http://capecoddaily.com/blog/ Local Blog at the Cape Cod Daily en capecoddaily.com/blog Copyright 2012 2012-05-10T16:51:23+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/cape-friendly-landscaping-event-june-2/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/cape-friendly-landscaping-event-june-2/#When:16:51:23Z editor Waquoit: This fundraiser for the Waquoit Bay Reserve features ways to beautify your property with shrubs, plants, grasses and ground covers that not only require little or no water, fertilizer or chemical inputs, but that also protect our fragile bays and ponds. There will be featured speakers, an extensive plant sale, a guided native plant walk, soil testing, a raffle, and refreshments available. waquoit bay, landscaping, event 2012-05-10T16:51:23+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/gold-silver-and-jewelry-buyers-on-cape-cod/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/gold-silver-and-jewelry-buyers-on-cape-cod/#When:19:59:00Z editor Looking to sell old, broken or unwanted gold or silver jewelry on Cape Cod? We have buyers on Cape Cod right now that are ready to pay top prices for gold, silver, bracelets, watches, necklaces, chains, rings, sterling silver flatware, silver bowls, gold & silver coins, charms, estate jewelry and other precious metals. gold, silver, buyers, Cape Cod, cash for gold, sterling silver, flatware 2012-04-26T19:59:00+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/ccsoa-announces-2012-scholarship-recipients/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/ccsoa-announces-2012-scholarship-recipients/#When:18:02:47Z editor The Cape Cod Soccer Officials Association, Richard E. Maxwell Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the inaugural Richard E. Maxwell Scholarship Award. Cape Cod Soccer Officials Association, CCSOA, scholarship, Richard E. Maxwell, coach 2012-04-06T18:02:47+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/cape-cod-tree-services-tree-removal-pruning-stump-grinding/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/cape-cod-tree-services-tree-removal-pruning-stump-grinding/#When:17:49:10Z editor Tim Baker & Sons Tree Work is a local, family owned, insured, full service tree service company that has been providing Cape Cod tree removal, pruning, stump grinding, land clearing and related landscaping services to satisfied Cape Codders since 1975. Age, invasive insects, disease and stormy weather can damage the trees on your property. The result might be that your trees require trimming or perhaps the complete removal of these trees and tree stumps. If you find that your trees require professional pruning, cutting or need whole trees and stumps removed, call Tim Baker & Sons Tree Work at (508) 398-0966. Cape Cod tree service, tree removal, tree pruning, trimming, stump grinding, Tim Baker & Sons Tree Service 2012-04-01T17:49:10+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/best-places-to-list-your-vacation-rental/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/best-places-to-list-your-vacation-rental/#When:19:02:41Z editor The vacation rental listing services below all have a strong search engine presence and a large visitor base, which is very important for getting your vacation property seen by potential vacationers online. These are the places where you should definitely list your vacation property. A few of these vacation rental advertising services offer free trials so you can test list your property and see how it goes. vacation rental, listings, best, advertising, homeaway, vrbo, flipkey, vacationrentals.com 2012-02-24T19:02:41+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/money-saving-tips-for-your-spring-travel-plans/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/money-saving-tips-for-your-spring-travel-plans/#When:18:21:52Z editor The long winter months have everyone itching to get out and do something new. For many Americans, this means planning a much-needed vacation - away from winter, work and school. With the travel bug in your head, take advantage of these saving tips to make the most out of your vacation: spring travel, plans, money saving tips, vacation 2012-02-24T18:21:52+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/8th-annual-firefighter-chili-challenge-hyannis/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/8th-annual-firefighter-chili-challenge-hyannis/#When:21:03:20Z editor Hyannis, MA – Firefighters across Massachusetts are ready to turn up the heat and set your taste buds on fire! Join eighteen Massachusetts Fire Departments on Sunday, March 11th, for our 8th Annual Firefighter’s Chili Challenge! Hosted by the Resort and Conference Center, the event will benefit the local chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The event committee includes, Chris Read, Yarmouth Fire, Chris Shute, Masphee Fire, Matt Mills, Hyannis Fire, Doug Edmunds, Orleans fire and Julie Raynor from Pixy103FM. Last year the event raised over $14,000 they are looking to reach $20,000 this year! firefighter, chili challenge, hyannis 2012-02-16T21:03:20+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/first-citizens-opens-its-16th-annual-scholarship-application-period/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/first-citizens-opens-its-16th-annual-scholarship-application-period/#When:16:41:15Z editor FAIRHAVEN, MA -- FEBRUARY 1, 2012 – For the 16th consecutive year, First Citizens’ Federal Credit Union announces its Barbara Whitehead Silva & Champion Family Scholarship Program and is now accepting applications. In total thirteen $1,000 scholarships will be awarded. first citizens credit union, scholarship program 2012-02-01T16:41:15+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/5-quick-tips-to-get-your-home-ready-for-winter/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/5-quick-tips-to-get-your-home-ready-for-winter/#When:15:26:50Z editor It may not be winter yet, but do not wait for it to arrive to start getting the house ready for the coldest months of the year. Preparing a home for winter will take time and should not be rushed. Neglecting certain projects or carelessly completing them can lead to major system failures, extensive damage and in extreme cases even health problems. "Procrastinating can cost you when it comes to getting ready for winter," says Rhonda Hills, of Kudzu.com. "Systems that are not ready for heavy use can falter or even fail. This can be a recipe for disaster." winter, winterizing, home, insulating, inspection 2011-10-29T15:26:50+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/restaurant-week-cape-cod/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/restaurant-week-cape-cod/#When:14:21:10Z editor A superb selection of the Cape's finest dining destinations let their creative juices flow this week! Three-course exhibition menus offered for a fixed low price throughout. Check our website for complete info. Hope you're hungry! restaurant week, cape cod, dining 2011-09-06T14:21:10+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/where-did-the-music-go/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/where-did-the-music-go/#When:13:20:20Z TRB By TRB I remember Kenny, the sales manager at a large Boston FM station and how pivitol he became in bringing Reggae to America's shores.Of course we used to drink a little too much back then, so maybe some of this isn't as accurate as it could be. But at the time, I was sitting outside someplace across from the Casablanca restaurant on Mt. Auburn St. in Harvard Square, where it seemed the city fathers and mothers were erecting monuments to the invention and existence of the red brick. I don't remember what month it was but all that academia-loooking red brick was heating that square up like a skillet. I think I was on leave fromThe Stars and Stripes European Edition in Darmstadt Germany. But I had known Kenny since I was a longhair getting my butt kicked by the Cambridge police for being a longhair. I was just about to leave this sidewalk cafe when Kenny appeared with reggae singer Peter Tosh and another man, who took a lot of notes. Kenny had fallen in love with this music while down on the islands and he wanted every person in America to have a chance to listen to it. There was some kind of game plan that involved getting reggae songs onto the play list at the station where Kenny worked. Of course there was no money exchanged.This was a straight deal where Kenny wanted reggae on the air and was talking the DJs to death until they agreed. They agreed. Reggae took off in America and that is how Kenny got a lot of gold albums in frames on the walls of his dining room. But naturally the story had to begin sooner, way back in the culture of the islands. It was imbued with politics from the beginning. It was the poor and the downtrodden on the island of Jamacia turning their pain into music. Just as the American blues was the African American in Jim Crow America transforming his grief and anger into the blues. Music comes from people and their feelings or it really isn't music. It is something else. Something like disco was. We have it coming now from three directions. First there is this thing called Romantic Music, which is so bad I wouldn't mind if they brought disco back as long as they took Romantic Music away. Then there is this "almost Disco" thing that is emerging with stars like Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. And, even more bizarre and removed from humanity than the other two is Trance Music. It is the worst music I have heard in my lifetime. It is exactly what they call it. Music that might put you in an intellectual trance if you listen to it long enough. Drugs are not required, but I am sure the experience would be enhanced with them. The drug woud probably have to be be administed by an anesthesiologist. We're not talking magic mushrooms here. Trance Music will drive you crazy then drop you off on the corner. fnjvfnfngbngggfnbnbgngfgnfj 2011-08-30T13:20:20+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-good-old-days-of-food-and-sanity/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-good-old-days-of-food-and-sanity/#When:13:39:19Z TRB By TRB Finally we can say there were good old days. For the longest time in my life, I have heard "good old days," talked about. But someone was always quick to point out that they were not good old days at all. There was no television, that computers did not exist, that cars were poorly made, that most people could not afford to purchase a house and lived in apartments, that hardly anyone went to college folllowing high school, that medicine was in the Dark Ages and that many died of preventable illnesses, and on and on. But that has finally changed. Changed completely. There are good old days in back of us now. We have begun to sink as a society, to not quite make it up to our own standards. And the proof of this is in every direction you look. Forget that the life expectancy rates are dropping and that infant mortality has increased. And don't even bother to bring up that it is easier to die in a hospital of some exotic infection than it is if you were to blindfold yourself and go walking in traffic. The crime rate is staggering, the job market is dead, the price of an education is beyond the means of most people. But, for a moment, let's forget about all that blather. Just walk into any supermarket. Look closely at the food. All of it, the meat, the greens, the milk, the bread, the staples as we used to call them. What in the world do all these labels on them mean? Some are organically grown, but only 70 percent organic. Who knows how they grow the other 30 percent of the same vegetable? Farmers have become quite knowledgable about antibiotics and growth hormones and preservatives and anti-pest preventatives, and even genetic engineering. I don't know that they have learned that much more about food, except how to make it very unfood like. Some of this stuff might be downright dangerous. The Food and Drug Administration, who couldn't be trusted to deliver your groceries on time, has decided to allow farmers to do just about anything to our food. And they have. Now when you eat a piece of chicken, you are also digesting something that has been shot full of growth hormones and antibiotics, and in many cases has been eating food laced with chicken. That's right, you are eating a doped up, cannibalistic chicken. Same goes for your red meat. Again, you are eating something that is the product of men who have done everything they could, both chemically and with antibiotics to get an edge on their compitition. Are you beginning to remember the good old days yet? orgnic food, genetically altered food, locally grown food 2011-08-17T13:39:19+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-clowns-who-rule/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-clowns-who-rule/#When:15:45:59Z TRB By TRB Remember the guy, he was in every class you had. He always sat at the back of the room because he thought, he truly believed, sitting there would make him invisible to the teacher. He was the class wise guy the class bully, the class clown. He had many jobs. He wasn't in school to get an education because in his mind he already knew it all. He was there to entertain, to talk, to create havoc and to terrorize other students. Did you ever wonder what happened to him? Well, I believe I have found him. He is resting comfortably in a mahogany armchair, he is wearing a $4000 suit. He is making deals that will diminish your social security, evaporate your retirement fund, close the doors on AIDs prevention centers in most major cities, see to it that you have to pay more co-pay for your prescriptions. And he is not through. Because while he is doing this, he is also ripping to shreds any regulations that might have made it easier to expect our corporate government to do right by you. It is the guy who used to sit at the back of the class. Except he is not hiding anymore. He is right there on your television news every night bragging about his "austerity" programs, but failing every time to mention that if they are implemented they will have terrible consequences for your life and those lives of the people you love. He is failing to mention, for example, that some of the cutbacks, especially the medical ones, will probably result in the early deaths of some people who might have lived longer. What could be so important, so essential that the U.S.would risk the deaths of some of its own citizens to accomplish? Is it a war? In a way it is. It is a class war. The middle class and the poor will have their lives further down-graded so that the wealthy can maintain their low tax rate, so corportions can hire tax lawyers to go through the many loopholes Congress provides for them every year. Our corporations practically write our tax law as it is. Yes, the so-called private sector is doing the job we voted these clowns into office to do. That is why it is necessary - even if it takes a few election cycles and some recalls - to get them all out. That means every holder of political office in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They have to be replaced and this has to be done soon. Because they are replacing you. What's more is that finally the stupidly wealthy are realizing that their tax break is not doing them any good. In fact, if things keep going in this direction on the world markets, their tax rate could be one of the reasons they wind up in the poor house with the rest of us. All because of a little thing they taught to us in school a long time ago, back when today's politician wasn't paying attention, maybe he was trying to get his hand up Mary's dress, or he was sticking his gum on the bottom of his neighbor's shoe. In any case, when the time came to discuss the ins and outs of supply and demand, he just wasn't paying attention. the economy, Starbucks, Warren Buffet, politics, tax breaks, entitlements 2011-08-16T15:45:59+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/televison-newsman-tells-truth-on-air/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/televison-newsman-tells-truth-on-air/#When:14:46:55Z TRB By TRB It was tough for newsman Dylan Ratigan earlier in the week when for some unknown reason he just couldn't hold it back any longer and came right out and said what everyone is learning is the truth behind this financial mess the U.S., England and much of Europe finds itself in. Suddenly the veteran newsman exploded with the truth. On the air. Saying things like, "The banking system is fully corrupt and defrauding us,"  the journalist seemed to want to get it all off his chest. And so the following, or most of it (I had some things to say, too) is a word for word transcription of journalist Dylan Ratigan; his interpretation of what went wrong and when with our financial system. Citing our almost $70 trillion in liabilities, Dylan Ratigan began his monolouge. The other guests on the show, not acquainted with anyone actuallly telling the truth on a  news program looked like they wanted to dive under their seats. "The president doesn't get it," Ratigan said of the current problems. "The democrats and republicans are equally to blame." And then the truth spilled out as Dylan Ratigan addressed our leaders who have been sitting on their hands or trying their best to sink the ship for a long time now. "You have lied and misrepresented the overall structure," Ratigan began. "There are misaligned interests in the banking system, in the trade agreements and in the tax code that have been extracting (stealing) money from our country for decades and it has been covered up through money printing and all the rest of this nonsense. . . "Why am I less able to understand that my nation is being extracted systematically by millions of multi-variable mathematical equations (like derivative trading) that are happening constantly every day to my country. Why do I have to stay on the edge of my Bloomberg terminal monitor to understand the root of the problem?" At this point one of his guests, Barry Ritholtz of Equity Research and the author of "Bail Out Nation," said "We used to be a democracy.Now we are a corporatocracy, and as long as the banks own Congress, the public is going to continue to get angrier. That the Supreme Court has given them permission to do this (to own Congress) is a radical change in our system." "America is suffering from a vampiric extraction of wealth driven by the tax code, banking policy and trade, Ratigan chimed in, "And whoever the president is has to acknowledge that and reconcile that before we can move forward." Ratigan was not through with getting things off his chest. He listend for a while to the musings of his "expert" guests, none of whom seemed to have any new ideas about anything. Meanwhile riots were at their height in London, the stock market was on the way to losing 4 percent of its total value and bond markets in Europe and America were in an uproar. One of his guests pointed out that we seem to have a failed presidency. Speaking of the health care plan she said it was hard it was to believe that Obama would not even say whether or not he supported a single-payer plan. That has been the problem with Obama all along. He seems to believe he can sit on his one billion dollars in campaign funds and do nothing for four years straight. So far, he has done zip. The U.S. Navy got Osama bin Laden, it was just a matter of time. Obama can take credit for only one thing. He gave the banks everything they wanted, including their own executives to run the government agencies that are supposed to regulate them. This might help to explain why he is sitting on one billion dollars in campaign funds. jrfgfrbgbngbngbgng 2011-08-11T14:46:55+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/Half-a-million-of-us/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/Half-a-million-of-us/#When:12:58:19Z TRB By TRB Jimi Hendrix once had this apartment, or maybe it belonged to his girlfriend  in NYC not far from several clubs. He would keep his guitars there and do some practicing. He found some strange ways to occupy himself. One was to read Bob Dylan's songbook from cover to cover. He loved Bob Dylan. Sometimes when Jimi was feeling a little restless at night he might show up at a club or two and just naturally the manager would clear the stage and let Jimi loose. It was during one of these occasions that he played Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower."            "Yes, "two riders were approaching and the wind began to howl," and then Jimi would make it howl on his guitar. He could re-create the weather right there for you. When the "bombs, were bursting in air," he would put those bombs up there for you. And he would flicker his long dark fingers downward as they fell upon the audience. But Jimi wasn't weird or anything, He was just another musician from that generation who was trying to make something happen.The Allman Brothers would arrive a few months later in NYC, a group of absolute country homeboys from Florida, and occupy the Fillmore East for a couple of nights. And producer Tom Dowd would sit in an allyway next to the building and record them live right there at the Fillmore East and people would hear Duane Allman for the first time, unless they knew that was him playing the session behind Aretha on her album "Lady Soul." Eric Clapton is responsible for some overdubs on that same album, People, mostly press, kept calling the Allmans "Southern Rock, as if there were such an animal. Well the blues originated in the South and so did Rock, "So," Gregg  Allman said sarcastically to a news interviewer one night, "Why don't you just call it Rock Rock. It's all from the South." There was the experimental group in Englend called  Pink Floyd which was pushing forward with a sound that today would be called "trance music" because that is the only way to describe it. Of course Pink Floyd offered up a bit more difficult menu, one drenched in American Blues and something called Psychadelic music that they couldn't even describe. There was the meeting of the minds that had taken place on a train platform just a year before between Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, where Richards found his Muse carrying a dozen or so American blues albums and a band - the best traditional Rock group in history - was all but created before the train even arrived. There was the pop group called the Beatles who wrote some interesting music, especially Harrison and Lennon. It was said The Beatles were millionaires on paper already. Then there were these guitarists Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and yes, you can add Jeff Beck to that, who were playing something new something singular, it was theirs. I am not going to try to explain it all.This is a column not a book. And when the book of Rock is finally written, it will consist of many chapters. There were great bands everywhere, and I won't try to mention all of them either. Just too many. But there was the African American Motown artist named Marvin Gaye who was working on something he would call "What's Going On," and it would include some prophecy about the environment in a song called "Mercy Mercy Me"  that could be written today and would be just as fresh as the morning dew if you can  still  find any of that stuff. Marvin Gaye had created a new kind of socially conscious Rock which, since his death no one has been able to replace. In fact, black artists, like Sly and the Family Stone, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and a dozen Motown artists (just to name a few) were just as responsible for the remarkable change that occured in the sound of music in the 1960s. djefvfjvfvnfvfnvngfvgjngjvndv 2011-08-10T12:58:19+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/tomorrows-lies-today/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/tomorrows-lies-today/#When:13:27:34Z TRB By TRB For those of you with the stomach to vote for or against these remarkably inept members of Congress in the next election, or for Presidential candidates, let me clue you in on some of the script before it is completely written and regurgetated to the masses.The lies are being prepared at this very moment, they need several things before they can truly be effective lies, You just can't throw them out there like Sarah Palin or some other Tea Party roach. No this all has to be choreographed. It requires experts and fundations and skewed statistics that can be skewed so perfectly that you might not even notice they have been skewed. Then there's the phone banks with the questions worded in such a way as to receive the answer they want. Maybe you will fall into one of those traps. Fake polls are big. Anyone can have a poll. All you have to do is publicize it in such a way that the local news dingbats can't resist it. For example, Say you've got five people in town who are 100 or older. Why not get them together and find  out who they are voting for, especially if it's your candidate. Well they are voting for your candidate. But that proves nothing, since three of them are senile and haven't known the president's name in 20 years. But the public eats up this kind of stuff, and that's worth some votes. By far the hardest part of any election is the lying. Campaign's don't have lying departments. They pretty much lie whenever they get a  chance though. Still the skill of lying your way through political races has to be tweeked. There must be a way to lie with more sincerity for example. And someone has to devise a method that will prevent a lie from catching up with you. One of the shortcomings of lies of course is that they are not the truth. That makes them especially hard to work with if you can't keep a straight face. But successes have been recorded. For example, if you play your cards right you can convince a government agency to back up your lie. The FCC, the FAA, the FBI, the CIA, the EPA, Homeland Security (they will lie about anything, the AG. Really, pick your agency, someone inside will feed you a lie or take something out of context that will help you with your campaign. Why? Because all of these agencies are politically motivated to survive and prosper. You always have to keep one thing in mind though. If you don't you will be fooled every time. The lies begin when the campaigns begin and intensify as they get closer to election day, at which point you don't know anything true about either candidate.   politics, Obama, Romney, 2012 Campaign 2011-08-05T13:27:34+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/mideast-make-over-no-more-jobs-debt-ceiling-cracked/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/mideast-make-over-no-more-jobs-debt-ceiling-cracked/#When:13:34:00Z TRB By TRB Jobs, The U.S. government will dangle the prospect of the creation of new jobs in front of our eyes now. Of course there are no new jobs.That is why that farcical and pathetic argument about the debt ceiling lasted as long as it did (since early April) so neither side had to talk about jobs. Jobs is a bad one, the worst tooth in your head, and it is getting ugly.There are three reasons why this is happening and they are intresting, because the President and the Congress can't or wont do anything about jobs. So they lie about the "creation "of new jobs. this is why that won't happen: I.) It is far more profitable for the U.S. banking system to trade money overseas and not lend it here. So, no growth. 2.Trade deals that make extraction of money from the U.S.the main part of the deal. Extraction of money from the foreign nation is in the footnotes and small print and never seems to make it to our treasury. 3.Tax codes that make it more profitible for wealthy individuals to keep U.S. money out of the country. The three things above mean no jobs. Oh, there are more. But the major reasons are stated above. So how low can we go? We're at a realistic 20 percent unemployment now. The future, which used to be something to look forward to, tells us that things will get worse, maybe a lot worse, before they get better. djnfjvnfvnvgv 2011-08-04T13:34:00+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/sold-down-the-river-again/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/sold-down-the-river-again/#When:14:59:30Z TRB By TRB Obama might be a sell-out, could be a back-stabber, or maybe just a man sick of being president who wants to cash out to go where the real money is. Whatever the reason, everyone seems to agree that he got his lunch handed to him yesterday in his quest to raise the debt ceiling by the republicans and their crazed Tea Party goblins. And he ate that lunch and went home. Anything for "the deal." Anything to ensure that the nation doesn't default on its debt - which it is doing for two reasons, each one as significant as the other. Lack of revenue. The republicans and the Tea Party have formed a circle of defense around a few thousand ( out of millions) families in America to protect them from  increased taxes on their fantastic income which would have been twice or even three times what they were in any other decade in American history. The longer this nation survives, the less taxes the wealthy pay. Now it looks like things are going downhill, and the wealthy get another tax break. And when it is all gone, who will be knocking at their door demanding most of their stash of money? The U.S., that's who. They will need these funds just to survive. So think about it Mr. Billionaire, it might not be the deal you think. Lack of jobs. Jobs don't exist for serveral reasons. Corporations, most of whom already don't pay any taxes, are manufacturing their goods overseas where the labor is cheap and the regulators are paid full-time to look the other way. In addition to that, the nation doesn't have the funds necessary to "start up" a new industry like alternative energy, for example. Brazil has more money to do that than the U.S. In fact a lof of U.S. workers are going to Brazil for good paying jobs, close to one million, according to their president. Good-paying jobs can not be found in the U.S. anymore. They too have been sacrificed on the bloody Republican - Tea Party alter where only the worship of the isanely wealthy is allowed, and the Lord's Prayer begins, "Our father does not pay taxes . . ." zkfvfvgbgfbbhb 2011-08-01T14:59:30+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/obama-get-it-done-or-get-out/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/obama-get-it-done-or-get-out/#When:13:17:08Z TRB By TRB The time has arrived, the time has gone. The clock ticks on the wall. The President, as clueless as a housefly, examines his alternatives. He could reach a "compromising" deal with a bunch of right-wing republicans who hate our government, or he could just schedule some television time and raise the debt ceiling on his own. The plain old fashioned truth is that Obama could have got this accomplished a long time ago. Provisions in the 14th Amedment give him the power to raise the debt ceiling all by himself, without the involvement of Congress in any way whatsoever. People hear this and they almost can't believe it. Yes, Obama could have done this without dragging out any of these politicians intent on even less taxes for the rich, less regulations for corporations. Politicians who want to end Social Security, indeed to end the whole idea of a social compact between government and the people. Politicians who don't want a representative democracy in the U.S.. Politicians who believe the insurace companies should take over Medicare and Medicaid and run it as they see fit. Politicians who will look you right in the eye and tell you that the private sector is always more efficient and its services of a higher quality than are government services. There is only one problem. It has been proven untrue. The private sector has stolen our money, we have had to bail them out for all their gambling on Wall Street. They are producing increasingly inferior products for higher prices, they're exporting our jobs to foreign lands. The private business sector in the U.S. acts like an occupying force in enemy territory. Their goal seems to be to take as much power from the government and the people, which are supposed to be the same, and to milk us for every last cent while cutting back or destroying our benefit programs. I would like to go on about these buzzards of the business world, but you really have to take a closer look at Obama in this debt ceiling crisis if you want to see what we are up against. Here was a man who sat down with the people who want to destroy America's dreams and was ready to make compromises with them - maybe throw a few million off social security and Medicare if he had to, just to get what he envisions as a compromise. It seems our president believes that a red tail hawk compromises with field mice - just before he swallows them whole. president obama,social programs, debt ceiling 2011-07-25T13:17:08+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/corruption-junction-whats-your-function/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/corruption-junction-whats-your-function/#When:11:49:29Z TRB By TRB There are 400 families in the U.S. whose combined wealth is greater than the combined wealth of 150 millon other U.S. families. Perhaps this is why it always seems so inappropriate for anyone to talk about the dangers of "class warfare" in America. Clearly, the class war is over and the wealthiest Americans are the victors. Further, this class war has been over for several decades. So there is no longer a class war in America. Just as there is no longer a war in Vietnam. The unemployment numbers rose late Friday afternoon to 9.2 percent. That's the "good" number. The realistic number, which includes those who have just stopped looking for work and those who have accepted part-time work, is as high as 20 percent. But the Labor Dept., doesn't like to talk about that. It does make you wonder though. All these people out of work. All of these people losing their homes, their cars, their marriages. The misery index is up there like a bank thermometer in the sun. And what is the government doing? Is it creating jobs? No. The government can not create jobs - only government jobs. And since two of every ten dollars Americans receive today already comes from the government, there isn't enough left over for any real job creation. We could look into our banks and financial institutions, who were bailed out in 2008 to the tune of trillions of our hard-earned dollars. What did they do with all of our money? They won't loan any of it to us, they won't invest in any local growth projects. So where did the money go? It went overseas to be invested there. It went to nations like Brazil where the return on investment is better than it would be here. The banks and financial instiutions are sitting on the rest of our money. They give large amounts of it to politicians to keep them in office so those politicians won't ever bother the banks. Then there's our trade probems, where we are being ripped off every day. There might be some job creation if the U.S. hadn't signed patently unfair trade agreements, some years ago that allow foreign nations to get their goods into this nation for just about nothing, while American-produced goods are expected to pay extremely high taxes to move their goods to market in virtually any nation. If the unfair trade agreements could be straightened out, there might be some incentive for job creation here. The so-called new industries, high tech, energy conservation products, new medicines, etc. There are jobs there. Problem is those industries are also moving out of the U.S. for the lower taxes required by other nations. Of course that is not a totally honest answer. That is the American corporate answer, most of which they left out. You see, the taxes are not only lower, but the wages they have to pay are lower too, and the safety and quality-build regulations are also virtually non-existant. What U.S. corporations are saying is: no regulations, no money for workers, no real taxes. When the U.S. can outdo that situation, perhaps we'll come back. You wonder what will happen when all this corruption-driven poverty blows up in their faces. It will. It always does, and not only in America. In every nation on earth where the leaders cozy up with the banks and steal from the people, eventually something snaps. People can take the weight of that foot on their necks for only so long.  fevhetvrgrtrtr 2011-07-12T11:49:29+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-beaver-conspiracy/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-beaver-conspiracy/#When:13:06:10Z TRB By TRB There was a family of beavers, some of their relatives and perhaps some friends too, who decided to build a dam not very far into the woods and very near a four-way intersection. Beavers have no control over their desire to build. It is an instinct. Then they have these engineering skills that are just in there with the rest of their DNA coding and no one knows why. MIT was so impressed with the beaver's engineering skills, they made the beaver their school mascot. If you graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, expect there to be a gold beaver on your graduation ring. But back to our beavers and the intersection, which, because of its proximity to the beaver dam was often flooded under a foot or more of water. The intersection was underwater most of the Summer and Fall, then it would freeze in the winter, and clumps of roadway would buckle and crack and separate. So over the years, the intersection needed hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs or needed to be replaced altogether, a seven figure expense. Naturally, this was of no concern to the beavers, who in the years they had worked on the dam had unintentionaly no doubt, created several square miles of new wetlands. This is very good in one respect. Beavers can expand and replenish dying wetlands preventing various species extinctions and restoring entire sections of a viable ecosystem. As noted, there is not evidence that beavers know of their good works they just do it because they are genetically programed to do it. The presence of blue jays has similar pro-environmental effects. What blue jays do is somewhat even more mysterious. They actually fly in large numbers to the edges of forests all over, where they pick up various species of tree seeds and bury them at the outskirts of the woods. It is significant that they bury them where they do. Their efforts result in a process called reforestation. In other words, this simple act by blue jays creates new trees and causes forests to expand. If they planted the seeds in the forest, instead of on the perimeter, the trees probably wouldn't grow to maturity. So where they bury their seeds is very significant. Environmentalists can't say how much of annual reforestation can be credited to the blue jay. They will confirm, however, that the little bird's activities make a difference. So next time you see a blue jay, keep that in mind. He is a working bird, working to grow trees, to replace ones that have died or to expand an existing forest. Just think, one of these birds does more to help the enviornment on a regular basis than any member of the human species. But again, back to our beavers. I might as well tell you now. These beavers were not aware that they were "trespassing"on a U.S. Military Facility, a U.S. Army fort to be precise, nor were they aware that their activities had drawn the attention of the base commmander, a terminal colonel, who for some crazy reason thought it was still possible he might make the rank of General if he could just transform this backwater run-down fort into one of the most impressive military installations in the nation. In other words, he was bonkers. General officers are produced from the ranks of combat commands, not from bases in the U.S. New General officers are usually promoted to that rank while serving as the Chief of Staff for a Combat Division Commander. And that is that. If you are given the command of a small fort during your colonelcy, you are officially a "terminal colonel," someone who can be assured retirement as a colonel. But this guy, either didn't know any better or didn't care. Nothing was going to get in the way of his imagined promotion to general. Naturally, the Beaver Conspiracy was his idea. environment, wildlife, consevancy, 2011-07-11T13:06:10+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/vice-president-joe-biden-for-president/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/vice-president-joe-biden-for-president/#When:13:17:49Z TRB By TRB I know you are out there Mr. Joe Biden. I know you have been told to keep your mouth shut because you are inclined to speak at times before you think. This, however, is a rather minor handicap compared to the inability of your boss to solve even easy puzzles. I like you Mr. Biden. I like you because you are not a "new democrat," one of those republicrat creatures who could destroy every social safety net and still call himself a democrat. I trust you Mr. Biden with the legacy of FDR. I think someone has to be entrusted to protect that legacy. You are that man. You can criticize Barack Obama from practically any side and he had no defenses. Not even the Bush defense. That defense continues to weaken with time and is quickly becomming irrelevant. This time around the question is going to be "What have you done for us Barack Obama?" Yes the question sounds selfish. But this man is in the White House to make the U.S. a better place to live. And that is what he promised to do. Remember, we can't really blame Bush anymore. It is more than just a minor technicality that he has been gone for too long. And yes, while he did start the illegal war with Iraq and the war with Afghanistan, it is you Mr.President who has expanded troop strength in Afghanistan and has come up with a new slow-motion way for us to withdraw from Iraq. Yes sir, slower even than the withdrawal from Vietnam. And those young men and women coming home in those boxes, had been off fighting those useless wars for you - they are yours too. The jobless economy belongs to you. This lack of an industrial base. The criminality that passes as "business as usual" in our local banks and on Wall Street - on your back, Mr. President. You have even hired executives from the most corrupt Wall Street investment houses to work in our White House. We watch the fraudclosure program you allowed the banks to design, then you gave it them to oversee as well. We watch as the banks steal even more money while promising the debtor he or she can keep the house, only to throw them to the street within a year or two. We are not surprised that you have allowed the banks to rip us off, that you have sat back and looked the other way as Wall Street sold bad bonds and stole the pension funds of millions of Americans. And you? You did nothing. And we know why you did nothing. Because those banks, those Wall Street crooks, they own you, Mr. President.  And you are every bit as responsible for their theft as they are. The banks and the money speculators paid for your ride to the White House the last time, and you have rewarded them with trillions of dollars that our children and grand children will be paying off for generations. The problem for you this time Mr.President is that too many people who voted for you, know what you have done and haven't done. The bankers can't help you this time. Wall Street can't help you. No has the kind of money you would need for another ride. jfvfivfvfvfvfnvfnvf 2011-07-08T13:17:49+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/caylee-marie-anthony-a-small-sad-tale/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/caylee-marie-anthony-a-small-sad-tale/#When:13:35:18Z TRB By TRB When Casey Anthony was found not guilty by a jury of her peers yesterday on trial for the murder of her two-year old daughter Caylee, a lot of Americans did what they do best. They looked for someone to blame.The experience was similar when OJ Simpson was found not guilty for murdering his ex-wife and her friend. Blaming the press is always easy, so a lot of people did that. They did not provide any explanation of how the press could possibly be involved in the verdict, but it didn't matter. Apparently, it gives them relief just to blame someone. Anyone. Some blamed the prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, who just recently had been blindsided by a dozen or so "what ifs" from the defense attorney, Jose Baez. What if Caylee got out to the pool and climbed the ladder, fell in and drowned? What if Casey or the mother or the father was alone when this happened and each tried to hide it from the other because they were afraid they would be blamed for the "accident." What if Casey was sexually abused as a child by her father? What if Caylee was too? What if he threw her in the pool? fejfivfvijvibvjgibgbjgbjbb 2011-07-06T13:35:18+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/why-have-a-fair-argument-when-a-label-will-do1/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/why-have-a-fair-argument-when-a-label-will-do1/#When:12:30:24Z TRB By TRB I was lucky; I was brought up by someone familiar with the art of argument. My father was a political junkie and a newspaper man, so usually he knew all sides of any given issue and was always prepared to defend or attack any argument put to him. But he was never mean. He dealt in facts, not opinions or false claims of patriotism. He was conservative in his views, which would make him a "liberal" by todays standards. Although I doubt he could tolerate being a liberal. That is the problem with labels in politics. Politics, like language evolves and labels can only be temporary. A good case in point is the late Pres. Richard Nixon. Nixon saw it as his duty to help America's poor. Barack Obama is actually to the right of Richard Nixon on this issue today. This evolution of political thought occurs through various means. Lobbyists have some play in it. The individual voter is involved to a degree. And mass media certainly helps to form opinions and create new opinions. Sometimes a single author can alter political thought with just one idea. This occured in the U.S. when the late Sen. Paul Tsongas wrote a leaflet with political ideas that created a political movement in the 1970s called "neo-liberalism." This new liberalism wasn't really liberalism at all. But the mark of a good politician/writer is to make you believe something that isn't necessarily true  In his leaflet and in his speeches Tsongas, a Democrat from Lowell, maintained that Democrats and liberals, should, following in the steps of the Republicans, develop closer ties with corporations and stop being so fussy about regulations. In other words, the Democrats should become more Republican. One man, the Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton agreed. He ran against Tsongas in a Presidential Primary, but he later admitted that he and many members of the Democratic leadership were in line with so-called neo-liberalism. This led to the label "Republicrat," the marriage of the two parties and the belief by many that one was the same as the other. Many Americans believe that Republican politics, fueled by a disorted view of social issues, has swung rapidly to the right and is no longer simply "conservative," but perhaps even fascist, in its view of life in America. But we are back to labels with this kind of thought, and no further in understanding the nature of political change in this country. One could say that, like most other countries, political change is driven by economic forces, which themselves are controlled by political interests. This would seem to be the case as most of the world's nations limp into the 21st Century. China seems to be gaining ground as new technologies make it easier and less expensive for China to extract its natural resources. It has also gained power and influence by signing various trade treaties that work to its advantage. Some nations, however, most notably, the U.S., have complained that China is in violation of its trade treaty and the U.S. wishes to re-negotiate. Other nations are in the same boat. Meanwhile, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, nations in South America, Mexico are having similar economic problems. The reasons might be different, but the symptoms are the same. Chief among them is unemployment, costs of medical care, housing costs, the rise in fuel prices, and in some nations, the shortage of drinking water. All the nations of this earth, and eventually China, will have drinking water problems if global warming continues. But for now, you could call me an "isolationist" when it comes to the problems in my own country. Why could you do this? Simple, because this is where I live.  dfsdsdfsdfsdfsdf 2011-07-05T12:30:24+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/my-father-the-wars-and-capitalism/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/my-father-the-wars-and-capitalism/#When:11:37:21Z TRB By TRB It is an unwelcome surprise when Summer becomes just another season. Will it be a cold or a warm one? Will it be stormy? These are questions we always asked about winter - the evil one, the mountains of snow, winter lightning. I couldn't sleep. Winter was always at my window. The calamity season. But Summer always came back and it was never at your window: it was in the house. The windows were open to it. Girlfriends were part of Summer, and amusement parks and merry-go-round organs that sounded drunk and Ferris wheels and bumper cars. There was a kind of heat that came from nowhere that clung to you. On some days it was like breathing water. I was a wanderer, always hitchiking across the country, always flying back. Music corcerts. In the process I was at Monterey in 1967 and at Woodstock in 1969. But there were dozens of music concerts, many of them free, to attend. And there were parts of the nation where you could easily be chased down and assaulted just for having long hair. But I was without supervision from the time I was 16 years old. I learned a lot of things early in my life. I remember the cops hated us. They were WWII or Korean War vets and their chief complaint in life seemed to be "I risked my life for some hippie like you?" When they were not telling us that, they would say they went over there to protect the Europeans. I was smart enough to read between the lines of a history book. My father knew that. I was probably his favorite smart ass, but I was always yelled at or asked to leave the room first. He didn't like arguing with me. I always told him it was fear that he would lose. One time my father was explaining to me how lucky the Europeans were the U.S. had sped to their rescue from the Nazis. I reminded him that speed was not a known factor in the rescue of Europeans. We took our time. Many beautiful cities and their inhabitants were destroyed as we weighed our options. I still believe we would have gotten out of it if it were possible. But it wasn't. The U.S. had to fight in Europe or in no time it would be fighting the Nazis right here. So we were not there to rescue anyone but ourselves from the rapid advance West of Hitler's forces. That seemed obvious to me, but my Dad liked his version better. What about the Marshall Plan, he used to say. We gave them all that money to restart their economies. Also a must, I told him. If Europe's economy didn't work, ours wouldn't either. Roosevelt didn't send troops over there because he was afraid that some French woman would get hurt on the way to the market. We were not there to protect the French. We were there to stop the advance of the Nazis and to push them back to the Fatherland. Several years ago an anti-French propaganda program was set into motion over some statement a French offical made that the State Dept. didn't like. I think this French diplomat might have complained about the the U.S. invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq without any provocation. I remember Andy Rooney, the messy-browed broadcaster went nuts on "60 Minutes." During WWII he had been working for the Stars and Stripes as a correspondent when France was liberated from the Nazis and he thought the French should be very grateful to the U.S. for having done this favor. What a crock. Mind you, Rooney was no Ernie Pyle. I worked at Stars and Stripes as a reporter too, although much later than Rooney's time, and thankfully, most people had grown brains by then. I doubt if my Dad and I ever settled any of these arguments. I remember once however, he did say kind of begrudgingly out of the side of his mouth that the U.S. was motivated by self-interest to a degree in WWII. Anyway, the Germans got what they deserved for their crimes. Europe was not my Dad's theater though. The Pacific was. We had no argument there. The Japanese had invaded the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, atrocites seemed so easy for them. They were truly hated by Americans. To this day, looking at all the historical documentation, I can understand why.    fghrbgjbgbgbgnbgbbnbgbnb 2011-07-02T11:37:21+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/thoughts-on-the-murderers-library/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/thoughts-on-the-murderers-library/#When:12:51:41Z TRB By TRB You know your morals have gone bye-bye when murder doesn't bother you. You know your ethics are absent when obvious lies occupy your so-called beliefs. And you know your nation has been corrupted almost to the core when it allows murderers to build presidential libraries within its borders. George W. Bush, the ex-president, who with the help of former VP Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and a dozen or so other right-wing ideologues, manufactured a set of untruths which eventually led us to war against Iraq in 200 is still walking around free. It is estimated by most sources, that as many as 125,000 innocent civilians were killed as the result of injuries from the U.S. invasion and occupation.The Dept. of Defense estimates 4469 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq since 2003. We all knew a long time ago that the excuse for invading Iraq was at least a half lie, i.e. the so-called "weapons of mass destruction" which did not exist. And yet the U.S, invaded a sovereign nation murdered hundreds of people on sight just because of their association with its leader Saddam Hussien, killed his children, shooting up his sons, including his 14-year old so badly, that special morgue services were needed to reconstruct their heads so they could be photographed and America's propaganda machine could get a usable print of their machine gun-shredded bodies. The leader and his cabinet were hunted down and hanged for the world to see. The U.S. under George W. Bush, was literally tearing a nation apart and killing its leaders and people for no reason. The U.S. is still there. First the lie was that Iraq had something to do with the event at the WTC on Sept. 11, 2001. It did not. Then the WMD lie. No WMD. None. Nothing found anywhere. This wasn't a war. This was a war crime.  ejffrfjtiugtgtghtgtg 2011-06-30T12:51:41+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/so-where-were-you-when-the-commies-won/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/so-where-were-you-when-the-commies-won/#When:13:47:43Z TRB By TRB Believe it or not, I was in a toy store, being a good capitalist, purchasing every damn toy I could see for my grandchildren. It was the week before Christmas, sometime just a few years back. Like most Americans I had been brainwashed a long time ago into believing that the U.S. was the "winner" of the "Cold War," a war in which I actually participated. I had seen that TV clip over and over. The clip of our washed up actor, part time fake president, Ronald Reagan, the "Great Communicator of many untruths, as he stood in the square of what was then West Berlin and yelled something ridiculous like "Tear this wall down." The wall had been erected shortly after WWII when the Russian police-state government worried that East Berlin would empty into West Berlin if they didn't stop the flow of hundreds of East  Berliners on a daily basis. The Wall  went up. The U.S. and the world's other "great democracies" pointed at it and said, "See how awful those commies are?" Today these would be the same right wing hatchet men who would like to erect a wall the entire width of the border with Mexico. How quickly they forget about freedom. And how elastic is the word in the U.S.? Sometimes it seems like the U.S. is one of few nations doing its best to beat back the forces of freedom. The U.S. doesn't really care about freedom as much as it does about access to markets. Ask the Palestinians. Ask the black South Africans who were ignored by America for decades. Ask the Cuban people who have put together a better medical and education system than the U.S. without economic aid from the giant off its coast. U.S. officials, who feel free to stagger into most nations and start wars over whatever ails them at the time, believe the small island of Cuba with its almost non-existant air force, and navy, is a possible threat to the U.S. And people read this and believe it. That is the thing about propaganda - to work effectively it really needs a large mass of uneducated people. That's what it has here in the good ole U.S.A. where the GPAs just get lower every year, as the public school is largly ignored. Must be that an educated population asks too many questions. So just what did we "beat the commies" at? Have you ever really thought of that? And who were these commies anyway? As a matter of fact, outside of the pages of Marx and Engles books, what nation on this earth has ever truly practiced the form of communist government they called for? The answer is simple. None. Russia and China were (still are, really) police states with dictators who, for the most part, did not allow free enterprise, and with whom we didn't do much trading. Russia and China were also infamous for their refusal - still are - to allow people to exercise freely individual rights. The difference now is that we have free trade with China in which they lie, cheat, steal and generally take advatage of the U.S. on a daily basis. We also have free trade with Russia who is better behaved. In fact, Russia and China, the two "commie monsters" from the not-to-distant past just want to get into your wallet today. uivnfubvgnnbvngrnbgjbngjbgnbngnggnggngn 2011-06-27T13:47:43+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/obama-like-rock-n-roll-out-of-ideas/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/obama-like-rock-n-roll-out-of-ideas/#When:15:46:47Z TRB By TRB I have a few things to get off my chest this morning, among them is Obama’s decision to wait until after he is elected - if he is elected – in 2012 to get all the troops out of Afghanistan. He promises to withdraw troops up until that time, but that’s not really the point. Most Americans don’t believe we should be there in the first place.They don’t believe there is a purpose for the war. They don’t believe young people and Afghanistan’s people who die in the war do so for anything of substance. A decade ago the U.S. went into Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden. We just recently got him, killed him in Pakistan. But we have found other excuses to stay put in Afghanistan. Now we claim to be training their army to fight off the inevitable invasion of Afghanistan by terrorists should we leave.At least that is the story the Defense Dept. is selling, without a shred of evidence to back the claim, and the Obama Administration is buying. My belief is that most people don’t think about Afghanistan unless they have a loved- one there. Right now there are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. And there are 90,000 contractors, make that mercenaries, shooting at goat herds and having a great time making memories for their golfing escapades in the future. We are paying billions for what is basically a colonialist venture into a country where some will claim we are welcome, but most will claim we are not. Afghanistan’s prime minister is mentally ill and on drugs and does not like us. He regularly makes speeches threatening us while we are there dying for him and his people. It’s the country next-door, Pakistan, producing all of the terrorists, not Afghanistan. When we found Osama bin Laden he was where he could most easily be reached, in Pakistan , which offers a safe harbor to most of the terrorists in this world, and enjoys “favored nation” status with the U.S. It will be a shame to see Obama go down in 2012 over this stupid war, but I am afraid that’s going to happen. Most people I know who voted for Obama in the last election will not vote for him in this one. Record unemployment. Sneaky government deals with Wall Street and the banks. Trouble everywhere you look. He needs all of the black vote and a good chunk of the white. It is not going to happen. President Obama, Rock N' Roll 2011-06-25T15:46:47+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/social-security-medicare-and-the-big-our-dishonest-congress/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/social-security-medicare-and-the-big-our-dishonest-congress/#When:15:28:11Z TRB By TRB Don't you just hate the number of elected officials - Democrats and Republicans - who lie to us every day? They lie about things that will one day be very important to us, things like Social Security and Medicare. The liars don't care all that much about either of these programs because chances are they won't be in need of their services, as much as you will be.  No, we gave them the best, figuring they would be good to us.But they are not. We have been suckered. Again. I have been listening closely to this debate about what to do for  entitlement programs. As you know, the Republicans have wanted to dismantle these programs since FDR created them, Republicans would like to see Social Security as an opportunity for the stock market to gamble with your retirement. And health care should be reserved for a few good Republican companies. After all, it's about money, not health. The Congress will tell you that it can't continue giving money to average people. Sorry folks, take it out of your mortgage, your food money for the week, your car payment. But don't expect the government to come through on it's promises. Hell, that's just socialism, like in those nations where they give large amounts of cash to  their corporations to keep them afloat, to the point where the state does or might as well, own the corporation. But, you say, that's what we have here. Not really. We have socialist capitalism, a system with even less discipline and integrity. It is an economic Dodge City out there. And everyone from your doctor to your banker is trying to rob you blind, and succeeding most of the time. Social Security has a problem that the wealthy built right into it. It is called a "cap," which is ironic because you would think a cap would cover things. This cap does the opposite. It is a law preventing the Social Security Administration from taxing people more once their income has reached a certain level. In this case, the more you make, the same you pay. The government takes 6.20 percent of your gross income. Additionally it takes another 6.20 percent from your employer. So, if you are unlucky enough to make $10,000 annually the governemnt will take $620 from you and $620 from your employer for a total of $1,240, and that helps to offset the money for Social Security and Medicare and other social programs. The figure taken continues to increase right up to the salary level of $106,000 a year, where the government is taking just over $11,000 in taxes for Social Security. Then something odd happens. The increase stops. Doesn't matter if you make $10 million a year or the just-mentioned $106,000, the tax figure collected is the same $11,000. Isn't is great to be rich in America? You get every break you ever wanted, while inner-city kids lose their lunch programs. dkfjjffvfvnfvfbfnbfbnjbnnbgjbngjbngbngbngngng 2011-06-21T15:28:11+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/our-secret-virtual-lives/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/our-secret-virtual-lives/#When:15:57:40Z TRB By TRB John Lennon was so right when he called humans "victims of the insane." I am sure you have been watching this Rep. Weiner thing play itself out and you have wondered what is up with the world. Is technology going to create make-believe or virtual worlds that are actually seen as real or even more real than reality?. This sexting thing is a riot in my estimation. No one is having sex, and yet already some regard it as more intimate than the real thing. How is that for insane? So Weiner, and we assume some lonely women, exchanged electrons or microwaves over great distances that were then digitized to look like the real thing which wasn't there. They didn't touch. They did not engage in any physical romance. They never even met. But he is forced to resign from Congress they say because he lied about it. Well. It must be embarassing to be that lonely or hard up so I can understand where the truth was just out of the question. We spent two whole weeks of this month in the virtual world of Weiner's tame and frankly boring virtual sex life. Meanwhile, more people lost jobs. But Weiner's virtual sex life led the news. More people lost their homes. But Weiner's virtual sex life led the news. Who is sicker, Weiner or us? Since when did virtual stop being virtual and start being real? If this is to be the case there is so much more we could make virtual, don't you think? I not only think in the affirmative, but I believe we  have been doing this for a very long time. Just go back to Iraq and count those virtual nukes and the virtual chemical weapons that led to the real war. We have a virtual debt ceiling that we're trying to nudge a little higher that will probably virtually be the end of the dollar, in part because Greece is virtually broke. ffnjnrnjrnbnbnbbgggg 2011-06-17T15:57:40+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/maybe-it-is-time-to-leave-the-u.s/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/maybe-it-is-time-to-leave-the-u.s/#When:12:37:59Z TRB By TRB The U.S. government is jerking us around, lying to us, both through its corporate-owned disinformation system and from the mouths of the politicians we voted into office, working now almost exclusively for the corporate structure who want to take our retirement, our medical care, our education our rights to be secure in our own homes, minds and bodies as detailed in the U.S. Constitution. The corporations want to control the world. They figure if they can distract you with needless wars and pay your politicians enough, they should own the world sometime this century. This isn't happening only in the U.S. It is occuring almost everywhere, especially in Europe. But let's look at the U.S. for now because it seems to be right on the verge of the transformation from representative democracy to corporate police state. At the same time its economy is going to hell in a hand basket. The U.S. Corporate Disinformation System (CDS) generally, and ironically, called the news media has for decades ignored the news stories that are most important to its citizens. This past year when millions of people lost their homes throughout the nation you would see news stories about it occasionally, stories that did not expalin the Obama decision to allow the banks to make the foreclosure rules. Once in a while you might even see a "special" one-hour program on foreclosures, again without mentioning Obama's responsibility for making it easier for the banks to scam the homeowner of what little money he or she had left and throw the entire family out on the street. As a result a silent migration has taken place, some suburbs have turned into ghost towns and bank profits have skyrocketed. Amazing when you remember that these same banks were crying poor mouth to the Fed only last year, and that the Fed bailed them out with your money, got them back up on their feet so they could continue ripping you off and raising your fees. Meanwhile millions of former homeowners have moved in with other famiy members or are paying rent in cheap apartments too small for their family. Or maybe they have been staying at one of these so-called long-stay motels that have popped up all over the nation especially the South. Some of these motels are designed for long stays, but most of them are located near highways where children can't play safely. And most of them are overcrowded, During my lifetime I have seen our nation go from number one for medical care in the world to where it is today - number 37. There are 36 more nations out there where you can expect to get better medical care than you do here. People used to say a few years back that our nation was calling it a recession but was really living in a depression. Now people say the U.S. isn't as well off as it once was, when the real point is that the U.S. has become a Third World Nation. It might be more accurate to say, second world, going on third. politics,medical insurance, education,police states, privacy laws, personal rights 2011-06-13T12:37:59+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/social-networking-and-plain-old-fashioned-sexual-infidelity/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/social-networking-and-plain-old-fashioned-sexual-infidelity/#When:15:00:05Z TRB By TRB Looks like the Emperor will never get his clothes back now. And a lot of people will lose their's too. Rep. Anthony Weiner, probably one the closest to being a true "progressive" in the Congress was caught in some lies he told regarding a "cyber sex" experience he was having using nude photos of himself delivered over the social networking system, Twitter. What is "cyber sex?" Cyber sex is sex on the internet. It could be just an exchange of photos of the participants nude or partially in the nude. It could be dirty talk. It could all begin and end right there in cyber-space without one person ever touching the other. Or it could turn into a full physical affair. The congressman didn't get that far. But he was far enough for some to be asking for his resignation for lying about it. He was also in cyber sex relationships with more than one person. Others want him out for the cyber sex alone. So is cyber sex cheating, if one or both of the individuals has a lover or spouse? That is a good question. But more and more relationship experts are coming around to the idea that it is in fact cheating. It is taking time and attention away from your wife, husband or lover and spending it with another person and without your actual partner's knowledge. Could this kind of cyber affair be used to obtain a divorce? Many legal experts believe it could be. Many of these cyber affairs take place on the more popular social networks of Facebook and Twitter. Could evidence be obtained from these parties for use in a divorce? Most lawyers believe it could. It is after all public knowledge in such cases. Facebook, Twitter, social networking, marriage, divorce, cheating spouses 2011-06-08T15:00:05+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/it-is-nothing-personal-but-it-is-all-bad/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/it-is-nothing-personal-but-it-is-all-bad/#When:13:40:12Z TRB   By TRB Over a year ago I took a dare from a private detective, once an army buddy. We were sitting around in some diner in Boston complaining of our youth-deprived dwindling powers. I told him I could still do the work, could still write. He didn't believe me. I was down to a column a month if I was lucky and I wasn't trying or even interested. So I told him I would write a column a day, every day , for the next year. People don't do this. No American newspaper columnist has done it as far as I know. Most columnists will give you one a week, sometimes two, But here I was volunteering to write 365 columns over the next 365 days, Well, I failed. But only on three days. That means I wrote a published newspaper column for 362 days out of 365. In fact, I would still bet it is a record until someone can prove otherwise. Instant burnout you would think, but that actually helped me. I had burned out many years before and didn't have to go through the process again. All that writing, you would think you would run out of things to write about. But no. Something is happening all of the time or is being planned in some back room in the Capitol or the Pentagon. The Intel guys are working overtime to screw up the works and are getting better every year. Yes news is being made every hour of every day, and a good 90 percent of it is bad. bdcwdcbbvfvb bs df f s It 2011-06-07T13:40:12+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/its-upside-down-in-here-facebook-fables-/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/its-upside-down-in-here-facebook-fables-/#When:14:20:55Z TRB By TRB Until recently the craziest thing I have ever heard came in over my headphones from the pilot of a helicopter. We were in a perfect snow white-out.There was a General officer mumbling prayers in the front seat and the pilot turned to me in the back and said casually, "Do you think it's upside down in here?" I thought about that for a long time before I answered. "No I don't feel upside down." He explained that in a snow white-out, we might become disoriented and just fall out of the sky. I thought about that for a long time too. And then I tapped him on the shoulder so we could make eye contact. And I said, "Maybe you're the only one who's upside down in here." He replied with a snicker, "Yes but that would be bad enough." It was dumb anyway. The pilot was some burned out dust-off Vietnam loon and the General was just flying around in a snowstorm because he had nothing better to do. And the pilot's instruments could have easily shown him the orientation of the aircraft. So he was tryng to scare me. He didn't know me. I was reminded of this ability of mine to make minor adjustments to all kinds of craziness without losing it when I was sitting with a cartoon character the other night, an excellent DJ by the way, in some unmarked message purgatory on my Facebook page. I said, Do you have a gender, are you male or female and have you ever had a crush on a human." Took him about five minutes to scribble out an answer. He said he was neither a girl or a boy. He was cartoon character. And the only guy he ever had a crush on was the young illustrator who animated him. Well, that made perfect sense to me. Was I trying to pickup a cartoon character? No. Well, maybe. Let me tell you how this began. And keep in mind that every word of what I am about to tell you is true - in the world in which I experienced it. I guess you could call it an upside down world. Facebook, Computers, TRB, U.S. Army 2011-05-26T14:20:55+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/stupid-is-only-funny-when-its-your-job/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/stupid-is-only-funny-when-its-your-job/#When:14:56:25Z TRB By TRB Abbot and Costello, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers. Sure you can name them, Their art was to make stupid look funny, and Hollywood paid them large amounts of money to do this. There were more like them, in fact. Real artists, who also had to be great athletes because most of them did their own stunts. Buster Keaton, for example, was a genius comic, director, and an athlete as well. It was not unusual to watch Keaton jump from the roof of one moving car to another. All these people are gone. In their place, we have the stand-up, male and female comic with the funny irony thing than goes over so well today.Physical comedy is practically gone, and the art of making the stupid funny is also gone. No one likes the stupid anymore. And it doesn't come out of Hollywood like it did in the old days, Today the truly stupid comes from Washington D.C. In a useless act of making it seem plausable, the Administration makes up inept lies which cause real reporters to weep. It is like the Nixon Administration is back, but this time Nixon is an African American trying to get just the right amount of support from the hapless progressive and the equally without-a-clue Independent. And there is the stupidity. We don't pay people to be stupid anymore. In fact, in today's world we pay people a lot not to be stupid. So just what is it about Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama that seems so damned stupid. First off, almost everything they say about Pakistan is stupid. Secondly (and that will be the subject of the next column),  we have the almost hallucinogenic stupidity of war in Afghanistan, followed by the criminally stupid idea of hanging out at the crime scene of the former illegal war in Iraq. Is it funny that they seemed to understand a good deal of this before they were elected to office? No, that is not funny. Is it funny that everyone in the world knows it is wrong except the U.S.? No that's not funny. Would it be funny if both Obama and Clinton tried to jump from the roof or one moving car to another? At this point, it would be a riot. Pakistan.foreign relations, India, US Army US SprecialForces, Intelligence, Education 2011-05-23T14:56:25+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/politics-in-the-u-s-hate-is-the-word/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/politics-in-the-u-s-hate-is-the-word/#When:13:20:59Z TRB By TRB California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proved himself to be just another pig with a terrible vocabulary the other day. Having a child with one of the maids as a result of an affair in the governor's home ten years ago. What a guy. But Americans never had to look that far to know he was white trash. When he ambled over here from Austria and decided to make his body a money maker, that many have said from that period in his life, he virtually lived on muscle enhancing drugs, what did we expect? Someone like us? Someone we could relate to? How about when he made a couple of series of extremely awful movies badly acted, But you knew he was a Hollywood guy during the Tin Age of Cocaine. Did that ever cross your mind? It seems the average Californian didn't care. They put him in - to lead them. And the unfaithful, marble-mouthed ape pulled the state right off a cliff. How could anyone with any sense believe that this man could properly govern a state? Just based on what they knew of his past, the rumors, although rumors, were explosive, they were very detailed, people stepped forward and spoke frankly of their experiences with him. He seemed like an awful candidate for governor. Now they are all sitting around out there on the West Coast acting surprised. The man dragged his knuckles into the room, asked for your vote and like an idiot you voted for him. Those are the chapters. Soon you will be able to read the book. The child he fathered has no Kennedy blood in him so he is all yours, Arnold. The Kennedy's won't even want to see photos of him. But it is not just Arnold and his lack of morals, What did you expect from Hollywood? Let us go instead to Wisconsin, as American as Mom's apple pie, if you prefer rotten apples. The moral troglodytes of Wisconsin elected a right right wing ideolouge for their Governor, appaently without a clue that the man was a maniac. First he tried to kill collective bargaining in public unions. The verdict is still out on that one. Now he has set his sights on all gays and lesbians, particularly on their right to visit their loved ones in the hospital, That is right. That is on the same moral level as the Governor from California. We are living in a moral vacuum. The morals, presumably are outside. Or maybe they are just a thing of the past. Meanwhile we are hurting ourselves every day and no one seems to care. Even the victims see their plight as somehow deserved. But citizens of the U,S, just have to wake up and see that they have become the bullies of the world, to include bulllying their own citizens. We never get around to talking about hate in America in a serious way. When we all know that most Americans feel hostility to any other person who is different. It is almost instinctive, and being inctinctive it has a long history. In fact, it is prehistoric - this hate. Why should gay and lesbian people be hated or disliked in any way? Have you ever really asked yourself that? There is no reason. And the Scott Walker's, the hater who is governor of Wisconsin must know that. This move he believes will make him more popular among a certain kind of voter. So he will hurt some people to get those votes. Why would he do that? Because he is severely lacking in moral character. politics, law, morals, war 2011-05-20T13:20:59+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-toothless-man-at-the-end-of-the-world/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-toothless-man-at-the-end-of-the-world/#When:14:19:25Z TRB By TRB I was standing with the toothless man outside of the Stop and Shop off to the side of the parking lot tarmac. It was a beautiful day. He was sucking butterscotch balls, my gift to him on this bright spring morning.The supermarket sparrows were flitting everwhere. Some were drinking up the anti-freeze that had leaked from the cars. It is sweet, you know. And deadly. Suddenly a cop car pulls up and a young man maybe 25 asks me if I am all right. He didn't ask the toothless man anything. The toothless man is not to be spoken to, apparently. I am looking at this cop, He had what looked like a spray device in his holster and his weapon. His handcuffs are in a separate leather pouch. Leather is important to this cop. He is also wearing black leather boots and gloves. He's got his sunglasses pulled down, His thick black turtle neck covers his neck, I don't know what to say to this guy. Is he suggesting that my toothless friend might try to harm me? Is he going to gum me to death? But I have worked as a cop before, as a military policeman, in towns twice this size, even 10 times this size. We had it all, murders, rapes, bank robberies, car thefts. It was police work. I don't know what this guy is doing, or even why he is over here asking me anything. I'm thinking maybe the Supreme Court got up in the middle of the night and revoked the right of freedom of assembly.We have crazy men on this court, real crazy men who are apt to do anything, because they are political ideolouges, not really fair-minded justices. They have a political agenda where they are not supposed to have one. They belong in political office, not on the bench, deciding how we will live our lives. So I tell the cop I'm fine and he glances over towards the toothless man as if to say, How can you be fine hanging out with someone like that? But he leaves. Lot of cops around says the toothless man. And there are. There are too many cops. Too many cops with this damned John Wayne complex, like they are just dying to shoot someone of bust someone. Paranoid cops. Cops who don't even know how to fill out the paperwork. Cops who got their jobs from their relatives who were cops. Cops who couldn't run one block without having a heart atack. Cops who see a woman or a person of color as someone to hassle. And they are everywhere, these foolish cops. No, the cops ain't what they used to be, i.e. part of the community. They are more like an aggressive and oppresive cult today than actual police. But the tooothless man doesn't really care about the cops. It is rather a question not smaller than the actual end of the world that occupies his mind. dental hygine, TRB, space exploration, Salvation Army, Stos & Shop Supermarkets, Police men, Supreme Court 2011-05-19T14:19:25+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/big-banks-caught-stealing-ny-ag-not-waiting-for-fed-govt.-to-investigate/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/big-banks-caught-stealing-ny-ag-not-waiting-for-fed-govt.-to-investigate/#When:13:05:36Z TRB By TRB The whole castle is about to come down on our bank boys. Just yesterday, the Huffington Post exposed 5 big banks for allgedly swindling the U.S. government. The banks are Bank of America, Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Further, New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman has promised to investigate at least three of NYC's large banks for misinforming investors of the real worth of various financial instruments A goverment audit of the five large banks mentioned above showed that they were cheating the taxpayer through various scams centered around government-backed mortgages, It is a practice called "Fraudclosure," and it is more out of hand in the U.S. than in any other nation in the world.The banks, using taxpayers funds have kept families in their homes knowing full well they would throw them out on specific days months later. It was an attempt to squeeze as much cash as they could out of everyone's misery. There is a corrupt relationship between American banking and government officials and institutions that was given a shot in the arm last year when the current Supreme Court, which lacks credibility in almost every area of judiprudence, decided to give money freedom of speech, or at least to put money in the same constitutional catagory as free speech. That almost criminal ruling meant banks and other corporate entities and even wealthy individuals, could give as much of this paper "free speech" to politicians as they wanted. In other words, they could buy them. That is when the elected officials in this government stopped representing the people, and began instead to represent the banks and mortgage companies, oil companies, anyone with more money than the average American taxpayer is able to curry favor with Washington for the right amount of money. In this way, the U.S., mostly as a result of a ruling from an inept Suprme Court, has at least temporarily lost its status as a representative democracy in favor of a pay for favors system of government. There was only one problem with this. Sooner or later someone was going to come along, ignore the bribes and go after the criminals. This man appeared in New York City last week. His name is Eric Schneiderman. Unlike Eric Holder, the federal AG, who is most likely being paid off in some fashion or orher, NYC's new AG is going to turn up the heat. He has expressed a desire to see first hand how some of the scams in financial instuments - selling nothing for something - works. He is especially interested in looking at the schemes run by the banks, with the government covering for them,  that have destroyed pension funds across America and have also created the mortgage crisis. This in turn is responsible for  the building and construction slump. Out of that emerged the first true signs of the present unemployment disaster. In truth, the U.S. government has allowed the commercial banking system to steal the silverware. foreclosures, commmercial banks, fraud, tax payers, theft, medicare, Wall Street, Bank of America, Wells Fargo 2011-05-18T13:05:36+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/it-will-always-be-john-and-george/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/it-will-always-be-john-and-george/#When:14:15:05Z TRB By TRB Oh don't ask me. The last time I wrote about The Beatles I made enough enemies for a lifetime. The Beatles, mostly thanks to Paul, have a corporate public relations team ready 24/7 to answer any question you might have as long as The Beatles come out of it smelling as clean as today' laundry. It is funny in a way to see them in all their button down suits, the perfect image of the British gentleman. Well, their hair was too long for that. So it is not a perfect image. Then you look at the Stones. Keith is lying up on the sofa in Mick's living room trying to kick a heroin habit. And that is pretty much the real image of behind-the-scenes British rock from that perod. Yes maybe Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five were a little too clean. They needed someone to dirty up their image in the worst way. But I guess they took their eyes of the ball, or maybe they were trying to appeal to our parents. Maybe the idea was that our parents would purchase their albums because they dressed nice. Then John Lennon said in so many words that he thought the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. What he meant was "How pathetic is that?" It was not a brag; just an observation to explain to the world that maybe they were going a little overboard with this Beatlemania stuff. Of course Americans chose the worst possible of all meanings and immediately - at least down South - created the Beatle's album bonfire. And that is when Paul McCartney embraced the concept of good public relations (keeping Lennon quiet in public) and you barely heard another bad thing about any member of The Beatles. Of course there was that embarrassing weed smuggling thing the Japanese tried to hang around Paul. rock music, the Beatles, Paul McCartney, music criticism,TRB 2011-05-17T14:15:05+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/facebook-the-cops-the-cults-the-harassment/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/facebook-the-cops-the-cults-the-harassment/#When:13:45:27Z TRB By TRB For a growing number of people, when they think of internet harassment, they think of Facebook, the social networking system that seems to believe that the Federal guidelines for internet harassment don't apply to them. Further, Facebook is loaded down with police agencies, so if you are looking for a true social networking experience you might want to first  leave the police station. Thirdly, Facebook, although it demands perfect behavior within Facebook guidelines for its smaller users (anyone with less than 1000 friends), it actually allows some Facebook groups to forget the guidelines. There is, for example a Startrek cult-like organization on Facebook, probably one of many. One of the leaders of this particular 1039 member Facebook cell is a man calling himself Derick Merlin Wildstar (Black Tiger). On his Facebook page you will find his various anti-social sentiments including this which looked permanently printed, not something he just wrote across his page for the day: "I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops, spics, greasers or camel jockies," he assures the reader, explaining just how open-minded he is. Ninty percent of the descriptions he uses to explain how he lives his life are worded in profanities that I can not repeat here. And yet here is Facebook, spending most of its time harassing Facebook friends who don't make their 1000 limit. Apparently, once that figure is reached it makes the 1000 group more attractive to Facebook advertisers. When you look at this "Starfleet" group, you can't help but wonder how many others are out there like it. My guess is that in a world this large that figure is probaly substantial. It would be interesting to know, Does Facebook itself have any idea? Just yesterday Facebook was paticipating in harassment of its smaller page holders. You see, I am one of those. I have maybe 135 people and I don't want much more. I came on Facebook just to meet new people and to listen to music, something Facebook assures prospective users it can do. It does not tell the user (until he or she is there) that they are expected to bring into this Facebook world virtually their entire family and their friends too, right down to the friends you have at work and your former high school buddies.And from them they also want as much personal information as they can get and all of their friends and relatives. In fact, most Facebookers will tell you, the less personal information you give the more they will harass you. Just recently they harassed me by having everyone's messages delivered to my page. Messages usually go to each individual member's page. They might decide to abruptly erase a message you have written. They may make you sign in four to five times.They might suspend you from attaining new page members because they either don't like that you are seeking strangers - which many people do - for their page, a sort of  "going off the Facebook  reservation of family and old friends." What Faceboook does not seem to know is that word on the street casts them as bullies, who say one thing, do another, and apply the rules as they see fit, with or without evidence. In this way, in the amount of screw ups, Facebook has become a "beat" if you are a reporter. Good people are getting played by this corporation, which insanely portrays itself as "liberal,"  And it is causing many of them to raise the important question. "Why the hell am I on Facebook? Seriously, all you are doing is providing free entertainment for the atmosphere in which Facebook sells ad space, They don't give you a nickel for it. But they will harass you any time they feel like it. Did you know a lot of cops hung out on Facebook? Well they do. Facebook probably won't tell you how many or from which police agency. I knew a woman on Facebook who was probably a cop. Then she might have been a guy who was playing a dead woman who might have been a cop, See, isn't Facebook fun?  Facebook, TRB, Police, cults, internet harrassment 2011-05-16T13:45:27+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/this-government-should-go-home/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/this-government-should-go-home/#When:13:39:12Z TRB By TRB I was sitting ouside on a screened-in porch at a home on the West Coast of Florida in recent months with a friend I've had for 43 years. His house is on steroids. Every time I show up it is twice the size as before. His four-car garage has become a small warehouse containing his collection of vintage cars, His pool was outside. Now it is inside as well - two pools.Then the outside pool grew an air conditioned building around it. Then a locker room. Suddenly one day I noticed a helicopter sitting on a helipad and I figure, go ahead spend it all. Doesn't every idiot do that? But my friend is not an idiot. He's not one of these fools who believes that whoever dies with the most toys wins.  Remember that saying from the Yuppie years, those Golden Days of AIDs, cocaine and possibly the worst music ever produced in this nation's history - disco? Where did all those people go? I theorize with my friend that perhaps they all went to Washington D.C. He agreed that it would help explain so many things. But of course it's not true. Some of the Yuppie Era people went into the ground for AIDs, some from just too much coke, the inevitable overdose, many went broke snorting their trust funds until they had nothing but a high percentage of dead brain cells and a virtually worthless degree from some almost-Ivy League school, usually a degree having something to do with human services which President Ronald Reagan spent his career destroying. I hear a frog croak nearby. I say to my friend stupidly, "You have a frog." He admits as much, then he tells me that it is actually a stolen frog. As you might know frogs and headed towards extinction. "You stole a frog." He tells me he just moved it, from one person's yard to his own. He likes the croaking sounds of frogs. I was tempted to ask why he didn't just build a Toad house and fill it with them, or maybe a frog house? But that would have been a cheap shot. Then his wife, who is probably my daughter's age, is on the porch asking me to stay for dinner. My friend asks me to stay over.But I'm not a stay over person. I don't enjoy sleeping in other people homes - especially when they might change from one thing to another in the middle of the night. Transformer house. And the dinner? I am not hungry. I do like these people, though. He came from nothing and worked himself almost to death to obtain his wealth. You have to respect that. Especially when wealth is simply passed down to so many. Congress, the budget, TRB, gas prices, monopolies, political parties 2011-05-13T13:39:12+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/boston-va-makes-significant-cut-in-veterans-benefits-virtually-unannounced/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/boston-va-makes-significant-cut-in-veterans-benefits-virtually-unannounced/#When:13:54:15Z TRB By TRB I saw the theft the other day. It is just begining to take place. Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the powerless.When disabled veterans go to their medical appointments at the the Jamica Plain VA clinic they will not be receiving the same amount for their travel as they did in former years. The new directer of travel pay at the VA has decided to cut travel pay to disabled veterans by as much as 75 percent. Her reasoning is ludicrous and every veteran knows it. She claims that the tiny VA outpatient clinic in Hyannis is closer, meaning these veterans have no need to go see their regualar doctors, for in many cases their serious illness at the enormous and well equiped - former hospital - that is the VA outpatient clinic at Jamacia Plain. Instead they should go to the small, understaffed building in Hyannis that is about the size of some fast food resteraunts. I have been to this Hyannis clinic. I am not a doctor. but anyone could easily see that the VA Clinic in Jamacia Plain offers a better standard of care than the Hyannis clinic, which is approximately 1/30 the size of the clinic in JP. There is very little waiting room. A lot of verterans from the Cape use the JP clinic. If sudddenly they changed clinics to the sub-clinic service in Hyannis it is doubtful that they could even be seated to wait for their doctors. Obviously, what we are seeing here is proof of the kind of U.S. citizen the goverment plans to rob to balance its budget rather than raise taxes on billionaires, they will take it from the disabled verteran, from the veteran wounded or otherwise injured serving his or her country. It will now cost such veterans more in travel to see doctors they have been seeing for years. How many VA hospitals in this country are already raiding veterans benefits to cut costs? The VA won't say. A lot of these patients are older men who will see this drop in veterans benefits as the perfect excuse to ignore going to their medical appointments. One of the reasons travel pay waa first initiated was because VA officials noted that a significantly higher number of veterans went to their appontments if the VA subsidized them for their gas. You have to understand that in most cases I am not talking about even middle class people. I am talking about the poor, service-connected disabled American veteran. And he is already being ripped off. Veterans Administration, The DAV,Sen Kerry, Service-connected disabled veterans 2011-05-12T13:54:15+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/facebook-the-school-principal-of-life/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/facebook-the-school-principal-of-life/#When:15:14:18Z TRB By TRB I am not one of these "never trust authorities" people, although I am from that generation.  I Iike to hold out and give things a chance before I come to any conclusions. So  there are several ways to look at this article. Facebook could just get rid of me. That would be fine, except that I would have to write about it - often. No threat, just what a journalist does when he or she suspects that an institution - like Facebook, for example - has become too rigid and authoritarian, dishing out punishment to its enthusiasts for breaking rules, which in some cases, are themselves suspect in their logic and rationality. I write a column every day of the week including weekends for the Cape Cod Daily News, it is usually picked up by Forbes Online, USA Today, The Dallas Morning News and Google News. Facebook in recent years seems to have become too big for its own britches, It is almost as if the people over there believe that their sheer size makes them right. When in fact, most people who deal with large institutions will tell you that they are so large they are barely if ever right. So maybe three things can happen here, Facebook can continue in its ways and simply throw me off. I, as someone who writes and publishes a column would then be free to concentrate on just what it is about Facebook that seems so anti-democratic and really thoughtless in many of its decisions with individiual users. Facebook seems to be saying, Heck we're so large now we can affod to lose millions of them. Can you? How many million? What if you lost them all? The other thing that could happen is that someone at Facebook might actually help me with the problems I am having on my Facebook page, problems I believe they are creating. And the other, the third response could be no response. Let me go to first base and explain this. I am a writer and an investigative journalist. Just last year myself and a mere handful of other journalists derailed a candidate's Congressional run when we discovered he had worked as a police officer and might possibly have enabled his partner, who was a pedophile to get away with one or two sexual assaults on underage girls. I did that story using my pen name because there were times I was literally in fear that someone would try to kill me or to destroy my property, which was located right down the street from his. Incidentally, he is now  the "special sheriff" in my county. I have used pen names my whole career off and on. In fact if you look up TRB  in Wikepedia you will find that I am the TRB who is a writer living on Cape Cod. Facebook even has a few pages on me in its own system listed under my real name. If you knew my real name, you could use the Facebook search engine and open the Wikapedia page.The problem is I still work and a dangerous group of people in this country don't like what I have to say at all. Through the years my writing has had helicopters in the U.S. Army grounded until their tail rotors could be inspected, It has closed chemical companies, particularly one in Holbrook, Mass, which not only closed the plant but caused the Super Fund to be available faster. I am the first  to write a children's book ("Hidden Dangers") on toxic waste and how children might discover and report it in their play areas. The Citizens Clearing House for Toxic Waste published it and it was illustrated by artist, David Omar White (1983). I have caused countless devlopers to lose their access to build near wetlands. I have help make it possible for the elderly and poor to receive subsidized rents and have units put aside for them in suburban housing complexes. Needless to say, if people in my community knew who I was, I would not be well liked. There is already some suspicion out there. But back to some of what I have done with my life. The great American journalist William Worthy and myself are the first to teach a course in "critical journalism" in the country. Noam Chomsky, Ben Bagdikian and others also helped Bill and I with the design of this course .Noam even lectured at it. Now, colleges all over the world offer a course just like it. At one point in my life, I was the most awarded military journalist in history. Maybe I am second or third now I don't know. I just wanted to establish that whatever Facebook may think about me, I didn't just climb out from under a rock. The DallasMorning News Forbesw Magazine, USA Today, The India Times TRB 2011-05-11T15:14:18+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/crapola-as-reality-the-new-norm/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/crapola-as-reality-the-new-norm/#When:13:50:59Z TRB By TRB Oh America, how much longer will we have to put up with this patisanship, more like hatred, between the political parties? Did you believe it the other day when Navy Seals and Special Forces finally put a bullet in the mass murderer, bin Laden, Republicans actually looked for ways to criticize Obama for it? If George II had been in office the Republicans would have rejoiced and that would have been the end of it. Now come the conspiracy theorists, my favorites. Groups like the John Birch Society have their own illogical and at times insane take on  the death of bin Laden. Their greatest complaint by far is that bin Laden was killed instead of taken alive, where the John Birch Society assures us he could have been a very valuable asset as a prisoner. Well, thankfully that whole taken-alive scene was discussed by adults long before the raid and it was determined that if the U.S. allowed the mass murderer to live, many U.S. service personnel risked kidnapping and probably execution in an attmept to secure bin Laden's release. The people who plan these special operations are, almost have to be, too calm for their own good. The breathing has to be just right to get off the perfect shot, the night vision (without goggles, which are a pain in the ass) has to kick in a lot quicker than it would in a normal person, at a moment's notice they might have to disrobe and swim five miles, they might have to stab you to death if you don't get out of their way. They are not like us. Their craziness is buried deep inside where perhaps it will come out later in the private office of a Veteran Administration psychiatrist. During war time they see so many of their friends die. They are walking around with perfectly functioning brains that are wired just a bit differently. Decisions are always snap decisions during a special op. And the debriefing always insulting and ridiculous as the debriefer attempts to mine some nugget of information you might have forgotten during a mission. Of course, most special operations Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel would just as soon forget the whole damn thing when it is over. That is when the planning begins for  the next one. U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, national politics 2011-05-09T13:50:59+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/thoughts-on-the-arranged-facebook-wife/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/thoughts-on-the-arranged-facebook-wife/#When:15:06:00Z TRB By TRB This is a special Mother's Day for me - in a way. I almost fell into what certainly looked like an arranged marriage with a beautiful girl from India, someone I "met" on Facebook and wanted to become a member of this Facebook page. Perhaps this happened to me as a warning. Lately I have been requesting membership of quite a few models and other women known for their beauty. I mentioned this last night in a Facebook conversation with one of my oldest friends here, Mary Larkin. She is usually a very good source for advice about Facebook matters, and life in general. Her opinion was that models were good for Facebook. They didn't make trouble or argue over political matters. In fact you would barely know they are there. This is, in fact, true. Models are generally well-behaved and even polite and thoughtful. Good people. Sometimes you have to bar from the page the various men who follow them around harrassing them. But that is about it. I liked them. I had all the time in the world to "talk" to my non-model Facebook friends or to listen to music, work on my daily column. Several weeks ago it occured to me that I was chosing only models from the U.S., so I made it a mission to create Facebook friendships with models from all around the world. This was going along quite well as I befriended models from England, France, Germany, Italy, and half a dozen other nations. I figured the experience of Facebook might be more interesting if they could trade stories with their counterparts from around the world. No, I was not playing model God. When you have a page on Facebook you can only befriend people. They are free to do what they want, whether it is playing music, writing their opinions, or whatever else they might think of. All you can do is help to prevent people from bothering people you have befriended. As I said, it is usually a quiet scene from my perspective Then I befriended a very beautiful young woman from India. marrriage Facebook communication romanance TRB 2011-05-08T15:06:00+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-dogs-know-whats-going-on-go-ahead-ask-one/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/the-dogs-know-whats-going-on-go-ahead-ask-one/#When:15:55:30Z TRB By TRB When I was a boy my father would take me to an island off the coast of Maine, where he would wear white suits and go to barbecues. He would introduce me to all these supposed cousins that seemed so grumpy, and frankly dressed like children. I was not an island boy. They hated me and my father's car which reminded them of places far away and my Dad was always shaking someone's hand and congratulating them for having a baby or something similar he didn't care about. Word would get out that he was there and more supposed relatives would arrive by ferry from Blue Hill and they were always sticking their dirty fingers all over my hair or kissing me with stranger's lips and generally making me feel creepy. One day my father introduced me to an old man who sold bait for a living. My father was very respectful of this person as he told me I would be spending the day with him. My Dad had some "business," to do on the island, which I was to discover later, consisted almost entirely of a community of his former girlfriends. Meanwhile Brownie was headed somewhere and I wanted to follow him. So I did. Lenny wanted me to come back, saying he'd get in trouble with my father. But I would too so it wasn't a very good threat. For once I wanted to follow one of these dogs. We all knew what they did when they traveled in packs, that's why there were leash laws in my town. But there was something about the solitary dog I had been meaning to check in to for maybe two whole years, like back when I was five. Lenny offered me a lobster dinner at this point, but I didn't like lobster. I was already lobstered out. So was my Dad. He would eat it if someone was unimaginative enough to serve it, but just to be polite. I noticed now that Brownie was moving faster with her nose to the ground, not looking at anything but the sidewalk. It seemed like she really was avoiding the eyes of others. Did she know about lease laws? But there were none on the island. Brownie turned into this grave yard that was full of my ancestors for more than 300 years. She promptly took a leak on one of their stones. lobster, Maine, dogs, ferries, dog food, love story, island vacation 2011-05-07T15:55:30+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/our-government-and-why-it-hates-us/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/our-government-and-why-it-hates-us/#When:12:46:33Z TRB By TRB You know the person you hate to see coming ? Seems like they always want or need something. Their needs are immediate. You know that person, and you usually do what you can to make yourself invisible when they're around. That describes exactly how the U.S. government sees the vast majority of it citizenry. We are to be avoided. We need too much and the government wants to give to the people who are more deserving, i.e. those who already have it. Our Congress, a group of mosly overweight  old men from another era, who are totally dependent on our tax dollars or they would quite litterally be in the street or worse, the legal profession, has decided to cut the trillion dollar deficit. So what have they done? Nothing. They have sat around wasting space in our Capitol, they have spent a lot of time hanging around the snack machines. They have learned how to make perfect  paper planes that often sail through the chambers of Congress in majestic, irrelavent formations. And of course they have gone after the budget, at least they say they have, if you only remember how much has to be cut, namely over a trillion. Millions and billions are lost somewhere inside a trillion dollars like a single penny in a large jar full of pennies, So the Democrats cut $6.1 billion or 0.43 percent of what is needed. Keep in mind these are only their proposals.  The Republicans cut  $61 bliion or 4.3 percent of what is needed. So as you can see, neither proposed budget cuts that will help the deficit. Both are simply too small. I have to admit that the Republican plan to cut the EPA is insane in a time when we need more people out there to search for the reasons our enviornment has suddenly gone haywire as far as crazy weather, global warming, and mass extinctions. Cutting the EPA is just stupid. The Republicans also came up with a larger number than the Democrats because they want to cut school lunch programs for poor kids, food stamps for poor families, subsidized housing for the poor. They don't want to be in the business of helping the poor, because they will tell you. that is not government's business. The problem with that attitide - the one that would make the poor, and as far as many Republicnas are concerned, the disabled and the elderly "not the business of the government" is that people just might start asking what the heck is the business of the government? Well it is like that old General Motors executive said a long time ago about his company, back during it's good days, except this is going to involve a slight alteration The business of the U.S. government is big business. klnlnlkhhkvgjg kkgjcgkn 2011-05-06T12:46:33+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/they-killed-him-they-murdered-him-its-good-its-badits-right-its-wrong/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/they-killed-him-they-murdered-him-its-good-its-badits-right-its-wrong/#When:12:53:23Z TRB By TRB I don't believe we should celebrate anyone's death. Hitler's death was certainly celebrated, though. And if I was at this celebration I might have had a beer or two. And other mass murderers down through the ages have had parties as opposed to funerals. Naturally there are Americans whose spiritual or religious beliefs are put off by the somewhat excessive jubilation over the death of Osama bin Laden. I'm one of these people. Celebrations of death don't move me, But I also believe that many felt a great sense of relief that he was dead and expressed it. Whether this can be described as a celebration or not, in a literal sense, is another story. The U.S. news media, who barely seemed to mention that bin Laden had not been brought to justice during the Bush terms in office, is all over this one now that the mass murderer has been killed. I look at it from what I believe was bin Laden's point of view. I remember years back while bin Laden was viewing the fall of the World Trade Center, a close-up of his face revealed a kind of giddy, nervous look. I didn't see only that. I saw a man who was scared to death, a man who never thought taking down the towers was even a possibility. A man who knew right there and then that he would be spending the remainder of his life on the run. I believe the Saudi terrorists who took down the WTC were probably just as surprised that they could pull it off. Where the hell was the security? There was no security. Four airliners hijacked. No security. When you think of that now, it seems impossible. Because it is. Now we find that "our pals" the Pakistanis have been watching U.S. blood flow in the search for bin Laden in Afghanistan. And while they have been watching this for ten years it is believed that approximately 6 years ago a large cement home was built overlooking a garrison town just 35 miles from Pakistan's Capital city Islamabad.  You would have to be an idiot to think Pakistani officials of the highest order did not know about this house or who resided there. And there are other bin Laden associates hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. It reminds me of Argentina, when President Perez allowed all those Nazis' to move to sunny Argentina. The Israelis didn't like that and they went down there and got as many of the Nazis' as they could including the architect of the holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, the man with one of the worst plans of a century. U.S. Army Marine Corps, Navy Seal U.S. Air Force, terrorism, world affairs, the news media 2011-05-05T12:53:23+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/true-snapshots-of-nothing-to-do-with-anything/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/true-snapshots-of-nothing-to-do-with-anything/#When:13:12:03Z TRB By TRB This is an off-the cuff piece of writing because you see I already had a column ready to go. You know what it was about. That recent event you can't get away from. No matter where you go the conspiracy theories will make sense for five or six minutes until they dissolve into warm sugar and you get all stuck up in this madness. You don't need it. The rest of the details are so-so and so what and so, who cares? Chest thumping is something that Silver Back Gorilla's do to announce to their harems that they've had just about enough, they are the king of the hill, and thump thump, thump. Hell they have Silver Backs what does that tell you? To me is says, Oh crap watch out, that guy's got a silver back. But even a Gorilla is a relatively peaceful animal. It wants to live and let live. It is a vegetarian. So this latest chapter in the WTC tragedy is over for me as a writer at least. I find it interesting only in the fact that the men wearing the white hats and the men wearing the black hats are equally responsible for the fall of those buildings. I find it interesting that the entire incident grows out of the unfair treatment of a people in the Middle East that they could not get justice because Israel and the U.S. would not let them have it, that one thing led to another and suddenly the entire Middle East with the exception of the fat cat nations we support like Saudi Arabia hated everything our nation stood for. Or have people already forgotten the way this all came about, have they revised history? Hey Mr. "USA USA," take it from someone who knows something about these things - you will never know. You will never know. So, please put your flag down and have some coffee. I promised I wouldn't write about you-know-what at the start of this. I am afraid I haven't completely come through. But it is hard when 24/7 that is all the news you get. Hey, what ever happened to the debt ceiling? How about unemployment? Home foreclosures? The need to re-industrialize? The broken health care system. The stupidly unregulated banking system? The weakness of the dollar? The uncontrolled speculation on oil prices? At this rate we might as well talk about my worst  ever girlfriend.   U.S> Army Special Forcves, sky diving, dating 2011-05-04T13:12:03+00:00 http://capecoddaily.com/blog/questions-for-the-crowd-behind-the-curtain/ http://capecoddaily.com/blog/questions-for-the-crowd-behind-the-curtain/#When:13:20:46Z TRB By TRB It began as just another day of semi-retirement. He had a great nest egg and daddy with all those billions always underbidding Haliburton for the really good work in the Middle East. There were 23 men and 9 women living in this compound built overlooking a middle class suburb with a military academy down the street. He saw the men but did not talk to them. The women were there for other reasons. He'd always been a womanizer anyway. Why stop now? Maybe he didn't like it there. Perhaps he was being held captive in this otherwise luxurious jail on the hill. He knew too much. He knew awful things about his hosts, the Pakistanis, terrible things about the U.S. who helped send him down a path that would lead to thousands of U.S. civilian deaths. And he knew more about the CIA than the CIA likes you to know about it. He knew who put him together. The only question left was who would take him apart. They had many chances, but supposedy they had blown them all. He probaby didn't believe that. He probably awoke every morning and read the paper to see if the political situation was just right to kill him. Because he knew that was when he would be killed. When someone could get the most out of it. Remember his so-called "days in a cave" that liar Bush II had created out of thin air? And I must stop here because Bush and Cheney didn't only talk about a cave. They talked about entire cities under ground where manufacturing could take place, where peopele could sleep and go to school. None of this was ever discovered. Because it was a lie That is a whole part of the Obama myth that we will never get out of our heads for the rest of our lives - a series of perfectly executed tunnels and rooms far under the ground away from the bombs where the bearded one would live forever. And that would be his "punishmnet" Bush decided. It didn't happen like that though. Most likely it was a long slow cautious ride into Pakistan in maybe a Land Rover or a Toyota Land Cruiser. The air conditioning was running high. Obama was coming down from the high he got when the towers fell. On his mind was, what am I going to do now? Doesn't anyone understand that bin Laden knew the Twin Tower tragedy made him a walking dead man? Of course he knew. The falling towers might have looked good for a moment, but then death touched him on the shoulder. He was watching himself go down in those towers. Now I hear all the propaganda designed to look like news and it makes me want to go to bed. Osama bin Laden has probably been in that compound in Pakistasn for much longer than we will ever be told on the news. All those near misses and we almost had hims wouldn't make sense if he hadn't been in Pakistan watching "Two and a Half Men," wouldn't they? So he had to be seen as this wild eyed man of the caves and cliffs always just out of reach from his enemies. The "crusaders" Oh, can the U.S. government tell the truth about anything? Some brains have been washed so well they are starting to shine. Look right there on the top of that man's head. That's your reflection. jlbgyofotdrd 2011-05-03T13:20:46+00:00