Miscellaneous.

Well it has finally got very hot, we were hoping to wait until June 1st before we finally broke down and turned on the A/C. But that was not to be. It reached 90 degrees plus over the weekend. We held out until Monday (May 28th) when we had visitors coming over, so we had to turn on the A/C. We have found 78 degrees to be a comfortable setting for us. It removes the humidity which is the major problem with the Maryland heat. Due to the even worse ecomomy, well as far as we are concerned anyway, we have turned our unit up to 80 degrees. This is not too bad, we dress very lightly and if someone comes to visit we turn it down to 78 which seems very comfortable. We turn it up to 80 at night. It has been cooler than that at night anyway. And if there is any kind of a breeze we turn the A/C off, or up to 85 so that it won't come on, and open the windows, which have screens, for a through draft.

News from The Lake is that we now have three Swans! This has happened before, but not for long as the male Swan has attacked the intruder and driven him (her?) off. This time however the three seem to have made a truce and are living a peaceful co-existance. Once again there is no sign of any offspring from the pair. I took one the paddle boats and one of the kayaks out a few weeks ago, along with a grandson to see if the Swan was on her nest, and she was. But I think they have given up on any hope of a young swan Cygnet. As usual I am sure that the DNR oiled the egg(s) again. Julia is very dissapointed as she would love to see some baby swans on The Lake, but I think she understands that it is not to be. They are non-native and do considerable harm to the environment, eating a lot of weed that the Bay simply has too little of already.

The 60th Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second is to be held this week in London, so I am sure that we, along with millions of other ExPat Brits will be glued to their TV's. It should be interesting and enjoyable.

Gas prices in the area continue to drop. Today at the local Giant Supermarket it could be had for $3.38 a gallon.

A scam was attempted on us today. As I was preparing my second cup of coffe,e I noticed a FedEx truck out in the road. He drove off and I went out to see if he had made a delivery to us. He had. A large FedEx envelope was laying on the porch floor. It contained a check for $912.36 with instructions for me to be a Secret Shopper. I was told to cash the check at my bank, go to Walmart, spend $50.00, note a bunch of stuff like cleanliness, helpfulness etc. Take the $50.00 that I had spent and $150.00 for myself for my trouble and send the other $712.00 on to someone in Massachusetts. As I was not born yesterday, I realized that it was a scam. Even if there was such a thing as a Secret Shopper program (Which there is) they were not about to send me the money FIRST! I called the FBI, who were not interested . "You didn't lose anything, tear up the check and forget it."  "What do you want us to do?"  My reply was "I want you to go and arrest these people. Do your job. I may not have lost anything but hundreds or maybe thousands will" I then called the FedEx tracking system and found that the package was mailed in Virginia - it had a  Canadian address on it. The check - actually a United States Post Office Money Order - had an address in New Jersey on it and I was instructed to send the balance to Massachusetts! The FedEx fraud unit is in Memphis and would not be open until 9.00am. So I called the USPS fraud people who were also not interested. "We get a hundred calls like this a day. Throw it away." They said. When I persisted they asked me to send them the FedEx envelope, the letter and the check to them. (The FBI also asked me to do the same - after I persisted too much. Later, after 9.00am, I called the FedEx fraud people who were the most helpful. When I pointed out that they were the only ones making money because they were being paid to deliver he put me staight on that! It seems that the scammers steal a number from a company that uses FedEx and uses that number to send the packages. When that company, in this case one from Canada, discovers that a bunch of packets were sent out that they did not send they call FedEx and tell them. FedEx then has to eat the charge. He explained to me that the packets did not come from Canada, or even from Virginia, well they did come from Virginia, but the scam company sends the checks labels etc to a payroll company and tell them to mail them. The payroll company thinks they are sending out paychecks. Anyway there are hundreds of these scams going on all the time. He said most likely the perpetrators are in a country like Nigeria. And it is impossible to stop them. The only way to stop them is not to send any money. If people don't send them money they will stop. If they get money they will continue. I showed the Postal Order to the bank. They said that it was a good forgery, they may or they may not have cashed it (And only if I had enough money in my account to cover it.) Later when it bounced they would want the money back from me, plus of course their charges! The Post Office said pretty much the same thing. They took the Money Order from me and would not give it back - or even a receipt for it! I said, "But the FBI want it, also the Fed Ex fraud unit want it." The Post Office employee said "The Post Office is part of the FBI" and kept it. What a lot of fun we have!

41?

Yes 41, I can hardly believe it, my favorite daughter is going to be 41 years old next month! I know, I know, she doesn't look a year over 30 - she really doesn't.
It is a private joke between us when I introduce her to someone and tell them that she is my favorite daughter, because of course, she is also my only daughter, only child for that matter. But she really is my favoriete daughter - hey I could say she is my least favorite daughter couldn't I? But I don't care how many daughters there are in the world, and there are a lot, she is the best one, and my favorite one.
We have to claim some credit for how she turned out. We still read horrendous stories of children born with awful physical and mental disabilities and while many are undoubtably not the fault of the parents but of their environment, their family anscestry, etc some could probably be avoided by use of common sense.
Julia became pregnant in 1970, 42 years ago, not exactly the stone age, but it might as well have been when it came to taking care of your body and the new life inside of you. Doctors said the baby is protected by the mothers body from outside dangers etc, etc, etc. But hey what is wrong with taking extra care of something so valuable? If you get a new car you take care of it by parking away from other cars, leaving it where you can see it, well most people do, I don't. As I said to someone who was installing a roof rack on my new Jeep Grand Cherokee one day, "Just drill holes through the roof and bolt it on securely, I don't want it falling off." When he looked at me horrified, I said "It is not my wife, it is just a car."
Anyway we decided, well not even decided really, it just seemed natural, that Julia would not take anything, or do anything that could endanger Baby. So she took no alcoholic drinks at all, not one, and no drugs at all, not even an Aspirin. If she had a headache, she had a headache and she put up with it, period. She didn't even have her hair permed or dyed We didn't want to take a chance on any chemicals making their way to Baby. Food labels were carefully examined for contents and if there were any doubts they were not used. We didn't use any chemicals around the house, well as little as possible that is, obviously we had to use bleach, washing machine and dishwasher powders, but no sprays like hair sprays, air fresheners, no insecticides, or even perfumes. If I saw a roach or a fly, a fly swat or a shoe was the answer. In fact one day when she was at work at Williams and Wilkens, the book publishing house where she worked, there was a roach problem and an exterminator company was brought in to spray for bugs. Before they could start work Julia told her boss that if they were going to spray she would have to leave work for the day. The company assured her that "It was completely safe."! Which is about as stupid a statement as anyone could make! The spray was designed to kill insects - how "safe" could that be? So she went home for the day.
The same common sense approach continued after Sarah's birth. She was breast fed for 6 months. That seemed to be the best and most natural start to life. When she went to a bottle we used glass rather than plastic bottles. We had no evidence that there was anything wrong with plastic, it just seemed to be common sense - there are those two words again - that we did not know a whole lot about plastic and it seemed much more likely that anything contained in a plastic bottle is more likely to pick up something from the plastic than it was from glass.
Again, while breast feeding, of course Julia took nothing that we felt could in any way affect Baby. So headaches continued to be untreated with pain pills and alcohol stayed in the cupboard. Once Sarah was weaned Julia felt that she was able to get a perm, have her hair dyed, use hair spray, use perfume, take aspirin and have a glass of wine. But poor Sarah had to forgo most drugs that babies take. No Aspirin, baby Tylenol, etc for her! She did get a shot of whiskey once at the age of one when we were on an overnight flight on a an airplane to the UK and she insisted on crying for 7 of the 8 hours of the flight. (someone suggested that a little spot of whiskey in her bottle might help! It didn't.)
Another "Unknown" was the Microwave oven. I had worked with Microwaves while working with the Admiralty in the UK and knew that they were dangerous. We went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that we were protected from them. Knowing that Microwaves might affect our bodies and not knowing how safe the new household Microwave oven was, and having a new baby - the most susceptable time of a persons life - we decided to forgo the convenience of the Microwave oven. At least while she was young and until more was known about it. I think Sarah was about 10 years old before we decided they were safe enough! (I am still not certain.)
As she grew, we almost went to the opposite extreme about keeping her away from 'stuff'. But this 'stuff' was natural 'stuff'. We had noticed a tendancy for people to keep children away from 'nature'. As children, we had been allowed to play outside, even encouraged to be outside in the air and around nature for hours every day. It did not appear to have harmed us. Was it just our imagination but did today's kids seem to get more colds, allergies, earaches, etc, etc, etc than we did? Maybe it was our imagination, but we did not think so. It seemed better to let a kid get in the dirt, eat some of it if she wanted, if she had a headache a nice cuddle wih Mummy or Daddy was better for her than children's Tylenol. Drugs, antiseptics, we tended to forgo all kinds of treatments for normal children's ailments in favor of allowing her natural body's defences to work, thus allowing her body to build up its own natural defence agains germs and bacteria. I think it worked, I hope so. I think it worked for us. As children we had very few treatments available other than a hug and a kiss if we got sick or hurt. Maybe a Band Aid for a big cut, and it probably got washed first too! Nowadays the slightest ache or pain requires a box full of drugs as well as multiple visits to multiple doctors. Quite apart from breeding hypocondriacs, how can anyone afford such largesse? And how is anyone's body going to learn how to treat itself?
I'm sure most people have noticed - I surely hope that they have noticed - that todays children have more ailments than we had. Many of today's problems did not even exist in my childhood, or if they did they were very few. Allergies, Asthma, Autism - just to start with the A's ! Something is wrong somewhere.
The obsession with Antibiotics may be one cause. Antibiotic handwashes, mouthwashes, body washes, soaps, for clothes in washing machines, for counter tops, for floors. Some bacteria escape with just a light touch and "get over it", next time they are exposed they are immune, they meet another immune bug, and have lots of baby immune bugs. Soon more and stronger Antibiotics are needed.
Even our food animals are routinely fed antibiotics! Chickens, cows, pigs, etc are all fed antibiotics, "In case hey get sick", not only that, it has been found that they get bigger, faster if they are fed antibiotics! So we eat the animals, and of course the antibiotics that are in them. Most of the antibiotics produced today are fed to animals. Bacteria are rapidly becoming immune to antibotics. This is a terrifying scenario. There are no new antibiotics being found. There are some bacteria around today that are only susceptible to one antibiotic now! How long will it be before they become immune to that one? Then it will be open warfare on us. Already people are dying every day because antibiotics don't work any more. We have destroyed one of the miracles of modern medicine and science with our greed.
Antibiotics were indeed a miracle and responsible for saving millions of lives and much suffering, but by feeding it animals, animals that didn't even need it, and putting it into most of today's cleaning products we have rendered it impotent.
Well now, somehow this little blog that started out as one thing has developed into something else so I had better wrap it up before I go off into another rant!

Snakes.

One day last week while I was out the chickens started to "Make a racket" as Julia put it. They were clucking and cackling up a storm. She looked out in case there was a fox or something upsetting them. Nothing.
When I returned I went out to get the eggs. It is fairly dark inside the chicken house. I looked into the laying box - there are four boxes for them to lay in but they all use the same one - and could see some eggs. But I could also see something else. But could not make out what it was, so I turned on the light. Oh yes they have all the modern conveniences in our chicken house, a light, a window, food, water, perches, a water view, and a door to go in and out of. What more could any chicken want?

Anyway, with the light on I could clearly see what had upset the ladies, a snake, a large snake, a very large black snake was occupying their nest and was even then in the process of swallowing one of the eggs! The egg was inside of the snake, although only just as I could still see it through the mouth. It did not rush off, so I went and got a stick and a bucket, put the snake into the bucket and took it across the road to an empty lot where I released it. Complete with the egg!

Well I thought that might be the end of the story, but was not quite sure, thinking it might make a return journey for another fine meal of a free range organic egg.

I checked carefully each day and saw no sign of it. Untill today. I went out to collect the eggs, looking carefully before putting my hand into the nest. The snake is not a poisonous type, but it was large and can bite. And sure enough there he/she was, getting ready to swallow another egg. Off I went to get the stick and the bucket. I persuaded the snake to get into the bucket. But once in there what did I see? The snake was still in the nest! No, there it was in the bucket. There was another snake in the nest, but it was leaving and was gone before I could get it into the bucket.

I had to go and get some milk so took the snake and the bucket with me and dropped it off at a small park nearby, about a half a mile away, called the Hancock House. This was the original house here and was also the  name of the Lake that we live on now when it was called Hancock's Pond. It is now called Boyd's Pond.

Well I got the milk and on my return went straight to the chicken house of course to check on the snake situation. And there it was, looking for lunch. Again it was too quick for me, escaping down into the thick straw on the base of the house. I could not locate it.

I just went down to check again, but again no sign.

So, Watch This Space fot the Continuing Saga of the Serpent!

Spending.

The Republicans want to ADD 7 billion to the defense budget. This is MORE THAN THE DEFENSE DEPT ASKED FOR! The Republicans are the party who want to cut spending! Now they do want to cut taxes to the rich.

Romney had $21 MILLION in income last year. Yes, thats right in just one year he brought home ten times as much as most people earn in their lifetime! And he paid a measly 12.8% tax on on it, compared to the average Americans 30%. But the Republican party wants to CUT the tax that he and millionaires like him pay. So, the Republicans want to cut spending, but they also want to spend more on defense (Even more than the defense dept wants) and they want to give rich people more money. (These are people who already have so much money that they can't even spend it all.) How do the Republicans plan on doing this? Easy they want to cut food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid.

Is that clear? They want to CUT from the poorest of society, people who can't afford to feed themselves or their children. Young families, the unemployed, the old, the sick and the disabled. People who can't defend themselves. They want to take from those and give it to the richest among us. Those who already have more than they need or can use, who already pay a half to a third of what the average person pays in tax, and have the biggest slice of the pie that this country, or any other country has ever had. And the Republican party want to give them more!

I don't know about you, but it makes me sick.

I'm a reasonable man. I know we have problems. (Caused almost exclusively by Republicans, I know.) But I and most Democrats want to fix those problems and we are prepared to make sacrifices to do that. It needs to be across the board. There are people who are cheating the system with food stamps and in other areas. But guess what, while these people are stealing a hundred dollars a month or even a week from the country there are other stealing millions of dollars a month or a week! There was the case recently  of the BILLIONAIRE who tried to steal $70,000 from the government. There are dozens stealing millions from Medicare and Medicaid, 60 minutes exposed them, nothing happens. Congress takes millions in bribes - a MILLION dollars a DAY from the Health Industry alone! Imagine how much THEY steal from us! All the BIG businesses, banks, agriculture, wall street etc etc are bribing Congress DAILY. And our Congress - the best Congress that money can buy - made a law making it LEGAL to bribe them!! They call it Lobbying, by calling it Lobbying apparently it makes it LEGAL to bribe Congress.

Enogh already, I'm feeling sick again.

Confrontation or Compromise?

Well which sounds best to you? Confrontation or Compromise? Any person of normal intelligence and temperament would obviously say Compromise. But not the Republicans, it seems that any one of their Congressmen or Senators who is even slightly moderate or progressive is villified.

If anyone shows a willingness to find common ground they are treated as treacherous. Instead of reason, compromise and finding common ground, they are looking instead for even more partianship.

The more reasonable of the more and more extreme Republicans are being forced out - Olympia Snow and and Richard Lugar, as are the more moderate Democrats like Jim Webb and Evan Bayh. All replaced with more extreme and less open minded politicians.

How can we ever have any decisons made for the good of the country when Congress is full of people determined to stress Confrontation instead`of Compromise.

I see more paralysis in our future. (And I might add I blame it mostly on the Republicans who will not give an an inch on anything in spite of repeated attempts by the Democrats to try to meet and discuss.

Climate Change.

New evidence, or just coincidence? The average temperature for the whole US was the highest on record! And not by a little bit. When records are broken it is usually by tiny amounts, maybe a tenth or at most a few tenths of a degree for example. But in this case, to use words that are used way to often, it was smashed! The temperature over the last 12 months was 2.8 degrees above average. For Maryland it was even bigger. Maryland had a temperature over the last 12 months that was 4 degrees above the average. That is since records began in 1871, 142 years ago. To repeat 4 degrees higher than the average! So, we have had higher than average temperatures for 15 straight months now. This led to a "Winter" with only 1.8 inches of snow! Total for the whole winter! Rainfall continues below average. Groundwater and streams are below average. Parts of Maryland are under drought watch. We`are 5 inches below normal for rainfall so far this year - and that is during the wettest part of the year, and only 4 months into the year! I would think that we should be concerned. Instead of just saying, nothing is happening, it is normal, don't worry, etc. Sometimes action is needed. The scout motto of "be prepared" is a good one, but not one that the USA or the world seems to think applies here. Well let's hope they are right. Hope for rain and return to normal temperatures.

Choose two.

The World is a mess, and that does include of course The USA. I refer to virtually ALL areas from Financial, Political, Daily Life, Environment, Weather, Business, Education, Religion, Media, Food, you name it.

However if I had to pick two, I think they would be The Environment and The Income Gap. Wow, they are pretty diverse area's of concern aren't they?

Let's try to make this post short. obviously it could be a thousand pages long and still only scratch the surface of our problems - almost all of which are man made.

But to start with The Environment. This is degrading so fast, and accelerating, that I see almost no hope of it surviving too much longer. Of course without our Environment to support us we too will be gone. Certainly a way of life that is anything like what we know now as a way of life. I see virtually no attempt to save it from any of the areas that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. The attack on our Environment is especially egregious here in the USA, even more so than the Republican attack on women. Ooops, sorry, where did that come from? But is our "attack" on the Environment really an attack, or is it more a case of ignorance and neglect? We prefer not to know. Perhaps that is why we are not educating our children in this area? Or, it sometimes seems, in ANY area! We simply don't want them to know. Is that because we are trying to protect them from knowing what is happening to their habitat or because we are afraid that they will find out and stop us!

The survival of the Finacial world requires continual expansion. This is a complete antitheses to the requirements of the natural world In search of ways to expand areas where we can live, food we can eat, places we can exploit, we have converted millions of acres of forest and wilderness area to food production, polluting it with, fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. In meat production we have degraded the lives of innumerable animals beyond belief. Even such monsters as Hitler and Stalin would be revolted if they could see the sickening way we treat the animals we use for food.

 (Watch "Food Inc", and I will be surprised if you would be able to bring yourselves to eat mass produced meat ever again!)

We have overfished the oceans to the point of wiping out most fish. We drag huge nets across the bottom of the Oceans and across the Coral Reefs, killing anything and everything. Keeping the few things we can eat and throwing the rest back, dead. And then we pollute it. Our land based food chains flush their deadly debris in to the poor oceans - fertilizers, weedkillers, insecticides, animal wastes by the billions of tons, nitrogen - which we sucked out of the air that we breate, to make fertilizer, and which then is dumped into the oceans creating huge aquatic dead zones off of our coasts.

It is hard to believe that we don't know this. How can we not know? I suppose the polluters - Big Business, Big Agriculture, Big Oil don't want us to know. But the fact is that WE don't want to know. Our right to ? ? ? - you name it, supercedes all else.

The human race is now 7 Billion strong. Hundreds of time larger in weight than any other large species that has ever been on this Earth. Talking of Species, we have already destroyed Tens of Thousands of Species! Yes ten of thousands of complete species have been made extinct by our actions! And fully 20% to 25 % of those remaining are endangered. And Homo Sapiens - that's us - has only been on Earth for one ten thousandth of its history. The Earth is around 4 to 5 billion years old, we have been here for maybe 500 thousand years - just one ten thousandth of Earths life and in that short time we have brought her to her knees. Actually it is far, far worse than that, probably 99% of that destruction was done in the last 1,000 years, and most of that in the last 100 years. No, Earth, as we know her, cannot possibly survive another 100 years of Homo Sapiens at the rate that we are killing off the animals and the plants.

There is a possibility, I suppose that we could survive without the other animals and plants that we used to share Earth with. We could live in huge apartment blocks and grow food in tanks. Pink Slime?

Or we could go out into Space and find new planets, to destroy? Or is it possible that we could learn from our mistakes here and live WITH the new Environments?

No, I agree, of course we won't.

Oh, oh I almost forgot the second item on my list of two! Income Inequality. Who can doubt that this is a problem? A quick review - 1% of the US population own more than 50% of it's wealth! That leaves the other 99% to share to other 50%!

How is this for a way to put it. There are 100 people trapped in a room with no food. A pizza is found. They "share" it. One person (The 1%) gets HALF of the pizza. The other 99 people get to share the other half amongst them ! ! ! Seems unfair to me.

Another way, the average American pays 30% of his earnings in taxes. The top 2% of earners in the US pay an average of 16%! Take someone like Mitt Romney for example, his income last year was 21 million dollars, he paid 12.8% in taxes. Remember now, the average American pays 30% in taxes! Warren Buffet, paid 14.8% last year. (At least he knows he pays too little! And he gives large amounts to charity. In fact he gave half of his fortune to the Bill Gates Foundation, which finds ways to make a difference by using the money to help the less fortunate.) But Romney wants to CUT taxes to the richest Americans even more! They already pay at half the rate you and I pay, and he wants to cut it even more! There are CEO's of large companies that collect "pay" of 20, 30 even 50 million dollars a year! One CEO had pay of $378 Million last year. Several were close to $100 Million. There were Bankers who made salaries of around $50 Million! Some banks have hundreds of executives or partners, each one of which can receive bonuses in the Millions of dollars! These are the people who are so greedy that they were prepared to destroy not only the US economy but the Worlds economy for their own evil, greedy ends. Reducing millions to poverty, ruin, and suicide so that THEY could have more millions of dollars in one year than anyone can earn or use in a lifetime.

During the Presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 90%. That meant that any income OVER a certain amount, I'm not sure what it was - maybe a million a year - was taxed at 90%. At that time we still had plenty of very rich people, we also had full employment and almost no National Debt. Gradually over the years the top tax rate has been dropped lower and lower. As it dropped, the National Debt rose (Reagan alone Quadrupled the National Debt) that is because there was not enough collected in taxes to pay for the expenses of the country - a very simple basic fact.

You can see and understand that in your own life. If you earn $50,000 a year, you can only spend $50,000 a year, unless you want to get into big trouble. How about if you earned $50,000 a year and spent $80,000 a year? How long could you keep that up do you suppose? That is what the USA is doing, and has been doing, for a long time - ever since Clinton left office, and also before he came into office. Yes, 40% of everyting we spend, we borrow. And yet politicians want to cut taxes! Does that make sense? They say we need to pay less in taxes - especially the rich - that will help to cut down the National Debt, and help to solve the problems with our economy. Please explain that to me.

Let's go back to our example of the family earning $50,000 a year (And spending $80,000) They decide that they can solve their problem by cutting their income! (The same as the politicians who want to cut taxes, which is the income of the US, to solve our spending and debt problems.) So he cuts his hours to 30 hours a week instead of 50 and his income to $30,000. Surprise, surprise, it doesnt solve his problem - he now has to borrow even more! He is worse off.

I could have told him that. So could anyone with a teeny tiny bit of common sense.

Another fact, a surprising one this, is that as taxes go down, unemployment goes up! It is a fact, look at graphs that show taxes going down and you will see that unemployment goes up. I know, I know it doesn't make sense. But it is so.

Taxes at this time are at the lowest that they have been for over 60 years! And unemployment is at its highest in 60 years! (In fact taxes in the US are the lowest of ANY civilized country in the WORLD!) Is it any surprise that we have problems when we don't even collect enough tax to pay for our expenses. And politicians are calling for even lower taxes! (Don't forget, we are already at the lowest tax rate ever!) It is so easy to keep saying we are taxed too high, politicians say, "If You vote me into office I will cut your taxes!". If I said "We are not taxed highly enough, vote me in and I will raise your taxes." who do you suppose would be voted in?

It is an impossible situation.

The rich completely control Congress, and therefore the country. We have the most corrupt Congress in the Whole World, in my opinion. Sure there is corruption in every country, but there they meet in coffee houses or in dark alleys, money changes hands and votes are changed. But here in the US we have taken corruption to a new level. Here, Congress has made it LEGAL! It is called Lobbyists, they are allowed to bribe Congressmen. The Health Industry spends $1 Million A DAY Bribing Congress, or Lobbying if you prefer. (A Rose by any other name is still a Rose - and this one STINKS!) And that is just The Health Industry, then there are all the others pushing and shoving to hand over their money, their trips on private jets to private islands, home additions, etc, etc. Big Oil, Big Business, Big Agriculture, Big Banks, and all the others that can't hand money to Congress fast enough! Legally!

You and I don't stand a chance against such unmitigated greed, we can't hand over millions of dollars, so we are out in the cold. And somehow the Politicians are so persuasive that the majority of the people seem to think all this is perfectly fine. Do they think perhaps that one day they too will be rich and not have to pay taxes? How naive can you be? THEY will never let that happen! Where was I? Oh yes the Income Gap - is too big, in case you didn't get my drift. David.

Where have all the fish gone?

First I have to tell you that The Lake is as beautiful as ever. When I wake up every morning and look at that lovely lake I find it hard to believe my good fortune, not only am I married to the most beautiful woman in the world but I live next to this wonder of nature. However there is a change, and that change involves the wildlife. Normally The Lake is teaming with wildlife. At times I have seen 50 or more Cormorants fishing here. In the early spring this year there was a small batch of them - about 13, I counted them - that stayed for a few days. Since then I have spotted the odd one swimming around. The Osprey were so numerous at times that I worried (I always have to have something to worry about!) that they would remove ALL the fish here! But this year I have only seen one Osprey, and that only every few days, and even he - she? - hovers, but does not dive. I have yet to see a catch by an Osprey this year. Usually one can stop and watch for just a short time and see as many as 4 or 5 or 6 Osprey all fishing at once. One of them is hovering and diving at any time and every couple of dives seemed to produce a fish. This year nothing. Early in the year, much earlier than usual, the yellow perch and the white perch were here. I know because I was catching them. Now no fish at all. I can't even catch a lowly Sunfish. What has happened?

A Surprise!

Apparently it turns out that Marylanders are NOT the highest taxed in the country! According to the Council on State Taxation, in a report on State and local business taxes across the nation, done last summer on property, sales, excise, gross receipt, corporate income, franchise and unemployment insurance taxes as a percentage of gross state product. Maryland's stood at 3.7 percent of GSP. The National Average is 5.0.

Who ever would have thunk?

We, Maryland, also has the highest percentage of our citizens who are Millionaires! In 2011 Phoenix Global Wealth ranked Maryland number one in the Nation showing that 7.22% of Maryland households are Millionaires! (The calculation does not include home values or retirement accounts.)

So, as Dan says, "Don't be so cranky. Life here is better than you think. Sit on your deck, have a brandy, pet your hounds, and light up a cigar."

The Affordable Health Care Act.

First I want to say that I am in favor of The Act, in fact I would be even more in favor of a Universal Health Care.

And, I don't like the Rights's way of trying to denigrate The Act by calling it Obamacare. I don't remember Medicare being called Johnsoncare, do you? Or how about Social Security was that called Rooseveltcare? I don't think so. We don't even call The Massachusetts's Health Care, Romneycare!

While it is far from perfect , it is a HUGE improvement on what we had before, when we could have our Health Insurance cancelled, because we got sick and made a claim! Or we could be refused Insurance because we were sick! Or coverage could be denied for any number of reasons. The American Health Insurance BUSINESS had more workers figuring out reasons to deny coverage than for any other part of their BUSINESS.

Yes that's right, your Health Care is a BUSINESS, the USA is the ONLY civilized country in the entire World where your health care is a business! Run for PROFIT! Should our health be a FOR PROFIT BUSINESS? It is not anywhere else. And don't try to say, "Would you want to work as a Doctor or a Nurse for nothing?", because of course you know this is not the case. Doctors and Nurses and all health care workers are of course paid in Switzerland, and Taiwan, and the UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, and all the other countries that cover ALL of their citizens for HALF or less than half of what we pay here in the United States!

Other countries don't have Health Care Insurance Executives who are paid millions and get millions more in Bonuses - because they made such a huge profit for their investors! Companies can have hundreds of Executives, and each one can "earn" millions in bonuses, paid for by you! The investors have to paid too, and they are paid well, and the insurance companies make sure they are paid well. They make sure that there is lots of profit by cutting off people who are sick! Or who get sick. And by figuring out ways to deny coverage for various reasons.

This is the only civilized country in the world where you can go bankrupt and lose everything because you were unfortunate enough to get ill, or to get cancer, or to have an accident, or to have a family member who does any one of those bad things! Get sick in the UK, or any other country in the world and you will get treatment. You don't have to sell your house and everything you own to get treated. Or you die, because you can't afford to get care, like can happen here.

And then there are the prescriptions. Only in America are drug companies allowed to advertise on TV, on Radio, in Newspapers and Magazines etc. Half the cost of a drug here in America is in the advertising! How often have you been watching TV and seen the same ad a half dozen or a dozen times in one evening on one channel? And there are a hundred channels!

Then there are the machines that Doctors offices have, it seems that every office now has it's own, X-ray, Cat Scan, MRI etc etc, so naturally as they have huge payments to make on them, almost everyone has to have a battery of expensive tests. So that the Doctor's office can make the payments on their expensive equipment!

How is it possible for all these other countries to give coverage for everyone, for half or less than half of what we pay? Well for a start EVERYONE pays in, just like EVERYONE pays in for Social Security or car insurance or for any form of insurance. So when someone gets sick they are covered. Here, only sick or old people get insurance, the young and the healthy "Don't need insurance", so they don't get it. But just like with car insurance - how about if only people who were going to have accidents bought insurance? Saying, "I am not going to have an accident, so I don't need insurance." won't wash! What happens to those people who, "Don't need Health Insurance." if they get sick or get into an accident? They get treated, because Hospitals and Doctors HAVE to treat them, by law. Then WE pay, you and me. So they get a free ride. Same with Car Insurance. If only people who are going to have an accident buy it, it would be VERY expensive (Just like Health Ins that is only bought by sick people.) but then there IS an accident, a tire blows on your car, someone pulls out in front of you, you fall asleep, you hit another car which hits another one, a bus goes over an overpass. You caused 10 people to die and 30 to be injured. Can you afford that? No! That's why we have car insurance, because if you didn't, everyone else would have to pay for that. You wouldn't - you are either dead or you can't afford to!

So, to review, other countries pay less because - Everyone pays in. There are no investors pulling profits out. Prescriptions cost half, because drug companies are not spending Billions on advertising. The system is run by executives who are paid to run it, and don't receive millions in pay, profit sharing and bonuses. The whole system is run at cost, not at a profit. If you need an MRI you are sent for one, you don't get one because the Doctor has a payment due on his half million dollar machine.

I have to get an MRI on my brain every year to check up on my tumor. That costs, my insurance company, $1,500. The same MRI in japan is $93. An Angiogram in the US averages $798, in Canada it costs $35.

I can hear you now, "But our care is so much better here." We live longer, we are healthier.

OK, The average life expectancy in Italy is 82, in the US it is 78. The percentage of people in the US with diabetes is 10%, in the UK it is 4%. Child mortality in the US? We are number 30, even below Somalia! we used to be below Pakistan!

If we had a Universal Health Care System our Corporations would be better off! Now they are in the position of having to pay Billions in Health Care premiums while Corporations in other countries don't have that disadvantage. So they could compete better.

An aside here, we have heard that US Corporations have the highest tax rate in the world (at 35%). Now we find out that it is actually the LOWEST in the world!! With the possible exception of Iceland. The reason for this is that they have so many exceptions, loopholes, special interests and so on that they actually only pay 10%. This is of course because we have the most corrupt Congress in the world. It is legal for Corporations, and even people, to bribe Congress! In most countries bribery goes on of course, but there they meet in dark alleys, or under bridges, or in bars, and cash changes hands. Here in the US, Congress has actually made it legal for them to be bribed. They call them Lobbyists. Lobbyists pay Congress to do their bidding. The Health Industry for example pays Congress one million dollars A DAY through Lobbyists. And there are hundreds of other companies doing the same, Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Agriculture, Big Banks, Insurance Companies, Mortgage Companies, Wall Street, all pushing and shoving to hand money over to the Best Congress That Money Can Buy. No wonder they want to stay on for year after year after year. And if they somehow go too far for even the American voter to put up with, they retire, on full pay! Yep they can serve just ONE term in the House and receive full pension for life. $174,000 a year! Just imagine how much they must be raking in if they prefer to stay in Congress if they make more than if they just retire and sit back and pick up $174,000 a year. And of course they get free health insurance, paid for by us of course. And all kinds of other percs, like an office etc etc etc.

Finally a family member who, 25 years ago, was treated for cancer in Johns Hopkins Hospital for more than a year might well be dead now if we had then, the Health care System that we will return to if the Republicans have their way. Even then, 25 years ago, with a good insurance policy, our out of pocket costs were more than $50,000. If we had been denied coverage, as we would under their idea of "care", it is doubtful that we would have been able to come up wih the necessary more than half a million dollars needed for treatmnet.

I beg of everyone to fight for a Universal Health Care System for America, so that we can finally have Affordable Health Care for all of us. Like the rest of the world enjoys.

A Change of Pace.

At this time of year, mid-March, in most years you are likely to find me outside wielding a snow shovel or a bucket of salt and sand. However this year you are much more likely to find me wielding a fishing rod! Instead of bundling myself up in layers of clothing, boots, gloves, a scarf and a hat against the Mad March Winds, I am instead lightly clothed in summer pants and a thin summer shirt. Yes, the world has gone crazy. We have been enjoying temperatures in the 70's and even the 80's for 2 or 3 weeks now with no sign of it abating.

Flowers like the daffodils have not just come out, they are almost finished! I have already mowed the lawn once, blossoms and flowers are everywhere. Birds and fish are ubiquitous, as of course are weeds and insects.

As I often seem to do, I planted early. Let's hope this will not bring the wrath of Mother Nature down on me!

A couple of years ago I bought a snow blower, after the "Snowstorm of the Century". We have had very little snow since. Of course! I anticipate no more heavy snow until the snow blower rusts up solid and is unusable. This year I prepared by placing a bucket of salt and sand and a snow shovel outside of the back door And also outside of the front door. I dug out a selection of waterproof gloves, boots and coats, as well as hats and the inevitable scarf, and placed them strategically close. None have seen service. In fact I replaced the buckets of salt and sand and the snow shovels back in the basement. Nervously, I have to admit, but that was a few days ago and 'they' are still calling for warm weather. Today is warm and sunny with temperatures expected to top 80 degrees.

What can I say? Dare I say Climate Change?

Food Waste Friday.

Nothing much ever seems to go to waste around here. How could it with my favorite saying being, "I will eat anything that doesn't eat me first!"

If by some miracle something does escape my roaming appetite, there are the Chickens who will gladly fight me for it, or the fish in The Lake, or the Final Frontier of The Compost Heap!

Nope, nothing for the Food Waste Friday Folks again, I am glad to say.

David The Silver Fox.

Fog.

Once again there is a thick fog over the area. Most mornings I wake at around 6.00 AM. For the last two weeks when I pry open my eyes and peer out at my world I am greeted by a blank wall of fog. As I lay there, with my mind running at a million miles an hour, the fog horns sounding from time to time - why are they so few? - I contemplate the coming day, it's delights and it's fears.

Of the Delights there are many, the biggest of which is Julia's smile. But this won't come yet as she is still asleep. Then there are the antics of The New Cat - Monty - the friendliness of our "Old" cat Muffey, my morning cup(s) of coffee, the view of "My" Lake and it's teeming wildlife, a walk outside to pick up the morning newspaper, checking my e-mails, maybe seeing my neighbor Mike, watching The Lake come alive - usually this is a varying process of The Lake being like a mirror, or not, and the sun coming up - that always happens! - and as it comes up it "Sets fire" to the trees on the other side, it causes The Still Lake to ripple, or sometimes it causes the rippling Lake to calm. Always the birds appear, flying over, landing, fishing, fighting, splashing or just sitting. If I just sit and watch The Lake I might see a Muskrat or a Snake swimming across, a bunch of Cormorants fishing, little Diving Ducks, a Great Blue Heron winging across looking like a miniature Pterodactyl. Sometimes there is a surprise - a Buzzard or even an Eagle and very rarely a deer, a fox or a raccoon. Any or all of these could happen today.

Then there are The Fears. I imagine that we all have these? At least I hope that I am not the only one. There are the Terrible ones, too terrible even to contemplate, like Nuclear War, the Death of a Loved One or Republicans taking power. Then there are the Mid Size Fears such as illness, an accident, losing my job, the economy getting worse, what will be in the news today, and a host of others, then finally the Small Fears - are we out of milk, do I have enough coffee, am I going to have to cut the lawn again, what's for dinner, what - it's laundry day AGAIN.

A new form of taxation.

Dare I say a BETTER way of taxing us?

I propose a three tier taxing system.

The first tier would be very simple and very easy and everyone would pay, albeit at a much lower rate than at present.

The second tier would be difficult to escape, but it would be possible to limit how much you pay. It would be easier for poorer people to limit how much they pay.

The third tier would almost be voluntary! While it would not be possible to escape it completely, you would be able to decide not to pay it. And if you did not pay it you would be healthier and not only you, but everyone else would be better off!

So here goes;-

Tier one, a flat tax that increases as your income increases. I suggest 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% rates, based on income. The tiers would need to be set. Up to a certain amount a person would pay 5%, then on the amount OVER that first level the rate would be 10%, and so on. The higher levels would only be on the amount OVER the previous level, not on the entire income earned. This is the same as it is now. But the rate would be MUCH lower. There would also be NO deductions, allowances, loopholes etc. You report your income and you pay on that income.

Tier two, a sales tax. To pick a number I suggest 5% for the States and 5% for Federal. With no tax on food, medical and services. This would reduce the bite on essentials and help people with lower incomes more than the richer. I see you being able to reduce the amount of tax you pay in this level, although it would be difficult to impossible to escape it completely. But you can see that someone with a very low income who could only afford the essentials like food and medicine would pay little tax, while someone with a large disposable income would be paying more tax as they would buy more. It would also be difficult to avoid this tax as it would be added at the source, or even before the item is priced! (One possibility here might be a couple of levels of tax, for example 5% on most items but a higher rate on luxury goods like expensive jewelry, cars, boats, planes etc.)

The third tier, a "Health and Safety" tax. Many people would be able to choose to avoid this tax completely! Anyone who did pay it would not only be hurting themselves financially but also their health, and/or the health of us all and of the Planet. Quite simply there would be a substantial tax on such things as Cigarettes, Alcohol, Fat, Sugar, etc. We would be able to CUT DOWN ON THE BAD STUFF, stuff that hurts us, and save money! we would get stronger and healthier and wealthier! Who could argue with that?

We would also tax Carbon, Gasoline, Cars (The bigger they are the bigger the tax), Pollution - or Polluters, etc. Again we could reduce our use of scarce stuff, CUT DOWN ON POLLUTION AND HAVE CLEANER AIR AND WATER. And save money doing it! And breathe cleaner air and drink cleaner water and have healthier kids and us! Who could argue with that?

We would also tax Guns, Ammunition, Speeding, Murder, Rape, Theft, Drunkenness (in public), Assault, Violence, etc. WE WOULD ALL BE SAFER. And save money doing it. Who could argue with that?

With my idea the total tax paid would be the same. (Actually it is obvious that we need to increase our tax level as we are not collecting anywhere near enough taxes to pay for even basic services. But that is another thing.) So the tax paid would be the same. It would just not come from income alone. Instead the lions share would come from the bad stuff that we do to ourselves, our world and our fellow man. This would give us a reason, and an excuse, if we need one, to stop doing bad stuff.

Don't take so much of our hard earned money, tax us for doing things that are bad for us and everyone else. This should also cut down on our Health Insurance premiums as we would all be healthier! And cut down on money spent on insurances - by cutting down on speeding etc. Less of our money would go to prisons, people might think twice for example if they were going to lose money if they are violent. Money for all those crimes would be confiscated and used to pay for the prisons.

Want to keep more of your money? Do good stuff. Be good to yourself. Be good to the Planet.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

HOWEVER, apparently people in the US kill more people than in, say the UK. Some figures, just for interest of course, (All figures are per 100,000 people) : -

Gun ownership. US 89,000. UK 6,000 15 times as many.

Murder by gun. US 6.24 UK .13 48 times as many.

Accidental death by gun. US .58 UK .02 29 times as many.

Suicide by gun. US 7.23 UK .33 22 times as many.


Now maybe it is just coincidence, but I do notice that gun ownership seems to increase the number of deaths by gun! Also the number of suicides and accidents by gun. Now to a person like me who is fascinated by numbers and figures it is clear that guns kill people. The more guns people have, the more people die by the gun - ergo Guns Kill People.

What is further of interest is that in the US the numbers all show that although gun ownership is "only" 15 times higher than in the UK, murder by gun is 48 times higher, suicide by gun is 22 times higher and accidental death by gun is 29 times higher.

Common sense or the law of averages would say that all those figures should be 15 times higher - the same as the number of guns higher - but instead we see figures of 22X, 29X and 48X which is of interest to me. Does it mean that instruction in gun safety is better in the UK than in the US, or that the UK has safer guns than the US, or that people in the US are more angry or unstable or less civilized than in the UK? Surely not, but certainly there is something about either the guns or the people in the US that causes them to murder and commit suicide by gun at a much higher rate than almost any other country in the world.

Another figure that will almost certainly be brought up in any argument by gun proponents in the US will be gun ownership in Switzerland which is 47,000 per 100,000 of the population. US murder rate by gun is 11 times higher than the murder rate by gun in Switzerland, accidental death rate by gun - US is 5 times higher - and suicide by gun in US is only 1.3 times higher than in Switzerland!

All great fun - for someone who enjoys figures.

Bits and Pieces.

Our new Cat/Kitten, Monty reports that he received a B+ in Pouncing School. Well so he should, he has been doing an awful lot of practicing lately. But Julia and I do agree that he receives an A+ in cuteness. And as for climbing, he sems to be at the top of the class, there can be no doubting that.

Meanwhile the Chickens are doing very well as we are getting 5 or 6 eggs virtually every day. Unfortunately this is more than we can eat! I do have one customer who buys a dozen of our beautiful organic eggs every week or so. Kristen The Frugal Girl is very into Fresh, Organic Food, as we are of course. This does not reduce the stock sufficiently and the supply of eggs is building. We do provide our neighbor Mike and his lovely wife Christine with some eggs, and in return they supply the chickens with their surplus food. Any left over fast food from Chinese to Pizza is welcomed by our Ladies, gobbled up and turned into fine looking eggs. What a miracle that is! But more customers are needed.

Out on The Lake, the Cormorants have arrived. Could this be because of the early arrival of Spring, and with it the Fish? Yellow Perch arrived about three weeks ago and White Perch about a week and a half ago - much earlier than I have ever seen before. But I have yet to see an Osprey. A neighbor tells me that we can expect more Eagles this year. We have indeed been seeing several pairs of Eagles during the last few years but Mike says he heard that there are even more coming. He claims that the Eagles like to let the Osprey catch the fish and then steal them. Lazy tykes! Certainly there has been a sufeit of Osprey lately, although I have not seen any yet this year. What with the Cormorants and the Osprey, not to mention the Seagulls who also seem to get their share of fish, I despair that there will be enough for us! So I guess I will have to satisfy myself with the sight of this glut of nature.

The weather has once again exceeded all expectations with temperatures in the 70's and even 80 degrees or more over the last week or two. the weather forecasters are calling for temperatures in the 70's for at least another week. It is only mid March but there are Cherry trees in bloom all over, not to mention the Bradford Pear trees and all manner of other bossoming trees. Of course Snowdrops, Daffodils, Tulips, Hyacinths and Pansies are everywhere. The Holly trees are loaded to the point of the branches sagging under the weight of their berries, so those who claim that a rash of holly berries foretell a cold winter are wrong! Along with all the other "old wives tales" that supposedly foretell the weather several seasons into the future.

Well I am going to wrap this up now.

Another funny story about our favorite daughter Sarah.

When Sarah was about seven she was reluctant to eat her greens. One day Julia said to her "Eat your beans dear". Sarah said I don't eat beans since the accident. "What accident?" said my wife. "When I accidentally ate one." said Sarah.
She was a smart little . . . . something, sorry can't seem to find the right word here! But it will give you an idea of the problems we had raising this one.
But I guess it was worth it.

Hey, we won the lottery!

- - - by being born in he West! With a world population of 7 Billion there are at least 5 or 6 Billion people that we are lucky not to have been born as, including China, India, Africa, and much of South America and Asia.

We are all among the top 1% of the world in income, even the people on welfare in the West rate among the top 1% in wealth in the world!

So you see you DO have something to be happy about!

(If only we could send some of those politicians and Rush Limbaugh to one of those other countries we could all be even happier!)

David.

Our new cat.

We are the "proud parents" of a new kitten who we have named Monty. He is just about 7 weeks old and left his mother to come and live with us about 2 weeks ago. A cute gray and white kitten he has captivated Julia's heart and receives the kind of attention from her that I would love to have!
His first doctor's visit was a few days ago and he was given a clean bill of health. No sign of the dreaded feline leukemia, but he does have ear mites, for which we douse his ears twice daily with some revolting, expensive, medicine that seems to be doing the job. Monty does not like it, nor do we as we get a dose too as he shakes his head after it is poured in (Well 5 drops are put into each ear!) this results in a shower of the medicine all over us and whatever else is within 10 feet. And presumably a bunch of dead and dying ear mites are in the resulting spray too.
Anyway this little story was prompted by Julia's remark this morning that Monty needed a bath. When I asked why, she pointed out that his little face was covered in food and the medicine. He washes himself, but is not too successful. The thought of washing this little guy, who even hates having a few drops put into his ear, and which when we do it results in vicious lacerations to both of us from his nasty claws, OK from his little needle like claws, that he is not yet able to retract, fills me with dread.
So my simple answer was, "Let's get Sarah to wash him." I then made an up and down motion with my hand as if I were dipping a cat into a barrel of water and pulling him out again, repeatedly. This brought laughter to us both as we remembered our daughter Sarah washing her cat Andrew like this some 38 years ago.
Here is the story.
We came upon Sarah just after she had put her small cat Andrew into the tumble dryer. Fortunately she did not know how to turn it on! We retrieved the miserable wet animal and asked her why she has put him into the dryer. Her simple answer was, "Because he is wet." When we asked her why he was wet she said, "Because I washed him." Asked how she had washed him, she explained she had washed him in the water barrel in our greenhouse. Of course we had to ask why she had washed him and received the answer, "Because he has paint on him." Indeed, on close examination poor Andrew appeared to have been painted green. Asked why he had green paint on him - remember at the tender age of 3 we don't know how to lie - she said, "Because I painted him."
So all was revealed and yet another episode of, "Life with Sarah", entered our repertoire.

Running down the Republicans.

Well at least I am being honest!
We all know who got us into the mess we are in now - The Republicans. The only thing that they are any good at (apart from running up the National Debt - 2/3 was made by Republicans) - is critizing the guy who is trying to fix the mess THEY made. I will give them that they are very good at critizing, but that is about all. They certainly are no good at connecting or compromising or helping. They are going all out to sabotage Obama at every turn. They seem to have no interest at all in fixing problems - problems that they made - or in helping anyone else to fix them.
In fact any plans that they do have - mostly cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing taxes on the poor and middle class (soon to be the new poor if the GOP has it's way) will increase the National Debt substantialy. The WSJ and Money magazine etc agree that if any of the GOP candidates do what they say they want to do - cut taxes to the rich, they don't have any other plans that I can see - the National Debt will skyrocket again, as it always has under the Republicans.
It is not really necessary but I might as well point out that the present increasing National Debt is almost exclusively the fault of Republican policy. Namely starting two wars and not increasing taxes to pay for it, and then cutting taxes - to the rich - at the same time as they made no provision to pay for two wars!
Beyond belief.

Theology or Environment?

Either way, in my opinion he is wrong. Who is wrong? Rick Santorum.

He cleared up when he said the President had phoney theology he was not questioning his faith. One thing that tells me, is that he needs to be careful when he talks, about just what he means, as President you need to be very clear about what you mean. Especially if you are talking to leaders of other countries that have "The Bomb" among other things!

Mostly what he, and the other Republican candidates, talk about seems to be Religion, Gays, Contraception, Etc. There is very little said about the Economy or Foreign Policy except to say that Obama is responsible for everything bad that happened to the Economy, the USA and the World since God made it! But no mention is made of how they will "correct" or "fix" whatever is wrong with it. Instead, we hear about "attacks" on our faith, our beliefs, etc etc. Whatever happened to separation of Church and State? Why are they more concerned about people who love each other wanting to get married, or people who don't want children, or more children, having access to birth control, or sick people having access to Affordable Health Care, or people being able to afford to give their children a good education.

In the latest attack by Santorum it would seem that President Obama is now responsible for public education! Even I know that was instituted before he was born! But no, the fact that the Federal and State governments pay for public education is "anascronitic", and wrong. People should be responsible for their children's education, according to Rick. I guess that is OK for people like him who can afford to send their children to private schools.

But the main thrust of his attack is that The President is an "Environmentalist" or a "Tree Hugger", that he wants to save an endangered plant or animal at the expense of people. But if you look at the kinds of environmental policies Obama pursues we see that they are for the health and well being of us all.

For example he wants to increase the fuel efficiency of vehicles. (This gets angry attacks from Republican - anti environmentalists - everywhere) Every President for the last 30 years or more has required more efficient vehicles, but this doen't stop the haters from telling us that President Obaman has no right to tell us that we need to produce more gas efficient vehicles. There was no problem when Bush mandated it. He wants power plants to reduce mercury emissions. He wants to encourage green energy, all environmental things that help human health.

But Mr Santorum would remove all environmental, endangered species and habitat protections. All attempts at reducing pollution and Global Climate change - he denys all science that shows we are dramatically changing our environment, acidifying our lakes and oceans, rising sea levels, loss of farm land, greenhouse gases, more and bigger storms, heat waves etc. He favors using polluting fuels like coal and oil and stopping research on non-polluting renewable fuels like solar, wind, wave and geothermal. Apparently endangered species have no value to Rick, (they do to that "Dangerous" man Barrack.) They do to me too, lack of biodiversity is important, we are missing chances of new medicines for every plant and animal that we lose.

Santorum is so anti-environment and so extreme in all his views that the thought of him becoming President is literally terrifying to me.

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.

A lot has been written lately about cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. One of the main pollutants is animal waste, mostly chicken poop. Apparently chicken farmers have a lot of pull when it comes to stopping attempts to get them to treat their chicken's waste before dumping it onto their land from where it simply washes into The Bay. (I wonder how the public would feel about thousands of tons of human waste being dumped into The Bay untreated?)

Anyway here are two procedures placed side by side for your consideration.

In the first the chicken farmers dump several thousand tons of chicken manure into The Chesapeake Bay. (For drama lets have them back their trucks up and dump some of it say off the beach at Sandy Point State Park, and some off of the Bay Bridge, maybe a few into the Annapolis and Baltimore Inner Harbors, and of course don't forget your favorite fishing spot, the waterfront property of a few politicians and just for good luck your waterfront, if you happen live on the water.) Now we go back a week, or a month, or a year later and "Clean it up" Yep we go out there and "Clean up The Bay". Find all that chicken shit that we dumped in there, get it out and treat it. I imagine it would be very very expensive, and of course impossible.

Second alternative, treat the manure BEFORE putting it into The Bay. Or even don't put it into The Bay, even after treating it.

A revolutionary idea?

Could it even be cheaper to treat it BEFORE rather than AFTER dumping it into The Bay? After all we do treat human waste first, why not animal waste? It would have to be cheaper than trying to clean it up after it has been put in there.

As an experiment try taking an armload of newspapers and dumping them off the end of a pier. Then go back, just the next day, and pick it all out. It would take a while, possibly your whole lifetime, much will have floated away, all will be so wet and soggy you won't even be able to pick it up. Now compare the alternative - dump the armload of newspapers into your recycling bin. There, wasn't that easier, quicker, cheaper and less messy?

Good Stuff?

We don't yet know the cause of Whitney Huston's death which was reported just a few days ago. Apparently it will take "a few weeks" to get the results of the tests. (How come they manage to do these "tox screens" in a few hours on our favorite TV shows but it takes weeks in real life?)
But I think we all suspect that it will be found to be an overdose of drugs that caused her early death at the age of just 48. Thus the title of my Blog today - Good Stuff?
How Good must it be to give up, what 30 or even 40 years of life for? It boggles my mind that someone would sacrifice years of their life for a hit of a drug. Even if it turns out to have been an accident in Whitney Houston's case. An accidental overdose or some other cause, we have all read about celebrities who have died of drug overdoses. Not to mention the bodies picked up off of the streets of our cities every day.
Knowing that they may well end up this way - after all if someone famous with millions of dollars in the bank can't make it work, what makes the "man in the street" think he/she can get away with it?
Just look at a long list of people, only the famous are listed, who died of deliberate or accidental drug overdoses and you should realize that these are people with strong wills, with money, with powerful friends, people who can afford the best doctors, people who have much to live for and to look forward to in life, and yet even they, with all those advantages, succumbed. What makes you, without any of that, think that you can do it and live?
As the ads say "Just Say No." Please.

Correcting false e-mails, posts, sites etc

Obviously this would be a virtually impossible task. Because almost ALL posts and e-mails on the Internet are false, incorrect, blatant lies or in some other way wrong.
As it is impossible to correct them all, the best we can do is say - remember, whatever you read on the Internet is most likely incorrect, untrue or wrong AT LEAST 95% of the time.
However I am going to take a few minutes to give just three examples of e-mails that are either blatant lies or at best mistakes or untruths.
First - The D.C. story that its Animal Control people are required to capture Rats and Their Families without hurting them and relocate them to new quarters in Maryland or Virginia. This story I read on the Internet with Rush Limpburger ranting on about Liberals wanting to treat Rats with care and to relocate them and their entire family etc etc. This is obviously not true, but unfortunately the damage has already been done when he spends hours going on and on on his radio show lambasting the DEMOCRATIC councilwoman who sponsored the law. Now it was obvious to me that it could not be true, but to the millions of extreme Conservatives who listen to, and believe, Rush Limpbugger it MUST be true.
So I checked out the law, and sure enough it refers to catching ANIMALS such as Raccoons and SPECIFICALLY excludes rats and mice on the very first page of the law. The reason for the law was that they wanted to remove Raccoons from D.C. because there are a large number of them and they are causing problems. Also they wanted the animals to be treated humanely. If they were to be destroyed they should be destroyed humanely - instead of being beated to death for example. If they were to be relocated it was to be some distance from D.C. and only with the permission of the landowner where they were placed. They did want the whole family to be removed together if possible, because if the young are left behind a parent will go to great lengths to return to retrieve them and could do a lot of damage to the house where their babies are.
Seemed like a perfectly reasonable law to me.
You would not believe the vile e-mails that the councilwoman received, including death threats to her and her family. Over a reasonable law that was deliberately misinterpreted.
Next one was an e-mail that gave a list of items that were supposedly in the Affordable Health Care Act (Called Obamacare by some)The list was supposed to be written by a judge. Again, as I read it, it was almost impossible to believe that anyone could think that even a Democrat would put such things into a bill. But there it was being forwarded eagerly, to me, and all of his friends, by a Republican who apparently thought and was horrified by its contents (Had any of them been true) Even a few seconds of thought on the part of any reasonably intelligent person would have them question it. But that is not the way of these disgusting political forwards. It seems that the more outrageous and unlikely they are the quicker they are forwarded.
A few minutes of research brought out that it started 3 or 4 years ago by a letter from the Judge to his local newspaper making some points about the Affordable Health Care Act that he disagreed with. (I even found a post from him saying that he wished he hadn't written the letter)Some nut then picked up the letter added a bunch of things to it that he said was in the letter and forwarded it out to millions of Conservatives, who eagerly grabbed it and forwarded it on without bothering to check it out. Now it is gospel to the likes of Rush and all of his Fox "News" buddies. A check to Snopes found that they read the Act through completely and sent it to a Health Care Company to read. Both came to the conclusion that it was "Flat out blatant lies" and "Absolutely false." But again it had already gone out to millions of people to whom anything that contains anything that has hate and lies about any Democrat has to be true. Any reasonable person reading the e-mail would have come to the conclusion that it could not be true. One statement was that everyone would be required to carry a national ID card. This apparently reffered to the goal of putting everyone's medical records on computer. Most of us already have this. If you have a Doctor or been to hospital at some time your records are on computers. The idea here is to centralize those records so if you are in an accident for example and are taken to a hospital they could access those records and find out your blood type, any allergies, previous operations etc.
Another one said that once you reach 60 or 65 you must visit your doctor every 5 years to discuss end of life. (Death panel) It turns out what it said was when you reach 60 or 65 you should visit your doctor every 5 years for a medical check up. Other statements did not even have those slight references, they were mostly just made up. Having done that the author - nameless of course - sent it out under the Judges name, to all his contacts, who doubtless eagerly forwarded it as The Truth.

Crazy Weather.

When I woke up at 6.00 o'clock this morning it was already 57 degrees! Hello, is this JANUARY?

The Wild Ones don't know what to do - the animals that is, the Canada Geese never left this year, we have a flock of perhaps 50 that just stayed with us!

The two Swans are still here, even though they went away for about a month from mid December to mid January. Vacation perhaps? And the male has started his annual, "Chase everything larger than a blackbird away from our nesting area" campaign, already. There is no way that starts before they are ready to set up nest and the female sits on her eggs in the spring - which is still a couple of months off.

I am still picking Roses! The bulbs are coming up! The Lawn is still green!

Is this The New January?

Meanwhile I am hearing that Texas - the driest one or two years ever - was almost washed away by rains yesterday, and there have been more Tornados in January all over, but not here, yet! Last year we had a Tornado, an Earthquake, a Hurricane and Floods, all within the space of one week! I sure hope that does not become The Norm! We escaped that week with minimal damage right here, but I would hate to have to endure that week over and over!

Well, onward we go, and I go back to work today , gotta go.

More "Interesting" figures.

Mitt Romney's income in 2011 was $22 Million dollars.

That doesn't mean much to most of us, but what MAY be of interest to you is that if you worked, and earned $60,000 in 2011, a figure way above what the average American earns - you made WORKING, less than Romney made NOT WORKING, in ONE DAY!!

Did you get that? He makes more than $60,000 A DAY, NOT WORKING. (The median Americans income is $26,000.)

Now if you WORKED and EARNED $60,000 you will pay about 30% of those earnings in taxes. Mr Romney made (not earned) $22 Million NOT WORKING, and paid, are you ready for this? 13.9% in taxes!!!!

So if you are rich and wealthy, you pay a tax rate LESS THAN HALF of what the average WORKING American pays!!!

What is wrong with this picture? Why are we happy with this? Why do Republicans want the rich and wealthy to pay LESS taxes? Yes that's right they are fighting tooth and nail to have the "top" 1% of Americans pay even LESS tax!!

And yet 50% of Americans vote Republican! Why would ANYONE vote for that kind of abuse? There is no interest from ANY Republicans to do anything other than cut the taxes of the rich. Other than trying to CUT Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the poor and the middle classes.

It seems to me, but what do I know? that everyone should pay AT LEAST the same tax rates. In fact I would think that it would be fair for the tax`rate on UNEARNED INCOME to be higher than the tax rate on EARNED income, wouldn't you?

I mean wouldn't that make perfect sense? If you sit and do nothing and the money comes rolling in, or you go out and work for your money, who should pay the higher rate? It is just common sense that the person who is making no contribution to the well being of the country - just sitting doing nothing - should pay a higher rate.

But that is not the way that it is. The rich pay less! Please explain that to me. Could it possibly be that the rich and the wealthy OWN Congress, the very bunch who pass laws that say "The rich shall pay less tax." Is it possible that they, Congress, are Bribed to pass such laws?

Leaping Clams?

I went down to my pier yesterday and there were about 40 broken clam shells laying on it. Maybe a year ago I watched a Gull dropping something that turned out to be a clam, onto the pier. It then picked it up again, flew up into the air and dropped it back onto the pier.

I have been very busy lately so had not seen this happening again although Julia, who spends time on her couch in the bedroom reading, has observed it.

Judging by the number of empty Clam shells on the pier, there must be a lot of that going on. There must also be a lot of Clams in The Lake.

Anyway, as I said to Julia, the Clams spend their lives buried in the sand at the bottom of The Lake, so how do the Sea Gulls get a hold of them? That is the question. In order to extract the Clams from their home under the sand the Gulls would have to dive down under the water and dig into the sand. It is true that the water around the pier is not very deep, often six to 12 inches, but I have trouble imagining a Sea Gull diving under water even that shallow. And how would they know where to dig? Perhaps they see "Air" coming up from where the Clam is?

I have watched to find the secret, but am unable to even see the Gulls dropping the Clams, let alone digging for them!

My only answer is that there may be a new breed of Leaping Clams. They launch themselves into the air, and the Sea Gulls snatch them out of the air!

Yes that must be the answer.

Another comment on the Tax Farce in America.

Just a couple of quick facts : -

The average American pays 30% of his/her income in taxes.

OK, the average American in the "bottom" 99% of earners.

The "top" 1% of Americans pay about HALF of that! Or 15%. We just heard today that Mitt Romney, one of the "top" 1% with an income in the $20 million plus area paid 13.9% last year!

Now I don't know how that makes YOU feel, but it makes me feel VERY frustrated. If you are a Republican apparently you not only AGREE with that but you want those very rich, very wealthy 1% to pay even LESS!!! Some Republicans are calling for the rich to pay NO tax! I guess they would be the 1%?

So lets get this straight, if you work and EARN your money you pay 30% tax. If you don't work and get UNEARNED income, you pay 15% tax. Now I may be missing something here but it seems to me that it should be the other way around. Surely if you WORK you should get a better tax break than if you DON'T work, and instead just sit back and collect money for doing nothing. Tell me how does that help the country?

Just asking.

It was a gray, gray day!

Monday dawned GREY, or is it Gray? Who knows. But it sure was Grey, or Gray, here. Actually I think it was Gray, for some reason or other Gray sounds more like the way the day looked.

As I struggled up in bed and looked out of the window at The Lake, it was a Gray, Gray day that met my eyes. A thick fog or mist covered everything. The far side of The Lake was completely out of sight.

Later that day, it lasted all day long, Julia and I discussed whether it was a fog or just some mist. I talked about how I could remember, in England, driving along with my door open to enable me to see the curb! It was actually IMPOSSIBLE to see more than a few feet. There could have been a car 2 feet in front of me and I would not have been able to see it. The car's hood (bonnet in England) was about 6 to 8 feet long. (My car was a 1933 Singer Le Mans sports car.) Now THAT was fog! In London they talked about "Pea Soupers", the air was so thick in those fogs that if you held your hand stretched out in front of you you could not see it. "You could not see your hand in front of your face." was the saying. Both Julia and I experienced it. It was scary to say the least.

This was just a mist. Driving across the Bay bridge we could see halfway across the bridge.

Anyway, the mist was very thick on The Lake and we could hear fog horns on The Bay.

The next day was very clear and much warmer. The temperature went from the upper 20's and low 30's up to the mid 50's. There were a lot of Canada Geese on The Lake and also on our lawn and the neighbors lawn. Here we are in late January and have yet to have a cold spell of more than a couple of days.

Mitt Romney and Taxes.

Mitt Romney is set to release his tax returns in April 2012. This gives him time to show us a "clean" return. I'd sure like to see his previous returns!

How about some predictions? I predict it will show an income in the millions, and a tax rate of around 14% or 15%. Less than HALF of what the average American pays!

His tax will be so low BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WORK! In other words UNEARNED income is taxed at less than half of what you pay if you WORK! Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture? If you work for your income you pay MORE (a lot more) than if you don't work for it. If that is not the wrong way around I don't know what is.

How did that happen? No prizes for an answer! The wealthy OWN our Congress, and Congress passes the tax laws.

Q.E.D. (Quod Erat Demonstradum - Which was to be proved.)

Cutting Taxes On The Rich.

We have a huge National Debt. This is due in part because of tax cuts to the wealthy and to two wars, that were not paid for.

A Trillion Dollar war, with no provision to pay for it. (For those who don't know, when you go to war you raise taxes on everyone to pay for it. That is how it should be, everyone should feel the hurt, not just our children who get maimed and killed.)

A Trillion Dollars a year in tax cuts for the rich - at the same time as we go to war!! (Yes we are a rich country, but not that rich!)

Result a bigger National Debt, which is ongoing because the Republicans - George W Bush in particular - left us a legacy of two unfunded wars and a huge tax cut for those who least need it!

The wealthy can take care of themselves - isn't that pretty obvious? Duh! That is how and why they got rich, because they are able to take care of themselves. They don't need any help from us - and yet we INSIST on trying to get their taxes cut, again and again!! How dumb is that? Here we have one of the two strongest political parties (do I need to say the Republican Party?) using all their effort and influence to cut taxes to the wealthy! They seem to have no interest in anything else. They barely mention the deficit, the illegal immigrants, our crumbling roads and bridges, lack of health insurance and care for our citizens, even the "missing" birth certificate is hardly mentioned any more! No, they are instead concentrating all their efforts on reducing taxes for the wealthy. And even more amazingly, 50% of the population goes along with this! People who have been ruined by mortgage scams after credit default swaps disgrace, after hedge fund outrage, after - well you name it - and they still want to give these criminals even bigger tax cuts! (Most of whom already pay tax at a rate of HALF what the average American pays!)

Who can figure?

Sales Tax Or Gas Tax?

I'm sure you have all heard that our Govenor has proposed an increase in the gas tax or the sales tax.

Well I for one favor a gas tax. Why? Well, you can't fully avoid either one, but you can avoid the gas tax more than you can a sales tax.

How? The way I see it, you need to spend whatever you spend for items that carry a sales tax, and you have very little way to avoid it.

But with gas, there are many ways to cut your use of gas. And, by using less gas you not only save yourself money, you also help to save the Planet! You help our health - less pollutants - as well as our environment, our air and our water. We also send less money to those who hate us, which in turn reduces our balance of payments and reduces our National Debt.

Who can argue with that? It is a win/win/win situation for us, the USA, and the West.

How to reduce gas use? Here is a list of ways to do that, most of them are easy and require little or no outlay or effort by you but could be World changing! A few of the ideas would involve expenditures, but these could be expenditures that you would need to make one day anyway. If you just make different decisions at that time, you can make a difference to us and the USA and The World!

Use your smaller more efficient car. Sell your SUV and buy a Prius. (They make a seven seater now!) Drive less - hard to do, but possible - combine trips, share rides.

Keep your car(s) efficient, tire pressure up, tune ups, do less hard accelerating and braking, (that is a BIG one) Accelerating hard can use 10 times as much gas. And every time you brake, you have just completely wasted the gas you used to get up to that speed!

The biggest way of saving gas available to everyone is to only run the engine when you are driving. To set your mind straight on this one - a small car idling uses about 2 ounces of gas a MINUTE! A large Pick Up Truck or SUV uses 4 ounces OR MORE PER MINUTE, when just idling! It uses less gas to shut off your engine and restart it if you will be stopped for more than 10 SECONDS!

For example, you don't need to "warm up" your engine. If you are really hot on this gas waster, at least keep it down to 10 seconds or so.(A neighbor that I had once, let her HUGE Pick Up Truck idle for a half an hour or more before she left for work every day! She'd go out and start it, go back into the house and come out again a half hour later! At 4 ounces per minute that was 120 ounces of gas, or about a gallon a day! I'm sure she also left it running when she stopped at the 7-11 to get her morning cup of coffee, cigarettes and a chat.)

In contrast when I get into my car I wait until everyone is in and their seat belts done up before I start the car. Think about that for a minute, I expect you, like I used to do, get into the car and start it up right away. Then you wait for your spouse and children to get in, maybe you even get out and clean the windshield or go and get the mail, pick up the newspaper from the driveway etc. That could easily be 5 minutes or more of idling. Even in a small car that's 5x2oz=20oz of gas, and let's face it most people are driving large SUVs nowadays - 5x4oz=20oz of gas! Do that just a few times with an SUV - it could be in one day - and you just wasted a whole gallon of gas!

Next you stop at the bank and go through the drive through. When I do my transaction I shut off my engine as soon as I stop at the container that zooms my deposit to the teller. THEN I get the container, put in my deposit, write anything if I need to, send it off. The teller then takes her time doing the work. Asks me if I want anything else, etc, etc, I get the container back, remove my paperwork, replace the container, check my paperwork, put it away AND THEN restart my car. Rarely does this take less than 5 minutes. 5x4=20 ounces of gas SAVED!! Imagine if everyone did that! 100 million car owners, twice a week, for 52 weeks = 3.25 Billion gallons of gas = 77 million barrels of oil! A barrel of oil sells for around $100 now, or $7.7 Billion. Just for shutting off the engine when going through your bank drive through!

Imagine the savings in oil use if you don't leave your engine idling while you go into the 7-11 for coffee, while waiting for your kids outside the school, while waiting for your spouse while he/she goes into the store, while sitting in your car reading and waiting, leaving it running to keep it warm/cool - while you do your grocery shopping or whatever. And I don't mean just the savings to you, I mean to the country. To our air, to our children with asthma, to global climate change, to our balance of payments, National Debt, and on and on, I'm sure that you can think of other reasons to not waste a resource like the World's limited supply of oil which can be used for such a myriad of uses other than burning it up. (Just in case you didn't know, although I think everyone does nowadays, it is used to make plastic - at least a million different things are made of plastic, maybe a billion different things - it is used in perfume, make up, shampoo, toothpaste, soap, man made fibres, vitamins, detergents, film, CDs, clothing, shoes, wax, fertilizer, cleaning products, oil for engines of all kinds, for lubrication, etc, etc ,etc, the list is endless.) and yet we are burning up this resource that our modern world could not exist without.

We should be conserving it while we find a way to replace it with something that does not dirty our air and water and is not so irreplaceable.

Another reason to use less oil, perhaps the best one is to preserve our children's arms, legs and lives. To maintain our wasteful lifestyles (every American uses, on average, more than twice as much energy as every European. Per person.) we regularly go to war, sending our most precious resource, our children, to fight, and die, so that we can live "The Good Life". Or as one friend says, and insists, that it is his right to choose. He should not be forced to use less of oil or electricity or anything. He thinks he should be allowed to use incandescent light bulbs instead of CFLs or LEDs if he chooses. He is an intelligent man but thinks that his, "right to choose", is more important than anything! Surely not more important than our children's lives?

Where was I? Oh yes saving gas. It's so easy, and SO important, please just DO IT, for all our sakes, and for the Planets sake.

Oh, and as I said at the start, I would favor an increased gas tax over an increased sales tax. Now you know why. Wy not just expand the sales tax to cover gasoline?

Good night, sleep tight.

Brrrr.

Yes siree, it is cold today, 25 degrees at 7.00am and The Lake is almost frozen over. I got the fire going, let the chickens out - they just shook their feathers out and got on with their business, whatever that is, I guess clearing up any bugs, insects and wayward seeds laying around in their pen.

Muffey the cat went out for a brief walk, but was soon back, scratching at the door to be let back in. By this time the fire was well under way, my coffee almost finished, the cat's food was down and the paper was in. The sun was also well up, but the temperature was still down. Eight o'clock and it is still a mean 26 degrees!

OK, I have checked my e-mails, sent some answers, shaved, showered and dressed and it is almost 9.00 and still only 27 degrees. But the sun is well up and the sky a nice bright shade of blue, I am hopeful that it will soon warm up. At least there is no sign of rain or snow.

My Grandson Bradley and I built a walkway out of composite "Wood" on Saturday on one of the coldest windiest days of the year. It was surprisingly successful. I have to go out, probably today, to pick up a couple more pieces of wood to finish it. He will be back on Wednesday to help me wrap up yet another project, on this new, still unfinished, house. But I am not going to go into that today, you will doubtless be glad to hear!

The walkway, which goes from our driveway to the bottom of the steps that go up to our front door, a distance of 22 feet, replaces a "Crazy Paving Walkway", that while attractive, was also a hazard. The stone walkway was uneven, so that I was always afraid that our increasingly elderly friends were going to fall. Being stone, there was also the danger of it being slippery in the presence of rain, snow or ice. We had planted a few sprigs of Thyme in the gaps between the stones, this had thrived and almost half of the path was now covered in the Thyme.

I think the new path/walkway will be a success. Bradley says he will set the stones, which he pulled up prior to our work, alongside the driveway as a way of separating the drive from the lawn and also giving me a hard surface to walk on when going to the mailbox. I would have liked to have continued the composite walkway all the way to the mailbox, but at some 75 feet further that will have to wait for a lottery win, the death of some, as yet unknown rich uncle, some other windfall or a better job offer.

Well time to move on, it looks like it is going to be a cold day for sure.

Reduce/increase spending, taxes.

I see now that we have withdrawn our troops from Iraq and are reducing our troops in Afghanistan that President Obama has proposed reducing military spending. Seems reasonable to me. As we are no longer at war, except for the one in Afghanistan that is being drawn down, it would seem reasonable that we don't need such a large military budget. Usually when you finish a war you are going to be spending less on war! When World War two ended, we spent less on war.

But no, immediately that he made the proposal the Republicans objected! They objected to us spending LESS money! For months now they have been up in arms about spending less. When Obama says we will spend less they object. I noticed that they objected to him spending more too. They also objected to him raising taxes (Which he has NOT done, not ONCE since coming into office.) But the Republicans objected anyway. They also objected when he wanted to CUT taxes!

So what does that mean to you? They object to the President increasing OR decreasing spending. They object to the President increasing OR decreasing taxes.

What does it mean? It is a mystery to be sure.

First snow of the season.

Here we are in January and we have just had our first snowfall, not only of 2012 but of the season. Except of course for the "Snow" of October the 30th last year - the worst October snowfall on record - which just missed us. We had a few small flurries, nothing that laid, but everywhere north of us got hammered. I think in New England they got something like 30 inches. Even Philadelphia got 6" or so and New York got a foot or something.

Last night we got a scant 1/4 inch, or less, probably less. I might not have even noticed it except that I was driving home from a Networking meeting in Bethesda at 10 o'clock last night and it was "snowing" all the way home. Well not really snowing, just flurrying. But it was right at 32 degrees and the bridges were icy, I skidded a couple of times crossing some bridges and saw two accidents. It got heavier as I approached home, but was still very light.

This morning I might have forgotten about it and thought there had been a heavy frost had I not been out in it. But what made it really noticeable was The Lake, which was covered with snow. You see, the night before we had our first cold night of the season when it went down to 17 degrees here, and The Lake froze. It was almost completely frozen over except for a couple of small areas that did not close in.

Of course when The Lake is snow covered things really look like winter. And sure enough it is winter. The temperature is still right at freezing and the bewildered birds are sitting out on the snow and ice covered Lake.

And to think that I only just picked the last of my lettuce on Tuesday! Lettuce in January. Amazing. The last of the sweet potatoes I had dug the day before that.

Science, Religion and Politics.

As time goes by, ideas coalesce in my mind. One such idea that is taking root - and scaring the heck out of me - is the idea of what will happen to America if the "Religious Right" gets into power. The changes that I can see gradually taking place would, I am sure, upset our founding fathers who advocated a "Separation of Church and State". Perhaps the "Born Again Christians" of the "New Religion" don't see this as a problem. But I do.

I see Science being relegated to a back seat in our classrooms at best and eliminated altogether at worst.

The Religious Right seems to be ignoring and denigrating science completely. They appear to be trying to push Creationism, and to ban Evolution teaching from our schools. I'm afraid if these radical, extreme views are allowed to continue to proliferate, the teaching of Science and Evolution and a host of other teachings that have been the basic tenets of America since its inception will be banned.

Why do they feel we have to have Science OR God? Why can we not have both?

I see statements like "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."! Rational thought is being pushed out in favor of blind obedience or even superstition.

Our education system seems be deliberately dumbing down our kids! What possible reason can there be to do that? I don't know, do you? But I'm sure I see it happening.

Beginning in the Bush Administration we saw suppression of science. Only accepting "good" results from scientific studies. if the administration did not like the results, they were sent back to be "redone" until they matched what the administration felt was the "right" result!

Many will not remember this, but I do, because I remember being horrified by it. They actually refused to accept results that they did not like. And of course the scientists were put in an untenable position. If they did not produce the "right" results they could lose their research funds and maybe even their jobs!

And things are getting worse, science is being ridiculed or ignored or called wrong by The Religious Right, Born Again Christians, Creationists and other extreme Zealots and Fanatics. Schools are being forced to change their curriculum's by teachers and parents who want their beliefs taught. Children are being indoctrinated in these irrational, radical theories and are spouting "their own" theories about Religion, Politics etc. There is no room in these religions it seems for respecting the beliefs of others.

In case you have not already caught on, I think that the Bible, and all other religious books from other faiths, were all written by human beings. In other words they are fables, and I do not want to base my life on a fable.

For the record;:-

Peace is Good.
Ethical behaviour is Good.
God is Good.
Science is Good.

I am a Humanitarian. I believe in treating others the way that I would like to be treated.

Just some of my beliefs and opinions - and as everyone knows - Dave is ALWAYS Right (As in, correct!)