Wild Life and Corruption

We have had more wildlife in the back yard.  The other day, we woke up to this on the back patio.

The irrigation system runs early in the morning.  A critter had bitten into a drip line.  Apparently there is pretty good flow in that particular drip line.  The bitten part is circled.  Fortunately we have plugs, were able to get it to stop.  We don't water anything there, so it's no big deal that it's now no longer in service.

Later, we had deer trucking down the street.  They're wary of people, but they're ok with grazing on the orange trees.  They're Mule deer.  They're called that because of their large ears.  Frequently they're referred to as Mulies.

This is a cactus flower bud.  There are several on the plant.

It would be nice if they would open while we're still here.

More bougainvillea beauty.

This is an agave, which bloomed, and is now dead.  They put so much in to flowering, that they die.  It's not really a good reproductive strategy.  This is a difficult photo to take, too much sun.  The reflection on my cell phone screen is such that I don't know what will be in the photo.  I think this was the third trip up the hill to try to get all of it in one frame.  Previous attempts would have the top but not the bottom.

View of Golden Gate from the back yard.  Our neighbor has had her lemon trees covered since we got here.  I don't know if she's protecting them from deer or potential freezing temperatures. 

So, the orange menace will be inaugurated on the 20th.  Flags will be at half-staff to honor President Jimmy Carter.  Guess who has his panties in a bunch over this.  Yes, it's the orange one.  He thinks he's being singled out.  He's not, when Richard Nixon, another famous crook, was inaugurated, the flags were still lowered for Harry Truman.  

One of the republican goals is privatization of Medicare, in the form of Medicare Advantage.  The New Republic did an excellent article on why this is a bad idea.  It costs more than standard Medicare, and they with hold treatment when it suits them.

Perhaps that’s because, as the Journal’s investigations found, Medicare Advantage insurers routinely pad their government reimbursement requests with spurious diagnoses. For example, an astounding 66,000 Medicare Advantage patients were diagnosed with diabetic cataracts even after these patients had surgery to correct them, making that diagnosis, in the Journal’s words, “anatomically impossible.” In other instances, patients whom Medicare Advantage insurers reported as HIV positive received none of the recommended treatments. If a doctor failed to furnish a desired diagnosis, insurers dispatched a nurse to the patient’s home to find one. Medicare Advantage insurers also conned veterans into enrolling in the program even though they were already covered adequately by the Veterans Administration health system, which has repeatedly been demonstrated to be superior to private hospital care (something else the public is reluctant to believe).

I, personally, do not want to be on Medicare Advantage.

Ann Telnaes has written a sub-stack on why she quit the Washington Post.  She had been there since 2008 as a political cartoonist.  Her cartoon about billionaires taking a knee to the orange menace was pulled. by her editor at Bezos' instruction.  So she quit.   Open the article, you can see the offending cartoon.  She was right, that's what they're doing.  The numbers do not lie.

That's it!  I'm done.