I am responsible. These sum up the words of Fearless Leader the other day, in describing the ongoing catastrophe left behind by the demise of the Deepwater Horizon. For those who read literally–he was not claiming that what happened was his doing–but rather that someone was going to take point position in cleaning up the wreckage.
This was not the case a week or so ago when the Three Stooges of BP, TransOceanic, and Halliburton were on the congressional hotseat. Finger pointing was the order of the day there, with Moe McKay, Larry Newman, and Curly Probert blaming each other. The only excuse not heard was that it was “God’s Will”, and they got dangerously close to whipping that one out. We always get some good Nyuk Nyuk’s out of Halliburton’s stooge–this time was no exception.
Watching the plumes of oil and drilling mud, courtesy of BP’s “catastrophe camera” stream–I stop to think that I need to fill up my Jeep today. What the hell if it only gets 16 MPG around town. We are not moving away from petroleum before my demise, so “Keep the Jeep” will be the order of the day. Let the greenie weenies drive their little putzmobiles around. I might have to haul something big and heavy.
Sarcasm or position? Or a little of both as a scene from “The Graduate” comes to mind:
Continue reading “Make no mistake…” »
Once upon a time, in a land far away—I bought my first computer. In 1985, I spent every dollar that I had to purchase a Compaq Portable Plus, the very first IBM PC compatible computer. This tasty box was all I could think about. It was a little over $3600, and had an incredible 128K of memory, and two 5 ¼” floppy drives that one was consumed by the operating system—DOS 3.2—in a case that resembled a sewing machine. It was wonderful! In those days, the race was not to upgrade your software, but to build the hardware system. By 1993, this 30 pound behemoth had a 1.44Mb floppy disk, a 20Mb hard disk, 640K of memory—a new Panasonic processor–with a 1Mb extension card. Good God, and a 9600 Bps modem!
The Supreme Court forced busing to “desegregate” and equalize education—the success of that is still up for debate. Various civil rights acts, in combination with affirmative action attempted to equalize the workplace. Yet, in 2009, we have a much more insidious form of racism than ever before—because it is unspoken. Anyone who truly believes that the color or ethnic lines have been broken is either ignorant or lying to themselves—it is still there, and takes forms unthought-of of a generation before.
For the past several days, I have been engaged in a forum conversation about just this thing. It has been an opportunity to read just how screwed up average Americans have become—and how much they are buying into the hateful, deceit filled propaganda being shoveled out by the more vocal members of the Republican Party. Along with the expected paranoid delusional and conspiracy fanatics, village idiots, and those who are simply unable to resolve the fact that a negro couple now sleeps in the big bed at the White House—are those who are buying into every bit of rabble rousing fallacy being churned out by the Republican machine and their illustrious spokespeople. What they are writing is frightening, and the general attitude is one that threatens the premise that America has been built upon.
about. In essence, students are arriving at the start of the school year, already academically tired. From what, one might ask—as summer vacation is a time of rest and recreation. But alas, the shortsighted “professionals” that have ruined the teaching sector have added a new dimension to a student’s life—summer homework.
If one thinks that this is just one more tale from Iraq, Afghanistan, or another part of the Middle East, then they are wrong. This is a story that unfolds around us every day in this country when law enforcement authorities confront an illegal drug lab and its operators. Here in Appalachia, methamphetamine production can be found in every county, produced and supported by users from all economic and social walks of life. And there are other kinds of drugs manufactured as well; Ecstacy, PCP, crack cocaine, designer amphetamines, hallucinogens, the list goes on. And then there is Tennessee’s number one cash crop, marijuana.
In many successful microenterprise programs it all begins with business training and investment in ordinary people in a place called a “business incubator.” While this may conjure up some wild images, a business incubator is simply a place where microentrepreneurs go to grow their business. Incubators provide space to work, and supply services such as technical support, telephone, office equipment such as computers and copiers, and most important, an environment that is conducive to success.
I find this rather confusing, and deeply disturbing. This writer has been following the reprehensible conduct of our President and Congress in enacting a decent bill to protect children’s health. Oil prices spiral up, Detroit is collapsing, and Wall Street imploding. The Chinese vomit cheap garbage upon us, and every day American troops are maimed or killed supporting a war of lies. Where is the outrage here? Yet the well intentioned whacko’s line up to help out a passel of dogs and protect their rights.
surmount the apathy students can express for learning. A look backward might give a few clues. In the 1970s, psychologist Ken Gergen created quite a stir for espousing a “relational” view of the world. In this, he posits that
Today it is estimated that over 60% of our consumer goods are manufactured abroad. I doubt that this figure includes the American produced goods that are assembled from materials and components made elsewhere. The rationale given by producers is that these sort of production systems make items more affordable for the consumer, and meet demand for the product.
impending demise of several American automakers. For years, lending institutions have made riskier and riskier loans with “flexible” interest terms–under the great presumption that default rates would not seriously encroach on profits. They sold these mortgages to investors–you know, the folks that buy them to prop up your retirement fund and bolster companies that need to show ever increasing profits while they make nothing really tangible…
Signs were set out within the forest asking for critters to participate in a survey. The only call received was from an environmental group based in Knoxville claiming that the signs ruined the pristine nature of the forest and threatened that they would sue if the signs were not removed immediately. Like most McCreary citizens, this writer does not make a lot of money that can buy lawyers and moved to get the signs down quickly. I thought about using an ATV, but was told that I could not ride it on most of the roads in the forest and park.