Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Xmas trees and other junk

It’s the little things that get to folks and that is especially true in government. In Middleboro the latest directive is regarding Christmas trees. Apparently the semi- new and IMO clueless Highway Superintendent decided to forgo the annual pick up and decapitation of the spent Xmas tress. Our trash tax is $208 and covers very little except routine pick up. No large items. No leaves. No paints. No special collection days. If you want to decide those your choices are two fold. First is to select an appropriate spot on one of our 160 miles of roadways and just toss it. The second is to get a dump pass (AKA - Landfill) for $25 and bring assorted items there but if they happen to fall into a select category there is an addition fee and that fee can be expensive. Yes…the dump will take yard waste gratis but you must haul it in yourself. So now back to the trees.

Your option is to cart the tree to the dump and toss it. No charge except for your time and gas. Now if you happen to be unable or unwilling (ODD?) to do this too bad. No wood chipper to relieve you of this duty. If you do not wish to go to the dump I’m sure you can cruise down Wareham Street and make a personal delivery to the highway department.

The whole trash tax is a joke. For $208 down from $216 you expect some moderate degree of service. If I lived in several other communities this would not be a problem. Advanced notification and large items are taken away. Old sofa? No problem even if gramps is still sitting on it. Ditto appliances, wallboard, wood and just about anything else. You may pay more such as Brockton with a $280 fee or less with Attleboro and their under $200 fee but you do get some actually return on this backdoor tax.

This is a little thing but it is the type of thing that gets locals blood to boil almost as much as an imperial decree not to plow certain streets. What it does show me is an amazing lack of basic understanding of human nature and the fact that when you cut a simple service almost on the eve of Christmas that Middleboro may have hired a few Grinches to take over key position. Timing is everything.

Oil is up to $90 a barrel and the U.S. is continuing to be held hostage to oil producing nations. The truth is we use oil now. We need oil now. We are limited in what we can do for domestic production. The reality is drilling should be allowed without our domestic domain to create some degree of independence. The U.S. should also insure that domestic production remain domestic and not tossed into the international markets. As far as alternative energies that technology is advancing rapidly but until further breakthroughs occur oil will have to do.

The Chinese are now following the U.S. pattern of the 50s with personal transportation - the car. Despite incredible transportation infrastructure development the Chinese seem to want the auto. And they like big ones if they can afford it. Then they have those monster traffic jams that don’t last hours but days. Some truckers carry camping equipment to wait out the jams. Looks like that transportation infrastructure left out four, six and eight lane highways.

Scott Brown is going against party drift in the START Treaty proposals. Brown is also changing his opinion on don’t tell. Brown has done exactly what he said he would and not necessarily follow the party herd. What a far cry from whom he replaced and our Senior senator …and toss in our Congressional delegation.

As far as our delegation let the feeding frenzy begin as one seat will have to be deleted thanks to population shift. Would it be possible to give up all the seats? Our delegation is like a crew of Mynah birds just repeating and following lock step whatever decree comes forth from the leadership. I’d suggest they gerrymander out Barney Frank unless the party needs another fiscal albatross around their necks.

I have a condo in Texas and an interesting thing happened - my real estate taxes went down. Not by much but they did go down since the value of the property went down. How novel!

I don’t know what would be a bigger disaster - another four years of Obama or Palin winning. A perfect lose-lose situation.

ASVAB is the test for joining the Army or Marines and the failure rate is climbing up to almost 25%. The Air Force and Navy require even higher scores than the 31 percentile the Army/Marines require. The average scores for blacks is 38 and for Hispanics it is 44 and whites’ check in at 55.

The Red $ox have managed to rebuild their bullpen just before Christmas with the acquisition of Jenks and the under valued Dan Wheeler. If Bard maintains his performance level and Papelbon can regroup this may be one the best bullpens in baseball.

The Wikileaks founder became victim of a leak as his Swedish police reports were leaked.

President WOW (Walk On Water) ahs managed to cave in on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Many in his own disjointed party have willingly tossed him under the bus. Nancy Pelosi (D-Botox) and Harry Reid (D- Slot Land) even refused to show up at the ceremonial signing of the measure. Is this the beginning of an Obama drift towards the center? Is this a willingness to work with Republicans?

Welcome back to the 1166th.

28 comments:

anonymous said...

Now we have to take the tree to the landfill. Great. One million needles that I'll never be able to get out of the car. Who makes these decisions? All I want for Christmas is the trash collectors not to destroy my barrels.

Suo Mynona said...

I am just glad not to be one those little birds that have too eek out a living in the freezing weather. We have bird feeders and and those flying buffalo wings are much smarter than some local bird brains. Everyone can recognize a free lunch. At bogo's house they have to run the gauntlet of cats. On second thought those cats are too fat to jump at the birds.

I use to be a tree purist, our tree now never sheds needles or requires water. It gives definition to the word recyclable. I am pretty sure it will survive until 2030.

bogofree said...

Ah...the bird feeders. I actually have to shovel a pathway to the myriad of feeders so that the feathered version of welfare can take place.

The cats are totally useless in the bird situation as their own bellies rarely are for want. The five feral felines that The Lovely Cynthia currently provides substance for are gathered around the deck waiting for the morning handout to be followed by a mid afternoon snack and then supper and a late night treat - after all it is cold out and the little darlings have to be well fed. The Asians have the good sense to eat them.

I would love to have a nice artificial tree - say something about two feet high that can be disassembled and put in a shoe box. Unfortunately some in our family actually believe that the now rotting spruce (I think) is actually more appropriate for the holidays. Maybe later I can empty the central vac since it is probably overflowing with needles.

LMAO said...

Cats! I hated the musical and I can't stand the little monsters.

Wally Glendye said...

Our Cats (5) sit under our bird feeders like it's a McDonald's Drive-Through.

chica said...

I have a regular mouse drop off at my back door with an occasional drop off inside the house. I guess this id their way of displaying that they have earned their keep?

I have never feed the stays that seem to infest our neighborhood simply because most appear not to be stays but merely passing house to house for a handout.

The bird feeders are an attractive diversion but are placed high enough so that even a great leap will accomplish nothing.

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