O – kay

Today, OD comes up nearly as soon as I click on it, so, ok, it was them, not my 8 or 9 year old computer. I always get paranoid "Is it me?" (or my machine).

I hate that feeling.

No work today and I slept in till noon. I drove over 180 miles for work this week, a little over half a tank of gas (insert complaint about gas prices, tempered with "I’m glad I don’t live in California" – gas is MORE expensive down there).

Saturday, eh? Saturdays and Sundays were my work days for 7 years, with the First and Final editions of The Sunday Oregonian newspaper to pick up and deliver. I do kind of miss that job, but the newspaper is much smaller and less widely available. I worked in my neighborhood, partly, and most of the street racks are gone – when the Daily went to a dollar, sales collapsed.

The other day, when I took my client to the library, where she played computer games online, that was the first time I’ve read the whole Oregonian in a loong time. The news cycle has gotten so fast that the paper is "obsolete" an hour after it’s printed.

I don’t think many people pay attention to the news, and that let’s "them" get away with the stuff that’s been revealed. I’ve known for a long time that NSA sucks up every electronic signal made, and since most of that is "secret", billions of dollars go down that rat hole. The very extensive "Privatization", begun in the 80’s, means that doing government work is VERY profitable, and is 180 degrees away from the rational to Privatize things – it is NOT "cheaper" to have private industry performing what was previously done by government workers.

Sure, it may pay a little better, to the workers, but the companies and the top managers make bank off it now, another reason the budgets are so expensive. It’s kind of like a give-away to "the Private Sector" – billions and billions of dollars go to those companies, and in "secret", for "National Defense".

I guess I’m not talking "billions", that I should be thinking of Trillions. Thus it’s necessary to cut food stamps and Public Housing (and oh, they have cut Housing, big-time)

From down here, I see all sorts of "waste, fraud, and abuse". Bogus stories about people buying booze and cigarettes with Food Stamps. Those stories are almost all lies, like the "Cadillac Welfare Queens" of the 80’s. I only got Unemployment last year and paid more of a percentage in Federal taxes than Mitt Romney and other liars of his class. For real. True story.

As one New York mogul said, "taxes are for "the little people".

Oooo-kay. I KNOW I’m one of the little people., but I don’t have, I don’t think, a pre-paid ticket to Hell.

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misc. thoughts on the situation.

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