested, I wrote a more in-depth and more general dissertation of the problem in which I posed the question of whether or not universities are actually encouraging such violence by placing the students at a disadvantage. Anyone wishing to read it can find it here: Do Colleges, Universities Encourage Violence Towards Women?

I think the answer to that question is patently obvious. Please share your thoughts on the matter should you feel strongly enough about the issue to do so.

Please don't take my word for it though. If anyone thinks this is even remotely exaggerated, please see the following, which I had no part of: http://jezebel.com/5877160/tulane-university-students-invoke-widespread-rape-in-calling-for-increased-off+campus-security 


"I'm pretty paranoid in general.  I carry around pepper spray with me everywhere I go,” said Tulane University student Angie Baroffio." http://www.projectnola.com/the-news/news/42-fox-8/177260-off-campus-crimes-have-loyola-tulane-students-on-edge

Gun Control Debate Finally Settled: It Doesn't Work

Gun Control Definitively Proven a Failure, Debate Finally Over

In light of the recent strategy involving yet another school shooting and yet another balls-to-the-wall effort from democrats to exploit the tragedy to advance their gun control agenda, the debate has reared its ugly head once again for the first time since the 2004 election cycle.

Following a NOLA.com story involving yet another Tulane University student being robbed at gunpoint (thank God at least this time the victim was male, and there was no rape accompanying the armed robbery, as is typically the case), a former Tulane student who was enrolled in late 2003 and early 2004, a time period during which rapes and armed robberies of (mostly) female students walking home (or to their vehicles) from campus had reached epidemic proportions, dared to speak out against the violence against women by way of an editorial published in The Hullabaloo, the Tulane student newspaper suggesting his theory as to why so many students were being violently attacked while leaving campus.

His theory: a campus-wide firearms ban prevented students from adequately defending themselves in one of America's most dangerous cities, and one in which the criminals are keenly aware of the fact that these campus-wide gun-free zones exist. He went on to suggest that unless the university did away with the policy either voluntarily or following litigation initiated by the victims of these crimes seeking monetary compensation sufficient to account for damage to person and property, as well as punitive damages; the trend would only continue. He was right.

The week following the debut of his editorial appearing in the Hullabaloo, the paper received a record number of submissions of what ultimately were better classified as hate mail rather than legitimate letters-to-the-editor attempting to refute the student's editorial appearing the week before. An editor for the paper at the time all this was going on reportedly told the student that the paper received more than 600 total letters in response, and 450 or so by the deadline for print the following week. The overwhelming majority contained language rendering them unsuitable for print.

The week following the student's letter suggesting the gun ban on campus was if not the problem at the very least counter-productive towards any viable solution, the Hullabaloo devoted its entire op/ed page to the least vulgar of the letters written in response, published under a page-wide headline at the very top reading "Re: Peter Egan Jr".

Obviously, Kira McAllister, one of the students whose retort was published the following week, had never been raped while walking home from campus. She suggested better alternatives such as traveling in groups. Oddly enough, in an email exchange that ensued, Ms. McAllister denied Mr. Egan's request for accompaniment on his own walk home from class.

Well, with the issue back in the news both because if the attack on the Tulane student, the recent school massacre and the regime's efforts at removing the final obstacle barring the implementation of a full-fledged totalitarian police state, the story resurfaced. First, it appeared on the personal blog of the pro-women's rights student, Peter Egan. Later, a scaled-down version appeared at a social news site called Thruzt, a link to which later appeared on Facebook. It was in this Facebook status update containing the link to the story at Thruzt in which the debate was finally settled decisively, definitively and once-and-for-all.

In the follow-up post to this one, the debate that ensued will be published in its entirety for all to see. In it, each and every argument in any way related to the issue came up and was settled in favor of the pro-freedom crowd --- and by a wide margin at that. Each and every argument used to support arguments in favor of gun control was surgically dismantled with a degree of precision not seen in political communication since the heyday of Ronald Reagan.

In any case, the merits of the issue have now been decided. Anyone who wishes to may see for him or herself the extent to which from a debate standpoint, this one was quite the blowout. Anyone who believes in gun control can easily access facts that more than adequately refute the agenda-driven "studies", illogical and fallacious arguments used to support the systematic dismantling of arguably the most critical component of any free society.

After reading the entire conversation, the only way one could still support gun control is through either A) Blind Faith; B) Belligerence; or C) A desire to disarm the civilian population of a free society in order to transform it into a totalitarian state in which only police are permitted to possess weapons.

Here is the argument that decisively won the gun control debate: http://lamesubdomain.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-discussion-that-won-gun-control.html

Mississippi Gulf Coast: Great Beaches, Better Prices

Mississippi Gulf Coast: Great Beaches, Better Prices

As those with whom I am closest are already aware, in early 2012 I made a fairly significant move from Covington, Louisiana to Long Beach, Mississippi. The move was motivated by a desire to reside literally ON the beach, and have the luxury of walking outside and fishing, sunbathing, etc.

For the first six months or so following the move, I was commuting to-and-from Covington from Long Beach, a round-trip that comes out to approximately three hours per day.

Needless to say, it wasn't long before I'd grown weary of the excessive drive time, not to mention all of the lost productivity that comes with it. I decided within weeks of the time I began residing along the coast that I would eventually be taking my talents and my business interests to Long Beach. A little over half a year later, that process is well underway, a commercially-zoned piece of property secured in downtown Long Beach to go with the beachfront condominium in which I've been residing was the missing piece. I am presently in the process of moving all of the inventory and equipment from Covington to my new "home town".

Long Beach is everything I had hoped it would be and then some. While the fishing isn't always great, it's not altogether bad either. There are days when the fish are biting and days when they're not.

Likewise, there are days when the beaches are full of local talent (and/or tourists), and days when the only females on the beach are their with their husbands and/or children.

The change has done me some good. The increased sun exposure has led to significant weight loss on my behalf, which is likely the result of increased testosterone levels, a little-known side-effect of men soaking up the sun's natural rays on a regular and consistent basis.

About a month ago, a beautiful girl came into my life from literally out-of-nowhere, and as much as I tried to fight it I fell in love with her immediately. She couldn't help but comment repeatedly during our first couple of outings together that the physical attraction she felt for me was unlike anything she's ever experienced. While I may otherwise overlook such remarks as pure flattery, I've seen myself in the mirror lately and quite frankly I can see where she's coming from.

The sun exposure coupled with stress and a lot of exercise has me in the best shape I've been in since high school, and the combination of factors has me as happy as I've ever been in my 30 years on earth. I just thank God for the past six weeks (and in a more general sense the past 7 months), and hope and pray that the string of recent blessings continues.

Oh, one other thing worthy of mention is the fact that Long Beach is effectively a ghost town where the pre-Katrina homeowners cannot give away their property, so anyone looking to snatch up a nice house, apartment or condo on or near the beach may want to take a close look at Long Beach. I did, and as of today it ranks among the very best decisions I've ever made.

New Business Communities Stare Down Manta, Merchant Circle

StoreBoard, ShowMeLocal and CrunchBase Making Waves

CrunchBase

A handful of new business communities have popped up in recent months and appear poised to make a serious run at traditional kings of the small business directory/community Manta and Merchant Circle.

One of these is CrunchBase, which appears to be the business affiliate of TechCruch.

CruchBase is slightly different from the others in that anyone can suggest an edit, and anyone can add anyone else to the site (it's also for the people who run the businesses). However, it has a unique look and feel to it, and it's the only site in its class that allows a company to list literally ALL of its presences on third-party and social networking sites.

CrunchBase Information

Egan Medical Equipment

Information provided by CrunchBase

Storeboard

Another of the three communities to really raise some eyebrows is Storeboard, whose membership is growing faster than America's national debt. While Storeboard hasn't been around that long, the site is clean, highly functional and for the most part well-patrolled for spam.

Storeboard has a comprehensive set of features, as is evidenced by the photo below of a typical Storeboard profile: 

In addition to their main profile page (pictured above) Storeboard allows companies to host their own blog, post news stories, post links, add photos and videos, list their Facebook and Twitter info as well as chat away in the new-to-debut Storeboard Forums.

Like most sites of this nature, both Storeboard and the below-described ShowMeLocal.com allow users to post products, coupons, deals, jobs and classifieds to the site.

ShowMeLocal

Finally, the third of the three online communities for business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals that appears poised to mount a serious challenge for marketshare in the online world of small business directories / business owner communities is called ShowMeLocal, with the emphasis on this one obviously being the local aspect.

ShowMeLocal profiles are too large to include in this post with a single screen-shot, but they're nearly as full-featured as are Storeboard's.

The bottom line with all three of these sites is that their platforms, technology, features and staff all seem to be at least equal to if not better than the two dominant players in the business, and any of the three could emerge as a long-term competitor that will draw significant humans and resources away from the other two, dramatically altering the landscape for years to come.

If you own a business and care about how well it does or whether or not it succeeds, having a profile on each of these sites is absolutely imperative.

Phone Stalkers Do More Harm Than Good

As anyone who has ever made the mistake of signing up to receive information about online colleges and traditional universities with extensive online course offerings knows all-too-well, the ensuing harassment undertaken by the telemarketers acting on behalf of the various "institutions of higher learning" can be a major detriment to one's quality-of-life. The callers have no regard for the privacy of their victims, calling seven days a week, and numerous times each day at that.

Their goal is to get the victim to agree to attend their substandard self-proclaimed educational institute for the sole purpose of persuading the telemarketers to leave them alone.

I have been called by online universities and payment processing companies as early as 6:30 am, give or take five minutes, as late as 9:00 pm, not to mention on weekends, when for a period of several months I would receive several calls each day without exception.

I know I didn't sign up for this harassment. But how then would they get my information and what would lead them to believe I had any interest whatsoever in attending their bogus universities or switching to their payment processing service that has to rely on cold calling  in order to generate leads. This tells me that their service must not be very good if mass media plus word-of-mouth is insufficient to generate attention, and if they must resort to calling me hours before I'd otherwise wake up on a Saturday in order to inform me of their company's existence, I will continue to interpret that as their way of saying that neither their service nor their company meets my standards.

The most important lesson to take from this is that if you have an enemy (or enemies), and you'd really like to get at them good, sign them up unknowingly for information about taking college courses online and/or hiring any one of a large number of payment processing companies which all appear to use the same telemarketing service to inundate unsuspecting would-be customers with unwanted phone calls.

Man's Weight Loss Secret 'Exposed'

WARNING: This Weight Loss System Only Works for Responsible People Who Are Not Lazy

Little did I know when I made the decision to keep a stray puppy who showed up at my medical equipment store and chased away my customers for four days that the decision would ultimately turn out to be among the best I've ever made - at least as it pertains to my own personal health and fitness.

The puppy, who appears to be some variation of a golden retriever mixed with chow, originally appeared during the heart of winter, antisocial and severely malnourished. She would not allow people to come within about 30 feet of her, but for whatever reason hung around the store, which is located along a very heavily trafficked thoroughfare in Covington, Louisiana.

It's a miracle that she wasn't killed by a passing vehicle during those days before I was able to catch her. Well, turned out she was a runaway, almost certainly due to abuse sufferd at the hands of her previous owner. Extremely skittish, while not aggressive, she would snap in defense when anyone made any attempt at touching her - particularly her head, neck and face.
This made her "unadoptable". The Humane Society wouldn't take her, and I refused to bring her to the pound because I know what they do to dogs there (they systematically and methodically kill them). Thus, I decided to take her home with me and work on establishing a bond of trust with her in hopes of taming her enough to find her a good home.
Well, she grew on me, as I did her. While she still has her moments, and is still hyper-sensitive to any agressive talk or movements, she's come an awful long way for a dog that everyone else had left for dead (with many advising me to bring her to the pound and let them murder her).
She's also had a bit of an unexpected impact on me personally, and my relative degree of health and fitness, to be specific. You see, I live in a condo with no backyard in suburban Long Beach, Mississippi. Dogs occasionally have to "go". In fact, for those dogs that reside primarily indoors, they must be walked several times a day, 4-5 at the absolute minimum. They also have what to humans seems like an infinite amount of energy to burn off, which lends to the walks being very fast-paced, occasionally graduating into outright jogging.
I moved to Long Beach about 8 weeks ago. Prior to that, I had lived in a rural community where the dog had plenty of green space to roam about as she saw fit without any leash or restraint. With the move, I had inadvertantly taken on the responsibility of walking and exercising the dog.
When I moved, my clothes also fit me --- quite well in fact. That has changed so much that this past weekend I came to grips with the reality that I'm going to have to buy an entire new wardrobe. While fishing in the surf along the Mississippi gulf coast on a beach that while not crowded, is frequented by enough people that it is by no means isolated, and certainly not private.
One can imagine the thoughts going through my head after wading out about 100 feet into water about 4-6 inches below waist-deep. The first real wave that came along brought the water level to my chest, and my bathing suit to my ankles. This was a bathing suit that had fit rather well when I first moved to the area, so I had no reason whatsoever to suspect that the weight from the water added to the suit itself as a result of being wet was sufficient to prevent the shorts from staying in place. It was so bad in-fact that I had to literally hold them up by grabbing the waistline of the shorts with my fist and holding it around my hips. Luckily, there were no children around to witness the traumatic spectable.
The worst part was the walk back. I had to carry two fishing poles, a large tackle box and an ice chest, having to pause every few steps to pull up my shorts before they fell too far.
While certainly not a pleasant experience (briefly losing my britches in plain view of everyone on the beach), and without a doubt anything but a pretty sight (at least for most), the flip-side is that I'm in the best shape now that I've been in since my early 20's, and I have my rescued dog to thank for it. All those walks, runs and jogs have definitely paid off in terms of my health.
Sure, she's put a pretty big drain on my wallet, but I'll gladly trade the money it costs to feed and care for her along with the cost of my new wardrobe, not to mention being put in a bit of a compromising position for the better part of an hour in exchange for peak fitness.
So, if you're struggling to lose weight or have a desire to lose weight, are a responsible and caring person, and are not inherently lazy, you may want to consider visiting your local animal shelter and adopting a dog. This goes for anyone, including both men and women experiencing weight gain - so long as the individual is responsible and motivated enough for such a long-term physical commitment.
A pet is a major responsibility, and is not right for everyone --- especially those with anger issues, who lack empathy or who are downright lazy, narcissistic or irresponsible. However, if you do qualify as someone suitable to become a pet-owner, a puppy can be a wonderful way to improve your quiality of life, a loyal companion whose love is truly unconditional, and on top of all of that a pretty darn good way to motivate oneself to exercise and lose weight.
It sure worked for me. Just ask everyone at the beach whose vision was forever scarred by an untimely wave that left no room for doubt that I am in fact in far better shape than I was two months ago, with at least four inches gone from my waste that had been there as recently as February.

Good Doctors vs Bad Doctors

In my experience growing up in a family that eats, sleeps and breathes healthcare and medicine (father owns several healthcare-related companies; mother is a primary care nurse practitioner and is also the owner of a Covington skin care spa; and a sister who is a MD (ENT, to be specific), I have a few thoughts about an article I came across at About.com about (no pun intended) how to distinguish good doctors from the not-so-good ones. I take exception to the title of the article, which is why I will refrain from using it here.

The article mentions a survey that was obviously conducted in such a way that doctors would appear to be dishonest creeps once the results were in. Not surprisingly, the survey was conducted by Massachusetts-based researchers, most affiliated with Harvard University.

I'd like to see the context and the way in which the questions were presented and phrased before taking any statistics from the study at face value. There surely must have been more information provided to the doctors surveyed than the minimal information reported in the 'Patients.About' article. No doctor would answer the questions supposedly asked without context. The author of the piece included a link to the abstract, but offered nothing by way of details in terms of the use "gotcha!" questions in conducting the survey.

"Good" Nurse Practitioner Pam Egan

That said, I somewhat agree with the 6-point plan for patients proposed as a solution to a problem the article claims exists (although this author has his doubts about the size, scope and nature of the problem, if it even exists at all). The alleged problem is doctor dishonesty, and the six-point plan suggests such things as seeking second opinions, trusting one's intuition and urging patients to not 'put up with arrogant doctors...'. To read the entire piece, see the above link (for more practical reading, continue on with this piece).

To begin, there is this thing called Google these days, and anyone in the civilized world can use it to access any information that exists in the world to be presented at the user's fingertips at the speed of light. Anyone taking a medication for which the person has any questions, it never hurts to do a little self-research to compliment the information provided by the doctor and/or manufacturer of the drug.

Additionally, intuition is an extremely important and often overlooked component of finding the best doctors. If you feel uncomfortable around your doctor, it's probably not because he or she is wearing a white coat and has loads of credentials that may make he or she appear to be some sort of authority figure to some patients. If one feels uncomfortable around his/her doctor, there's probably a good reason --- even if one cannot pinpoint the exact source of the discomfort.

Patients should always ask about treatment options. If a doctor does not provide all or at least most of the credible information available via the internet, it may be time to either ask the doctor the reason why he or she omitted one of more treatment options for whichever condition or disease the patient was diagnosed. If the answer is unsatisfactory, it may be time to find a new doctor.

I would take patient reviews of physicians with a grain of salt. As a business owner, I am well aware of the myriad of tactics, tricks and paid services businesses (inevitably including some physicians, clinics and other healthcare professionals) use to artificially control and/or manipulate their own respective reputations. This may come in the form of reviewing oneself under a different name, or exchanging friendly reviews with other businesses, professionals, etc. Other tactics include writing false negative reviews of competing businesses/professionals and paying companies to manage reputation. A number of companies have cropped up over the past 18 months purporting to specialize in "reputation management", for what its worth.

Furthermore, there are myriad reasons why a legitimate customer may leave a disproportionately negative review of a company or individual. Some customers, clients and patients lack the degree of honesty and integrity necessary to be credible when writing a review of a business, person or organization. Just look at this example of an incident involving a couple of scam artists and a used bedside commode.

I wouldn't seek a second opinion unless the health or medical issue/condition/disease was very serious, or if I intuitively felt as though the doctor was (or may be) wrong.

I wouldn't attempt to self-diagnose, which is essentialy what differential diagnosis is when conducted by the patient; but I would research the symptoms. If another condition seemed more plausible than the diagnosis issued by the physician, then it would be time to seek a second opinion.

One final means of weeding out bad doctors is to talk with them about nutrition. The days of reactionary 20th Century medicine are over. The amount of research that has been conducted involving the relationship between nutritional deficiencies and propensity for disease is staggering, and probably more than double the amount of such information available just ten years ago when vitamin D supplements contained a plant-based form of the nutrient that is not well absorbed by humans (vitamin D2, ergocalciferol), but which is cheaper to produce than the more bioactive (readily absorbed for use by the body) form used in most supplements today (vitamin D3, cholecalciferol).

21st Century physicians should not be averse to discussing the role of nutrition in the big picture of one's overall health. The information is readily available, and slowly but surely the stigma long assiciated with doctors, nurse practitioners and other healthcare professionals making claims regarding nutrition (or the lack thereof) as a contributing factor to disease are (or at least should be) long over. The peer pressure physicians face with regard to the role of nutrition in medicine has started to subside in recent years, and a genuinely good primary care, family/general practice doctor who is well informed will ask his or her patients if they'd like to have a blood test conducted to measure one's nutrient levels in order to identify any potentially harmful deficiencies.

Be very wary of those general/family practice and/or primary care doctors who either won't speak in depth about the role of nutrition towards overall health, or who pooh-pooh the notion that vitamins and supplements can help to prevent disease and/or other health maladies.

Following the advice outlined above should help patients find a good doctor who is trustworthy as well as informed.

New Orleans Home Health Care Nurse's Assailants Caught

About a week ago, there was a horribly tragic story in the New Orleans Times Picayune about a home health care nurse who was brutally gang raped while on her way to see a patient. The news shook the community, and the healthcare community in particular.
While there is really no positive way of looking at the crime that took place when that poor woman was victimized, there is one small bit of good news to the story.

The NOPD (New Orleans Police Department) has made an arrest in conjunction with the case, and appears to be hot on the trail of the others suspected to have been involved in the crime. All I can say is that I sincerely hope they catch every single one of them, and that they (if found guilty) never see the light of day again.

Home health care nurses routinely make visits directly to the homes of patients, where they do things like change wound dressings, bathe immobile patients, clean wounds and so forth. They are different from home health aids, which are more like babysitters for the elderly than an actual skilled RN.

Growing up in a household with two healthcare professionals as my parents, I can definitely relate to this poor woman's agony in a way not everyone can.

I hope the DA assigns his best prosecutors to the case, and I hope the defense lawyers aren't any better than they have to be, as if these guys actually did what they are accused of, they need not be allowed to interact with normal society again - every again.
For more on the arrest that was made, there's a pretty good article at the Nursing Ethics Network: http://www.nursingethicsnetwork.org/arrest-made-in-gang-rape-of-home-health-care-nurse.html.

Author's Note: The nurse who was victimized was not employed nor affiliated with my family's respective businesses in any way, although our hearts do go out to her and she is nonetheless in our prayers. Nobody should ever have to endure that. Ever.

Fat Lester Formally Endorses Newt Gingrich

The campaign of former House Speaker and current GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich received a major boost today when internet / social media extraordinaire Fat Lester officially endorsed the former Congressman from Georgia.

Fat Lester, whose real name is Peter Egan, had not previously endorsed a candidate, citing favorable views of numerous candidates early on in the GOP nominating contest, along with the fact that he personally knows more than one of the candidates originally in the race as reasons for refraining from issuing an endorsement.

(Newt Gingrich consults with NOLA Tea Party leaders including Fat Lester)

However, when Herman Cain announced that he was suspending his campaign in light of a series of frivolous, racially-motivated attacks by several women on the left who were allegedly paid millions combined in exchange for levying the false and defamatory charges. Needless to say, these women were acting on behalf of the Obama Administration/Campaign (they're one-in-the-same), including at least one Obama Administration employee and the next-door neighbor of Obama's speech writer, it left Gingrich as the only candidate in the race with whom Lester has spoken with at length and in person regarding the challenges facing the country and the solutions required to get the nation back on the right track.

(GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich and Right-Wing Conspirator Fat Lester)

That said, personal affiliation with a candidate was not the sole criteria upon which Lester based the decision. Lester is also a strong supporter of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and identifies with Santorum's views on most issues, in particular the one nobody likes to talk about: the "A-word".

(Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich introduces himself to the VRWC)

This conflict made endorsing a candidate difficult even after Cain, whom Lester had helped raise funds via a Tea Party Rally with over two thousand attendees (back before he'd even announced he was running) at which Cain was the keynote speaker; announced that his campaign was effectively over and that he (Cain) would be endorsing Gingrich. However, after three states have held their nominating contests, with Santorum's victory in Iowa failing to translate into momentum going forward, Lester decided Gingrich is the candidate most likely to defeat Obama in a 1-on-1 match-up due to his unnaturally high IQ (he must have 50 IQ points over Obama and no less than 120 over former Speaker Nancy Pelosi) as well as his superior debate skills.

(Naturally, the media was not invited to the closed-door session)

While Fat Lester had speculated back in June that Gingrich may ultimately represent the Republican Party's best shot at victory in 2012, he had withheld making an endorsement so early on in the campaign for obvious reasons, some of which are stated above.

Lester is not going to merely informally endorse the former Speaker by issuing a public announcement on one of his blogs. Rather, he will be putting his money (something he has very little of) where his mouth is, and will be making a financial contribution to both Gingrich and Santorum's respective campaigns, with Gingrich receiving roughly twice the amount that will be given to Santorum. Should the latter win any more states or do anything else that results in his building of momentum with the majority of states yet to vote, he will likely receive additional funding from Lester proportionate to any progress he makes in terms of gaining ground on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

(Newt Gingrich thanks Fat Lester for his advice and endorsement)

Fat Lester would like to encourage anyone and everyone reading this who cares about the general welfare of the United States of America to do likewise and make a donation to the Gingrich campaign using the link below. He would like for you to do this regardless of who you are, what your party affiliation is or which candidate you're supporting. Anyone can donate, regardless of one's income.

DONATE TO NEWT'S CAMPAIGN

America's Next President Poses with Fat Lester's Sister

If Fat Lester can come up with $100 spread out over a few months, so can you. It's time we take our country back, and we're going to need everyone to chip in whatever they can in order to save the nation.

The most important people were seated closest to the candidate

Another four years of Obama holding the office of the Presidency, and the United States will look more like Cuba than the prosperous one-time superpower where anyone who was willing to work hard could achieve success not attainable in most places throughout the world.

Fat Lester believes Newt Gingrich is the candidate with the best chance to take in 57+% of the vote required to win after the millions of fraudulent votes that will be cast by democrats are accounted for. In swing states, the real number needed to win could reach as high as 63-64%. In order to win this election, we will need to get 100% of the eligible voters in this country who want to preserve the freedom, prosperity and opportunity for which America was founded and will always be remembered (in the event Obama wins and the nation is disassembled or integrated into a North American Union). In order to do that, we will need to contribute whatever we can without losing our homes or failing to put food on our respective tables.

Please donate to Newt's campaign. If you support Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, donate to them as well. Fat Lester will be donating $120, $80 to the Gingrich campaign and $40 to the Santorum campaign. Please make one sacrifice on an item you can live without (as long as it's not something you're considering buying from Fat Lester or his affiliated businesses ;-), and instead use that money to help defeat the great American Saboteur-in-Chief.

---

On a totally separate note, it appears Mitt Romney's got some problems on the horizon:

Small Business Directory Inadvertently Opens Door for Competition

LOS ANGELES, CA - Like most everyone else throwing their two cents into the discussion over the 2012 edition of Merchant Circle versus the community we'd all grown to know and love, I'd like to personally take this opportunity to state on record my opposition to MerchantCircle's 2012 overhaul of the site design and functionality.

Merchants who contribute content should be rewarded for their efforts, and before January of 2012 they were. Now, our blog posts aren't even featured on our company homepage, nor are our products, photos or coupons. The fact that MC has shifted focus away from those creating content and towards those paying for placement is a move that will undoubtedly upset a number of business owners in addition to myself, opening the proverbial door of opportunity for competitors to move in on the space the old MC had occupied.

Merchant Circle's 2012 overhaul has angered users, opening the door for competitors to move in.

Instead of the 2011 profiles, which largely featured a merchant's contributions on his or her own small business' homepage on the site, those pages now have more ads to competitors' pages and websites, with only reviews displayed beneath the company bio on company homepages. The category links that once appeared on my Merchant Circle company homepage are now gone, as is the Google +1 button (although it remains on some of the pages that haven't yet adopted the new design).

Many formerly free features now cost far more than fair market value based on pricing for similar services at those few companies who do charge for them.

Rather than labor for the benefit of companies with the resources to pay to be prominently featured on my Merchant Circle company homepage that doesn't even link to my recent blog posts, photos, coupons or deals, I will instead most likely be spending more time on similar sites --- alternatives to Merchant Circle --- preferably sites that won't use bait-and-switch tactics to trick users to generate loads of free content, only to see the commercial benefit of said content be taken away from them.

One such site is called StoreBoard. At StoreBoard, you have a company profile, such as the one I have already created for Egan Medical. Like Merchant Circle, companies get their own blog, and can add coupons, list products in the marketplace, post images, classifieds and even links to their company's respective site-within-a-site.

The company blogs are superior to those at MC as the option to add photographs to posts actually functions properly, meaning the photo actually appears, and all text and HTML show beneath the photo also appears on the page for each respective post. As most users of Merchant Circle who've tried to add photos to blog posts without completely coding the entire page from scratch, the photos usually don't appear, and all text/HTML appearing beneath the photo does not appear either. I once lost more than an hour's work because I forgot to independently save a copy of my MC blog post on my own computer, and lost it when I attempted to include a photo in the post, only to find that all photos and everything appearing beneath them just gets deleted on MC blogs. StoreBoard blogs also give the user superior formatting options compared to those offered by MC.

Here is an example post by Egan Medical Equipment about a new line of products (maternity supports, to be specific) which now are available for purchase through the company's online store: Egan Medical Unveils New Line of Maternity Supports.

Obviously, the site is newer and not as powerful, so the benefit of your activity there won't have the immediate and meaningful impact being featured prominently at Merchant Circle once had.


In fact, each company gets its own links page, and as long as the links don't violate the company's terms of service, users can pretty much post anything they think their customers will appreciate, be it links to products, articles, news stories or whatever else might be useful.

Like Merchant Circle, all that is displayed on a given company's homepage is their bio and contact info (including website link). However, I haven't seen any ads for competitors either while logged in or out, so if they exist they're minimal and out-of-the-way, and you won't see your hard work serve to benefit a larger competitor with a bigger advertising budget.

While we're on the topic of new competitors to the Small Business Online Directory business, one not-so-new player is making a new and significant push to add features that might lure users away from competitors such as MC. Well known, established directory site Manta has added a number of features that will definitely appeal to merchants, and which are superior to the comparable features offered by MC.
Take for example this product page, which is more like a general category page about maternity supports (basically an orthopedic support for women during pregnancy) than a singular product page. The maternity supports page was recently created for a small business profile at Manta. Observe the large photo of the product, the ability to list either a singular price for a specific item or a price range for a class or group of items. Also, observe the length of the product description, which far outpaces the amount of space given by MC for product pages, and even then there were no links to the actual product page on the merchant's website. Manta has all that and more. While I'm no profit, it would seem a logical conclusion that Manta may be soon offering merchants the opportunity to blog directly from their Manta profile, which would get Manta up-to-par in terms of everyone else in the business with regard to the amount and extent of features available to merchants willing to spend their time creating content for the site for free in exchange for a small but sometimes meaningful bit of a promotional opportunity and benefit.

Unless and until Manta and StoreBoard "pull a MerchantCircle" and revokes the most appealing features of its site for the benefit of a handful of each industry's largest and richest players, I will likely be spending as much if not more time developing Egan Medical's presence within the StoreBoard community as I will continue to spend here on Merchant Circle.

I'll also stop paying for a certain Merchant Circle paid upgrade if said upgrade (they know to which one I am referring) fails to reappear on my company profile within the next 7 days.

Anyway, I hope someone at Merchant Circle is eventually made aware of all the displeasure among business owners and their respective employees about the recent overhaul of Merchant Circle's design and functionality, and I sincerely hope the big MC can get it together and make real improvements rather than changes that prey upon small business owners as much as they help them.