Monthly Archives: August 2009

Fall Cometh

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All people have the right to starve.
We ought not take away people’s rights.

A friend in the Philly area reported it was 70̊ at his home this morning. “I really LOVE Fall,” he said. Keats did, too.

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue…

I like the colors of autumn — its images take a disproportionate corner of my gallery — but I don’t like the end of the weather that keeps us alive and the beginning of weather that tries to kill us.

Autumn isn’t supposed to start until September 21 and it should stay with us until December 20 but the locust leaves started turning and dropping late last month and the temperature here won’t get out of the sixties today. Our apple tree is overproductive this year; it started dropping fruit about the same time the locusts began their seasonal death. By the end of “Autumn” North Puffin will have had at least two snowfalls and we can expect the thermometer to have kept us burning wood for weeks.

I started stacking firewood and putting up preserves last week. We heat with a combination of a modern oil-hot water furnace, a new pellet stove, and a 70s-era airtight wood stove. We’ll burn about 700 gallons of fuel oil, 4 tons of pellets, and a couple of cords of wood to keep this old farmhouse habitable for six months or so. Firewood warms us several times. I stack it on the hill in sun and wind for a year or more to dry and season it. That’s out there a long walk from the wood stove in my bunny slippers, so at this time of the year I restack the winter supply in the woodshed attached to the house. When it gets properly cold outside, we add it one or two chunks at a time to the stove which will burn around the clock.

On the other hand, I’m an optimistic, endless summer kind of guy. I know I will win the lottery, that my hair will grow back, and that (thanks to the liberal super-majority in Washington) the free ObamaFuel plan means free heating oil in our tanks, the free ObamaCare plan will instantly fix our impending loss of spousal health insurance, and that the free ObamaFeeds plan means no one will starve in America this winter.

Yay!

I still have a whole lot of summer left. I can put my feet up and rest a while!

Click here for the entire Fall collection.

Retirement Brouhaha

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Blogs, an online petition, and an email making the rounds claim that “Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it” because they voted their own benefit plan into effect. “When they retire,” the email claims, “they continue to draw the same pay until they die. Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments…”

And, of course, it is free to them.

“OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!”

On the other hand, the email claims, we ordinary folk “would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator Bill Bradley’s benefits!”

Wrong. Interesting but wrong.

It is simply not true that Congressmen do not pay into the Social Security fund. Public Law 98-21 of 1983 required Social Security coverage for federal civilian employees. They have paid into the fund since 1984 just as most every American employee does. That means, in addition to any other retirement benefits, they get Social Security, too! (There are exceptions. Congress Critters who had participated in CSRS could elect to stay in that plan in addition receiving Social Security or elect a plan that integrates CSRS and Social Security.)

The 2009 salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year. Leaders of the House and Senate receive a higher salary than rank-and-file members.

It is also not true that Congress Critters “paid nothing in on any kind of retirement.” They must contribute 1.3% of their salary to the Federal Employees’ Retirement System and 6.2% in Social Security taxes up to the current $106,800 salary cap.

Snopes reports that “It is not true that Congressmen ‘continue to draw their same pay, until they die.'” Many factors go into the size of their pensions but “by law [that pension] cannot exceed 80% of their salary at the time of their retirement.”

Congress Critters are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service. The average annual Congressional pension is $60,972 in 2009 but the most a rank-and-file member could get is $139,200. Seems like it is in their best interests to stay in office until they die.

I understand why people want to join this club. I’m not sure I understand why we pay so much to put them there.

If I spent my life as a bum, why can’t I afford to retire now?

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

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Earlier this month, Steven Pearlstein wrote in the Washington Post, “As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don’t agree. Today, I’m going to step over that line…”

I was late to the party; comments on the Post site are already closed.

Mr. Pearlstein propagates three significant falsehoods in stepping over his critical line.

(1) It may be true to say the recent attacks by the ideological right … [are] a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation, but Mr. Pearlstein ignores the fact that the recent attacks by the ideological left … [are] the same lies whose only purpose are to scare the public and stop political conversation.

(2) The vast majority of Americans will likely not be able to to buy health insurance from private companies when, as happened in Vermont, the ever tightening rules run private insurers out of town.

(3) The centerpiece of all the plans is not a new health insurance exchange. The centerpiece of all the plans is a new trillion dollar tax, a fact Mr. Pearlstein calls “Another lie.” The fact is, Mr. Pearlstein, that health care in America is a TWO trillion dollar annual expense. If the government raises that amount in taxes and dispenses it for health care, that makes it a TWO trillion dollar annual tax.

I agree that “Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society.” One that both sides have failed. It is a test, in fact a war, that so far only the media, the lawyers, and the politicians have won.

Sorry, Mr. Pearlstein, but fighting a war with fiction isn’t right no matter which side of the angels you think you are on.

Read all about ObamaCare here.

Vermont Police to Curb Profiling

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For the past three years, a “blue ribbon” committee of Vermonters has studied the possibility of racial profiling by police officers in this state.

Hello? Vermont is, of course, the least diverse state in the Union. The Census Bureau reports that 2008 population of the state is about 621,000, up from 609,000 nine years ago. The population breaks down as 96.4% white and 0.9% black which means that if one non-white person is ticketed, it must be profiling. The community group Uncommon Alliance raised the concerns about racial profiling.

The committee report says Vermont minorities believe they are the victims of pervasive racial profiling by police on traffic stops. The report also shows there is absolutely no data anywhere that support the idea. None.

The Vermont state police say they do investigate about ten racial profiling complaints out of thousands of traffic stops each year.

Reminder: The report shows there is absolutely no data anywhere that support the perceived profiling. None.

Law enforcement leaders have chosen “pro-active responses.”

Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Tom Tremblay said, “We recognize that law enforcement in Vermont needs to address the perception and/or the reality of racial profiling.”

Reminder: The report also shows there is absolutely no data anywhere that support the perceived profiling. None.

Police will create yet another new data collection system and document each person’s race, gender and age at traffic stops. We can expect video cameras in all police cruisers as well as more anti-racial-bias training for cops.

Meanwhile, pigs are a Vermont tradition at county fairs but kids won’t chase any pigs at the Caledonia County Fair in Lyndonville this year. “No swine at the fair,” said Richard Lawrence. It turns out the public could be afraid of pigs because people think the pigs could spread the flu. (The fact is that pigs should fear the people, not the other way around.)

Fair officials say they know that pigs are not spreading the H1N1 virus but they banned them anyway. State and county fairs came to life to promote science and agriculture.

The Fair made its decision “not based on sound science but based on public perception,” Vermont state veterinarian Dr. Kristin Haas told WCAX TV. “In this instance we have an example of a pretty big difference between the two.”

As an aside, a federal program later this month will focus exclusively on drunk driving. By women.

News reports show a host of community forums on profiling will begin Wednesday.

Reminder: The report shows there is absolutely no data anywhere that support the perceived profiling. None.

Don’t confuse me with the facts. It is crucial that we sacrifice truth and dignity on the altar of the politically correct. And left-leaning public perception.

Throw Cash at It

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My friend Lido (“Lee”) Bruhl is a true believer in universal health care. He continues to campaign for a single payer system. “And yet we still have all these vehement protests that our health care system is fine just the way it is,” he said this morning.

Not from me. I vehemently protest that ObamaCare will take a health care system that delivers decent care for way too much money and turn it it to a system that delivers lesser care for way more than way too much money.

Lee took a new tack. “The US already spends more on health care than most other nations, but it gets less,” he said.

Semi-true. Here’s another one: The US already spends more on primary and secondary education than most other nations, but it gets less. And this: The US spent more “stimulus money” on job creation than any other nation, but it got fewer jobs created.

A better question to examine is this: Why do we as a nation throw so much cash at problems and get such a (relatively) poor return?