A fun Easter cake

Mum and I always made a coconut cake for Easter and we would add a bit of decorations to make it more of a holiday cake. The cake itself is just a white boxed mix with the addition of coconut flavouring added to the batter. The icing is made with confectioner's sugar, a bit of coconut oil, and flaked coconut; very easy to make and so much better than any icing from a shop.

The decorations are just some marshmallow peeps, jellied eggs, and dyed coconut. To dye the coconut flakes, place them in a polyethylene bag and add several drops of green food colouring. Twist the top of the bag together and just shake to evenly dye the coconut flakes.

This is an easy and fun Easter cake that will be a hit with the children and with the adults as well.

On Sunday, March 21, 2010, Congress passed H.R. 3590, the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"; an interesting name since the bill does not actually address the costs of health care. On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, Obama signed the bill into law. It was interesting to see that Congress only targeted health insurance when health insurers do not provide health care. One would think if they were looking at sweeping and broad; two terms that were repeated over and over, health care reform, they would have included health care providers along with the parallel, drug providers. Most health care in the United States is provided by for-profit corporations. One of the most serious problems with health care cost in the United States is that it is mainly provided by for-profit corporations.

Another interesting part is two things that help to drive up health insurance premiums were also untouched, one is the exemption from monopoly laws, and the other is that insurance can not be brought across state lines. The little bit about covering existing conditions means nothing when you can practice monopolistic actions and have a captive consumer group that will be buying your product; millions of new customers outweigh any new restrictions. Health insurers' stock went up after the passage of the bill, meaning that investors saw it as good for business. Similarly, stock prices rose for the health care corporations as they expect many new customers as a result of this health care bill.

Many see the passage of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" as a sign that the US is moving towards a socialist from of government. However, the US government has not been moving towards Socialism at all, it has been moving towards Capitalism. Corporations for a long time have been pushing their way into controlling the United States government. Many see it as the government owning the corporations; which is Socialism; however, the real truth is it is the corporations owning the government. Even if all the other things in the health care bill were perfect, the mandate to purchase insurance, the mandate for US citizens to buy a product or service from a private company, makes the bill one of the worst to come out of Congress. Basically, it is the corporate world's wet dream. Congress will be setting a precedent that expands their powers to force citizens to consume a product. For now it is insurance, but in a Capitalistic government; a government by and for the corporation, it can be expanded to any product. Imagine a mandate that every US citizens has to buy a new television set every year, or a new refrigerator every year. You may think it sounds silly, but that is what corporations want citizens doing, consuming goods that make the corporations richer, and in a Capitalism, that is what good citizens must be forced to do, and that is the role of the government.

The census forms are now in the hands of the people. This census year the forms are all short forms with only 10 questions. However, the government is still mailing out the American Community Survey on a yearly basis. If you have not heard of the American Community Survey (ACS), then please read my article on the American Community Survey here. The census is mandated by the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, to be held every 10 years to count the population and is required since the results are used to allocate Congressional seats. The first United States census was held in 1790.

The first thing I noticed about the 10 questions is that some of them are still seeking information that will tie the form directly to a person or persons. Not only does the form request private information on the person filling out the form, but it also ask the person to to provide this information on everyone living in the household. There is a problem with this; I don't have the authorisation to provide any information on anyone other than myself. I would need a written release authorisation to provide any data on anyone other than myself. What if I am leasing out a spare bedroom to someone that is not related to me. Since that person is living in my house on a full time basis, I am suppose to list them on the census form. Yet, I don't have the right to list their information on the form. Will the Federal government pay my court fees when that person sues me? Will the Federal government pay the judgement that is entered against me? I don't think so.

I have no problem with the Federal government seeking additional information on the populous; either with the census, or the American Community Survey, as long as they don't ask for name, address, telephone number, or anything that directly identifies the individual. Both the census and the ACS ask for identifying information that will be entered into a national database. Furthermore, the confidentiality statement does little to placate me. During World War II, under the terms of the Second War Powers Act, the Census Bureau released information that was used to intern Japanese-, Italian-, and German-Americans. More recently, under the terms of the Patriot Act, in 2002 and 2003 the Census Bureau turned over information it had collected about Arab Americans to Homeland Security. In other words, when the government wants to use the information in the census or the ACS outside of demographics, they can and will do so. Furthermore, they are letting private organisations have access to the census data. The Census Bureau is releasing a new commercial product that will give marketers and credit bureaus the ability to zero in on individual households. The TIGER (Topical Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) system will "include demographic data by census block"; a census block consists of 200 or fewer people. While names and addresses will be omitted, most of the other "confidential" census data will be divulged including information on marital status, health, and income.

When discussing the census with others, I often get the response, "I don't have anything to hide". Yet, these people do have information they want to hide from others; I doubt if they would be willing to provide their banking and credit account information willing to anyone that walks by. While the census this year is not quite that invasive, the American Community Survey is quite close to being that invasive. While not stated directly in the US Constitution, the right to privacy is certainly implied. Furthermore, Supreme Court decisions have established that privacy is a basic human right, and as such is protected by virtue of the 9th Amendment. So how does the US government force people to give up their right to privacy? The simple answer is by coercion; the US government threatens anyone that does not answer the personal questions on the census form with a fine of up to $100.00, or up to $500 if providing false information to a question. I ask, what is the price we are willing to pay to protect our rights and freedoms?

Pi (Π, lower case π) is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. It is also the symbol used to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle ( a plane curve everywhere equidistant from a given fixed point) to its diameter. As the circumference of a circle grows larger, so does its diameter; therefore, regardless of the size of a circle, the ratio always computes to the same value. Since π is an irrational number, it can not be represented as the ratio of two integers. Also, π is a transcendental number; there is no polynomial with rational coefficients for which π is a root. At this point you are probably wondering what is the value of π? Since π is an irrational number, its decimal representation does not repeat and does not terminate. The decimal representation of π has been calculated to more than a trillion (10¹²) digits. However, for most calculations involving the use of π 11 digits or less will be sufficient for the decimal part; which would place the digital representation of π at 3.14159265359.

Cream cheese pie topped with cherry pie filling

I decided what better way to celebrate Pi Day than by baking a pie. After all, a pie is formed by a plane curve everywhere equidistant from a given fixed point, filled with some very delicious goodies. The goodies in this case is a cream cheese filling topped with cherry pie filling.

A beautiful day arrived in Hickville; a clear blue sky and temperatures reaching 17.2 °C (63°F). I decided to go outside and work in the gardens since it was such a nice day. While it was a nice warm day, I know that winter has not gone away just yet. It is not unusual for Hickville to see freezing temperatures into April.

The voles have been busy in my gardens; I found three dianthus, two purple sages, and a mum eaten by the voles. They had nibbled around the asters as well. The voles also attacked my ice plant, but I think there is still plenty left. I have plans for a new ice plant mini-bed, and I have a pot of them that I transplanted last year for the purpose. The mums and asters were the plants I had purchased off of the dead table last year and planted hoping to have some nice mums growing in my gardens. There are a few mums scattered in the back garden, but they are not doing that well and I hope to have some spectacular mums to rival those in my sister's garden. I dug up the remaining two mums and the two asters and placed them in pots set back in the hole from whence they came. I also dug up the clematis that Sister #4 gave me and placed it in a pot; I am glad they did not find it as I lost my last clematis to voles. Somehow the devil voles managed to miss the white dianthus that I had nursed back from the brink of death last year; it also found a temporary home in a pot.

The zinc phosphate I used last year did not seem to have any affect upon the vole population. The problem is getting the voles to eat the bait. With so many nice yummy plant roots in my gardens, the zinc phosphate pellets were probably not very attractive. Furthermore, I waited too late to start the eradication of the voles. Winter is the time to start working on eradicating the voles, and yes, I have waited a bit late in starting. However, it is still late winter and many plants have yet to start growing so the amount of food available to the voles is still low. Voles breed year round; however, the number of offspring is lower in the winter since the food supply is lower. When I noticed the vole damage I decided to use the remaining zinc phosphate. In order to make the bait more attracted, I coated the pellets with peanut butter. Hopefully the voles will eat the pellets and go to happy vole land in the sky.

Voles are rodents, and many rodents have developed a survival mechanism when it comes to foraging. These animals will nibble at a food source and wait to see if they get sick. If they get sick, they will not eat any more of the food. Therefore, a poison needs to either be strong enough so that even a small amount of the poison kills quickly, or the poison needs to be slow acting without causing the animal to get sick. The two most effect poisons for rodents, such as mice and rats and voles, is zinc phosphate, or warfarin based poisons. Zinc phosphate kills by utilising the acid in the digestive system of the rodent to generate the toxic phosphine gas. Warfarin works as an anticoagulant by blocking the vitamin K cycle preventing the blood from clotting. Since warfarin is a slow acting poison, death occurs after one to two weeks post ingestion of the lethal dose, the rodents don't associate getting sick with the ingestion of the poison.

The vole wars are on and I am determined to win. I have decided on a two front approach; the first is to place protective barriers around the plants they seem to feed on the most, and the second is to use rat poison pellets (warfarin) coated in peanut butter. The protective barriers serve two purposes; preventing the devil voles from reaching the plant and decreases the food sources they tend to feed on the most making it more likely they will be attracted to the poisoned bait. If I am successful, then happy vole land in the sky will be seeing lots of new arrivals.