Creative Endeavors

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “In Oklahoma, it is illegal to hunt a whale.” … Is this a great state or what?

So I am reading the WordPress.com dashboard and I am looking at the “fastest growing blogs” on the net and I am wondering, “What do they have?” I mean some of them are just sites promoting vacuum cleaners or household items, what in the world is making them the fastest growing items on the net?

There are a few things that I do not understand.  Jay Leno writes one piece, ONE PIECE, and it floats around the blogo-sphere for years? I put up stuff almost every day for four months and it goes nowhere.

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

As I am a firm believer that “people want and need to be fed happy news and flat out unadulterated gossip” not war, death, and unrest, I continue to daily forge on.  But often it is not understandable for me as a hack to figure out this popularity and interest.  I just keep hammering them out, running it up the flagpole to see if someone will salute it on a day to day basis.  Hopefully it will lead to something productive one of these days and some possible good may come out of it.

Enuff on that …….

Congress today raises the age for licking the syrup off a plate to thirteen. High summer temperatures and ever-increasing levels of U.S. beverage consumption are causing ice cubes across the nation to melt at “an alarmingly unprecedented rate,” the U.S. Department of Consumer Affairs reported recently.

After months of tirelessly supporting his wife on the campaign trail, devoted spouse and former president Bill Clinton breathed a resigned sigh Monday and carefully folded the charcoal silk, fitted sheath dress he had hoped to wear as first lady during next January’s inauguration and placed it back in its beautiful box.

Ho-hum, everyone insert a well deserved “yawn” here. The Dollar Store is running a special on Fig Newton’s today.  Crazy Headlines: “SPRINGFIELD, MO …  This week’s Secret Society meeting will be held at the city hall in room 233B.” … Only in America.  Then if you have time, skip across the pond to the U.K. “A man has been arrested after 129 rabbits were stolen from a farm in Lincolnshire.” Damage costing up to £70,000 to rectify was also caused during the burglary at Highgate Farm, Norman by Spital, in January 2008.

I guess they caught him with DNA when he left a hare behind.

Wife is railing me for not taking out the trash.  Funny how things just slip your mind when your multinational energy corporation vows to make obsolete the very product that brought it an unstoppable cash flow for over a century.  Now, who wants to talk about how all school buses might someday run on vegetable oil?

Thought so.

Get ready cuz here it comes.  Declining gasoline purchases, due to higher prices, are hurting the federal fund that pays to maintain the nation’s highways, the director of the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.

The fund is built on an 18.4 cent tax levied on each gallon of gas. It had been forecast to run out by 2009, but the fund is now shrinking more quickly, Peter Orszag testified to a Senate panel.  “Our March baseline did suggest that it would be exhausted in 2009 and an imbalance of roughly a billion and a half  dollars would occur during that time period,” he said of the CBO’s projections on the fund’s future.”

“Since March, gas prices have caused gasoline consumption to decline. So the incoming revenue will be lower than what we projected in March and the imbalance in 2009 will be more significant,” Orszag added.  Average U.S. gasoline prices have risen some 80 cents per gallon since the end of March to a record $4.11, up $1.13 from a year ago.  The office, which audits the economic impact of congressional bills and programs, will release new projections by the end of summer, he noted.

Once again, I pick up the paper and it tells me what I already know. The gas tax has become an issue in the presidential election, with presumptive Republican nominee John McCain proposing to suspend the tax for a short period to speed economic recovery. Barack Obama, the expected Democratic nominee, has said suspending the tax would provide little relief.

And George W. Bush, looking up from Grand Theft Auto II and saying ………. “Huh? What’s zat?”  By the way, “no more emails on Obammer please, the bottom of the bird cage is full.”

From 1995 to 2000, the U.S. highway fund had a surplus of between $10 billion and $23 billion, according to the CBO, and in 1998 Congress cut $8.017 billion from it.   On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent legislation to the full Senate to restore that amount in the coming year as part of a larger infrastructure funding bill.  The House Ways and Means committee is considering similar legislation.

The Congress will take up drafting a new transportation bill next session. Like I said, “Get Ready.” Here it comes. It is never enough, you cannot win. So apparently we must seek out the good in this, as my Grandmother used to say … “Look For The Rainbow, Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.”

The wisdom of age.

So here it is ….. “For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, [traffic] fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent”

Like I said … I don’t get it. I really don’t.

000

Related: Give Up - Surrender

How can we know,

how far,

the long way can be

Looking from where we are,

it never seemed that long to me

I’ve many miles behind me,

and maybe now,

not so much ahead

Looking back,

it seems I made good time,

even with the directions I miss-read

a Funny thing,

This thing called time,

A thing we are always running out of

A thing we can never seem to find

I am always coming up short

or losing mine

There’s not enough of it about,

and though it’s always here

It always seems to come and go I’ve found out

No gas,

no money,

it is weighing heavy on my mind

I am moving quickly to the bottom line

I still have places I want to see,

I still have hills to climb

No more going quietly into the dark night

Here is my reality

No more drives in the country burning daylight.

It looks like I am flat out running out of time

A hammock on the front porch is all that is left for me.

Locked down and serving my time,

Here on the sound side of my city.

000

Now the Obammer Camp says that they are packing it in on the “Not So Official Seal,” which seems to be the talk of the town here lately. The seal, with its blue background and an eagle in the center clutching arrows and an olive branch, evoked the official presidential version, but had been altered with a new Latin phrase.

Instead of the original “E pluribus unum,” which means, “Out of many, one.” Obama’s campaign changed the phrase to “Vero possumus,” which can be roughly translated to his “Yes, we can” slogan.

Now here at Creative Endeavors we are mainly into English, not all this other uppity crap, but we will give it a shot. Illegitimi non carborundum (Don’t let the bastards grind you down).

Doesn’t anyone in this country speak English anymore?

Mixed in all this garbage I keep hearing the words “Liberal and Tree Hugger” tossed about in a disparaging manner, and personally, I am getting tired of it. If it were not for liberals we might still be mired in a far away place called Viet Nam, and a host of other benefits, created by free thinking individuals.

As I reside in a state that has been raped, polluted, and ravaged by Big Oil, I can attest to their callous disregard for the country and the land. In our state, we have a company, the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board (I believe that is the name of it). This company has one job, it has only one main reason for existing, and that mission is to go out and clean up abandoned well sites and old oil facilities that the oil companies walked away from in years past.

We need Tree Huggers, and I am kind of glad they are around myself.

Pitcher Oklahoma is one of the largest major Super Fund Clean Up Sites in America, it wasn’t big oil there, it was mining companies who pillaged the area and turned it basically into a lethal cesspool of just about every chemical known to man.

Let’s face it, If it were not for all these radical liberals and tree huggers, there wouldn’t be a green tree or flower within fifty miles of this place.

Right now scientists are studying a “dead zone” in the Gulf Of Mexico that is huge, all caused by man made pollution flowing down the Mississippi River. Can you imagine what type of lethal witches’ brew of chemicals, fertilizers, animal waste, gas, oil that is floating downriver right now headed for the Gulf Of Mexico because of the recent flooding in the Midwest.

This summer swing by West Virginia, Tennessee, some parts of Kentucky and observe how the coal companies have taken off the tops of entire mountains to get to the coal underneath.  Look at the dead creeks polluted with coal slurry from ponds that were not maintained.

Stop and consider the ramifications of the recent floods in the midwest.  How many years is it going to take to get the soil back to being even half-way productive in the Corn Belt of America after this recent flooding.  It boggles the mind.

Personally I am glad we have Tree Huggers, I am not a liberal in any way shape, form or manner, but I still believe they are somewhat necessary.  We have a lot of good things brought to us by the actions of Liberal’s .

000

You can take a frog, dump him in a pan, turn on the heat, and he will stay right there and eventually fry in the scalding water and die. But you take the same frog, toss him in hot water, and he will hop right out. You see frog # 1 his environment changed a “little at time” and he didn’t notice the change until it killed him. Frog #2 noticing the immediate change, took evasive action at the very beginning.

Now I am just a little frog, swimming in a big pond, but I gotta tell you, I am starting to relate to croaker number one right now, the water is heating up in my pan and I am ready to get out.

It is hard to say how much more the American Consumer can take as a whole. It seems to me that the new catch phrase in this country seems to be “passed onto the consumer” and personally, I am getting awfully tired of it. I really do not have a clue as to what can be done about it other than lament the fact, but I am so tired of taking it in the shorts on just about everything, it is far beyond funny anymore. It is beginning to become tragic.

I Pledge Allegiance has been changed to … Bend over and take some more.

Gasoline comes first, no rhyme or reason to it, but it continues, unabated. While I am at it, “I am tired of this rant over and over, on the environmentalists, and the tree huggers being the problem.” Drilling in Anwar, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, isn’t going to meet one year of our petroleum needs.

IT IS NOT THE TREE HUGGERS.

Why doesn’t someone ask them why there are no new refineries, why the refiners are only running at a small percentage of what they are capable of? Why we have an “artificial shortage” of motor fuel in this country. The numbers are in, people are driving less, consumption is down, so why isn’t the price going down. No, it increases. It defies logic. Okie City is a virtual Ghost Town any night of the week after eight o’clock. We are shut down.

So if we are using less, much less, why are we still paying more? Bad math. Even I can see that, and I wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer, when it came to math.

Stop blaming the tree huggers … Last year during hurricane season, this stuff was increasing on a daily basis on the “speculation of a storm in the Gulf of Mexico” that never really materialized. But in America, what goes up ….. stays up … it doesn’t always go back down.

No profit in that.

Cops in Atlanta this week started adding a $12 fuel surcharge for speeding tickets, airlines are weighing customers, where does it end. Big change in breakfast items.  Grain cereals have jumped on the bandwagon and are now giving us less in the box for more money. Weights are down, check it out the next time you are in the store, and you will see what I am talking about. They are selling us less product for more money. With the high price of diesel (which is a waste product of petroleum by the way) farmers are going to have to have more to cut even a marginal profit this year. Throw in the recent flooding in the Missouri and Mississippi basin’s and the loss of millions of acres of planted crops, well, the news is not good.

Beer is being served in smaller glasses, ice tea and other refreshments have gone to smaller sized glass. I note that the plates in one place we usually frequent, over night, shrank in size. Not necessarily a bad thing for the American Consumer who is face it, a bit on the tubby side. We used to go to this place, and we would split an order of Fajita’s the wife and I, now I find out that they are charging me $2 for the second plate, which of course, “used to be free.”

They can now call me the hacked off Old Gringo and say Adios, I will go somewhere else.

Electric service is up, why not, everyone else is doing it. But there has to be a point at which this will cease to be realistic. We cannot keep absorbing all of these price increases, over and over, there comes a time, when the glass is full. We are quickly reaching our point on the scale, it has come to where push meets shove around here and sadly it has reared its ugly head a lot sooner than I thought it would.

Today I read but one more credit card article, this couple in hock up to their ears. $16,000 on one credit card, owed $106,000.00, on a house that had an appraised value of only $63,000.00. I still see the big screen televisions going out the door at China Mart and the new paper tags on the cars (new cars) all over town, and frankly, I wonder how it is that they can still do this?

It is a lot different at our house … The wolf is baying at the backdoor and we have nothing to toss out to satisfy him. Old frog number one is really getting tired of this —- .

How about you?

000

Related: Money Saving Tips

George Carlin died over the weekend of a heart attack. He was 71. I seem to be losing a lot of friends to heart attacks here lately, he will be missed. Al Sleet, the Hippy Dippy Weatherman, Stuff, The Seven Dirtiest Words You Cannot Say On Television. He will be missed, and his humor, I suppose will live on, but it won’t be the same.

It never is.

CBS Sixty-Minutes ran a piece on the disintegration of the Salmon population in the West over the weekend. Salmon runs are now depleted to the point of being almost non-existent. What used to be 16 million a year, is now under 1 million and continues to decline to the point of extinction. Dams, stream siltation by logging interests, pollution and over fishing seem to be the problem. The human population is above the level that can be accommodated by the environment it seems.

What I cannot understand, given all these problems, why does the Government of the United States provide to the local indigenous Indian tribes grant money in the tune of $500,000 to buy new gill nets to take even more fish? The fish disappear, Alcoa Aluminum and the west, get cheap electricity, seem like a fair trade off to you?

There is news in the world concerning computers: Digital 60 Day marks the 60th anniversary the birth of the ‘Baby’ or Small Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), which is the forerunner of all modern computers. Baby was far from it, she weighed in at over a ton, and took up a lot of space. ‘The Baby’ successfully executed its first program in Manchester on 21 June 1948. That program was written by the late Tom Kilburn who designed and built the machine at The University of Manchester with the late Freddie Williams.

You know, if advances in automobiles had taken the same route as computers, they would be very efficient right now, about what, 70% more efficient to hazard a guess? One liter of fuel would serve the United Kingdom for a year and oil reserves would last the expected lifetime of the solar system - if efficiency in the car industry had improved at the same rate as in the computer world.

Think about it. My first computer, an Apple Mac had 512K and 256K of that was required just to “run the system.” They have indeed come a long way …..  Man, I just took a drink of my soda, and it “went down the wrong pipe” as my mother used to say, and now I have sticky gooey stuff all over my desk and my keyboard. Oklahoma backyard journalism is not pretty this day boys & girls, not pretty at all.

The Oil Companies ran another ad in the paper this weekend once again trying to convince us that “they are our buddies.” Here is something to think about … If you are a NICE GUY then you don’t have to RUN ALL OVER TOWN telling people that you are …. They already know.

One company touts the broad ownership of oil company shares by pension funds and implies that viewers’ pensions might very well be benefiting from the superb financial performance of the energy industry. The full page ad also suggests that oil companies really don’t make that much money when compared to other industries in America.

Uh correct me if I am wrong but …. This would presumably make oil companies poor investments for one’s pension fund, wouldn’t it?.

When the truth conflicts with the myth, sell the myth.

000

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Well there it is again. “Oil is cheaper than other liquids. How the price of a barrel of oil, $124.31 compares with a similar amount of other liquids.” I don’t know about you, but did you ever notice they always choose a liquid standard that is mostly useless.

Milk $147.00 per gallon — Tropicana Orange Juice $226.00 per gallon — Bud Lite $302.00 — Louisiana brand hot sauce $520.00 — Jack Daniels Whiskey $3,568.00 — Chanel #5 perfume $102,144.00

Realistically speaking about the only thing up there that you actually “need” would be milk. And that is it.

So it is basically useless information, drinking a gallon a day of beer, you are a hopeless alcoholic and you should not be driving anywhere, anytime. One gallon of Orange Juice has enough sugar, acid, vitamin C in it to put enough hives on you to make you look like the face of the moon.

All of this is misdirection. It is by design, going to make you think of something “other than the high price of fuel” and nothing more.

No one in their right mind, not even a gator wrestlin’ country bumpkin from the deep south, would drink a gallon of hot sauce, Jack Daniels the same (but on the other hand if you are inclined to wrestle gators on the weekend, a little Jack Daniels might be a good idea), and anyone that uses a gallon of perfume, should not even be out in public. If she does, she is probably a “Workin’ Gal” and that is another post altogether.

The point being, this is ludicrous, unrealistic, and just plain dumb.

Might as well be a gallon of Bat Guano from Carlsbad, New Mexico, a gallon of goats milk from Afghanistan, hot peppers from Central America, moonshine from the piney-woods outside Ft. Smith Arkansas, or Foo-Foo water from Cannes, France.

It would make about as much sense as that does.

Driving by the 7-11 today I notice the price of the stuff (gas) is UP again (big surprise there, no?) and although the numbers show a definite decrease and a positive change in the driving habits of American’s nationwide, we continue to be raped by Big Oil.

General Motors must have sold a bunch of Hummers this week, that is the only thing I could see that would be driving it up in price. Americans are not expecting any relief at the gas pump. Indeed, 86% say they expect it to exceed $4 a gallon and to eventually top out at over $5 that is up too, only 26% of them thought that last year. Americans are paying $1.6 billion a day for gasoline, that is three times what they paid for it 2002.

As I am in a generous mood this day, have not been attacked or mauled lately, my mailbox is no longer smoking. I will pass on to you, two things you can do to beat this.

First, you can make your own fuel at home, start up capital is a little steep, about $10 grand, but you can make your own ethanol.

Or solution #2 … You can buy a fuel efficient automobile made by the Japanese. Honda unveiled its latest big MPG product this week in Los Angeles. A hybrid that gets an estimated 74 mpg and runs on Hydrogen. Only one drawback … in all of California there are just a handful of hydrogen fuel stations, they have been slow to catch on in the Golden State.

No small wonder … Hydrogen is a byproduct of “water” and we all know there isn’t any PROFIT in that, don’t we.

Iceland, a small country at the top of the world, runs all of their cars, trucks and buses on hydrogen. The only oil that they import or use is for lubrication purposes (grease etc) and that is it. But I don’t suppose anyone in Washington, DC every noted this fact. You can write Mr. Bush about it, but I understand he isn’t all that big on reading, might put it inside a copy of the latest video game, better chance of him finding it there, something like Grand Theft Auto II or something like that.

Might as well run this one up the flagpole and see if I can find someone to salute it. And then I am outta here.

One thing I have noticed here of late is the word “Jihad” casually being tossed around by our elected morons. Correct me if I am wrong, but we are “supposed to be at war with Al Qaeda and other Islamic fanatics,” and we are constantly showering them with compliments?

When you refer to an Islamist extremist as a jihadi” or “Jihadist.” You are commenting on them in a positive fashion, you are portraying them in a positive light, not the terrorists thugs, bloody cowards that they are.

As I understand this, in Arabic, the word jihad has only positive connotations; it refers to either a quest to find one’s fate or an external fight for justice. So when we refer to Islamic suicide bombers as jihads, we essentially are calling our enemies “holy warriors.”

Someone needs to fix this or at least point it out to our resident MBA C average dudes.

The people who seem devoted to using this phrase in the wrong fashion are the very same people who told us that “mushroom clouds” over American Cities were a reality, that certain knowledge was indicative to this nuke-uleer holocaust on our shores. That was just before some 4,000 Americans were sent overseas to die, along with some 85,000 Iraqis, not to be confused as resident Jihads or political candidates.

I guess the bumper stickers were right after all.

Language is a funny thing, for example, “The president of Mexico, refers to “illegals” as National Hero’s. Certainly wrong, but that is the way it goes ….. First your money and then your clothes … Or … as Bo Diddley used to say, “Don’t trust anyone but your mama, and look at her real good.”

So that is it in a nutshell. The air in America isn’t the only thing that seems to be polluted these days, lot of television broadcasting is the same.

Now if you excuse me, I have a number three washtub of Craw Daddies and a gallon of Louisiana Hot Sauce to work thru … Should take me most of the weekend.

000

 Meanwhile back at the cave:

“Wait.  What did you say?…You’re predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?  … I hadn’t heard that.”

George W. Bush

‘My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.’
 Barack Obama

“Huh?  Whatzat?”

John McClain

Have not been sleeping all that good here lately, so I did a little research on sleep and the dream state, the human body and all that good stuff.  Just finished this article on dreams and what they mean to tell you in the quiet moments of the night. 

For instance, If your teeth fall out or crumble, you’re unhappy with your physical appearance and it may also mean you’re excessively concerned about how others perceive you. 

If you’re giving birth, great change is unfolding.  Dreaming about babies indicates a desire to behave more maturely.  If you can fly, you’ve just conquered a stressful situation.  If you dream that you’re able to control where you fly, it’s a sign of confidence.  Flying aimlessly suggests you’re cautiously optimistic about your success.  Last night I dreamed I was naked as the day is long and I was slowly backing into a greasy, cold brass door knob ….. No telling on that one huh?

Fish and chips with attitude.  Police arrested a longtime restaurant owner in Acworth, Georgia for selling more than seafood out of his establishment.  Investigators said they found a pound of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, five guns and 10 mason jars of moonshine.  And you guys thought all them boys in Alabama had all the fun? 

Check please. 

Raining here today, a little moisture and that is good.  I am listening to the rain rattle on the carport and the sound gives me the urge to go to the bathroom.  I noticed that the sound of running water will frequently do that to me, asked my neighbor the same thing, “Does the sound of running water affect you?” and he said, “Nope, don’t do a thing for me, I am as regular as clockwork, go every morning at 7:30 a.m. on the dot.”  I said, “Well that is amazing, just like clockwork huh, 7:30 a.m. every morning, right on the money?” and he said, “Yeppers.  Only thing is I don’t get up until 8:15 am or so.”

Big surprise here. 

Efforts to tax oil companies dies in the Senate this week ….. Now there is a major yawner there boys & girls?  Who would have ever “thunk thet?”  Oil protests in other countries this week too.  Hong Kong, Nepal, India …  people got out and marched in the streets to protest (notice they were not driving anything, so much for the India is using more of the world’s oil rumor huh?) and the Spanish are now reported to be stockpiling the stuff.  Fearing shortages by striking truck drivers which have also got the Portuguese to join, people are starting to protest the high price of fuel worldwide now.

AAA Auto Association is now reporting more people are being towed under Emergency Situations.  Meanwhile in Detroit, GM and Ford are furiously designing a totally new gas gauge for the 2009 model year, with an additional “F” in it.  This will be located just below empty for the convenience of the American consumer who seems to be preoccupied on running on fumes.

Rock Hill, South Carolina has had enough of “displays of enthusiasm at high school graduations” and has asked the local police to arrest anyone who is applauding at ceremonies.  I am not making this up. 

If you clap, they are hauling you off to the slammer.  Seven people were arrested by police and charged with public disorderly conduct after being accused of cheering during a recent graduation ceremony. 

The nerve of these people, actually cheering a graduating senior, are they out of their minds.  Don’t they know that it is illegal to pray before a football game in Texas, what were they thinking.  I suppose these portable Co2 boat horns are out of the question huh?

So who is it gonna be? 

Everyone is trying to outguess each other on who the Vice Presidential candidates will be.  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Batman and Robin, Sonny & Cher no longer an option, Tony Orlando and Dawn, no wait that is a three-some. 

America is fresh out of hero’s.  I seriously wrack my brain, and I just cannot figure out a dynamic duo for this election that is apparently taking forever to get over with.  Locating suitable replacements for our current leadership is presenting a problem it seems  It is going to be hard to replace “Biggy Rat and Itchy Brother” they have endeared themselves to us so much over the years.

Taking into consideration how much faith the average voter has in the system, we don’t really search out the people with the ability to lead.  When you look back on the presidents of the past, it is kind of disappointing to see how many lack-luster, less than great, presidents we have had.  We have had in the past, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones and the one we have now.

He makes me smile … Just this week he announced “I have done about all I can for the American Economy.”  Yup … sure have, that dog aint gonna hunt either Dubya.

So I had this dream, and I am up in the air, slowly circling the Washington monument in D.C., and I can see and hear God speaking to me, around and around this ancient monolith I soar, and it is as if I have been circling for a thousand years and I still do not know if I am a Falcon, a Hawk or just a plain old Oklahoma Rock Dove (Pigeon), and I hear the rain on the carport …  and …. Uh oh.

000

There is an old expression in this country, ‘It cannot get any worse.”  But that is not exactly true, it can always get worse.  I was in Las Vegas and having an incredible run of “bad luck” and I muttered to myself, “It cannot get any worse.”  Then I walked across the street to Caesars’’ Palace, and worse followed me right over there.

Just when you thought it was over and it could not get any worse, it does.  How much do you weigh?  I ran across a Airlines article this morning and it informs me that the airlines are now going to treat you like common freight.  They are not only going to weigh your bags, but YOU are going to get weighed too.  This should be interesting, your ticket to Cleveland will cost $800 and some change, Richard Simmons will fly for free. 

Check it out.

Because of my weight issues, I am no longer able to fly.  You see, every time I yawn those little air delivery masks automatically drop down out the cabin ceiling for all the other passengers.  It is no wonder the lines are so long, for a flight these days, look at where 14 of the worlds’ 20 busiest airports are located, in the United States.

Personally I stopped flyin’ years ago, they’re rude, they’re demanding, hateful and mean, and that is just the guy that checks your luggage at the curb, the rest of them are …. I am sorry …… Much worse.

A woman scorned.  I see this week that a girl in Trenton, N.J., a teenager set fire to the home of a boy who didn’t ask her to the senior prom.  Now that is taking it kind of personal wouldn’t you say?  The home burned to the ground, with the boy’s family escaping by climbing out of the windows.

Last week I am swinging by the 7-11 to make my weekly contribution to the “oil executives retirement fund” and I see this young thing, standing there, all decked out in her prom dress pumping gas into her old hoopie.  And I thought to myself, gee look, I see the gas fairy! 

And yes, it just got worse after that.

GM continues to hemorrhage and announces the closing of three truck plants in North America and one in Mexico.  At the same time, they have announced the possible demise of the Hummer.  You remember the Hummer don’tcha, The Governator In Caliy-forn-yuh drives one.  A major testosterone rush of steel and chrome at about 5 mpg.  We are talking Major League Interstate Boulevard Slurpy here … The American Dream. They have the aerodynamics of a brick and are not selling well at this time. 

Ford is going to build their most popular vehicle in Mexico, instead of using a U.S. Plant to do the work.  The company announced more numbers that were in the dumper this week, and said that even after closing 11 plants since 2005, they still cannot cut a profit.  And that deeper cuts will now be needed, I suppose all the way to the bone this time.

God Bless Alabama! 

The politicians in that state this week announced that they have hurriedly put together a measure that will allow the citizens of that state to KEEP ALL OF THEIR ECONOMIC STIMULUS CHECKS.  Up and until now, they were planning on taking taxes out of the stipend.  Isn’t anything sacred in this country anymore?  This will save the taxpayers $30/$60 depending on the size of the check.

Times are tight, Warren Buffet says that we are in a “recession” and it is going to be long and hard.  Bush & Company are currently doing damage control on the new book that came out that categorically says “he was out to lunch on most of this” and it is a nice house, but nobody’s home.  I sure hope my stimulus check doesn’t bounce. 

Most American’s are really starting to feel the pressure from poor monetary decisions on both sides of the coin.  I used to worry abut paying my bills until I read about Chapter 11.  You don’t have to pay anyone off, and you don’t go to jail.  Then there is Chapter 12 … That is where you load up and run like hell!  Things have gotten so bad, that we are desperately trying to just “get back to zero.”  A point where we have absolutely nothing … So that when I do die, I can look my kids in the eye and say …. See this?  None of this is yours!

Local Malcontent has a good post on it, go over there and check it out.  People are starting to rummage thru the old change drawer, under the couch cushions for coinage.  Strange things happen when you find yourself mired deeply in debt.  Two weeks ago, my car broke down, and my telephone got disconnected and I was one electric bill away from being Amish.  Just remember, no matter how bad it gets, you are always going to be rich at the Dollar Store.

Tioga, North Dakota having discovered a significant oil field that the major oil companies cannot deny has declared a trademarked “Oil Capital of North Dakota” name for their town.  Elk Point, South Dakota has a Texas company on line to build the first oil refinery in the U.S. in more than thirty years (which I don’t believe is exactly true, I understand Arizona permitted a refinery last year). 

It is supposed to cost in the neighborhood of $10 billion to construct.  Which is ironically about the same amount of money that American Oil Companies and refiners cheat the Government out of each year on taxes owed.

Meanwhile, back in Houston, orders for new bumper stickers are up. 

They read, “Lord give us another Oil Boom … We promise we won’t blow it this time.”

Get your order in early, most major credit cards accepted.

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Again television gives us evidence that it is the sole gate keeper of cultural anemia in this country.  This is news?  O’bammer is upset because he asserts that the press has been picking on his wife. 

He said “these folks should lay off my wife, if they think they are going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable.”  

Yawn?

Best get used to it.  Political wives have always been fair game.  Back in the 19^th century Andrew Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was pilloried mercilessly, possibly even driven to an early grave, for marrying Old Hickory before her divorce was final.  Eleanor Roosevelt was caricatured as a busybody, Nancy Reagan as a profligate spender, Hillary Clinton as a ruthless shadow president and Teresa Heinz Kerry, Cindy McCain have all come under fire. 

If it is too hot in the kitchen, maybe it is time to get out.  I mean, if you cannot take the heat now, what are you gonna do later on in the White House?

Holy Crap!  The poop-shooter on the space station has gone on the fritz and is not working.  Well actually, the poop side is doing okay, it is the urination side that has shut down.  NASA is gearing up to send up some replacement parts to fix it but state that “weight is a problem” on the next shuttle launch and it all has to be accounted for. I was talking over the backyard fence to my neighbor about it and I asked her, “what would you do?” and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “depends?”

So the good news is … the fix is in the works, the bad news is …. Don’t go outside for a little while.

The news on the Mar’s Lander?  Have you heard?  The radio has shut down and there are no communications between the humans on earth and the machine on the planet or the robotic orbiter circling the planet, telling the Lander what to do. 

Dig rocks.  Find stuff.  Tell us, what is stuff …. Okay, tell us what you think stuff is?  For this we are coughing up billions in federal dollars? 

In another related story.  Nearly 25 years in the making and some $1 billion spent in the process, the space lab Kibo is scheduled for a weekend launch, story is on page six, oh I am sorry, you don’t have a page six. 

Send in your check anyway.  Pay to the order of Mr. George Dubya Bush, NASA, I am pretty sure they will cash it.

Uh, we will skip the resume if that is alright.  A teenager who once said he was “training to become a serial killer” rejected an offer from prosecutors that he plead guilty to reduced charges and serve a 50 year sentence in Florida.  Training to be a serial killer?  I knew the job market in America was bad, but this? 

This is pretty bad.

Researchers have just released data that suggests that long term exposure to lead will lead to criminal activities later on in life.  Some of the information shows that lead has harmful effects on judgment, cognitive function and the ability to regulate behavior.  Now if I remember right, lead is also a major additive in motor fuel, so this might explain the attitude of California Drivers. 

They are after all breathing tons of the stuff in the atmosphere of Southern California and the LA Basin.  This could very well be the major component of Road Rage in America, breathing bad air.

In 1988 there were 554 active oil rigs in the U.S. drilling and locating fossil fuels.  In 1998 that number dropped to 198 and this week, the number of active rigs operating in the country … 297.  This might explain why they are not having a lot of success finding new sources, doesn’t seem like they are looking very hard for it. On the same note, over 300 refinieries, now we are down to 139 and counting.

Meanwhile, the price of gasoline went up another four cents yesterday ….. Bob didn’t show up for work after the weekend … we don’t know where he is.

There you go!  Today’s offering of anodyne observations to amuse or confuse. 

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