Politics.

It is the same old, same old. Is it just me or do the Republicans spend an inordinate amount of time and energy just trying to derail Obama's efforts to put us back in the black? I could say, hey he is still trying to correct the damage done by George Bush, but I won't.

It does not seem to matter what Obama or the Democrats want to do, the only response from "The other side", is to try to wreck whatever he does. He could propose sending all mother-in-laws to darkest Africa and I bet they would even try to sabotage that!

I mean, here we have the only civilized country in the world that does not have universal health care for all it's citizens and when he tries to correct, or at least improve it, you would think he had suggested Death Panels or something!

The richest country in the world has one of the worst health care systems in the world. (The cost of health care in the US is DOUBLE what it costs anywhere else and yet our life span is shorter! Does that sound like "We have the best Health Care in the world", as a friend said to me recently?

Our Health Care Insurance INDUSTRY spends more than one million dollars a DAY lobbying Congress to do their bidding. (Hey what would you do if someone was giving you a million dollars a DAY in bribes?) That's $1.7 Billion dollars just since 2006. The Executives pay themselves huge bonuses (they must think they are related to the Bankers!) If you get sick, they drop you. Yes, it will come back - one million dollars a DAY will ensure that. Drugs here also cost DOUBLE what they cost elsewhere - one reason for that, apart from old fashioned greed, is that the drug companies are allowed to advertise their drugs (Nowhere else allows that) and the cost of the advertising doubles what you pay for them!!

Want more? I'll repeat, in case you missed, health care here costs DOUBLE what it costs in Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, France the UK, Canada and on and on, and they live longer than us! Don't believe what you hear from the Insurance Companies and Politicians (They are being bribed at the rate of a million dollars a DAY, remember) about poor care in other countries, it is just not true. Yes, you may have to wait for optional surgery, but if it is vital it is done right away. I know about it, I lived in the UK, my parents, other relatives and friends live there and they are all happy with their care. And don't forget they pay HALF of what we pay here!

I get an MRI of my brain tumor every year, it costs $1,500.00 The same MRI in Japan costs $93.00. We are being robbed big time by our Insurance Companies, and our testing companies. Did you see the story about the companies that do blood tests etc? One of them comes to the Dr's office and picks up urine samples, takes them to the lab for tests. They then send the results to the Doctor for the tests he ordered. Fine, BUT they then send in bills to the insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid for other tests that weren't ordered. Billions of dollars worth of tests. Guess who pays for these tests? Yep, us, in higher premiums. And there are hundreds of labs and offices out there that do that and worse. Some bill insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid for drugs, wheelchairs, false arms and legs, slings, bandages etc etc. They just bill for them, they don't supply them, no one does, they just charge for them. Hundreds of companies are out there doing just that, ripping us off for Billions of dollars a year.

Well time to go, and calm down by watching the wild life!

Winter, winter, winter.

Will it never end? We here in Maryland have been lucky this year, we seem to have escaped almost all of the snow "events" that the rest of the country has suffered through. But even so it has been cold and miserable. We have had the same number of storms but instead of getting 12", 24" and 30" of snow, we get 1" or less! Although we did get a "big" one last week when about 5" landed on us. But who can complain about that when New York got another 19"! With Philadelphia and Boston collecting similar amounts to add to their records.

The Lake is beautiful though, with lots of birds to watch. There were 4 Great Blue Herons on The Lake a few days ago, standing around in a group with some big Gulls and a couple of Turkey Vultures. We could not see what the interest was, but Julia thought there might be something dead there.

The Canada Geese continue to come back every day. I Have been feeding the birds, and there are a lot of Blue Jays, Crows, Grackles, Cardinals and assorted smaller birds at the feeders as well as the squirrels. The Canada Geese often come strutting in and clean up the spilled seed, so I got a bag of cracked corn and have been putting that out for the geese. I was surprised to see that the birds eat the corn too.
The promised ice "storm" and freezing rain did not arrive last night. But the danger is not yet over, the weather forecasters are still calling for a mix of freezing rain, ice, snow and rain over the next two days.
We will see.