"Universal" Healthcare? No!

This little bit of news needs to be disbursed wide and far.

From the Wall Street Journal article titled Dissecting the Kennedy Health Bill

by Betsy McCaughy

Last September Sen. Barack Obama promised that under his health-care proposal "you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." On Monday, President Obama repeated that promise in a speech to the American Medical Association. It's not true.

The president is barnstorming the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation -- the Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).

That's right. The fine folks in Congress have written an exemption for themselves and other federal employees (most likely judges, cabinet officials, etc. and not the vast number of blue and white collar workers) into the health bill so they can continue to enjoy the exemplary health care they currently have. You won't be able to do the same. The subtitle of the article is "No, you won't be able to keep your insurance if you like it." The name of the bill is a lie, too. "The Affordable Health Choices Act" is ain't! There will be damn few "choices" for We The People.

It is reasonable to require that people who accept a government subsidy for health insurance tolerate cost controls to protect taxpayers. But according to the terms of the Kennedy bill, you must enroll in a "qualified" plan or face a fine, even if you and your employer are paying the entire cost of the plan you already have (section 161).

The president has promised that if you like your plan you can keep it. Mr. Kennedy's bill says that too. It's doubletalk, as the consequences of nonenrollment make clear. How big a fine will you face? The bill doesn't specify or set a limit. It says the fine will be enough to "accomplish the goal of enhancing participation in qualifying coverage" (section 161).

So, if you like the plan you have but it is not on the "qualified" list, you may be fined. Even though you have health coverage and the government isn't paying a dime for it!

This bill needs to be drowned in the bathwater and then thrown out.

And every idiot on the Hill who votes for this exemption and/or the final bill needs to be tarred, feathered and carried out of town on a rail.

It's getting to the point when investment in lead may indeed be wise and possibly necessary.

(h/t commenter Jim B. over at Don Surber's)

Aerie Report, June 20

Not a heck of a lot to report from the Aerie the last few days. It's been raining...a lot. It's been cool...a lot. It's been breezy...somewhat. And it's supposed to be that way for a couple of more days.

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We have had two visits from a bruin in the last four days. One evening (Wednesday? Thursday? they're starting to run together) it was raining hard as the sun set and I left the bird feeders out rather than get wet. The next morning one had been pulled down and the other emptied of every single seed. Since puling the feeder down required actually breaking the wire loop on which it was hung, I assumed it was a bear. Then tonight, we did get to see the bruin as it came to the feeder that remained just as I came up stairs from the basement to bring it in. It was a small bear of about 180 pounds--quite possibly a two year old. Terry says it's the smaller of the two she had come by while I was up at the Bolt Hole. "The other is three times the size," she said. And she had told me it was a mom and her cub? More likely it's two males just hanging out together. Anyway, I'll be whistling and clapping when I go out to pick up the feeders the next couple of nights. Just in case there's something in the brush or around the corner.

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We signed a contract with a local to cut some hardwoods on our property. The money will come in handy but more importantly, as far as I was concerned, was the opening of the forest canopy, the removal of marketable white ash before the emerald ash borer (it's been spotted two counties to the west) gets to them, and the creation of one more logging skidway on my steep-sloped land. This new one will connect two existing skidways and cut across the face of a hill along which there has been deer movement in the past. When they get done, I'll be throwing some clover and other seed along that road and the others the equipment is likely to tear up. Plus, the loggers will be leaving the tops of the trees where they fall. The larger pieces will make good firewood next summer and the leaves on them now will be instant deer food. Or. at least the would be if it wasn't for the fact that the neighbors are also getting their property logged by the same crew so there will be lots of tree tops down in the surrounding 100 acres or so.

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There's a rumor that tomorrow is officially the First Day of Summer. I hope it's true. So far we haven't seen much in the way of summer-like weather. One week back in the beginning of May and that was it. I got a laugh today when I checked the Old Farmers Almanac and reread their prediction for June in the Appalachian area (#3) which stretches along the mountains up passed Elmira, NY. It said we were to be warmer than normal (+3-5 degrees) and drier than normal (-1 inch). So far, at least for our area, their magic formula is a big 0-2 for the month of June.

Jam, Jam, Jam...The end...for now.

Checked the fluidity (is that a real word?) of the jam this morning and found it about the same as the blue and lack berry stuff I made last year. Not perfect but serviceable. It'll do.

To sum up. Over the last few days I managed to turn this:

Eight quarts of nice ripe strawberries.

into this:

Seventeen Pints of Strawberry Jam (plus one in the fridge)

I told Terry to keep her eyes open for good fresh strawberries when she goes to WallyWorld or stops at one of the roadside stands she passes. (I got mine out at Pagomar west of Wellsboro.) I'd still like to freeze some slices and, perhaps, try a small batch of jelly.

Strawberry Jam progress: the outcome

Okay, I chickened out and added some pectin to the mix of strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice as I was boiling it for the final time. It just didn't seem thick enough to me to gel properly.

Even after that, the final product is somewhat runnier than normal jam. Perhaps it will thicken over night as it cools further. But then again, maybe not. Searching for a reason that all my jams do not gel the way they are supposed to, I poured over the directions in both books and those that came with the pectin. (Okay, TERRY reread all the directions. I'm a guy. We don't do directions. 'Kay?) In fine print off to one corner, Terry found this note: "Doubling of recipes may cause your jam/jelly not to gel properly." Of course I was doing far more than doubling the recipe which calls for just four cups of chopped berries, I had 28 cups for crying out loud! Doing this 7 times would have really, really stretched out the time needed, ya know?

Oh, and I didn't get the 24 pints I was expecting either. Far more liquid evaporated during the cooking process and sitting for 24 hours than I though might. I only ended up with 18 pints. Only one didn't seal properly even after a second run through the water bath. That one is in the fridge already. The other 17 will be heading into storage in the basement for future use on pancakes, waffles, toast, ice cream....

Answers about Strawberry Jam

I want to answer a couple of comments from my earlier post Strawberry Jam progress here, where everyone is able to see my answers since some folks don't read the comment sections and I think the answers are worthy of a separate post.

Shellmo,

I'm trying a recipe that doesn't use the packaged pectin. (Although I may chicken out at the last minute and through a couple of packets in the pot so as to be sure it does actually gel.)

Actually, I'm using two recipes and fudging a bit toward the middle. The cook books they came from are:
Preserving the Fruits of the Earth by Stanley Schuker and Elizabeth Meriwether Schuler and
The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. They differed in the amount of sugar to add so I sorta split the difference.

Neither has any recipes for making doggie snacks, however, so Scout is likely to be disappointed.

Threecollie,

Whether I'm at the Aerie in PA or up at the Bolt Hole in the southwest Adirondacks, we seem to share very similar weather with your North View Dairy in the Mohawk Valley. The weather quacks say we may actually get a break in the weather--during the day--otherwise, we've got the same rains here in the Northern Tier of PA. Not enough of a break to do any haying, I'm sure, but any sunshine would be appreciated.

After eating every strawberry that came my way last spring either in strawberry pie, strawberry shortcake, sliced strawberries on cereal or over vanilla ice cream, etc., I decided to make jam this year.

I made apple sauce, blackberry jam, blueberry jam, and tomato sauce last fall. Some went out as special gifts for Christmas and some got happily eaten here. I've a little left--just enough to get me through to fall. Oh, plus we're finally finishing up the zucchini and pumpkin breads that were in the freezer. Of course, if it warms up for a week or two, the zukes will be producing by the middle of July so it will be back to baking breads, grilling zucchini, boiling zucchini, zucchini salad, etc.

The jars are washed and ready to be sterilized. I had to discard five of my original thirty. They were saved from commercial jars of spaghetti sauce and looked usable until I noticed the lip of the jar was too tall and the darn rings wouldn't bite into the threads. That still leaves me with 25 pint jars which should be enough.

I'll have to put the big water bath kettle on the stove when we sit down to dinner. It will take a loooong time for the propane to heat up and bring to a boil the two gallons or so of water. About 7 PM I'll be heating up the jam mix one final time before it goes into the jars. Which then go into the water bath a final ten minutes finish cooking, sterilize and to seal. It's going to be a busy evening but at least working over the stove will mean warmth.


UPDATE: Friday morning and I discover I read the weather forecast incorrectly. The Aerie will, indeed, get the same sloppy, rainy, foggy, thunderstorm laden atmospheric conditions as the Northview Dairy. Yeeech!

Strawberry Jam progress

It took me an hour to hull and quarter the 8 quarts of strawberries yesterday morning. Actually quite a few had to be cut into eighths they were so large. Happily I only had to discard two or three damaged or over ripe berries from the entire flat.

I ended up with 28 cups of strawberry chunks to which I added 21 cups (almost 10 pounds!) of sugar. That mix sat for the balance of the day with me stirring it occasionally to get the sugar all dissolved. It's really amazing how much liquid that sugar pulled out of the berries!

After dinner, I brought the mix to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to assure it didn't burn on the bottom of the pot. Then I added one and three-quarter cups of lemon juice and brought the mix to a boil again over high heat for five minutes. This required lots of rapid stirring and a little scooping to keep the foam that was being produced from overflowing the pot like Mt. Etna.

When five minutes was up, I removed the mix from the heat and it has been sitting and will continue to sit until after dinner tonight. Then I will heat it again and bring it to a boil before ladling it into pint jars and put them through a water bath. I've got 30 pint jars that I'll be washing for the canning process. I don't think I'll need them all, but I will likely get two dozen filled with home made strawberry jam.

Since I already had the jars and lids needed for this process, the cost will be just what I paid for the strawberries ($26), sugar ($4.50) and lemon juice ($2.00) plus my time and effort (priceless--or maybe worthless). That will come to about $1.50 per pint. Well worth the effort, if you ask me.

Aerie Report

Terry and I moseyed on down to Mansfield today to have lunch at the Black Swan Cafe and to pick up my 2009-2010 hunting license at Cooper's Sporting Goods next door. As luck would have it, The Swan is closed on Tuesdays.

Cooper's was open, however and I dropped my old license on the counter along with my driver's license and $65.80 and walked out with my Resident Adult Hunting ($20.70), Archery ($16.70), Muzzleloader ($11.70), and Resident Bear ($16.70) licenses and the associated tags for antlered deer, fall and spring turkey and black bear. I passed on the elk tag raffle. (There's only about a dozen or so of those awarded every year.) It's tough enough to get a few folks together to help haul out a bear right here near home. The elk are only found about 100 miles to our west.

Now all I have to do is read the manual--again--to see if there have been any changes and send in my application for a doe tag.

******

We did get lunch. Over in Wellsboro at a pizza place where they make excellent chicken parm subs on a pita-like bread. Only the bread is better. More like pizza dough. Delicious!

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We were in Wellsboro to go to the library and then an art show at the Gemeiner. All the artists were from the area. (I think the one living furthest away was from Elmira.) There were pencil (graphite) drawings, computer generated graphics, water colors and oils. After viewing all the works (about 100) we had to choose the one we like the best. It was tough! Terry narrowed her selections down to about half a dozen as did I--some even overlapped, such as the oil of an old Agway building. It was quite good! I finally settled on an oil rendition of an Alaskan valley in which you could see the mist rising up the slopes above the river.

I have no idea which on Terry eventually settled upon as her "Best of Show." She kept walking back and forth to change the angle at which she was viewing three of her final six. I think she picked a winter scene that made you want to don a sweater.

******

We stopped for ice cream on the way home at Pagomar's just west of Wellsboro off Route 287 and across the highway from the train depot. The trains run up and down the valley through Cowenesque. There are dining outings as well as straight sight-seeing train rides. The trains are run and maintained by volunteers. At 3:00 PM it looked like they were going to have a nice crowd for their afternoon excursion.

You are never far from an ice cream parlor here in Tioga County, PA. Some sell Hershey's, some sell Perry's and some make their own. They are all delicious and extremely reasonable in price. Terry made the mistake last year of ordering a regular cup of ice cream from Pagomar's when they opened for the first time. Today she got the baby cone and was more than satisfied. They have a doggy serving too which is even smaller.

******

Pagomar also had flats of strawberries for sale and I just couldn't resist the 8 quarts of berries. It will mean work tomorrow and Thursday. I'm trying a recipe that does not require pectin but will require time. Lots of time.

• Tomorrow (Wednesday), I'll wash, hull and cut up the berries before mixing them with sugar.
• They will sit all day with an occasional stirring before I put them on the stove to cook.
• They will get brought to a boil over medium heat, have some lemon juice added and brought to another boil.
• Then they will then sit for 24 hours.
• Thursday I'll be washing and sterilizing pint jars until, in the evening,
• I'll bring the berry mix to a boil one last time for five minutes before ladling it into the jars.
• Which will then go into a water bath for ten minutes to seal them.

It's a different sort of recipe than I used last year with the blackberries and blue berries. The both used pectin. Still, both the B & B jams came out a little runnier than I like. They make great thick syrups, however. I'll let you know how this batch of strawberry jam comes out.

Motorcycle accident(s)

Terry checked the news today to see if she could learn about the motorcycle accident that delayed her trip home yesterday. She discovered that there were actually two of them on I-80 in NJ yesterday afternoon. One occurred east of where she entered I-80 and had a NJ man running into the back of a dump truck. The other, the cleanup of which she witnessed, had a PA man losing control of his bike on a curve, hitting a guard rail, going airborne and striking a tree. Both accidents were fatal.

Random thoughts

We've got one stinking rose bush (a Sub-Zero variety) here at the Aerie. We'd have more but we only bought the one at Agway last year and they haven't carried them since. Just as well. Something, probably a deer, has found it irresistible. Last summer we had over a half a dozen buds all swelling nicely and juuussst getting ready to burst when--WHAM!--a midnight raider came through and ate ever last one of them. Twice already this spring the plant has been hit by some noshing critter. What is semi-frustrating about it is that we though the damage done last summer had sapped the poor things strength and that the very cold winter had, perhaps, been the end of the thing. The stem that appeared when the snow melted seemed weak and frail. You could wiggle it about as if there was no root system at all. Yet, just as I was ready to pull it out of the ground, the darn thing started to produce shoots. It followed that up with buds. Which promptly led to something coming in and...well...nipping it in the bud. Short of building a fence four feet high and at least three feet in radius around this little survivor, I'm not sure what all I can do to protect it yet still enjoy any blossom that might appear.

******

We had a thunderstorm sweep down out of the northwest last night just after Terry got back from NJ. She had a great time at the wedding shower, BTW. She would have been home sooner but there was a motorcycle accident on I-80 in NJ around mile post 11. She only saw a crumbled up bike on a flatbed trailer and a tarp covering what she assumed to be a body. There was blood everywhere on the highway she says. No sign of a second vehicle. It took her over an hour to cover about a mile through the accident zone.

Anyway, back to the weather.... After the T-storm, the temperatures dropped like a stone and we ended up with a low of about 48 degrees this morning. The valley was shrouded in fog which gives the impression of a white river running down there along US Highway Route 6. To the north and east it was the same story with Corning and Elmira, New York experiencing dense fog. The temperature is supposed to get back up to just over 70 degrees this afternoon and with the sun currently shining brightly that may indeed happen. The forecast for the remainder of the week might have come out of Ground Hog Day (the movie). Every day is predicted to be exactly the same as yesterday and today right through the weekend. Sunny days with highs around 70 degrees and a chance of T-storms in the evening followed by lows around 50 over night.

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Watching the Mets/Yankees game yesterday afternoon on YES network I kept thinking, "I rushed to cut the grass so I could watch this?" Well, at least the grass got cut. So I guess that's a positive.

******

After suffering through the Mets' humiliation, I sat on the deck and enjoyed one of the bottles of beer my son, Rick, gave me when we were out in Eugene for his wedding. (The smallest one. He had to be creative in bottling and I got a 16 oz bottle, a 20 oz bottle and a 32 oz bottle. I could have used the 32 oz when I was done burning at the Bolt Hole the other day. Might have made the cramps disappear--or at least I wouldn't have noticed.)

Rick has been doing some home brewing as a hobby for a couple of years. I guess his mycology classes sort of spurred him on (or maybe it was the tour in Iraq?). What ever the impetus, the results have been excellent. I got a six-pack for Christmas that was really smooth for a dark ale. And this batch has an incredibly fine finish with no bitter after bite. Oh, and the alcohol content may be a tad higher than your standard store-boughten stuff.

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Pennsylvania will be putting it's 2009-2010 hunting licenses on sale today so I may have to wander down to the sport shop later. Doe tag applications will be accepted next week so it doesn't pay to put off purchasing your license. Cost of a resident license for rifle, bow, muzzle loader with a bear tag only set me back $60 last year. The fishing licenses this spring cost me another $20. Compare that to the $280 it cost me for a non-resident New York all around sportsman's tag that covers the same thing. And that's non-resident only because I don't vote there or pay their income taxes. I still pay county and school property taxes on the Bolt Hole's 34 acres...a bill that's higher than the county and property taxes at the Aerie (17 acres).

******

Time for another cup of coffee. Later.

15-0 *sheesh*

That's the final score from Yankee Stadium.

The Mets had Johan Santana on the mound so you might think they came out on top. HA! Santana did not record an out in the fourth inning and was credited (?) with giving up 9 earned runs in his three official innings of work. It was Santana's worst outing in his major league career.

A.J. Burnett started for the Yanks. He went 7 innings and gave up just 4 hits.

The Yanks got a total of 17 hits today--the same number the Mets got yesterday--and were given 7 walks. However, today, the Yanks plated 15 runs. Matsui (off Santana) and Cano (off Stokes) each had 2-run homers in the fourth.

Today is Flag Day. The Mets could have used a white one.

Speaking of New York, New York...

Well now! The NY Mets did beat up upon the NY Yankees yesterday. They got an excellent start from Nieve and plated 6 runs in coming away with a 6-2 victory. The scary thing is they had 17 hits but only got 6 runs in that band box of a new Yankee Stadium. Should have had more--a lot more!

Omir Santos had a two run shot and Gary Sheffield had a solo home run--his second HR in two days--for the Mets. Alex Rodriguez had a solo shot for the Yanks.

They play again today at 1:05 PM EDT.


Strange commentary from Buck and McCarver. There have been only a half dozen or so players named "Fernando" in major league history yet the Mets started three of them yesterday: Tatis (1B), Martinez (SS) and Nieve (P).

Smart Car?

While driving along the NY Thruway yesterday I passed a Smart Car. Now I'm sure they get great mileage running on just three cylinders as they do, and this one seemed to be able to tool along quite nicely at 65-70 mph on the flat road, but--and there are actually a few "buts" involved here--it is extremely small. It makes my wife's Aveo and the daughter's Yaris look huge.

So small in fact that is the Smart Car that as I drove by in the Tundra I was tempted to pick it up, put it in the bed of the truck (and I've only got a 6' long bed) and take it home like one would a little lost kitten. I'm sure the semis on the highway could have easily fit a dozen or more in the back of their 53' long trailers. They could have been stacked like eggs in a carton.

I certainly hope the two women inside were very good friends. If they weren't before they set out, I'm sure they were by the time the ride ended.

How would this tiny little car handle travel in the mountains? Can it make it up a slope with as much as a 5% grade? What happens in a crosswind of 30 mph out on the plains? Does it become a new form of tumble weed due to its light weight, high (relatively speaking) profile and narrow little wheel base?

This might make a fine commuter car for an urban metroplex but out in the real world of North America...I don't think so. This is a case where Sinatra was dead wrong. It might make it in NYC but it certainly isn't going to make it everywhere.


(BTW The plates were from Massachusettes.)