One (1) example of why Medicare and the SSA is going down the tubes!

When I retired from active military service after 20 years and came back to the Island to live, I bought a very small, about 200-250 customer LPG business from my cousin who wanted to quit. So for about $10K we began. One of the benefits of serving for 20 years in the military was the ability to get free medical care for me and my family for life. Kids only until they were 18. Being located where we were, made it very inconvenient to run to Newport every time you got a cut or one of the kids got sick, so we decided to invest in some sort of medical care that would take care of us very locally. So we joined the RI Blue Cross program and paid to it, for 33 years, some pretty damned huge fees to get this convenience to us. Over the last 33 years, the total has finally tripped over $1.12M. Why so high? because we chose to go with the very best program they had, that we could afford, in order to cover all possible illness's.

So there we were cruising along and only had to use the coverage a few times. One hysterectomy, not mine, a couple of heart stent implants, and numerous minor accidents, broken bones, sniffles etc.

Then one day not so long ago, I managed to reach the ripe old age of 65 and another check arrived from the government, telling me that I was to receive this money for having paid into the system since 1956 the money called, Social Security taxes! Wonderful says I to myself, "found money"! I thought it was long gone! But I thought at the time that I really didn't need it, at least not yet, as we had put away some money, had a good sized 401K and my military pay that would continue until I croaked. Plus I was doing that socially accepted practice of doing "consulting" for my former business and was receiving a small monthly stipend for that service. Oh yeah, I had to fill lots of 20 pound LPG gas grill bottles also on a daily basis, but I do digress.

In the middle of the page with the notification of the largess I was to receive from our rich Uncle Sam, was a sentence that said I was to have $98 a month deducted from my check in order to pay the fees for Medicare! I was to be AUTOMATICALLY enrolled, I wasn't asked, I was told I was enrolled, thanks to the foresight and promises of past politicians who thought that every person in the US regardless of wealth or lack thereof should be accommodated at the slop trough of public money! Screw the thought of where the money was to come from in the future to pay for their largess, just promise the folks back home unlimited access to the national treasury and let the chips fall where they may. Anything to enable themselves to stay there at the trough with their snouts shoved in so deeply they could hardly breath! Oops! digressing again!

Now this $98 a month was going to replace that approximately $2600 a month that had been the private cost to us before hand. See where this is going? So now I have my "Uncle" vying with RI BC/BS to see just who will "NOT HAVE TO PAY" for any medical bills I might incur! That's what happened! BC/BS knew damned well when I had crossed that 65 yr. threshold and still they greedily collected that annual fee from us, for FIVE years, knowing full well that they weren't going to be the primary payer as I had also joined in at the national slop though! So finally after 33 years they ejected us from the best program and put us in some other one that picks up only PART of any fees that medicare won't pay! And as yet they have felt no need to refund any portion of those fees collected from us for the past 5 years. No wonder half the "Wheels" up there are under indictment for one thing or another!

So I came across this news clip of the Administrator of the GAO, Government Accounting Office, (who is the fiscal watchdog for the "Entitlement give away boys club" e'er, that would be Congress in case you didn't know,) who has given up trying to talk to those boys about rectifying their ways, and is going directly to the public in the form of business owners, large and small, and just generally, US. He has been telling it like it really is, and what it "is", is that if they don't do some fixing starting right now, the economic future of this country as a viable entity is in absolute jeopardy of ceasing to exist!! Right now, my grandchildren have one for sure thing to look forward to for the next 75 years, and that is, that they are going to have to pay for all the entitlements handed out so zealously by the previous, present, and future STUPID, and GREEDY politicians we continue to elect. Mr. B Hussein Obama, and Shrillary will do NOTHING but continue to contribute to this slide into fiscal death! I do NOT exclude Mr. McCain from this group either. The only person I see who is trying to get handle on things locally is Our Governor Mr. Carceri (sp)!

It is Saturday morning about 5 am when I started this rant. I think I'll put a full bottle of Baileys in my coffee and start the day off right! TIFN!

More Sand Dunes!!

Went out for a Sunday afternoon drive yesterday to continue to do my part in wasting some of our precious natural resources. Coming out of the Neck I looked over at the dunes and there perched on the very top of one of the bigger ones was a group of people numbering about eight. There they were, waving their arms about and taking in the view. And I'm sure loosening up a few more roots of the dune grass. Moving along the road, I come to a big white van parked there with this name emblazoned on the side; "Northeastern University, Department of Environmental Sciences". So it just made me wonder which department it was that goes around contributing to the distruction of dunes! And did we invite them? Or did they just show up of their own accord? Wind, waves, and our own home grown vandals do enough to them without importing them from wherever! TIFN

Big Hole in the Road

Well I see Lisa Sprague's cry for fiscal responsibility fell on deaf ears as usual. I guess those "upstate" folks just had to spend all that money to fix something that was not broken. True, it will be nice for the front street all the way to the BIG to have nice sidewalks on both sides of the road, but all that dough spent on the Bridgegate Square renovation could have better spent by finishing out the sidewalk from in front of the City Drug down to the Old Harbor dock. Now there is a section that is in terrible shape! While out riding around on my "ped" and sticking my nose in other peoples business, I have seen three people take a dive to the ground between Ernies and the next building up the street. Can't remember what it is called this week.

The rains last night, and the ones to come later this week have already worked its relentless, continuing havoc on more of the Neck Road right beside the Trustum Dodge monument. Well I guess we have to wait for the waves to actually begin to break over the road before anyone will behoove themselves to get moving on some sort of preservation of what is left of the dunes there.

Actually, the dunes that used to be there are long gone!! Go down there at low tide and sit on the one remaining seat. As you look out to sea, you will see three large rocks sticking up from the seabed. They are almost in a straight line from the beach outward. See that one the furthest out? When I was between 1 year old and 10-11 yrs. old, that was where the edge of the water was located! My Mom had a big-assed old Packard touring car, about 20 years old at the time, that she used to park right where the monument is now. It would sit there pulled well off the road and perpendicular to it! That thing was about 24 feet long! We would gather up all the beach paraphenalia and make a mad dash to climb over two dunes of black sand, and then three lesser ones made up of white and black sand before even reaching the beach proper! Then it was another few yards the waters edge. Now in my lifetime, I'm now tripping over 70, the beach has totally disappeared. How much longer do you think it will be before those destructive waves will be crashing on the road ?

An alternative to building up next too the road would be to put a nice big long new breakwater from the Old Harbor all the way to Mansion Beach or further. That would stop the big waves, and make one hell of a nice protected harbor for all those yachtsmen who spend no money , TIC, to drop anchor! Wha chu 'tink?? TIFN