The Politcal Arena/ For us or against us either way?

Mar 142011
 

I keep on watching and hoping for some kind of compromise, or well thought out way to care for our nation. I have studied the issues and watched the Senate. I hear the comments “Somethings got to give”, “Entitlements must go”, “obvious and provable corruption” at least at the level of campaign contributions, in the voices of a few senators, I hear the heartfelt and murderous statements of many, I see that we are all probably taking part in a process in which one way OR the other we ALLwill probably be duped. Of course we must get out of debt. No one denies that. So who is going to stand up and say, you know this is partly my fault, so I am going to quit taking money under the table, and support the programs which give the best support to our people AND the budget. No where do I hear a humble voice, saying maybe the people have a few ideas we could use, as this Is their country, except for a very few Democrats, unless they are born of total hysterical and senseless anger. I am a bit discouraged at this point, because it isn’t dying that scares me. If I don’t do it to myself, I will go in peace. It is living that is difficult. We the living must edure, hopefully with joy and happiness. I am tired of the banners of the parties waving in my face. I want to have a life to live. That is why it has always been important to me to be a citizen of the country our forefathers left to us. I’ve worked since I was 9 years old babysitting to buy my own school lunches and clothes. When I was old enough for a real job I started paying taxes along with everyone else. while other kids were given the things they needed.  I have done everything from bagging groceries to in home care for the elderly and disabled. I am in a position now in which I need help. I feel sucker punched! I raised 4 children without a dime of government money and sacrificed plenty. I sent my kids to school with home made biscuits and cornstarch jam sandwiches for thier lunch, and hand me down clothes, and was dragged through interrogation of my motherhood by the school because my husband and I didn’t believe our kids should have lunch on taxpayer dollars. We all made it. I am still proceeding by the “skin of my teeth”.My deceased husband was a laboratory technician, trained in the Navy, and after two and a half hitches found out it was a supplemental wage job. Now THAT was a real crime huh? The accusation “if you can’t feed em, don’t breed em” , was with me long before it was stated here. But we did our level best with what we could do, and had unfortunate and rude surprizes, as do many.  Did I whine and complain? H— no! I went by the statement “Use it up, wear it out, Make it do or do without!” The meals I cooked were less than yummy a lot, and still are. Wouldn’t I love a menu in which I could actually buy ALL the ingredients I need. But I do not take what is not due to me. I am happy to have enough to get by. I don’t want to depend on anyone except myself, but at this stage, when I can no longer do physical labor, I need help. So crucify me. Just hurry up about it?Who wants to endure more nausea from stress than I ever had with four preganancies? Who wants to be kicked in the teeth for tireless service from my family, while my husband served our country? People these days feel persecuted if they don’t get to have an I POD. I wouldn’t know how to use one, because it is totally out of my budget, as is school, medical care, and a decent diet. Whoop and holler all you want, in whatever direction you want. WE are responsible for what happens to every soul who lives in the US. I paid in just as everyone else. Want to nail me to a cross because I’m old and disabled? That would be a typical ignorant of what IS happening in our government action. LOOK HARD AT EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn’t it possible that this hornets nest was stirred up, just to get our attention diverted long enough to make slaves out of all of us, outside of party, and inside of GREED? How much of our legislation is bought and paid for, instead of initiated by public awareness? This could be the LAST wake up call. I am not as angry as I am just plain tired, after 60 plus years. What about you?

Our planet needs help

Mar 092011
 

Hi Neighbors,

I am writing to ask how many of you have been watching the reports  in the last several months of dead fish washing up on our shores,  and also about the fracking that is being performed to get to reserves of natural gas (the kind for stoves).

 

I believe there is reason to be greatly concerned. I had a neighbor once who put her cigarette out in my fish tank, thinking it wouldn’t do anything since I didn’t have an ashtray. All the fish died, so I cleaned everything with hot water and salt, aged new water and restocked the tank. I learned the hard way that I was not going to get the coal tar out of the Plexiglas of the tank. I cleaned three times and lost three batches of fish before I figured it out. I understand by correlation that the oil spills in our oceans have been “cleaned up” but that does not include the stuff that has settled into the sediment, or ocean floor. I believe it is possible that that residue could be killing plant life and animals in the ocean, because since the residue does not reside naturally at the surface of sand under the water, it is probably poisonous, and sticky enough to deprive plants which animals feed on of their necessary light and whatever oxygen may be in the water. By extension, anything that we may need from the ocean may also be poisonous to us, either because we consume fish, or use other types of ocean products, kelp and the like. Also some of the fish washing up on our shores are discovered to have been eating our garbage, as though they could find nothing to eat. The pictures are awful, but enlightening. Why would they suddenly be showing up stuffed with our garbage, unless their food supply is no longer there? ARE the plants and crustaceans and smaller fish dying?

 

There are also the problems that fracking causes to too many of our fresh water sources around the country. I have seen more than one special on television in which neighborhoods water supplies are already damaged by the companies doing the fracking process. What they do is force water and chemicals into the ground to push up and capture the natural gas. What happens is that the chemicals escape into the ground water in the surrounding areas, poisoning public water supply. The safety measures promoted, are simply put, NOT SUFFICIENT.  The companies offer bottled water to the residents, but the damage is done, and their homes have lost their value. On top of that the films show running water at the kitchen tap , and also a rig over a water well with water coming up, at which a blow torch or lighter is put in the air near the running water, causing fire and explosion.  People also suffer the possibility of health problems before finding out about the insidious problem. The companies involved don’t seem terribly forthcoming about either. We have also had too many reports of explosions and fires and deaths caused by exploding antiquated natural gas lines across the country. We have too many more than the involved utilities can keep up with, causing terrible damage in the present and unknown damage in the future with no remedy in sight, and I believe the last report said that the gas lines are plentiful enough to go around the world 6 times.

 

Now, with all these problems to our survival in the midst, the government is proposing taking out the Environmental Protection Agency. You know, the folks who are there to take care of this sort of thing, along with the many other disasters they clean up. If our ocean waters end up being too poisonous to desalinate, and the senate keeps pushing the various kinds of fracking, and drilling in the ocean for poison, what are we supposed to do?

I have seen a wonderful possibility in a project successfully done in Reno. The city got new but never used turbines off of a mothballed ship, and combined them with geothermal spots in the city to create electricity, by using the hot water already coming out of the ground to run through the turbines to create power. The water then leaves cold, and unpolluted. That’s a win, win, right? This one installation creates enough electricity for the entire city. The report said that there are geo thermal spots such as Reno used “all over” the US.  I have written to my senator about it, but I think there needs to be more awareness, that there ARE things affordable to be done, and very quickly. Reno has virtually free power, and I believe they said within a year of the inception of the project.. With that and electric vehicles for ourselves and for transporting our food and products we’d be sitting pretty!

 

 If you are concerned about this, please write to your senators and tell them. They need to know what we are thinking and what we want. I believe this is a great portion of the deadlock they are dealing with. If you have any other low cost, ecologically safe ideas, PLEASE forward them to your Senators?

This country is headed for bankrupcy

Jan 112011
 

 Better try to get out off debt, because this country is headed for bankruptcy. It’s a shame that our leaders have been so loose with our money. Within the next 2 years, all the money that we owe monies to will be demanding their share back and This country will not be able to pay them back.Go U.S.A. I guess the little people (like  us) will just have to ride their coattails to destrution. What a SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re. Spike in gas.

Dec 302010
 

The monopoly by the world leaders can raise or lower the  price of oil. When, ever the want . Some of our leaders support this by not allowing or wanting us to develop our resources. We have more oil in reserve, then oil countries around the world. If our oil companies hands are untied that they would go after our oil . The monopoly will drop their prices the day that our companies are given the support from our government. to compete they must have A break even point, a fair  price for oil. If the monopoly cut their prices under our companies  needs. We should put a tariff on their product . CHINA ,INDIA AND  RUSSIA  are buying up oil reserve around the world. THEIR GOVERNMENT OUR BEATING OURS, IN THE ABLITY TO COMPLETE . WE IN THE UNITED STATES ARE LETTING THE ARAB MONOPOLY SUCK OUR WEALTH . It causes our country problems to complete in all production of  our products. In China they will not have 5 dollars a gallon gas . They have learn their lessen well .

DRILL AND CREATE THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN JOBS.  DRILL AND KEEP OUR MONEY HERE 

Commies, Conservatives and "The Sopranos"

Dec 112010
 

The other day, I was watching a rerun of an episode of  “THE SOPRANOS”.  This one was pretty good: it featured the actor Kingsley Amis and the actress Laruen Bacall.  For those who might be unfamiliar with the episode, the Cliff Notes are that one of the main characters, an up and coming mobster named Christopher, has apirations of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter.  He travels to LA to try to get Amis to get involved with his script.  Amis declines, but that is just an aside: the underlying motif of episode is the glitz and greed of Hollywood.  Christopher attend some Hollywood soiree where he sees the already rich and famous be further enriched.   “Goodie Bags” containing Rolex watches, Gucci wallets and handbags, Fendi accoutrement and other high fashion baubles are lavishly handed out to the likes of Paris Hilton.  Of course, from a stirct market aspect, this makes sense:  if you are a high fashion designer, wishing to peddle your wares that are probably made for pennies in Chinese sweatshop, you have to ensure high fashion people are seen sporting your stuff or it isn’t high fashion.  After all, i would daresay that Serengheti sunglass and those available at CVS are both made in Shanghi…and probably crafted by the same person.

 

Be that as it may.  More movie stuff: one of my all time favs is DR. ZHIVAGO, with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie.  The movie opens just prior to the Russian Revolution in 1917.  Yuri Zhivago is a member of Russia’s emerging middle class also known as the bourgeois.   The key word here is “emerging” because due to a number of reasons, notably the Russian language’s use of the Cyrillic alphabet, Russia missed out on many, if not all, of the philosophical, political and economic reforms that transformed Western Europe from a feudal society into a modern one: The Rennasaince, The French Revolution, The Reformation and the writtings of  great thinkers like John Locke, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke or Rousseau come to mind.   But, as they say, to cut to the chase, the movie depicts the events of the Revolution when a mostly feudal Russia is suddenly and violently pulled into the 20th Century.   Kind of along the lines of  “It’s Our Money and We Want it NOW”, the NOW had the effect of giving a teenage son your Visa and turning him loose in Vegas:  everything went to crap.   Setting aside for the moment the murder and mayhem associated with any violent upheavel associated with any civil war, i was struck by one thing:  Zhivago, before the revolution’s onset, led a nice middlle class life: he was a doctor, had a beautiful wife, a nice home in the city and a nice dacha in the country.  He was smart enough to go to medical school and had the soul of a poet.  He was, as one of the lines in the movie read, a good man.  To which, one of the now in charge leaders of the now in the toilet society neatly nutshelled by the squalor of a field hospital scene, replied, with what i daresay is distain that rates right up there with some of the crap i read in the papers of today, “To hell with good men”

 

The front page of the 12/10/10 issue of THE USA TODAY had a lead piece about how CEOs, who have tons of stuff and money, also get free health care while the rest of us have to pay for it…if we’re lucky.  Hmmm….

 

Back to THE SOPRANOS: in one of the last scenes, Ms. Bacall emerges from her soiree, her goodie bag with the jeweley and baubles in tow.  Chistopher dons a ski mask, runs up to her, bops her on the head, grabs the bag and takes off.  The next scene show him kicking up the goodies to his boss, Tony as sharing the loot.

 

I was struck by the juxtaposition of both of these works of fiction as depictions of plausible facts.  In the Sopranos, when them that has gets more, someone gets hurt.  In Zhivago when those that have nothing get less, someone gets hurt.  Put another way, when the Commies take over, people get hurt, the middle class gets destroyed and everything goes to crap.  And when already rich are positioned to become richer, people get hurt, the middle class gets destroyed and everything goes to crap.

 

It is kind of like bowling: if you keep on tossing gutter balls, be they down either the left or the right, you lose.  The only way to win the game is by bowling down the middle.

Urgent Help. Received Letter from Lustig, Glaser, Wilson PC (Attorney)

Dec 082010
 

I recieved a letter from Lustig Glaser Wilson on behalf of FIA Card services telling me that they were going to file a small claims action against me in boston municipal court and that they have asked the court to iisue a small claims hearing notice. 

 

Then they said that if i prefered to resolve my balance amicably and avoid the court appearance, i should fill out a financial statment (income, bank acc info, expenses, etc.) and return it to them with a suggestion for settlement or monthly plan. 

 

The end of letter says that the communication is from a debt collector. However, I downloaded an excel file from Massachussetts’ Attorney General’s website of licensed debt collectors and they are not on the list. 

 

What should I do? Send a DV and settle ? I understand there needs to be a paper trail for my own sake but should I call them ASAP? THe problem is I’m leaving the country next week for a period of 3 weeks and I don’t want anything awry happening while I’m gone. 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. THanks a lot.

190 Million Pay No Federal Taxes

Dec 082010
 

Is it not amazing that we have almost 50% of the American Public not paying any federal income taxes and the left wants to blame it on the top 1% of tax payers.  NEWSFLASH-Have the 50% who pay no taxes and have nothing invested in their country to send $500. a year to Washington.  I believe that math will show that to be fairly significant.

Republicans should be ashamed

Dec 072010
 

I have always been republican but I am not sure anymore ,I have always been told they were for the rich and now they have shown that. If your rich why the tax cuts really If your rich you should want to help your country not hurt it.

Obsession

Dec 022010
 

Obsession, it’s more than a great 80′s song.

 

So the story goes along the same path as most people here: Boy meets credit, boy neglects credit, credit breaks up with boy, won’t return boy’s calls, and files a restraining order against boy. After a number of years, boy becomes obsessed. Pretty much the norm, right? Right??

 

After a default loan, government (DFAS) debt and a few CO’s, I found myself back in March ’10 with a credit score in the low to mid 500′s according to that wonderful TrueCredit site that so honestly served me. Holy shock and awe. How did I manage to have a higher score than 2% of the population?? I was stoked. Then came the obsession. If I can dominate 2% of the country, why not 3? Or 4? Why can’t I be the Dick Cheney of credit (minus the whole bit about shooting someone)? So came an intense tactical campaign of PFD’s, GW payments, and disputing everything up to and including the names of the CRA’s themselves.

 

So now, I’m looking at:

 

EQ-660 (MyFico)

TU-755 (MyFico)

EX-756 (MyCreditInform, thanks CAP1)

 

I’ve conquered a better portion of the US, but lo, my credit only has two entries now. A Kay’s card opened 8 years ago and paid faithfully until it closed to inactivity, and a Cap1 secured card opened in back in July. Avg life of my file is 4yrs now.

 

So the questions today:

Does the short history negate the scores?

Is this worthy of an Unsecured CC?

If God checks credit reports, will I make it through the pearly gates without a cosigner? 

 

Signed,

John Coltrane and/or Duke Ellington 

 

     

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