The Problems With Running a Disability Program

pathetic representative agrees that the program is too lenient and sponsors a bill with language demanding that SSA “fix” the disability program. And on and on it goes!

By the way, the Frank example (with the name changed) is a true story. It’s a case I was involved in about 25 years ago while working for the SSA.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.”

The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

BY DENNIS MAMMANA

Week of January 29 -- February 4, 2023

Stargazers might remember Comet NEOWISE, which helped us survive the summer of our pandemic year. It was faint enough that we required binoculars unless we viewed it from under very dark, un-light-polluted skies.

Now, nearly three years later, another comet is swinging past the Earth, and, while, at its brightest, it may appear some 40 times fainter than NEOWISE, it has become quite newsworthy because of the stunning green color we see in photos.

I’m referring to this visitor from deep space designated officially as C/2022 E3 (ZTF), named for the Zwicky Transient Facility at Southern California’s Palomar Observatory where it was discovered. Astronomers just call it Comet ZTF.

ZTF, like all other comets, is one of countless icy remnants of the primordial solar system that tumble silently in a region known as the Oort Cloud, billions of miles from the sun. Occasionally one of these cosmic nomads drifts inward toward the sun’s heat, and its ices disintegrate into a cloud of gas and dust around its nucleus (the “coma”). Sunlight and the solar wind act as a fan and blow this material outward to create one or two tails that always point away from our star.

Occasionally a comet becomes noteworthy enough to make the news, and that’s just what’s happened with ZTF. The big news is about its color. This comes from the diatomic carbon and cyanogen within its atmosphere; when this is struck by sunlight it glows green. Of course, all comets have these chemicals in them -- some more than others -- and all show at least a wisp of greenish color.