Breaking News

Bits and Pieces.

Thursday Night - Late.
Today I saw a news item on Fox News about a mother being charged with attempted murder for not following the doctor's directions about giving her son his medication. All the details were not presented in that breaking news but what few facts that were given indicated that her son was having adverse reactions, health-wise, from the medication and she had lied, by telling the doctor that she was still giving it to him. I didn't know it was against the law to lie to a doctor. I guess I'd better be careful. If a parent or parents can be charged with attempted murder in a case such as this, can we be far from that "Big Brother" state as was written about by George Orwell in his book titled "1984"?
I have known parents who, from all appearances, loved their children but bought, or allowed them to buy, every known fat food product that was asked for. If those children developed a life threatening disease could the parents be charged with attempted murder? How far should we allow the government to go in dictating our actions? What is legal anymore?

Friday Late, 7:00 pm
After working (piddling) in the yard and garden most of the day, with breaks quite often to keep up with what has been taking place in Washington, I have come to the conclusion that there will be an 11th hour compromise to keep the government open. At least that is what I have been telling everyone I have talked to today. Like that will make any difference in the outcome. Most everyone on television keeps trying to tell us how bad it will be if the government does shut down for even a few days but I can't think of even one thing that would affect me in any way except our military personnel not getting their pay on time. They are just being used as pawns in this, for lack of a better word, squabble. Congress (and President) get real, you were elected to take care of all the people in the United States, not to stoke your own egoes. By tomorrow morning we should know what has come out of all this name-calling.

Saturday Morning, Fairly Early
I got up and turned the television on at 5:00 a.m. so as to find out if we still had a functioning government. Whether you consider it to be good or bad, we do. I still don't know what the main details are but maybe we all will by the end of today, that is, if we really want to know.

Saturday Night, Fairly Late
Someone on television said that Representative Paul Ryan's 2012 budget proposal may be looked at as a marker to be used in the upcoming election campaigns for not only the Presidency but also the House and Senate races. I suppose that it can be looked at as true but it is not the only thing that will affect those elections.
In my opinion the best thing to come out of that 11th hour compromise on the "Continueing Resolution", which funds the government for a few more days, was not the almost 40 billion dollars cut from the budget, as proposed by the President, but the promise that was extracted from Senator Harry Reid (if it is true). Almost all the way up to that 11th hour compromise, Senator Reid had always refused to even consider allowing a vote on the defunding of either "Obamacare" or "Planned Parenthood" but it has been reported that he agreed to allow those votes to take place as stand alone bills. No, they won't pass but if they come to a vote every Senator will have to vote either yes or no and their votes will become the most prominent marker in the 2012 elections. More about that later.
We spent most of another day doing odd jobs that needed to be done, nothing really important but needful. We did get some of our squash, tomatoes and cucumbers set out in the ground, watered and shaded. The sun was really hot about noon.

Sunday Morning, Not Too Early
Ryan's 2012 budget proposals have been talked about a lot, especially his plan to fix Medicare and Medicaid. That may not be the next big fight but it won't be far behind. This morning the news has only been a re-hash of the last three day. Who needs that?
The temperature here is in the upper sixties, starting off very warm, and will probably push ninety before the day is gone. That's hot for this time of year. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned. - William