When is Old News Rebroadcast????

I have noticed it before but it is so silly that I have to share this bit of goofiness. Look at your TV section in Newsday or NY Daily news and look how they label the nightly news caste. IT SAYS NEW!!!!!!!!! Really. Does it need to be said? I keep seeing and hearing dumb things but this one just gets me. Of course it is NEW. When have you ever seen the news broadcaste as a repeat?
That is all, just a silly bit of fluff that bothers me a bit.

Nature in the Park

Yesterday My BF/DW, went for a walk in Hendrick son Park in beautiful Valley Stream. It was a nice day for a walk. As we started out I started to look for a hawk we had seen high up in a tree the day before. I had noticed a hawk before locally and one had been on my houses TV antenna about a month before. When we were about 3/4 miles in we saw a small group of people gathered by the side of the path and that is when we saw it, the hawk picking something. He was a bold one, allowing people near it without taking to wing. He saw all the people and was aware of us but keep pulling at the remains a squirrel. He let people come real close and never looked like he was going to leave his prey and take flight. At one point, when I saw that Sharon was going closer and closer, I quietly told her that if the hawk made any movement, she should immediately cover her eyes. Fortunately there was no chance that the bird would move and leave his catch and Sharon got to within 5 feet of this magnificent raptor and took many photos as well as a couple of videos. She put one up on YouTube. Check it out.

Doom and Gloom

Right now there is an acceleration in the rate of financial corporate write downs due to GREED in the sub prime market. Many forecasters said that they could see the problems coming, but the desire to suck every dollar out won over rational thought.Right now there has been about $100 billion written down because of the money loaned to people who could ill afford the loans in the sub prime market. This is according to an article on Bloomberg online today.The rest of the economy will be affected by a recession. Many (not all) people were using their homes to buy cars, vacations , buy bigger homes, renovate and expand their homes above their ability to pay off the loans because they could not see the day where they would have to pay the money back. I won't predict how long a recession will last, just that it is almost here. The Dow Jones is down over 10% since it's highs last year and the drop is not at it's end yet. The news on Wall Street is not encouraging and I think it can go down another 1 to 2 thousand points.
Right now I am trying to cut back on expenses. There is now a need to watch the outflow of money to ride out the financial storm. Boy, I am sorry for all this doom and gloom. The next entry will be on a more happy note.

A walk in the park

Well I walked and brought my camera with me for a walk in the park and thought how lucky I am to live here in Valley Stream. We have a really nice park that has an exercise/running/walking trail. There are stations to do stretches, sit ups, balance and more at about 15 exercise stations here. There is also a measured mile and mile and a half loop that is lit-up at night for our running/walking enjoyment all year long until 11 PM. It even has a water fountain thanks to John F. Corrigan. A friend of mine told me that he left money to the park to put in a water fountain for the people that came here. Smart guy that he was, he said that if the fountain was not put in, the park would not get the money. Thanks John. I have been using the park for many years and now I have been been going with my DW for walks at least every other day. Got to keep her healthy!

Also I get to spend more time with my sweetie, oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Plastic dilemma bags and bottles

Here we are in NYC debating recycling plastic bags in supermarkets. Not even all of them are to be included. Small ones under 500 square feet are left out unless they are a chain of more than 5 are left out. Really, how many chains are there under 500 square feet?
I think that we should be going in the direction of Great Britain and Italy. They charge you if you want a plastic bag when you shop. I mean its not much, only 5 cents. Heck, even China is going to be doing it starting this June 1st. Are we (NYC) bigger than China? I think not. Have you looked around and seen the mess on the streets and in the trees? I guess we don't care about a clean environment except on Earth Day.
In truth, it will never catch on until it makes money. Just for the sake of cleanliness won't cut it. This country may say that it is a Democracy but that is a load of crap. We were founded on financial reasons and that is what really drives this country now and in the future.
We should be expanding the bottle laws to include all types of bottles like water, juice, and teas. I can't think of other types but I know that they are out there and just overlooked. that is what happened when they passed the bottle in NYS 25 years ago.
There is now a push to add deposits to the non-carbonated bottles and I think that we should all support the bill(s) contact your State legislator and keep the neighborhood cleaner.

S 5850 and A8044 would extend the current container deposit law to include non-carbonated beverages. It would also require beverage companies to return the unclaimed deposits to the state to fund recycling and other environmental protection programs. It also updates the current law to benefit supermarkets and redemption centers. It increases the handling fee they receive from 2 cents per container to up to 3.5 cents per container. This increases the compensation for retailers and provides added incentive for more redemption centers.

New Year another try at continuity

Well, it is a new year and already I have fallen behind on my promise to myself that I would try to do this at least three times a week. Well lets see, I have started walking with my sweetie a couple of times a week and we try to walk three miles. I still try to run at least three times a week and unlike my promise to write here more often, this one I have been keeping. I love running even if sometimes I have to force myself out the door. The rush I get that starts about a quarter mile in is exhilarating. I enjoy the time also because I have a lot of private time. You know, thinking with no distractions. OK, I do watch traffic when I cross streets and I watch for things in my way, but I really get to think.
OK, the sprint for the presidency is underway and today could be a real important one is a clear winner comes out in New Hampshire. I don't really have a preference right now except I don't want to see a republican in office.
I think that tomorrow I may have more to say than today.
Just one thing that is off this topic. I just got the Libba Bray book, The Sweet Far Thing, and have been looking to get it for weeks. The end of another trilogy. And at 800+ pages!!!! I can' wait.
More tomorrow.

Inflation, what inflation?

Again the government says that inflation is small and manageable! Did you know that they don't include everyday items such as the price of oil and gasoline? You might ask yourself, how is this possible? We all know that from oil we get plastics that go into almost everything we use. Our cars run on gasoline and everything is delivered, from supermarkets to people by jets, using fuel. How is it that the cost of oil is not included in the inflation rate? Maybe we should be asking the question, why is it not included? One guess is that the COLA (cost of living allowance) that are part of the Social Security would drive up the cost to the government! Not an insignificant piece of change to the government.
Interestingly, to me, it does not seem to matter which political party is in power, the CPI (Consumer Price Index) that the government uses remains the same. I don't feel that the CPI really reflects the rate of inflation that we actually experience. It seems to be a way of the government to knock out spikes and try to level inflation's jumping about on a month to month or quarterly basis. It might be a way of calming the average person so as not to notice that the information that says that his/her money is worth less every year. That might be good up to a point but it does not let us tackle the problem on a personal basis. We need to fear the effects of inflation. It can ruin the best of plans in preparing for the future AND our retirement. That is what we should all be doing, preparing for the rest of our lives. Not just the worries we have of filling our automobiles gas tank or buying things for ourselves and others. That is day to day. That is short term thinking and we should be looking a lot further into the future.