IRS Cheats

 

It has been interesting how different incriminating things disappear.  The e-mails of Lois Lerner, gone, crashed, deleted…. kaput.  A very convenient cover, now why didn’t Nixon destroy his tapes?

Wonder what else the IRS cheats on?

Every year, one of the big tax preparer companies advertise that they find money the IRS owes you and by filing your own tax returns you are giving the government too much money. 

I have never gotten a check back from the IRS saying overpaid my taxe4s.  Yet the tax preparers say I overpaid by doing my own.  Now if that is true and the IRS is not sending my money back….. they are cheating me. 

Then if the facts are there, the IRS should be abolished for cheating the people it was supposed to serve.

The Empty Thoughts of a vacuum

 

well, yes, the grey matter is at a loss when the vacuum roars by.  Kind of like the rest of me, now what was I thinking.  They say the mind is the first to go, guess something has to be first.  I’s rather it be my allergies, the first to get lost.  A lost and found department, I am looking for one, success has not been forthcoming, now what was I looking for. Take the trash out, why fore….. the barrel is empty. 

Looks overhead, very carefully, squints, sees clouds floating over head.  Ahhh. I can roam the cotton minds of the passing puffs.  Let the emptiness create another world.  A wandering mind has no boundaries.  The world is its oyster, gone looking for some oysters.   Now where have I been?  What was I looking for?  Empty the trash you say. 

. 

Always something to talk about, the weather.  It has been a major topic of lately.  Has there been enough moisture to raise the marijuana?  How is the pot crop doing?  Are the air heads on the rampage again.   Man is a very powerful person, he can change the climate.  It is amazing how some some elevate man to the levels of gods where they can influence the weather.

See beyond the blue orb called the sky, there is a vacuum there.  Nothing can exist out there unless they have an artificial environment to live in.  There is no weather, way out there.  So how can man influence that badmouth of a universe.   How can the laws of nature be altered by man. 

Now lets see the minus  of a positive neutron equals the depth of the BS squared the matter of nothing.  For it was nothing at the beginning until the big bang of something formed something from nothing.  Where was I…. oh…. take the trash out.

Ya know…. If I wasn’t so absent minded….. I wouldn’t be so forgetful.  Hey…. Do you know where the lost and found shop is?

Thought for the day……. Those who deny me, God, love death.

Bloody doormat at the Democratic Party……. death walks their hallways.

 

It is amazing how indifferent democrats are to the killing of people.  Then it should be no surprise, they are the party of abortion.  It appears life has no relevance to them.  The more bloody carcasses there are to walk on the, it seems the happier the democrats are.  The latest is the blood bath going on in Iraq.  For world domination, there needs to be lots of blood shed.  Rape, murder and pillage has been the mantra of the wanna be world conquerors in the past. 

It is almost to the point, if one is a democrat, they are associated with killers.

The question remains, will any one make the deaths stick to the democrats.  So far they have been able to shrug it off and there are no consequences. 

Somewhere along the way, some republicans will have to grow a backbone and stop pandering to the dems.  If no the country will have changed and it not be the fault of the democrats, it will be the republicans for not frightening for what they believe in.  The current crop of republicans seem to be talking sticks that blow in the wind. 

Recently, when I checked out a store the clerk was new and I asker her if this was a summer job, she said yes.  I asked her what school, she said, CU-Boulder.  A school of flaming liberalism and town.  It is loaded with Marxists.  Being flippant, I told her to look out for communists.  She looked at me oddly and dismissed it.  There is part of the problem.  Lots of people have no idea how brutal and ugly communism is, or dictatorships.  They grasp what freedom is.

They have come to see the republicans as the enemy.  So to destroy the republicans is a cool thing to do and it is okay to hate on others.  Dangerous ground the people of the land or plowing. 

Yet this hateful group of people is small, less then 40% yet this 40% is ruling the country. 

Now will this little college kids let the beheading of Iraqi's continue or will they protest death by terrorism?

VA problems

 

 

The practices of a few VA clinics/hospitals have been in the headlines these past few weeks. Then it should not be surprising, there are a few who think they are above the rules and can do as they please. See it in all walks of life but when it is in healthcare it draws big attention.

I have been using the VA healthcare system for over 6 years now and have no major complaints. My dealings with them go back over 30 years ago. A family member retired from the Army and moved to city where there was an Army hospital, so he was close for medical care and other GI benefits. A democrat was elected shortly after and she had a major distaste for the military. Through various actions, she was able to get the Army hospital closed down and another installation was closed. Both were in her district. She was not successful in closing the local VA hospital and this is where the vet ended up at. No longer was he getting good care. The local VA was understaffed and over worked. He would go out for a 9am appointment and came home that evening and have another appointment for another day. All day was spent at the clinic and the doctor was not seen.

So when I signed up for the VA medical care I had some reservations. Yet for the most part, the horror stories of old did not happen. It has been a pretty good experience and issues were taken care of.

The VA opened small clinics around the state and it is one of these I go to. I only go to the big city for special tests and or surgery. At the small clinic I go to, they had a nurse practitioner, PA that took care of the physicals and examinations. Medicine could be prescribed, x-rays and other tests. The visits went well then things began to change. Attitudes were hostile at times, the nurse assistant left and so did the receptionist.. There was lots of turmoil for some time among the staff with the nurse practitioner. Eventually she was removed and the clinic settled down and became pretty good again.

Turns out the nurse had worked at the local prison before she went to work for the VA and she was treating some of the guys like they were inmates. In prison one can sometimes get away with treating them like little piles of dung. The GI’s, self included, did not like her attitude. A new PA was brought in and now there is a different one.

This is but one example of how the rotten apple, stinks up the barrel. Yet in this case the bad apple was removed. Now when I go in the clinic, I know everybody and hi’s are always exchanged. It is not impersonal like the big city is. That is not to say the big city is not friendly, they are. It’s just that I do not see them very often.

I recently spent a couple of days in the big city undergoing some minor emergency surgery. For the most part, things went really good. It was not until I was leaving that I ran into difficulties.

It was not real serious, and I was able to drive to the emergency room. They checked me and like most ER’s I had a wait. My injuries were not life threatening and I was not in severe pain. So patiently I waited.

Waiting is one the rubs many of the people have. A sense of self importance lives in a few people and they think all others are unimportant and they should go first. The VA has more then their fair share of these people. Then some don’t learn, in the military it always has been hurry up and wait. Those that don’t want to wait sometimes raise a pretty big stink and things get nasty at times.

The clerks are the ones who usually take the brunt of these attacks and sometimes they are pretty nasty. The local hospital has a police substation located in it and the police patrol the building. The pharmacy is rough because so many GI’s have been hooked on drugs. There is also a mass of people going through the hospital. The main waiting area will at times have over 100 people waiting and there are other smaller waiting rooms. There is a massive amount of humanity that goes through the system.

Then there are the ones that complain and whine about anything and everything. When I was in recovery is was not a private room, there were two other beds in it. The one held a guy who had major issues, hip replacements and leg problems and oh…. He was overweight. Some therapists came to work with him, all he could do was whine. He would not listen to them or try anything. He had a whole litany of bellyaches, apparently he had been using for some time. The therapists would try to talk with him, try to help and all he did was squawk. When I was in, I ran across a few of these and I wondered how they got in the service. Yet with all his gripping, he ties up 5 different workers and a couple of nurses and nothing was accomplished for him.

The hospital needs to get some counselors on staff to confront these people about their behavior. People were trying to help him and all he did was make life miserable for himself and others.

So when I look at things, it is usually the clerks that create problems, the waiting lists for the caregivers, are just that, they want to care for people. The VA needs to have a better system in place to monitor or enforce their rules for so many of the clerks I have worked with are very arrogant and have the attitude they are above the rest.

The other problem in the VA uses the University hospital for lots of their inters and young doctors. Some of them are great, others… well, then there are the ones who think they are god’s gift to medicine.

I had some small growths removed and each time was a different surgical team, the nurse was the same. The first doctor was a gal who had retired from the New York Ballet. She was very soft and precise. I could barely tell she was working on me and the scar has disappeared. The next group had an Indian, from India. His ego was bigger then Obama’s. I had a problem afterwards, it got taken care but his workmanship was less then adequate. I still have a pronounced scar, not a big deal for where it is. I could also feel him working. The other two with him were very delicate and precise. Yet they are gone, on to other venues.

This points to another problem the VA has, lack of adequate staffing. This takes more money but if we are going to put the military out there in harm’s way and police the world, be willing to take care of them. Do not discard them as non-persona’s as lots of democrats do.

In socialized medicine, these kind of problems will persist for so few want to pay.

This is a whole new area in the mindset of lots of the GI’s, the entitlement mind set. Boy can they be demanding and this can raise more turmoil in the system. There is a whole generation out there that has become dependent of the government.

When I left last time, I was wrapping up some paperwork. Oh yeah, it is the government and there are loads of paperwork. I got shuffled between different groups, same department. I have never been called so stupid as I was in one office. They knew it all, how dare I challenge them. I could not explain anything to them. So finally I quit and went home.

Yet with this little rant I am 90% satisfied with the care I get from the VA. I know how bad it can be and I know how good it could be.

One of the biggest problems with government agencies is they are semi monopolies. There is no competing to make them better. So this bill going through Congress should help the VA get better. There will be some competition and it will take some pressure off of the VA medical system.

Death by Greed

 

Greed fuels many a motivation.  More, they say,,, I want more.  More of anything and everything, seems to be the mantra of many people.  Being content seems to of disappeared.

Small sugar factories like this, dot the plains.  Most are now shuttered and joining the landfill of lost dreams. 

Raising sugar beets was a major crop for farmers and still is in some areas.  Cooperatives were formed to process the sugar beets and factories in rural areas like this popped up.  Sugar was finding its way into lots of foods and the demand for sugar was growing. 

The sweet smell of money was rolling off sugar.  Corporations were being formed and investors were snooping around.  Some multi-billionaire brothers in Texas began acquiring numerous sugar factories and Great Western Sugar was formed.  The Hunt brothers of Texas now had control of numerous sugar plants in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming.  The big GW on the sleek white barrels that rose into the prairie sky was an icon on the plains and sugar beet farmers. 

The Hunt brothers had their money in all types of investments.  One of them was the silver market.  They accumulated enough shares of silver bullion that they cornered the world market for silver.   This caught the attention of the federal government and an investigation into the Hunt brothers began. 

With the government investigation, the silver market began to collapse and the Hunt boys were now holding an empty purse.  To cover their losses in silver, they sol;d off Great Western Sugar.

The new owner of the sugar plants was not interested in keeping the business going.  Instead he began milking the profits, then assets to keep his playboy life style going.  In a few years, the plants were broke and being closed down by creditors. Greed and a lavish lifestyle collapsed a once very profitable business

With the collapse of Great Western Sugar, many of the plants were left vacant.  A few were bought out by other sugar companies and survived.  Most were like this plant, fading glory, being demolished into piles of rubble. 

They had classic style of architecture and were great looking buildings.  Now they are collectors of dust and echoes of memories.

It is a story of the rise sand fall of fortunes.  New birth from the ashes.  The greed of the few, how they impact the lives of many.  For as the Hunt brothers, scrambled after more money then sold off to another who wanted untold wealth. 

How hard driving ambition went to the top, rode the peak, greed pushed them off the hill and toppled fortunes.  Yet it is a cycle for so many businesses.