Hilary Clinton is not squeaky clean. There's the Benghazi mess, questions have been raised about foreign contributors to The Clinton Foundation, and now the NY Times reports that she used a personal email address for all her communications while Secretary of State. Why does that matter? If her correspondence had been done on a govt. email account, as req'd by federal law, an archive of all that correspondence would exist. As it is, we have to take her word that she forwarded all her emails to the State Department.
Does anyone think she didn't know about that requirement for using a govt. address?
And if she did know, why didn't she comply?
The balance between competence and integrity is a delicate one. Ideally we'd have both attributes in the Oval Office, but that seems to be a rare thing. I'm not saying any of the trustworthy Presidents have been incompetent or that all the competent Presidents have been crooks. Re. their competency, I'm hardly qualified to evaluate their performance at one of the hardest jobs in the world. (Note: we're not talking about their political leanings here, just their effective function as the CEO of the country.)
I've never heard anyone seriously question Bush's integrity, and maybe his "aw, shucks" demeanor hid a brilliant mind and skilled leadership, but his rep in that department isn't stellar. I think Bill Clinton was a very skilled leader who gets a failing grade in the integrity department.
See: "I did NOT have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski!" and, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
How would you rate the leading candidates for both parties in each category, skill and integrity? And what's a minimum composite grade? Should we automatically exclude someone who scores very high in one area but very low in the other?
We're on a plan with the local electric utility that charges us a significantly lower rate for the kwh we use from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. compared to daytime usage. That low rate also applies through the weekend. We do laundry either early in the morning (I'm up) or on the weekend, and only run the dishwasher during that lower rate time.
The washer, set on cold/cold, takes about 45 minutes to do a load and the electric dryer takes 50-60 minutes, depending on the load. The dishwasher takes almost 90 minutes per load.
Of the three, I'm sure the wash machine uses the least electricity. I wonder how the dryer and dishwasher compare, per minute, but especially per load. They're both older units so I'm sure they're not as efficient as a recent model, but we'd never recover the cost of new ones in energy savings. Every time I hit the Start button on those appliances I wonder about their relative costs to operate.
We've talked about it, and if/when we build our tiny house we'll probably forego a dishwasher in favor of more cupboard space (Pam's choice). I'll wire and plumb it to accept one with a view to resale value, but the two of us don't generate enough dirty dishes that hand washing would be that much of a hassle, especially when we factor in the time we spend cleaning them before putting them in the dishwasher.
I heard an ad on the radio today for a brand of BACON that gave the recipe for BACON Brussels sprouts. "Simply wrap the sprouts in bacon and ...."
What???
First, no amount of BACON will make a Brussels sprout edible. Second, why would anyone waste perfectly wonderful BACON that way?
A guy came to the door this afternoon. Middle age, white shirt and tie, paperwork in hand, and by himself (thus not a Mormon or JW).
"Good afternoon, Mr. MacDonald. I understand you have a significant birthday coming up."
He proceeds to tell me he'd like to leave me a packet of info explaining Medicare and my options.
I told him we've got a plan all worked out thanks to our financial advisor.
Turning 65 is still eight months away, for Pete's sake, and the vultures are already circling.
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