Speakout 11/7

When we say "global warming," the weather we have had this first week in November is exactly what the weather man means. We're having abnormal weather. My 30-day forecast is that by the middle of November, it will slowly turn back to winter. It will be slow process until the northern jet stream comes farther south and stays down here. We won't be having a real rough winter but we'll have some cold wind and rain. But by the time Thanksgiving gets here we're going to have a snow here in the Bootheel. Then the high pressure areas from the north and northwest and northeast will come into play. I'm just going to give 30 days at a time this year. This way, maybe I'll have better luck with my predictions.

If the people at the welfare office were very smart, they would check the records of these freeloaders who stay at home and draw food stamps and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) checks and got a post office box where they can get their mail and stuff, sneaking around and draw their checks with a college educations and they're too dad-gummed lazy to get out and do anything. This world is really getting in a mess. Wake up, welfare system, and do some checking.

This is about the legion commander's view that he put in the paper on Halloween. I drove that route and it's only 1/4-tenth mile longer to go the Kingshighway route. You said you didn't have anything to do with that, but if you tell the bands this is the way it's going to be, they will come. I think it was a dirty deal to change it to Kingshighway, where there wasn't that much room to the other parade route. You have a good Cotton Carnival and I am pleased to have been a part of it for these many years. The American Legion does a good job.

I live on a street in town that has a fire hydrant and on Halloween night, the city was flushing out the hydrants. The water ran everywhere. The city could have picked a better night to do that instead of doing it when the kids were trick-or-treating. I called about it and was told that it's too bad. It was just the night they picked to flush the hydrants.

This is in response to a Nov. 2 SpeakOut about President Bush giving $400 to children for people who don't work. I got a check this year and I do work and my wife works. It's not for the people who don't work. It's for the people who do work and try to make a living. It's not for the poor who don't work. They didn't get it and don't deserve to get it if they don't work. By the way, Bush is doing a good job.

We called certified public accountants Bucher, Essner and Miles LLC about the child credit and rebate checks that were issued earlier this year. The rebate check was for people who had children under age 17 and this child was reported as a dependent on the previous year's return. The child had to still be under age 17 during this calendar year to qualify for the rebate. In prior years, the child credit was $600 and was increased this year to $1,000. The $400 check was an advance payment on the child's new credit amount of $1,000.