The government wants to kill grandma

It absolutely amazes me how people can read something and totally not understand it. A neighbor came over and mentioned that she had just read the health care bill. (Interesting in that this hasn't been finalized in either the house or senate) but I digress, she insisted that in the bill there was a requirement to put senior citizens to death by requiring a life directive. Needless to say she's an unread republican. I tried to explain exactly what this meant but you know republicans they'd rather believe the scare than the actual facts.
So what's a life directive? Real simple. It's legal instructions you set down to the hospital and your family in the event you are unable to communicate your wishes. It's not an easy decision to put on paper but it makes life so much easier for all involved.
And unlike the lies that the republicans have been circulating it is you and not the government or any insurance company who is making the decisions here.
After the Terry Shivo thing and having a relative face a similar situation as well as not having a will, I set out and did the deed legally and got my will and life directive completed. Darn and I always thought I was imortal.
I may change a few things later but at least there's no doubt as to what I wanted. I've also left instructions on what to do on my passing as I know people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do and that involves fights and arguments. Nothing worse than seeing a family torn apart because nobody knew what to do.

So you might want to sit down with a lawyer or paralegal (depending on your state) and get it over with because if you don't the government will be making the decisions.

Blogger turns 60 tomorrow

No not me! A fellow blogger Dana of Life is Good is going to turn 60 tomorrow. She being of humble origins is not requesting cards or gifts but (get this) readers. Now that's a simple enough request. You're out here anyway if you're reading this so pop on over to Dana's place tomorrow. I don't know if there'll be cake and ice cream but she has threatened to take her top off to attract more readers. Eech! get the mind soap out I think I'm having a spell. M-U-S-T N-O-T T-H-I-N-K O-F T-H-A-T I-M-A-G-E!

Wonder if she'll be serving tequilla shots?

So throw a couple of links to her site around the web. I'm hoping to crash her site with all the people we can pack in there.

Life is Good

How'd you like some green goo in your neigborhood

A 41 year old mother plays Erin Brokovich and discovers green goo oozing from the ground near her home in W.Va. Turns out to be heavy metals from a shuttered zinc smelter owned by Dupont. And just like in the movie the ooze is running down into the local river. All this in the name of corporate profits. What's a few people's lives compared to a multi million dollar executive bonus. But what really get's my goat is the lies these guys tell the public and with a straight face as well. To give you an idea how evil these guys are stop to consider that Dupont bought Union Carbide a few years back. And the going joke in my own industry is that Union Carbide killed more Indians than Custer. When you buy a company you also must deal with the liabilities. Dupont has yet to deal with Bohphal India. That of course was where Union Carbide made pestesides and the largest industrial accident in world history. And to this day they haven't cleaned up the site which is still leaking high levels of toxins into the ground water. Just imagine if you lived near something like that and all a company did was to put up a fence and leave the area. And these companies have no sense of shame because they've done this in Alabama, South America, and other places that I'm sure we haven't yet discovered. And we see how safely the mining industry treats their wastes.
A thought comes to mind. You can pay me now or you can pay me later but you will pay me. When you stop to think about it it's usually cheaper to pay me now because if you have to pay me later it'll cost you quite a bit more.

Green goo

Welcome to Hell

Geez it was 85 when I went to bed last night. I don't think it dropped below 80 and it's already 82 as I write this. We in the North West are not used to such temps. If it gets much above 75 for any length of time the whiners come out and wonder when the rain will come back and talk about how the lawns are turning brown. The worst part is they say it may get to 101 around here. Two choices either head for the store with AC or climb in the fridge. This is the one time I'm glad I'm not working because nine times out of ten we'd land up doing a roof. That reminds me of one of the most dangerous jobs I've ever done. One O one may seem like heat but some years back we were removing insulation from some live steam lines in a confined space. The temps were so high it would melt your rubber boots it you touched a pipe. We started out by going "in the hole" as we call it at ten and fifteen minute intervals with a two man rotation. We adjusted to the heat and made it to a 30 to 45 minute rotation. When we finished the very first hole the general contractor went in and measured the temp...... 365 degrees! So if you notice I get flakey at times I guess you'll know why now. My brain was fried years ago I just didn't realize it.

Keep your drums cool today folks...

No cops for you

Like the soup nazi of Seinfield some cities will have to lay off police officers to make up for budget shortfalls.

Four major cities — New York, Seattle, Houston, and Pittsburgh — will get no money from a $1 billion economic stimulus program called COPS. This little bit of info was leaked today. I realize that there's not enought money to go around but would't it be smart to put the money where there's more bag for the buck? Since January I've seen a few cities that have had to cut their force. One small town out here layed off it's entire force and will have to rely on an already over stretched county force. Guess it's time to dust off and clean the shotgun because in true republican tradition "you're on your own". Need health care "you're on your own". Need help paying for education "you're on your own". Need work "you're on your own". So get busy and pull yourself up by the bootstraps unless you have a job on wall street or work for a large insurance company in which case you get a bonus.

Risk

Jim over at Major Conflict got me thinking about risk. When it comes to safety especially on a job I'm anal about safety. Yes I have tweeked the rules but only when it was impossible to complete a task otherwise and even then I look for a safer way to prevent injury to myself or others.
There was a time when helmets were for sissys and cars didn't have seat belts then somebody realized that maybe you could survive a head injury with a helmet and seat belts prevented people from flying through the windshield. A bruse around the middle was more preferrable than attending a funeral. There are people who whine about the "nanny" state and all the rules that go with it but they never stop to consider that the costs of dealing with the results of risky behavior are already built into our system. If a worker gets hurt there's workers comp. The cost of products include the price of shoplifters. Companies have product liability insurance. And even if these whiners were to drop all coverage, never wear a helmet, drink like a fish and race around like there's no tomorrow there's still a system to deal with their disreguard for others and themselves. The costs are well hidden however. To say I don't want to pay for some guy who's 100lbs overwieght or have some tax because it affects me is silly because the costs are already there and you will pay for it one way or another. You can pay upfront or pay later but you will pay. It's called looking out for each other even if that involves stupid behavior. And I haven't talked to one family who hasn't had a story about a brother or sister who did do some stupid thing like set the couch on fire or other dumb act. You Tube is full of "let's see what happens when" videos a virtual library of stupid acts all documented for your viewing pleasure. Maybe we should put a tax on those videos to help pay for the personnal damage.
Not to forget lost production and lost wages and the cost to the system there. Then there's the system itself the hospitals doctors police judges and prisons. All these costs must be considered with risky behavior but the whiners don't seem to care. That is until someone tells them the costs and then they don't want to pay until it happens to them.

News trivia

1. Who was Harry Patch? (hint: it's not a porn star)
2. What group didn't get a raise in minimum wage?
3. What U.S. city will be the first to tax marijuana?
4. What are screen door parties?
5. What did the villagers do in the Bihar state in India to promote rain?

Answers later today
Pencils down here's the answers:
1. Holte is correct Harry Patch was the last surviving Brit of WWI died at age 111.
2. Waiters and those getting tips got no raise (great and with a down economy I'm sure tips are down as well).
3. Oakland will be the first to tax medical marijuana.
4. Screen door parties? Parties held in Alaska for Sarah Palin as in "Don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out".
5. They had their virgin daughters plow fields in the nude.

A wet one for you

Went out last evening to water the plants. I no sooner finished went inside and it started raining. They had predicted a very minor chance of rain but this one hit by surprise. We don't get showers like that around here. Usually the temp. drops before the rains come. At any rate it looks like the Friday beaver got wet with this one.

Oops: Just realized I've already used this beaver. Oh well call it a summer rerun.

My life is becoming a mess

I had it all planned out some 20 years ago. I figured 15 or so years in haz mat then get some type of teaching certificate and finish out doing haz mat instruction until retirement. Not happening. In looking at the number of major haz mat companies dwindling, they're down to about 12 in this area, the prospects for even getting back to work are slim. Those companies that have survived aren't working right now. The union is looking into starting training for "green jobs" but if the training for bio and chemical attacks is any indication I'm screwed. It took five years for them to get the money to develop a program for that. Gee don't you just feel safer now? It was just two years ago that I was doing some of the hardest nastyist work one could do and now nothing. I got moved up the list of worker wannabes but there's still a large number ahead of me and most of them do concrete type work, something I know little about unless it's the removal with full enclosure. Maybe I could write a book about the horror stories or as we call them war stories. There's been some pretty weird experiences happen over the years. Might make for interesting reading. I don't know.
The want ads look ever so promising. Let's see there's beverage server. Naah! I don't think I'd look good in a bikini. Newspaper subscription sales? Nope unless they offer free buggy whips with each subscription. Pygalgia suggested tatoo removal. Here let me take that teddy bear off your butt for you. No I think the state requires a doc to use the lazer.
I think the hard part of all this is what it does to one's psyche. It tends to drain motivation especially when you know there's nothing out there. The more you dig and hunt the more you realize how bad it really is. And for those out there who think they're cozy safe in their jobs, don't because you just might be next and you won't see it coming.

Keep your drums upright...

Healthcare reform

The healthcare system is broken. There are those that may have great healthcare like our elected officials but what they fail to realize is that the system as it now stands can not stand for much longer. They can throw all the scare tactics they want at the American people that any change to the status quo would be some evil form of socialism or whatever objection they might come up with but it will not change the fact that the system will collapse in very short order. To say that we as a nation can not afford such an expensive endever is to ignore the future expense of having fewer and fewer covered individuals. With fewer paying into the private system rates have no choice but to go up. Then of course you have those without insurance who will have no other option than to go to emergency rooms where the bill is covered by taxpayers. At what point will it become so expensive that it will begin to drag on the rest of the economy. With the sheer number of people set to hit medicare age the time frame is five years or less. But in order to deal with the problem we can not wait that long as it takes time to develop a new system. As we've waited until the last minute once again to deal with this problem we are now forced to do a cram night and hope for the best. Any action at this point is far better than no action because we can see what will happen if nothing is done.

Seventy five percent of Americans want a new system. I personally had great coverage when I had it but I am more than willing to forfeit that for the benefit of the survival of the system as a whole. What use would it be to have good coverage knowing that that coverage might be short lived because an employer could no longer affort to offer it? We're beginning to see the start of this downward spiral with increases in insurance premiums. With increases in premiums, co-pays and deductables coverage will become something you may afford to have but can't afford to use. What good is that?

So what sould Obama do about this? I'd say he might want to give some hard figures as to what the costs will be going forward if nothing is done to remedy this problem. I'm convinced that it will be far more expensive than the 1.5 trillion dollar price tag being bandied about.

UPDATE: I was in for some regular lab work today and got to talking to my pharmacist/blood tech. She said the problem won't be so much the loss to the insurance on the premiums but with increases in the volume using medicaid. The drain on hospital emergency rooms is going to get quite ugly. Something needs to be done and very soon. That was her professional take on it.

Nothing like dumping on the middle class and poor

It appears that California has solved their budget crisis. But if you live there be prepared for an ugly senerio. The usual "Don't raise our taxes" mantra came out of the right as usual. Small businesses were delighted that taxes weren't raised but as I see it what difference does it make if you have no business in the first place. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you do business with state government and your taxes get raised. Don't you then calculate the increase into the price you charge? You would thereby be sending the tax increase back to the state to pay. At least this is my understanding from having done contract work for the last 18+ years.
I see that state workers will now take a 14% pay cut. I just wonder if that includes the governor and state reps as well? All this just after a governors conference which I'm sure cost the state a pretty penny. I'll see if I can find some info on that to rub in their faces later.
But I really feel sorry for the poor kids of the state because the children of the poor just got their state health care cut off. And in true republican fashion they dump on those who can least affort it and have no high priced lobbyists to represent them. Makes me wonder how many children will die because of this. Basic republican strategy, go after the weakest least armed of the group. Then blow your own horn when you've saved your corporate masters from having to sell his yacht. And don't trip over the babies in the gutter while walking to your BMW guys.

What does it all add up to in terms of human suffering? I hear the state will be borrowing money from the cities. Hey don't cities get some of thier money from the state? You'll see slower response times for police and fire as well as fewer officers and firefighters. City governments cutting back on work days (call before you go there in case they aren't open). Cutbacks in libraries. Great just when you can't afford an internet connection to look for a job. And not to forget roadways, healthcare, and education so don't fall ill because the medic just might be stuck in traffic that is if they were able to maintain the ambulance. And then there's the highly motivated state worker who just had his pay cut by 14%, won't he be in just a great mood when he gets there.
So maybe you think it's time to repeal Prop 13 and actually pay for what you have and need? Where's Robin Hood when we need him?

Inflation?

Invictus has a good post over at Bondad's about those worried about inflation. I keep hearing the rightards trying to throw the fear cards at us once again about prices that will hit the roof and you'll need a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. That won't happen for several reasons as he points out with his graphs and charts. The simple answer is this: Demand. With babyboomers poised to hit the gold watch crowd they tend to down size and hold the line on spending. That is based on the nagging fear in the back of their minds that they'll run out of money long before they take a dirt nap. You also must remember that these were the same folks who when they were in their 30s and 40s were able to pull us through the last economic downturns. They went from the beater cars they had in their 20s to the upscale sedans and SUVs to haul the spawn to soccer games. The boomers are downsizing and doubling up or worse trying to split the rent with their parents that is if Ma and Pa didn't move to a retiremnt community in Az. If the spawn didn't find a career path then they're comming back home to either share with the bills or worse become a fungus on Mom and Dad. That is if Mom and Dad didn't split before the meltdown hit. If they didn't they can't do it now and are stuck with each other.

So inflation? No. People have come to realize that they can get by just fine without all the junk. What didn't get sold at the garage sale either gets donated or thrown out.

Inflation? computer says no

Update: Seems somebody is skeptical about my analysis. Well don't trust me then take it from an award winning economist.

From Paul Krugman Pop through some of the links in this article. He gives some very simple explainations that even a simple guy like me can understand.

Out and about this weekend

Visiting some relatives I haven't seen in a while. It makes you realize how old you are when you haven't seen them in 30 years.

Back later.

Economic melt down II

This is banker beaver (killing two beavers with one stone so to speak)

I was watching the Frontline program on the financial crisis of 08. Then was reading the great news from Bank of America and Citi. I think you want to keep a close eye on those two companies. While both posted record profits as of late you need to dig a little deeper to see the storm brewing. Citi just made it's big profits by selling off Smith Barney. A good move but there are still underlying factors at work there that still make Citi a bad investment. One is that they still haven't dealt with the underlying problem they face those bad loans and defaults in the credit markets. I see where housing starts have surged ahead as builders seem more confident. On the face of it that would be good news but I just read yesterday that foreclosures have also surged ahead. I haven't checked as of late about the supply of housing that's still on the books but around here I'm not seeing houses selling in short order and I live in one of the better markets.
Then ther's the 800lb Gorilla hiding in the wings that nobody talks about. That would be the Alt-A loans that are about ready to hit in force come fall and early next year. And if you think the sub-prime thing was a mess you ain't seen nothin yet. So as I said keep your eyes peeled on BofA because they have their tentacles in so many parts of American business. They are the largest bank in the U.S. and if they fail they could well bring the whole thing crashing down.
All I can say is Obama must have a real love for crisis management because we know McCain could never have been able to handle this and god forbid Palin ever got her hands on the reigns. Just be a good girl and keep catchin the fish.

These guys just can't keep it in their pants

Another (this time former) republican senator gets exposed in an affair. It would be bad enough that he got caught but he's another one of those "moral values" type bible thumpers out of the C street bordello. Good ole boy Chip Pickering former republican senator from Mississippi lost all the way around except financially (that is until his wife finishes off his bank account). His mistress gives him an ultimadum either quit the senate or the party's over. He quits, his wife divorces him and the relationship seems to be over with the mistress. So what does an ex senator do? He gets a job as a lobbist for a cell phone company that he had ties to in Mississippi.
For those of you who aren't familiar with C street it's a building and a rather strange form of Christianity that goes along with it. Much like a YMCA for senators but with a twist. Their brand of Christianity puts their members above the law. They seem to have this idea that they are the chosen ones and everyone else be damned. They even hold Hitler in high esteem. Does this sound familiar? Do the white supremicists of Northern Idaho come to mind? All activity from this club is supposed to be held in high secrecy.
And this is the same club who's member include Ensign and Sanford.

Geez guys wouldn't it just be cheaper to just hire a call girl?

Update: SW Anderson corrects me on this. Pickering was a memebr of the house not senate. I guess this is equal opportunity philandering as far as the congress is concerned.

A post from Naj

I've been following this blogger in an effort to get what scraps of information are comming out of Iran. Naj is an Iranian girl outside of Iran who is lucky (or unlucky enough) to get emails and other communications from Iran. This is just one of the stories she's been able to pass on.


This 19 years old boy was killed with a bullet in the heart! his mother was camping in front of the Evin prison for almost a month. Her son had already died over three weeks before she was called to identify the body, but no one bothered to inform her. In the meantime, she, a member of Mothers for Peace, was worrying and petitioning to prevent her son (and others) being tortured.

A'rabi's family is the first to have publicly defied the IRI orders of "holding a quiet funeral". His devastated mother's pledging to fight on! and so do many Iranians! (Sohrab;s father had died when he was 16, after a long battle with cancer)

What is concerning is that Sohrab's mother identified him from over 50 pictures she was shown. This means that at least over 50 of those who are missing may already be killed. When? We won't perhaps know. And because there is no opportunity of autopsy, then we will be inclined to believe the worst rumors about the Evin prisoners. And of course, those who want to blame us for spreading "propaganda" may instead go petition their beloved Ahmaghinejad regime to loosen up prisons, and let in journalists and independent observers to assess the human rights in Iran's prisons, political and otherwise!

A couple of closing thoughts - mine: Who's better at torture and killing and why must people endure such things for nothing more than an ideolgy? Are we any better than them when we do the same things?

Tin foil hat time

I noticed that the investigation or should I say possible investigation of Dick Cheney has been scrubbed from the news in less than 24 hours. Nothing on yahoo, google or cnn websites today. I have a bit of a theory about all of this. While Cheney was in office he was able to claim executive privelage thereby blocking any investigation. And this little transgression was so well hidden that even the head of the CIA at the time was not informed or so we are led to believe. That may or may not come out.
Note that when Cheney left office he was busy on the airwaves for weeks on end trying to justify everything his administration did. I'm sure at that time he was going through and destroying any documents that would link him to the crimes. Remember there's more than just the witholding of information from congress here. There was the outing of Valerie Plame that came from his office. There's the torture memos that I'm sure were directed by him. There's the firing of Sibel Edmonds because her translations of intercepted arabic messages didn't fit somebodies needs. There's that wonderful Unpartiot Act that had to be written long before 911 took place. It was after all over 1000 pages and you can't just slap that together in a couple of weeks.

But back to the program. An assasination program whereby trained assasins move secretly through other countries and kill suspected terrorists leaders. Slight problem there. It's called sovereignty. You can't just go moving through other countries kidnapping or executing people as you please. And that brings me to a supposition. As we know at the beginning of this 911 world Bush gave himself (or should I say his handlers) the power to declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy combatant". No habeus corpus no investigation no grand jury bang you're now an enemy. So I suspect that this CIA program that was so well hidden from us and congress would have permitted the CIA to operate within the borders of the U.S. because if someone is declared enemy combatant then they are then no longer a U.S. citizen with all the rights that go along with it. We saw that with Jose Padilla. This would have permitted death squads to operate within U.S. borders. And to say as an excuse that this was not an operational program doesn't take into account that over a million dollars had been spent on the program.

Lastly there was the no warrant wiretap program. This had the effect of keeping the rest of congress in line. It permitted those in power the ability to spy on the other side of the isle with no oversite or repercussions. We've heard from former NSA employees that they abused that power by listening on juicy conversations that had nothing to do with national security. So the last bastion of freedom seems to be the internet and bloggers who have the courage to post the truth and maintain an intelligent discourse on today's issues. Speaking of truth I have another bit of info from Iran that I'll post later.

Sarah Palin doesn't understand cap and trade?

(The other title for this post should be "Mixed nuts".)

Why of course she does. That's were you put on your cap and trade fish. You can trade salmon for halibit don't you know.

What Sarah fails to realize with cap and trade is that it makes it more difficult and expensive for a company to pollute. By putting a tax on polluters and using that money to reduce pollution it forces the polluters to either clean up their act or get out of business. It should create quite a few jobs in renewable energy and pollution reduction fields. But why bother to try and explain that to a woman with deep ties to the oil and gas industry who's only answers are "cut taxes and drill baby drill!"

Steny Hoyer wants to extend unemployment benefits. Here's a novel idea Steny how about using that money to actually create jobs rather than have us sit here on our butts calling companies that don't have work or are going out of business? Nah, that'd make too much sense couldn't do that.

New condo projects cutting prices - Gee didn't we see the same thing happen in south Florida? People bought into the overpriced dream only to watch as prices fell and they became upside down in their mortgages. The market collapsed and developers did as well. Who could afford a $900K condo anyway? And that's after the price cut! Note to developers: prices are still going down here and financing is nearly impossible to get.

Here's the latest batch of candidates for the upper management position. They're the only ones who could afford one of those condos anyway.


Somebody said Boeing was hiring. Psyche!

Hole in US plane forces landing - Let me think. The airlines are running about halfway through their life cycle on aircraft so this is an unusual event. Planes run for about 20 years on cycles of compression and decompression. After a certain point they start to show metal fatigue and must be retired. But even with such events they're still pretty safe. Remember the Hawiian air flight of some years back that had a good part of the body ripped off and still landed safely.

Here's a shot of a Quantas aircraft that made a safe landing. A rare event for Quantas.

Update:Here's a new level of wierd. Cybugs - Cyborg insects used to spy and detect explosives. Nothing worse than a pesky spy moth in the bedroom when you're feeling romantic. Leave it to the military to come up with: Cyborbugs

Bill Gates want's to control the weather

Nothing like trying to be a god before you leave this world. I chuckle at this because at present we don't have the technology for the scale involved in hurricanes. Think hundreds of square miles and an ocean depth of 500 feet. Many years ago scientists tried to stop icebergs in the north atlantic. They tried bombing and covering the bergs with black coverings to melt them but nothing worked. They gave up.
Maybe Gates would be better off putting his money into renewable energy which would have a far better return on his money and slow global warming in the process. That would also slow the amount of hurricanes.

Where do we go from here?

A thought had occured to me many years ago. I think I was discussing this with one of my college profs and that was some time ago. What happens when robots and automation take up the lions share of the work force? What will the rest of the population do to make the money to buy food clothing and housing? An interesting situation to say the least.
What's happened in the last thirty or forty years with our workforce and company philosophy to get to where we are right now? At one time it was a rare thing to change jobs even once during a working lifetime. Now it seems that people change jobs as often as they change socks. That in itself created a stalmate for moving forward. People moved sideways in their careers never being in one place long enough to gain much of a pension. So while the top 1% had their income surge ahead the middle and lower class lost about $2000 and that was just in the last 8 years. Employers focused more on answering to shareholders than they did to their workers or customers. As a result jobs moved overseas to cheap labor and higher profits. By chasing cheap labor and costs they effectively cut out the American market. It's rare that you'll see a building built these days made from American steel. Why should it when we loaded up entire steel mills and shipped them to Korea where labor is cheap and the environmental laws lax. With less costs companies made tons of money for their shareholders and execs looked like heros and were well rewarded. In fact the boards of directors saw to it that they are now rewarded to the tune of several thousand times what any CEO in any other nation earns. All of this at a great cost to the worker. GM is now a shell of it's former self. And where will the workers go who spent the better part of their lives finally making a living wage after working their way up the pay scale? For many this was the only way to get to the American dream of owning a home and raising kids. One could with a basic high school education make a comfortable living and retire knowing that you'd be cared for in old age. That's nearly all gone now. It went with steel in the 80s and textiles about the same time.
Then there's agriculture. Once there were thousands of family farms. But with the start of factory farms the old family farms were bought up and turned into production jugernauts. Colombines are now huge beasts that can do in a few hours what used to take days. And to think that we only produce about 25% of the crops that we consume. The rest is imported from around the world. Produced by cheap labor and no regard for the environment. DDT is still used in most other countries even if it is banned here.
This reminds me of an old Pogo comic strip. Two characters are standing by farm fields and in the bubble it says "this is where I don't grow corn and that field over there is where I don't grow beans" All of that was under the heading of farm subcities. It almost seems the same with American industry only there's no subcities only empty factories and closed businesses.
No, if management doesn't change it's thinking then there will be no choice but to turn America into something communist. They will get exactly what they hate the most because there will be no other choice.

As I recall FDR spent quit a bit of money building this country and we didn't go broke. He rebuilt farming by changing methods. When the cattlemen faced disaster he bought their cattle and let them keep their herds. He built dams, roads and our present day electrical system. All of these things need replacing now but the republicans are worried about debt. Well I don't seem to recall getting a bill for what FDR did when I was growing up.
Congress (McCain in particular) is worried about earmarks. I'll tell you what the biggest earmarks is. That would be war. Where else can you spend trillions of dollars and get absolutely nothing in return other than some families who won't be seeing their sons and daughters again?

Yes I'd say a second stimilus package is in order only this time don't bother with the unemployment extentions. Use the money to actually provide jobs. There's a ton of work that needs to be done. It'll just take a bunch more money to get it going. We will come back. Maybe not the same but it can be done if we put our minds to it.

Where are we now?

It appears that I'm at my last extention for the unemployment and now the state agency that doles out the checks would like me to "try harder". Strange what a few years make. Prior to the Bush debockle I never had to worry about being on the out of work list. In fact I think I was only on it one other time prior to the end of 07. If I needed work I could just make a call to a former coworker or supervisor and they would steer me where the work was. In fact most of the time I'd be up to my eyeballs in some job and others would call wanting to know if I could work for them. Not so any more. I was working at the airport in 07 when I got this epiphany. Like a punch to the stomach and the sudden realization that dark days were ahead. As if you were watching a favorite movie when all of a sudden the screen goes black and no sound. You wait for the projectionist to fix the problem but nothing. So here we sit in the dark in our seats and try to amuse ourselves until the popcorn and one litre pop runs out.
I made some calls to a couple of companies yesterday as required by the unemployment agency. There's another story in itself. They've become a prime example of what Kafka was talking about in his novel "The Castle". Maybe they used the book to restructure their agency some years back. But anyway all the companies called were having a hard time keeping their regular people working. It almost sounded as if those on the other end of the line were sitting there doing nothing but try to justify their own existance. I think one of them I talked to was the actual owner.

A relative called amongst my being busy to inform me that her husband's company was being shut in a few weeks. She also informed me that another relative who had just bought into a retirement community one of those areas with dues and rules just discovered that the developer went bankrupt and with several foreclosures they'll have their dues raised. All is not good. There seems to be only two members of the family left working and even their positions are shakey. But again I digress. The real reason for the post was to give an indication of what's going on in the rest of the country from comments I found on one survival site. Now I'm not one to go to a survivalist site. They've been around as long as I can remember and to date I've never seen an armed uprising of the masses in this country ever. I don't expect one this time round either. But on this web site the author asks a simple question about how things are going around the country. You may reply in the comments was the request. So here it is:

A general report on the state of the nation

I realize that this is but anecdotal but I think you get the point. Rather than some talking head tell you how rosey things are it's nice to get it first hand from those who are going through it. Notice how we aren't seeing tent cities on the 6pm news anymore, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more of them in the next few months. Let's call them Bushvilles if you will because I'd like to leave a true historic legacy to George W.

Beaver of the week

This almost violates one of my unwritten rules on posting friday beavers. That'd be posting two in a row but as things are slow I'll make an exception in this case. Been busy looking for jobs that aren't there.

Pulling a Palin

Sarah Palin the political humorus gift that keeps on giving. She has now made the Urban dictionary. Pop over there because this is only one part of the definition.

Pulling a Palin

The Republican art of disguising your inept knowledge by answering a question with another question as in "with what respect Charlie?"

See also Pulling a Charlie
Charlie asks "do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

Sarah responds "in what respect Charlie?" "do you mean his world view" starring with blank ignorance at Charlie

Sarah was just caught Pulling a Palin!

Bits and pieces

Looks like Rupert Murdock is in a bit of hot water. One of his "news" guys was caught tapping cell phones of politicans and celebs. The Brits unlike the U.S. seem to take their privacy a bit more serious and don't put up with this nonsense.
Snoopers

CIA gets caught lying. Can't say exactly what this is all about but I can make a pretty good guess. This came out suposedly in May of 2001 even before 911. My guess is that the Shrub in chief or his minions gave them the power to spy on U.S. citizens with no oversight. This is only a guess but it would make sense as it wasn't about torture or renderings as 911 happened in Sept and the Unpatriot Act wasn't even a thought at that time.

Climate change - If the republicans had their way we'd be riding around in horse drawn carriages and they'd be selling buggy whips and hay. Their money comes from coal gas and oil as we all know.

S.A.L.T. talks - Seems the initial target for limiting nukes to 1500 is a good start except that's enough to blow the earth up nine times over. The detonation of just 24 of today's weapons would eliminate life on earth as we know it.

Warren Buffet says we need a second stimilus bill. Well Duh! Considering our infractructure is falling apart, healthcare, auto cos., airline cos, and who knows what else. $787billion is a spit in the bucket.

300 remains found at cemetary in Ill. workers charged. Greed plain and simple. How they kept someone from visiting grandma and not having them notice that her headstone was moved is baffeling and beyond me.

Net problems

Don't know if the problems are fixed as of yet but the net has been acting very weird today. Most places I've gone wouldn't load indicating a denial of service attack. It's was reported that this came from North Korea. If this is true then I say we turn Kim Jong Ill into Kim Jong Dead. Wave your dongs and fire your missles all you want but when you mess with my internet access you've crossed the line. Remember you're part of the rest of the world and we could always cut you phone cables and jam you radio and TV and leave you isolated if we wanted to.

May post a photo here later when the coast is clear.

Healthcare a Seattle solution

Seattle Clinic
I came across this solution to our health care problem from a small Seattle clinic. At first glance it looked like a good idea until you read further and find out the actual costs. Maximum $119 per month for primary care sounded great but didn't cover catastrophic events. The patient would have to get outside coverage for that at a max cost of $400 per month with high deductables. Not really something everybody could afford and would be about the same cost as what the average per patient costs are right now.
Maybe the solution to this problem is to threaten all of congress with a national referendom to cut off their health care. Let them be one of the 50 million without insurance and see what kind of coverage they could get with their conditions. Remember a whole bunch of them are up there in years and I'm sure have pre existing conditions.
Then there was Sen. Grassly who at a town hall meeting basically told the audience I've got mine the hell with you. He instructed the questioner to either get a job with Caterpiller (which has been laying off people the last several months). Or he could get a job with the government. This from the party that wants to shrink the government small enough to drowned in a bath tub. In other words he's telling us to drop dead. Remember that the next time he comes up for reelection.

Sarah Palin - WTF?

All individuals in public office that I've seen resign their positions have given some definite reason for abdicating their position and duties. The primary reasons given in the past have been health or family emergency or worse some legal issue that would invalidate their oath of office. With Palin's speech on Friday viewers were left scratching their heads wondering. With enough confusing metaphors to make a high school lit. student blush she hit us with basketball, dead fish and quitters. I'm sorry Sarah but basketball players don't throw the ball then walk off the court and expect to win. The dead fish you speak of are those left in office to try and finish the business of the state. You chastize quitters as you announce that you're quitting. I can only say that George Orwell would be proud of your non speak. Even those of your own party are still trying to make sense of what you've said.

And now you threaten legal action against a blogger? One Shannyn Moore whose only crime was to write about what the rest of the nation was wondering...why? If you've forgotten this is a process of the human mind called logic. Logic says that there is a reason for every action. Logic gives us possibilities. An either or route to a logical end. This was no defamation but a report of wonderings. An opinion of what has happened. The left in this country has been far kinder than your own party. Will you be suing them as well? Do yourself a favor and drop it. There are far easier and cheaper ways to stay at the forefront of the news cycle.

To read more about Shannyn Moore from her blog Just a girl from Homer

The late Friday beaver

The Friday beaver was held up this week because his trip on the internet was delayed. Seems there was an electrical fire at a bank of servers at Fisher Plaza. That small fire knocked out internet service to a bunch of companies that use those servers. Even knocking out the TV station KOMO channel 4. They are now operating from remote trucks until full power is restored. There's 60 electricians and engineers working on the problem. Wow think of the overtime and on a holiday too.

Lucky beavers don't have to worry about such things as computers or lighting or even taxes. And speaking of taxes that was the reason for the holiday we now celebrate. From what I've read of history the annual taxes on the colonies amounted to twenty five cents per person. It wasn't so much the tax that got people riled up as the fact that they didn't have representation.
I had hoped to find a revolutionary war beaver for this post but they must be tied up and harder to find than Michael Jackson tickets. Oops I promised the beavers I wouldn't mention him again, sorry guys.

Are we in a depression yet?

A look at the jobs numbers this morning shows that we're slipping again. I know Obama is trying his best but it looks like that's not quite enough. 467,000 jobs were lost last month putting the unemployment rate at 16.5%. We're beginning to see an increase in crimes such as bank robberies and break ins. I see an increase in business fires and wonder if they're not intentionally set making sure it looks like an accident.
As I've reported before even those working are having their hours cut. So at what point do we declare this a depression? Ah oh I said the D word. Would it be 20% or 25% as in the last "great depression"? We now have an entire state that may go (is) bankrupt. IOUs aren't going to pay the bills. The contractors and subcontractors who do business with the state can't pay their bills. Wonder if they'll just hand out IOUs instead of pay checks? Wish I could pay my bills with IOUs.

The link

Are we stupid or what?

Have I gotten so old that I've seen it all so many times that life seems like it's on a perpetual loop. Every year it's the same thing. In spring somebody goes on a river trip only to realize that the rivers are running too fast. The boat/raft they are riding in goes over and one of them gets killed but they can't find him for several days. In summer there's the lake drownings at least one for the season. On fourth of July somebody looses a hand or a house gets torched by fireworks. Then there's the brush fires. Started by a cigarett, campfire, firework, lawnmower, barbeque or car malfunction. What season would be complete without a lost hicker. And over and over it goes same thing different year. Maybe it's just a new round of idiots having to learn the same things that's been happening for generations. And with all the safety gear required now you'd think things would be better. Not to brag but when I was little we didn't wear helmets and arm pads and knee pads and we made it okay. I don't recall anyone having servere head injuries from skateboarding or biking. A few skinned knees and arm abrashions and it was back out the next day for more of the same. I can only assume we were in better physical shape than the kids today not having spent hours staring at computer screen or video game.
Then there's stupid on the roadways. When we took drivers ed we all got to see that great film Signal 30 (I think it was called) Something made in the 1940s it shows the double dating teens out on a Friday night. Boys in suit coat and tie and girls in full dresses. One of the crew pulls out a bottle hidden under the seat and proceeds to coax the rest to take a swig or two. Even the driver is coersed into taking part. You can figure the outcome with the car wrapped around a tree at the end. Today I'm amazed anybody makes it through their teen years. With alcohol, drugs, cell phones, texting, twitter and street racing there's enough distractions and imparements that even a pro driver on a closed course couldn't overcome.

Then there's the truly greatest method of documenting stupidity ever invented - You Tube. I think it promotes stupidity. Make sure you get ever detail when you douse the cat in lighter fluid and pop him into the micro. "Hey Jimmy let's see if we can ride our bikes off the roof. What do you think will happen? I don't know but don't forget to bring the video recorder."
How many rounds of this kind of stupid make up a life? Is it ingrained in a base level of our genetic make up?

Say hi to

Holte Ender of Now Listen Here I guess birds of a feather flock together. And while your there note his pearls of wisdom from one Aunt Dixie.

I'll add him to my blog list when I get around to it. There's power in numbers you know.

Republican Nazis

For anyone who thinks Ahhrnold is a compassionate conservative think again. With Calefornia facing massive budget shortfalls the governators fix is to throw 930,000 low income children off medical assistance. Don't you just love republican thinking? Your safe if you're still in the womb but once you're out it's so long Charlie, you're on your own.
He's also talking about borrowing money from cities. Like they're not broke as well. All because some republican years back decided to slash taxes. Even Reagan wasn't that dumb when he was governor. Ronnie raised taxes then got the hairbrained idea to cut taxes. We'll shrink government to a size you could drownd in a bathtub. It only worked back then because there were programs to cut. When Dumbyu got in he lowered taxes on the wealthy cut what was left of the safety nets that Ronnie hadn't trashed and spent like a drunkin sailor of two wars.
And even to this day that is their only solution. We'll cut taxes we'll cut taxes is their credo. What will be left? We'll cut taxes on the plywood and nails you'll be buying to board up your business.