Archive for the ‘Ramblings’ Category

Judge Sonia Sotomayor blocks provision of Obamacare that would force all employers to provide birth control to their employees. This is a narrow decision that only applies to religious groups. I believe that this is the correct decision as the government has no business telling religious groups what to believe. This would have  forced a religious group to provide birth control to their employees. This would have gone totally against their beliefs. Catholic do not believe in birth control and the government should not force him to do anything against their faith. This is not only healthcare but religious faith in the government should be out of this

Got to get off my lazy backside and working on my blog again. Long with the usual resolutions like trying to lose weight and be more active in my eBay business I also intend to start posting regularly again. I’m able to use my phone now as I have installed WordPerfect on it and now post my comments and thoughts even while I’m away. Right now I haven’t even been paying attention to news or other events . So along with my resolution to start posting again I will also need to stay  informed of world events. Look for more post every day or two at the worst. Happy new year to all and to all a good bye.

Well it’s been a whole week now and the world has not ended. Nor the USA went belly up. This is precisely opposite of what I have heard would happen if Obama was reelected. Once again, we do not vote for the best candidate but instead for the lesser of two evils. I wish we had a political party that cared about the bottom half of society. With ideals of compassion for all citizens, who still had down-to-earth morals. The ones who would believe in individuality and the right to bear arms and still had Godly morals. My daughter tells me that anyone who votes Republican and is not a rich white man is stupid. If you really take a look at it she is probably right. When Obama was first elected I was excited for the new changes that would come in. Now I see it’s just business as usual when I is an army called this situation SNAFU. It stands for, situation normal all, f*****d up. I will leave it to your imagination for what the “F” stands for. It is a shame that our country does so little for its unfortunate lower-class. Other countries, even those we consider third world gives healthcare to its citizens and other basic needs. I am extremely proud that I am an American but at times. I feel totally ashamed of how our country treats its citizens, unless you are rich.

I have been very lax about posting and posting something interesting lately. I’ve have had some very nasty days with my fibromyalgia. I have been reading up on the so-called Obama care. While I do see parts of a Obama Care that should be repaired. Overall it is better in the long run than anything I’ve heard out of the Republican camp. I do disagree with charging minimums that require you to purchase health care insurance. I would set a final price $100,000, and anyone making more than that would need to get their own insurance policy they could self pay or employer pay. However, if you make less a $100,000, (150,000 or more for married filing jointly) you would be eligible for Medicaid. Medicaid requirements should be paid by the  federal government. Romney has already stated that he would drop Medicaid altogether. Back in the 60′sRepublicans fought tooth and nail attempting to block Medicaid and Medicare. If not for Pres. Johnson, we would not have Medicaid or Medicare. Well that and equal rights. Republicans, including our longtime senator Strom Thurmond were against equal rights. If I remember correctly, Thurmond, holds the record for longest filibuster of all time in the USA and that he was for speaking out against the Civil Rights Bill. That is the truth behind the Republicans legacy.

If we can retain”Obama Care”starting January 1, 2014, medicaid expansion will now have a new limit. Anyone making 113% of poverty the level will be eligible for Medicaid. This is a step in the right direction. That part is good. The bad part is that it will impose a filing minimum of $95 or a 1% of the filing income minimum, depending upon which one of the two is the highest This is where I think there are problems. By 2016, they are starting to create tax credits or charges or not having insurance. More on that later.

Once again it seems that I have been dragging my heels in posting my feelings about the soldier who massacred sixteen innocent Afghan civilians. I have thought long and hard about this and feel that the US was wrong in spiriting him away in the “dead of night” so to speak. I feel like this was the exact wrong thing to do. He killed Afghans and should be dealt with harshly if we want to maintain healthy relationships with Afghanistan and its people. Instead it looks like we are going to shield him from the wrath that Afghanistan people demand. That he being returned to the US makes it look to them that we are not going to punish him as they feel he needs. If we intend to maintain relationships between our two countries we can not allow him to get out of this if he is found guilty. Whatever the out come we need to think of the ramifications in our response to this situations in that part of the world.

I am going to make this one  fast and directly. During the previous presidential administration we heard from several fronts that “Dick Cheney has no heart”. Well to all those doubters I only have to point out that Mr Cheney received a heart yesterday. That kills that thinking. I give out a sincere, get well soon. One reason for this, is that we honestly want to see him get better and for a questionable rumination, who paid for the heart transplant? While we know he can afford it we still wonder if he still receives medical care from the government as part of your severance from being such a high ranked official in our country. I believe that it is part of the great medical care that we give our government officials. The ones that can afford it the most get it for free and the ones that ones who need it the most can not get it.

 

As per normal with me nowadays I am once again posting something late. This is still as important today as it was 4 days ago. November 11th is Veterans in the United States. Some may still call it by the name it once has as Armistice Day. That was when the guns fell silent in the war to end all wars, WW I. The agreement lasted a little over two decades and once more the world was at war again. That is all in the past and we need to remember the past. I was reading the Freedom Alert that my Senator, Jim DeMint uses as the title of all his emails to me. I intentionally left out the honorable part ’cause I am not so certain he is that honorable. The way I look at it pretty much all politicians are out to grab all they can and not worry about what will happen after we are dead and gone. The VHP a project  of the Library Of Congress’s American Folklore Center. We are losing approximately one thousand vets a day. Once they have passed there is no way to get their side of the story.

But I transgress. What I want to do is try and get everyone involved in the Veterans History Project. You can visit the Library of Congress and download the VHP field kit. Visit their home page and in the upper right there is a search box and you can simply type Veterans History Project. Your results should right on top. Visit the appropriate link then download the ebook that explains what they need and can use. There is an address inside of the papers that gives you the physical location to forward all of the information you have gotten. We need top remember the past and the sacrifices that they made so that we can live our life without the fear that could have happened if not for their bravery. I say thank you to all our veterans and try to speak to each and everyone that I see wearing caps and colors from their units and branch of our military. Try it. Next time you see one our vets proudly (and rightfully so) displaying what branch of the military their were in or a unit patch. I try speaking to each and every vet that I see and express my gratitude for their sacrifices and heroism all for us back at home. I am proud to say I am a veteran as was my father one brother and my sister also served. Us children were too young to go to war in Vietnam and I tried but they found my lie about my age. The next time you see a vet, young or old you should look them in the eyes and tell them “Thank You” for everything you did for us at home. I feel blessed knowing our family had so many vets. I feel lucky to have gotten to talk to WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam  vets. I felt I was in the presence of heroes every time we would go to the VA medical center in Asheville NC. I listened to many tales, but one really stands out in my memories. I was joking around with a elderly black man in the visitors area when grandpa was a patient. I told him he looked a little too old to be from WWII and asked him if he was a WWI vet to which he told me he was not a WWI vet. He told me he served in the Spanish American war. This excited me as I had never spoke to a vet that old. I was very surprised as that meant he was nearly a hundred years old. After he told when and where he served I was really excited. So I asked him did he charge up the hill with Teddy Roosevelt. That is when he told me that they only let him take care of the mules. It brought that ugly “race issue” to the front. We never talked about that but I later learned about the race card as they would not let a black man and a white man serve together. He did have an extremely important job but it was such a shame that he could not charge the hill and serve with the other men. Either man could actually get killed doing his duty but they had to segregate the races even on the battlefield where all men were equally killed.

I am glad to report that race no longer plays as a reason for rank, pay grade or units. That is the way it should be. No man is better than another simply because the color of their skin is different.

I once again am slow to get back to my blog to post and I try to show reasons why but even with the problems we have been having I still should be more regular in my posting. A big whoop de do over nothing in my opinion has caused a rift in the family. My sister in law and her two grandchildren were living with us  as one family up until just two weeks ago. Now They have moved in with her daughter the mother of the two children and it looks as if things will never be the same any more. I know our eBay business will suffer some as she was unrivaled in her ability to find awesome deals for us to purchase and then resell on eBay. We will carry on and go on without her and the kids but it seems so quiet here without them.

On the eBay front sales are sporadic but still moving forward towards Christmas. I need to make a few changes to what we have listed and make sure everyone knows that express mail is an option if they want to pay the high shipping fees. I have also been looking for a Christmas countdown clock that is up to date so I can insert it into my HTML if they will still let me use one. I have done it before but a lot of water has gone over the dam since then. Every season they make changes so we have to stay on top of things if we want to sell and make a good profit. We are pretty much like regular department stores in that we get into the black during Christmas season. Everything all year long goes mostly back into purchasing more stock to have for this time of the year. I need to get moving again and list some more items for sale as we have some very nice Game Boy Advance SP’s that are nearly impossible to find in like new condition like some of these are. As a matter of fact a few are actually new but they were opened and inspected before being put up making them impossible to list as new but “New Other” is an option. If anyone knows of a good countdown clock that I can use for free please drop me a note. Best wishes for all.

 

Unless you have been sleeping under a rock then you surely know that next year is an election year. Next year we decide upon who will be President the following four years. Ron Paul one of the front runners is planning to abolish the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Interior and Education. This in itself is pretty radical and would affect nearly every American and most for the bad. Now even worse Republicans are advocating eliminating the EPA. Earlier this year former House Speaker Newt Gingrich became the first high-profile conservative to champion one of the most extreme environmental positions in recent memory: total elimination of the EPA. I personally feel that this position is ludicrous. I think the upcoming elections need to be watched closely. These programs that they want to eliminate protect all of us and our country for not only us but our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Some help us gain ownership of homes. There is oversight of our roads and airways, protection of public lands, energy planning for our future,Commerce and education. Somethings they say sound good but you need to listen to everything. loss of all of these would be bad for the country and only help those who wish to rape and pillage our country for themselves and to hell with the future. I hope you are able to see through their facade and see them for what they really are.

It has some several days since I last posted and There are numerous reasons for this. Either I am in the middle of a flare or something much much worse. We buried my nephew this week. Of all my nephews both on my wife’s side and my side he was my favorite all through his shortened life. He was a victim of capitalism. He had a steady job at a sawmill when he had a life changing accident. The machine he was running threw a 2×4 piece of lumber towards him and impaled him. He almost died then before they could airlift him to the hospital. After multiple surgeries and the loss of a good portion of his intestines and stomach he was finally released from the hospital to waste away his remaining days living off of intravenous feedings and vomiting every thing he tried to eat and when he ran out of food to throw up  he still continued to vomit. He held on for a little over two years until he lost the fight last week. I was there while the paramedics were doing their best to revive him but it was too late and the Lord took him home to suffer no more.

One would think that an accident like that would force a change in the machinery and install some sort of guard to protect the operator if it happened again and happened again is exactly what it did. O.S.H.A. forced them to shut down two days and then allowed them to open right back up with no new safety updates. I personally know of two more incidents of the same machine doing the same thing to two more men at separate times. Each time O.S.H.A. would shut them down a day or two and then allow them to open right back up with no new safety requirements in place. Not only was a government agency negligent in their protection of workers but the owners were so greedy that they would not spend a dime to protect whomever was unfortunate enough to be running that machine. A case of capitalistic greed plain and simple.

Now those of us who loved him are left wondering why. His poor wife and three small children left to grow up without a father and her without a husband. And for what? Capitalistic greed is all. I am neither a socialist nor a communist but still feel there are some better options than to let capitalism run the show as they are doing now. His death is small by comparison to what is done in the name of profits. Rape of our mother earth goes on everyday and so few stand up to say anything. Enslaving the populace goes on everyday in the name of capitalism. I do not know the complete answer to fix this but somehow we need to find a way to progress and keep our communities thriving but at what cost are we willing to pay?

 

Tomorrow is a big day for our family. My daughter in law is going to address congress in hearings about the need for funding for rheumatoid arthritis, all manner of auto immune diseases and health care in general. This is a very big honor and I am very proud of her. I would love to be able to go myself and just watch from the gallery but I can’t do that so maybe I can get her to guest author a post or two detailing it and her feelings on the state of our government and health care issues where we tend to agree on a large portion of things. She is quite intelligent and I am sure she will make a good showing with them. I only hope that they will actually listen and make changes for the good of all citizens instead of just making corporations happy.