I have been following the news about Senator Roland Burris who is apparently suffering from the Illinois Political Tradition of being crooked at least in my opinion. Senator Burris stoutly defended his squeaky clean track record when he was appointed, and then it was all down hill from there. He denied having any previous dealings with Governor Blagojevich but later admitted that maybe he did have a chat or two with folks in that tortured administration. Several other statements he originally made have been "corrected", but the more he talks, the bigger the hole he gets into. I wouldn't make any bets on whether or not he gets re-elected when the seat comes up again. The press of course is having a hell of a good time as it digs up more and more dirt. I must admit that sometimes Freedom of the Press is valuable to us clueless citizens. Stay tuned, I doubt if this is over yet.
Not to be outdone, Potsdam politics is rolling along in its usual fashion. The latest developement is the new Town Hall, which everything thought had gone away. Alas, the announcement that some free money from the Feds would shortly come rolling in has resurrected the town hall issue for the third time. I don't really care whether they build a new town hall or not, thank heaven I don't have to deal with them, but the determination to rebuild has not gone away, it was just dormant for a while. In the meantime the hospital expansion has escalated into another hassel with the pros and cons going at it with great enthusiasm. The organizer of the most recent "con" group has protested that he did not actually shut down his meeting because some folks disagreed with his opinion, but is continuing his struggle against "Big Hospital". I fully expect the hospital to prevail in this matter, but they will have to jump through the hoops before it becomes a reality. By now, anyone trying to improve or expand in Potsdam should have a complete idea of how things work there, and press on. I can't imagine why the folks in Potsdam continue to reelect the same group which time after time decides what is good for everyone else in town, and continues to inflict its views on the town/village.
I don't understand the continuing outrage over the Baseball steroid issue. I mean, these guys make millions of dollars to play a game, and if they take a steroid shot or two, why should we care? They don't seem to realize that their bodies will probably pay the price for their "enhancement" procedures at some point, and that's their problem. I personally don't care if they inject themselves with kryptonite, they are just entertaining folks. At least they don't seem to be stealing money from investors, unless you consider their salaries stealing.
Quite a few members of my family are enthralled with this "American Idol" business, another subject I do not understand. I occasionally see a snippet or two of the program before I retreat to my room with a book. As far as I can see, the worst singers in the world line up to make an ass of themselves in front of a national audience, with the hopes they will be the next superstar on the scene. Judging their efforts we have a panel of airheads, along with participation by the audience which votes on their efforts.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
February is still here
The town/village of Potsdam continues to provide me with lots of entertainment. The current brouhaha concerns Canton-Potsdam Hospital's plans to expand, which involves removing several residences in the area of the hospital to provide space for their expansion plans. To accommodate the hospital, the town/village has rezoned the property from Residential to whatever category is necessary. You may recall that they would not rezone a piece of property on Market Street to allow Dunkin Donuts to build a new bistro. I suspect that some members of whoever controlled the zoning board had a conflict of interest in whatever competition the new business would generate, but I had better keep off that subject to protect my legal status. Anyway, any attempt to change anything in Potsdam is guaranteed to produce an uproar. In the hospital case a local resident with a really big mouth (anti-change) proceeded to call a meeting to discuss the situation, obviously expecting a huge turnout of folks who agreed with him. To his chagrin, it seems that the majority of the crowd was in favor of the hospital expansion - far from the response he expected. In a classic case of Democracy in Action, he threw out all of the people who did not agree with his position, and finished the meeting with the 7 or 8 souls who were left. Not a really good start for the opposition. I have been a patient/client of Canton-Potsdam hospital several times, and I think it is one of the best managed institutions I have ever entered. Although I am not allowed to participate in the final decision, my hope is that the hospital prevails.
In his continuing attempts to balance the New York State budget (ain't gonna happen), one of the Gov's suggestions is a huge increase in the excise tax on Beer. I am gonna tell him that the idea of increasing the cost of beer is like the third rail (Medicare) in national politics. The Feds know what is so unpopular it might cost someone an election, and run like dogs when anything detrimental to medical is proposed. Our Gov might take a lesson from them and leave New Yorker's beer alone.
I keep reading how the price of a barrel of oil is steadily falling, but I fail to see any corresponding drop when I fill up my car. I have seen several explanations for this seeming anomoly, none of which I understand, and more importantly, none I believe. At its very simplist senario it seems to me that if the cost of the raw material of something drops, there should be a corresponding drop in the finished product. One excuse I read was that we are up to our butts in crude oil in storage, but don't have the pipeline capacity to move it to the refineries. The oil companies say they can't afford to build these pipelines because of the uncertainty of the price of gasoline. As far as I can see, they are pretty well dictating the price of gasoline now, so what the hell is the problem. I see that Exxon made something like a 45 Billion dollar profit in the last quarter - how much do those pipelines cost anyway?
The uproar continues over that lady who recently gave birth to 8 babies. She was a National Hero for a couple of days due to the medical miracle she produced, but as a single mother with 14 kids, she seems to be running a little short of money. Well, duh, what is the big suprise? This poor gal is apparently soliciting donations to feed her brood and this is absolutely outrageous to some folks, who are raising hell with the idea that she might ask for welfare. Where do we draw the line? Is it OK for a destitute family with 4 or 5 kids to get welfare but not this person with 14 kids? The most prominent complaint is that she had all of those kids on purpose - where in hell do they think the kids in smaller welfare families came from -- immaculate conception? I have always believed that kids should not be allowed to go hungry or be cold, regardless of their social status and I see no reason to change my opinion about this situation. If our governments can spend millions on a vast variety of hairbrained schemes, feeding kids should be in there somewhere.
In his continuing attempts to balance the New York State budget (ain't gonna happen), one of the Gov's suggestions is a huge increase in the excise tax on Beer. I am gonna tell him that the idea of increasing the cost of beer is like the third rail (Medicare) in national politics. The Feds know what is so unpopular it might cost someone an election, and run like dogs when anything detrimental to medical is proposed. Our Gov might take a lesson from them and leave New Yorker's beer alone.
I keep reading how the price of a barrel of oil is steadily falling, but I fail to see any corresponding drop when I fill up my car. I have seen several explanations for this seeming anomoly, none of which I understand, and more importantly, none I believe. At its very simplist senario it seems to me that if the cost of the raw material of something drops, there should be a corresponding drop in the finished product. One excuse I read was that we are up to our butts in crude oil in storage, but don't have the pipeline capacity to move it to the refineries. The oil companies say they can't afford to build these pipelines because of the uncertainty of the price of gasoline. As far as I can see, they are pretty well dictating the price of gasoline now, so what the hell is the problem. I see that Exxon made something like a 45 Billion dollar profit in the last quarter - how much do those pipelines cost anyway?
The uproar continues over that lady who recently gave birth to 8 babies. She was a National Hero for a couple of days due to the medical miracle she produced, but as a single mother with 14 kids, she seems to be running a little short of money. Well, duh, what is the big suprise? This poor gal is apparently soliciting donations to feed her brood and this is absolutely outrageous to some folks, who are raising hell with the idea that she might ask for welfare. Where do we draw the line? Is it OK for a destitute family with 4 or 5 kids to get welfare but not this person with 14 kids? The most prominent complaint is that she had all of those kids on purpose - where in hell do they think the kids in smaller welfare families came from -- immaculate conception? I have always believed that kids should not be allowed to go hungry or be cold, regardless of their social status and I see no reason to change my opinion about this situation. If our governments can spend millions on a vast variety of hairbrained schemes, feeding kids should be in there somewhere.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Blogging Mysteries
Since I started this blog I figured that the only folks reading it were my relatives who write to me and are not reluctant to critique my efforts. To my surprise, I received an e-mail from Scott LaLonde, an old friend who I met during my veteran counselor days. Scott was quite the all-around hell raiser in his younger days, but his wife Robin has apparently rubbed off most of the rough spots and turned him into a solid citizen. I never did understand Scott's hobby, acquired courtesy of the the US Army, of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. My opinion of flying is, if the motors are working, stay on board. The first time I ever flew was at Scott AFB, Illinois, in 1953. I was mopping the floor at Base Operations and mentioned to a Sergeant that I had been in the Air Force for three whole months and had never been in an airplane. In short order he had me in a parachute and we boarded an ancient B-25 to "go for a ride". I was the only passenger. My safety briefing was to open a hatch in the floor in case of emergency, and pull the D-Ring handle when I got clear of the airplane. We took off and once we got up in the air, I decided that there were not enough people on that plane to get me thru that hole. The new experience got old pretty fast, and I was quite pleased when we came in for a landing. To my surprise we landed, rolled down the runway for a while, and then took off again. They were doing what they called "touch and go's", apparently practicing to land. They did that about 8 times, and I had my fill of flying for quite a while. This probably explains my attitude toward Scott's hobby.
I spent a lot of time bitching about the weather in January - the month that would not end. In fact, I am not noticing a hell of a lot of improvement in February, I will just have fewer days to bitch. My old buddy Pete Drake in Florida tells me that their temperature was only 1 degree higher than ours one day last week. I suppose they had a little cold snap, but I also know they were playing golf the next day. I find it hard to feel sorry for them.
The news from Washington -- "we don't pay taxes until we get caught" is pretty interesting. Our new President must feel like Diogenes, searching for one honest person. Did you ever notice that those high rollers with tax problems also usually have problems with their household slaves? I guess they don't check anyone's resident status when they hire them. The answer is, of course, that if they ask for a living wage you can threaten to have them deported, which abruptly ends any wage negotiation.
The lady I wrote about who had 8 kids at once and intended to breast feed them -- well it turns out that she already had 6 kids at home -- AND SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER! This has turned into quite a field day for the press, because folks are now wondering who is going to support all these kids. In the end, it will be the kids who suffer.
We don't have much new stuff coming out of our County Legislature. The most recent fiasco was the Legislator from Lisbon publicly accusing the Administrative Assistant of lying to him. Later on, after reviewing the County Attorney's notes, he (the legislator) then publicly apoligized for his moment of indescretion. At least he paid his taxes, as far as I know.
Enough for now, I have to start working on my seed order.
I spent a lot of time bitching about the weather in January - the month that would not end. In fact, I am not noticing a hell of a lot of improvement in February, I will just have fewer days to bitch. My old buddy Pete Drake in Florida tells me that their temperature was only 1 degree higher than ours one day last week. I suppose they had a little cold snap, but I also know they were playing golf the next day. I find it hard to feel sorry for them.
The news from Washington -- "we don't pay taxes until we get caught" is pretty interesting. Our new President must feel like Diogenes, searching for one honest person. Did you ever notice that those high rollers with tax problems also usually have problems with their household slaves? I guess they don't check anyone's resident status when they hire them. The answer is, of course, that if they ask for a living wage you can threaten to have them deported, which abruptly ends any wage negotiation.
The lady I wrote about who had 8 kids at once and intended to breast feed them -- well it turns out that she already had 6 kids at home -- AND SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER! This has turned into quite a field day for the press, because folks are now wondering who is going to support all these kids. In the end, it will be the kids who suffer.
We don't have much new stuff coming out of our County Legislature. The most recent fiasco was the Legislator from Lisbon publicly accusing the Administrative Assistant of lying to him. Later on, after reviewing the County Attorney's notes, he (the legislator) then publicly apoligized for his moment of indescretion. At least he paid his taxes, as far as I know.
Enough for now, I have to start working on my seed order.
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