Not solar, not wind power, human power

I usually watch strange (to other people) programs on TV. I've been watching programs on Saturday morning that have changed my mind about the future and none of it is about solar power or wind power, but human power. In fact, the heat from our bodies can power batteries and charge our phones. It is all about human ingenuity and how humans have always changed the world -- by their own innovation and our own vision.

A girl in Canada, I believe she was adopted, created a flashlight that uses the heat of your hand to power the flashlight and her innovation may soon be patented and available to you. Guess what? That kind of human innovation use can work with a human body's heat to power things -- although I don't think that would work to power an airplane or an automobile, but that time is also coming. Sooner than we believe since we are focused on solar power and wind power instead of human power.

How about using geothermal energy for heating our homes? Why not use geothermal energy to power airplanes and automobiles? All we need is another innovative person to figure it out and patent it to make it possible to be sold to the public. It's all about us. The only thing we need is human innovation and human power.

I was watching a program about human innovation. In this case, it is the Stradivarius violin made by Antoniius Stradivari Those violins were made by a master craftsman over 300 years ago, but the tone the violins make is all about Stradivari's artistry. It is all about human innovation.

I would say the same thing about the girl who crossed the Atlantic by boat: Greta Thunberg. Yes, it is about one person's determination and it is not about solar power or wind power. No matter how badly she tanked when she went off script, she is determined to power our world by solar and wind power, but she is another cog in the wheel and not the innovator like the girl in Canada or Stradivari.

Ann Makosinski from Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) is only 15years old and she played with wires and computer parts and created her own toys as a 2-year-old. She won a science fair prize for her flashlight that is powered by the heat of a person's hand. No batteries at all. No solar power. No wind power. The heat of your hand is the power that makes the flashlight work. All human innovation.

I am sure there are violins that play as well as the Stradivarius violins, but the violins have not been found yet that produce that mellifluous sound. We all think newer and more mechanical is better, but all we really need is another Stradivari to create another mellifluous sounding violin.

It is all about human innovation. While we are all caught up in solar power and wind power we
should step aside and let another innovative human to show us the way.

That is all. Disperse.

Screwed!

As I wend my way through the process of obtaining Medicaid, I have found that money you do not get is still counted against you. The money is paid to the government or to providers, but that money is still counted against YOUR income and counted AS income. Those few dollars often can knock you out of the system though the amounts to do not come to you nor are you allowed to spend that amount. Basically, you are screwed even before you begin.

How do I know? I spoke with a state representative and she knew more than I did and do about my own finances.

Case in point, I get only $1114 a month from SSI. The details of my pittance allow me to receive a whole $16 a month for food stamps (SNAP) and that is only because I got a raise this month of $1. My food stamp benefits totaled $15 a month out of the $119.50 allotted to senior citizens like me, but according to the State of Ohio, all I get is $15 a month, or rather $16 a month with the hefty $1 raise in my benefits. Hooray me!?

According to their files and the facts on my income, I get $1458 a month from SSI (social security income). There is an added $358.30 taken out of my SSI, leaving me with the $1114 a month that I actually get from SSI. The $358.30 goes to pay the part B of my SSI, money that is not given to me. The money is listed as going to Part B of my social security, the funds that have been collected from me since I began working over 50 years ago. That is money that I paid into social security and that money that I paid in goes to pay for Part B benefits and does not come to me, but it is still money the state of Ohio considers as money that is mine in the accounting of my income, money I actually receive, but not part of the $1114 I receive in the money that is deposited to my bank account, money I do not befit from and money that is counted as part of my income. Who knows whether or not that $358.30 is actually sent to me; it goes to the doctors that treat me -- of which I have yet to benefit from or have in my hands. Yet it is still monies that the state of Ohio counts as my income and that counts against me when the state of Ohio tallies up my funds.

Is there any wonder people cheat on their taxes if this is the way their income is totaled up?

The state of Ohio, in fact, every state in the Union does business in the same way and the people who

get it in the neck are the people applying for assistance, like Medicaid, food stamps, and benefits for the dependents or the person who is ill and suffering, hoping for their share of the socialism pie that was promised to them when they go to file for their benefits.

Benefits? It looks to me like they are doing what they always do -- screwing the very people who need their assistance. It is no wonder there are Welfare cheats. It is looking more and more that the people who cheat are the people trying to get around the state representatives, caseworkers, who are supposed to help the needy and the destitute, and the poor, ailing, and/or senior citizens who are doing their best to find ways around the black and white numbers that are used to decide who is and who is not eligible for assistance. These caseworkers are drones totaling up the numbers, drones who do not have the empathy beyond what is written down. There is no way for the poor people who go to them for assistance have any chance to get what they were promised and what they expect . . . unless they cheat the system in order for the system to treat whoever applies like living, breathing people who are actually in dire straits.

No wonder there are so many people cheating the system. If only I could figure out what I need to do to get past their bottom line mentality to the people who would actually help if they did not have to follow their bottom-line mentality.

I am not trying to cheat the system, but I am caught in that limbo between what the numbers say and what is actually the truth. I am caught between a rock and a hard place and will end up with the short end of the stick they are beating me with. Remember, all I receive is $15 a month for food, or rather $16 as of October 1, 2019 now that I have been given a whole dollar more for food. Good thing I can save up a couple of months of the pittance they throw me in order to buy sufficient food to get by on. At least that works in my favor since I am doing my best to lose weight. I've lost over 200 pounds in the past 2-1/2 years. At least less food for me means I will continue to lose weight. I would prefer to make up a real grocery list instead of skimping on the list, eking out the food I do have each month since I cannot rely on the food stamp allowance ($16 a month) and I also cannot rely on the Meals on Wheels I get once a day. At least I qualify for that -- as long as I respond when they show up at the door. My phone does not connect to the board in the entryway because my phone is not the type that is able to be hooked up to the board. I didn't know that when I bought the phone. I should have read the small print and asked questions of the service that sold the phone to me. I chose a phone I could afford, an android phone, but then I should have gotten the full price phone (costing hundreds of dollars, but then again I am on a limited SSI income and cannot afford a full-price phone.)

I have what I have and I keep an eye on the television that shows me who arrives in the entryway downstairs so I can either call them to come up the stairs or go down in the elevator and meet them at the door before they go away. Luckily, the man across the hall from me also gets his meals from MOW (Meals on Wheels) and they often call him because he has a phone that hooks up the entryway board and he can buzz them through the downstairs door.

My sisters keep telling me I should have thought about this and planned for it years ago. I did not know the future and did not know that the job I did for decades would not pan out nor would I end up here back in my home state destitute, on SSI, and broke. I signed up for retirement, but have not yet reached the age of retirement, though I am still out of a job after over 30 years of transcribing doctors' reports, radiation reports, surgeries, etc.

Maybe I should have planned better. I thought I had planned better, but it is anyone's guess whether or not all the money I paid out in 401K plans will pay off for me -- or if I will be still out of luck and out of funds. I am stuck -- and stuck good. If only I had been able to count on what I paid into, I might not be where I am now.

I studied. I learned. I worked. I am still stuck and have no idea of the 401Ks will be added to my limited income. More than likely, I will be still out of luck and, like the people in Kentucky who paid into their retirement pension funds and found out the state of Kentucky used their funds to pay for the roads and the other plans that did not get voted in when those issues went on the ballot; their retirement plans were short-circuited by being used to pay for the roads and the levies the mayors, state senators, and state representatives allocated to pay for the people who paid into those retirement plans when those people voted against the levies, roads, etc. The people who paid into their retirement funds found out that their retirement was not going to happen because Kentucky took their money and paid for what the people would not and did not vote for. It is rather like getting your tail caught in the door when it shuts behind them, catching their tails (and their retirements) in the door. It hurts and it hurts in the end.

So much for good government. It is rather like having some corporate raider buying up the liquidity of a retirement plan and leaving the people who counted on the retirement when the people were ready to retire. At least someone -- a fat cat corporate raider -- will get the benefit of their hard work, but it will not be the people who paid into the retirement fund in the first place.

If the state used the retirement funds to keep the roads safe and the levies paid up, at least we can rest assured that someone -- like the sate or some fat cat corporate raider -- would be able to live well on their hard work, their sweat, and their blood and tears.

It is just like finding out that you have been sold down the river and there is no paddle in sight. If

their retirement funds are gone at least the hard-working people will be able to get the best care their hard-working doctors can provide for them -- as long as socialism can take money from the rich to spread among the poor -- or better yet, cancer will get them in the end. When they die, at least their family will grieve for them and miss them. As long as they are dead, their toil is over and their beneficiaries will benefit -- if there is anything left.

That is all. Disperse.

For the people -- so they say

I often watch the Medici on Netflix and I was watching it tonight. I was struck by how the Pazzi, another banking family in Florence, were plotting against Lorenzo and Giuliano one Sunday. The Pazzi were going to overthrow Lorenzo and the rest of the Medici family and return the rule of these tyrants back to the people. The Pazzi were plotting against the Medici and had decided to use that particular Sunday when the Medici were celebrating the Catholic mass. They were planning and plotting to murder the Medici brothers: Giuliano and Lorenzo, men the Pazzi considered tyrants during the celebration of the mass when both brothers were going to be present at the mass.

I was horrified that these tyrants, according to the Pazzis, were going to be murdered in cold blood in full view of the people the Pazzi were intent on protecting from these tyrants in order to return the rule of Florence to the people.

And so the Pazzi killed Giuliano and told the people they had killed both brothers in order to overthrow these tyrants and return the rule of the republic of Florence to the people.

Like me, the people were horrified, especially when Lorenzo walked down the street to where Jacopo Pazzi stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio as they spoke to the people. Lorenzo's throat was obviously slashed but he was still alive and still walking toward where Jacopo Pazzi stood in front of the priory, claiming to have taken over as gonfalonier to return the rule back to the people locked out of the priory by the men Lorenzo had had the foresight to post at the priory, the same priory where Jacopo Pazzi was still locked out of as he spoke to the people.

The people Jacopo had just saved were picking up stones to throw at Jacopo as Lorenzo stood calmly bleeding as Jacopo Pazzi searched for a quick exit away from the people he had just saved from the tyrants before the people could stone him.

Some of the people told Pazzi that when Lorenzo and the Medici had been in power before the Pazzi were murdering and overthrowing the tyrants, stonemasons worked, the people had jobs and food, and the Medici made sure the people were safe and fed well. So much for protecting the people Pazzi was murdering the Medici brothers and saving the people from those tyrants, the Medici. Maybe that is why the story goes that a Pazzi was hung from that selfsame balcony where another Pazzi brother, one who had become a priest, a priest who not only sanctioned the bloody murder of the Medici brothers during mass in the Duomo that Sunday, frightening the people and setting them to picking up stones to pelt Jacopo Pazzi as he slunk away from the Palazzo Vecchio before the people stoned him for saving them and turning the rule of Florence back over to the people. Funny how it all turned out.

I am reminded of the Democrats in Washington, D. C. who have begun impeachment proceedings and impeachment hearings against President Donald J. Trump. The Democrats, much like the Pazzi claiming the Medici had to be removed because they were tyrants, are claiming the need to remove President Trump from office because he has gotten too big for his britches. Sound familiar?

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, is acting, she says, to protect the people of the United States of America. Sound familiar? She sounds, as do the rest of the Democrats, much like Jacopo Pazzi planning and executing (badly I might add) the murder of Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici that bloody Sunday during mass in the Duomo. With the media on the side of the Democrats, we will not get to see the truth of what the Democrats are doing to pull down President Trump and give the Republic back to the people.

I have heard that Nancy Pelosi  is much like Jacopo Pazzi as the people pick up stones to hurl against Pazzi as she ducks and covers her backside since she is also on the hot seat and scampering for a safe place to hide away from the stones the people are picking up to stone Jacopo Pazzi as he scampers away from the priory to find a safe place to hide before  the people show what they feel about Pazzi pulling down the Medici, the tyrants, in order to hand the republic of Florence back to the people, as the Democrats are planning to do if they impeach President Trump.

How many people in the United States of America will stand up like the stonemason and the other people did when Pazzi showed the people how he had removed the tyrants, the Medici, from the rule of Florence in order to give the rule of Florence back to the people? How many people will stand up and say they still have jobs because Trump made good on his promise to give the people back their jobs? How many people will remind the Democrats that Trump's efforts have kept their jobs and made sure they are fed well and their livelihoods are safe?

Trump is a loose cannon and he tweets too much, but Trump has also gone to North Korea, the first sitting president who has gone to North Korea and spoken to Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un is still launching missiles, but those missiles are not targeting the USA and the talks continue. Trump has called out China and will raise tariffs, forcing China to face the rest of the world and stop stealing plans and technology from the rest of the world. Maybe that is why Hong Kong, that separate but equal Chinese city where the people have a say about what goes on in their country. China is scrambling to get Taiwan to take the deal Hong Kong was promised (separate but equal) while the people of Hong Kong chafe against the communist rule and where the communist troops are ready to remind them that communism is the government of ALL China in their separate but equal plan. Taiwan has been independent since Mao Tse Tung became the leader of all China and, though Mao is dead, mainland China is still communist and Hong Kong, with its separate but equal status, the same status that Taiwan rejects as Taiwan remains separate but democratic and not communist or under the thumb of the current Chairman of mainland China as the communist thugs do their best to strong-arm free and democratic Taiwan back into the communist fold just as Hong Kong with its separate but equal status struggles to remain separate and free and democratic.

Such is the way of force. Will Hong Kong remain free and democratic or will Hong Kong end up like the young people that demonstrated at Tiananmen Square and ended up dead? Will that also be Taiwan's fate in the end?

The Medici remained in power as the Pazzis slunk to their hidey holes. Will Pelosi remain in power as Speaker of the House or will she end up fighting for her political life before she, like Jacopo Pazzi, end up hanging from the balcony strung up by her intestines?

Only time will tell. Trump is an ass and he does tweet too much, but Trump has also done his best to

make America Great. The Democrats have been after him since just after the election. They were still upset because Trump won and the electoral college showed how well he had won against Hillary. The Democrats have been hungering for Trump's blood since he took office. The impeachment, much like Jacopo Pazzi's plot against the Medici, is just another bloody Sunday mass murder that failed.

There was no quid pro quo and the Democrats have wasted the past three years going after Trump, but their witch hunt has failed yet again. Trump is a jackass (as I have always seen). Trump has made blunders, but Trump has delivered nearly everything he promised during his campaign and the Democrats are still frothing at the mouth over Trump's win against Hillary. Trump is not a politician, but he is the President of the United Status (POTUS) and he has done nothing to warrant impeachment, but it looks like Pelosi has overstepped her boundaries.

This impeachment will not go down like the impeachment against Nixon and Trump will not resign, though Pelosi may have to resign since she has stepped so far out of bounds. Bernie is back on the stump and Elizabeth Warren, once a Republican, is running as a Democrat.

Where will this Sunday massacre end up? Will Pelosi lose her seat? Will Pelosi be impeached?
Or will Trump, like Lorenzo, stand in the street while the people pick up stones to hurl at the Democrats (or Pazzis) and back Trump for another term in office? We shall see?

In the end, it is up to the people, the same people for whom the Democrats are continuing this impeachment nonsense. Actually, I think this whole impeachment is all about the Democrats' ego and not about the people. The Pazzis planned their massacre of the Medici for the people. Are the Democrats planning their impeachment investigation for the people are they putting this whole impeachment process show on for their egos.

That is all. Disperse.