Hello, Everyone.  Well yesterday was nice.  A bit cool with intermittent showers but still nice.  Mother's Day at Sister's was nice and they had the cook out as planned.  It wasn't so cool or wet that we had to go inside.

This morning the news media finally mentioned the rise in stamp prices.  On the very day the increase goes into effect.  Luckily the Forever Stamps are still good--no running to the Post Office to buy a bunch of 2-centers to make up the difference.  And since I pay my bills on line through my bank, stamps aren't as big a worry as they once were.  Perhaps that, and the fact that the law now provides for yearly increases that don't exceed the inflation rate, is why the media didn't make as big a deal as they once did.  It still sucks.

I think Chris In Paris (at Americablog) takes just the right tone concerning the 'savings' the healthcare industry has offered up.  Let's see--$2 trillion over 10 years--OMG that is a whole $200 billion a year.  And what proportion of the profits they make because Medicare is legally prevented from negotiating drug prices does that represent?  And all so that the Obama Administration can extend health insurance to another 50 million Americans currently without.  I hope that this only a prelude to universal health care and not a means of short circuiting the drive towards that goal.

Ronni at Time Goes By has a heads-up on yet another set of proposals from our national legislators to control our behavior--for our own good, of course.  I agree with her on all points.  I deeply resent all of these efforts to force me to conform to someone else's notion of health.  I don't care to be put into those kinds of boxes.  I don't smoke but my mother does.  Should I be denied a job, a promotion, or penalized because she smokes and the nicotine shows up in my blood test.  Why should I be penalized because I weigh more than the charts say is normal when my blood pressure is lower than that of many 'normal' weight people and my cholesterol is at better levels than my mother's who is on lipitor? God, how I hate these Health Nazi's and wish they would be content to mind their own business and not meddle in mine.

Here is another entry from Chris In Paris.  If the particulars are what is portrayed in the article (to which Chris has a link), then I have to ask why it is more important for the Government to protect us from drugs (which is a personal choice--though not one I would condone) than from having our savings looted by acts of fraud perpetrated by clean-cut, mannered, 'respectable,' businessmen.  And this is the kind of people they would have monitor our health??

Well, I think that is enough venting for the day.  I will go onto something more pleasant.  Have a good day.