decision 2012: my predictions

The balance in the Senate approaching the 2012 Presidential elections will have swung slightly back in favor of the Republicans. As a result, there will be 48 Democratic Senators running for President.

The Republican Party will have a choice between two candidates. One will have excellent leadership skills, a proven track record, and charisma to spare, but may have had marital problems 40 years ago. The other will be squeaky clean, and totally unelectible. The GOP will select the second candidate.

The Libertarian Party will start to gather steam, achieving a record of 2% of the popular vote. Many Democrats will later complain because they saw “Libertarian” on the poster and couldn’t tell that from “Liberal.”

The Electoral College will be replaced just in time for the election by a new system – monkeys with typewriters. Whichever candidates initials are typed first by three different monkeys will be the winner. Most of the population will see this as an improvement over the current system.

Remember, you read it here first.

Unless you read it somewhere else.

if it says ‘guilty, guilty, guilty’ on the label, label, label…

I heard an interview on the way home with Mike Isikoff, Newsweek investigative reporter and co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. He and the NPR talking head were smiling through the radio about the verdict in the Libby trial, and talking about what the case did (and didn’t) clear up.

Melissa Block (the NPR-type-person) was asking why there hadn’t been any further prosecution for the leaking of the Plame-name.

It is NOT ILLEGAL to name a CIA operative unless they are classified as covert. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t wise, it was short-sighted; but it was not illegal.

And where do the people crying for crucifixions here get off? The crime that led to a conviction was lying to a grand jury. Didn’t Pres. Bill do the same thing?

As soon as the word “guilty” was out of the jury foreman’s mouth, Harry I-didn’t-throw-millions-in-government-contracts-to-my-brother Reid was calling on the President to pledge to not pardon the Scootster – all in the name of restoring the peoples’ trust in their government.

Hate to tell you, Harry, but there are many sins on both sides of the aisle. Restoring trust in government is going to require that everybody come clean…and I don’t see that happening.

why the republicans can’t win in ‘08

Unless somebody knows something I don’t know (that’s a pretty open-ended opening, dontcha think?), Rudy’s about the only Republican who has a snowball’s chance in post-global-warming-Helena-Montana to win the big show.

But if we’d rather have Hillary as prez than someone who is near the center…

count the cost, o congress

I made a little fun earlier of the daylight savings time change; heard what this is going to cost businesses?

springtime for osama

It’s what all the jihadist mullahs are wearing this spring in Afghanistan…

the unwanted, part II

Feb. 25, 2004, Guangxi Province, China. We spent much the afternoon in a small village somewhere northwest of Guilin. To some extent, small towns are the same everywhere. This one is about 600 years old, and I think some of the original inhabitants still lived there.

That afternoon was an education.

Our translator walked us down one of the main alleys in town, with stops at the local herbalist’s shop, the community bulletin board/chalkboard, a “manufacturing shop,” the village woodworker’s house, and more insights than I can recount here. One of my best memories, though, was as we walked back toward Mr. Qiu (pronounced ‘chew’) and the minivan. School let out, and we were walking against the current as the kids streamed home.

The “manufacturing shop” was a house where a woman sat and wove hats, baskets, or whatever from reeds. This woman was standing at her door, watching anxiously toward the oncoming kids. Two little girls stopped at her door. She spoke to them both for a moment looking very stern, then they nodded. She dropped the fake frown, got a huge grin on her face, and bent down to give the two a hug. She noticed us and our video camera, then nodded and smiled before pulling the door closed behind them.

Another little girl came running down the street, all smiles. She stopped for a moment next to my beloved, who was doing the filming that afternoon. When my wife showed her the view through the tiny monitor, she burst out laughing like that was the funniest thing she had ever seen. We said goodbye (zai jian!) and she ran on her way home, looking like every six-year-old I’ve ever seen running back to a home like nothing I’d never seen.

When we reached the town square, there were a set of older women standing with the toddlers and a few others I’m guessing would otherwise be latch-key kids. The boys were rambunctious, and one threatened us with a wooden rifle (but I was brave; I stood ready to take a splinter to save my wife if needed), while the girls were holding hands and talking, singing, chattering…

If you just saw the kids, and didn’t see the village, you’d have a hard time placing them.

The girls did not appear neglected, and the welcome they received from parents along our walk was no less enthusiastic than that of the boys.

This was China, the real country, the real people. Anyone can carry on an act for an hour or two; but this is consistent with what we hear from friends who teach English in China, and others who have been there for extended periods.

I’m not saying women are treated any better there than through the rest of Asia.

What I am saying is that “unwanted” does not match with what I saw.

I saw “loved.”

you can’t be serious

No, he wasn’t.

But that hasn’t stopped Congress from continuing to mess with our clocks (both internal and external) twice a year.

Ben Franklin proposed Daylight Savings Time as a joke, a satire. But we celebrate it this Sunday, a full three weeks earlier than the usual debacle, because somebody said, “Hey, if it can cut energy usage, let’s move it back a few weeks and see what happens.”

So what’s next?

I, in the spirit of Mr. Franklin (who also suggested the turkey as our national bird), suggest Congress create a Cabinet-Level Office of Time Increment Correction (oTIC). This organization, which would require one official representative from every degree of longitude that the US and its territories and protectorates cover, would be responsible for having each degree of longitude adjust it’s time on a daily basis to best make use of daylight and reduce energy consumption. It is yet unclear how the information would best be communicated to the masses, but it seems like a terminal in every home directly linked to and controlled by the federal government would be the most logical step.

The most immediate challenge I can see is how to “warp” time to cover the required change in the length of 8 hours so that employers could still get us out during the winter months in time to do all required shopping before the stores close at sunset, henceforth known as 9:00 p.m.

I’m also not sure how children will adjust to the difference in their sleep times, since they would sleep from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (now officially set at sunrise). After all, on the antiquated time system, there could be as much as a three or four hour difference over the course of a year.

But think how much energy we’d save.

I’m writing my congressman immediately.