Patch

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

 

Whooping Cranes

Posted by Picasa There is only one wild migratory flock of whooping cranes of about 194 birds. The flock migrates from Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. This arduous journey of 2,700 miles takes weeks.In the 1950s, there were less than 20 birds left. Governments and conservation groups helped save the flock.




Latin Name: Grus americana

Family: Gruidae (Crane)

Estimated Population: In 1999, there were approximately 180 whooping cranes in the wild and 130 cranes in captivity, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Endangered Status: The whooping crane is on the U.S. Endangered Species List. It is classified as endangered in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Appearance: They are white with black wing tips. They have a red forehead and cheeks. Male and female whooping cranes look the same. You can only tell gender with a blood sample. Young birds are brown.

Size: Stands nearly five feet tall and has a wingspan of more than seven feet -- the tallest of all North American birds

Life Span: 22-24 years in the wild

Some information provided courtesy of eNature.com®.










Whooping Cranes at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge









Wood Buffalo National Park

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

 

How Much?

Retirement: Your savings: How much is enough?

By Paul J. Lim
Posted 3/8/06

Start early. The Schwab Center for Investment Research concluded that all workers should start saving 10 percent to 15 percent of their income in their 20s. If you wait until your 30s to start, then you need to set aside 15 percent to 25 percent of your income for the rest of your career. Workers who haven't started by their early 40s will need to sock away 25 percent to 35 percent of their incomes annually to make up for the lost time.

Save aggressively. One way to achieve this is to make the maximum contribution allowed into your 401k's and IRAs, which will probably put you close to 15 percent. You can also take advantage of catch-up provisions in tax-deferred retirement plans. However, don't think that you can play catch-up with the stock market. David Darst, chief investment strategist of Morgan Stanley's individual investor group, says today's young boomers are "facing relatively mundane and mediocre returns in the stock market." He predicts annual equity returns of around 6 percent to 8 percent per year, well below their historic long-term average of more than 10 percent. Moreover, Christine Fahlund, senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price, recently studied the probabilities of meeting retirement goals and discovered that saving more is a far more effective way to improve your odds of funding retirement than investing aggressively

Work longer. Even if it's only part time, an extra two years of work can drastically improve your retirement plan

This from the Social Security Administration; National Average Wage in 2004, $35,648.55 and from this they (?) want you to do all the above and also save for health care. Might be done if you don’t feed your wife and kids.

Read the whole article here.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060308/8enoughsavings_retirement.htm




In December, the New York Times disclosed the NSA's warrantless electronic surveillance program, resulting in an angry reaction from President Bush. It has not previously been disclosed, however, that administration lawyers had cited the same legal authority to justify warrantless physical searches. But in a little-noticed white paper submitted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Congress on January 19 justifying the legality of the NSA eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers made a tacit case that President Bush also has the inherent authority to order such physical searches

But John Martin, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted the two most important cases involving warrantless searches and surveillance, says the department is sending an unambiguous message to Congress. "They couldn't make it clearer," says Martin, "that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches."

Read the rest here.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060327/27fbi.htm

President claims inherent rights

This spying would be troubling enough if you could make yourself believe that the government would target only suspected terrorist. But past history of government surveillance makes this difficult (Johnson/Nixon, remember Watergate/ Pentagon Papers). We already know that anti-war protester and environmental groups have been targeted and there you go. This stuff needs over site and external control to come anywhere near safe for Americans.

If we Americans accept the Bush Administrations argument that the President is above the law then we accept the loss of Democracy. What we then have is an elected Dictator, not a President.

And we are accepting this.

Look where the Cheney/Bush Administration is leading us, from the start keeping or trying to keep everything they do secret. Rule changes on environmental laws, worker rights done in the late night, secret meeting concerning policy on energy, cutting out public input and comment. Pre-empted war, torture, secret prisons in foreign nations, domestic spying that is growing in leaps and bounds.

Patch believes that the fight against terrorism could and can be won with existing laws; there was/is no need for the Constitution destroying Patriot Act and its enforcement arm the Dept. of Homeland Security. Patch also believes our government can operate in the open without all this secrecy.

Monday, March 20, 2006

 

Trees




"Trees" by W. S. Merwin from The Compass Flower



Trees I am looking at trees

they may be one of the things I will miss

most from the earth

though many of the ones I have seen

already I cannot remember

and though I seldom embrace the ones I see

and have never been able to speak

with one

I listen to them tenderly

their names have never touched them

they have stood round my sleep

and when it was forbidden to climb them

they have carried me in their branches





This or



This?

















http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001595.html

BRAGG, Calif. -- The Big River tract in California's Mendocino County is a sprawling expanse of towering redwoods and Douglas firs, woods that for years have provided an ideal habitat for rare spotted owls and endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout. Now, it's all up for sale.

Big River, neighboring Salmon Creek and dozens of other forests across the nation have come on the market in recent years as timber companies shed holdings that are worth more as real estate than as a source of lumber.

A recent U.S. Forest Service study predicted that more than 44 million acres of private forest land, an area twice the size of Maine, will be sold over the next 25 years

The Bush administration also wants to sell off forest land, by auctioning more than 300,000 acres of national forest to fund a rural school program.

Develop, develop, develop, as we watch sub-division after sub-division spring up in what was farms and forest we find all the reasons for moving to them are also destroyed. The wildlife, the quiet, the beauty of the area all disappear replaced by noise, congestion, ugly strip malls.

Conservation groups are doing what they can to save some of the best land and forest but it takes tons of money. Join a conservation group and donate a few dollars and help. I like the Wilderness Society and the National Wildlife Federation and think they do a good job. The Sierra Club is good as others.

As more and more land falls under the developers bulldozers what is left gets more and more abused from overused. We need to think more of conservation of our lands.



Patch

Sunday, March 19, 2006

 

Why We Fight

Eisenhower is voice of reason in 'Why We Fight'New documentary explores nexus of military and business.


When the average American is asked why we fight wars, the answer is usually "freedom."

Well, that's a nice, non-controversial answer. Who doesn't like freedom? But are there other reasons why we have gone to war? The documentary "Why We Fight," now showing at the Green Hill The centerpiece of the film is President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961, when he warned against what he called the "military-industrial complex."
"We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions,"

Eisenhower said, in words that remain relevant today. "We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
"Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the federal government. ...
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

You can read or watch Eisenhower's entire speech at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/.
Eugene Jarecki, the writer-director of "Why We Fight," told Salon.com that "at no point before or since in our history has an American president been as truthful with the American public about any subject, let alone a subject as significant as war. ... One of the things I hope to do with the film is really make people think twice about Eisenhower, and take a new look at him, particularly as a messenger-prophet figure who rises from the grave to put where we are today in a clearer context."

Since Eisenhower's warning, of course, the military has only gotten bigger, as have the corporations that support the military. Things that used to be done by soldiers, such as food service and laundry, are now being contracted out to private firms. Do names like Halliburton and Kellogg Brown Root ring any bells?

As former CIA agent Chalmers Johnson says in the film, "When war becomes this profitable, you're going to have more war." (Iraq running something like $180 million a day)
"Why We Fight" presents scenes we don't see on American television, such as a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel saying she wouldn't allow her sons to join the military today. This 20-year veteran says the military no longer fights for freedom, but for the interests of certain policy-makers.

However, the film does not present a one-sided look at its subject. The comments from Johnson and author Gore Vidal (who blasts the "United States of Amnesia") are balanced by interviews with Sen. John McCain and neo-conservatives Richard Perle and William Kristol.

It's amazing today to see Eisenhower — a mainstream Republican and the most honored American war hero of the 20th century — warning against the influence of the military and the defense industry. These days, he would be attacked as a left-wing traitor. He would get the John Kerry treatment.

In fact, Eisenhower's vast experience with the military made him wary of it. He knew how smooth-talking generals could bamboozle politicians who didn't understand this particular bureaucracy. Ike once said: "God help any man who sits behind this desk who doesn't know the military like I do."

It's interesting how Eisenhower — long regarded as a bland, boring, do-nothing president — now seems like a lonely voice of wisdom. He got us out of Korea. He refused to send combat troops to Vietnam, despite the urgings of politicians as divergent as Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. He wouldn't let the Bay of Pigs fiasco happen on his watch. He loathed Joe McCarthy and worked behind the scenes to ensure his downfall.

Eisenhower, seen as a tired old man by Jack Kennedy's "best and brightest" — the Ivy League brains who led us into the quagmire of Vietnam — now looks like one of America's best presidents. Too bad he wasn't more respected when he died in 1969.
On the day I saw "Why We Fight," I spied a rather long-winded bumper sticker that said: "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

A bake sale for the Air Force is not likely. Thanks to pork-driven politics, our Congress is dumping hardware on the military that they don't want and didn't ask for. (As "Why We Fight" points out, parts of the B-2 bomber are built in all 50 states.)

It's all about keeping the military-industrial complex going. Look at the letters this newspaper has run, saying that Clarksville would be "nothing" without Fort Campbell. If that's true, what are we going to do when the federal teat goes dry? Do we plan to suck on it forever? But as this documentary's poster asserts, "It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever."

"Why We Fight" argues that America has been on a continuous wartime economy since the 1940s. It took guts for Eisenhower to point that out in his time. Imagine the response such an outburst of honesty would prompt today.

You know what would happen. The president would be fired by Dick Cheney.

This is a column of personal opinion, George Poague, Clarksville Tn.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

 

Great View




This is supposedly one of the privy's with the best views in North America (yes - there's a top 10 list for this somewhere). This is at Indian Bar camp on the Wonderland trail. Mt Rainier is in the background



Patch
 

Patch's Trip

Here are a few Photos that Patch took on her trip into the Grand Canyon back in January






South Kaibab Trail
































Patch

Monday, March 13, 2006

 

More Patch

Today, (3-13-06) the national debt totals $8.3 trillion, a level that could force Congress this week to raise the debt ceiling for the fourth time in George W. Bush's presidency

Not bad for a fiscal conservative, in less then 5 years at that.

America's trade deficit has been setting records with such frequency that it seems almost tiresome to hear it again: Another month, another $68.5 billion


Shocking news;
BOSTON AND NEW YORK – Changes in the communications industry are spawning vast new choices - but not necessarily lower bills - for American consumers who dial, click, and channel surf


The refusal to act on the Abramoff scandal is yet another example of a congressional ethics process that has ceased to function. In fact, the House ethics committee has come to a dead halt. An ethics “truce” where threats of partisan payback silenced the process was followed by an ethics committee that did not function during the entire year of 2005 in spite of numerous pending cases. Among the matters pending and still requiring urgent attention are:


· an inquiry into former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R TX) dealings with lobbyist
Jack Abramoff;

· an inquiry into Rep. Bob Ney (R OH) and his dealings with Abramoff;

· an inquiry into whether Rep. John Conyers (D MI) and his aides improperly
conducted partisan political activities out of his Detroit congressional office;


· an inquiry into allegations that Rep. Jim McDermott (D WA) violated ethics rules
and standards in handing over to the press a tape of an illegally intercepted phone
conversation;

· an inquiry into whether Rep. Curt Weldon (R PA) improperly used his office to aid
his daughter’s public relations firm; and

· an inquiry into whether Rep. William Jefferson (D LA) misused his public office for
personal gain.


Votes of Senate Homeland Security andGovernmental Affairs Committee

Voted to Support Office of Public Integrity:

Senator Collins (R ME)
Senator Lieberman (D CT)
Senator Carper (D DE)
Senator Lautenberg (D NJ)
Senator Levin (D MI)


Voted to Oppose Office of Public Integrity

Senator Akaka (D HI) Senator Bennett (R UT)

Senator Chafee (R RI) Senator Coburn (R OK)

Senator Coleman (R MN) Senator Dayton (D MN)

Senator Domenici (R NM) Senator Pryor (D AR)

Senator Stevens (R AK) Senator Voinovich (R OH)

Senator Warner (R VA)


About 44 million people in this country have no health insurance, and another 38 million have inadequate health insurance. This means that nearly one-third of Americans face each day without the security of knowing that, if and when they need it, medical care is available to them and their families.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for President.

Hey, anyone who can diagnose a patient,s health by watching a video just might be a good choice. He could watch a video of violence in Iraq and then know just what to do to bring peace and Democracy there. Watch a video from Wall Street and adjust the economy, watch a video of the Antarctic ice sheets melting and know just what to do about global warming.

Issues that Patch will watch for in Presidential candidates, not in any order.

One. Reversing the trend of putting the economic burden (Federal Budget) on the middle class and poor.

Health Care; Health care should not be based on wealth, everyone should have equal care. (The person who can answer this may become the President of the World) No one should die or suffer because of the cost of care.

Iraqi War, how many more must die before this war is closed out (Another no way to win war) and get back to the war on terrorism?
Today the President said we are spending $Billions (Billions) to find and destory ied's, ieds that are built from scrap. Billions on the scale of WWII's Manhatten Project. Can all the money in the world protect our people in Iraq? I watched the North Vietnamese move enough supplies by bicycle to bring the U.S. Army to a stand still and all the war planes in the Air Force could not stop them.


Reversing the exodus of our wealth out of the country. Wall Street should not be running this country.

It seems that U.S. services and resources are continually up for grabs to the highest bidder and that little is done nowadays for the common good of the American people. That - not the nationality of the contractors - is what has me outraged.

Margot Coker

Pittsburg, Calif.

Save middle class retirement. (company benefits to Social Security)The experts say to diversify, what’s more diversified then a good safe company defined retirement benefit, Social Security, and savings? Worked and is working for millions of Americans.

Basically someone who is going to put hard working Americans first, (people making under $100,000 yr.) not Wall Street, not multi-national corporations, not foreign entities, someone to restore/save middle class America. Conservatives prove every time they get a chance that making the rich richer does not trickle down. Cutting taxes for multi-millionaires while cutting benefits for people on Social Security and Medi-Care, for people trying to get job training, trying to go to collage, trying to emigrate to India for a job.
Do I think government can bring riches for all? No, but neither do I think free markets can, it takes both, we need a government that can blend these two forces for the benefit of the greater good.

Ethics Reform; starting with campaign reform.

(Saving S.S. is easy, three steps, one, remove the wage cap, restore the estate tax for over one $million and putting the money into S.S, and change the law and allow S.S. to invest some of its surplus in the market.)
Med-care now is a huge problem as health care in general.


Someone who will put the Executive Branch back under the rule of law and that believes in the Constitution in general and the Bill of Rights in particular and return to the time tested check and balances between the branches of our government.


I believe that the war on terrorism could and can be won without the Patriot Act (Bill of Rights shredder) and the Dept. of Homeland Security. (enforcers of the Patriot Act)

As of now this person does not exist.

Patch

Also, there's this!

Bet that hurt!!!


Sunday, March 05, 2006

 

Where are we headed?


With the Senate passing the Patriot Act (renewing) this is something Patch thinks we all should keep in mind. The Nazis used terrorism or the threat of terrorism and secrecy as much as anything to gain control of the German government. Will the present American government go this far, I don’t know, but things are lining (already lined up?) up that will make it possible. To me reading the Patriot Act is kind of scary. The potential for abuse is huge, almost everything and anything can fall under “acts of terrorism” and any action of our government can be kept secret. The present Administration has already proven that they think they are above the rule of law. Either way; it appears to me, we are heading (already there? to one kind of Fascism or another. I think we need to look more at Argentina then Nazi Germany for the direction that we are heading,



Look at what we Americans have already accepted, preemptive war, secret prisons, torture, possible stolen elections, the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security and government spying on U.S. citizens, and a President that keeps saying he needs more power.

WOW.

And you say it can’t happen here!!!!







If you read much and listen to people they all have an opinion on the Bill of Rights, why they were added to the Constitution and what they mean, but as you read and listen, most interpret the Bill of Rights to their point of view. Well here is mine. After living under the rule of a King most of their lives the people of America pretty much knew that most oppression and abuse of civil rights came from their own government, not foreign governments. Most of the 13 States of the U.S. had a bill of rights in their state constitutions and refused to ratify the new U.S. constitution until a Bill of Rights was written into it. And that’s the way I interpret the Bill of Rights, protection from my own government and that is why I was and am against the Patriot Act and it’s enforcement arm The Dept. of Homeland Security.

The Patriot Act absolutely shreds the Bill of Rights. Read it and see what is possible under this act, read carefully, because the bad stuff is buried deep, but were else would it be? The Dept. of Homeland Security is nothing more then another huge bureaucracy in which the government can secretly hide just what is doing.

Remember, Hitler and his henchmen did not operate in a vacuum; they had the support of people just like ME and YOU.

I’m always wondering, what’s worse, terrorism or our response to terrorism, are we fighting to bring Democracy to Iraq, while destroying it here in America?

Have you ever wondered how such a huge and complicated bill like the Patriot Act was written in less then 2 months and voted into law with such little debate?

Have you ever wondered why airport security is so strict and so little is done to secure US borders and seaports?

The Coast Guard is charged with seaport security, have you wondered why its budget is being cut by millions of $$$?



Have you ever wondered why there is no paper trail with the new computer voting machines? These machines operate with software, ever wonder who is writing this software?




I Do.
Patch








Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."— Martin Luther King Jr.



Also remember being paranoid does not mean they are not after you!















Also, when do you think Osama Bin Laden will be captured? I think late Sept. early Oct. 06, just before the mid-term elections. Bush’s falling poll numbers may up this time table, but I think this is the plan. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, March 02, 2006

 

Hopelessness

"People don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America." —George W. Bush, on the deal to hand over U.S. port security to a company operated by the United Arab Emirates, Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 2006

And I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company." —George W. Bush,


U.S. OUTSOURCES HOMELAND SECURITY TO NORTH KOREA

Little-known Korean Firm ‘Seems Okay,’ Says Chertoff
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff raised eyebrows today by announcing that the United States would outsource all of its homeland security operations to a little-known North Korean firm called Jim KongIl, Inc.

“When is the last time anyone has been seen crossing any North Korean border?” spoke up President Bush.



Democrats Vow Not To Give Up Hopelessness

February 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC—In a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Monday, Congressional Democrats announced that, despite the scandals plaguing the Republican Party and widespread calls for change in Washington, their party will remain true to its hopeless direction.





Read the rest here.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45793

Patch

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