Haiku #12

What am I seeing
The issues seem distorted
Time for bifocals

Went to the eye doctor monday, must be getting old he said I needed bifocals.

Unemployment

I read an article out of the U.K today stating that 17 percent of the households have no one working. The list includes over 100,000 people who have never worked. All this is bad enough but the one family the story featured was bringing home 33,000 pounds a year in social benefits. This is more than a lot of working families net.

When socialism rears it's ugly head it leads to these kinds of abuses.

Swine flu

Yesterday on the radio they were talking about the coming flu season and swine flu in particular. The news outlets are talking of up to 90,000 deaths related to swine flu. The actual report say a chance of between 30,000 to 90,000 deaths

So are you going to get the swine flu vaccine?

I probably won't it seems like too much hype and not enough facts.

The heart of disagreement

People on the left when discussing health insurance reform are angry with the right. They rant that the right is racist,ignorant ,lying,fear mongering, and violent I might have missed a few. When they finish bad mouthing the right their usual next line is that if they don't like the dem's bill they should work with them to make it better. Sometimes the criticism is that the right has no plan of their own. I believe the reason the right and left aren't working together on this issue is that both sides are so far apart that compromise becomes almost impossible.

When you can't reach a suitable compromise in politics the only solution is to try to stop a great wrong from happening.

Public transportation

There has been some outrage in cities around Cleveland that are losing their circulator buses. The circulators make more frequent stops in a smaller area.

The Plain Dealer reported this morning that the circulator for Lakewood cost $470,274 a year to operate and average 20 riders per hour. I did a little math and if the buses run for 12 hours a day 365 days a year it works out to about $100 dollars an hour. Now the only way I can see for these buses to keep running would be to charge $5 bucks a head.

However public transportation doesn't work this way. Every time an issue over fares comes up no one wants to pay what it cost even to break even. Government subsidizes a mode of transportation that so few people want to use that it isn't viable.

This is why government has such a hard time working within a budget.

Hazards of linking

Being relatively new to hosting a blog I learned something today. When linking always try the links after posting. I linked to two separate blogs this morning and found I did not do either one correctly. One was a misspelling of the url the other I had mistyped when I initially set-up the side bar. I added an s to Keane observations url it should have been keaneobservation.blogspot.com. Oddly enough there is an Edward Keane no relation set-up at the url I mistakenly had typed at my blog roll.

It's good to learn even if you feel a little stupid in the process.

Death penalty

A couple of weeks ago there was a lively debate over at Zeray gazette concerning the death penalty. Two stories this week reaffirmed my position in favor of the death penalty. First was the story from Fridays evening news the bomber who took down the PanAm plane over Lockerbie Scotland killing more than 200 hundred people was being considered for release. He has little time to live suffering with prostate cancer in the U.K. they have a provision for compassionate parole. Secondly I was reminded by my brother over at Keaneobservations of the release of Squeaky Fromme this week for the younger folks she was a disciple of Charles Manson and attempted to kill President Ford.

One of the arguments for dispensing with the death penalty is that life in prison is a better penalty. The problem is that if such high profile criminals can have their life sentences commuted is life in prison really life in prison.

Will you buy it?

G.M. announced on Tuesday that their Chevy Volt will get 230 mpg in city driving. The combined average mpg will be around 100mpg.

G.M. is hopeful that this will help right their floundering company. I have my doubts first the price is to be around $40,000. This is a price higher than the really cost conscious shopper might be willing to spend. Secondly the driver that does most of their driving in the city usually doesn't pile on the mileage the way the highway driver would. My son drives a Dodge Ram about 15mpg but driving mostly in the city it doesn't bother him because he doesn't pile on the miles and have to hit the pumps too often.

Only time will tell and maybe the second generation of electrical technology will be more affordable.

Disturbing

A new pew research poll that I read in today's paper bothered me. The question posed was what is your view of the United States. Now at the bottom of the list there were no surprises. The countries you would expect Turkey, Palestinian Terr., Pakistan, Jordan , and Egypt have a bad impression of the U.S.

The part I found disturbing was the top of this poll the country with the highest opinion of the U.S. was Kenya. Not surprising in that they feel their native son of sorts is president. Still not disturbed,the U.S. was polled and we have a lower opinion of ourselves than the Kenyans.

Here's a link to the poll The poll shows this isn't really a new trend in fact are own opinion of the U.S. has risen. One thing in reading the online poll that I found odd was that when questioning certain international policies other countries liked what we are doing better than we do.

Foreign policy should benefit us not other countries, I think Ricky Nelson said it best" You can't please everyone so you got to please yourself.

Learning

For years as costs have risen manufacturers have coped with how to sell their products. We have all seen the half gallon carton of ice cream lose several ounces or 3 pound can of coffee that only has 2.5 pounds. We are visually fooled into thinking we are getting the same product. Well the post office is thinking of taking a cue from these businesses. There is a proposal to eliminate Saturday deliveries, same price less service.

If this goes through they better hope it doesn't lead to a further exodus away from the postal service. People may after all seek other alternatives and find they don't need the U.S. mail service.

Who spends more

Reading the letters to the editor concerning health insurance the writer was complaining about the current inefficiencies. Their point was that the private insurers skim of 300billion a year in administrative costs, therefore we need a single payer system.

My question is do you think the government or private companies will have lower administrative expenses?

Legend

Reading the paper this morning there was a story about an ad campaign for Blackglama furs. They ask what becomes a legend showing an actress draped in fur no need to give her name everyone knows her. They have run these ads since the sixties using Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn,Lena Horne. This years model is Elisabeth Hurley while I have heard of her I didn't know who it was from the picture.

This got me thinking about the actors and actresses of today and the past. How do they match up who could you see acting in a role from the forties and fifties and vice versa.

1. John Wayne-----------------Harrison Ford
2. Errol Flynn-----------------Jonny Depp
3. Gary Cooper----------------Arnold Shwartzenegger
4. Bob Hope-------------------Adam Sandler
5. Jimmy Stewart------------Tom Hanks

1. Katherine Hepburn-------Meryl Streep
2. Olivia DeHaviland--------Julia Roberts
3. Doris Day------------------Meg Ryan
4. Marilyn Monroe----------Angelina Jolie
5. Judy Holliday-------------Sandra Bullock

Any others how would you do it.