Monthly Archives September 2007

Of course, if the children aren’t working out, or if the thought of rebellion against your authority rankles you, just get a pet. Everyone else is. At this rate, there will soon be colleges for pets to attend. They already have pet equivalents for most child-rearing objects and situations, even pet health plans.

Keep in mind that pets, like kids, still ingest things they should not without your approval, and will stay out late and leave home without warning if ignored for too long or at the wrong time.

Imagine that. Let the government pay for health care for your kids, while you pay for health care for your pet.

News item: Pet Supply industry forecast to be $41 billion in fiscal 2007, 2nd after the leader, Electronics.

If the kids survive lead poisoning, perhaps they will live long enough to commit suicide or merely mutilate themselves. Now they are taking their pierced, cut and tattooed selves into the woods and finding new things to ingest which aren’t yet illegal. Nothing common like banana peels. Merely weeds such as Salvia and Jimson Weed, or anything the ‘Net serves up as the cool-new-drug-of-the-moment.

What is missing here, the common denominator, a missing link, the overlooked thread which news never reveals [or chooses to ignore]?

Parents. Families. The sad fact is that with the new society evolved over the last 50 odd years, the “extended family” has replaced the “nuclear family”. the problem with “extended” anything, is that by definition, they are stretched thin...

50 Years After Sputnik, some “Space Age”!

What happened? The future seemed so bright even back in 1970’s, when we left the Moon for good. The space shuttle just doesn’t cut it. You must have some chutzpah, and some awesome goal to hit. Otherwise, if you cannot capture the public imagination, there won’t be any tax dollars going to NASA anytime soon.

Of course, there now is an emerging private sector [think Space Ship One and the X Prize] which is willing to start the venture where man has gone before.

Can they be prodded to follow James T. Kirk, to “go where no man has gone before”?

In the New York Times, in essays related to the Sputnik anniversary, we find these comments: “Some space age,” writes an author...

Amazing. Racism? In a small, poor southern US town? In 2007?? If you’re surprised, don’t be. Let’s list the present day symbols and realities that shed light on race relations in America:

– In the town of Jena, the 85% majority whites run the school board and the school. If there is no way to hold them accountable, there must be countless lawyers willing to take on a 1964 revisit of civil rights to further their careers at little or no charge. Or, the NAACP should surely help out where they are REALLY needed, in the South.

– Race relations in the US have come a long way since 1964, but they won’t go any further. Those who are able to deal with equal rights do so, and those who cannot will not be “educated” or “enlightened” into becoming color blind...

In one of his many moments of candor on the Iraq War, Defense Secretary Gates admits during an interview that he “doesn’t know” if he would have started this war, if he knew then what we know now.

Why is it so earth-shattering to hear a politician or public official speak with either truth or common sense? The fact that this is this even a news item, says volumes about the USA grip on reality.

The coming recession and meltdown is now likely to spread across the Atlantic. This is because the staid BOE has agreed to cut interest rates in order to prod a US-like economic recovery on the back of easy credit. Oh well, at least the Brits won’t have a real estate bubble to worry about.

Meanwhile, the Fed admits this move is only to postpone the effects of the US mortgage crisis. “Recent developments in financial markets have increased the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook,” Bernanke said. We’re not lowering them to manipulate the stock market, really we’re not.

Quick! Buy Gold!

We have no sympathy for OJ, but we can empathize with his sorry state of affairs. Trying to retrieve lost pieces of his storied past, he falls into a self-made trap. Now a Las Vegas DA out to make a name for himself [can you say “book deal”?] will attempt to put him away for life, on charges far more ludicrous than the first OJ go-round last century.

After looking into the collectibles dealer he is alleged to have “robbed” [and more], it seems like a case here of criminal-on-criminal crime. Shady behavior on all sides, in a shady hotel room, in shady Las Vegas.

We say, let what happens in Vegas, stay in Vegas. Please, don’t let us know about it!

It is now official. Muslim Islamic radicals admit, through their most public hero, that they are all parasites. Well, not even THAT good, since a true parasite makes sure it doesn’t kill its host. Actually, Islamic radicals are a different type of parasite, called a parasitoid. Imagine declaring war on the entity [Pakistan] that protects and preserves your way of life. Gee, what a great idea!

If you have ever seen the movie Aliens, the developing aliens are parasitoids. Parasitods are different from normal parasites because they kill their hosts. Ergo, Islamic radicals are Aliens!

Here we go again, and this time it isn’t just Spinach, now its the specialized lettuce. It’s a common perception that common Iceberg Lettuce hasn’t any nutrients compared to specialized varieties, but at least so far, it won’t kill you!

Would eating organic lettuce have prevented this problem? No! You need to be careful with any bagged salad, organic or nonorganic, due to the additional handling required to process it with human hands, and the fact that leafy vegetables are grown ON THE GROUND. A head of lettuce, by comparison, has never seen daylight until you cut it open, or peel away the outer leaves.

The last outbreak in 2006, was traced to a next-door cattle ranch. We think they were using some REAL organic fertilizer, aka “cow patties”!

For a refesher course on this issue, with a his...

Our old friend Alan Greenspan, financial sage and former Fed Reserve Bank chairman, is about to publish his memoirs. Now, we never put much stock in the hysteria his opinions would generate while he was the Fed Head, but we always thought him to be an intelligent fellow with wit, honesty and candor. This means that his memoirs will be widely discredited from the get-go by all those with some political or reputational capital at stake.A pity, because he is likely to be right on the mark with most of his comments.
This piece puts it all down:

“Greenspan Memoir Links Iraq War to US Thirst for Oil | WASHINGTON (AFP) | Edited For Brevity

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, for years an inscrutable seer on the economy, is causing a stir by alleging in his new memoir that “the Iraq wa...

Here we are, on the eve of a recession induced by bad credit, energy and food (the last two always left out of the inflation and economic indexes, go figure), and the merry campaign to kill the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powered automobile is in full swing.

Now don’t get us wrong, the alternative fuel idea is way behind need and demand, but please, technology just isn’t ready. Here come all the half-baked designs!

The latest news is the fresh court decision in Vermont, to allow that state to adopt California emissions regulations. This, in a state with the fewest cars per capita. This paves the way for ten other states top do the same: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York.

The District of Columbia...

In a post awhile back, we may have been too flippant, suggesting that kids stop eating their toys. After all, kids will be kids, and purveyors of toys must be ever vigilant.

What follows is an excerpt of a fresh piece from US News and World Report. We believe this sums up the issues at hand rather well:

“China Isn’t the Villain Behind Dangerous Imports | September 12, 2007 05:24 PM ET | Newman, Rick | US News & World Report | Edited For Brevity

There’s plenty of bluster from Washington these days over imported toys and other products that might be dangerous. But for the typical consumer worried about unsafe imports, nobody has been able to answer the simple yet confounding question: What can I do about it?…The answer, unfortunately, is not much.

“Made in China” isn’t the problem...

Yet another earthquake in Southeast Asia, a threat of two simultaneous hurricanes off US coasts. The globe is warming, and weather patterns become more and more unpredictable. Drought becomes more widespread and cyclical, followed by floods. A dustbowl in the US, a replay of the 1930’s, becomes more possible with every passing year.

NASA better get us to Mars soon. I want a ticket!

Here we are on anniversary #6 for 9/11 and past #4 for GW’s shell game in Iraq. We can’t catch this guy [on dialysis in the mountains], but never mind, he doesn’t matter anymore. News flash: he’s a Personality Cult! Unlike my earlier posts on Rove and Gonzalez, Osama Bin Laden DOES matter!.

But hey, we don’t want to touch Pakistan, they’re a sovereign country with a dictator. Iraq is different. Really it is. It’s a democracy [giggle].

Crazy Opinions Prediction: Bin Laden will die of natural causes, and we will still have troops in Iraq.

Oh, for crying out loud! Ever since the introduction of the original Apple II, IBM PC, and PONG, early adopters and bleeding edge types have absorbed the cost of being the coolest before anyone else.

Jobs at least waited for the 1M mark! Stop your whining, dammit. Look at the bright side, you coulda had a Zune…

All hail the general. Didn’t we do this before? Didn’t Westmoreland address Congress to help LBJ continue the Vietnam war 40 years ago? Why must history always repeat itself?

Because some of us continue to ignore history. Iraq is nothing, if not history personified. Why is Iraq such a mystery?

Just imagine, for a moment, foreign troops from half a world away, who believe in a different religion, invade our country to save us from ourselves. We would cooperate and welcome them, right?

Right? [bang, bang]

It’s deja vu all over again! [We’re sorry, Yogi Berra]. The sad lineup of GOP hopefuls who know they are being fed to the scrapheap of history have added to their midst. Fred Thompson, an actor who once had a fling with politics, is now officially in the race for 2008.

So what.

We suppose it is merely wishful thinking that the electorate of the USA will wake up from their slumber and stop idolizing actors. Or do we have it all wrong? Is a politician supposed to be an actor, even a prerequisite for the job?

Okay, now it’s official: if you breathe, you’ll die. If you don’t, you’ll die anyway. Add popcorn dust to the already long list of hazardous inhalables. Or, to be more specific, the artificial chemical butter flavoring diacetyl. Those crazy Europeans, however, have banned the use of diacetyl and its chemical brethren for several years, after it became known of the genotoxic nature of these flavorings. Genotoxins are known to mess with your DNA. But, hey, these foreigners are always overreacting, aren’t they?

Right? [cough, cough]

Don’t even get us started on the chemicals in/on our food…

We are in the 21st century? The USA is a “modern” country? A midwest state, with four distinct seasons and no permafrost should be considered civilized, right? Certainly not backwoods Alaska?

Well, then. The only reason anyone is using “quick” road paving methods anymore is MONEY. The marketers of such “chip seal” paving, and most state DOT’s all hail chip seal as improved road maintenance. Car owners, however, should be outraged. Why the silence? Do you enjoy driving down a perfectly good road on your way to work, only to find that on the way home, the same road has been freshly coated with a layer of liquid asphalt and loose gravel?!

With most new vehicles costing upwards of $20,000, this should be a legal slam-dunk...