Lilacs

After 13 years of living in this house, my lilac tree has finally bloomed, and most spectacularly. My living room is redolent in the sweet aroma. My mother used to love lilacs and now so do I.
I can hardly take credit for this miracle since I did nothing botanically creative to cause it. So I don't know why I am blithering about it. I am just happily relishing the sweet aroma and heavenly color of these beautiful blooms.
They take my mind ( for a second or two) off the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico.

I can't get it through my thick head that the people, who are closest to and intimately effected by this spill are the people who are clammoring for more drilling in the Gulf. What is wrong with these people? They can see, feel, smell and taste this destruction and yet they must want more. They don't seem to understand that altho they may make some little money by working out there, they are destroying their bodies and will probably die young and their children and children's children will be effected forever. How can people be so dumb?

Will they ever learn to vote for their own interests rather than what some slimy politicians tell them to do?

Afghanistan forever !! Better than oil

Now we know why we are in Afghanistan and are not likely to leave it in this century !!
It turns out that there is a 'goldmine' of minerals under their soil.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

The whole world covets this mineral plethora and we are not about to let anyone else
get their hands on it.

I was a defacto supporter of Obama. My first choice was Hillary but when she supported him, I had no other choice. I was adamant about having to go through another four years with another Republican. However, although other people thought they were supporting a liberal, with Obama, I looked at the people who were his staff and I realized, we were being bamboozled. But what were the choices?
I have recently discovered that there was going to be another assault on Social Security and Obama was going to push it. His thinking is to be the first to hit Social Security to soften the blow when the Republicans slam it.

To my mind, having this, a Democratic President, wanting to cut Social Security is
outrageous. There is a notion that Social Security contributes to the federal deficits and that cutting benefits will take care of this problem. This is not true. Cutting Social Security Benefits will have no impact on the deficit problem, and all those in power know this. Social Security has a massive surplus now of $2.5 trillion and by 2023 the surplus will be over $4 trillion . Does this sound as if it is going broke? The money that you contribute to Social Security, the FICA is not a tax, it is involuntary savings and it belongs to the people and not to the government.

In truth, Social Security is fiscally responsible. By law, it cannot spend money that it does not have. Social Security could cover three-quarters of benefits until 2083, when people born today will be 73.