And now the health care bill moves to the senate

Where if you thought the first act of the circus was something then you ain't seen nothin yet. With billions (make that trillions) of dollars in profits at stake the insurance industry which has been shoveling greenbacks at our senators will now resort to using dump trucks fulll of loot. They did after all make some 146 billion in profits. A few million doled out here or there won't make much difference at this point. And like Let's Make a Deal the comittee making up this hodge podge of legislation will have the choice of what's in the large bulging envelope or what's behind the curtain which just might be... Why yes... it's the senators' entire voting district ready to tar and feather them for taking the envelope and leaving them with no health care! But don't worry too much senators because you also get what's behind the door, a book deal while you wait to get into your very own lobbying business set up by your insurance buds.

The Friday beaver

A sad day for police beavers. A Seattle poilce officer was gunned down here last weekend. The memorial service was held today. As the service was ending police were surrounding the suspects apartment. He ran and was shot. That's about the fifth or sixth incident in the last week around the nation involving the military or police. And then the guy in Orlando who shot up his former place of work. As things implode it will get worse before it gets better. I just wonder when people will realize that you can only do so much and what's happening now is not their fault. Suck it up, hunker down and things will eventually turn around. Look at our friendly beaver up there. He's got nothing other than what he can get by on in nature and he does okay.

NEW FRIDAY ITEM - BANK FAILURES - Five more banks in various states failed today. I'll expand on this as I get motivated.

Nothing like speaking too soon

Unemployment figures come in at 10.2% today as the president signs the unemployment extension bill. Guess I spoke too soon when I said I had some work lined up. Seems that is on hold. But such is the nature of the beast when you're dealing with anything associated with construction. So for now I'll be doing some classes and expand yet again my extensive resume. With the exception of radioactive materials there isn't anything I haven't dealt with over the years.
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It makes me wonder with the current shootings what makes up the last straw. What is it that pushes someone over the edge? I've been in plenty of extreme stressful situations at work and yet we all made jokes about it later. War stories we call them. And yes we've even lost a few good guys over the years and there's been times some disagreements nearly came to fisticuffs but never to the point of going postal.

A reprieve and other things

I guess I get a temporary pardon from having to face bankruptcy. The Senate voted yesterday to extend the unemployment. The republicans just couldn't help but get their mitts on the bill and slid a nice biscuit in for business. They get to avoid taxes by spreading out what they owe in 08 and 09 over the last five years. Then there's yet another loop hole for companies that do business over seas. I didn't read all of that but weren't we supposed to be going after all the tax money they owed that was stashed in the Caymans? And let's get something straight. The republicans whine about all the borrowed money and yet they were the ones to shoot loans to their friends on Wall Street and it now looks like CIT won't be paying us back. If that was you or me the IRS would make us pay it back even after your house was gone to foreclosure.

So of all TARP and the stimulus money that has been shoveled around nearly all of it went to business and state and a tiny bit to local governments. The banks are back to playing the games that got them into the mess. State governments are still hurting and have cut most of their payrolls and put in hiring freezes. They've looked for ways to increase state coffers with increased fees and taxes. When the money did trickle down it was for just band aid jobs that took few workers for a short period. There was no major push to rebuild the infrastructure. There's no major work on bridges and roads or the electrical grid but lip service of a smart grid in Hawaii and a few solar projects here and there. The bulk of the money is scheduled to get out there next year so I am hopeful that something will break. At present I'm working on getting a few small jobs from a very small company that does government work.

The health care bill is moving along and may be voted on this Saturday. Republicans scream that the bill is too big 1900 pages and was put together too fast. Yet if they had their way they'd stall this bill for another year. Imagine how big the bill would be if they had their way with another six or nine months to play with it.

To Hoffman and the Neocons in NY

That'll teach you to mess with peoples' local politics. You just keep moving the party farther right and this is what you'll get. Contrary to what you think this country is not made up of a bunch of old racest white guys who hold your values. It's moving more to the left and if you don't change your ways you'll end up like the Whig party just a footnote of forgotten political parties.

Bye Bye Rethugs

One burger hold the Rico

The Blog Fodder mentioned in a comment that some years back he found out from an RCMP friend that some gangsters showed up in burgers at the Montreal Expo. How crude. In the U.S. rat gansters become either Brizilian dog food or key components of our highrise office buildings. They're not considered palatable enough for our American burgers. Although McDonalds some years back was known to import a large quantity of kangaroo meat. What they did with this is still a mystery.
Is Solent Green in our future? Or how about a big box of Ganster Helper to stretch that family food budget in these hard economic times. Gad I need to quit hanging out at Randal Graves. He's such a bad influence.

Here there insanity everywhere

First thought was how nice they took the steel from the WTC and made it into a battleship the USS New York. Then that feeling of conscience took over. You know the one. After an initial gut reaction that part of brain looks at the overall picture and reacts. Looking far down the road at what may happen. We were attacked on 911. That's a fact that will live forever. Nothing will change it. And the first response, that knee jerk reaction is to kill everything that crawls the earth that so much as resembles those responsible. But then the light of sanity takes over. To go after anyone the even looks remotely like the perp is foolish or should I say childish. What should be a police action has now become a world obsession and god help those that stand in our way.
No, better use for this material would have been a hospital or homeless shelter or anything that would save lives. Alright call me a bleeding heart but before you do consider the future. Ask how many more will die at the hand of this warship? How many women and children will fall from the missles of this ship? How much more hate will be bred by its' actions?

A Seattle police officer was killed on the job in an unprevoked attack while sitting in his patrol car discussing a police matter with a trainee. My initial guess is that this was some type of gang initiation. It had been the gangs were fighting amongst themselves with shoot outs. And again the knee jerk reaction would be to round up all the members and throw them in jail or worse, but that would never really work. Where or when will this all end? Last time the leaders were rounded up and given long jail times only to get out and start all over again about 15 years later.

Company recalls over 500,000lbs of beef with e-coli. I'd say that will be the end of that company. It may well be that to get ground beef you'll have to grind your own. So I see our system of food checks is still broken even though much was started with additional manpower and resources.

Largest bank in the country went belly up. CIT filed bankruptcy on Friday. They get the elevator and we got the shaft. U.S. taxpayers will lose around $2 billion in this. If that wasn't bad enough 9 other banks took a dive. Hey weren't they supposed to put some safeguards in place to protect our assets in this deal?

Report says economy turning around. The market jumps 100+ points. Ha don't believe it, it's just money chasing itself. An illusion of the cruelest kind. You think your stock is really worth what they say? Just stop to remember what your house was worth three years ago. Then you have companies lying about the earnings estimates. Oh and keep an eye on those bank fee and interest rates. They're all looking to jack up rates before the credit laws change next year.

So where am I going with all this blathering? Hell I don't know I'm nucking futz you know.... later.