Hike and News of the Day

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Today started out poorly, the water dispenser in the refrigerator door has died again, no parts available.  We got out the new and improved Brita water filter pitcher and discovered that its flow rate is abysmal.  I guess we'll be buying an old and not improved version and throwing this one away.  One would think that they might have done a comparison between old and new, but apparently not.  New consumes less plastic, which is good, but fails in its primary mission.  As you no doubt recall, tap water here is undrinkable.  At least the ice maker still works, if that goes, we'll have to replace the whole refrigerator.  Yes, I know, first world problems.

Anyway, we decided a hike would be just the thing to improve our outlook on things.  We did the circuit around Little Cat Mountain, which is about three miles.  It's a rocky little hike.  My feet were very happy to see the end of it.  We have photos.  

A lump of rock, surrounded by cactus.

Part of the trail.  Many of these "trails" are water courses.

That's regular Cat on the left.  The trail goes through the notch between Little and regular.

A few days ago, I was on the rowing machine, diligently rowing.  Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.  It was a squadron of javelina.  I didn't get a photo, but you can see them here.  The foot prints in the gravel that I have been assigning to deer are not that, they've from them.  They mosied through, sniffed a couple of plants, and kept on going.  So, that tells us that nothing that has flowers and soft leaves can be left outside, because they will eat them.

One of the four bougainvilleas is blooming.  Not sure what's wrong with the other three. 

Now I am going to discuss some news of the day, which was also causing my malaise this morning.  The coming administration is going to be disastrous. 

From a Meidas Touch article we learn the following, "Trump's mass deportation policy would eliminate entire sectors of the American workforce at a time when the nation is already seeing critical labor shortages. Migrants fill key jobs in food production, manufacturing, and construction, and spur economic growth."  This is from the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.  Further, deportations would:

• Reduce real gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 7.4% by 2028,
• Reduce the supply of workers for key industries, including by up to 225,000 workers in agriculture and 1.5 million workers in construction,
• Push prices up to 9.1% higher by 2028, and
• Cost 44,000 U.S.-born workers their jobs for every half a million immigrants who are removed from the labor force. 

It's estimated that there would be a recession that would last for four years.  

Dr. Oz has been nominated to run CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  He's on record as wanting to move all the seniors currently on traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage.  Any idea as to why? He has conflicts of interest, in that he owns stock in companies that support Medicare Advantage.  Traditional Medicare is more efficient, Medicare Advantage is a for profit enterprise, which drives much of their behavior.  This is more of the grift that the new administration will be doing.  You can read more on this here.  Or just google "Dr. Oz conflict of interest Medicare Advantage."

Why don't people have their hair on fire about this?  It's because many of them do not know what the new administration is planning.  Mainstream media is not covering it.  ABC just paid a $15M bribe to the orange one to avoid a defamation suit.  It was a suit they could have won easily, but they're already bending the knee.  I don't expect to see any reasonable coverage in the papers for the next four years.  The New Republic did a piece on this, which is available here.

Finally, even though there is more, I'm going to wind it up with this.  United Health Care, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to curtail coverage for therapy for kids with autism.  Some kids can be helped, but UHC is deciding that they don't want to pay for this.  If you get coverage through your job, and it's UHC, you are just out of luck getting care for your child on the spectrum.  I find this morally reprehensible in light of how much money insurance companies make.  There is an article here.  The new head of UHC had this to say.

They get to decide what's unnecessary.

That's it, that's all I've got.