OK, I'll admit....I put myself through this stuff so that the olybloggers don't have to....

The report on the local daily today will focus on the national story about George Bush vetoing the stem cell issue.  No big secret.  This is round two for Mr. Bush.  I commend him for being consistent, and yet, there were others in history that were consistent in their behavior and we ended up calling them evil and enemies.

Now, the local twist on the national story.

The comment thread contains the usual line in the sand, your side/my side stuff that we've all come to expect.  Partisan party politics at its best.  I'm not sure how partisan politics should have an influence in making decisions about scientific research to find cures and improvements for disease and maladies, but it's happening.

One of the posters comes up with the idea that the government shouldn't support this program financially because "it hasn't provided results" (I'm paraphrasing, to avoid copyrights :::tee-hee:::).  I think someone needs to take a look at the fights against cancer, heart disease (my personal fav - I'm a survivor) and such.  No cures yet, but we keep funding the research because, like the little train that said "I think I can", if we give up we KNOW that there is no hope.  I guess my other question is "how do you measure results?"  Complete cures???  Miracles???  Slight of hand tricks???  Water to wine???

I've got a clue for those that think we haven't made enough progress and should give up on the fight against any disease - wait until it's your turn.  I've known the fear of lying in Intensive Care after a helicopter flight, pumped full of morphine and valium, to make my heart be able to tolerate the blockage until they could do something about it.  I'll never forget that night, trying to go to sleep, wondering, "is this how it all ends?".

                                            Click on the picture for the interview.

Kind of an interesting story

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist's face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

I have heard folks talking about local money in Olympia. It looks like this system might catch on in other areas. What do you think?

This situation was explained to me by an Oly grocery store clerk, any mistakes are my own. I don't yet see any news articles online about this and since it impacts many many people, I want to pass on the word. Some grocery stores locally have some of this info posted in their stores.

The company that got the government contract to run ebt cards (looks like that company is Hypercom - Update correction 6/21: state has contract with J.P. Morgan, source The Olympian) was supposed to have an office in every state. But instead they grouped 21 states together into one region and have only one office/center for the entire area.

So when the system goes down, which is has been doing regularly lately, all ebt card use in 21 states goes down. Which means people cannot use their benefits, which means in many cases that people cannot buy food.

We are nearing the end of the month which can be a difficult time for folks who are short on food. Families are easily down to only the funds left on their ebt cards. They have the funds on their cards but they cannot purchase necessary food when the ebt system is down.

Apparently recently the system was once again down, grocery stores were told that everything would be back up within a half hour, but it took 5 hours. Yesterday afternoon the system was again down, no clue when it would be back up.