Unemployment Rate

Just an FYI to those folks who believe that the unemployment rate is flat and shows that the economy is doing well, there was this article in the NY Times today - about men who have been unemployed for years and are not looking any longer (therefore not counted in the rate). So, I still think we're in trouble - it's just not staring at us in the face.

Oh, most of these gentlemen have women who are providing for them. I always said I needed a wife.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/business/31men.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&en=33b9dd1da47b2216&ex=1154491200

Weather for Seattle - Week of July 31, 2006

Picture by Tim Knight from Google Images

It's supposed to be sunny (as in "no rain") with the highs in the low 70's. The east coast (as in "Easton, PA") is sweltering (close to 100 - in the shade).

I could live in Seattle.
Heather, don't faint - I'm not moving in with you - not yet anyway.
Love,
Mom

But this guy's...

...more my speed. Geesh, I wish he were single and I was beautiful.

I do think of other things....

Here's one. Johnny Depp has created a beloved film character.

Paranoid? Me?

Well, maybe after today - especially if someone is checking my keystrokes and websites. Ah, hell - the FBI, CIA, NSA et all probably have a dossier on me already - especially after Randy and I sneaked out of an Irish music concert when the band starting singing about killing the Queen. We had NO idea years ago - we just liked Irish music.

But, I digress, as women my age are wont to do. I just finished reading (who said reading is a safe activity?) Jim Marrs's book Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies* and I wasn't ready to believe everything (or even part of it - how could I, good little American that I am). I decided to do a web search for some of the noted resources. Okay - all were there right where Jim said they were and saying right what Jim said they were saying. Okay. Okay.
But was there really a big Bush family take-over-the-world conspiracy (and anyway, I thought that was the Kennedys, but I digress again)?

So I decided to Google "Bush Conspiracy" thinking I would find sites for and against.
Here's what I found on Wikiopedia (I added the bold):


Bush family conspiracy theory
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Oh, well - I'm not saying one thing or the other - just that I found it tres interesting - tres.

I think I'll finish Jim Marrs's Alien Agenda - at least the aliens can't get websites deleted. Or can they?

*Amazon.com says the book is not available. Huh?

Your Tax Dollars at Work in Iraq

From today's New York Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

When are we going to learn? I guess nevah! We just let these guys run over us - steal - that's right: STEAL our money. The article goes on to state how a hospital construction project in Basra has been cancelled because of cost - as in: it's costing more than projected.

Let me get this right:
First we invade and destroy a country - using supplies from various defense and private contractors; therefore, benefiting said defense and private contractors (Like: Halliburton)
Then we rebuild the country (ahem - ATTEMPT to rebuild the country) - again suing supplies provided by various private contractors, therefore benefiting said contractors.
But the "rebuilding" of this country seems to be going as bad as the "democraticizing" of this country.

Meanwhile back at the ranch (no not Crawford, Texas ranch) - the "ranch" that is the entire US of A. Meanwhile we havecountlesss American homeless (including families), countless Americans in poverty, countless Americans without jobs, countless Americans without healthcare...I could go on, but you get the idea.

All the money we are WASTING in this ILLEGAL war could have - SHOULD have been used here - maybe with enough left over to help with Darfur.

I am proud of my country - just not this administration.
Mark my words - history will judge them cruelly because they have acted cruelly.

They have wasted our country's precious resources - our money, our soldiers and our good name.

There are no open spaces any longer.
I remember driving from Easton to Bethlehem along William Penn Highway less than twenty years ago and being able to see vast green fields between small developments. There were still family farms in Bethlehem Township then. I’m afraid that those farms are becoming the agricultural dinosaur of the 21st Century – gone, extinct, destroyed by the meteor impact of the……..McMansion!

How can a farmer realistically continue to farm and pay taxes on acres and acres of land when there are developers (in our area Ashley Development is a BIG one) that are willing to pay top dollar for their spread. Of course the developers immediately divide that land into small parcels which yield a bumper crop of large, cookie-cutter, multiple bedroom, media-roomed, wrap-around-deck, granite-counter-top homes.

Am I the only one who finds it odd, very odd, that as our families shrink in size, our houses are growing? Does a family with two children REALLY need a ten room home…excuse me, ten room, three bath, one finished basement and attached three car garage home? Especially when our green space is slowly being replaced by concrete and streets and sewers and these eyesores? Especially when there are so many people in our own country without decent housing – it’s almost obscene when you think of it like that.

But Karma has a way of working things out:
Big executive from Mega corporation is getting big bucks by downsizing workers and layoffs. Big Exec gets Big Bonus in company stock. Big Exec buys McMansion. Since many workers have been laid off they can no longer afford housing and become homeless. Unemployed workers can no longer afford to buy the goods produced by the few remaining employees of Mega Corp. Mega Corp stock drops before Big Exec can maneuver a buy-out. Bank forecloses on Big Exec’s McMansion. Lots of McMansion foreclosures all over the country as Mega Corps everywhere die. Lots of homeless ex-employees. Lots of empty McMansions. The Federal Government finally steps in and assumes control of the empty McMansions which becoming housing for the homeless. Ex-Big Exec, now also homeless, moves back into his old McMansion – into one bedroom because he and his family now share it with five other families.
What comes around……………………………

Gettysburg

I'm back from my annual pilgrimage.

I honor the men on both sides.I drive the Battlefield, getting out and walking (this year using a walking stick to save my back) until the twinges start and then head back to the car. I play an audiotape of the Battlefield tour and when parked, read a book about the individual battles that make up the single largest military engagment in Northern America - maybe the Western Hemisphere.

I walk the town to honor the citizens of this small village - citizens who had to bear the burden of the dead and wounded after the armies departed.

I walk the cemetaries - the Military Cemetary where Lincold gave the Gettysburg Address and the Evergreen Cememtary where those citizens are buried - to honor all, soldier and citizen, who served on those fateful days.

Most people go to Gettysburg for that - some do not:
The parents who allow their small children to run around the National Cemetary, screaming.
The teenagers who pout and whine at their parents while walking the Battlefield.
The people who crawl over the rocks of Devil's Den and yell down to their friends...
I could go on, but I would sound like an old crock - and maybe I am.
Those people don't understand that they can perform their oafish behavior because of the men who died here that day. They have the freedom to act disrespectful because of all the men who have died for this country in all the wars.
Shouldn't that alone earn our respect and muffle the noise, the shouts, the pouts, the stupidity - at least for a few hours of one day.
Remember what they did here.