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Just The Facts !                            #391 By Hank Silverberg We are rapidly approaching a midterm election where all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be chosen. An analysis done by the Cook Political Report last month shows that just 16 of the 435 seats are considered toss-ups, with the rest of the 419 seats likely to stay with the party that currently controls them. It varies a bit with Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball (UVA) predicting that only 13 congressional races will be competitive. Either way, the direction of the next Congress will be decided in a few swing congressional districts across the country.  Voters will have to decide what to do based on a few facts relevant to their own districts, and most likely won't focus on the bigger issues, like war and peace, climate change or the growing federal deficit. Turn on the TV and listen to voters who will tell you they are going to be doing t...
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250 Celebration Not What It appears To Be     #390 By Hank Silverberg In  a few weeks , the United States will start celebrating its 250th birthday. It could be a time of renewal, of bringing the country together, of celebrating our democracy, with its successes and its flaws. Independence Day in general is supposed to be a day to remember American history, how we got here and where we can go. (Tall ships sailed into New York Harbor, July 4th, 1976)   It was so in 1976 when we celebrated the Bicentennial. The nation had just finished the Vietnam War poorly, Richard Nixon had resigned after Watergate, and President Gerald Ford, who technically had not been elected to the office he held, was trying to put things back together. The events lasted more than a year with Ford lighting a lamp in the Old North Church in Boston on April 18, 1975 and traveling to Concord,    Massachusetts the next day to commemorate the "shot heard 'round the world," and the begi...
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The End Of An Era                                #389 By Hank Silverberg  It's Memorial Day weekend. For many people that will mean picnics and flag waving, and for some a visit to the graves of those lost in America's wars.  Those men and women who gave their lives for this country were, in most cases ordinary Americans who did what they were called on to do. We should honor them for defending our f reedom to speak our minds, practice or not practice any religion, and peacefully protest any policy of our government.  I could go on about this for paragraph after paragraph. But I want to talk about what those folks died for.  The United States is still a free country.  We have seen in recent months small little erosions of those freedoms, which when you add them all up, should raise an alarm of Americans on all sides of the political spectrum.  Just this past week there were two ...
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It's In The Mail                                       #388 By Hank Silverberg    I saw an ad on TV the other night that was trying to recruit people to work for the United States Postal Service. I was surprised to see it, because the Post Office has been cutting back services for so long that their need for more workers didn't seem logical. The days of receiving first class mail in three days anywhere across the country are long gone.  These days it can take weeks for a bill sent by first class mail to reach you from across town. I send out my checks at least ten business days before the due date hoping that they arrive on time. Yes, I know many of you are thinking, "Hey, just have the money taken out of your account automatically on the due date and there's no problem!" But frankly, I don't like that. I do it with my auto insurance because they gave me a substantial discount t...
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Revisionist History                                #387  By Hank Silverberg   I spent part of this past Wednesday revisiting Mount Vernon. My brother and sister-in law were in town and they had never been there.  The estate of our first president, a 45 minute drive from my home on a good traffic day, is right along the Potomac River with a spectacular view. It has been preserved very well, and right now the mansion itself is being restored again.  (The view form the Washington's back patio)  The interpretations you will see there are a fair representation of what George Washington's life  was like when he wasn't fighting a war, and after he left Ferry Farm where he grew up. As I wrote a few weeks ago (see the 4/26 blog), there is a distinct effort right now in the Trump Administration, as we approach our 250th birthday, to sanitize our history. They want to whitewash over ...
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The Sun                                                    #386 By Hank Silverberg As I write this on a sunny Sunday morning  the solar panels on the roof of my home are producing 4.93 kw of power although it goes down with some cloud cover at any time. With my computer on,my washing machine going, and various appliances like the refrigerator plugged in, I am using .61 kw. So at the moment I type this,  I am sending 4.32 kw into the power grid. That's good for a chilly day in May.  And it makes me think those "credits" I am earning now from my utility company, Dominion Power, for sending extra power to the grid, will really help keep the electricity bill down in July and August when the temperatures hover around 90 degrees  and the air conditioning is needed to fight off Virginia's  oppressive summer humidity.   (Some o...
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