POST OFFICE LONG LINES…..RETIREES NOT REPLACED

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Reporting my local experiences have been limited this week. I have not related my Key West nocturnal activities. I have not left the house since sunday.

The reason is my car is waiting for a part from Miami.

I live outside Key West so walking is not even a consideration.

It has not been bad. Caught up on some research I have been meaning to do. Read a bit. Watched a ton of old movies on TV.

Now, I have had it. Must get out this evening. Someone will have to pick me up. I also need groceries. Enough left in the refrigerator to prepare one last meal.

You would think laying around would cause me to have gained weight. Not so. Lost 2 more pounds. Total now 38 pounds!

I feel like Little Jack Horner…..eating his pumpkin pie…..he stuck in his thumb, pulled out a plum, and said what a good boy am I!

In April, I wrote a column for KONK Life titled Congress To Blame For Post Office Debt. The reason obvious.

The Post Office was solvent. Money in the bank.  For real. Congress wanted to use the sitting money. Passed a law requiring the Post Office to pre-pay in 10 years long term pension and health care liabilities. Covering 75 years.

The money would sit in a different account till needed. Congress could dip into it. And as with Social Security, never pay it back.

The 10 years has passed. The Post Office could not meet the pre-pay. Onerous. Owes $49 billion to it.

Congress was unhappy. On paper looks like the Post Officenow in debt. Not really, if not compelled to make the pre-payments.

What other business pre-pays pensions, etc. 75 years into the future?

Congress has been mini-managing the Post Office under the guise that obviously the Post Office cannot mange itself. Congress passed another law. As postal employees retire, they would not be replaced. A money saving gambit.

Why do we stand in line forever at the Post Office? It is not the postal workers fault. They are not slow. The problem is there are not enough of them because of Congress’ law re replacing retirees.

The Chinese are smart people. A relatively recent example are the hog hotels being constructed. Pig hotels, another name.

America’s experience is with Perdue and other chicken farms. Place the chicken/hog in tight quarters and grow them.

China presently has 2 seven story buildings to grow hogs. Breed and raise them. One thousand hogs per floor.

The buildings are sow breeding operations more than anything else. Eighty percent of the pigs are adult female swine. Sows. Twenty percent are gilts. Young sows to replace the sows when they get pregnant.

Gestation is 114 days.

Disease the danger. Protected against in every possible way.

No one talks about the male pigs who provide the seed. They must be exhausted! It takes the male 20 minutes to ejaculate. I do not know how many times a day the male is called upon to perform. Nor do I know the average number of times a sow or gilt must engage in sex to become pregnant.

A good sized liter is 16 piglets.

Four new hog hotels are in the planning stage. One will be 13 stories.

Family Separation Policy. Love these fancy governmental terms. The three words relate to the Trump/Sessions plan to separate children from parents in situations where families cross our southern border.

Both men are sick! How long before Congress begins exercising its Constitutional powers? Especially the Republicans. Stand up and be men. Legislators not afraid to oppose Trump.

I was against the Iraqi War before it even began. Made no sense. History agrees.

Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of State at the time. I thought he was a horse’s ass. He thought he was smart. There was a question whether the U.S. had sufficient troops, etc. to go to war. Rumsfeld said, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Contrast this with how Hitler handled things.

In May 1940, Germany invaded Holland and Belgium. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned. Winston Churchill replaced him.

Holland and Belgium were not military giants at the time. Never the less, Hitler hit them with everything. More than was needed for a German victory. One hundred thirty six ground divisions, 2,500 aircraft, and 16,000 airborne troops.

A country prepares for war. If unexpectedly attacked as the U.S. was at Pearl Harbor, then you begin the fight with what you have.

Enjoy your day!

 

SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL

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Key West is in the middle of this year’s Songwriters Festival. The event began May 9 and ends May 13. Five days and nights of live music. The faces, voices and stories behind the songs.

Two hundred plus performers and fifty plus shows. To be seen and heard on parts of Duval and its side streets and in many bars and restaurants along the way.

Key West will be over run with music lovers from all over the world.

A post Irma report has just come out re tourism revenue. In the eight months since Irma, tourist revenue is down 11-24 percent depending on the month.

The ad agency representing Key West has recommended that more money be spent in advertising to attract the number of tourists lost.

I disagree. Key West is over touristed. The island is sinking beneath the added weight of too many visitors. Traffic is heavy, bicyclists a danger, pedestrians crossing streets without looking, etc.

Greed is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Key West cannot continue to receive more and more visitors each year. There is a breaking point. We are reaching it.

Some things cannot be questioned. One, man needs water to survive.

As far back as Aristotle, water was a concern. Being the genius he was, Aristotle shared his thoughts and solutions for his time: “Salt water, when it turns into vapour, becomes sweet and the vapour does not form salt water again when it condenses.”

Aristotle also noticed that a fine wax vessel would hold potable water after being submerged long enough in seawater, having acted as a membrane to filter the salt.

Ocean going ships over the centuries had a desperate need for fresh water. Ways to desalinate were improved for vessels.

Thomas Jefferson came up with a better method to desalinate on ships. Decals with his instructions were prepared and placed on the back of all shipping permits.

Desalinization improved following World War II. So good that optimization became the goal.

Which brings me to the why I have spent this time on desalinization.

The Florida Keys need water. Especially, Key West. We pipe our water in from the mainland 150 miles away. Scarcity periodically a problem.

On this day in 1967, a $3.3 million desalting plant was constructed to assist Key West and its immediate surroundings. The new plant capable of producing 2.62 million gallons of fresh water a day.

The plant ended a critical water shortage at the time.

Trump and his staff show little respect for John McCain. McCain has brain cancer and is reaching the end of his days.

McCain qualifies as a torture expert.

One day after he announced opposition to Trump’s CIA nominee Gina Haspel, a White House staff meeting was being held. Trump was not present.

It is claimed that during the meeting, Special Assistant Kelly Sadler while discussing the torture issue and McCain’s position said, “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.”

Her comment has been perceived as mocking McCain’s brain cancer diagnosis. Sadler says she meant it as a joke. However it was not received as such. It has been reported there was a dead silence in the room following the statement having been made.

Sadler apologized to one of McCain’s daughters following the incident.

A Pandora’s box has been opened. The $4.4 million Michael Cohen received following Trump’s election. The question arises: Where did the money go after leaving Cohen’s hands? Any of it to the President?

I mentioned yesterday how the new US ambassador to Germany on tuesday advised the Germans they should stop doing business with Iran. The Germans laughed at him.

Other European nations are reacting. France’s Finance Minster said yesterday that Europe is not a US vassal, not the world’s economic policeman.

I have followed Venezuela more than 5 years. Ever since Nicolas Maduro became President. Maduro is doing a lousy job. I cannot understand why the people have not revolted.

Starvation exists. Everyday. Little relief. The pets were eaten three years ago. Babies fed every other day with some sort of powder concoction. On it goes.

Several months ago, Maduro said something nasty about Trump. I do not recall what. The next day Trump said the US was considering invading Venezuela to relieve the poverty that had befallen its people.

On monday, it was announced that the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Venezuela. On 3 Venezuelans personally and 20 Venezuelan companies. The justification claimed was narcotics trading tied to Maduro.

Almost simultaneously, Pence appeared before the Organization of American States and told the audience that there was a need to take greater steps to isolate Maduro. The drug issue the justification again.

Something wrong here. How do you sanction a nation whose people are already starving? Who ate family pets? Whose babies get fed every second day?

The narcotics claim is disturbing. Venezuela is the other end of the Earth from the US. The real drug problem affecting the US is Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces 95 percent of the world’s heroin. Most of it ends up on our streets. Our people dying big time daily from its effects.

The US has been fighting a war in Afghanistan for 17 years. In that time, the poppy fields have grown, heroin exports increased dramatically. Little done by the US to stop it.

Something stinks and has stunk in Afghanistan re drugs since the US became involved with the country.

Enjoy your day!