Government Follies Post #2

I was all set to rant about how all this stupid political posturing in Congress was about to create financial chaos, when lo! the sparring parties managed, somehow, to put aside their ideologies and agree to some kind of compromise. Of course, the sticking point were these Tea Party rookies who haven't yet learned that in strong winds, grass survives because it bends, while trees stand stiff and resist the wind and thus they break.

Earlier tonight I saw some talking-head show where one of the Tea Party rookies naturally said, "Hey, it wasn't us, it was the oldsters who've been there 30 years who made this mess." And yeah, he was right. The underlying mess wasn't created by the Tea Party rookies. But if everybody stuck to their guns, with no chance for compromise, millions of people who did all the things they were supposed to do, and contributed to the Social Security kitty all those years, would have been told, "Sorry, we can't pay you." And the military members who the Tea Party people seem to think they emulate would have gone unpaid also.

Of course, it's not really over just yet. Everybody still has to vote, and let's face it, little bits of the crisis they're supposed to be trying to prevent will still come to be. The US economy, and the US government itself, will not stop on a dime. It's more like one of those oil supertankers that need thousands of feet to make even the smallest course changes.

And, for what it's worth. a balanced budget is mandatory. There's no way it can just be pushed aside. But adding a constitutional amendment saying the budget must be balanced cheapens the Constitution. You don't have to add an amendment in order to do it. Just... do it.

CHECK YOUR TIRES!!

Attention United States drivers: Your tires can be a lethal hazard waiting to happen, even if you just bought them "new" at the store. The key isn't how long they've been used or not used, but how long ago the tire was made. Tires over 15 years old are still being sold as new in auto centers across the country, accidents waiting to happen. Here's an ABC News video about old but unused tires being sold as new, and what the hazard is: Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard?

For some reason, the same companies that issue "strongly worded" warnings abroad about old tires don't think they're necessary in the US, and are lobbying against them.

Bush, Cheney, Obama: ALL RELATED?!

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545460,BSX-News-wotreea09.article

Bush and Obama have a common ancestor.

Cheney and Obama have a common ancestor.

Bush and Cheney have a common ancestor.

Each of the common ancestors is a different person -- none is common to all three.

So far, though, no sign of any of the three being related to any of the Clintons…

Go figure.

Westchester Tornado

I thought I had posted this a long time ago. This is based on the Wikipedia article Westchester Tornado...

The Westchester Tornado was an F2 tornado that touched down in central Westchester County, New York at around 4:00 p.m. EST on July 12, 2006 with winds that at times exceeded 150 miles per hour. The tornado may have began on the Rockland County shore of the Hudson River, moving at 25 mph across the river toward Sleepy Hollow, just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. It began to cut a 200 to 300 yard wide path straight across Westchester and into Fairfield County, Connecticut. While no deaths were reported, it is very rare for F2 or greater tornadoes to strike the New York Metropolitan Area, due to tornadoes being rare on the Eastern Seaboard. Enough damage occurred to cause an appeal for FEMA funding.

On July 12, 2006 a strong south westerly wind on the surface acted in conjunction with a strong upper level jet to cause conditions to become ripe. The tornado spawned as a waterspout over the Hudson River in the southwest quadrant of the storm and traveled in the northeast direction, something that is distinctive with most tornado causing thunderstorms. Once it reached the Westchester side of the river it became a tornado and roared up Beekman Ave., one of the main streets of Sleepy Hollow. The tornado reached F-2 status as it crossed over the Sleepy Hollow village line into Hawthorne. From there it tore across Hawthorne, New York, destroying a California Closets office and warehouse. It then proceeded up Stevens Ave. and crossed into Valhalla, New York inflicting much damage. It finally crossed the Kensico Reservoir and caused slight damage in Greenwich, CT before going out to the Long Island Sound.

The tornado left much of Hawthorne and Valhalla without power and many streets were covered with trees for much of the next few days. Power was restored to most of the area within the next two or three days, with some areas regaining power within the next week.

The article says the tornado "may have begun" in Rockland County, but there was documented damage in Grandview, on the Rockland side of the Hudson River, before the waterspout crossed the Hudson and became a tornado again in Sleepy Hollow. It picked up a New York State trooper’s car while he was driving along the Sprain Brook Parkway, dropped it, picked it up again, and dropped it a second time. The trooper was bruised a bit and spent a couple days in the hospital; the car, though, was totaled, since the first drop was nose-first.

But before it reached the area of the Sprain Brook, it tore through the area of Tarrytown Lakes, near the former Rockefeller estate. There are new houses that were recently built in wooded areas that had for decades, maybe centuries, been natural growth. I have to admit wanting to see that some damage had been done (without hurting anyone) to send a message that it's better to leave nature alone, that not all "progress" is actually progress. But, alas, though there were downed trees all around the area, none of the houses appeared to be damaged.

Odds and ends for today

Intelligent Design: What’s the Big Deal?

I subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article of the Day by mail, and today’s article is Intelligent Design. This is basically a way for religious-minded individuals to frame “creation” in a way to hopefully get around the objections of those who reject creation accounts on “scientific” grounds.

Personally, I don’t see the supposed disconnect between religion and science. After all, the root meaning of the English word “science” is “knowledge.” Wikipedia’s article on science defines it as follows:

“Science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge'), in the broadest sense, refers to any systematic knowledge or practice.[1] In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.”

In other words, science is what is known. The fact that a particular group of scientists don’t know, for example, how the earth was created, doesn’t make the method used any less scientific. It just means that they don’t know or cannot reproduce the method. Many times arguments against creation accounts are no more than the egos of the objectors acting out.

World Trade Bomber has a change of faith

According to reports in today’s edition of the New York Daily News, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who detonated the truck bomb that destroyed a basement garage in the World Trade Center in 1993, has abandoned Islam and is now a Christian convert.

The report states that he has stopped reading the Koran, shaved his beard, and even eats pork.

I’m sure that there are conspiracy theorists claiming that he’s putting on a show in hopes of getting some kind of early release from prison (which could never happen in a post 9/11 world, especially since he’s serving a life sentence). But, in fact, even a discussion of changing religions could get someone killed by fundamentalist Muslims, to say nothing of eating pork. So I’d have to say this is real. And if it is real, he’d best hope that he never gets out of prison. Because if he did, he could never be at ease – besides those who would be willing to hunt him down over the bombing, there would be people who consider his “conversion” as blasphemy.

Kid Singers in NYC? OK. But Baby Races?

A ten-month-old baby was just crowned “fastest crawler” at a “Baby Derby” in Union Square, in New York City. He competed against seven other babies in crawling along a ten-foot-long course, sponsored by Babies “R” Us as a trial run for races to be held this weekend at the American Baby Faire (?!) in Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but this seems just a little bit exploitive… but then somebody thought the same thing about 17-year-old American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and fellow contestant Sanjaya Malakar, who turned 18 just after the performing the New York shows on this years American Idol tour. The organizers got hit with fines after a clerk at the NYS Labor Department took note of the fact that Jordin and Sanjaya, both featured performers, were under 18. She did some digging, and turned the info over to investigators who then found that the company that organized the tour didn’t have the correct permits filed for using underage performers.

I know that laws and standards exist for a reason, but there is a huge difference between teen performers who have parents, managers, and so on with them to monitor them and make sure they’re not being exploited or overworked, and kids enslaved in some sweatshop making sneakers or pocketbooks for pennies an hour. It was “only” a $5,000 fine, though, so they didn’t get too carried away, but I still think it probably should have been let go.

Interesting quote from Charlize Theron

Esquire magazine's annual poll claims that Charlize is the "sexiest woman alive." She is a good-looking woman, though I have major qualms with the idea of her being the sexiest alive. (Esther Baxter, anyone? Somaya Reece? I could name others...) But she had an interesting quote in the article; after speaking about working with director John Frankenheimer, she made a comment about, as the paper said, "a different kind of American director -- one that frequents the Oval Office instead of the back lot." She says, "I grew up in a country that learned the lesson that you can't impose your way of life on 26 different kinds of people just because you call yourself righteous... I think there are lessons this country still has to learn."

NY Daily News article: Charlize winner of battle of the babes

Europeans say (North) Americans have no sense of irony

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4699357-103425,00.html

I absolutely love it when people make sweeping generalities like this, especially when it includes a part of the population that includes me. More, please! More! And when they say that faith and irony can't coexist, again putting all (North) Americans of a great variety of races and cultures and income groups and religions in one basket -- I can't get enough! And I have a feeling that the writer said North Americans rather than just "Americans" because they'd rather deal with irritated Canadians and Mexicans than singled-out angry United-States-ians.

If Charles Barkley Were President

Video interview of Charles Barkley, pointing out what he sees wrong with politics as it's done today. He makes some good points, too...

If Sir Charles Were US President

It just occurred to me that if "Sir" Charles Barkley were to become president, we'd have to call him "Lord President."

NOT!! :-)

Mark Twain quote on Iraq, um, I mean the Phillippines

Mark Twain could have been a prophet, it looks like. As you read the following quote, change "the Phillipines" to "Iraq," "Filipino(s)" to "Iraqi(s)," and "Spanish" to "Saddam Hussein's," and this quote could have been made recently about the current war in Iraq, instead of one hundred years ago about a war halfway around the world in the Phillipines (from Wikipedia):

"There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot
for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we
could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should
come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot
understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the
origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as
their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve
them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of
their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was
not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government
that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a govern-
ment according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy
mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess,
a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of
extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we
were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation."

As always, this quote refers to a miscalculation on the part of the US government. Or, rather, it resulted from the custom of going in shooting first, then figuring out what the suitation is and what is at stake. In this case, Spain had lost the Spanish-American War -- which many believe the US provoked by blowing up an American ship docked in Cuba and blaming it on the Spanish -- resulting in the US gaining rulership over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines. Since Filipinos had been putting up an armed resistance to Spanish rule, the US mistakenly thought the Filipinos would be happy with their new rulers.

Wrong. They didn't want new outside rulers, no matter who they were. The result was four years of war in a land where both the terrain and the culture were totally unfamiliar to the US forces, resulting in four years of war and over four thousand of American solders killed.

Seem the least bit familiar?