On-board the Regent Seven Seas Mariner — Somewhere two days into a 6-day crossing of the Atlantic from the island of Bermuda to the island of Maderia off of Portugal, my daily ‘Passages’ the shipboard news of the day, informed me of the following:

“Due to moving out of the satellite signal area, please be advised that we will loose reception of CNN, TNT and ESPN until we reach Funchal, Wednesday, March 31st.  This is a normal occurrence when crossing the Atlantic (and Pacific).  We will have FOX News as it comes to us through our Internet connection.  We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

‘Inconvenienced caused?’  I mean after all, didn’t this cruise line realize that the Obama administration declared FOX News a non-news station?  Are they trying to tell me that CNN couldn’t make the same Internet arrangements?

It sounds to me much like a right wing, tea party conspiracy — so far I haven’t seen any threatening pirates, but I’m on the look-out.

Fortunately, I was able to catch VP Joe Biden on CNN on the first leg of the trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Bermuda calling the signing of Obamacare a ‘F*****g big deal’ from President Obama’s office of dignity.

I knew that Obamacare reached this cruise line when I dined in the Compass Rose, the main dining room of the ship.

Health care reform recommended that all of the chairs in the dining room be replaced with seats for the svelte.

I guess this is part of the preventive Obamacare program in contrast to the death panel.

A normal sized man or women with an acceptable body mass index (BMI) has difficulty fitting into these chairs, especially if wearing a suit or jacket. You fit if you put the jacket outside of the arms of the chair.

Oh, and the arms of the chair, they are so short the Doctor’s office had a run on chin lacerations from people leaning on the arms and slipping off.

Many were seen leaving the dining room with the chairs stuck to their BMI.

Now we haven’t addressed the modestly overweight, considering the average on-board age being in the 70′s, a cruising age that doesn’t exactly represent the svelte.

For these individuals there were chairs held in reserve – without arms.

Embarrassing, yes for those that didn’t fit and those that fit.  The chairs were exchanged for all to see who needed to visit the fitness center.

Fortunately, thanks to a cost cutting move, the paparazzi was not on board.

Obamacare has a fall-out beyond belief.

As far as the lame stream media, I guess I’ll have to deal with the fair and balanced reporting of the non-news station, FOX News until I get to Funchal.