nothing's working as it should

what's coming to the universe?

can't we depend on anything anymore?

will we start floating tomorrow?

will the sun not rise tomorrow?

speaking of the sun, did you know it's not spotty like it should be?

yep, the sunspots that normally come predictably every eleven years for over the previous one-hundred years aren't happening. and scientists are baffled. they also don't understand why it's not as turbulent as they think it should be.

maybe we should take things into our own hands and help the sun out a bit. i mean, let's shot some of our trash at it to "fire things up". we've think we have global warming, so we're gonna fix the world, why not do the same with the sun?

the bottom line is we understand a lot less about the universe than we think, and should not be too rash in claiming there is a problem to fix.

hey, buddy, can you spare fifty billion?

well, we have another crisis.

we haven't spent enough money.

we need to spend another fifty billion to save jobs. fifty billion we don't already have.

let's say the average salary (including benefits) is $60,000 per year per employee.

$50,000,000,000 divided by $60,000 = 833,333 jobs.

of course this number would be higher if the fifty billion was used to make up shortfalls rather than support outright. so it's probably double the number who would be "helped" by such a move.

what's a few billion now that our debt is in the tens of trillions, right?

yes, the economy is not as healthy as it might look from the outside.

schools and municipalities have not, or will not, cut spending commensurate with the loss in revenue due to layoffs, job loss, and state economics. so now, since they would not do the tough stuff, they'll send it up the line and cry, "we have an emergency and need money or we'll have to layoff teachers and law enforcement!".

so how about a pay cut, or furloughs? oh no, these folks have powerful unions lobbying for them. they won't take no stinking paycut. not like the 25% pay cut i absorbed last year due to furloughs. my no have any union to fight for me. so tha's out of the question. they just have to be paid.

and the states don't want to do the tough things either. so they pass it up the line.

everyone else is getting bailouts, why shouldn't we?

so now it's the president's problem, and he's gone begging for money from the corrupt den of snakes who care about nothing but themselves. and they are scared they will lose they're comfy little power plays because they have done things without the consent of the people. and the people are angry and voting other long-standing snakes out. so they are not going to give the president his fifty billion. not with elections coming up in november. no, no, no.

so who will flinch first???

nineteen aussie-four

i had this romantic perspective of the australian continent.

you know, the old cliches; rugged, individualistic, wild, untamed...

but they are one of the worst at intruding into the personal lives of their constituency.

they are eyeing further intrusion by considering monitoring and logging all web browsing histories and emails.

what are they going to do with all that crap? sift through it for subversive info? evil patterns of activity? weak-minded fools whom they could extort?

the cost to store, filter, collate, and report would seem to be prohibitive. but hey, it's someone else's money we're using here.

where is the outcry from the media? how about an uprising by the populace?

*sigh*

too hopelessly self-absorbed i guess...

I SPOT YOU

SPOT is an acronym for "screening passengers by observational techniques" developed by the USA. it is inaccurate, based on no science, and now is gaining wider acceptance as the UK is now looking into developing this for their anti-terrorist systems.

SPOT looks for subtle facial cues indicating someone is up to no good. how they can know this from facial expressions is a bit unclear, but hey, it's anti-terrorist so it must be worth pursuing. so, watch what do in airports. don't have a spat with the wife or you'll have a spot with a us marshal. don't get miffed by some goob who just ran over your foot with his roller suitcase or you'll be spot-ted for facial abnormalities and whisked off for interrogation.

so watch your P's and Q's or you'll be s, p, and ot'd...

take quaaludes before every outdoor activity, lest you show any adverse facial expressions. yes, let's all get anesthesized, it's for the best.

when in doubt

an alarming trend is occurring.

every time a boo-boo, (i.e. we killed a bunch of people and it looks kinda iffy that we did it for good reasons), occurs the spectre (i like this word too) of "terrorists" is used. like we can just frost a dead body with the Al Qaeda or Taliban or generic terrorist frosting and everyone will just shrug and go, "oh", turn and walk away. i acknowledge that there are bad people out there who want to blend in until the moment they want to strike. this makes security and investigation extremely challenging. but have we as a society decided that loss of our civil liberties take a secondary position to security? communist russia was "secure" but freedoms were more difficult to find than a loaf of bread at the market.

i don't remember discussing giving my liberties away...

i don't remember debating the value in unwarranted searches and eavesdropping...

did our forefathers fight and die for the mere idea of liberty and the pursuit of happiness only for it to be lost so quickly and without a question or fight by us?

i knew they were bad

punjabi researchers have conducted a very powerful yet simple experiment that confirms the danger of cellphones.

the researchers set cell phones at one hive and none at another. the cell phone hive was activated for two fifteen minute segments per day. measurements suggest hive productivity was off by fitty-percent, the queen laid about half as many eggs, fewer workers returned to the hive, and they ceased producing honey. the other hive performed as a normal hive would, no problems.

so....

perhaps the loss of honeybees has something to do with disruption of the homing and communication processes of honeybees. perhaps we could shift our operating frequencies and give the bees a break.

if not...

have you heard of killer bees???

they'll be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.