Got kidney? Sorry, it might go to Pablo.

According to an October 29, 2008 Los Angeles Times article, Californian illegal immigrants account for about 1,350 of the 61,000 people on dialysis. Their treatment cost taxpayers $51 million last year. The investment in a single patient can easily top $1 million over time. The cost of one routine treatment is about $250. The cost of providing it in the emergency room can easily climb into the thousands of dollars, especially if the patient has to be admitted to the hospital.

I bring this up now because it was discussed on a local radio station last week - a woman in Orange County is still waiting for a kidney and brought up the LA Times article. Last year, 52 of the 1,912 kidney transplants in California were for illegal immigrants.

(Those are kidney BEANS. I was feeling hungry while I was blogging.)

I've blogged often on the illegal immigration issue in the United States. From May Day Celebrations, alien unionization, alien education, alien welfare, alien civil service, am I a racist?, border patrols, more alien handouts, alien amnesty, 26% of my payroll tax subsidizing aliens, what in the hell are aliens here in the first place, etc, etc. If you're not familiar with my stance, it's very simple - I want illegal aliens OUT of my country. Do not collect welfare or food stamps or a diploma at one of our many universities or have a baby at the nearest hospital that will take you. Just leave. Take some water and some foodstuffs to get you back over the border and stay out.

I'm all for people coming to our country to carve out a better life for themselves - as long as they follow our immigration laws. We CAN NOT SUPPORT THEM RIGHT NOW. How difficult is that to comprehend?

Take Marguerita Toribio, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Roughly 2,000 times over the last 17 years (why didn't they take her into custody when they interviewed her for this story?) she has climbed into a cushioned recliner for the three-hour dialysis treatment that keeps her alive. She has never seen a bill. I feel bad for her condition. My Uncle Jerry had the same thing. But my Uncle Jerry was a U.S. citizen and paid taxes. Marguerita's treatment in California = more than $500,000, not including a kidney transplant in 1993. AND YOU PAID FOR IT.

Get this. A group of illegal immigrants sued Arizona in 2002 after the state attempted to cut off their dialysis. A judge told the state to keep treating them while the case was being decided. In a settlement last year, the state agreed to restore its policy of providing routine dialysis, but the settlement applies only to Arizona.

I'm still waiting for my worker's compensation case to be done and it's been almost 5 years since my accident and 2 years and 2 months of dealing with the bitch's insurance company. And I'm a U.S. motherfucking citizen! Give me a fucking break! (I apologize for swearing but that's what I do when people don't listen...I curse to those who are ignorant and arrogant.) And don't say, "well, it's our government's problem because they allowed illegal immigration to go on and on for so long". And don't tell me we have to help those less fortunate. No - not during times such as we're experiencing today. The reality is that the immigrants are here and they're illegal. And all the legislation in the world isn't going to help the problem because by the time our idiot politicians get around to doing something about it, another 10 years will have passed and the problem will be worse.

So fine. Weep for the less fortunate and all those illegals coming to the U.S. for a better life. Bleed your heart out for them. But the next time you're taking a piss, thank God you CAN. 'Cause if you can't and you need dialysis or a new kidney, you may have to wait behind an illegal alien, Amigo.

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Los Angeles Times "Travel" writer finds Milwaukee "hip".

High (no - she wasn't wasted) atop her Harley Heritage Softail Classic, LA Times writer Susan Carpenter espouses all that's good about Milwaukee, Wisconsin, including the new Harley Museum, in a recent LA Times travel section article.

Here's an excerpt:

...one of Milwaukee's four high-end, high-rise hotels (Hotel Metro). The vibe was distinctly Zen, with its minimalist décor. I booked a spa suite because I figured I'd want a whirlpool bath at the end of a long day's ride from Illinois and because I wanted to take that bath with yummy-smelling products.

After whirlpooling in bath salts in the dimmed light of my bathroom, I headed down to the bar and was surprised to see it teeming with stylish twentysomethings drinking stylish drinks. Old Milwaukee? Try grapefruit cosmopolitan, which was the happy-hour special I sipped while listening to Fergie on the sound system.

I found dinner just a few doors down at Cubanitas, another place jammed with chic young 'uns who prefer fried plantains to cheese curds and stiff mojitos to Schlitz.

About then, I started to wonder where I really was. Blame it on the mojito, but I didn't feel as though I was in Milwaukee. Where were all the overweight women in appliqued sweaters with bad perms? They certainly weren't downtown.

EYE-OPENING
The last time I was in Milwaukee was in the '80s, when I was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison...The city I was experiencing hardly resembled the Milwaukee of my youth. If I hadn't known I was in Milwaukee, I would have guessed it was Seattle. Milwaukee seemed just as hip, progressive and clean as Seattle -- only it's about 2,000 miles east and at the edge of fresh water (Lake Michigan) instead of the Pacific. On the sunny days I was here, it had just as many people jogging and bicycling through its parks.

Nice.

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'On bended, creaky knee, in homage to Favre', by Chris Erskine, LA Times

Packers quarterback Brett Favre set a Green Bay record with 20 consecutive completions and finished with a season-high 381 yards and three touchdowns in the Packers' 37-26 victory over the Detroit Lions last week.

(By Chris Erskine, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer November 29, 2007)

NBC has "Bionic Woman." The NFL has Brett Favre, the bionic man. Guess which one is having the better season? I don't know what you're eating, Mr. Favre, but pass the candy dish.

You're maybe the last American hero. A postmodern DiMaggio. A Wyatt Earp. You're about 140 years old, with the smile of an 8-year-old and a gun like Zeus.

You do all the things the other superstars don't. You play in that city by the bay, an obscure little place with more chipmunks than people, more deer rifles than cellphones. Up there in northern Wisconsin, you don't ride in limos; they just send over Santa's sleigh.

You're us, which isn't so bad -- at least if you ask us. You're not some natty dude, a blingy gold-toothed Liberace. No three-pointed kerchief in your suit pocket, like the male mannequins back in the Fox studio. No sir. You wear your hair like the 18th green, short and fast. You could comb it with a golf towel.

Yep, we appreciate your sense of style -- the plain gray T-shirts and the faded jeans. You've got that same lovely wife you started with. Your beard's getting a little frosty, the jowls a little puffy, but she's stuck by you, that woman. Through your tough times. And you through hers.

Love your loyalty, love your work. The cynics claimed you were done. "Retire, fool," they said last season. "Put a fork in Favre. His popper has popped."

Turns out they were the fools. They forgot you were part Choctaw, part '56 Chevy. You're having your greatest season yet, playing like a legend. And like a scrub who just appreciates the chance to suit up.

Sure, your wheels don't work like they used to. People forget that you have the same degenerative hip disease that permanently sidelined Bo Jackson. At 38, you can sprint with the kids for about three half-steps, then . . . look out . . . cruuuuuuunch. Those first steps on a Monday morning must really snap-crackle-pop. Talk about a working stiff. Welcome to the club.

When you're not at work, you're at home, just like the rest of us middle-aged saps. I'll bet she's already nagging you about all the Christmas junk, huh? Brett, can you bring those boxes up from the basement? Brett, how about hanging the outdoor lights on the birch tree? That sort of stuff. Like the rest of us, you don't need a holiday to remind you of your blessings.

Yep, you're us all right, and we couldn't be more thrilled. You don't like to miss work under any condition. It's just the way you were raised. A guy thing. You don't miss work. In almost 300 games, including two Super Bowls, you haven't missed a start. It is the sports stat of our time.

And we certainly don't mind your sense of craft, your safecracker's cool. One moment, you're zinging thunderbolts across the middle. The next you're looping nine-iron shots in the end zone. The laser bomb that beat the Broncos? Boom! Brilliant.

You're what we all hoped to become in the backyards of our youth. You play as if you're hanging with your pals, and the sun is setting and the moms are calling everyone home for supper. Come on, Brett, your buddies say. One more. One more series. . . .

Blanda. Nicklaus. Aaron. They all played their respective games a long time, gave us old-timers hope. Now you're our time machine, our fountain of goof.

Tonight you'll play the Dallas Cowboys, that little franchise down in Texas that has always given the Packers fits. How great is that, a Cowboys-Packers game that really matters? Lombardi will be watching from his skybox, barking out commands, wondering where the hell Hornung is.

Also cheering will be millions of gimpy guys a little past their prime for whom you've become this year's most compelling sports story. An inspiration. A Perseus in cleats. So, come on, Brett. One more. One more series. . . .

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