Monday, September 28, 2009 by Dick.

Ahhhh. The sounds of silence. Not the song that propelled Simon and Garfunkel to worldwide fame but rather the reason so many people prefer living on rural roads: to be away from the revving engines and gunshots that punctuate city streets.

There ought to be a law.

Vermont held its youth waterfowl hunting weekend Saturday and Sunday. Hunters under the age of 16 got to hunt ducks and geese statewide during this “introductory” season as long as an adult accompanied them. The adult may not hunt or carry a firearm. Both must have Vermont hunting licenses but neither the youth nor the adult is required to hold a state or federal duck stamp for the weekend.

I like to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 on weekends but the North Puffin farmhouse sits on the shore of a bay popular with ducks. Our neighbor Madeleine fed the ducks for many years and we on this bay had an informal moratorium on hunting shanties. It is a tranquil body of water.

Shotguns — even those pointed at the sky — pounding the dawn a few hundred feet from my bed do bust tranquility. Pretty hard on the ducks, too.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

A South Puffin ordinance prohibits either Leatherface Hewitt or Lynyrd Skynyrd from starting a chainsaw within city limits before 9 a.m. It is an irritant to construction workers but pleasant for residents.

The regular duck season opens Saturday-week, October 10, in the Lake Champlain and Interior Vermont Zones but next Tuesday October 6 in the Connecticut River Zone. The split season Lake Champlain Zone runs just three days then restarts on October 24 and runs through December 18. Legal shooting hours for waterfowl begin one-half hour before sunrise every day of the season and end at sunset.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Duck hunting doesn’t come cheap.

25 rounds of Winchester® XPert® 12 Gauge 3-1/2 inch steel shotshells for waterfowl costs between $10 and $40 bucks, depending on size and where you buy them. A buck a shot.

Gas for the boat and the truck to tow it costs between $6 and $126 bucks, depending on how far you tow and how fast you (don’t) row.

A good night’s sleep: priceless.

Posted in Community, Society, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Friday, September 25, 2009 by Dick.

Here’s a surprise. The FDA said that Democratic Senators Menendez and Lautenberg and Representatives Pallone and Rothman and its own former commissioner pushed the FDA to “politically” override the scientists. All four legislators sold out for peanuts–they received a total of $26,000 in “campaign contributions” from the manufacturer–shortly before leaning on the FDA.

These are the guys making Health Care Reform law, right? Jeezum, they’re not even good at being crooks.

Mark Twain wrote, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.“

Campaign finance “reform,” like health care “reform” will have quotes around it until we not only throw da current bums out but we also throw out all da little rules and perks they have passed for themselves over the last few decades.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Quickies | 1 Comment »

Thursday, September 24, 2009 by Dick.

A Senator “tries to allay fears”?

You gotta be kidding me. We ought to be far more afraid of what the pariahs in Washington do than anything else in the news this year.

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) doesn’t like the Baucus bill.

The Baucus bill (along with HR3200) cuts the projected growth in Medicare by $4-500 billion over the next 10 years. Senator Nelson is afraid of one part of the biils, the one that cuts Medicare payments to insurance companies providing Medicare Advantage policies. That’s about $40 billion over those 10 years.

Cutting government spending is a good thing, right?

Adding (or keeping) government spending is a bad thing, right?

Not so fast.

The pariahs of Washington have balanced the Health Care Takeover by cutting the one place (Medicare) that already shifts some 75% of the cost of health care to Somebody Else. Cutting another $40 or $50 billion out of Medicare sounds like a great plan. Until you notice that it is the usual political sleight of hand. Cutting another $40 or $50 billion out of Medicare just shifts some $40 or $50 billion more of the cost of health care to Somebody Else.

I fear being Somebody Else.

Allay allay in free.

Senator Nelson is right not like the Baucus bill. But he is right for the wrong reasons.

Posted in ObamaCare, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Monday, September 21, 2009 by Dick.

Today is the last day of summer here in North Puffin.

[sigh]

Since the rotation axis of the Earth is almost perpendicular to its orbital plane, today is the last day in which we have more light than dark. An equinox occurs twice a year when the constant tilt of the Earth’s axis aligns the Sun vertically above the Equator. In the coming winter months the Earth’s axis will incline farther and farther away from the Sun and we will gladly entertain thoughts of Global Warming as we stoke the wood stove in a vain attempt at Local Warming.

Schizophrenic weather.

Pretty cool here this morning at 48̊ outside and 60̊ in the bathroom when I arose. On the other hand, it is sunny and mild with the thermometer headed perhaps for the upper 70s. That means an afternoon for shorts and sandals bracketed by flannels morning and night. Not cold enough to start the wood stove. Too cold not to. My fingers and my bald head got colder just typing that.

I need a sale on toques.

Last night I sat on the deck looking out over the Lake. A couple of errant ducks paddled around thinking duck-like thoughts and a lone fisherman cast his line occasionally from a boat drifting in the shallows. The late afternoon sun continued to warm me after a couple of hours of yard work. The deck offered an oasis for an adult beverage, a bowl of peanuts, and the final chapters of Wicked Prey, John Sandford’s latest beach book set against the Republican convention last year in Minnesnowta. The sunset painted the sky as character Letty West returned to school with her new name.

The lush, kaleidoscopic foliage display will start soon. Some of the brain dead locust leaves here in North Puffin began dropping in July but our canopy will stay mostly green for another week or maybe tow. As a photographer, I will celebrate and luxuriate in the colors of our hills and valleys but I will miss the long days of summer.

People ask, this time of year, “What’s your favorite season?” Fall is grand for its colors. Winter brings quiet solitude and peace. Spring signals rebirth. Me, I like Daylight Savings Time.

Some pan Daylight Savings as an artificial construct but I find it more comfortable to have that extra hour of daylight during my waking hours. In fact, I believe … I believe … I believe we should insist that Congress prescribe an extra hour of daylight in every day, winter and summer, spring and fall. Congress believes it can legislate human behavior; why not change some natural law, too.

Today is the last day in which we have more light than dark. I hope that is not a metaphor for the political dark ages now approaching.

Posted in Seasonal, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Thursday, September 17, 2009 by Dick.

A new tax on soda pop has been proposed as a way to “fight obesity” and, just as an aside, provide billions for health care reform.

Taxing a “sin” is a really really great idea that really really works as a methodology to eliminate the sin.

Smoking incidence as a percentage of the population has declined pretty much every year since 1965. In 1998, 29.9% of the population smoked some form of tobacco. In 1998, 24.0% smoked. According to the latest National Health Interview Survey, 22.8 percent of the general adult population now smokes.

The rising price of cigarettes has gotten a few of the 50 million or so smokers to quit. The rising price of cigarettes may have kept a few of the 250 million or so non-smokers from starting.

Peer pressure, advertising, and (most important) bans on smoking in most public places is the real driver in the moderate decline in percentage. In absolute numbers, more people smoke more cigarettes today than in 1965.

Yeppers, raising taxes really works to change behavior.

Taxing soda pop is not about fighting obesity. Taxing soda pop is all about raising new billions in taxes. Taxing soda pop will not reduce the costs of health care “reform,” either. Those billions will go into the general fund.

Have you noticed that, every time Congress collects more taxes, the deficit goes … up?

The idea that taking more money from us will make us behave better is snake oil, pure and simple.

Hey! Here’s a behavior we could change. How about we throw out the boneheads who want to sell us this snake oil.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Newspaper "Science", Politics & News, Random Access | 4 Comments »

Monday, September 14, 2009 by Dick.

I picked up Jody Beauregard hitchhiking yesterday. Jody is a sweet, gentle man who has worked on Tom Ripley’s truck for the last decade or so. He takes off every fall to hunt and usually can put up enough meat to last him through the year. I had never seen him hitchhiking before.

“Where’s your Bronco?” I asked him. He usually cruised the roads in about a 1970 Ford with a cracked rear window and rust holes patched with political bumper stickers.

Jody took a while to think about the question.

“Engine calved,” he said.

“What do you plan to do?” I asked.

“Tom had promised to sell me his red Roadmaster for $1,500,” Jody said, “but he traded it in on that Clunker deal and got $4,500 for it. It was a pretty good car but I couldn’t pay that much.”

The CARS program took nearly 700,000 “clunkers” off the roads replaced, as the official press release told us, by far more fuel efficient vehicles. The program processed $2.877 billion in rebate applications and put more than half the cash into foreign brands. It has taken a lot of excellent cars off the road, including a 1985 Maserati Biturbo in Plattsburgh and Tom Riley’s very nice 16 year-old Buick, including all of the clunker stock the poor will drive tomorrow but none of the real clunkers the poor drive today. Good planning on the part of the peeps who would run U.S. health care, U.S. stockbrokers, and the U.S. auto industry.

Tom Ripley is my garbage man. Here in North Puffin, garbage collection is private enterprise; we all contract with one of the haulers who has a route in our area. I like Tom. He’s friendly, always on time, and comes right up on the porch to pick up the trash cans. He even (usually) latches the storm door when he puts the cans back. He owns a couple of used garbage trucks that he bought at the state auction and usually has a couple-three pickups that he runs around his route every Sunday before church. He had originally planned to trade in his ‘73 Chevy pickup under the CARS program but it was too old. It is a terrific truck but it gets 10 mpg winter and summer. 10 mpg empty and 10 mpg pulling a camper. A little rusty and a lot beaten but still on the road after 36 years. But it was too old to qualify for the clunkers program.

Cars traded must have been manufactured less within the last 25 years, have a fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon or less, and be insured and registered and drivable.

“The 350 in that Roadmaster purred,” Jody told me. “Tom put tires on it just the year before last. Paint was great — actually the whole body was pretty darned good. And the A/C worked. I’ve never had a car with A/C that worked. No rust, runs good, like the song says.”

“I’ve ridden in it,” I said. “Pretty good car.”

Jody looked out the side window for a half a mile. Not many leaves are turning yet and no deer in the fields; he was thinking about the car.

“Yeah. It’s not fair, you know. I need a car now and there just nobody’s got anything to sell. People are even snapping up old beaters like my old Bronco ’cause they can’t find anything else to drive.”

“That Buick would have lasted you 10 more years.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Got better gas mileage than anything I’ve ever owned, too.”

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Cars, Sociology, Politics & News, Random Access | 4 Comments »