A little tip to save money - and oil.

Most people know, I hope, that the heaviest user of energy in our homes is heating and air conditioning.

I thought you might be interested in how we keep down our use of energy in this sphere. As the A/C part of the "problem" is at hand I will start there.

We have set the time to start using our A/C as June 1st. So we don't start using our A/C until at least June 1st. If the weather co-operates it could be later. It is usually no problem to do this, rarely is it really hot before then and we find by opening windows - with the screens on - and wearing light clothing we have no problem, we might eat salads instead of a hot meal and pull curtains across if the sun is shining in and heating up the house. Eventually, in any year it will get to a point where the A/C is pretty much a necessity. (Here I must tell you of one year back in the late 70's or early 80's when we were here at The Lake in our little redwood cabin on July 4th with our friends John and Norma Hergenroeder and it was so cold that we lit up the wood stove!) That is a true story. So it is not always so hot in the summer!

Anyway the heat eventually arrives and we turn on the A/C and set it at . . . . drum roll here . . . . 80 degrees! Yep 80. Most people will no doubt find this completely unacceptable, but it is just fine with us. If we have guests coming we will turn it down to 78. It might be of interest to know that your electric use drops by 7% for every degree that you set the thermostat up. (Or down in the winter.) So if you normally set your A/C at 65 you will be using about 100% more electric than me! In other words if my bill is $10 a day for A/C yours would be $20 a day. Quite a savings. Some people do have their A/C set at 65 - I've seen it with my own eyes. Most set it at 68, some "frugal" people at 70. Another interesting little fact is that if it gets hotter people will turn their A/C down to a LOWER setting! "Ooh it is 90 degrees today turn the A/C down"! If you have it set at 70 because that is where you like it, it will be 70 in your house if it is 75 outside or 90 or 100, it is not necessary to turn it down even lower. In fact even before we came up with 80 as "our setting" and were using 72 or whatever, if it got really hot I would turn the temperature setting UP. Hey if it is 95 outside, 80 or even 85 is going to feel nice. If you set the thermostat say 10 degrees lower than outside it is always going to feel comfortable, certainly more comfortable than outside, because the A/C removes the humidity which is what makes heat so uncomfortable. And don't forget the 7% rule. If it is hotter, your cost goes UP by 7% for every degree warmer that it is. So if you turn your A/C colder by 5 degrees you are adding 35% to your electric cooling bill PLUS whatever is added by the hotter temperature of the day. To sum that up - if the temp outside is 85 and it goes up 90 - and we are both set at 75, you turn your thermostat down to 70. I turn mine up to 80. Your bill goes up by 70%, mine stays the same! No increase. (I was 10 degrees away from the outside temp - 75 to 85. I am now still 10 degrees away - 80 to 90. But you were 10 degrees away - 75 to 85, but are now 20 degrees away - 70 to 90. So the additional 10 degree difference in your setting is 10, or 10 times 7% equals 70% higher cost.

In the winter we try to wait as long as possible before turning on the heat. (Another little story here, some friends on Gibson Island had the same "game" and one year boasted that they managed to put off turning on the heat "Almost until Christmas."!) When we do turn it on it is usually to 68 degrees. We keep it this "hot" because Julia has arthritis problems and feels the cold. 68 degrees is too cold for most people, but we temper that by wearing warm clothes, long pants and a sweater. Julia will put a blanket over her legs while sitting watching TV in the evenings. It is a lot cheaper to put on a sweater than to turn the heat up. At 72 you are spending 28% more than I am at 68. If you like 75 your bill is 49% more than mine!

As It happens we recently, last winter, installed a wood stove, so our house, especially the living room, where we spend most of our time, is very warm and cozy and the heat rarely comes on at all, we set it at 65 or 62 - it will only come on if the fire dies down and the temp drops below 65 or 62 degrees. This might happen at night, when we are cozy in our bed with a nice warm over sized Duvet on the bed.

Can you imagine the drop in oil use by the US if everyone did this? We would probably have to cut our oil imports by a huge percentage! What would that do to our balance of payments?

F U

It seems to me that the GOP - The Party of No - has "Progressed" to The Party of F You.

Maybe you are wondering why I would say that?

You will doubtless have noticed that a number of contenders for the Republican nomination for President have dropped out. Some of these 'dropouts' were the more reasonable of the Republicans. Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels for example. Mitch was a reasonable governor. He seemed to put important matters ahead of ideology - a no-no nowadays for ANY politician, but especially for a Republican. I think they dropped out because they did not want their carefully nurtured reasonableness to be attacked by the Republican Party of today.

Even they can see, as I can, that the GOP of today is a party of lies, distortions, incorrect 'facts' and "birthers". Prejudice trumps fact, any expert is pooh poohed, any truth or reality is a Liberal or elitist plot.

Their world of False Reality is nurtured and created by themselves, Fox "News", Rush Limbaugh and other "fair and balanced" far right extremists.

For the first two years of Obama's administration, while he was trying to correct the problems and excesses of the Bush years, when both parties should have been pulling together to put the country back on its feet, they were instead The Party of No. Any attempt made to put the country back onto a sound footing was sabotaged at every possible opportunity. Any attempt by Obabma to extend an olive branch was rejected. If Obabma tried to close the gap between the parties and made concessions they made no concessions back.

If my neighbor's house was hit by a truck or a tree or a flood or a fire I would go to help, as he would, if such a disaster were to hit my family. We would do this without first asking, "Are you a Liberal or a Conservative"? I compare the countries present position to my neighbors position. But The Party of No, far from helping, is instead parking their truck in the road blocking the fire trucks, turning off the water, calling the authorities to stop sending whatever help they can stop them from sending.

Anything for political gain. They cry "Cut taxes", a cry guaranteed to get people on your side, even though you know it will only make matters worse. Even worse, cut taxes to the rich, they will spend us out of this recession, something that has never happened before and has not happened this time, in spite of repeated tax cuts.
Now the GOP has embraced a new party, the Tea Baggers, who are even further to the right than the modern Republican Party! The Far Right Tea Baggers are wealth-and-business-obsessed.

Now we have The New Republican Party which has morphed from The Party of No to The Party of F You.

In 2010 they campaigned on jobs, deficits, tax cuts and health care. Who wouldn't vote for that? But now they are in power their tune changes. If you are a wealthy individual or a big corporation like big oil, big agriculture, big banks etc, anyone with plenty of money, they have nothing but hugs and kisses for you. For the rest of us? The GOP offers a Big F You.

Out of a job? F You. They blocked efforts to extend unemployment benefits. Instead, they wanted to cut taxes to the rich, so they could "spend us out" (an idea only accepted by lunatics and Republicans. An idea that has never worked before and is not working now.)

Worried about another financial collapse? F You, say the Republicans. Regulations on banks were enacted after the Great Depression and were kept in place for 50 years. But 30 years ago, since Ronald Reagan, the GOP started repealing the regulations that had prevented those same abuses for 50 years. Resulting in the financial collapse that we are all suffering today. (All, that is except the "Top" 1% who are even wealthier! Please note that you are poorer, and they are wealthier - has anyone else, other than me, noticed that?) After the disaster of the Great Depression, common sense says the banks need regulating, but The Republicans fought even the modest Dodd-Frank regulations that were passed, in spite of their fight, in 2010. They continue to fight to weaken or delay it!

Worried about cutting the deficit? The Republicans say they are, but they are not. Instead they say F You. They don't care a toss about deficits, why else would they vote to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? This added billions to the deficit. And no, we are not overtaxed, the the overall tax burdens of Americans is at it's lowest level since 1958. The Republicans want to cut taxes to the rich and to corporations, making the deficit even WORSE, and then they want to cut all government spending to pay for the tax cuts to their rich friends. Medicare and Social Security - that Corporations and the wealthy don't need, will be cut as will anything that the poor and middle class depend on. To pay for tax cuts to the rich! (A couple of figures here, the richest 1% of Americans have more wealth than 50% of Americans COMBINED. The top 2% of Americans, in income, pay 16% of their income in taxes. The average American pays 30% of his income in taxes!! CEO's of giant corporations pay less tax than their secretaries!) And the GOP wants to cut taxes to these unbelievably greedy people even more!)

Worried about health care in your old age? F You, says the GOP. Thought you could just make it if you could just reach retirement age, because then you would qualify for Medicare? F You. Worry more, the Republicans and the Tea Baggers are attacking Medicare relentlessly. It will be privatized, which means your health care will still be FOR PROFIT, just as it is now, when you are paying through your teeth for health care, and just as Obama won a small victory for you - making the insurance companies continue to cover you even if you got sick! The richest country in the world, and the only one without universal health care for it's citizens, is about to fall back even further. Medicare - one of the few government programs that by far the majority of Americans like, is about to be snatched away from you. And replaced with a voucher system which won't begin to cover the cost of most old people's insurance costs. This means that, unless you are rich, you won't be able to afford health care. If you can just afford to get health insurance, it will be as it was a few years ago - don't forget it will be privatized insurance - you will start to get the letters that we all dreaded, "It's not covered", "You got sick, so we have to raise your rates.", "Sorry, you got sicker, we have to cancel your insurance." That is the way the GOP wants it. They have to pay for more tax cuts for the rich somehow!

If you are a woman, it is definitely F You. The GOP wants complete control of a woman's body. Elimination of the right to an abortion, even if it is not paid for by the government is right at the top of their agenda. If you were raped, they are even redefining rape. They want to redefine all women's health services to be even more detrimental to women. I've seen this defined as "The Republican War on Women."

I hope you don't expect the GOP to manage the countries finances responsibly? The debt ceiling needs to be raised. To the Republicans that is just another bargaining chip. They don't care - F You.

High gas prices, do they affect you? F You, say the Republicans. The Republicans in the Senate voted to protect subsidies to Big Oil who have made billions in windfall profits thanks to high prices. Here they had a chance to help the American people, but they showed their true colors - the colors of their corporate benefactors - over the red white and blue colors of the American people. Here they also had a chance to cut our dependence on oil, and thus cut our economic, environmental and national security risks tied to oil. But it was the same old, same old. They know which side their bread is buttered. They know who to to suck up to, and it's not you and me and the American public, it's BIG OIL - as in BIG MONEY.

Want me to go on? I didn't think so, so I'll stop with just a quick list of F You's from the Republicans. Global warming deniers, birthers, union busters. In fact F You to virtually everyone except the wealthy and the big corporations. They have moved so far to the right that they are way way beyond the American mainstream. And they don't care because they have the ear of everyone who matters - the obscenely rich and big business. And for some unknown reason a lot of people are going along with it. Why? Is it because they think that they too will be hugely rich one day?

I think Daniels dropped out because he really doesn't want to be a part of the F You Party.

Persistance or habit?

Every year - well every year for the 3 years that we have lived here - a little bird, a wren, has built a nest in the wreath that Julia hangs on our front door. Julia has a selection of silk wreaths that vary with the season and her whim. Sometimes it is even a real wreath, made with some of natures bounty. Each year the wreath has been different, but each year that persistent little bird does not vary her routine. She builds her nest and lays between 3 and 5 eggs. We then have to stop using the front door for several weeks, entering and leaving our home via the garage and trying to intercept any visitors before they bang on the door. We don't always manage this and we have taken to checking the progress of the tiny feathered creatures daily. We do this by going out the garage door and over to the front door - afraid that if we open the front door the mother will fly into the house. The babies are remarkably quiet. I always thought they would chirp to attract the mother's attention and to ask her to give that tasty looking grub to ME. But the silence is uncanny, they never make the slightest noise, which I think is very wise, as 'There be Dragons here.' Well OK, cats. Which would result in their demise either way.

This year she laid 5 eggs of which 4 hatched. (We discovered the 5th unhatched egg after they had all left) So there were 4 babies, all looking very cute, and fluffy - well OK, feathery - then when they were all pretty much fully grown and really, really crowded in the tiny nest suddenly there were only three! We saw no sign of the fourth sibling, so don't know if she fell out or was pushed (A case for Detective Poirot - did she fall or was she pushed?) Anyway it could be that she made a tasty snack for a passing cat, raccoon or even a dragon? Or perhaps she was very precocious and left early, we hope so. The others were all gone when we looked yesterday, which was about 5 days after the Mysterious Disappearance of the Fourth Sibling.

Then it was clean up time. It is remarkable how much mess a few little birds can make on a door.

But all was not over. More persistence. This time in the form of wasps. For the third year running wasps started to build a nest on the front door, using some remarkably strong adhesive. They build it not just on the front door but in exactly the same place each time. But these guys are not so welcome. The first time the soft hearted Julia said "Leave them". So we did, but "They" got got obnoxious, buzzing us every time we went out or in. Opening the door produced a swarm of wasps some of who came into the house and had to be ushered out again - a hazardous duty. Visitors encountered them with varying degrees of alarm. They had to go. A can of wasp spray, and they were history.

But each year they still return, and I dispose of them quickly before they terrorize us and our guests again. How or why they keep coming back to that one spot year after year I do not know. Some must survive each time.

To return to this post's title - persistence or habit, what do you think? Or is it a routine, like the routines that we all have? I think I vote for instinct. All those other labels are human qualities, animals don't have them. Or do they . . . ?

Riddles.

What, could no one solve my two little riddles? Go back 4 posts to see them, two little riddles, easy. Well the second one is easy, the first one could occupy you for a few minutes. Why not give them a try?

Corruption.

I was reading recently about the corruption that exists in some countries. I was horrified to read that elected officials will take bribes. They can be bought with money, having been bought they will then do the bidding of their owners, passing laws in favor of the people who paid them!!

Wait, isn't that what happens here?

In some of these 'other countries' this bribery is done in secret. In others they are quite open about it, everyone knows 'how it is done'.

Here we do it both ways. In Congress and the Senate for example people called lobbyists meet openly with our politicians and regularly hand them money. The Health Insurance Industry for example spends one million dollars A DAY bribing them. (What else would you call it?). Why do they willingly hand over this princely sum of money every day? Is it because they like our honest, upstanding officials? No, I don't think so either. It is because they want OUR Congressmen to vote for THEIR industry. And they do. What would you do? The Health Insurance Industry is just one business that conducts business in this way. So too do the Oil Industry, Farming, and dozens, maybe hundreds of other big, and small, companies. It is accepted. Unbelievably it is accepted by us!!!! We sit by while the people that we voted into office to run the country for us, in the way we wanted them to run it, and in the way they promised to run it, do nothing that they told us they would do. They can't, they are too busy lapping up all this money. Who can find time to work, especially for the lousy $200,000 a year that they are being paid when there are lobbyists lined up at their doors BEGGING them to take money!

Hard to make ends meet on $200,000 a year, and a virtually unlimited expense account, not to mention free health care (That is real health care - not the bullshit health care that they voted in for us poor schmucks, and which they will doubtless soon be taking away from us so that their friends in the health care INDUSTRY can rip us for 2 to 4 times as much as we pay now. Oh and don't forget the letters that say "Sorry that is not covered", or the letter that says "You are sick, we can't afford to cover you any more." Those kind of letters will be back soon.) No that kind of health care is not good enough for the likes of them. Instead they voted themselves a REAL health insurance - that they do not pay for of course. We pay for it for them. While I am at it, the health insurance continues for them, and their families for the rest of their lives, paid for by us. Oh, and don't forget the pension scheme - wouldn't you love to have this pension - 100% of pay for LIFE. For your whole family, health insurance for life, and at no cost to them. (We get the bill) - and don't forget most of them can more than afford to pay for it, most are wealthier than you or I could even dream of. Did I forget to mention that their children get to go to the best schools for free. Well not for free, we get the privilege of paying for that too.

All this for a bunch of, mostly, scumbags who do nothing all day except take money from lobbyists, raise money from other rich people, people who they can help, for their re-election. Oh yes, you bet they want to get back in. And there will not be any time at all left over to do the work that we put them in there to do. They have to fly all over the place, stay in fancy hotels, eat expensive meals and entertain "important" people, all at our expense, in order to get reelected. Yes the next 4 years is spent getting re-elected. Well any time that they have left over after the main business of collecting money.

Yep, there is no doubt in my mind that the good old USA is the number one most corrupt country in the world.

THEY are in charge, THEY get to vote the laws, and there is no way THEY are going to change any of the laws - unless it is to make it even easier for them to steal from us.

Unfortunately, they will never make it illegal for Congressmen and Senators to take bribes from special interests. They will never vote in a law making, say, a 6 year term for Congressmen and Senators, so they can get on and do their jobs, instead of spending all their time (and all our money) working on getting re-elected. Have the same health insurance for them that we have, and pay for it themselves.

No, as an old saying goes - "We have the best politicians that money can buy."

I am going to advise my grandchildren to somehow or other get elected to Congress, for just one term. That is all you need, then you are set for life. You don't even need to take money from Big Business etc. Just do your job for 4 years and retire with an indexed pension and health insurance for life.

Well back to the fight. I got a new health insurance and prescription insurance on Jan 1st this year, making sure that it covered the one prescription that I take - it did. Here we are 5 months into the year and I am still fighting to get them to pay for the first months supply! They assure me that it is covered. I just have to go through special channels to get it. Five months! Once I get the first months supply, do you suppose it will take me another 5 months to get the next months? And this is before we get Medicare ripped out from under us - I'm sure it is coming - how long will it take to get it then?

I get more depressed with the system every day. And it looks like it is going to rain today! I was going to plant some seeds, so that we can get "Free" food from the garden.

Insider Trading.

Finally - some good news from the courts. I don't know how it happened but a BILLIONAIRE was finally found GUILTY - I know, I know, sounds impossible doesn't it? It seem this Billionaire decided that a billion (or two or more?) wasn't enough and he could steal another 60 Million using insider trading. Well he was caught. And found guilty! Faces up to 19 years in prison!!! Yeah, way to go. I hope he gets the full 19 years. He deserves it. No, not just because he is rich, but if you already have a BILLION and you try to STEAL more from people like you and me who have very little, then you are greedy beyond any hope of redemption.
I say lock him up and throw away the key.
You still don't belive that it happened do you? Well OK it did, it's true, just not in the USA of course. It happened in Britain. It will be a long, long time before any banker, politiion or super rich person in the US will ever be found guilty of anything.

Jobs.

I was thinking about our "Politicians" and wondering how it would work out if we hired our workers the same way we hired our politicians. Here's a couple of ideas about how it might work : -

Wanted Shop Assistant. Must not like people. Must give the product to the rich for free and charge the poor and middle class double - thus forcing the lower paid people to pay for the rich. Must be able to take "gifts" and bribes and kickbacks. Must work short hours and take long breaks. No experience necessary.

Wanted Car Mechanic. Must hate Cars and Car manufacturers. Must be mechanically inept. Prefer no experience.

Wanted Accountant. Must be unable to handle the job. Must not be able to balance the books. Must not be able to do simple addition. Prefer person with no business experience at all.

Wanted CEO. Must be able to steal from your customers, ruin your company and then be able to take a multi-million dollar bonus for "Good Performance" without laughing. Must have a hard heart and be able to lay off workers and hire workers in another country. Must be happy to pay no taxes - for you or your company.

That is how we would be running our businesses if we hired our employees the same careful way we hire our Politicians.

A riddle for you.

What am I?

Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Two letters there are,
And two only in me,
I'm double, I'm single,
I'm black, blue and gray,
I'm read from both ends,
And the same either way,
What am I?


And another one, easy this time.

From the beginning of eternity,
To the end of time and space,
To the beginning of every end,
And the end of every place,
What am I?

Good luck, let me know when you get them.

David.

Budget.

Last week a cross section of the public were asked how much of the Federal Budget was used to subsidize NPR (National Public Radio) - in my view a public treasure that reports fairly on US and World happenings and has a veritable treasure trove of programs designed for every age and class of people. The average thought was 5%. They actually thought that 5% of the Federal Budget was used to subsidize Public Radio! The real figure is less than .01%.

I thought in view of this I would give a few figures that accurately reflect just how the Federal Budget is divided up.

The Military Budget is 54% of the entire Federal Budget! This figure is more than is listed on the budget because in the "Official" budget the amount spent on wars is not included in the Military budget. In other words the Federal Government does not include in the Military budget the money that is spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and probably a host of other wars that we are engaged in around the globe. It also does not include interest spent on the Military Debt, which is interesting because obviously if we did not spend so much on the Military we would not have any debt.
So, including those figures, the Military takes 54% of the entire US Federal Budget. Then there is 30% spent on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This leaves 16% for EVERYTHING ELSE. By everything else I mean everything else the government spends. I will list just a VERY FEW things that are included on that list. Infrastructure - including roads, bridges etc, NASA - space exploration, The IRS, subsidies for the oil companies and agriculture and a host of other companies, the Courts, police, fire, the Treasury, the White House, Congress, The Senate, science, astronomy, PBS/NPR, all government regulatory departments, foreign aid - * (See note at bottom regarding foreign aid) and literally thousands of other federal departments.

So the 16% that covers everything except The Military, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is the only part that Congress is willing to cut. The Military and The Entitlements are sacred cows that cannot be touched. Obviously there is not room there - in the 16%, even if every thing were cut by 25%, which would devastate most of the programs, we would only shave 4% off of the entire budget!

Not voting to continue the 4% Bush tax cuts to the rich would have covered all of the cuts, and more! (And the rich already pay only 16% of their incomes in taxes compared to the average Americans 30% in taxes!!) They would hardly have noticed it. Instead so that they can keep even more money and be even richer than they were, we all have to suffer. We have to put up with eviscerated libraries, NPR/PBS cuts, roads that need fixing, cuts to police, fire, cuts to science, medical research, and a thousand other things that make life easier or more enjoyable for the poor and the middle classes - just so that the already disgustingly rich can have even more!! Did you know that the richest 400 Americans have more than half of what all Americans have combined? Let me put another way - the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than 155 MILLION Americans COMBINED! Now that is greed beyond belief, an Income Gap never seen anywhere else ever. The gap now is wider, by far, than it has ever been.

OK lets make the rich richer, forget trying to make them pay their fair share. We could still get around the cuts, by cutting the Military budget by 4%. Surely they would hardly notice a 4% cut. Certainly not as much as we would notice cuts of 25% to 50% in some of the programs more important to us.

Or there is yet another way. Social Security, Soc, Sec. taxes are deducted from the earnings of everyone earning up to $107,000. That means that I and probably most of you reading this pay Social Security tax on all of your earnings. Why should it only be the lowest earners that pay it? If everyone paid Soc Sec Tax on ALL of their earnings, problem solved. I pay it on all of my income, you pay it on all of your income, why should Tiger Woods not pay it on all of his income ($100 million a year! For playing golf!) The US has been good to him - and to all the Billionaires out there, they should be happy to help out and contribute to the country that gave them their wealth.

If you think that is taking too much from them - boo hoo - reduce the overall rate, I think it is 6% now, cut it to 5% or 4%, but deduct it from 100% of every ones earnings. (Then you and I would pay less!) Make it a rate that would take care of Soc Sec, and maybe Medicare and Medicaid for years to come.

We could also raise the retirement age, slowly, when Soc Sec was started, 65 was the age that most people started dying at! Now we live into our 80's and even 90's. If the retirement age were raised to 70, over a period of years - say increase it by 2 months every year, that would help tremendously.

Maybe a combination of the several suggested solutions? Or implement them all and pay off the National Debt. As President Clinton had planned! I think under his plan, it would have been almost down to zero by now! You may remember that Clinton left office with a surplus! Has that ever happened before? I'm not sure. Anyway, George Bush gave it away, remember? He said elect me and I will send everyone %600. He just barely got into office even with that offer! He sent out the checks and that was the end of any chance of getting rid of the National Debt. (I was thinking I might run for office and say "I will send $5,000 to everyone if you elect me." Do you think I would get in?)

There are other areas where money can and should be taken to pay for the running of the country. Boeing Company had a pretax profit of 10 Billion dollars from 2008 to 2010. During those three years they paid NO federal taxes! (They were recently given a 35 Billion contract to build planes for the Federal government. A nice reward for paying no tax!)
G.E. 2006 to 2010 $26.3 Billion pretax profit. Tax rate? Negative 15.8% - they got a REFUND of $4.2 Billion - after paying NO taxes! GE has more employees abroad than in the US! Their pretax profit abroad? $67.7 Billion - on which they paid tax, at the rate of 19.6%. Put another way, they get a REFUND in the US on their earnings. They pay TAX abroad on their earnings! Oh by the way they cut 20% of their work force in the US - and sent the jobs abroad! This IS a US company - I think. More greed!

* I promised to tell you about US foreign Aid. A lot of people think if we did not send aid abroad we could balance our budget. Not so.
It is a minuscule amount, especially compared to what most other countries in the world give - we are 22nd on the list of 22 richest countries in government aid to other countries as a percentage of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product.) The countries of The United Nations agreed on a figure of .7% of the GDP of the 22 wealthiest nations. Denmark gives the most with 1.1% of its GDP, most of the Scandinavian Countries give around 1%, The US gives .1%! (To repeat, one tenth of 1%, the lowest of the 22 richest countries.) And most of our foreign aid goes to places like, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan etc! Almost all of it is military aid. The little bit that goes to countries that really need help, like starving African Nations get what is called "Tied Aid" which means they have to use the money to buy from the US. This would seem to make sense until you realize that if a starving African Nation has to buy food from the US it's own farmers are not helped at all - they could work, grow food and sell it to their own government, but that is not allowed, their government must use the aid money to buy only from the US. So the "Help" is no help at all to the citizens. 90% of US aid is "Tied", The UK and Norway "Ties' 10%. Also, of the Foreign aid that the US sends, 80% of it goes to American Companies in those countries!

So, to sum up, stopping foreign aid would do nothing to help our budget woes. It is only .1% of our GDP, almost all of it is military aid to Israel, Egypt, Pakistan etc - not really what foreign aid was intended for, which was to help poverty stricken countries. What does go to countries in that category is "Tied" - it must be used to buy from the US, which hurts their economies not helps them. And finally 80% of the money goes to American companies in those countries anyway. You don't hear about these things here because US news is about the US. If anything is reported about non-US things it tells how it affects the US. European news, tries to give news about the whole world.

Sorry, if I sound bitter or anti-US, but I am telling it the way it is. And it is getting worse. Congress will cut and cut and cut, and they will be angry because it doesn't matter how much they cut they will be almost completely unable to affect the budget. Because they cannot touch the sacred cows of the Military, Soc Sec etc which represents 84% of the budget!! They will eviscerate everything that makes life worthwhile for many people and only be able to reduce the huge budget deficits by tiny amounts - even after crowing how they cut WICK, PELL, and goodness knows what else by huge amounts, they will have to admit that they have barely affected it at all. And then they will blame their idiocy on "Someone else".

Then they will continue to serve the Rich. That is what Congress and the Senate does, in case you hadn't noticed! They serve the Rich, they have no interest whatsover in anyone else, their entire reason for living is to make the Rich richer. Because of this the Rich throw crumbs to them when it is time for them, the Politicians, to retire, with just 100% of their salary for life and the best medical care money (our money) can buy! (Even if they only serve one term they get this incredible package!)

Enough already, I am so upset by our "Pile of Shitens", sorry Politicians, that I can barely see straight. Night, night.

Six Osprey.

What's that you say? Six Osprey? Yes, six, can you imagine. I looked out at The Lake yesterday morning and there they were, six of them, hovering - you know, the way they do, and swooping and diving into The Lake, all in the vicinity of Sunset Cottage. I could hardly believe my eyes. Fortunately they were not successful with every dive!

What with the three Great Blue Herons that I could also see from the vantage point in my living room, by the fire, and the Cormorants dotted about The lake I was wondering if we would ever have another home caught fish dinner! There just seems to be too much competition out there for the few remaining fish for me to succeed in "bringing home the bacon" in the form of a fish dinner.

Well, to heck with the fish dinner, lets just enjoy the birds.

Speaking of birds, the Canada Geese are still here, we should have a great lawn this year - if Goose poop is good lawn fertilizer!

The two Swans are much in evidence, with the male Swan going Ape sh*t every time he sees another bird that could imperil his offspring. That is, his offspring in the form of egg(s) being patiently sat on by his beautiful mate while she is perched on the top of a mountain of a nest. Unfortunately, as we know, they will never be born, the eggs having been oiled again. Baby Swans would be a delight to see but I think we can understand the danger that they would all be to the ecology of The Bay and The Lake in particular. As aggressive as this one pair of Swans are I cannot imagine if there were several pairs of them here. They would undoubtedly drive all the other birds off. They eat and destroy, by tearing up large quantities of The Bay's grasses too, which The Bay can ill afford, as most of it's grasses have already disappeared.

As most of you know, my own theory about the disappearance of The Bay's grasses is that they have succumbed to the onslaught of the hundreds or thousands of tons of weed killers that are poured onto the lawns surrounding our Bay. These lawns, in my humble opinion, especially the ones directly on The Bay front should be banned from having weedkillers or fertilizers of any kind being put onto them. They might as well pour it directly into The Bay. And of course, possibly not quite as bad, but almost so, are the weedkillers spread onto the lawns, gardens and roadsides all over the six State area that drains into the Chesapeake Bay.

When a National Treasure like The Chesapeake Bay is plundered day after day by so many rapists, with no restraints put on them, it is sickening. I compare it to pouring poisons and acids onto The American Constitution or The Mona Lisa. The Chesapeake Bay is even more irreplaceable than those treasures, but we act as though it were a bank with inexhaustible funds that we can withdraw at will.

If only we would stop raping her she could repair herself. Surely it would be cheaper to leave the Oysters, the Menhaden and the other natural cleaners to do their jobs and clean up The Bay, rather than for us to have to live on the shores of the World's Largest Cess pool?

Hail.

Hail to what you say. Why hail to me of course.

Yesterday was in many ways a typical day, busy. Let me a take a few minutes to tell you about it. It was quite warm when I woke up and I did the usual chores, made coffee for me, got the wood stove going, opened the chickens, turned on the computers, collected the newspapers, fed the cats. Usual stuff. Then I made tea and took it in to Julia. We watched The Lake. There was a large bird in a tree close to the house that we finally determined to be an Osprey. It was hidden by branches and the emerging leaves. Another Osprey landed in another tree close by and they seemed to be sizing each other up. Yet another Osprey was hovering close by over The Lake and it made a successful dive into the water, coming up with a nice sized fish. It flew off. When Julia said "Why are they just sitting there and not fishing?" they seemed to take the hint, and flew off.

Meanwhile elsewhere on The Lake the flock of Cormorants that appears every morning and then disappears was in evidence. As on most mornings today's crowd was about 40 or 50 birds strong. They are a delight to watch as they swim along mostly submerged with just their heads and necks above water. When they dive they stay submerged for as much as a minute. I assume they can swallow their prey under water although sometimes we see them come up with a fish and swallow it while they are on the surface. If we get the numbers that we have had here in previous years we could see as many as 100 or even 200 birds. As I said they are enjoyable to watch, but it is scary to think of all the fish that they consume. Will they leave enough for me?

There were a number of other birds scattered around, including what may be favorite, the Great Blue Herons.

Anyway, we had to leave our little bit of Paradise and head for the Accountants Office. It is tax time in the US and Julia and I had spent much of the last three days preparing for the annual assault on our income by the dreaded IRS! That over, we headed for the library, then the bank, Trader Joe's in Annapolis and finally to Koontz Toyota, also in Annapolis, for our first service, 5,000 miles, on our "new", now 6 months old, Prius.

While they did whatever it is they do to cars when they "Service" them. Screw them up? We decided to have some lunch. Julia remembered a little cafe that was just a few blocks away and we walked there. As I said earlier, it was warm today. WAS warm, being the operative words, it was now cold and getting colder. It was so warm earlier that I had forgotten to take a coat with me! Anyway The Wild Orchid Cafe was warm and inviting and I enjoyed a Guinness with my Bison Burger while Julia sipped a glass of wine with her Crab Cake.

Then it was a quick walk back to the dealer, while observing that 'it looked like snow', and indeed it did look like snow. But it didn't snow here, although we later heard that much of the East Coast north of us did in fact receive as much as several inches of the white stuff. But not us.

We headed home, stoked up the fire and had a little rest. Soon, lightening, followed quickly by rumbles of thunder and then an ominous drumming on the house. Turning on the outside lights and looking out I saw - - - Hail, Marble sized and heavy, the ground was soon completely covered. Julia had no sooner voiced her worry for the fate of our flowers than it had stopped. Barely 5 minutes long but the damage was done. Some of the Daffodils and Primroses were broken, but her main worry, the Lenten Roses seemed this morning to have survived unscathed.

It is cold again today and the forecast calls for temperatures only in the 40's for the daytime this week with it being right around freezing at night. We are hoping that our proximity to the waters of The Bay and our Lake will keep us above freezing.

Soon, very soon we hope, spring and summer will be here.

My favorite daughter.

It is daughters week and Sarah is my favorite daughter. You don't have to worry about my other children being jealous, because she is my only child, but if I had ten daughters or a hundred I'm sure that she would still be my favorite. She is a winner in every way. Works two or three jobs. Takes care of four sons, two dogs, a husband and a home. I don't know how she does it, but I sure hope that I had something to do with it. I know her mother did.

It always brightens up my day when I see her, she has a beautiful smile that lights up the room. But like a beautiful flower she attracted pests too! Boys. Watching her being picked up by a boyfriend felt like handing over a stradivarius violin to a gorrilla.

She's a survivor too. She survived a major earthquake in California that happened just a few days after she arrived there. She survived a major bout with cancer. She has survived four boys - including two teenage sons! There have been many more life changing episodes that no one person should have to go through but she has survived them all.

Far from me teaching her, I think I have learned more about life and how to live it from Sarah. And she looks great.

It is hard to believe she is 29 already. (I'll never tell)

I love her with all my heart and I always will.

War, War, War. (The Swans are at war.)

Well we have a war in Libya against a maniac killing his own people, war of course in Afghanistan, wars no doubt in many other countries, a sort of war in Japan against radioactivity and other tragedies, whilst here on The Lake the male Swan has, as usual in the Spring, declared open warfare on everything on The Lake.

Anything swimming on The Lake is fair game as far as he is concerned. I have been working outside today and every now and then I hear a tremendously loud sound, the beating of wings. He chases any Goose, Duck or Cormorant and even the occasional Kayaker until they leave. It seems to be in vain. While he is busy chasing off the next offender they casually walk back down into the water and start paddling around again until he has chased off everything else and gets back to them once again.
The male Swan is a very large bird and I have no doubt that if he were to attack me he could inflict considerable damage. A blow from his wings could probably break an arm or a leg.

In fact there are quite a few Canada Geese here that have injuries, mostly to their legs. At least they seem to be the most obviously damaged parts. I have no way of knowing if he did the damage but I did hear from someone that he was seen to kill one of the young geese a few years ago.

The problem is that his protective warfare continues for a long time. The local animal control authority oils their eggs, thus rendering them unable to hatch. The Swans don't know this and so instead of her sitting for the usual 5 or 6 weeks she sits there for several months and the male continues to wage his protective battle. It might be kinder to break the eggs but I suppose she would lay more then.

They stop the Swans from breeding because they are not native birds. They also do considerable damage to the grasses of the Chesapeake Bay, eating and pulling up a large amount of the grasses - which are in very short supply already, probably killed by all the weed killers that are poured into The Bay. Well OK, they weren't poured in, but they might just as well be. The millions of lawns surrounding The Bay are looked at as proudly by their owners as the Swans look at their huge eggs. The war by neighbor against neighbor to have the greenest most perfect lawn, takes no prisoners. Whether it is Swans, Canada Geese, Falcons, Owls, Osprey, Fish, Crabs or any other creature of our wonderful Chesapeake Bay matters not. They would willingly sacrifice every wonderful animal, bird, fish or insect just to have their lawn greener than Joe's lawn!

Meanwhile the battle goes on, Swan against all other birds threatening his mate and their offspring, conservationists against the killers of our flora and fauna and Ghadaffi against his citizens, when will it ever end?

Albania.

I can hear you now, Albania? Well, Albania is in the news lately. It is slowly becoming a part of "The Real World", and I am remembering my first 'contact' with Albania.

It was in 1964 - 47 years ago - I was on my honeymoon with Julia, 'The Girl Of My Dreams', as she was then, and still is now.

We had gone to Budva in what was then Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was under the control of Tito at the time. He was what I would have called then a Benevolent Communist, he had control of the country, he was in fact a Dictator, but the country worked, and it was open to the West.

Anyway, we were on our honeymoon, Budva had been a good choice, it was a beautiful country, and Budva was a charming, small, walled town with friendly "natives", wonderful weather, beaches and food. And it was an 'adventure'. In spite of being "open" to the west, it was still a mysterious and backward country.

Even getting to Yugoslavia had been an adventure to us. We flew there, on our first air flight. The plane was a DC-5 - I think - ancient even then! The interior of the plane was bare metal with thousands of rivets visible, every one of which was loose! The 'windows' which were even smaller than those on today's planes, if that is possible, were covered with metal mesh, I hate to say chicken wire, but that's pretty much what it was. The noise from the old engines, the loose rivets and the wire on the windows was so loud that conversation was difficult. But we barely noticed - did I mention that we were on our honeymoon, our first flight and an adventure?

Our arrival in Yugoslavia was not on time. We were in fact about 12 hours late. After waiting at Gatwick "Airport" - think of today's Gatwick, one of the world's busiest airports and then think of a field with a small building on it. That was Gatwick in 1964. The flight was at first late, then delayed, then had not yet left Yugoslavia!

We were bused to Brighton, to the Grand Hotel. Yep, the very same one where an attempt was made on Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's life 15 years later, in 1979. Interestingly enough, exactly 15 years to the day after we stayed there on September 19th 1964 the Assassinee (What is the title for an attempted assassin?) checked in, on September 19th 1979. He dug a hole in the wall of his room, planted a gelignite bomb, covered it so well that no one noticed it, maybe in our old room? and it went off 22 days later on October 11th when Margaret Thatcher was there - at 2.45 am - it did not kill her, but it did kill 5 other people.

So, we stayed there for the night. Well not really, we arrived at about 1.00am, the porters etc came out and got our bags, they had obviously just got out of bed! They then got us up again at 4.00am to be taken back to the airport! When we opened our bags in the room - at 1.00 am - it was to find it stuffed with confetti, which promptly fell out all over the floor! For some reason or other we picked it all up. Why, I will never know, what did we care if they knew we were just married? But we did. Imagine us, on our hands and knees on the floor of our hotel room at 1.30am, picking up confetti on our first night! I could say we were tired, and I think we were, but we were young. And we should have been tired, after an early rise, to get ready for our wedding. A drive, for me, with my best man, Den Lee, a stop at a pub for a "quick one", then a stop at Julia's house, oops you are not supposed to see the bride before the wedding, where a large glass of whiskey was pushed into my hand by Julia's mother with the admonition, "Go away". Then the wedding, I don't remember much about it, except she looked fantastic, oh yes and the heel on one of her gold shoes broke off as she entered the church. She managed to 'walk' down the aisle without anyone noticing. The offending shoes were removed in the taxi cab after the ceremony. They had very high stiletto heels. (And the shoe store would not replace the brand new shoes, worn once for about 50 feet!) Gold, you are saying? Yes, something you probably already know about Julia is that she is different. The wedding dress, a true work of art, made by one of the Queens Dressmakers, was of gold brocade and she had gold accessories. Stunning is the Understatement of the Year.

When she arrived and stood next to me, she looked at me, and could apparently tell that I had been drinking - I had promised not to - I blurted out, "Your mother gave it to me." This seemed to satisfy her, although I didn't relish hearing what she would say to her mother later, and the ceremony continued. Whew, a close call.

Where was I? Oh yes, back to the airport and our ancient plane, which delivered us safely to Yugoslavia.

Our bags recovered, they put us onto a coach, also ancient, but not as ancient as the plane. We left Dubrovnik airport on a new four lane highway. After about 1/2 a mile, or maybe only a 1/4 of a mile, the coach slowed down and bumped off of the highway onto a dirt road. Oh, we thought, they haven't finished it, there must be a space before it begins again. One hundred miles later, well maybe it was only 60 or 70 miles, we reached Budva!

But what a ride! The scenery and the ride were breathtaking. The road went along the coast in places and across mountains in other places. We saw unfamiliar trees, bushes, plants, flowers, birds and animals and dust, lots of dust! The edge of the road was never very far away, sometimes you could not see the edge of the road, it was somewhere under the bus. Then we arrived at a river - with no bridge - what to do now? Had the bridge been washed away? Were we lost? The bus stopped and waited. Then a raft appeared. A raft? Well, it was a big raft. We were all told to get off of the bus. The bus was driven onto the raft, and we all got onto the raft. But not onto the bus!

After more dusty miles and more adventures we arrived in Budva. At the Hotel Avala. (Which incidentally is still there, although much bigger now. We saw it just last year, on our first return trip there, in 2010, 46 years later.) The difference in the country - - - -, well another story for another day. if you want to hear it, ask me. It was dark, The Hotel staff welcomed us with trays of Slivovich - a local alcoholic drink - in small, very small, glasses. We were hot, dry, dusty and very thirsty. we reached for the welcome beverage, wanting to slake our thirst, and tossed it down. Have you ever tried Slivovich? No need to go out and buy some, use a small quantity of gasoline mixed 50/50 with rubbing alcohol to get a rough idea!

The next morning, and all the other mornings in Budva were like being in Paradise. Did I mention that we were on our honeymoon? The hotel was great. I was not very familiar with hotels, but in today's parlance I would call it a 4 or 5 star hotel, adjusting for the year. There was a wonderful beach right outside of the Hotel, a 30 second walk from the entrance of the hotel to the water. A walk of a few hundred yards along a path carved out of the cliff led to another, hidden beach. The walk went along the edge of the sea with waves breaking over the rocks that had come from cutting the walkway into the cliff. The town of Budva was a two minute walk, or less, and looked the same as it must have looked centuries ago. Open sewers ran along the middle of the "Roads", which were 10 to 20 foot wide, there were a few shops, an occasional market that sold local fruits, vegetables and meats. There were no stalls the wares were on the ground and the 'Shopkeepers" were women dressed in all black head to toe robes. The wares were not at all appetizing looking.

We wandered the streets. Some of the gardens had laundry hanging up, and there were the womens black robes drying in the sun alongside brightly colored underwear! Red Bras, slips, stockings and underpants. Looking into the dirt floored houses we could see children sitting on the floors watching TV.

Some evenings were spent in the underground nightclub under the watchful eye of "The Commissar" as we called him. Especially after he insisted that one of our number pay for a glass that he accidentally dropped onto the floor! Or we had parties on the beach or at one of the rooms that some of the guests had in small cabins up on the hill above the hotel. I lost most of one day after I discovered that one of my favorite liquors at the time -rum - could be had for about $1 for a large bottle. Sure it was a local brew, but how different could it be? Well I don't know if it was the quality or the quantity, but lets just say I was unwell for a day or so!

Another day we sat on the cliff at a Cafe and ordered coffee. Have you ever had Yugoslavian coffee? Don't bother, it is a very strong 'coffee', in a very small cup. Approximately half is 'coffee', the other half, in the bottom of the cup, is a sort of mud. Anyway, language was a difficulty. I took seven years of French in school and spoke about seven words of French, really. Julia's French was a little better, but she also spoke some German and a little Dutch - which was of no use at all. The other couple with us were similarly language inhibited. We got together and put together a sentence which I delivered. It was partly in French and partly in German, they seemed to speak some of each, but not much English. The sentence went something like this, "Quatra Cafe, deux mit milch and deux mit out milch", This produced gales of laughter from us, which lasted for several minutes, but no reaction from our waiter. The Mit Out was the part that had us almost rolling on the ground. Mit was OK - with. But how to say without? Anyway, the coffee did arrive.

On yet another day we borrowed a rowing boat, no need to rent, just ask! And we rowed out to a small Island off of the coast. It was too far to swim, about a 1/2 mile, but ideal for a small row boat. The Island of maybe 20 acres or so had a beach at one end, the end we were going to, and rose steadily to a height of maybe 150 to 200 feet at the other end. We reached the beach and "Explored", there was a tiny chapel on the beach. It was about 10 foot square and contained nothing. Outside were a number of cactus plants, they were everywhere in Yugoslavia, some had fruits on them. We carefully removed some ripe ones and cut them open, they were surprisingly tasty. Back to the mainland.

Snorkeling, our new friends Margaret and Ed had a snorkel and face mask. We took it in turns to explore a New World. Right off the beach in front of the hotel was a whole New World! We were fascinated, and have since snorkeled in many parts of the world. There were fish swimming around right where we were swimming.

Got to finish up. I hope someone has stayed for the punch line - Albania.

Albania, there were trips from Budva, we took one one day to Lake Scutari which is on the border of Yugoslavia and Albania. The day was grey, Lake Scutari was grey, Albania was grey, and definitely CLOSED. We were happy to not go there! There was a lonely French lady on the small boat with us and no other French people. Julia and I pooled our very limited French and composed a short sentence - "La nage sur la montagne". I spoke in my halting "French" as I pointed at the mountain with the snow on it! (For those of you as limited in the French language as we are, "The snow on the mountain" - I think!) The French ladies eyes lit up and she started spouting French at an incredible rate. It was apparent to her that we did not understand. We said "Un peau", "Un petit peau", which I think means "A little", "A very little." She went off again, a little slower, but we could not follow, it was like trying to follow a Nascar on a bicycle, we were hopelessly out paced. After a while she gave up and slumped back into her depressed mode.

The rest of the vacation was as wonderful as the first. We returned to our new home. I carried Julia over the threshold and continued on into My Life With Julia.

And what a Life! If it comes to an end soon, it has been a great one. I have been blessed with a beautiful, amazing wife, a host of wonderful friends, an adventure of a life, and two loving, clever, superior parents who raised me and taught me right.

Remembering Three Mile Island.

The present tragedy in Japan reminds me of Three Mile Island. Even after living through those scary times in 1979 I cannot begin to imagine the horror of living through one of the strongest earthquakes ever, plus a huge tsunami and then the "Problems" with 4 of the 6 nuclear reactors at the site.

I was working at The News American at the time. The News American was one of Baltimore's two newspapers at the time, the oldest one, now defunct. I was a District Manager and part of my work included collecting money from the carriers. This was done at various times during the month, I had 60 or 70 carriers in my district. One day in March I was due to head to the office for meetings, paper work and to deposit my collections from the previous week. The story was on the early news. The presses were stopped and the new headlines began to run.

I decided that in view of the happenings I would not deposit the money that I had collected, I think it was 2 or 3 thousand dollars, but instead I would hold it and deposit it next week - if we were still there! Fearing an evacuation of the area - they did evacuate the area around the reactor - not knowing if it would happen or how far the evacuation would stretch and having not only a wife but an 8 year old daughter I decided that it would be prudent to hold onto the money in case we had to drive to Florida or something. In such an eventuality food and gas prices would be very high!

Compounding the situation was a movie that had come out recently called "The China Syndrome" - starring Jane Fonda - in which a nuclear reactor comes close to a meltdown. There are stories that if it does melt down the core would go through the Earth to China! They also said that an area the size of Pennsylvania would be uninhabitable for centuries, etc, etc.

Nothing like that happened and I deposited the money the next week.

Disaster averted, what will happen this time? Eventually my guess is that we will have another disaster at least as bad as Chernobyl.

Is it possible that we will eventually decide, that if we do continue to build nuclear plants, just maybe we should not build them on fault lines? Seems like a good idea to me!

We just narrowly, perhaps, avoided a meltdown of our financial system, for now, brought on by greed and a lack of controls. Will we continue to reject proper controls in the area of Nuclear Power in our lives too? I think maybe not. If the continuing problems at the Japanese reactors continue and really get out of hand, I think we will have stronger controls brought in. The Nuclear Power Industry does not have anything like the power of Bankers, Wall Streeters and Politicians who we cannot restrain at all, but I am sure we will put curbs on Nuclear Power, and continue to limit our citizens rights while giving our Bankers and Politicians Open Season on us!! (Well, we don't GIVE them control over us, they just TAKE it. Of course we do nothing. Remember we voted for them to KEEP the 4% tax break that George W Bush gave them, even though the richest top 2% of Americans already pay only 16% in taxes compared to the average Americans 30% in taxes.)

I say send the Bankers and Politicians into the next Nuclear Plant Meltdown to control it. All those in favor say "YES".

P.S. If anyone is reading my Blog would you mind indicating it by making a Comment or by e-mailing me at julia-david@comcast.net? I try to avoid political comments as much as possible, I really really do! Just look at my last half dozen posts. See, hardly anything political at all! Aren't I being good?

They're Baaaacckk!

The Cormorants are back. I awoke this morning to see maybe 20 Cormorants scattered about The Lake. They were busy diving and presumably eating MY FISH! But I guess I can forgive them because they are such a delight to watch.

Last year there were as many as one or two hundred of them busily diving and reappearing individually, and sometimes in unison, all over The Lake. I expect to see many more in the days to come, these 20 may just be the vanguard - testing the waters, so to speak!

Perhaps if they find no significant numbers of fish they will go elsewhere? Obviously my feelings are divided in this area. If they remain and eat fish, that will mean there are a lot of fish here, which would be good for fishing, but on the other hand if there are 200 Cormorants eating MY FISH will there be any left for me to fish for? A conundrum indeed.

Meanwhile I will enjoy their antics.

Unfortunately I will be working at a Home Show for Highs in the Washington DC area for the next three days so I will miss seeing them. But I'll be back on Monday and doubtless they will still be here for my enjoyment. If the eating of MY FISH is the payment for watching their antics, then I have decided that it is worth the sacrifice.

There's a Dinosaur on the end of my pier!

What's that you say? What kind of a Dinosaur? Well a Pterodactyl of course. Specifically it is a Great Blue Pterodactyl - otherwise known nowadays as a Great Blue Heron - but I can assure you that it is in fact a Pterodactyl. If you don't believe me just come down here and watch that monster, a beautiful monster to be sure, but none the less a monster, flying, no flying is too much of a lame word, maybe cruising would be better, no not that either. Soaring? Again no, maybe we don't have any modern words to describe this amazing creature from the past. But it is certainly dramatic as it flies easily, and beautifully, across The Lake, it's huge wings hardly seem to move at all, but when they do it is very lazily, and the tips of the outsize wings almost touch the water with each idle flap. Floating, I think that best describes it's movement, it floats just a foot or so above the water. I particularly love to watch them in the early morning or at sunset. I think it is my favorite bird, oops Pterosaurus I mean, on The Lake.

Would you like sheets with that?

For some reason or other I was reminded of an embarrasing happening in our lives. It was about 30 years ago when our daughter was about 7 or 8 years old. Some friends - who will remain nameless, to save them from embarrasment too - were visiting for the weekend. They had a daughter of the same age.

Julia was about to make up the bed for our friends when Sarah said "Can we do it?". The other daughter nodded and said "Please". (A word that you may be unfamiliar with, but which was used occasionally 30 years ago!)

So, Julia being pleased with the initiative they were showing, and probably anxious to get on with making herself beautiful, a task that required only a few seconds, because as you all know Julia was, and still is, the most beautiful woman in the World, said "Yes, thank you."

Later, after we had all retired for the night, there was a timid knock on our bedroom door and our lady guest asked with some trepidation it seemed to me, "Could we have a sheet please? Just one for the bottom would be OK."

Julia, horrified, went into their bedroom and sure enough the girls had made the bed up very neatly, but without any sheets!

UNITED States Of America?

Are we still The United States Of America, or should we change that to The Divided States Of America?

On the radio today I heard that "Both parties claimed victory". Each party vilifies the other continuously, it matters not what one says the other has to say the opposite - even when the statement is obviously good for everyone. It seems to me that we are getting uncomfortably close to war between the Democrats and the Republicans. Even more close between the Liberals and the Conservatives!

Instead of a United front (as in UNITED States of America) we are getting more and more divided. Remember the old saying "United we stand, Divided we fall."? Whereas we have more in common than most countries, even though we are a mixture - which I think is one of our strengths - we are exaggerating our differences.

We have overcome our Racial Differences and our Religious Differences more than we have our Political Differences. Is that unbelievable?

We, the people, should be United against our politicians, after all they are United against us!

They agree that we are dumb (We MUST be to vote for them!) They use us as their personal piggy banks. They have figured out that they can "Fool all of the people, all of the time"! We can't even agree that they are raping us, keeping us divided for their own ends.

When the Wife of the President says our children (and ourselves) should eat better, how can anyone argue with that? Surely an innocuous statement, obviously only designed to help. After all, 50% of us are overweight - including our children. I see a statement like that to be designed to help. But instead half of the country is up in arms about it!

Turning on the TV the other day I caught the end of a program about food, unfortunately I only caught the end but the argument was that Artificial food is better than Organic food! I can only assume that some highly intelligent (Not), member of one of our parties had said that Organic food was better for you, and some equally highly intelligent member(Not) of the opposing party HAD to immediately state the opposite.

Why, oh why, can we not see that we should all be on the same side, we have enough enemies out there without making enemies of ourselves. Lets fight our real enemies, the enemies of Our Way of Life, of Democracy, of Capitalism and Freedom, Human Rights and Freedom of the Individual.

That's what I am saying!

Time.

What a strange phenomena is time. I got to thinking about it as we were watching the earthquake victims and their rescuers in Christchurch New Zealand. In particular as we looked at the ruins of the beautiful Christchurch Cathedral. We knew it was beautiful, because we were there, we had seen it, up close so to speak, we had been there and in there. What if we had been in there when that tragedy happened?

Then I got to thinking about the restaurant we had been in when in Egypt in 1990. Just a few months after we had dined there, some terrorists had gone into that very same restaurant with 'guns blazing' and killed - I forget now if it was dozens or hundreds of tourists. What if we had been there a few months later?

Well of course then I said to myself what other places had we been at the "Right Time", as opposed to the "Wrong Time" like those poor unfortunate people with "poor timing"?

The list was pretty long.

There was Tianaman Square in Beijing. We had been there talking with the students and the soldiers just the day before Martial Law was declared and "All hell broke loose"! Missed by one day.

The other places we have been at the "Right" time include London, Bonn, N.Y. and a host of places in England during the Second World War - and there were some VERY close calls for both me and my family then! It's a miracle that I am here.

And how long will that be? That I am here, comparatively speaking, not a long time at all, and possibly a very short time. We just never know, do we?

Make the most of your time here, 'cause you don't go around again!

Yes, it is still winter at The Lake.

Two days ago, after several warm days of temperatures in the 60's and even 70, when we were beginning to think that spring had arrived, we had another snowstorm. Not a huge one, but not tiny either, 4 inches is big enough to need the attention of the snow shovel but not big enough to fire up the new snow thrower.

As usual, it looked beautiful. Doesn't it give everyone a burst of 'love of nature' to see that white cloak that hides all the ugly stuff that you meant to clear up?

As I gazed out on it, not yet thinking "where is my snow shovel", or "how cold is it out there", or "do I even need to shovel it", but still thinking, "what a work of art this is". Julia's art is marvellous but even she cannot match this.

Then I thought, "what a perfect day to be having a fire to sit by". So I got on and stoked up the fire that was still glowing very nicely thank you in the wood stove and soon had it blazing away. Perfect.

All too soon it was time to shovel, the snow plow had already gone by and marred the perfection. Soon I was warmly clothed and trying not slip down the snow covered steps. The snow had blown up onto the front porch and frozen. The mail box had to be made accessible and the chickens opened, which meant clearing a pathway across the deck. A big deck had seemed like a good idea - until now! As I shovelled, avalanches of snow began sliding off of the steep roof onto me and onto the cleared areas.

All of a sudden, my Dreamland began to turn into the usual Nightmare, my Snow Palace into a dirty, slushy, mess.

But not to worry. I got it all done and sat by the fire, and enjoyed for all of for several seconds, then the day took over.

Today, it is cold, The Lake has a skim of ice, but it is beautiful, the sunlight is already starting to spread across its surface and I can see the thin ice melting. Two swans are ploughing through it, the Canada Geese will be landing on it soon, the bird feeders are already inundated with birds.

All is well with My World again.

Looks like Gaddafi will soon be gone.

I am watching what is going on all the Middle East. People are rising up. It would seem that they are suddenly realizing what their "leaders" have been doing to them! Ben Ali of Tunisia - gone, Mubarak of Egypt - gone, Gaddaffi of Libya - soon to be gone. They haven't been leading "Their people" they have been dictating to them, and robbing them.

Now I ask you, is that any different than what the Robber Barons here are doing to us? Robbing us. I just saw in the paper that the CEO of Countrywide Mortgage got off scott free. He was made to pay back $67 million. I say made to, he was told to. I wonder if he ever will! But what does he care anyway, it was a mere token - he has $600 MILLION! A million people have lost their homes because of him! He robbed us of Billions of dollars, and he gets to keep his ill gotten gains. He doesn't go to prison for even a short time. He will get a pension from Countrywide, an office and use of a company jet whenever he wants to go somewhere. His victims get nothing. They have no home, no money, no savings, no retirement, many of them are out on the street. He keeps everything. In my opinion he and his kind are worse than Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi. There are hundreds of them out there. The CEO of Wells Fargo was paid $53 Million last year! Taken from you and me as surely as if he had taken it at gunpoint. He just did it "Legally". But how legal is it to take a paycheck of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars when you got that money by manipulating things in the financial community that took the savings of millions of people and put millions of people out of their homes?

The greed of these bankers is beyond belief. They have no concern at all for the people that they have made bankrupt and put out of their homes, in smany cases onto the street. Their only concern is how THEY can screw another million or another billion dollars out of us.

To my mind that is at least as bad as what the Middle Eastern Dictators are doing to their citizens. At least the citizens there seem to have finally been able to make a comeback. Here in America we will never be able to get our money back from the bankers. They have the full backing of the US government, in the form of our politicians, who are completely in the pockets of the bankers. Their retirement years (the politicians) depends upon the bankers.

Hey we just gave Wall Street and the bankers like Goldman Sachs $14 TRILLION in "Bailouts". (That amounts to something like $40,000 for every man woman and child in the US!) And they will keep coming back for more - it's like an addict, they can't stop. I doubt if they will stop even when they have it all, yes even when they have taken every dollar that every American has they will keep on trying to rob us. If you have a loaf of bread that you made, or your chicken laid an egg, they will want that. (And they wouldn't even be satisfied with the egg, they'd want the chicken too. And as greedy as they are they would EAT the chicken!)

And I wouldn't mind betting that we would STILL vote for them to get a lower tax rate. (Or perhaps by then we would have voted for them to not pay any taxes.) what would they do then poor things? I know, they would get us to vote for a negative tax rate for the richest Americans, so they could spend us out of the depression. Give me a break.

Corn.

Well so far no one has asked me to tell you all how Big Business, Banks and Wall Street stole at least $30,000 from every man, woman and child in the US over the last few years. Is it because you already know how they did it? Or you don't want to know, have plenty of money so you don't care, are scared or what? (Don't forget the $30,000 per person is an average, if you had more they might have got you for more!) Or maybe you are one of THEM!

So, I'm going to move onto another subject - Corn. You have a bag of corn, you can plant it, or eat it. Eat it and you save maybe $10. Plant it and I'm guessing one seed or kernel of corn will return about 500 kernels, at 3 or 4 ears per plant and what 100 or 200 kernels per ear? So you would have 500 bags of corn from your original one bag.

Years ago we planted our kernels of corn by investing in Schools and Universities. We had a phenomenal return from our education system. America led the world in most everything. Other countries even sent their kids to school here, that's how good the US education system was.

Fast forward to 2011.

Asians, Saudis, Indians, Chinese and others are investing huge sums in education, research and development. Astounding numbers of students are graduating with advanced degrees in Science and Engineering. China's economy is now the world's number two. Their rate of growth far outpaces ours. We invested in education in the 19th and 20th Century's.

So what do we do now? Reinvest? Reinvent ourselves? Redouble our efforts? No, none of these things, we start a new race - I call it "The Race to the Bottom."

Here is our plan, cut Pell Grants, they help the poorest of our students earn college degrees (Many of our greatest thinkers, business builders, educators, doctors, scientists, and so on came up from poverty.). Next, cut funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, drop grants from Congress to Universities, cut budgets to Higher Education in all states across America, this has the added advantage of shrinking the research they can do, and makes it necessary to raise rates to students. Oh, and lets start the interest building on the students loans as soon as they get them instead of when they graduate.

Well that sounds like a good start doesn't it? We have already dropped from the number one country in the world for student graduation rate to number 12. This should push us way down on the charts.

Our new GOP Congress is determined to cut spending. And this is how they plan on doing it. Don't touch the military, even though a tiny cut would make every other cut unnecessary, don't cut Soc Sec - even though making Soc Sec deductions on ALL earnings, not just on the lowest earners, and maybe raising the age to collect S.S.(at age 65 you were close to death when S.S started, it NEEDS to be raised to save it for what it was intended, a safety net for those who needed it.) Our Health Care system could use an overhaul, why don't we look at every other civilized country in the world who have equal or superior care (they ALL live longer lives than us!) and see how they do it for HALF of our cost - some for a quarter of what we spend!!

But no, lets cut money from those who can least afford it, those who can't fight back, and from our future. (After all, those politicians won't be there when the s**t hits the fan years from now.) They will all be rich, collecting from the Big Businessess, Big Banks and Wall Street that they helped to suck us dry. Why would they even think of doing the right thing and helping the people that elected them - after all we could vote them out and where would they be then, with only a lousy full salary pension for life and the best health insurance available for them and their family. No they need to get into bed with the money people, Banks, Wall Street, Business where they will be taken well care of in their 'old age'.

More budget stuff.

Where can we cut the budget?

Let's see,

The % of the budget going to the Military is 54% (That includes our present military, wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, our past military including Vets and the interest on debt related to the military,) (The government leaves a lot of that out of the military buget- present wars for example are not included in the Military budget! Figure that out! They also don't include debt on military expendature - even though it is obvious that if it wern't for military spending we would have no debt! There are a few other military expenditures that are pushed off into other areas to make it look as though we spend more on Human Resources etc and less on the military.)

Human Resources, 30% (That includes Soc Sec, Medicare, Medicaid, Education etc.),

Everything else 16% (That includes the Government, Justice, IRS, EPA, NASA, Agriculture, Science, Interest on Debt other than military, and hundreds or thousands of other departments.)

Where can we cut? Well apparently not the Military or Human Resources, which only leaves Everything Else!

So lets start cutting!

EPA, - they only try to keep our air and water and food and land clean, Big Business will police themselves, so they are not needed, cut that.

NASA, they only give us hope for the future, exploration - what America was built on, only a few thousand inventions that have changed our lives have come from them. Not needed - cut them.

Science, bad word nowadays, what use is Science? What did it ever do for us? Cut that.

Teachers, Firemen, Police. Roads, Bridges, All rubbish. Cut them.

In fact lets cut everything except the Military and Human Resources budgets.

If we cut half of the entire Everything Else area we would save 8% of our budget! A figure that would barely be noticed by the Military! We spend more than the next 15 countrie's military budgets combined - and most of them are our Allies!

Can you begin to imagine what we could do in this country if we cut our Military budget even just in half? That would Triple our Everything Else budget! We would be able rebuild our infrastructure - roads, bridges, schools etc. We would be able to go to the Moon and explore the Planets, we would be able to have affordable Health Care for all our citizens. We might even be able to have some effective regulations to stop Big Business, Big Banks, and Wall Street from swindling us all!

Does this sound like a Dream? Can you even begin to imagine the hold that Big Business, Banks and Wall Street has over our politicians? No you cannot. To say they have our Pile of Shitens - sorry Politicians, in their back pockets is the understatement of the Century! We have no one on our side at all, the Politicians, Business, Banks and Wall Street look on us as their own personal Piggy Banks. Did you know that the 400 wealthiest Americans for example have more wealth than 50% of all Americans? Let me repeat that in a different way. 400 American Individuals have more wealth than 155 MILLION Americans COMBINED!!!

Now THAT is what I call an Income Gap! And we not only stand it, we even voted that these evil people should keep the 4% tax cut that George Bush gave them 10 years ago. (Even George knew we couldn't afford to give it to them forever, so he limited it to 10 years). Did you know that the average American pays 30% of his income in taxes, while the richest 1% of Americans pay only 16% in taxes?

But that is a Blog for another day. Let me know if you would like me to start on that one. I'd love to do one on Big Business, Banks and Wall Street and tell you how I think they have sucked us dry - with the help of our wonderful (not) politicians.

Lake Update.

I just don't know how anyone can bear to live anywhere else except on The Lake - I know that I can't!

I am looking out at yet another perfect sunset - how boring is that? Well the answer is of course, "Not at all boring." I can never, ever get tired of it.

There is the beautiful 'Silver Highway' that the sun has painted right across The Lake, and all over The Lake, the entire Lake, are millions and millions of diamonds, every single one flashing in the sunlight brighter even than that 5 carat that you bought your loved one.

Darting about are little tiny 'Sea Gulls', well they look like little Sea Gulls, they are white and shaped like Sea Gulls, and they dive into the water like Sea Gulls. I must find out just what they are - one day. I just don't seem to have time to find out things like that, I'd rather be watching the little Sea Gulls. And the big Sea Gulls, and the Crows and the Ducks, and of course the Canada Geese.

There are 10 Canada Geese out there right now 'mowing' my lawn for me. And fertilizing it too, all at the same time. How efficient is that?

Out of the 10 Geese, 3 of them have leg 'problems'. Two limp, and the third one brings one of his legs way up in the air when he/she walks, planting it firmly on the ground about three paces in front of him. He is doing what Julia calls "The Goose step!", and she is right, it looks just like Adolph Hitler's storm troopers as they goose stepped across the parade ground, and is almost as funny as they look when we watch them now on film. (They sure did not look funny in the 1930's and 40's, terrifying would be more like it.) But our goose stepping Canada Goose does not look terrifying at all. He looks funny and a little sad looking. We don't know what happened to cause the injury. Julia thinks maybe a particularly bad landing on the ice, now there is a funny sight. If you have never seen Geese landing on a frozen Lake, get ready to break something, it is funny.

Well everything is very still now, the sky is pink, and all is still. The temperatures reached into the 60's today. Yesterday or was it the day before it was 70. We have had tremendous winds over the last few days, but it could not be more calm now.

Maybe a good time to say goodnight and go get a rum punch.

Budget Deficit.

I have been giving this budget deficit some serious thought. It has occurred to me that every single penny of every single thing we do and make and produce is labor. There is not one thing that we do or make or own that the cost of it is not comprised entirely of labor.

If you think that I am wrong in this idea please tell me.

A few examples. A suit. Someone produces the seeds to grow the cotton, he is paid, someone else plants the seeds and tends the plants, he/she is paid. The cotton is picked, spun, woven into cloth, cut by a tailor, driven to a store, sold by a sales person. The buttons are made from plastic that is produced by people who drill wells and pump oil which is then made into plastic for the buttons. The oil drills are made by men in factories from iron ore that is dug from the ground and smelted to make steel for the machines. Every cent of the value in all of that comes from work or our labor. And on and on. It is the same for everything, cars, food, you name it. 100% of every single thing or service is labor, one way or another.

So, if we have a deficit, the answer is really, really simple - we are paying too much for labor. If everyone were paid, say 10% less than we are, there would be no deficit. The budget would balance!

However, I don't think this is the way to go. The average American worker earns $40,000 a year and, on the average, he/she works hard for it. On the other hand there are people making, not earning, tens of millions of dollars a year. There is no way possible that someone can work hard enough to earn, or add that much value, to anything. I think that is where we need to start. The CEO of Wells Fargo Bank made $53 Million Dollars last year, a jumped up bank manager! Tiger Woods makes $100 million a year, playing golf! Wall street thieves pay themselves billions in bonuses for "Doing a good job"! (That would be robbing the country and the world blind - and then taking more of our money to 'bail themselves out'. Then the next year paying themselves even more in bonuses than they did the year the country went broke!) These are the people that are soaking us. The top 1% of Americans take home 26% of all the money earned in the US! In 1970 the top 1% took home 8% of all the money earned in the US - do you see a trend here?.

It seems to me this is where the problem lies. The average worker is doing his part, he works, he adds value. Bankers, Wall Street types, CEO's of huge business, executive Officers etc. etc are the problem. Their Greed is beyond all bounds - I ask you, $53 Million dollars a year for a bank manager! How to stop it I don't know, but one way is to tax them.

First they should be paying Social Security Taxes on ALL of their "earnings". I know they won't be needing any Soc. Sec., but I have to pay it on ALL of my earnings, why shouldn't they?

Once someone reaches a certain level of income, taxes need to go way way up. If the average American earns $40,000 what is a good salary for a CEO? how about ten times the pay of his average worker? Hey, $400,000 - the same as the President of the USA! A much harder more stressful job than counting money and then deciding how much of it to take! (In 1970 CEO's on average, were paid 50 times more than their average worker was paid. Yes I agree, way too much. But, in 2010 CEO's were paid, on average, 500 times what their average worker was paid!!! And the CEO of Wells Fargo was paid 1,300 times what the average worker earns!!! Now if his salary was a more reasonable 10 times the average pay, or $400,000, the same as the President of the USA, that would leave enough money, just from his pay cut, to pay an additional 1290 people!! From one mans pay, from one company, and each company has dozens to hundreds of these overpaid sharks. It would not take long to have full employment in the US and a balanced budget. I'm not even suggesting getting rid of them, just that they should be paid a reasonable amount. And $53 million dollars is NOT reasonable, or in any way justified for what he does.

OK, it ain' gonna happen, they are going to keep on stealing our money, keep on telling us they need more and more fees etc, asking for bailouts from the Govt and then when they get it give themselves even bigger bonuses!!

So what to do? Tax them. They are stealing from us, you and me and America as a whole, so just take it right back. Once you get to half a million a year you should start paying at least 90% of any additional "Earnings" in tax. At a million jump it up to 95% and at 2 million 98 or 99%. Hey even at those rates the Wells Fargo CEO would take home around $1.6 million! And Tiger Woods would get around $2.6 million! Not too shabby for playing golf!! And America would be back in the black. Social Security and Medicare for our elderly would be safe. Good for everyone.

What did I hear, the rich won't be able to spend that money to make jobs and get us on the road to recovery - have you noticed them spending us out of this recession? No, I didn't think so. In fact the more money they steal from us the worse the recession gets. Let us, the workers spend it. Same effect. In fact even better, we'll spend it on TV's, food, movies, restaurants, clothes, cars, the stuff workers make. Not on $100 million dollar Van Gogh paintings for the board room wall, big diamonds from Africa for the little lady, First Class air seats so they can go all over the world and spend money in French restaurants and for houses in London, Sydney, Paris, Rome and a private Island in the Caribbean or the South Seas.

No, they are living the good life, way, way better than any of us could ever hope for, and they are doing it at our expense, with our money, money that we made with our hard work and they took from us.

I don't even have a problem with people getting rich, working hard, even buying lottery tickets, we all hope to get rich, but there is a limit, and you have reached that limit and gone way beyond it when you take $53 million or $100 million or more! There are people making 1 billion dollars a year! And probably paying less tax than you do! Certainly paying less tax percentage wise than you do. The top 1% of American "Earners" pay 16% of their "Earnings" in tax! Way less than you and I do!! AND, we just voted for them to continue to get the 4% tax break that George Bush gave them 10 years ago! How about them apples. They MUST be laughing at us for that. Even George Bush knew we couldn't afford for it to go on forever, that's why he only made it for 10 years.

That 4% extra tax alone that they would be paying now would have taken care of Medicare for at least 75 years.

Well I gotta go. Straighten me out.

Sunset over The lake.

I wish you could all see the Sunset over The Lake this evening. It is even more brilliant than the one we had yesterday. There is a silver band around the clouds, kind of like the waves around a coral island. Wait, did I say silver? No it's gold. Did I say Gold? Make that silver AND gold. Hang on, what is happening now, sorry there are just too many colors there to describe!

I guess that is why we called it Sunset Cottege.

I am going to sit and enjoy it for a while.

Am I a Republican?

I was just looking over my financial mess and suddenly realized that I must indeed be a Republican!

The Republicans want to defeat the Obama health care bill, which according to all reports will increase the deficit by some $145 Billion. They just forced through the extension of the Bush tax cuts which adds a cool $850 Billion to the deficit.

This is in line with cutting the deficit?

Anyway, it seems that the country, that would be the good old USA, collects almost enough in Taxes to pay for a little more than 1/2 of it's expenses. The other 40% or so it borrows. I'm not sure how long that can go on. And I'm not sure how adding to the deficit helps it either.

But that ladies and gentlemen is how it has finally come home to me why I must be a Republican, because that is how I have been running my finances. I spend way more than I earn, (No one else does that do they?) and I borrow to make up the difference. When I see something that I can't afford, I buy it!

But please don't call me a Conservative Republican, I would never go THAT far! I'd try to rein in my spending and increase my income before I would go there.

You increase income by increasing taxes. I know "Cutting taxes" has a great sound to it, and is GUARANTEED to get you votes. But why do we insist on cutting taxes to people who have so much money that it is absolutely disgusting.

Had the Bush tax cuts been allowed to expire the 4% additional tax that the richest 2% of Americans would have paid would have fixed Medicare for 75 years! Just 4% additional tax. The 1% of richest Americans pay just 16% of their income in taxes - far less than you and I pay. And we INSIST that they should pay even less! Why? Is it because we think that we will one day be in that position?

Even Warren Buffet, the second richest American says the tax system in the US is ridiculous, he pays less tax than his secretary pays, is what he said in an interview!

CEO"S of large companies in 1970 made 50 times what their average employee made. Yes I agree way too much. But in 2010 they made 500 times as much as their average employee! If they continued to make 50 times as much that would free up enough money for that company to employ/pay an additional 450 employees! And he, the CEO, would still be making way more than he should. (And that is just the CEO, there are dozens of other 'top management' people making similar ridiculous salaries.)

The 'income gap' in this country is way out of line. It is bigger now than it has ever been, either in this country or in any other country, ever. The top 1% of Americans "earn" 26% of the total income of the USA! (In 1970 the top 1% made 8% of the total income of the USA) Where will this trend end up?

These Mega Rich completely control the money in the US and probably in much of the rest of the world. Certainly they control Congress, the Senate, Banks, Wall Street - you name it. And we want them to have even more - so we vote for them to pay even less taxes! See, they even control us!!!!

Weather.

Have we had weather? Just like everywhere this year weather is in the news and in our conversations and in our bones. Especially my bones and the bones of my beloved. (that would be my wife Julia)

I don't need to go into the temperature fluctuations that are invading our conversations. If it weren't for Egypt we probably wouldn't be discussing anything but the weather. Cold. Then two days ago it was in the 50's and sunny!!! Today I wake up and it is 40 degrees already - at 6.30 am - and heading for the upper 40's. But tonight we are expecting it to drop to 15!

I heard that Houston, yes Houston had a temperature of 19 a few days ago!

Outside right now i am looking at a Bird Tree. A Bird Tree I say? Well what else can I call it, at Christmas we had a tree covered in all kinds of decorations, now I am looking at a tree with literally HUNDREDS of birds in/on it. All black birds, I don't even know how they are managing to hang on, the wind must be blowing 40 miles an hour. The water is whipping up into waves. Wait, water? Yes I can see water, in fact I'd say 10% to 20% of The Lake is ice free!

I was away last weekend, but Julia was here and she reported to me that The Lake had done a considerable amount of thawing - remember that 50 degree plus day - and the birds were having a wonderful time. The resident Canada Geese, a flock of around 40, were busy diving, splashing, chasing and generally having fun feeding and washing, something they have not been able to do for weeks because The Lake has been frozen solid.

She also reported that the Geese were joined by a large number of Sea Gulls that outnumbered the Geese by 3 or 4 to 1. In fact she said she could not remember when she had ever seen so many Sea Gulls on The Lake.

The Sun is now well and truly UP on my beloved Lake. I can see groups of Sea Gulls scattered about on the surface of the ice, the Canada Geese are nowhere to be seen right now, but I am sure they will put in an appearance soon. A few of the stronger Gulls are making valiant attempts to fly, the wind buffeting them mercilessly. The smarter ones are hunkering down. Although how smart is it to sit on a frozen lake with a 40 mph wind?

Looking in the other direction at The Bay I can see large whitecaps breaking everywhere, which tells me why the Gulls are here on The Lake ! The Lake looks to be a lot more welcoming than the The Bay.

Well, I'd better get Julia's tea going and stoke up the fire, even though it is "warm", and the cats are anxious to be fed too. No peace for the wicked. Have fun you all.

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.