Icewind's Ramblings

I guess we can chalk up another reason why things are so out of control in Washington .  Has this happened to you lately? Did you receive in the mail recently a letter telling us we were going to get our census forms in another week?  Postage for the millions of letters going out even at a reduced rate is still a ton of cash . . . gone. Then the census forms arrived.  This is more postage but necessary to find out where everyone lives and how many are in the houses for funding purposes. This afternoon, I received a post card telling me that I should have received my census form and to please fill it out and mail it back.  Another costly reminder for millions of Americans to do what is expected of us in the first place. These are the same people that the Democrats are putting in charge of health care that passed yesterday. What could possibly go wrong with that mess? I get the warm fuzzys from our folks in Washington DC . Ice

Several plane flights and a sled dog ride driven by schoolchildren helped kick off the 2010 Census in the United States .  Alaskans in rural communities not linked by roads have been the first people counted since the 1990 census. The village of Noorvik had the honor of kicking off the official count of our citizens and Clifton Jackson, a World War II veteran and the village’s oldest resident at 89 was the first person counted.  Noorvik is an Inupiat Eskimo community of six hundred fifty residents.  After gathering with village officials and elders U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves along with other census takers were greeted to a celebration and a day of festivities including a potlatch dinner.  There was a sampling of muktuk . . . strips of bowhead whale skin and blubber along with traditional dances, an Inupiat fashion show including a feast of caribou soup and baked bearded seal. It was a heat wave as the temperature hovered around zero compar...