signs

Signs of Spring:

The peach tree I planted last year, or what's left of it after the deer found it, is in lavendar bloom.

So are the Sarvice berry trees, which most folks drive by and think are dogwoods. Sarvice is a mountainization of "service" which is what the tiny apples on this apple relative were used for before store bought laxitives were invented.

The hilside has a red tint from the maple blooms. Iactually think spring color is more beautiful than fall. softer and more loving, somehow.

If you bend over and look at the ground just about anywhere you will see small flowers, many of which will soon be chemically eradicated by America's obsession with grass and lawn care.

It's noisy in the morning...some kinda bird has the most monotonous four note tweet on the planet and sits roight outside my bedroom window until I get up to try and see what it is...then it's gone or too damned small to see.

There is a box of Plants from Misty Mountain Nursery sitting on the porch, just delivered. I hear it speak softly, "Plant me, you lazy slob..."

The greens I planted several weeks back have already come up and been eaten by the deer...another successful gardening adventure.

The new stainless steel grill I have been lusting after for six months is still not on sale.

My youngest is driving us crazy with the noise up in his room. Nope not rap music--turkey calls. Juvenile hunt is tomorrow. Please let him get one, please, please, please! We're going nuts around here...

Peace....(please!)

Steve


*****


Social Security will not "Run out of money" in any way shape or form in 2042 or 2041 or whenever. New cash flow is coming in all the time and will continue as long as anybody in America has a job....Oh wait!!!

Now I get it!


Via Wonkette:
So it turns out that Social Security really is in a crisis -- yesterday's report by the system's trustees found it will run out of money in 2041, not 2042 as projected earlier. See, don't you get it? President Bush said we had to act fast or we'd be screwed, and now that's a whole year we've lost, all because those Democrats in Congress... well, okay, mostly because Bush's plan to privatize Social Security is about as popular as a Sacajawea dollar. But still!

Paying all the Social Security benefits the government owes to old folks over the next 75 years will cost $4 trillion, and with a growing elderly population, payroll taxes won't bring in enough cash to cover it. But the trustees' report also had a hidden silver lining: Medicare will run out of money almost 20 years sooner than Social Security. Which means, we've solved the problem already! No money for Medicare means no health care for seniors. No health care for seniors means... no seniors! And no seniors means no Social Security problem. Shit, that was easy.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get al-Qaida enrolled in a federal entitlement program and we're set.-- "Joe Klein"







I'm getting overloaded on Schiavo case grandstanding and outright lies. The lengths Randall Terry will go to are disgusting and incredible at the same time. Terry is not a nice guy and seems willing to say anything that suits his goal, which seems to be publicity for himself more than anything else.

One claim we hear constantly is that Michael Schiavo is doing this for the money. The reason he won't relinquish custody of Terri is because he stands to profit by her death through insurance, malpractice awards, etc.

Michael received $300,000 in the malpractice judgement against Terri's doctor, she received a much larger sum which was put in trust for her care. 15 years later it is largely gone. Terri's treatment is paid for by Medicare, which George Bush has moved to cut. In the end, after looking at it, I believe that Michael Schiavo is telling the truth as to why he is pushing this to the end:

"This is what Terri wanted."

While I would not have done things this way (I think this is true ...I hope I never actually find out), I accept his statements on their face:

During an October 27, 2003 interview with CNN's Larry King, (Michael) Schiavo told him that the Schindlers offered him $700,000 "to walk away" from his wife:

King: They have that kind of money?

Schiavo: They get money from the right-wing activists. The right wing--the right to life groups.

King: The right-to-life group was willing to pay you $700,000 to walk away?

Sciavo: Right

mediatransparency

The Schindler's Spokesman, Terry Randall...nice guy, eh?

He solicited donations for his "ministry" that he used to pay for his $400,000.00 house for him and his new trophy wife:

World noted that the same month he paid the deposit on his new home, a court ruled that Terry, who divorced his first wife and has remarried, "was not paying a fair share of child support." In an article on his website, Terry denounced the World report as "journalistic trash, a 'hit piece' of malice and misinformation."

In a May 25, 2004, interview about his gay son with The Advocate, Terry stated that homosexuality is a "sexual addiction" ...

According to the February 12, 2000, Washington Post report, Terry was censured by his church, the Landmark Church of Binghamton, New York, for a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women." Terry denies the accusation.

mediamatters