CURMUDGEON
1. Archic: a crusty , ill tempered , churlish old man.
2. Modern: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner.
GOVERNATOR
It’s always fun to watch Arnold’s movie PUMPING IRON where he smokes up a pot storm, in between lifting weights.
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. Maybe that’s our job?
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.).
WAR ON DRUGS
First of all, here’s a thought. Drug use is not drug abuse. If our government hasn’t determined smoking pot is illegal, then the abuse is you not conforming to the rules. It’s part of what is called ‘Victimless Crime’, except the victim is you, especially when you get thrown in the slammer, your wife and kids are on their own for a few years only because you are doing something to yourself. No matter that nation’s culture. However, if you lived in another country such as Arabia, where smoking drugs is just fine with everyone, you can end up in jail for drinking alcohol.
This is known as the great lost war of the 20th century (Along with the Vietnam War, Iraqi Civil War, The Afghanistan....etc.). I know I’m always harping on this, but in reality, it is really in the realm of religion interfering with government (Similar to the abortion issue). Drugs are merely a means to artificially help us through the day, or in other words, help us feel better by ingesting some external substance. No matter what the draconian punishments are, humans will always find a way to obtain it. We must have a little more faith in our fellow man, allowing him to make his own decision whether or not he wants to completely ruin his life or take control of it and temper his use of such drugs. As we spend about 30 Billion a year on this war, it cannot be all because we want us to be “good citizens”, there must be other agendas to keep this up and ruin lives of productive folks who consider such laws as silly.
Granted, trying to keep heroin, crack, etc. out of our hands may seem like the right thing to do, but just look at the results after 75 years, it has merely fed the rise of gangs, violence in the same magnitude of our great failed prohibition of alcohol, led by a small cadre of religious fanatics. Is there is too much money to be made to admit the ‘experiment’ has been a failure? There’s got to be some rational reason, isn’t there?
Well, if as long as we keep this war going, I have a suggestion for the DEA. Just as our government has stopped using large denominations of currency ($500, $1000 bills), to make it more burdensome for the bad guys to do business as they have to carry around all these $100 bills, My solution is to stop all currency except for the quarter. This will really put the brakes on drug dealing, believe me. Can you imagine a drug deal where the buyer has to hand over one million dollars all in quarters? They would need a fleet of Brinks trucks to make it happen. Well, it could be good for the armored truck industry.
