What's Next ?

Hillary is ahead, Obama is ahead, McCain is ahead of them both...

What a long, drawn-out, horribly endless campaign.

And for what? The position of the second or third most powerful leader in the world.

Jeez, who wants this job ?

Putin leaves but stays, Israel and Palestine work towards peace as they actively kill each other, Lebanon struggles with Hezbollah, Nigerian unrest reduces the flow and increases the price of oil, Venezualen ambitions disrupt Colombia, Russia grows to a rich monstrosity through oil and natural gas, unrest in Tibet, masses dead in Myanmar, Iraq struggles to not explode, Iran plays the spoiler, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states don't really care what happens to us.

And at home, houses tumble in value, workers get laid off, corporations lose money, the Dollar loses a lot of value against the worlds currencies, the trade deficit grows way too fast, the Federal Debt grows exponentially, Medicare will bankrupt the country in about 20 years, Social Security will bankrupt the country again in about 30 years, there is too much pollution, not enough manufacturing, and we have no money to fix most of these things because the Iraq war costs so much.

Great job, how can I get one like that?

But somebody has to do it.

So who could do it best?

Whut?

The Bush daughter gets married, while her father is President of the United States of Asparagus, and the most powerful idiot in the Free World, and she decides to have the ceremony in private, at the ranch in Texas?

???

Wow. Nobody wants to be near the Oval Office these days...

Except Dick Cheney.

Variations on The Human and Inhuman Body

What To Do?

The mass of pieces and bits of plastic floating in a windless, currentless, remote area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is:

Twice the size of the State of Texas -

In other words, this plastic mess covers over 500,000 square miles.

Or over 840,000 square kilometers.

This just can't be any good for us, the fish, or the planet.

I'm not sure why, but this environmental fact bothers me even more than many others.

I have been to the Pacific Ocean a lot, because I have lived very near it all my life, it's the largest ocean on earth, a huge amount of the world's population lives near it, but maybe it's something else.

Maybe it is the magnitude of the problem, and how, once you know where it is, it's easy to verify and measure right now.

I don't know.

But I want to find a way to help do something about it.

Fuel Costs II

So,

Crude Oil prices have jumped to about $115 per barrel last week, and about $125 per barrel this week.

But there is way more than enough crude oil to meet current consumption needs, all experts agree, so why the jumps?

China, India, and others needing more now, and even more soon,
Venezuela-Chavez rattling swords (and acting less and less like a man of the common people),
Tensions with Iran and everybody else.

And gas prices are jumping just as fast or faster, because even with enough crude oil supplies, there is not enough capacity in not enough refineries around the world to get enough gas to us big users.

So we pay more.

And truckers and rail lines and shippers pay more to move everything that moves from producers to consumers.

Such as sweaters, luggage, forks, earplugs, furniture, cat litter, paper, pens, and food.

And pretty much everything else.

So since it is costing the transporters a lot more, it will soon cost everyone a lot more as those costs get passed on. (Those costs have to get passed on or there will be no more transporting of goods to us or anybody else.)

Prices have gone up on fuel for everyone, so we are spending more on that, but that is soon going to cause prices to go up on almost everything else.

Except houses, on which prices are still going down.

Thank God.

See, since the price of everything but houses is going up, and house prices are going down...

IT WILL ALL EVEN OUT !!!

What a relief.

Fuel Costs

The Dinosaurs - What Really Happened

The Dinbosaurs didn't all die from a virus, an ice age, or volcanoes.

They didn't disappear because of global warming or cooling, or from parasites.

They didn't get killed by meteorites or asteroids.

So what caused their extinction?

It is a little known fact that dinosaurs lived long enough, and had just enough brain capacity to create organized societies, including city councils, state legislatures, and national congressional bodies.

Dinosaurs were actualy quite adept at politics, and lobbying was one of their prime skills, after eating, sleeping and killing each other. (Just like us.)

The dinosaurs also evolved enough technological prowess to create the first television broadcasts.

This explains the strange signals our scientists keep receiving with radio telescopes.

These sounds are not coming from other planets, they are reflections back to us, of the sounds emitted by the dinosaurs television transmissions hundreds of millions of years ago. It just takes that long for the sounds to make their way back to us after circulating to the shiny outer walls of the universe.

So, coming to understand all of this, scientists have recently unraveled the cause of death of the dinosaurs.

After one too many policial election seasons, and way too many dinosaur talking-head political analysts saying nothing that makes any sense, but saying it loudly (just like now,) and millions too many political advertisements on their televisions, the dinosaurs all became frustrated, despondent and depressed (just like us,) and decided they would rather commit suicide than sit through one more election campaign (just like me).

And that is how the dinosaurs showed their true, high intelligence.

And after they died, they all decided to become crude oil.

FUN FACT:

Did you know that the word "dinosaurs" can be rearranged to a new phrase?

"Dinosaurs" is actually an anagram of the phrase, " No Sir, Saud!"

Very few people are aware of this highly important clue to the current upheaval in the Petroleum commodity markets.

A Few Cool Images

Art

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Nature

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A Little of Both

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The Great Peter Sellers

Dr Strangelove

It's Been Awhile...

No blog entries since mid April. Crap!

Been really busy with work; new stuff and also catching up on old stuff after having the exhausting, non-specific, achy, feverish, unpleasantness for several days.

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Also got out of the Vietnam War for a medical condition.

"Limp? Palsy? Bad eyes?"

Nope, homosexual. But much better now, thanks.

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Awww, that's homophobic! I don't have to take your abuse. I've got hundreds of people willing to abuse me.

Yes, on reflection it probably is, but I thought it could be funny.

Maybe not so much, after all.

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So since we last had our little chat, Oregon has gone from warm and sunny and beautiful to rain, hail, and snow !!!

Snow in Oregon in late winter / early spring !

Snow in West Linn and the Portland / Vancouver area on April 28, 2008 !

Snow in Government Camp, Oregon, at 4,500 foot elevation, today, May 9, 2008 !!!

Just like when I was a kid, we would have heavy snow years now and then. I thought those were over, as we had not had them for something like 20 - 25 years, but maybe our climate is really changing, or maybe it is cyclical, or maybe.....

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!

AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGGHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Shut up, cretin!

Climate Change Is Real!

Don't you know this? Everyone knows this. Only an imbecile doesn't know this.


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We Humans Have Sullied The Environment!

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We Have Destroyed The Earth And All Living Creatures!

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We Have Shat In Our Own Beds Like

Retarded Basset Hounds!

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.

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All right, that was good. I feel much better now. Just had to get that one out.

I suppose it's too late to re-use water bottles or turn out the lights when I leave.

Seriously, there is a floating island of plastic shit in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It is in a dead zone, which I believe it has helped cause by covering the water with all that plastic, not letting sunlight or the normal amount of oxygen in.

THIS MASS OF FLOATING PLASTIC IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN IS TWICE THE SIZE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS !

What the hell are we doing to the earth?

Besides all the other problems:

Air pollution exacerbated by coal power plants in China, SUV's in America, and cattle ranching operations all over,

Polluted water poisoned by chemicals, pesticides, steroids, hormones, and MTBE from gasoline,

Tainted and infected soil which has been over-fertilized, over-farmed, and in some parts of the world, is blowing away,

We also have to now think about how our actions and products are shutting off sunlight and oxygen to the ocean.

And now there is the possibility that over-fishing the worlds oceans is leading to a collapse of fish stocks around the year 2040.

What are we thinking?

We aren't.

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I don't mean to come back from my hiatus and just be a downer, but this is not good.

This is serious stuff.

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"Young man, now that you have graduated from college and are ready to go make your mark on the world, I have just one word for you,"


"Plastics."


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