Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Well this sucks!



Yet another (Un)dead-beat politician!
On Friday, January 13, 2006, once pro wrestler Jonathan Sharkey (AKA The Impaler ) officially launched his bid to enter Minnesota's gubernatorial race under the banner of the "Vampyres, Witches and Pagans Party." He described himself as a "sanguinary vampire"... replete with the practice of biting people and drinking their blood. Also publicly disclosed and proudly, was his penchant for Satan worship. But claimed it to be more along the lines of "compassionate Satanism". His campaign pledges included the public impalement of terrorists, rapists, drug dealers, child abusers, repeat drunken drivers and anybody who preys on the elderly on the steps of the state capitol.
Sure. He's got a shot!
(In Minnesotan, that would translate to: "Ya. Sure. You betcha!")
Unfortunately for Mr. Sharkey…or would that be Count Sharkey(?)…by the time today's business was concluded he had been found to have two previously unanswered felony warrants from Indiana following him around on the campaign trail. He is currently escaping sunlight, silver bullets and sharpened wooden objects in a Princeton, MN jail cell and is awaiting extradition arrangements to be made in his behalf. Obviously, this is going to take a bite out of his bid to be Governor in Minnesota or anywhere else for that matter (sorry, couldn't resist. The devil made me do it!)…and just when there was finally a candidate for the people who showed such promise and possibility! But not to fret…he has already registered as a 2008 presidential candidate with the Federal Election Commission!
Watch out Hillary!

Monday, January 30, 2006

BAM! Just like that!: Listen up! The people are speaking!


Through three years, over 200 billion U.S. dollars and two U.S. occupied, war ravaged countries, (Afghanistan and Iraq) we too have been bombarded in America with the constant rhetoric that the right to vote and choose ones own government is the cornerstone of the very democracy that we must deliver to the world, through example and when need be, and of late through brutal, military force.
Yet in the wake of several elections held world wide by fledgling democracies, (both voluntarily or otherwise) the results and returns of said elections are more and more frequently devalued, degraded and dismissed by the same American elected leadership who until the ballots were counted and proved to be less than mirror philosophies of our own choosing, heralded as our victory in restoring to the world its new order.
Now the rhetoric is being spun out selectively and with shiny new qualifying conditionals, which insist that the right to vote is not so much democracy as is freedom and liberty (of some unknown definition) for the people of any given country or region.
Freedom and liberty, by just whose standards?
The degree of freedom and liberty in other countries is a matter to be addressed, implemented and enforced by the laws created by those governments and leaders fairly elected by the people of those countries in open and honest elections, not dictated or made to pass or fail on the standards or expectations of any other sovereignty or nation, no matter what the capital contributions or military influence might be from them. Nothing could be more basic, be it here or around the globe. In order for these laws and constitutional particulars to take place, the needed initial catalyst of freely held elections truly is the cornerstone. And as such the very germ of democracy, no matter what political shape it takes after conception.
A quick look around the globe at some of today's election results and the disdain with which they are being met by the one world super power who claims to be the standard bearer of democracy will tell you that obviously, there's more expected from these new democracies than what the precluding rhetoric would imply
In spite of the obvious popularity and support of their people to elect them by a far larger margin at times than either a Democrat or a Republican can hope for here, in America, the heart of democracy…
Venezuela's new President is dismissed by our leaders as a "wacko". Bolivia's newly elected populist leader is branded "leftist" and "foe of the U.S.". Iran's newly elected leadership is labeled and dismissed (in the least flattering manner) as a "fundamentalist, theocrat". And now, ignoring the will of the Palestinian people, their newly elected party of Hamas is being shunned and denied even the slightest recognition by the west because (it has been said repeatedly) "the US cannot support a government that advocates the destruction of another country".

[ZNOTE: Please see line one in sentence one of this blog for the glaring contradiction and hypocrisy behind this posture. Sure some governments couch their destructive tendencies behind terms like "regime change" or "delivering democracy" or "self defense" albeit against unfounded weapons threats…while others are just up front about their bad intentions…it's all regime change that these governments are ultimately after regardless of whether they use verbal flowers or spears …the end result is equally and ultimately destructive to another people in any event, however. Let's not split hairs on this. All acts of national aggression are done with one purpose… "regime change"!]

The big picture is once again being ignored at the expense of international cooperation and building cohesion in our global village. More likely, many heads of state, primarily Western and European are proving how rigidly obstinate they can be in first compelling the third world to become democratic, then insisting further that only one particular flavor of democracy will ever be acceptable in a partnership rather than on what should be an all inclusive world membership.
Many of us have had club houses as children. Many of us looked down on and excluded any other kid in the neighborhood who didn't agree with us on which super hero was the best, what TV show star ruled the air waves, or which was the best comic book. Based on this sort of criteria, all other kids or club houses with opposing views were excluded or warred upon as a result and based on this sort of commonality, each little cluster of neighborhood children would base the world standards on their own finite culture, needs and visions.
It's high time, the world leadership grew up and replaced this clubhouse mentality in if for nothing more, an appreciation for the fact that at this time in mankind's history, there is more genuinely democratic voting taking place than at any other time since. And in spite of the diversity in the types and politics of these newly choosen leaders of the people, it's been a great century for democracy itself.
Sure democracies are not always ideal. Sometimes the saints don't come marching in on the day following an election and there remains a vast difference between these democracies due to culture alone that can often be attributed to the 180 degree planetary location and philosophical bend.
Sometimes, in even the more experienced democracies, a near 50% of the people who accepted chosen leadership through elections remain diametrically opposed to who holds the reigns of power until their next opportunity to vote and speak to the issue of good leadership. But we hold the elections anyway and uphold the ultimate choice of the people.
That's the way democracy works. It's like having a call from an umpire in baseball. There's no choice but to accept it. "There's no crying in baseball!"
We cannot simply take our ball and go home because we don't like the call or in these cases, the person(s) elected.
There's no "home" to take our ball and go to.
Welcome to planet Earth… (Synonym: Home)
And we all have no choice but to play together regardless of the politics, whether it's here or Bolivia or Israel or Iran or Venezuela.
Look, on the bright side, democracy itself is working more now than ever before whether you can see eye to eye with those other kids in those other club houses or not. Work with it! Or chalk it up as yet another failed social experiment.
And, you know, we in America are not in possession of a perfect democracy either, although you would never suspect that during a state of the Union or during campaign season and certainly not by the speeches and music behind the fireworks displays on the 4th of July.
I mean, if you wish to see the imperfections of our system, look at the administration that we've put in power for the last 6 years!!!
What the hell were we thinking??

Monday, January 23, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Some evolution theories can be goofy

Much thanks to "Anonymous" who left a comment on a previous post ("...and going to the dogs") which questioned whether or not there need be any missing link between Goofy and Pluto while advancing the hypothesis that due to Goofy's repeated propensities over time for displaying sophisticated human like behaviors and psychologies that...yes, perhaps the appearance of his species is possibly just another link in the evolutionary chain associated with we Homo sapiens.
Perhaps along with the early Java Man, and Cro-Magnon Man, the rightful place for our friend from Disney in the evolutionary chain might very well be that of "Goofy Man"?
Well, why the heck not, I say!!
I submit the following graphic exhibit to better demonstrate this theory as an aid to believers and nonbelievers alike.

[Z-note: Whether "Goofy Man's" placement on the evolutionary scale falls prior to, or after Homo Sapien has yet to be scientifically established. At this printing it's still difficult to say. Let's keep our eye on current events and see how the new year progresses!]

And thanks "Anonymous", ...whomever you are!

Saturday, January 21, 2006

BAM! Just like that!: Gored

"...Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: "Men feared witches and burnt women."

The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the full Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of nuclear missiles ready to be launched on a moment’s notice to completely annihilate the country? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when the last generation had to fight and win two World Wars simultaneously?

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they did. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it’s up to us to do the very same thing!

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law..."
Part of a speech given by Al Gore on Martin Luther King Day, 1/16/06 - Washington DC

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Malice in Wonderland...the space program...and going to the dogs...

Alice couldn't have dreamed up a better piece of convoluted logic from any character she met in Wonderland.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Posted: 9:48 a.m. EST (14:48 GMT)
SAN QUENTIN, California (AP) -- In the end, California's oldest condemned inmate did not seem quite as feeble as his attorneys made him out to be in their efforts to save his life.
With the help of four big prison guards, Clarence Ray Allen shuffled from his wheelchair to a gurney inside San Quentin's death chamber early Tuesday, a day after his 76th birthday.
Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.
"At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. "We would resuscitate him, then execute him."
This warped perception has got to be right up there with George Carlin's observations on the incredibly odd yet insisted upon practice of sterilizing the needles used for lethal injection during capital punishment executions.
When is the guy being executed, going to possibly find the time to get an infection from someone failing to sterilize that equipment?? Tomorrow?


NASA had to once again scrub its launch of its ten-year mission to send a space craft to Pluto.
It's too bad really. What, now that hunger, poverty and disease have been eliminated here on earth and everybody can afford doctors and medicine, we really have nothing better to do with billions of dollars over the next decade but wait for up close and personal Polaroids of yet another heavenly piece of rock, void of life or even the atmosphere to sustain it. Hell, it isn't even in our approximate neighborhood!
Listen, I don't have a problem per se with the space program in general. Oh, I might squirm a bit if we went forward with developing some real estate already conquered beyond our immediate planet, but it would make sense to me in a fashion. Bio-spheres on the moon, colonization, mining or a geo-synchronistic, manned space station/complex that could be used for a way station or to perform scientific experimentation in zero gravity…I'm all for it, as a way of creating industry and massive employment right here on Terra Firma. But ten years of waiting and all that capital dedicated to Pluto just so a handful of techno-geeks can celebrate yet another nonevent on the front page of the national newspaper…? No pun intended, but that's a stretch, isn't it? Especially right on the heels of reaping all those benefits from doing the same with the rings of Saturn and crashing a washing machine into the the head of a comet? And don't forget those cute and lovable rovers we have on Mars! The returns on all these projects are doing us all a mountain of good down here, aren't they?

All this reminds me, since we're on about Pluto and such, of a quandary that has nagged at many of us (well, one or two of us, I suppose) since the fifties and long precedes the space program…
How come Pluto has to be a dog, but Goofy gets to be kind of a people-dog hybrid??
Sure, Goofy gets to wear clothes, communicate in a complex language, drive automobiles, has opposing thumbs and gets to go fishing and stuff with Mickey, but Pluto has to live like a dog? Lives in a dog house, tags along, chases sticks, chews bones… Doesn't anyone think we'd pick up on that?
Both of these guys are simply dogs, aren't they?
What's with the gap in their evolution and where's the missing link for these guys??
Now an answer to this would be valuable scientific research!
Well, for one or two of us, I suppose.
And that's just a few short of the slide rule guys who we see exuberant, each time some machine crashes down on the planet with yet another cup of space dust and debris.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: "Fughedaboudit!"...Paint up - Fix up...much ado about nothing

Joey "The Clown" Lombardo was arrested in Chicago today for his involvement in several "hits" over the years. Specifically mentioned was the murder of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, for which Frank "the German" Schweihs was also implicated.
Federal agents grabbed Joey the Clown (a spry and dangerous 76 year old threat to society, fer sure!!) after they caught him meeting with someone they had under surveillance, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday night on its Web site, citing FBI officials.
Fuhgeddaboudit!
What language are we talkin' on dis planet here? Do all adults have club names like the crew from Spanky and Our Gang, or what? And why have I been missing out on it?

Yours truly just concluded 3 weekends of painting around the house. You know. Painting is when you go out and collect all your materials at the store for the project then after a day or so of sanding, washing and patching and sanding and washing in artificial lighting till dawn, you decide to open the can of paint but realize you don't have a screw driver so you go down to the basement to get one…but all you can find is a Phillips so you go out to the garage to get a slot type but can't find one of those. So maybe you'll get lucky if you take an hour or so to clean up your tools from projects past. When you get back upstairs you get the can open and begin to pour it into the pan but when you upright the can, you overcompensate and it goes out the back and all over the can, so you reach for the paint brush to catch it from the side of the can before it can drip all over the floor,… but then (and only then) you become aware that you didn't bring a brush up yet so you have to set the dripping can on the floor anyway while you go downstairs to get a brush. You take the loss. When you come back up you see the mess on the floor and reach for a wet rag…which you didn't prepare for because, really! What the hell, how hard can pouring a little paint into a pan be? A monkey could do it! Right? So you go back to the basement and grab a bucket but you can't find a rag so you look for an old Tee shirt in your bureau upstairs in the bedroom, but you've got it trashed as usual and you can't find old from new. So ok, maybe it's time to spend 30 or 45 minutes sorting out your underwear. Finally with a rag in tow that you needed a hack saw to rip into strips...(had to find the hacksaw in the garage!) and a bucket of water you proceded to the room you're painting (to use a term lightly) and you notice the foot prints leading to and from the room you were in, so now it's a matter of cleaning the spots from the rug and on the floor on your way to wiping down the sides of the can that you spilled from. The problem is, your sneekers should have been the 1st thing you cleaned up and because you didn't, the floor looks like an Authur Miller, step by step dance instruction for the Wat-u-see before the light comes on for ya and you take them off and throw them out the back door! Another damned hour shot to hell!
This finished you encroach upon the pan with the paint in it and you foresee wonderful and colorful things for the room you wanted to paint. So you begin by cutting the edges until you realize that you have to dismantle half of the appliances, electrical outlets, switches and plumbing in the room you want to work in. And for that you need the %@#@ Phillips screwdriver, but you can't remember where you put it now that you've cleaned up your tools in the garage in order to find the slot type screw driver because the last time you saw it was 3 hours ago!!! (Gr-r-r-r)
This horror story plays out in multiple chapters named after the different things you might need to finish the project,...like the roller, the masking tape, another cup of coffee, tunes, answering the phone, checking your email, writing a blog, earning a masters degree...for what seems to be an infinity of its own. Add a few repairs to the ceiling and floor and it compounds the mental torture exponentially!
Then eventually you get the damned paint on the walls and everything back in place while rendering a perfectly good shirt, jeans and sneekers totally useless for public use…and once it drys, you find out you need yet a second coat and a gazillion touch ups!
If any of this scenario sounds familiar to you, then you've certainly done your share of painting and you have my sincere sympathies.

"Bradjolina" are/is preggers and they arrived in Haiti…You know, Jennifer was never told about it and boy, is she ever…Oh, big hairy deal already!!! Enough!

BAM! Just Like That!: Dear Pakistan, oops!

Upwards to eight unmanned drone aircraft bombed some homes in a small village in Pakistan in the last 24, outside the Afghanistan border, with the objective of assassinating A.Q.'s #2 man, al-Zawahiri…and DOH! A swing and a miss! He wasn't there! According to the survivors, never was!
Unfortunately anywhere from 17 to 30 uninvolved Pakistani civilians, (woman and children included) paid the price for that little piece of bad intel with their lives in this middle of a night soiree that came right out of the opening scenes of the Terminator…(machines vs. people, if you're not up on your sci-fi.)
But hey, we're not even at war with or in Pakistan,(yet)are we??? The "war" is in Afghanistan against some nebulous entity and "major combat operations have been concluded there for some years" now.
I dunno, maybe we got permission from their Prez. Permission? Is that as casual as like asking for a sleepover or something?
How does a conversation of that nature begin and progress?
"Uh, Mr. Mushariff (sic) whaddya say we come across and drop a few incendiary explosives on one of your smaller villages? No big nukes or anything. Just enough fire power to follow up a hunch that Osama's #2 guy might be in the neighborhood. 'You know, a hunch, a lucky guess. Sometimes a hunch pays off some time it doesn't.' But whaddya say Big Fella"?
To wit, The Pakistani President answers. "Sure! No problem" ??
Color me surprised, but what happened in Pakistan is comparable to Canada slipping over the border and dropping a load or two of death in Idaho or Wisconson!!
I wonder how long it would take most people to recognize that their leadership was no more than a manipulated puppet and run him/her out of town on a rail if something like this were allowed here or in any of the "free world, industrialized" countries like England, Germany, France or China?
Consider this as well… Wouldn't a planned and strategic attack using bombs and explosives such as this, in a country not at war constitute an act of terrorism?
It would if it were here, you can bet.
So why not everywhere else, no matter who carries it out, for whatever self righteous rationale?? The mind boggles!
This whole terrorism thing can get very confusing as the years go by, and by and by…What with all the double standards and the repeatedly adjustable, on the fly definitions. I'll have to check with the "Ministry of Information" and see what we're supposed to believe this week.
I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as they remove the rats and the cage from my face!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: When life begins..."Turn on and tune in"...Cheney...Condoms...and a head case.

A judge's ruling today in Mesa, Arizona may have answered for all of us the burning question of when life actually begins for the average Homo Sapien.
It appears that pregnancy doesn't qualify or meet the requirements for people wishing to use the "sane lanes" or carpool lanes, which are set up around many large cities to relieve and eliminate rush hour congestion.
This should go a long way towards clearing up the lingering doubts and philosophical conundrum many of us encounter in debate, friendly or otherwise about a woman's right to choice and the whole Roe Vs Wade imbroglio that creeps in and monopolizes the American political focus every election cycle and has done so for the last few decades.
I wonder how long it will take before this little gem becomes part of a Supreme Court argument?

Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug LSD and was its first human guinea pig celebrated his 100th birthday today… in good health. Gee, I bet if he knew he was gonna live this long, he'd have taken better care of himself!
And to all of my baby boomer peers who turned on in the past and then turned parents, politicians, alarmists and amateur behavioral engineers instead of making this a bold new world …I told you it wouldn't kill ya, if you weren't stupid about it, baby!
We could all be hangin' out under "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" by now if you guys had just held to your ideals instead of buying the hype from and selling out to the pharmaceutical complex.
Not to worry though, babies…we're all old enough now to cop the likes of Prozac, Valium, Ambien, and a slew of other mind altering concoctions quite legally just by asking our dealer, er,…Doctor.
The problem these days is…recreational drugs ain't really recreational anymore when you need them to cope in a world that has had you trussed up and stressed out for decades. And to think our elders lived in a time when all it took to hang in there was a couple of stupid martinis!
Yeah. We've certainly come miles, haven't we??

No word today on Cheney.
Yesterday he spent over 4 hours in hospital for being short of breath, then it was right back to work.
Some kinda stamina.
But when you consider that the guy once held the reigns of power over the behemoth known as Haliburton, how tough can a day at the White House be for the guy?
All he really has to do is tell the President what to do regarding policy and what to say in his speeches in response to the public outcries.

In Bogota, Columbia a city councilman there wants to require everyone in town 14 years or older to carry a condom to prevent pregnancy and disease.
Hate to tell ya, Javier, but just carrying 'em ain't gonna cut it!
Several Roman Catholic priests are angered by the effort. And when you consider what unrestrained reproduction has done for the collection plate and following in the last 2000 years or so, who can blame them for not wanting to thin out the herd!
To publicize and educate people about the effort, there have been parades through the center of town, with (get this!) groups of people dressed in sperm costumes!
Talk about terrorism, wait till this catches on and little Bobby gets wind of it next Halloween!
But then again, I think most gay parades have already been there, so there's probably nothing to really worry about…except perhaps if someone shows up at your office that way to deliver a singing telegram.
That'll keep 'em talking at the water cooler past break I bet!

And (mercifully) finally, an 11-year-old survived having his head run over by a pick up truck in Indiana and aside from a slight head ache for the last two days, he seems fine and good to go. Grandpa thought he had run over a piece of wood before it was realized that it was little Cameron's noodle. Good heads up, Gramps! Wait'll next time Lassie tells me you've fallen in the well!
His mother said the accident showed the dangers of letting children ride on tailgates. She said it was a "miracle" that Cameron had not been injured worse. "Maybe he has an exceptionally hard head," the mother said.
Look. I've been an 11-year-old and I've raised 11-year-olds. It's no miracle. At that age, I can confirm that the head is a relatively empty container waiting for something like intelligence to fill the void!

Friday, January 06, 2006

Bam! Just Like That! : The Boston Mosque

The construction of a 24.5 million-dollar mosque in Boston to serve approximately 70,000 Bostonian Muslims is meeting legal resistance from its key contrasting religious special interest group and rival.
Now before everyone gets all coltish and 9/11-ish about this, let me say that this proposed mosque is largely symbolic for the entire muslim community across this country as a whole and by no means does the building of it portend that it would be a collective gathering center for the entire 70,000 muslims in Boston on their holy day, any more than the St. Paul Cathedral in New York is the weekly gathering place for the millions of Catholics in NYC or that Temple Emanu-El (also in New York) is the weekly collective meeting place of all 1.4 million Jews in that city. Nor could it be said that Temple Israel in Boston services all of that city's 240,000 members for shule each week. So why are people getting all knee jerky about this mosque and what exactly is the press trying to put across with that big "70,000 Boston muslim congregation" bug-a-boo??
Does the group opposing this effort really hold all Muslims to be "terrorists"? Or more so, are they so afraid that this Mosque represents a virtual, state side Pentagon for those relatively few fundamentalist extremists who have opted to use violence globally to meet whatever their particular demands might be on the rest of the world?
Here's a flash. Maybe...just maybe, folks, the people who seek to build this Mosque in Boston are simply looking to create a place to commemorate, honor and worship their faith in much the same architectural splendor that the Christians and Jews have historically been known for in the cities of this country.
Can anyone recall the construction of any church or temple in any major US city being opposed and thwarted through the veiled use of the law and media manipulation at any time in our history? I can't. I can't even imagine it happening.

I say let that opposition that has a problem with these folks building their own church, eat cake!

Our constitution guarantees all Americans the basic freedom of religion.
Any group, religious or otherwise that puts its own self interests ahead of those constitutional provisions and interferes with the progress of others to pursue their own religious agenda because of their own fear, divergent beliefs or from having a cultural axe to grind is the group that should be more closely scrutinized and whose motives should be brought soundly into public question for examination.
Any concessions made to such a group would be comparable to placing the wishes of said special interest group before the law of this land and very well signals the beginning of the end of some of those very fundamental freedoms this country was est
ablished upon for all intent and purpose.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Something To Chew On - Cold, Cold News About Cold Cuts


According to a recent article in the syndicated USA Weekend; a supplement to many of the nations Sunday newspapers there's a very good indication that Blondie's Dagwood may want to consider a change in his diet.
A new study by the Cancer Research Center in Hawaii and the U of So. CA which tracked 190,000 people aged 45 to 75 for seven years has led them to the conclusion that those who ate the most processed meats (bacon, ham, cold cuts) had a 68% higher risk of pancreatic cancer ("...which almost always is fatal.) than those who ate the least of it.
In a life and death scenario, even a 20% risk is pretty darned frightening. 50-50 is scarier than hell! But lunchmeat is way up there at 68%?!!
Jared and the Subway franchise are not going to be pleased about this, let me tell you!
But ok, add that foodstuff to the long list of digestibles that'll kill us all post haste!!
Listen. You want to know my research findings? And trust me. These are as accurate as all get out.
Stop eating anything at all for, oh, three to four solid weeks and I guarantee it'll kill you. Or maybe forego drinking water for about four straight days and I'm giving you a 100% higher risk of shriveling up and becoming an inanimate, lifeless little dust bunny before anyone who has bottled water stuck to their face over a third of their waking day has.
How often do we need to be given this sort of scare about the things that we eat and we've been eating as a species since time and life began? Take a look around. It hasn't really thinned out the herd yet! Would someone please tell Mr. Science? He's so obsessed with our demise he has totally ruled out the history of population!
Here's the real question for you or anyone else still reading and somewhat interested in this piece…
In a society where getting an ointment to clear up a simple skin rash requires an appointment with a 12 year medical practitioner… following a decade of study by the FDA to ascertain that this medication won't kill me or cause the rest of my flesh to fall off the bone, how is it that something as common as cold cuts have a 68% chance of destroying my pancreas (and life on earth as I know it) and yet this stuff remains perfectly legal and available?? Fer chrissake! Kids can even buy cold cuts without parental approval!
Hey, I'm a sandwich kinda' guy, always have been. I'm the Earl of Sandwich incarnate, for cryin' out loud!! Me and Oscar Mayer go way back together, all the way to the sand box. Even the memory of a good ol' Philadelphia hoagie makes my eyes moist from longing… But just now, I'd really like to know why I haven't been protected from this noxious poison.
Here I sit, decades on this planet and no one even bothered to warn me till I got my issue of USA Weekend, yesterday! Well, happy, bloody New Year edition to you too, Mr. or Miss Surgeon General, since 1951! Where were you when I needed you? You got labels on silica jell so I won't open it and eat it when I unpack an appliance from Best Buy, but with bologna packing a 68% ticket to ride with the reaper, I get cute kids on commercials, pleadings from the beef council and a skyline peppered with sandwich shacks and burger palaces?
Sure, alcohol will kill you. Tobacco will too. Eggs, butter, whole milk, radon, UV rays, air pollution from traffic (but not that thick black smoke from diesel fueled semi-trailers…Um-m-m that's good stuff! Ask your politicians…they'll tell you.)…all of it (we're led to believe) lethal weapons slowly proceeding to diabolically take us out en mass. And don't let the numbers fool ya! At 6 billion souls on this planet we're running out of land, food, air and water, but if we just hadn't eaten that ham and cheese on rye for the last 10,000 years or so, why hell, maybe there could be 12 billion of us by now! And how do "they" know it's not the damned pickles on the side that's killing us?
Know what? All this is making me hungry. I'm gonna make a sandwich!
I think I'll take solace in the fact that eating the wrong stuff is more life extending than not eating at all.
And I'm thankful for that.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Hot cars, a snow job...and "Tradition!"

January 1, 2006
PARIS, France (AP) -- Rowdy revelers in France torched 425 vehicles overnight in scattered New Year's Eve unrest that has become an annual problem in troubled neighborhoods, the national police chief said Sunday. Last year, 333 cars were burned.

In St. Paul, MN where any amount of snow over 3'' (inches) constitutes a snow emergency and the need for a city wide, concerted, synchronized street plowing effort, this many cars get towed and impounded each opening 24 hour period of a snow storm. The cost to the vehicle owner? Upwards to $400 when all is said and done and a wait in a line, outside the impound lot for hours to retrieve their abducted cars.
The rules for where a person can park are as convoluted as adding and subtracting positive and negative exponents in an early trig class. So the revenue is pretty much guaranteed for the city's coiffeurs.
Ok, so it's not like having your car torched. True. But there's no insurance coverage for being towed either.



And finally...
Tonight is the last day of Chanukah, an amazing little cultural ritual where millions of people spend scads of money on menorahs, oils and candles each year to celebrate how the Maccabees of old handled a problem with their own inventory controls and didn't have any oil to light their fortification against an advancing enemy of Syrians and Greeks.
In and of itself, a nice practice until you realize that it too is succumbing to the scourge of commercialism.
The annual practice is now being diluted with offers to replace the traditional Menorahs with more diverse construction in the shape of Disney characters, motor cycles and even American flags!
Myself, being a gentile and understanding the diverse collection of people who celebrate Christmas in one way or another, have no real issue with the commercialism of that holiday to include licensed gibberish added to these festivities. But there's just something wrong about a Harley Davidson menorah.
I may be once again alone in this conclusion, because there wouldn't be a market for this dreck, if someone wasn't buying them enough to support their manufacture. So really, who am I to criticize?
Carry on folks! Baruch attoi Mickey Mouse.

Bam! Just like That!: Getting to the real issues...cellular discrimination and all things being equal

Associated Press
December 30, 2005 – 1:13 PM
Investigation launched into leak of info on domestic spying program
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program.
The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said.

Of course, the spying isn't the problem. The first things these guys want to investigate is who let the cat outta' the bag and tipped off the American people to these going ons.

Conrad Defiebre, Minneapolis Star Tribune
December 30, 2005 – 12:57 AM
Teens: 'Hang up and drive' is law on Sunday
Minnesota is telling teenage motorists with cell phones to hang up and drive or else face fines and delays in becoming fully licensed to cruise the roads.
A law that takes effect Sunday will apply to roughly 400,000 drivers with learning permits or provisional licenses -- nearly all of them teenagers -- prohibiting any use of a cell phone while behind the wheel, except in emergencies. Both hand-held and hands-free phone calls are forbidden by the law, which the Legislature enacted in July.

And this doesn't apply to everyone, why??


CNN News
December 30, 2005
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Between 10 and 20 Sudanese refugees have been killed and more than 50 others injured by Egyptian soldier who were trying to herd them aboard buses for evacuation from an upper class neighborhood.
The Egyptian Ministry said Friday that security forces had killed 10 of the refugees, but health officials put the toll at 20 dead.

And if even a fraction of these souls had been taken due to a car bomb in Iraq, Afghanistan or any place else in the world, it would have been decried as terrorism, plainly and simply.
If we could ask the dead or their families, do you think they would really find any difference just because the perpetrators were organized militarily, sanctioned by a government and wore uniforms?
Where is the recognition of the sanctity of life and the outrage now?
And just what is the real definition of terrorism, anyway?