~ Tippy, grooming Gypsy ~
Recently, someone asked me if there really was a "Pounding Mill" as shown on my left side weather button. Yes, there really is a Pounding Mill and it's just down the road. What isn't entirely truthful, is the weather shown there. Oh, I expect it might be right for Pounding Mill but it's certainly hardly ever the same for Thistle Cove Farm. Here, it can be anywhere from a few degrees to ten degrees, or more, colder than Pounding Mill.
Case in point: when typing this post, the weather button said 42 degrees with scattered clouds at Pounding Mill. The thermometer on my back porch says 38 degrees F and the wind chill is bringing it down to around 25 degrees F. The sun is shining but clouds are dark and threatening which suggest we'll have rain, or worse, later today. Hopefully, much later today and only rain.
There are some, tentative, signs of Spring but as this is only March, we're sure to have a few more snows, sleet and ice before Spring actually arrives. Winter has to be dropped kicked behind us and, generally, Spring is too soft and gentle for such measures. The wood stove fire had gone out because I, mistakenly thought, we were in for a few days of warm. Last night, the weather channel showed a cold front coming from the deep south and that means cold Cold weather. Last night, I started a fire but this morning, due to the southerly winds, the fire was little more than a handful of coals and a lot of ashes. It didn't take long to start another fire; I've gotten rather good at starting fires in the wood stove; cold tends to, quickly, make me an expert.
March has been, again, rather dreadful and I'm blessed if I know why. Last year, March was worse than dreadful and it was all I could do to bear the grief. At least, this year, March has only kicked my fanny and not threatened to overwhelm totally. Thank God for His mercy!
Certainly the state of our union is depressing, as is the fact all most in DC are acting like petulant, pissy little children who aren't getting their way. I'm fed up with all of them and think they should all be taken to the woodshed. I've not seen a brain amongst them whom I deem worthy enough to change the Constitution yet some of them are acting as if they are God Incarnate. snort! Our Founding Fathers knew from first hand experience and knowledge what happens when a demagogue gets in power; they'd escaped that sort of thing when they left the Old World for the New. At least in the Old Country they had an excellent excuse; their demagogue was royalty and some of us elected ours!
As usual, those fools in DC want to throw a band-aid on the problem then congratulate themselves for being astute and wise...when they are neither. And, yes, I'm speaking of the Second Amendment being tampered and torn by folks who, apparently, think it's not worthy of mention there are more than 40,000 people killed in vehicle crashes annually with almost 6.4 million accidents but are screaming "gun control" because there were 11,000 murders using guns in 2011 and almost 20,000 suicides. What two words tell me what's at play here? Lobbyists and Control. A huge portion of the car manufacturing industry is in Obama's back pocket due to the millions of tax dollars he threw at them his last term. More importantly, almost everyone who is of driving age in this country has a car or truck so there's the "not in my backyard" mentality. Not everyone has a gun and the media has done a Fine job of frightening those folks who are ignorant about guns. News flash...guns and cars are completely and totally ineffective at killing people. They have to be USED by someone in order to work. Why not address the more pressing problem of how those with mental illness are treated in this country? Oh, what's that you say? It's because who wants to control a bunch of nuts when government can control everyone? My rational fear is, first the Second Amendment, then the First Amendment and then the rest of the Constitution. You say it can't happen? A lot of people said we'd never get this far and yet, here we are...at a crossroads.
~ the pot of money is running out, quickly! ~
As to "sequestration", that's been bastardized as well. It originally was a legal term that applied when valuable property was taken into custody by an agent of the court and locked away for safekeeping. It prevented the property from being disposed of or abused before a dispute over its ownership could be resolved. Then Congress, those mighty warriors of idiocy, confiscated the word "to describe a new fiscal policy procedure originally provided for in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit reduction Act of 1985 -- an effort to reform Congressional voting procedures so as to make the size of the Federal government's budget deficit a matter of conscious choice rather than simply the arithmetical outcome of a decentralized appropriations process in which no one ever looked at the cumulative results until it was too late to change them. If the dozen or so appropriations bills passed separately by Congress provide for total government spending in excess of limits Congress earlier laid down for itself in the annual Budget Resolution, and if Congress cannot agree on ways to cut back the total (or does not pas a new, higher Budget Resolution), then an "automatic" form of spending cutback takes place. This automatic spending cut is what is called "sequestration."
Under sequestration, an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated is "sequestered" by the Treasury and not handed over to the agencies to which it was originally appropriated by Congress. In theory, every agency has the same percentage of its appropriation withheld in order to take back the excessive spending on an "across the board" basis. However, Congress has chosen to exempt certain very large programs from the sequestration process (for example, Social Security and certain parts of the Defense budget), oh yes, let's penalize those among us who have paid the most into the system as well as leave us open for attack from our enemies...wait, I seem to recall giving the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood 1.5 Billion $$$ and who is Egypt's newest ally? Ummm, that would be Iran! and the number of exempted programs has tended to increase over time -- which means that sequestration would have to take back gigantic shares of the budgets of the remaining programs in order to achieve the total cutbacks required, virtually crippling the activities of the unexempted programs.
The prospect of sequestration has thus come to seem so catastrophic that Congress so far has been unwilling actually to let it happen. Instead, Congress has repeatedly chosen simply to raise the Budget Resolution spending caps upward toward the end of the legislative session in order to match the actual totals already appropriated, thus largely wiping out the incentives that the reformed budget procedures were expected to provide for Congress to get better control for the budget deficit."
Dear God! I would be absolutely ashamed to accept a paycheck for representing my constituents! But then, I have a moral conscious, something which seems, from all appearances, to be lacking in our elected representatives officials. A question for YOU: how long would you be able to borrow, borrow, borrow and live well beyond your means before your house of cards came crashing down?
And yet, out of every $10 the USA spends, we're borrowing $4 of those dollars from China! Please, tell me, what is so difficult to understand about living within your means...your ability to pay for those things you need, then want?
The US is in process of sending has begun sending 240 F-16 fighter jets and Abrams tanks to Egypt; why? Because those fools in the Senate okayed the deal! Oh, and for those who say those F-16 fighter jets and Abrams tanks were being "sold" to Egypt...yes, with the $1.5 billion in aid we've been sending them, yearly, for decades! Aren't you angry over all of this? Senator Rand Paul was the, apparently, lone voice speaking against sending Egypt war weapons and said, "You've seen those pictures of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people rioting in the streets. Does this look like a stable country to you?" Does anyone remember the US flag being burned in the streets of Cairo last year? Does anyone even care??? I'm going to find out how the Virginia Senators voted and then, if they voted to send MY tax dollars to Egypt, I'm writing a scathing, hand written letter to them. I want them to know I hold them accountable; then, I'm going to blog about it and tell folks how my Senators voted. I'll also tell you how you can find out how your Senators voted and urge you to do likewise. It's well, fine and good to blog about the cats or horses or what I had for supper but, folks, let's start being part of the solution and not the problem. Hold our elected "representatives accountable; let them know you're watching. Every time you want to complain, grab a pen and paper and complain in writing. It's only when they know we're watching and writing, they, might, begin to truly represent their constituency...you and me, the Tax Slaves.
Need more convincing? From Al Hafiz TV (an Egyptian Islamic station) an Islamic cleric, of the Salafi nature said, "Egypt must make the U.S. conform to its own demands; and that, then, all the money the U. S. offers to Egypt in foreign aid can be taken as rightfully earned jizya." See here for more information on jizya. Earlier this month, Sec. of State, John Kerry announced $250 million in aid was being sent to Egypt. Way to go, John! You're making Egypt proud; me...not so much.
Is there an answer? Citizens for Restoring American's Financial Future have come up with the One Cent Solution and is, I think, a workable solution, yet the One Cent Solution has been largely discounted, not even up for discussion. It has three parts (which is, more than likely, one reason it's been totally discounted...leaves little room for theft graft and it's simply too easy):
1. A Plan that Works by
*Reducing federal spending by $7.5 TRILLION over 10 years (do those figures grab you as absolutely insane? How did we get to this point? One word: greed.
*Reduce the budget by 2019
2. Legislative Strategy: "not all programs must be cut by one percent. Congress may determine that some programs are too critical to cut, but that would require that other programs be reduced more so that the total amount cut is equal to one cent for every dollar each year for six years.
3. Public Support. Ahhh, here's where the rubber meets the road. It's well and fine to talk about the greed of DC but when the cuts bite into free mobile phones, free air conditioners, free pork, etc. we become those same petulant, pissy little children mentioned earlier.
Did you know 50%, or more, of the people in this country are on the government dole? The speed of the leader is the speed of the team.
Ah well, I think I'll go muck out the barn. At least I can do something about some of the manure. Do what you can, where you can, when you can and pray the USA doesn't fall like ancient Rome and Greece.
"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein ~
Today's Miracles ~ the USA is still a world power ~ a few Godly minds left in DC ~ One Cent Solution ~ Senator Rand Paul ~ Pounding Mill ~ barn mucking, it's good for what ails a person me ~
