Hey Floyd

What's the return policy on a boomerang?

Welcome to life in America, aging baby boomers

For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy.

The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.

Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever-greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social safety net shrinks.

The transfer has come in the form of, among other things, longer waits for full Social Security benefits, the replacement of employer-provided pensions with 401(k) savings plans and more out-of-pocket spending on health care. Declining incomes, whether in retirement or leading up to it, compound the challenge.

Cheryl Mcleod of Las Vegas filed for bankruptcy in January after struggling to keep up with her mortgage payments and other expenses. “I am 70, and I am working for less money than I ever did in my life,” she said. “This life stuff happens.”

More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/business/bankruptcy-older-americans.html?nl=top-stories&nlid=74838209ries&ref=headline

Have some lead, folks

The nation’s largest source of industrial lead pollution is just 20 miles down the Lake Michigan shore from Chicago, churning more than twice as much of the brain-damaging metal into the air each year as all other factories in the region combined.

ArcelorMittal’s steel mill in Burns Harbor, Ind., emitted nearly 18,000 pounds of lead during 2016 and has topped the national list since a Missouri lead smelter shut down in 2013, according to a Tribune analysis of federal records that raises new questions about the oversight of big lakefront polluters by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Burns Harbor plant also emitted 173,000 pounds of benzene during 2016, the newspaper’s analysis revealed, making the sprawling steel-making complex by far the nation’s largest industrial source of a volatile chemical known to cause leukemia.

Lead and benzene pollution from the steel mill rose sharply during the past decade as airborne levels of both toxic substances dropped nationwide. More pollution could be on the way if Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel-maker, ramps up U.S. production in response to President Donald Trump’s controversial tariff on imported steel.

More:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-burns-harbor-steel-mill-lead-pollution-20180723-story.html

Funeral for a Turtle

We've had three red-eared sliders in a large aquarium ever since my son was 7 (he's 30 now). When he was 7 he was fascinated with turtles.

We run a filter in the water, provide a light on a timer, a sunbathing platform, and feed them special turtle food (an an occasional stink bug). All three are the size of a small dinner plate.

Sadly, one of them died this morning. I guess we'll be having a turtle funeral later on today.

Any ideas for a musical selection from DUers?

Someone Like You

Give Me One Reason

It's not just Finland

Europe could break an all-time temperature record in the next few days. And parts of southern Spain and Portugal are forecast to go above 47C (116.6F), surpassing national records.

But if you couldn't tell from the thermometers, there are giveaways everywhere - from a melting mountain in Sweden to a rumoured Brussels sprout shortage.

Here are just some of the developments - some weird, some disturbing - that the heatwave has sparked across the Continent...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45054964

**********

But, remember, our Republican friends tell us global warming is a hoax!

Towns see economic boon from more private ICE lockups

Job creation thanks to this regime's horrendous policies of locking more and more people up.

Disgusting! Welcome to Donald Trump's America.

***********

When President Trump campaigned on a pledge to crack down on illegal immigration, the nation's big private prison companies saw opportunity.

And they weren't wrong. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is currently seeking new contracts for 3,000 new bed spaces in immigration detention within 180 miles of Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City. And just in June, ICE asked for information from companies that could potentially accommodate 15,000 new family immigration lockups.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/03/634047796/as-private-ice-lockups-grow-towns-could-see-economic-boon

Good for you, Columbus!

Columbus is suing President Donald Trump and his administration for what the city and other plaintiffs say is an unconstitutional sabotage of the Affordable Care Act.

The lawsuit alleges that Trump has violated the “take care” clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” while they remain law.

So far, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act have failed, and Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said Trump’s actions and words show that he has defied that provision.

“His own actions, his own executive orders, his own words are doing everything but faithfully executing,” Klein told The Dispatch. “In fact, what he’s saying and doing is the exact opposite. He’s trying to sabotage Obamacare.”

The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment through a spokesman.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180802/columbus-leads-suit-against-trump-administration-over-affordable-care-act

I bought groceries today

and they didn't ask me for my I.D. card!

I feel like a criminal!