SINCE I HAVE NOTHING TO DO

DETRITUS OF CIVILIZATION
I was always curious why ancient ruins in Europe were below the street level, at least in cities like Rome and Athens. It finally occurred to me that the town just builds up around old ruins by piling their trash around. You can almost tell how old a ruin is by measuring how much below the street level it lies. Now ancient Athens’s ruins are about 20 feet of more below. That means they’re from about 500 BC. Except there is a small Greek Orthodox church there and it is only about 8 feet below, which means it is from around 1500 AD. Old ruins in Rome from about 2000 years ago are generally about 20 feet below current level. The recent Metro station in Athens has a wall behind glass of a record of their history, even a burial sarcophagus cut in half. Now that station is probably 30' below street level. Can you imagine the problems of digging a subway around Athens and running into all this history? We freak out if we find an arrowhead when digging a foundation 12" deep.

AFGHANISTAN
I am planning to write Obama about our war in Afghanistan and how to make it a little more profitable. Before we invaded the country, poppy cultivation was a major industry there. The Taliban (Fundamentalist Muslims) grow it to fund their war against the infidels (Us). Let’s take it away from them and grow it ourselves. Someone has to grow it as it is the world’s best pain killer. It isn’t all smoked, you know. Actual doctors prescribe it all the time. Anyway, think about it, with the profits from growing half the world’s opium we could probably pay for the entire war effort there, simultaneously depriving the nasty Taliban of much needed money for their war effort. After all, that’s what the Brits did in the mid-1800's, running opium to China..

MIRACLES
I just came across an article about Thomas Jefferson and how he pasted up an entire bible but cut out all references to miracles. I didn’t think anyone would believe in a religion that didn’t have a bunch of miracles sprinkled here and there.
Let’s look at a few;
Christians - Raise a dead man to be alive again
Change a few loaves of bread into hundreds of fish
Change water into wine by the amphoras full
Walking around on top of the water
Getting back into his body after being dead for a few days
Curing leprosy

Jewish - The old testament didn’t seem to do many personal miracles, they were mostly big ones like destroying Jericho, turning a few people into salt, flooding the entire world except for Noah and about 100 species. I always wondered how he got a pair of Llamas, and where were the penguins?.



Muslims - Mohammed flying through the air on his white horse half way across Arabia
The Kaaba black stone (asteroid?) Who knows where they think that came from?
I suppose that frolicking with 72 virgins if you die in battle for the cause could be construed as a miracle. Recently when women started being suicide bombers I wondered what their reword could possibly be. A friend reminded me what could be better for a lesbian than 72 virgins. Point well taken.
Allah (God?) wrote the Koran thru Mohammed , no errors in it nor contradictions.

Buddhism - I don’t recall any miracles in their myths.

HOLIDAYS, a primer
We need to clean up our holidays. Here’s a few reccommendations:
New Years -Jan 1 - Winter Soltice - I suppose this is valid as we’ve been celebrating it for thousands of years. Always need an excuse to get blind drunk.
M L King - Jan 19 -This type of thing is a bunch of bullshit. If he hadn’t been shot he probably would not have been made into such a hero. Don’t we have any sort of criteria about who gets his name forever on a day when all bureaucrats get off? Next it’ll be Britney Spears Day!
President’s day - Feb 16 -Lincoln’s & Washington’s days were too close together so some brilliant idiot combined them, So the message here is all president’s are to honored that day. Nixon, Clinton, Bush II, etc.
Labor Day -May 1 - How did May Day ever evolve into honoring workers? Is it so unusual for us to work? Actually it was started by a Labor Union who wanted the day off. The It was made official two months after the Labor Day Riots of 1894. May Day used to be kind of a festive day honoring Spring, then the Commies took it over and became a big parade day showing all your weapons of mass destruction.
Memorial Day -May 25 - Formerly know as Decoration Day, in honor of Union soldiers who died in that war. Kind of signifies the beginning of summer. I guess now we are honoring all the millions of soldiers who have died in all our wars, usually the current one. The red poppies sold by old warriors signified the bloody fields in Flanders, France, as they have those beautiful red poppies all over. The poem by LtCol John McCrae should be read by all of us year.
Independence Day - 4th of July! I guess this one is OK. Although it represents when we proclaimed our independence and not when we actually got it, years later. Every free country has one.
Columbus Day - Oct 13 -We’re really reaching here. How did we ever set a day aside for Columbus? Well, the Italian Americans were a pesky lot and made it official in 1892 for the 400th anniversary. He never did get to the US. To bad the French didn’t promote Champlaininstead, who would have at least gotten here to the US.
Veterans Day - Nov 11 -Originally Armistice Day to commemorate the end of WW One in 1919. In 1954 it became Vets day due to some shoe saleman vet in Kansas. I thought Memorial day took care of all us vets.
Thanksgiving - Nov 26 -Who are we kidding? This is historically a time when people all over the world celebrate the harvest, an important time in most cultures. Why did we have to take a mythical dinner of the Pilgims & Indians as a baseline?
Christmas -Dec 25 -If you’re a Christian country, you can’t just have a solstice day. Fortunately, this is one of the few religious holidays in the U.S. France has 8 out of their 12 that are Catholic. But this is also Passover time & now Kwanzaa,( everyone’s getting in on the act.) Of course, us pagans still put up an evergreen to continue a thousand year tradition.

DAYS THAT ARE PSUEDO HOLIDAYS
Valentine’s Day - Feb 14 - The scourge of all men, pussy whipped into buying crap for their woman.
Halloween - Oct 31- Derived from All Saint’s Day. End of the harvest, an old Celtic party with masks, & costumes worn to copy or placate evil spirits. Used to be for kids here in US but now most idiot adults have to dress up and go to their jobs.
Easter - Apr 12 - Marks the exact day & hour when Jesus became alive after being dead for a couple of days.
Somehow worked in to the Jew’s Passover. At least it’s not a legal holiday (Yet).
St. Patrick’s - Mar 17 - The Irish had to reach back to 433 AD to find a really good excuse to get blind drunk.
Mother’s Day - May 10 - Ancient Greeks & Romans did give gifts to one of their Gods of motherhood. But in 1912 Anne Jarvis trademarked “Mothers Day”. She must have been working for Hallmark cards.
Father’s Day - Who give’s a shit?
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HERE’S MY RECOMMENDATIONS
First off, drop Mr. King’s day, that’s a given.
If we’re not celebrating the great presidents, just forget the whole thing.
Veteran’s Day is redundant as Memorial Day takes care of us.
Let’s combine Christmas with New Years Eve. Maybe we could get away from spending all that money on presents for everyone we know.
Give Halloween back to the little kids, and don’t spend hundreds of dollars on their stupid store bought costumes.
Mother’s day has got to go.

PHOTO VOLTAICS (PV)
I’m hearing everyone talk about the fabulous revolution in PV’s that will replace our reliance on fossil fuels. But wait, most of our fuel comes from the middle east. It seems we are reluctant to use our own reserves due to “environmental concerns”. If you think renewable energy sources will replace current usage and we’ll be wonderfully clean, take a look at some statistics at electric generation for US;
Coal 48%
Gas 22%
Nuclear 20%
Hydo 7%
Wind <1%
Solar/PV <1%
OK, so if Wind & Solar double every two years, you can see what a great effect that might have on the grid. Nada. Let’s not forget that it takes two years for PV panels to offset the energy it took to make them in the first place. Surprised that we do so much Nuke generation? Since the public has been set against them we have not built a new one for 30 years. I agree that there is still a problem over what to do with the waste. But the tremendous amount of pollutants that are generated by fossil plants are probably a lot more harmful that the nukes. When we zip around Europe on their fabulous fast trains at a couple of hundred MPH, we forget they are powered by 80% nuclear plants, the same as Japan.
We never hear that you have to clean the PV collectors once in a while as the efficiency goes way down when they’re dirty, and that is an expensive proposition.
But as long as State, Feds & utilities can subsidize installations, we might be able to afford it as long as we have enough to last out the payback time of many years.
VEHICLE EFFICIENCY
We’re still hearing about electric cars but I’ve always had a hard time with their use. Several things bother me. First of all, you may be making the air cleaner where you’re driving but you are polluting the Four Corners country where the fossil plant is spewing forth. Second, I’ve heard that the batteries last about 10 years, what then? Naturally, this question is never mentioned by the electric car industry. Throw the car away as the technology is defunct by then, or pay $10,000 for new batteries? I’m sure there are a few uses where it would work for short usages. Of course, Hybrids are looking pretty good and they are getting better, at least you can go further than 100 miles. And sure, in America, you can buy a hybrid SUV, naturally.









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JUST FORGET 2008

ELECTION
When 80% of precinct reported, a total of 53,000,000 voted for Obama ( 51%), while 49,000,000 voted for McCain, (49%). I don’t get it, that seems pretty close, yet the Electorial College, whatever the fuck that is, landslided the guy. I don’t care, I didn’t vote for either of them. That’s 102 million of 300 million, where are the rest of the voters? Let’s see, 2% for Peace & Freedom, etc. 60% of voters in Sonoma County voted absentee. These didn’t get counted for weeks, can’t we figure out a system with computers?!
MEANING OF LIFE
Here’s your burning question of the hour (or lifetime).
Is the life of mankind necessary for the earth to survive? Do we contribute any sort of maintenance of the earth? Or are we just trashing it.
CYBER CAFES
Do we have Cyber Cafes here in USA? How come they’re all over Europe, even in small towns? Do we just assume all tourists from around the world carry their laptops around all the time? Do we even have any Tourist centers? I don’t understand how tourists find their way around in the US, Every town in Europe has directions to a information center (Icon is a large i).
BOTTLED WATER
When I was a youngster in San Diego, Alhambra sold bottled water to businesses in 5 gal. glass bottles. I suppose Perrier was available here if you were rich and stupid enough. I still don’t get why everyone has to always be sucking on a bottle when it doesn’t even have any alcohol, although it may contain arsenic like Perrier. Tap water may be held to higher standards, but with so many not drinking tap water with fluoride, the dentists are going to have a field day soon, when all the drinker’s teeth start falling out. The downside of all this is the huge environmental damage it causes. 90% of bottles are not recycled, it takes 17 million barrels of oil to make all the bottles, creating more than 25 million tons of carbon dioxide. How about all the energy to transport all this around the US in tanker trucks, trains and even ships! Remember, 40% of all bottled water began as tap water.
POST OFFICE
They’re raising the stamp fee again. Are they going broke? How did a government agency spend millions on subsidizing the US Postal bike team? Next they’ll be buying NFL football teams. They take out full page adds in hundreds of newspapers to get their story across to us that they are a giant monopoly and no one can compete with them. Did they replace all the delivery vans in the US with their little custom made van? How much did that cost? Why not buy thousands of British small vans (Production car) with right hand drive. That’s what the French do, use those cool little vans from Reynault and paint ‘em La Poste yellow.
THIS MAKES ME BERSERK!
Those slick little envelopes that you have to tear off the ends and one side in order to open. Except it tears the shit out of the contents that it’s welded to. I finally just get a pair of fucking scissors to open it. Guess what? It’s a God-damned solicitation! Awwrg!
AUTOCAT
We’ve finally automated our cat, Francie. Whenever we go anywhere, we had to hire someone to feed her and clean the litterbox. Although she does prowl around all night outside, she has to come inside the house to eat and shit. Well, we bought an expensive litterbox that automatically cleans the litter up and dumps it in a little tray after she does her thing, along with a rotary feeder that’s good for 8 days. She amazed us by accepting the technology readily, something I can’t say for most of the population who are anti-technology. (Stem cell, etc.).