Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
“Bizarro World”
When I was a boy reading “Superman” comics I ran into an alternative universe, Bizarro World”. Quite a few times in my adult life I have felt that I’ve entered that alternative world. I’m having those feelings now.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel have been wearing themselves out by trying to get the message out about global climate change, and that message is being received by the United States as the crazy uncle that you were told to ignore as a kid. We have until 2020 to reduce carbon emissions by eighty percent. That’s less than fifteen years!
By 2050 around a billion people will face food and fresh water shortages. Sea levels will rise, and major populations around the world will be relocated inland. New Orleans was a testing ground for things to come. Anyone who thinks that the government’s reaction to Katrina was about incompetence should realize that they realized that there was no point in salvaging or rebuilding the city. It’s just going to be worse next time and then the next time. So why invest in rebuilding what could be considered the United States version of Atlantis.
The president has finally or kind’a admitted that global climate change might, well, maybe, be caused by humans. What a giant step for the oil man! Now, of course, he’s all for regulations and trying to counter attack the emissions issue, but only as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the economy.
Well I don’t see how it can’t have an effect on the economy. It might be a good move for the economy by developing new technologies as new markets that will replace the old. Though I don’t think things are moving fast enough to create this new economy. We aren’t going to make it because consumerism is so embedded into everyone’s brain.
This leads me back to Bizarro World. We are going to have to start thinking in terms of the Bizarro World where everything is the opposite. Used is good, new is bad. There was a movement during the Great Depression and into World War II where people were involved in saving scrap or recycling clothes and other items, bartering with others, neighborhood gardens, and on and on. We can learn a lot from that generation and time. The attitude has to adjust that old things are coveted, and buying new is wasteful or only okay when necessary.
People are going to have to change:
“I don’t have an air conditioner.”
“Wow! That’s impressive.” They responded.
“I figure it helps prevent black outs and allows people that need the air conditioning to use it.”
Or:
“I’ve been biking to the grocery store. I have to make two trips, but it’s good exercise!”
“Me too. I used to drive my car to the fitness center, but I realized that it lacked some
common sense on my part.”
See what I mean? Write me with a scenario of your own.
Oh yeah and anything plastic should be shunned! Jake Drew
Come join US at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel have been wearing themselves out by trying to get the message out about global climate change, and that message is being received by the United States as the crazy uncle that you were told to ignore as a kid. We have until 2020 to reduce carbon emissions by eighty percent. That’s less than fifteen years!
By 2050 around a billion people will face food and fresh water shortages. Sea levels will rise, and major populations around the world will be relocated inland. New Orleans was a testing ground for things to come. Anyone who thinks that the government’s reaction to Katrina was about incompetence should realize that they realized that there was no point in salvaging or rebuilding the city. It’s just going to be worse next time and then the next time. So why invest in rebuilding what could be considered the United States version of Atlantis.
The president has finally or kind’a admitted that global climate change might, well, maybe, be caused by humans. What a giant step for the oil man! Now, of course, he’s all for regulations and trying to counter attack the emissions issue, but only as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the economy.
Well I don’t see how it can’t have an effect on the economy. It might be a good move for the economy by developing new technologies as new markets that will replace the old. Though I don’t think things are moving fast enough to create this new economy. We aren’t going to make it because consumerism is so embedded into everyone’s brain.
This leads me back to Bizarro World. We are going to have to start thinking in terms of the Bizarro World where everything is the opposite. Used is good, new is bad. There was a movement during the Great Depression and into World War II where people were involved in saving scrap or recycling clothes and other items, bartering with others, neighborhood gardens, and on and on. We can learn a lot from that generation and time. The attitude has to adjust that old things are coveted, and buying new is wasteful or only okay when necessary.
People are going to have to change:
“I don’t have an air conditioner.”
“Wow! That’s impressive.” They responded.
“I figure it helps prevent black outs and allows people that need the air conditioning to use it.”
Or:
“I’ve been biking to the grocery store. I have to make two trips, but it’s good exercise!”
“Me too. I used to drive my car to the fitness center, but I realized that it lacked some
common sense on my part.”
See what I mean? Write me with a scenario of your own.
Oh yeah and anything plastic should be shunned! Jake Drew
Come join US at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2007
SUCH A GOOD BOY!
Last week President Bush sent strong-arm Cheney to tell the president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, that he better step up the hunt for Al Qaeda operatives. If Musharraf didn’t, those Democrats in congress would cut his funding. The Democrats urged the Bush administration to squeeze Pakistan some because American commanders claimed that a number of Taliban were resting easy in Pakistan.
General Musharraf should react because President Bush is looking to give Pakistan $785 Million to help eliminate Islamic radicalism. That’s right $785 Million, and the best part is Pakistan is currently the fifth largest benefactor of U.S. aid. President Musharraf is a smart guy, and in his book that came out in the fall he referenced the “prize money” paid out to him to fight this war of terror, which estimates claim to be around $10 billion in the last five years.
So like a kid being threatened that he won’t receive his allowance unless he cleans up his pig sty of a bedroom – Musharraf came through like a good teenager. Within a day or so of the congressional threat the Pakistanis arrested Mullah Obaidullah, a senior leader in the Taliban. That should satisfy Mother Liberty for awhile or until the next allowance is needed to be paid out.
Write your congress people because there is no excuse why Pakistan is receiving this kind of money. We are being played like absent parents.
- Jake Drew
Come Visit us at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
General Musharraf should react because President Bush is looking to give Pakistan $785 Million to help eliminate Islamic radicalism. That’s right $785 Million, and the best part is Pakistan is currently the fifth largest benefactor of U.S. aid. President Musharraf is a smart guy, and in his book that came out in the fall he referenced the “prize money” paid out to him to fight this war of terror, which estimates claim to be around $10 billion in the last five years.
So like a kid being threatened that he won’t receive his allowance unless he cleans up his pig sty of a bedroom – Musharraf came through like a good teenager. Within a day or so of the congressional threat the Pakistanis arrested Mullah Obaidullah, a senior leader in the Taliban. That should satisfy Mother Liberty for awhile or until the next allowance is needed to be paid out.
Write your congress people because there is no excuse why Pakistan is receiving this kind of money. We are being played like absent parents.
- Jake Drew
Come Visit us at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
TERMINATION?
You ever been fired or had to fire someone? I’ve fired a lot of people, and then I was fired too.
Here’s the thing though – I’ve never known a company to ask, “We’re letting you go, but, oh, would you mind sticking around for a few months?”
Well Donald Rumsfeld can still be found in the Pentagon. He’s listed as a non-paid consultant, but he has seven paid employees working for him. Rumsfeld resigned on November eighth right after the Democrats took a number of seats in the elections. The strange thing was that a week before his resignation President Bush was saying that Rumsfeld was doing a heck of a job and would continue until the end of his presidency. Oh yeah – we saw that with Brownie and Katrina too.
So why is Rumsfeld hanging around? He’s reviewing and sorting through top secret documents, and he needed the status of non-paid consultant to do so. That seems as backward as keeping him around after he resigned. He quit, so why would he be involved with top secret documents?
The Bush administration is tricky. The president didn’t lie about Rumsfeld being around until the end of the administration. He just moved him around. Everybody moves around in this administration or is brought in from the previous administrations of Daddy Bush, Reagan and even Richard Nixon’s administration.
This is an administration that likes to think of itself as a corporation, which might explain why they are in so much trouble. It’s not great business sense to rehire employees.
Write your congress people and draw some attention to why this ex-employee is still hanging around on the premises.
Jake Drew
Come visit us at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
Here’s the thing though – I’ve never known a company to ask, “We’re letting you go, but, oh, would you mind sticking around for a few months?”
Well Donald Rumsfeld can still be found in the Pentagon. He’s listed as a non-paid consultant, but he has seven paid employees working for him. Rumsfeld resigned on November eighth right after the Democrats took a number of seats in the elections. The strange thing was that a week before his resignation President Bush was saying that Rumsfeld was doing a heck of a job and would continue until the end of his presidency. Oh yeah – we saw that with Brownie and Katrina too.
So why is Rumsfeld hanging around? He’s reviewing and sorting through top secret documents, and he needed the status of non-paid consultant to do so. That seems as backward as keeping him around after he resigned. He quit, so why would he be involved with top secret documents?
The Bush administration is tricky. The president didn’t lie about Rumsfeld being around until the end of the administration. He just moved him around. Everybody moves around in this administration or is brought in from the previous administrations of Daddy Bush, Reagan and even Richard Nixon’s administration.
This is an administration that likes to think of itself as a corporation, which might explain why they are in so much trouble. It’s not great business sense to rehire employees.
Write your congress people and draw some attention to why this ex-employee is still hanging around on the premises.
Jake Drew
Come visit us at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Oil & Cigarettes
Exxon Mobil Corporation announced that 2006 was the most profitable year in their history. Actually in any corporations history! Exxon recorded 39.5 billion dollars in profit for 2006. Within days of this acknowledgement Exxon Mobil was trying to get a federal appeals court to have another look at the $2.5 billion compensation to Alaskans for the 1989 Valdez tanker oil disaster. Originally an Anchorage court ordered the oil corporation to pay $5 billion, but that amount was cut in half.
It made me think about the tobacco company settlement in 1998. Forty-six states took a settlement of 206 billion dollars from the cigarette manufacturers to cover health costs of sick smokers. It took 85 years from the time that the tobacco industry introduced cigarettes to soldiers during World War I to the $206 billion settlement.
1914 was a turning point in the tobacco industry because this hooked a lot of men into smoking cigarettes. It was a boom from that time on. It was 1950 when the first medical report came out that linked lung cancer to cigarette smoking, and in 1965 due to pressure from the U.S. Surgeon General cigarette packages had to carry a warning about cancer and smoking.
No one ever talks about the health risks of inhaling automobile exhaust. Maybe there isn’t any, but I highly doubt it. There is that whole global warming issue – oh, but that’s still debatable at least in the United States.
Automobile production probably hit it’s stride in 1950 after World War II. Americans moved to the suburbs, and by 1956 the street car systems in almost every city had been replaced my bus systems.
So I figure on a comparison time line I’d say that the oil industry can enjoy ample profits until around 2035. That’s about twenty-eight more years before they have to own up to the disasters they have caused to the planet. I don’t know if we can wait that long. I’m not even sure we can wait another ten years!
There is no excuse right now as to why we don’t have affordable, humanitarian friendly, non-gas guzzling transportation or vehicles. If you want to protect your health, write a congressperson about this concern. There is no reason why the oil industry is making humongous profits at the cost of human lives. We tax the heck out of the tobacco industry, so why does the oil industry get by?
- Jake Drew
Come visit us at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
It made me think about the tobacco company settlement in 1998. Forty-six states took a settlement of 206 billion dollars from the cigarette manufacturers to cover health costs of sick smokers. It took 85 years from the time that the tobacco industry introduced cigarettes to soldiers during World War I to the $206 billion settlement.
1914 was a turning point in the tobacco industry because this hooked a lot of men into smoking cigarettes. It was a boom from that time on. It was 1950 when the first medical report came out that linked lung cancer to cigarette smoking, and in 1965 due to pressure from the U.S. Surgeon General cigarette packages had to carry a warning about cancer and smoking.
No one ever talks about the health risks of inhaling automobile exhaust. Maybe there isn’t any, but I highly doubt it. There is that whole global warming issue – oh, but that’s still debatable at least in the United States.
Automobile production probably hit it’s stride in 1950 after World War II. Americans moved to the suburbs, and by 1956 the street car systems in almost every city had been replaced my bus systems.
So I figure on a comparison time line I’d say that the oil industry can enjoy ample profits until around 2035. That’s about twenty-eight more years before they have to own up to the disasters they have caused to the planet. I don’t know if we can wait that long. I’m not even sure we can wait another ten years!
There is no excuse right now as to why we don’t have affordable, humanitarian friendly, non-gas guzzling transportation or vehicles. If you want to protect your health, write a congressperson about this concern. There is no reason why the oil industry is making humongous profits at the cost of human lives. We tax the heck out of the tobacco industry, so why does the oil industry get by?
- Jake Drew
Come visit us at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
Thursday, February 1, 2007
“THAT’S HOT!” February 2007
The Bush Administration has decided that there is something to this Global Warming scare. I don’t buy into it because in every State of the Union for seven years he has brought this up. It doesn’t matter if we reduce oil imports by 20% by 2017. So what if we are “addicted to oil”. So what if the United States is responsible for 25% of the world’s carbon emissions and we only hold 5% of the world’s population. There’s a whole group of people out there that think global warming is natural, and we can’t or shouldn’t do anything about it.
Best excuse – it’s god’s plan.
Most people don’t care about the environment. Nature is nice to watch on Television, but they don’t even want to send their kids outside. It’s a scary world out there. You have anthrax in the ground levels, Lyme disease, bird flu virus, child predators driving around neighborhoods, and don’t you dare talk to strangers, even though they live three houses down from you.
Plus to reduce oil dependency we might have to give up some of our “freedoms”. Little Johnny can only participate in one sports activity, because of the gas expenditures from driving him back and forth. He could ride his bike though. Eliminate recreational vehicles. Shopping would be reduced to once a week. Cut out shopping – then we aren’t supporting the troops!
If you want to do something about the environment, you have to humanize it. It’s not a good thing if the glaciers melt away. Warm weather is nice to people, but ocean levels rising would displace a lot of people. Cities and suburbia will need to make room for a lot of new neighbors. U.S. citizens already try to avoid contact with people by eating fast food, renting DVDs, no eye contact when walking, and talking to people through cell phones. Increased population is really going to hinder our lives.
The environment needs a spokesperson. It has to be a person and not a cuddly animal character like a polar bear. Polar bears aren’t found in our everyday lives, they live in zoos. Global warming isn’t going to affect the zoos. We need a celebrity to draw attention to the issues. Paris Hilton would be ideal! She already has that tag line, “That’s Hot!”. Plus we all have an interest in her, and she could use a little polish on that soiled image of hers.
You could show her watching a bunch of hunched over bicycle riders going by with their tight buttocks up in the air. She could use her tag line. She could be cuddling up with a polar bear, though not a polar bear rug. All that tan bare skin against the furry whiteness – Oh, man! That’s hot!
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations with the cartoons at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
Best excuse – it’s god’s plan.
Most people don’t care about the environment. Nature is nice to watch on Television, but they don’t even want to send their kids outside. It’s a scary world out there. You have anthrax in the ground levels, Lyme disease, bird flu virus, child predators driving around neighborhoods, and don’t you dare talk to strangers, even though they live three houses down from you.
Plus to reduce oil dependency we might have to give up some of our “freedoms”. Little Johnny can only participate in one sports activity, because of the gas expenditures from driving him back and forth. He could ride his bike though. Eliminate recreational vehicles. Shopping would be reduced to once a week. Cut out shopping – then we aren’t supporting the troops!
If you want to do something about the environment, you have to humanize it. It’s not a good thing if the glaciers melt away. Warm weather is nice to people, but ocean levels rising would displace a lot of people. Cities and suburbia will need to make room for a lot of new neighbors. U.S. citizens already try to avoid contact with people by eating fast food, renting DVDs, no eye contact when walking, and talking to people through cell phones. Increased population is really going to hinder our lives.
The environment needs a spokesperson. It has to be a person and not a cuddly animal character like a polar bear. Polar bears aren’t found in our everyday lives, they live in zoos. Global warming isn’t going to affect the zoos. We need a celebrity to draw attention to the issues. Paris Hilton would be ideal! She already has that tag line, “That’s Hot!”. Plus we all have an interest in her, and she could use a little polish on that soiled image of hers.
You could show her watching a bunch of hunched over bicycle riders going by with their tight buttocks up in the air. She could use her tag line. She could be cuddling up with a polar bear, though not a polar bear rug. All that tan bare skin against the furry whiteness – Oh, man! That’s hot!
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations with the cartoons at http://www.livinginlethargy.com/
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
“Human Military Hybrids” January 2007
Every year in the State of the Union address the president tosses out something that makes me perk up. Last year there was “switch grass” and “human animal hybrids”. Through the course of 2006 switch grass came up, but I still keep looking for a human animal hybrid! That seems a lot more interesting than some weedy grass.
What hit me in this year’s speech was “Civilian Reserve Corps”. Huh? That’s what President Bush said.
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.”
All I found about this idea was something attributed to Wesley Clark from October 2003. He talked of Americans serving their country when emergencies occur. Civilian Reserve registration would allow Americans to contribute their special abilities to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy. Nah – that’s not it.
No way could the Bush Administration be talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was part of the New Deal to help relieve poverty during the Great Depression. This is the administration that despises and tries to remove anything related to Roosevelt, but cuddles and pampers the Ronald Reagan legacy.
Just for fun I looked up the Nazi stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung. Basically the Brownshirts were a bunch of thugs that Adolf Hitler would use in the 1920s to squelch out dissidents at Nazi speeches or gatherings. Later on when Hitler took power in Germany they were good at busting up Jewish businesses and homes. Maybe? Nah.
Let’s meander on down the trail of the Military Industrial Complex. Bush was talking about Americans without uniforms to define our greatest struggle. It sounds like privatizing the military to me. It eliminates the financial burden of the military, and not so long ago we had hired guns watchin’ over the cattle on the plains.
It’s already here, so it’s not a stretch to get to the Civilian Reserve Corps. In the Iraqi and Afghanistan War we have our military operating side by side with civilians or “private contractors”. Can you imagine what it’s like to work next to somebody making $100,000 a year while you risk your life for your country for $20-24,000 a year? That can’t help morale!
Financially it makes sense to take misguided youths out of their bedrooms and away from their Mp3 to let them act out all their video gaming in a foreign land. The best part is now a company doesn’t have to pay exorbitant salaries, and these employees aren’t held to any of the rules of warfare. Heck! If this works out, we can do away with police departments too! That’s taxing on our cities and country too. Oh, oh, can you say – Sturmabteilung?
Write your congress people because this is one really bad idea.
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
What hit me in this year’s speech was “Civilian Reserve Corps”. Huh? That’s what President Bush said.
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.”
All I found about this idea was something attributed to Wesley Clark from October 2003. He talked of Americans serving their country when emergencies occur. Civilian Reserve registration would allow Americans to contribute their special abilities to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy. Nah – that’s not it.
No way could the Bush Administration be talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was part of the New Deal to help relieve poverty during the Great Depression. This is the administration that despises and tries to remove anything related to Roosevelt, but cuddles and pampers the Ronald Reagan legacy.
Just for fun I looked up the Nazi stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung. Basically the Brownshirts were a bunch of thugs that Adolf Hitler would use in the 1920s to squelch out dissidents at Nazi speeches or gatherings. Later on when Hitler took power in Germany they were good at busting up Jewish businesses and homes. Maybe? Nah.
Let’s meander on down the trail of the Military Industrial Complex. Bush was talking about Americans without uniforms to define our greatest struggle. It sounds like privatizing the military to me. It eliminates the financial burden of the military, and not so long ago we had hired guns watchin’ over the cattle on the plains.
It’s already here, so it’s not a stretch to get to the Civilian Reserve Corps. In the Iraqi and Afghanistan War we have our military operating side by side with civilians or “private contractors”. Can you imagine what it’s like to work next to somebody making $100,000 a year while you risk your life for your country for $20-24,000 a year? That can’t help morale!
Financially it makes sense to take misguided youths out of their bedrooms and away from their Mp3 to let them act out all their video gaming in a foreign land. The best part is now a company doesn’t have to pay exorbitant salaries, and these employees aren’t held to any of the rules of warfare. Heck! If this works out, we can do away with police departments too! That’s taxing on our cities and country too. Oh, oh, can you say – Sturmabteilung?
Write your congress people because this is one really bad idea.
Jake Drew
Come relieve your frustrations at http://www.LivinginLethargy.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
