Busy busy busy

Just too much useless news to report and I have better things to do.

The storm of the year/ decade/ century is over and the arduous task of shoveling out begins. They sure hyped that one. So what happens when the next bigger storm hits? They'll have to make up new adjectives to grace our language. Fear always sells you know. And if that doesn't work it's sex or food are always good standbys but that's a bit difficult to tie into a weather map. 

Solar flares are headed this way. Nothing to really worry about here folks or so they say unless you want to watch some pretty night time lights in the sky. Around here that would be about as likely as seeing a polar bear and a black bear on the same day. This is western Washington in the winter for cripes sake. And it's always wise to take what "they" say with a grain of salt too. "They" wouldn't lie to us now would "they"?

So now that we're just about back to cute puppies and cuddly kittens the real stories are being covered up like a red headed step child. Banks are back to their old tricks only now they'd like to suck the remaining life blood from your home equity and retirement before your passing. Syria continues to be a killing field with those that can get out are headed for the exits. Folks in Egypt are none too happy about the changes in that country and it looks like Morsi is wanting to take lessons from Iran. Greece is at near civil war while the austerity measures in the UK are about to stir up trouble there. And in the U.S. we wait for a budget not knowing if our leaders will follow the same path. But let's face it this country has been gutted from the inside out when greed took hold and outsourcing was the way to go.

So let us all enjoy our distractions while we can things could be worse but I don't know how. Hopefully those at the top will begin to realize that if they keep going they way they are those in the middle and bottom won't be around. But the pesky Peonage is hard to get rid of. Got to keep somebody around to rake the garden and clean the toilets. 

Blizzards and earthquakes and tornadoes oh my!

I just loved the above image borrowed from one Susan Madrak. I can only think of one time we got a snow day from school sometime in the early 60s. I believe it was a Sunday afternoon when it started snowing and it didn't stop until late the next day with something like 26 inches. Again it was one of those fluke weather patterns similar to today's events. How quickly we forgot those record breaking heat wave temperatures we had that killed people and the draught that's hit the midwest for the past few years. And the fires and heat that hit Australia just a short time ago. I'm hearing that such shifts in climate will be a boon to Canadian farming that is if the water doesn't dry up. So instead of oil pipelines maybe we should be installing water lines. Makes sense to me.

 It's laughable that people complain where other people live when there's a disaster. Shouldn't have built so close to the ocean or river is the cry never realizing that things change and there really is no "safe" place to live. Live in a valley and risk flooding. Live in the mountains and risk an avalanche. Or maybe on a fault line that nobody knew about until recently. Pick a coast or the flatlands of the midwest and there'll be some problem. Don't like tornadoes then don't live in Kansas Dorothy. If you want stability then go live on an astroid but don't come crying to me it it should hit something.

So there it is I'm to lazy to blog. Now go do something productive like find that lost pen cap. And that sock you lost in the washer still needs a mate.

Friday pussy... So it's austerity you'll be wantin then is it?

You know the economy's bad when you go to a store and are accosted by no less then three sales clerks as soon as you walk in the door. Had I stepped back to the 1950s or what?  "Let me guide you right over to the aisle where you want to be", said the older clerk with the store apron as he's handing me the newest discount flyer. Didn't know if I looked like J. Gotrocks with hundreds hanging out of me pockets. The cashiers stood in eager anticipation kind of like sharks at feeding time.  "And don't forget we have a sale next week and since your a "preferred" customer you get to come in a day early and there's a 20% discount for everything you can squeeze into a bag" says her. She did just about everything but preform oral sex on me before I was out the door. All this and I only bought $3 worth of stuff. 

In Greece life for the common folk isn't looking too good. The massive tax increases and cuts to pensions are taking their toll. As I reported in an earlier blog post a while back the Greek government had imposed a 29% tax that was tied to their electric bill. Don't pay it and your power was cut off. Now I'm hearing that the total tax increase is up to 40% of income along with a 50% cut in pensions. Greeks being resourceful people have turned to burning wood for heat which has lead to air pollution alerts in the city of Athens and elsewhere in addition to tree poachers. The going joke in Athens these days: When asked about a pile of furniture in the corner the homeowner responds "That's my retirement  plan". 

Greece is set to sell T-bills on Feb 12 not to get the country rolling again but only to roll over existing debt. The banksters buy the bonds and use them as collateral to draw liquidity from the central bank. In short that means less money supply in the economy which is great for the banksters as that raises interest rates but causes prices to rise on everything else. Now you know what it means to throw gasoline on a fire, economically speaking.

If that did make you pause and wonder things in the UK are not much better. A bill that just passed parliament imposes a "bed room tax". That's right anyone having a spare bedroom now gets their tax credit on the household cut by about $100 a month. Sounds much like our mortgage deductions here in the U.S. But the kicker is that now the government expects people to just move to a smaller place when there is a shortage of housing. The other solution suggested was to ask for more hours at work to cover that cost. Yeah right! First thing I've ever heard out of a supervisors' mouth is "there's no overtime here!" 

My suggestion to them was to start knocking out some walls and make a couple of one bedroom flats but they informed me that the authorities inspect places once each year. This program was set up to punish the working poor because this is subsidized housing we're talking about. Nothing like kicking a guy when he's down eh? Can't be denyin the rich banksters their cushy offices or their spare vacation homes now could we?

And here's the perfect gift tie for your mortgage banker compliments of those who lost their homes through no fault of their own.   

Bank fails later.
UPDATE: No banks failed this week.

The times they are a changing

Everyone realizes that things never stay the same. Life rolls on and it seems gets faster the farther into this we get.  We know the latest and greatest always gets replace with the next latest and greatest. It also seems that traditions never last forever. How much has changed over the years. Can't remember the last time a gas station jockey checked the oil or washed the windshield. Anybody remember when the mailman came twice a day? There once was a time when milk was delivered to your door. A white uniformed guy in a white truck clanking glass bottles at 3 AM. These days he'd probably get shot for trying that. There was the eggman and the breadman but they fell victim to the super duper markets cropping up. Exactly how they ever made their profit margins in the first place is still a mystery.

So now we have the elimination of Saturday mail service. Can't seem to recall getting a bill on a Saturday. They always seemed to arrive on Fridays just before getting a paycheck. In one hand and out the other as I always say. You can pretty much see where this is all headed. Companies will force you to do everything on line. Simple at first with offers of reduced rates and discounts. Then once they have you trapped they start adding little hidden fees even though your bill is untouched by human hands or viewed by human eyes for that matter. All costing the company almost nothing and let us not forget their wonderful customer service outsourced to a foreign land where semi english speaking people read from scripts and have no clue about you or even how the system works.

And now the lowly iron is being kicked out of Monopoly. I seriously can't remember the last time I played the game but it's the principal of the thing. I didn't mind getting the iron. It was an easy piece to maneuver for small hands, even had a handle. It's also amazing that they even sell many of these games today with the latest and greatest shoot em up video games as competition. But I guess there's emerging markets just ripe for this sort of thing. And those developing third world countries probably wouldn't know what do do with an iron if they saw one. Come to think of it I haven't seen one in years myself.

Not much justice in the world but some

Two banks near Seattle and their executive board are being sued by FDIC for their fraudulent practices. All well and good if the executives face prison time in my opinion. Unfortunately I know how these things work out. The bank gets off with a slap on the wrist. The execs walk scott free while people are evicted and the taxpayer is left holding the bag.

Bank of America or should we call them by their rightly name Scum of America is also being sued for evicting people over the Christmas holiday even after a moratorium on evictions had been declared.  I've seen too many cases where these guys get away with murder. In one case a man who had been current on his payments and even had the receipts to prove it was evicted had his car repossessed and lost his job all because his payments weren't filed correctly by the bank. All he got was a lame letter of apology from the bank.

Now if this doesn't get your goat our wonderful justice department has decreed that they can hunt down and kill any American citizen at will. No charges, no trial, no how do you do, all done by secret laws that can't be challenged or even seen. And we thought Soviet Russia was a bad place. Over 4000 people have been killed this way since the start of the Iraq war. Mainly in Pakistan, one 16 year old was the American born son of a Pakistani national. His only crime. Being born to a man suspected of terrorism. Last I checked we have something in our constitution about due process and a right to a fair trial. Think it's called the 4th amendment.

This country is on a slow simmer folks and it's not going to take much more to make it boil over the top.

More stupid news you can't use

Arizona student suspended 

For using an assault rifle as a wallpaper for his school issued computer. I seem to recall being in grade school and we did a mural of WWII on butcher paper for all to see complete with depictions of troops guns bombs and explosions and nothing was ever said about it. This was a class project where everybody added their artwork to the long scroll. How times have changed.

Inventor of the Etch-A-Sketch dies

Almost faded into history until the toy was briefly revived by Mitt Romney's attempt at the White House. The toy once made in the U.S. fell victim to off-shoring and was soon left to the bottom of the toy box with the rise of hand held video games. Never could get a good curved line with that thing.

You say Vukovar I say Bykobap

Croats are incensed that the cyrillic alphabet is being foisted upon their town. This is an effort to comply with the new european unions' minority rights standards. Good grief what are they now French Canada? Although you will notice most of our products here now come with spanish labels. And I'm one of those purists who turns the packaging around to the "american" label side.  I figure hey if you're going to live in a country at least have enough respect to learn the language. When in Rome do as the romans do and all that. 

And along those lines it appears that one of the Russian government ministers would like nothing more than ban all foreign words from the language. Good luck with that Igor. Modern languages are so fluid at the moment they change as fast as a fleeting text message. Foreign words can have a certain punch that's not found in the native vocabulary.  What would football be here without the "blitz" (german) or that dizzy blonde being called a dumb "dora" (russian)? Couldn't head down to the local eatery without using a french word now could you?

Ex Navy sniper killed at gun range

Well so much for your idea that well armed people can protect themselves. This guy had more experience than all of us put together, was at a gun range with other experienced gun owners and yet was killed. Then there was the idiot woman testifying that women should own assault rifles to protect their babies. Here's a question for you Mrs. Winchester. How fast do you think you can unlock a gun cabinet when there's a prowler breaking in the front door? And what happens when junior finds the keys to the gun safe and decides to play Rambo? 

Marines have doubts about women in combat roles

I have my doubts too. Having worked in the construction field for 20 odd years I've known only 4 women in the field in all that time. Two quit to seek other careers. One died from the physical demands and one other has been relegated to less physical positions like spotter or flagger. She also messed up her leg on a job and may have to retire on disability.

As for the military I'd like to see an all female special combat unit. Try that one out and see how it works.  

News you can't use ground pig edition

The ground pig crawls out of his hole and checks the weather report. And the reality is that a bunch of weirdoes  dressed in top hats and tails have nothing better to do than yank some poor critter out of its' nice warm den mid winter. And unless he was already awake it's a sure bet he'd like to bite somebody and run back to bed. Wouldn't you?

Ah but not to be out done I'm sure there are other prognosticating critters out there. It's said that we have a forecasting frog around here but this is a new one on me. And whoever came up with these ideas must have stayed out to late with the boys and couldn't get back in the house. If you know what I mean.

So tell me about your prognosticating pets. Is there a gopher in Georgia who beats the odds. Or maybe an anteater in Alabama (oh that's right they don't get much winter there). Maybe a moose in Montana has the inside scoop. Horse manes were once an indicator I'm told along with fussy caterpillars.  Let's face it with the shift in the magnetic poles and enough carbon belched into the air it's a wonder anybody can get anything right. No global warming you say? Ha! Tell that to the folks in the south pacific who's homes are now underwater. And it wasn't that way just a decade ago.

But what would useless news be without something about the economy. I stumbled upon a unique solution to our financial crisis. We'll pay off the debt using Zimbabwean dollars. It's the perfect solution. They have amongst their currency a $100 trillion bank note just itching to solve all our financial troubles. Think about it. Geez we'd have money left over to do it all again. You will also note that their logo has a familiar resemblance to a pile of fecal material. How appropriate.

In politics it looks like they're running out of village idiots to hold office so I guess they'll have to change the rules and start importing. The asylums are empty now you know. I'd say the brothels might be full but I don't think anybody uses those anymore, too old school. Not with senators tweeting and sexting and posting naughty self portraits on the web. And let us not forget the groupies wanting to rub more than elbows.  Hey it takes two to tango you know. 

In sports Big Pharma is busy coming up with the latest and greatest non detectable muscle enhancers. Those grid iron behemoths will try anything to get the edge. Why don't we just let Monsanto take over and have "ultimate" football and baseball? Kind of like unlimited hydro racing we have here. Picture those Goliaths if you will. 

So it's back to weather which was the start of this all. Unless something weird happens here which is a possibility then it looks like a fairly mild winter for us. And you don't need an aardvark or wolverine to make that prediction.