With this 2012 thing coming (which when I was in Guatemala last year the Maya said it was a gringo invention) I decided to see what was the safest place in the country to be when whatever it is that is coming........... comes.

There is flooding in Texas and Oklahoma.  Eighty years ago it was a dustbowl.  When Florida is not on fire it needs a hurricane to fill up the swamps but so far no water and when it gets it, too much. California has fires in the mountains, but they always have fires in the mountains, then it rains and the mountains slide to the valleys.  For variety they add in earthquakes.  The deep south is still getting over Katrina and about the time they do another of her relatives will show up on their doorstep.  New England has Nor'easters which usually are the remnants of hurricanes that pummeled the Carolinas just after the blistering heat ruined every southern summer since the last ice age.  Chicago has wind and politicians and the rest of the midwest gets tornadoes. The Pacific Northwest either has volcanoes or is awaiting the next tsunami and the southwest has two climates.  Hot and hotter.  New York City is New York City.

The only safe place in the country seems to be upstate  New York.  Aside from a stray blizzard or two that builds characters the only thing they have to fear is glaciers..... and they're melting.....this week. 

 

Getting ready for the mid term elections?  Know who you're voting for?  Care?

Seems to be the year of the nuts.  Up till now at least the Democrats haven't seemed to know how to do anything without apologizing for it and saying Obama made them do it.  As for the Republicans, they haven't done anything period.

Then there is the Tea Party which seems to be the right wing of the Conservative wing of the Republican Party.  As their political position says, "They are Right on everything".   That's especially true for the things they haven't done yet, considering none of them have ever been elected and haven't done anything , which means they haven't done anything wrong which makes them safe Republicans.

The polls say that the Republican folks that put us into our last Recession are about to recapture the national legislature.  If true, based upon their rhetoric and understanding of the problems they already created once we are about to repeat history and do it one better (or worse).

 

 

The latest from the US wingnuts is the preacher from Florida that's about to burn a pile of  Korans.  Says it's because the Muslims don't see Jesus as their savior.  In his next breath he calls them terrorists.  Then he says he's negotiated a deal with the Muslims not to build a mosque near ground zero in New York City.  They don't know what he is talking about.  In the meantime he is waiting for God to tell him what to do.

Meanwhile the President has weighed in asking him not to do it.  The local Fire Department says he can't because it will create a pollution hazard and after the fact they will have him arrested.  And Christian clerics around the country are begging him to back off.  Muslims around the world meanwhile are watching to see just how goofey we can get before they become crazy too.

Believe it or not I don't invent this stuff.

As for the good reverend, let us hope he gets a call from God in the next few hours and the God that calls is the rational one.

 

 

The President's first big problem is small.  Only six inches of opening in a pipe.  The problem is the other end of the pipe is connected to an oil well a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico and British Petroleum doesn't have a cork.  The President can't do much, even if he could swim, which seems to be what the Republican's were hoping for.  BP seems to be at a loss despite 36,000 suggestions on the Internet  The Navy could nuke it, but somehow that doesn't sound like a good idea....yet.  Soooo....the oil keeps flowing...... to places we don't want it. 

BP says the two relief wells that will be drilled by the end of August may buy some relief.  What do they mean by may and some and what if they are wrong.....again. 

Some say the world will end by a Flood, some say Fire.  Me, I'm betting on Gunk.

Larry King is about to split with wife number "Eight".  Kate Gosselin of "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" has already split with her husband. 

So here we have two celebrities with no ties and something in common.  Namely......."Eight".

That should be enough for the National Inquirer to put the two of them romantically together on the front page.  They'll probably call it "Eight Is Enough".

Then they can spin off more stories on the ex's having Eight girlfriends or boyfriends. 

After a while it all gets to be too much.  But it sells papers and if you can't find a good story, fabricate a bad one.

 

                                                                           

Ever wonder why? 

When people can't think of anything else to talk about.....they always turn to the weather.

It's a thing that we can't control, can't avoid, don't much understand and usually can't predict and it is invariably temperamental and uncooperative.

It comes in a multitude of varieties.  Hot, cold, wet, dry, windy, stagnant, sunny, stormy, good, miserable and drop and cover.  Sometimes simultaneously, at least in New England.

Everybody has an opinion about it and we all know from our own experience that everybody's opinion including our own is about as useful as a legislator.

But that's what makes it so useful as a topic of conversation.  It is a worthless opinion native to all of us and universally used when we don't know what else to say..... because it is safe.  It offends no one.  Doesn't have to agree with anybody and does no harm.  

In other words my opinion and yours on this particular subject is irrelevant.   And if perchance you don't happen to like the weather you'll have to take up your complaint with a higher authority. 

The health care debate seems to be pretty well over.  Now hunting season starts and it's open season on Democrats.

 Some redneck down in Alabama says people all over the country are cleaning their rifles because the are outraged about big government and rampant socialism.  And he's going to join them Thursday just as soon as he has some money when his Social Security check arrives in the mail.

Sarah Palin has 'em in her crosshairs and intends to do something too, right after she sneaks back from getting her health care in Canada.

The Republicans meanwhile have suddenly come up with 44 solutions to the problem of health care that weren't available last week and are outraged (and astonished) that the Democrats have put through a health care reform program without them.  When the Democrats point out that most of the program they passed was based on past Republican ideas that could never get beyond first base when Republicans were in power, dementia sets in.

I can't tell you how well this is going to work, but I can tell you how well yesterday's system didn't. 

Afghanistan.  Everyone wants a solution but no one can even explain the problem.

That's because:  It really isn't a real country.  It is part of Pashtoonland, an arbitrary group of tribes living in the most worthless piece of real estate on the planet (unless they discover oil)  which also takes in most of Pakistan.  All of this region is made up of a lot of people who don't like each other very much except in their own tribe.... except, they dislike outsiders even more.  

Their governments are corrupt.  We underwrite all of them, which is why some of them like us, this week. 

It is a Muslim country.  Anyone foolish enough to want to change that will not come back alive.  And, they have their nuts like all religions do.  That was the last government called the Taliban.  They want to become the next government, again.  They will do that by making us leave.  Anyone that helps them do that is their friend.  Everyone else is their enemy......this week.

Having interjected ourselves into this asylum and not having had sense enough to leave after six months and "Mission Accomplished", we have inherited the keys to the building, otherwise known as "nation building".  That is something we were not going to do.  We were not going to do that in Iraq either.  Or in Vietnam for that matter.

Did I mention Pakistan or the part about them having nuclear weapons?

This area is bordered by:   India who Pakistan hates.  Did I mention that India has nuclear weapons?  China...ditto, nuclear weapons.  Russia, double ditto, ie. lots of nuclear weapons and Iran, who wants nuclear weapons purportedly to destroy Israel who also has nuclear weapons, if they don't destroy Iran first.

So why are we there.  To capture the guys who blew up the Twin Towers on 9/11, except we can't find them, but say we'll stay until we do?  Meanwhile let's bring NATO into the picture.

You now have countries from just about every continent in play and all it takes is one miss step.  And leaving is, after all.... a step.  So is staying for that matter.  Feel better now? 

Health Insurance.

Everybody wants it but nobody wants to pay for it. The Democrats want to divide the bill equally and everyone shares in the misery and the advantages, that is, we get equal, hopefully better and cheaper health care. The Republicans say this is socialized medicine.  The debate ends there.

The magic word is socialism. It's like saying "black is beautiful" at a Klan Convention. Tends to incite the non-thinkers in the group. It is also synonymous with the word "public". 

I'm going to go with the Republicans on this one.  Let's privatize everything.  Roads, schools, police, fire, you name it.

While we're at it lets privatize the Congress too.  Let big moneyed private interests like insurance companies come in and contribute megabucks to the legislators to buy their votes and eliminate this "public service" nonsense altogether.

Whoops.  I'm told we've already done that some time ago.

Sort of explains why we are where we are.  

Seems like nobody is civil anymore, especially in that bastion of American debate and thoughtful, contemplative and reasoned argument.........the U. S. Congress.

The President is called a liar, Democrats say Republicans want people to die and all of them want their five minutes of airtime to vilify one another.  The general appearance is one of three year olds on a sugar high.

Our forefathers may have had their faults but being juvenile wasn't one of them.  They took their insults seriously and backed them up with action.

I believe a return to that traditional American institution for resolving these types of conflicts would quickly civilize an otherwise increasingly uncivil society, at least at the legislative level.  

I propose that we re-institute the duel.

I believe that for cooling tempers, bringing a sense of reality, common sense and courtesy back into our legislative proceedings, nothing will get more attention faster or work better than a good old fashioned shooting, particularly if we can get legislators that have served a couple of terms.   

The way it used to work is the two antagonistic lawmakers would show up at the appointed time to perforate each other with highly inaccurate pistols at 20 paces.  By that time the sense of their own impending mortality was usually enough to bring hostilities to an end, often by mutually agreeing to the firing of their pistols into the air.

This served three purposes.  First, it preserved their honor.  Second, it saved their lives and third, it re-inforced the general belief that a legislator with a loaded gun in their hand was far less dangerous than one with a piece of legislation.  

The rare exception to this rule was quickly buried and would serve as an example to the others to curb their tongues, hold their tempers and moderate their sense of infallability........for a while.