The Social Security Blues

One of the favorite topics of Conservative know-it-alls is the "entitlement" (hate the term) systems of SS, Medicaid/Medicare. The blow-hards will tell you how they are going broke and costs are exploding--which is true enough.
What is very frustrating to me, is that about 98% of Americans probably don't even know the difference between these programs and why they exist.
A quick run down:
Social security payments do go to the elderly as retirement benefits, but the other part is disability payments. I'm not sure what the cost break down is (which costs more the elderly or disabled) but I do know the process of applying for disability is much, much harder than most people assume--and not given out willy nilly.
Medicaid on the other hand is medical insurance for low income and disabled-varies by state to state, and Medicare is insurance for the elderly and long term disabled and completely federal.

Those nuances aside, the irony is who is using these programs? Many are the result of a medical system that prolongs life at any cost. Interestingly enough, isn't that very pro-life?? I mean are the liberal lefties the first in line yelling about not pulling plugs, I think not. In a hip hip hooray free market people are going to get rich extending life at any cost--but guess what --someone needs to pay for it- and it's not cheap. (I'm not saying at all that I am anti-saving lives, I'm saying it's not a free ride)
These same confused conservatives, seem to think it's ok to judge a woman when confronted with the prospect of raising a severely disabled child, yet would gladly deny government assistance to pay for the child's medical bills. In some instances millions of dollars in care. Guess what rich republicans-- even people with health insurance get denied tons of medical services when the costs go wild.

Conservatives hate to tell people how to live. "No government intrusion"--is what the radical right screams all the time--keep them out of our lives!! Ok then, but do you know what people do without seat belt laws or nutrition guidelines? They make themselves even more sick and disabled and so much of our disability payments are already going to preventable causes. But in a free market it is more important to protect the rights of Burger King and Pepsi than try to curb consumer appetites for the stuff. Which of course would be the fastest way to shave costs of these "entitlement" programs as of yet.
So as long as folks in this country are in the life saving business and the "live how you want" business someone needs to foot the bill. And if government doesn't do it--well get used to seeing a lot more death, or at best peddlers and beggers on the streets. Remember simple history-- that was the reason these programs started in the first place.

Alaska weather

Oh what a boring topic, yet so consuming.
This past year 2008-2009 has been the weirdest I have seen so far. Southcentral Alaska experienced summer 2008 with only a handful of sunny warm days--and by that I mean only one day the whole summer actually touched 70 degrees. The rest of our "summer" season was a dreary mix of rain, clouds and about 50 degrees. Then about the beginning of September frost set in, then snow, and then one of the coldest winters. Now 7 months of snow later we have this nice freaky beginning of May--7o degrees and sunny 3 days in a row, a few dips back into cold, (frost) but here we are mid-May and things are looking up again. By that I mean, even though it was 31 degrees this morning we should see high 50's this week and plenty of the yellow ball in the sky.
In the past 7 years I have seen a winter without snow that was almost completely in the 30 degree range. Then a few years later, we were stuck at-28 all of January. Summer 2004 had weeks of mid 80's. Now the volcano is expected to blow again--so let's wait and see what comes next....