No laughing matter!

I must have been very sleepy,
didn't even get up to go pee,
I am still in shock,
a deep mental block;
and I'm feeling almost weepy.

My feet didn't go pitter-patter,
and there's no sense in this blather,
there is just no excuse,
and this is no ruse.
This is no laughing matter!

What are speed limits for?

Photo: www.shutterstock.com

  The roads and streets I travel on have some of these very signs, 25, 35, 40 and 45.  Maine Department of Transportation has raised the speed limits on Interstate highways in Maine to 70 and 75.  I don't ever recall seeing a 20mph sign.
  I drive pretty close to the speed limit, I always leave in plenty of time to avoid being late.  I am always awake in time not to be late for anything, hell it's a phobia with me.
  So why do I always get stuck in front of someone who always seems to be running late?  Why?  I will signal and pull over to let one of "those" pass if it's safe to do that.  I will not risk a fine to speed up to appease them.
  So if you're up here in Maine on State Route 222 keep that in mind - between the hours of 3:00AM and 3:00PM.  Thank you.

Hearts as cold as winter

  The Congress of the United States has taken the year off!  But, not to worry we're still paying them; for doing nothing.
  It's a shame, a national shame, that the government, Executive and Congress have done absolutely nothing, in my humble opinion, to earn our trust.  So deeply entrenched in partisan bickering that the whole community is facing collapse.  We are in danger of destroying, or having destroyed for us, the whole idea of government for and by the people.  It's gone.  As an example when asked about work on tax reform House Speaker John Boehner said (and this is a direct quote) "Blah, blah, blah, blah".
Just one example of a house no longer standing.
  Work on tax reform, immigration, trade and a host of other matters is dead in the water.  A bill submitted to help veterans and help the overload of applications for VA assistance - dead!  At the same time the Secretary of Defense says that down sizing the military is a good thing!  Does anyone remember Pearl Harbor?  No!
  I would ask people to write their Congressional member - but why?  It wouldn't get read anyway.

State of the Union Superbowl

After the Cardinal came the Bluejay

Just in case you missed it the Superbowl is being played in New Jersey on Sunday, the President gave his fifth State of the Union last night and it's winter even in the south.
I don't really believe any of you missed that stuff, but just in case.  In the speech that came last night there was a small wish list and nothing that brought the two parties closer to working together.  In other words an hours worth of hot air.
In the football game there will be athletes pounding themselves on the chest in a "look at me, I'm winning this game".  They'll need to be reminded that football is a team sport, and they're helping the team - boy will they be disappointed.  Some players will be called for a foul, they will walk around shaking their head "NO" and wonder why they're being picked on.
That just about does it, hot air, phony players, and shaking heads, oh, and it's cold.

..and then we went to the store

When they passed out brains........

Location of Canon City, Colorado - click to enlarge
Image: Google Maps

  In Canon City, Colorado (indicated on the map by "A"), Hunter Yelton, a six year old first grade student was suspended from school.  He was suspended on a charge of sexual harassment.  What caused this commotion?  He kissed another first grader, a girl, on the hand!  Will he be classified as a sex offender for life? Probably not.  Will this incident scar him for life? Yes.
  Where is the common sense?  Why is it that a little boy can't smooch a little girls hand?  She did not object - they like each other.
  Meanwhile in Pennsylvania a ten year old boy has been suspended for "pretending to shoot an imaginary bow and arrow". PRETENDING!
  Where is the common sense?

  I can't make this stuff up!

Seasonal Photo:

Mr. and Mrs. Santa arrive by Lobster Boat in Kennebunk, Maine - click to enlarge
Photo: Derek Davis, Portland Press Herald

Afghan War. Is it over?

  Longer than the U S Civil War and World War Two combined, and throw in the Aroostook War and those did not last as long as the Afghanistan War.  Talks have been on-going with the United States and Afghanistan to provide "trainers" for the Afghan Army for another ten years.
  Afghanistan does not want the American troops, has not wanted the American troops but still we persist.  Osama Bin Laden is dead and he was the "reason" the United States went to Afghanistan in the first place.  Or so we have been told.
  Last night (December 9, 2013) the Congress of the United States got off its' collective ass and passed the Defense Authorization Bill, funding the Department of Defense for 2014.  Congress has yet to pass a budget for the "rest of us".  We have been duly warned by the late President and Five Star General Eisenhower that we need to be watchful of the Military Industrial Complex.  We have not yet learned this lesson.
  End the good war now.

Seasonal photo:

Mittens knitted by Anna Furrow for local children.
Photo: Abigale Curtis Bangor Daily News

We pay these people. For what??!??!

  On December 3, 2013, with only seven working days left in the year (only 83 working days, remember?) the Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the U S House of Representatives, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R) of Texas was in meetings.  Important meetings with so little time left?  You betcha!
  They were in a heated discussion on the possibility of an invasion by Aliens from Outer Space!  I'm not kidding!  We are paying these people to do the peoples business and we get this clown show.  I could not possible make something like this up.  They're talking about extraterrestrial life and they have not passed a budget for over five years??!.  Sadly, yes.
  They're not talking about agriculture programs, disease, energy programs or changes in the weather?  Sadly, no.

In other news:
  In the coming year the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will be teaming up with this very same Congress to discuss some Energy Policy.  That's good, right?  Sadly, no.
  They will be working to penalize people who install solar panels at home.  Calling them "free riders" - people who are cheating industry of profits.  Ain't that communism?  Does this sound like an energy independence policy you'd want them to act on?  A policy that puts industrial profits above the free actions of the people.  I thought these people worked for us?  Oh yeah, that's right; money rules.

Shutterstock

 


The rich get richer and that ain't enough!

David Cote, CEO Honeywell, Vice Chair Business Roundtable
Photo: The National

  There is a group of 200 CEO's of some of the Country's largest corporations called the Business Roundtable and Fix the Debt.  Each of these people has retirement savings of at least 14.5 million dollars, Mr. Cote (photo) has 200 million dollars in retirement savings and could receive $800,000 in monthly retirement payments.  The most us folks covered by Social Security could receive, at full retirement age in 2012 was $2,533!
  The Business Roundtable brain trust want's to "fix the debt" by cutting the amount people can receive from Social Security!!!! These geniuses really believe you and I get too much money!! They believe the Nation debt can be cured by cutting earned benefits for the poor and middle class.
  Do you still believe in horoscopes?
for more information see: http://www.thenation.com/blog/177251/ceos-massive-retirement-fortunes-push-social-security-cuts  and http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2013/11/22/9-social-security-statistics-that-will-surprise-yo.aspx

PPACA Another nail the the Middle Class coffin

FM; Huffington Post

The PPACA or Obamacare is another nail in the coffin for the middle class Americans.  The President openly lied when he said people of already have insurance would keep it.

There are thousands of self-insured citizens who are receiving or are going to receive cancellation notices from their insurers.  They will be allowed to "re-enroll" but at a much higher cost.  I watched on couple on TV who had been paying $199.00/month plus a $3500.00 deductible.  Their new offer had the same deductible but the monthly cost was now $638.00!  The difference is because that insurer will have to accept people with pre-existing conditions.  Is it fair for that couple to be asked to pay for someone, unknown?

Even though I know the aim is for everyone to be insured, I don't think that a very good way to make sure it works.  I have repeatedly said Obamacare will fail, I am even more sure now.  Low income people will not enroll.  A young man who works part time at a "dollar store" that a friend and I talked to yesterday at our coffee hour hadn't even heard of the Act.  Young people aren't interested enough in what's going on to watch the news!  They will not buy insurance even though it may be "free" for them (see the young couple above).

CBS News is reporting on October 29th that over two million policies have been cancelled or amended.  It is becoming more clear that this Obamacare law was written by and for the benefit of the insurance industry.  The law simply is not what the public thought it was. Period.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21222195-obama-administration-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance#.Um9f6dZiV_A.email

The address above has more information.  You can copy and paste to your address bar.

From: Opposing Views

Partially over, for a while

Sens. Reid and Schumer looking happy after vote to re-open government
Photo by Jim Loscalzo/EPA

  So all we the citizens have to celebrate is that three months from now we can all go through the same bull shit again.  Is bull shit one word or two?  That question is more important than what these two yokels are happy about.
  On a kinder note, I am glad that at least they talked about things, maybe found out how to change a law (PPACA), and who knows - maybe they'll make that program workable, but I'm not so sure.
  So some of us know we'll be paid for three months, then we'll wait again.  This is not the correct way to conduct business.  There has not been a budget passed in the "regular" way in nearly five years, Congress can and should do better.  Politics, even local, have become so polarized that it just makes running state and national legislation nearly impossible.  People need to be a bit more moderate in their thinking.  Just my opinion; I'm old and remember Ike and Margaret Chase Smith, they were my kind of Republicans.

Unbelievable

Cartoon from the Great Depression drawn in 1931 by Chester Garde

  You see, now the Senate thinks they have a deal.  Thinks.  It would pass a budget for THREE WHOLE MONTHS!  It would also approve a debt increase for four months.
  Now you have to realize that when we were using typewriters I could type almost 100 words per minute on a manual machine.  So what Congress is doing is saying "I can type 100wpm, but today
I'll only type two"!
  Salaries for our 538 members of Congress for one month is over 2.8 million dollars, by my math, and for almost five full years have done nothing!  NOTHING!
  We have seen, time after time, Congress refuse to pass a budget, a President who refuses to approve a budget, and Congress, who has the authority to pass the budget, won't override the Presidents veto, we have a handful of people on each side who hold up the progress of the whole.
  I've had my say for the day.

They're as deaf as I am

    One of these eagles was flying around the field here the other day, had it's eye on something, probably a member of congress!  Oh! Wait a minute!  Do eagles eat rats?
    I could end right there, but I won't. 
    The Red Sox pulled one out by playing very well, and the Patriots showed them how.  I am glad both teams won, the Sox will have a long fight with Detroit this year.
    We went back to Mainely Apples this weekend to buy more Spencers and taste tested the Snow Sweet apple, very good - crisp and sweet, it's another late apple.  I got a pie that my lovely wife made with some of the Honeycrisp that we had left too.  Mmmmm.

Shut up! No! You shut up!

An interior road at Baxter State Park, Maine - click to enlarge
Photo: Maine Tourism Cmte

  Well, if you noticed the title today I can explain.  Chet and Parker are talking.  The words in the title do well to explain the talk.  Does that sound like progress?  No?  Well, it does to some people in the media, actually a lot of them take this as a sign of progress.  I don't think of it as progress, just more baloney.
  Now, with Oakland and Pittsburg both out of the baseball series, and with Cincinnati dropping the ball early it is very, very easy to cheer for the Red Sox.  They are the only team left!  That's it!

We are getting closer and closer - to the end

  Well, now the way to get photos in to the blog has changed again, twice in the last week.  I can't figure it out and I suspect it designed that way.  As a result I'm about ready to throw in the towel.  As much as I have enjoyed writing this blog, I can't put up with the aggravation of putting it online every day.

Out of touch? OUT OF TOUCH??

  Well, they got it done.  Both houses of Congress got off their collective asses and voted to pass one piece of emergency legislation.  Bless their little hearts.  Poor babies must be plumb tuckered out!
  Here are some numbers for us little people to think about:
                                       126  -  days Congress will be in session in 2013
                                       239  -  day of vacation for those hardworking dumb asses.
                                       174,000 - amount in US dollars, it's the least one of them can earn.
                                       193,400 - dollars paid the Senate/House majority/minority leaders
                                       223.500 - dollars paid to the Weeper of the House, err Speaker

  Are we starting to see why these people are out of touch with the rest of us?  Have you just lost your breakfast?  Now, now don't feel bad they're going to get a raise of between 1/2 to 1 percent of their pay; and let's not forget the free travel on "junkets" around the world to "study" problems (NOTE problems in other countries, not ours).
  I'm pretty ticked off, can you tell?  A bunch of nitwits that can't agree on ANYTHING, don't understand why families are having a hard time to pay the bills - but wait!  They'll help us little people, here's a sample:
                                   Millions of dollars cut from LIHEAP funds for elderly and poor people.
                                   They will vote to increase the amount of interest on student loans.
                                   They will cut the amount of COLA on government programs like social
                                     security and retirement benefit checks.  Those are OUR EARNED benefits
                                     not a "welfare payment" that your/my congress person thinks.
  I think it's time for a clean sweep, throw them out - nah!  Whoever is elected will be corrupted by the money (corporate) and power, and the sweetest benefits/perks that you and I can only dream about.  Maybe I'll win the lottery.