Does the USA really need or want socialized health care...

...as Hillary Clinton would have us believe. I think not. I think the adults in this country realize there are many pitfalls in such a system, pitfalls that will lead to terrible health care in our nation. We all probably have heard the horror stories from places like Canada, and Great Britain about having to wait months for required heart surgery, patients dying unnecessarily because of overburdened clinics and hospitals, taxes sky rocketing because of nationalized health care costs and so forth. A prime example of how taxpayers' money is wasted in socialized medicine situations is the one we see today at FoxNews.com in the article: 12-Year-Old Boy Becomes 14-Year-Old Girl, World's Youngest Sex Change Patient @ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248196,00.html. No there was no sudden age change, the headline possibly misleads there, but there was a sex change. Not only is it heinous that such a treatment (hormone treatment) was performed on a 14 year old child, but it was performed at taxpayer expense to the tune of $40,000. My guess would be the taxpayers of Germany, where this was done, will pay for this persons treatments, possible surgery, and possible counseling for years to come. Could you imagine such being allowed here at taxpayer expense on a regular basis. It is disgusting to think this is where we are possibly headed if someone like Hillary Clinton, or another whacko ultra liberal, is elected president.

Heavens help me, I may have to find religion.

All the best,
Glenn B

The Pre-retirement Job Search...

...has commenced in earnest. It is becoming more and more difficult to come to my current job each day; I think I may be ready for retirement from it, and then ready for a 2nd career. Tonight I went to Monster.com, and I applied for 11 positions from Assistant Security Supervisor at 50K, to Senior Investigator at the NYC Public Library (of all places) at 40K, to Insurance Fraud/Field Investigator from 40 K up to 80K, to Tactical Law Enforcement Officer (overseas contract assignments in places like Afghanistan), to Case Manager/Counselor (mental health setting), to Crisis Intervention Specialist, to Training Specialist, to Teacher's Assistant.

I recently have also applied for, and taken some tests for, positions with NY State.

As I previously wrote, I also applied recently for the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. I am really hopeful that I can land that one. Pay starts off at about 42 to 50K, you start teaching after a 6 or 7 week training program, and the program subsidizes you in getting a Master's Degree in education. Summers off sure would be nice - especially with that salary added onto my pension.

The application process, so far, has been pretty easy; and it has certainly stirred hope for me in that I may leave my current job with something else lined up ready to go. If it turns out I do find something else, I will probably retire much sooner than my self selected final cut off date of January 2009 (with a much more realistic self selected cut off date of January 2008).

I sure would like a job with summers off, that would be sweet.

All the best,
Glenn B