Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Good Tuesday to you all out there. Not too much happening here. Just wishing that the warmer weather would come in permanently. But it is spring after all and the old saying that fits almost everywhere I have ever lived holds here as well: if you don't like the weather wait five minutes--it will change. But the storm they predicted to hit here today through tomorrow is going to stay well south so it will be dry and I can get some of the gardens covered and rearranged--finally.

I agree with you, Lois. Voting now seems to be merely a question of which Stooge you want to vote for. Unfortunately, we simply cannot be sure who the stooges are stooging for--not for us, certainly.

MSNBC linked to this NY Times article that provides some details a phenomenon I have talked about all too often here: the incredible shrinking product at the grocery stores. We rarely buy canned goods any more--partly because of the decline in quality and partly because we don't like being scammed. And the stealth decrease in product is a scam.

This South Carolina proposal resonates with me and is similar to a number of measures I have read about introduced in several states to reassert local rights in consumer issues. We have changed out some of our lights from the incandescent to the compact fluorescent but with mixed results. I had to go back to incandescent for my chair side lamp because I couldn't find any 3-way bulbs in the fluorescent when the last one burned out. Returning to the old bulb confirmed my suspicion that the light was not as bright and took a long time to reach full brightness. Nor am I all that pleased to gain energy efficiency at the cost of dealing with the mercury in the fluorescent bulbs.

George Friedman, writing at Stratfor this morning, asks an interesting question I have mulled frequently over the last two decades: 'what ever happened to declarations of war?' He does a good job of covering the post-WWII situation when Presidents from both parties skirted the Constitutional requirements to wage war by other names without Senate approval. As I read Friedman's remarks I had a thought: this situation is driven by globalism more than anything else. Our growing international commitments parallel the increasing use of military force without following Constitutional procedure. Congress.org also deals with this question and provides some additional interesting insights.

Robert Creamer at Huffington Post makes some excellent observations on the various proposals to 'reform entitlements.'

Job Jones at andthisourlife has some excellent observations that express much of what I have been thinking of late. Ronni Bennet at Time Goes By isn't much more optimistic. And I am getting extremely resentful of the extremely well-off and their politician shills insisting on their perks while insisting that the rest of us (who find ourselves with less and less) 'share the sacrifice.'

1 comment:

Looking to the Stars said...

We buy very few canned goods also. Is there anything they don't scam us on?

The lightbulb situation gets my goat. Our bulbs are give out less light, pretty soon we'll be in the dark (lol)

I am not happy with the military, our town,once again, stuck their nose up the military b-tt and we are getting an 'aviation brigade'. That means we get 113+ helicopters, 2,700+ soldiers and 4,000+ family members. Just what we need more people, ugh.

take care