New York Renovator

Short answer: YES.

Long answer: Depends on what state you live, and depends on the outcome of new bills coming through the U.S. Congress, as they seem to making up new and stupid ones every day….

From what I have ascertained so far, it is illegal to collect rainwater in the following states:

• Utah
• Washington State
• New Mexico
• Colorado– although I JUST saw a news story published this week that says this has changed. BUT it appears that city dwellers who rely on municipal water cannot collect rainwater.

I also heard that in 1998 the UN past a resolution that all water on the planet is to be commercial, to be bought or sold like, you know, an XBox or something. GRRR. Now I have not confirmed this, but if anyone has any input, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll check it out. Also, there was a “water war” in Bolivia after the country privatized their water resources, and then a company from the U.S. (Bechtel) won a contract for the resources. Immediately, the company had the collection of rainwater outlawed because they wanted a complete monopoly on the resource. People colecting rainwater cut in to their profits.

Now, some of the water laws, especially for the western states, go way back– back to when the area was owned by Spain. Water is a precious resource over there. BUT, this law is being stretched. The laws state that you can’t divert streams or suck lakes dry for your own use. Sure, I understand that– evil people were crooks and stole the water resources. Bad. OK. But some states are suddenly interpreting this to mean that people can’t collect rain in rain barrels?! That’s dumb. The government does NOT own the rain. It’s ridiculous for the government to PRESUME to be able to CONTROL the rain and it’s diversions, as well. If those old water laws are now being interpreted so as to place more restrictions and heavier burdens on citizens, and line the pockets of Big Business and their Government Buddies, that’s tyranny. That’s all there is to it.

You know, we Americans ARE the government. We abide by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Dare I say that we do not have to obey de facto laws and we have the right to redress the government for grievances. These things are really going waaaay too far in this country.

Here we are, one week from Memorial Day, and it is FREEZING this week. We’ve had a handful of frost warnings (and frosty nights)… at a time when my furnace is put to sleep for the season, it’s still chugging away. So where’s all this hot air that we usually experience a week before the month of June, our big month for picnics and engagement rings?!

Our weather here has been wacky lately. This week, we’ve had 4-5 frost warnings, two flood warnings, and a tornado warning! And a few tornadoes did touch down in Upstate NY– a few near Binghamton, NY, and two in Madison County next to my location. One guy was hurt.

New York State seems to go through bursts of wacky weather, anyway. By Wednesday/Thursday, we’ll be be near 90 degrees! No wonder New Yorkers are always so crotchety; just when we think we’ve had time to adjust to one thing, another thing hits us! lol.

Well, I’m grateful that these kind of occurrences are sporadic. And like I always say, New York is a fine state if you are looking for a milder climate, compared to other states that have frequent mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts, etc. Here in New York State, the only real natural catastrophe we have is the politicians.

Ouch. It’s a bad time to be a small business owner in this country. Not only do we have no real voice in our government (compared to the heafty lobbying power of the big corporations), we are being penalized for our success. The Washington Post reports that small business owners are going to see a big bite of their earnings taxed.

Gail Johnson doesn’t think of herself as wealthy. The former pediatric nurse has spent 20 years building a chain of preschools and after-school programs that accommodate sick children so working parents can keep their jobs.

But, like most small-business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return. In a typical year, she and her husband make more than $500,000, according to her accountant, a figure that throws them squarely into the ranks of the richest Americans — and makes them a prime target for the Obama administration’s tax policy.

Since last year’s campaign, President Obama has vowed repeatedly not to increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That pledge, while politically popular, has left him with just two primary sources of funding for his ambitious social agenda: about 3 million high-earning families and the nation’s businesses.

19% tax is way, WAAAAY too much. I have always been against the income tax, anyway. People, we are being robbed.

And the government is getting pretty smart about their taxation methods. Did you know that your barterings are taxable? Yes! For example, if you trade Joe Plumber a Moen faucet for watching his kids for a weekend, the government says you have to pay tax on that service, by estimating the dollar amount of the trade. Ridiculous!! And here in New York State, the state requires us to incriminate ourselves by estimating how much tax we owe on supposedly non-taxable Internet purchases (from other states). Outrageous!

The taxation is getting way out of hand. What would happen if the government taxed us all and nobody paid?

We can only wish. Then we’d have nowhere to go but up.

According to Bloomberg, this may be the year the housing market bottoms out. Hmm. I am skeptical; we’ll see. I haven’t seen any moves by anyone to tighten the belt or hit a diet supplements routine. Instead, I still see an awful lot of gorging!

U.S. home prices will reach bottom by the end of the year, concluding a slide that will have cut values 36 percent, Moody’s Economy.com said today.

“Notwithstanding the intensifying economic gloom, the bottom of the housing downturn is within sight,” chief economist Mark Zandi said in a statement today. “Presuming we see strong action by policymakers to help support the economy and the housing market, prices will begin to recover by the end of this year.”

Demand for new and existing homes began to fall in 2005, marking the end of a five-year U.S. housing boom fueled in part by easy credit for subprime borrowers. Existing home prices tumbled from an average high of $230,200 in July 2006 to $175,400 in December, according to data from the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

U.S. home prices will fall another 11 percent on average before stabilizing, according to Moody’s Economy.com. The Case- Shiller home price index will fall 36 percent from its 2006 peak to the bottom this year, Zandi’s study said.

About 62 percent of U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed will record double-digit declines in home prices by the end of the slump, according to today’s report. Prices will fall more than 50 percent in former boom areas such as southeast Florida and parts of California, including Riverside.

The rest of the nation is experiencing what we in New York State have been seeing for the past 15-20 years. So here, the housing market decline is not as unbearable… to every cloud there’s a silver lining, I guess… *laughs manically*.

You know, when the American people were clamoring to the government, demanding that the government “create jobs,” I think Americans forgot to tell the leaders– “Uh, we meant create more jobs for AMERICANS.” Because that’s a lot of the problem, here– the outsourcing of everything, everything except retail industry jobs. You just cannot base an economy on “Paper or plastic?” and “Do you want fries with that?” DUH!!!

Anyway, it’s really up to us to make this economy work. Shopping our way out a recession is not going to work– getting out of debt, building savings, and living frugally is what will do it.

HGTV is having their annual Dream Home sweepstakes again. This time, the luxury home location is Sonoma, California. Gosh, it looks so beautiful there. In the past, they’ve had some pretty funky-looking houses, but this one looks like a traditional, middle-American house. It’s gorgeous!

I’ve entered so many times in the past that I’ve lost count! Obviously, I’ve never won. lol. But a girl can dream. It’s free to enter (you subscribe by entering your information including email). The nice thing is the interactive tour of the home on the website. I love this feature. And the videos of the construction of the home are great; I like learning the new techniques that are beng used in home building. I may not win, but at least I get to see what the place looks like on the inside!

I was reading headlines yesterday and saw a few news stories reporting 2.6 million American workers lost their jobs in 2008. This is just stunning, and I even thought the numbers low. I did a quick search on how many New Yorkers lost jobs in 2008, and couldn’t find an exact number (just percentages, which are meaningless, IMO). And those figures represent unemployment, not employees who have suffered reduced hours or wages. New York has been hemorraging jobs AND residents for decades. It’s shocking; and still the government acts like nothing is really wrong, judging by their actions. Even Governor Paterson, who claims that New Yorkers need to tighten the belt, isn’t making any big spending cuts– and especially no cuts for wealthy government employee salaries, jobs, or pensions.

I found this table at the NYS Labor Department website. YIKES!

Do you see what I see? Taxpayer-funded jobs (education, government, services) are growing at a phenomenal rate, compared to the massive losses of private sector jobs (jobs that PAY into taxes– the everyday people’s jobs). There is NO WAY this kind of economy is sustainable, NO WAY. It’s simple, simple arithmetic. What is it with idiot politicians? How can they be missing this?! Things do not bode well for the future, if things continue at this present rate. Unless, of course, things are completely turned around and it is government/education/service jobs that pay taxes to us in the private sector jobs…

Hoh boy, and you thought traffic was crazy in your area…

Pretty amazing! We kept watching them as they went ’round and ’round and ’round and….

So, you think 2009 will ring in at 12:59:59? Think again! The world’s time keepers are going to be adding 1 second to December 31st, 2008. This is to continue to remain in sync with the Earth’s rotation, which has been slowing. The previous leap second added to the calendar occured on December 31, 2005. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice, did you? Me, I felt nothing. lol.

Leap seconds are added because atomic clocks– those clocks that rule our lives and IRS deadlines so, so stringently– operate at a slightly different speed than the rotation of the Earth, which historically had been the traditional timekeeper.

WASHINGTON (NNS) — The U.S. Naval Observatory’s Master Clock Facility in Washington will add a “leap second” Dec. 31 in coordination with the world’s atomic clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time, when the extra second will be inserted. This marks the 24th leap second to be added to UTC, a uniform time-scale kept by atomic clocks around the world, since 1972.

Historically, time was based on the mean rotation of Earth relative to celestial bodies, and the second was defined in this reference frame. However, the invention of atomic clocks defined a much more precise “atomic time” scale and a second that is independent of Earth’s rotation.

I found a good video that explains all the gory details, if you want to know. I find the topic fascinating.

A second is such a minscule element in our lives filled with minutes, hours, and years, and it seems insignificant to have to reset our replica watches. But think about this- if these seconds to time were not adjusted, over the centuries, the people in the future will be rising and sleeping to totally different times of day to us!