National News
« Previous EntriesOil spill moving toward Florida beaches, news reports say
That monster oil spill — perhaps better called an oil “spew” — appears to be heading toward some of the best of the resort beaches along Florida’s west coast, from what they’re reporting on the news today. Just one more example of the horrific impact this mess is going to have on our world before it’s over.
As I sit here writing this, I’m actually hearing a news report that states further back from the Gulf Coast may actually see their summer vacation and tourism revenues improve, stoked by tourists forced to avoid the coastal oil regions. Ironic, isn’t it?
Too bad there’s not some sort of gigantic acne scar removal procedure to wipe this undersea scar clean and seal it shut. But the sealing it shut part, of course, is the rub: The monster’s hiding under a mile of ocean water and multiple numbers of atmospheric pressure. We can’t just send down a worker — human or robotic — to put a plug in it.
On a slightly positive note, BP announced they cut the top off that one pipe they were struggling with. Of course, a less positive side of that news is this — the cut was jagged and may really not work for putting a cap on it. This is starting to look like they won’t even slow the flow significantly for another two or three months when they’re predicting the two new wells will be done tapping into the bad well to shut it down.
Maybe.
Wow, Gulf oil monster just keeps chomping stuff down
I guess the BP technical geeks must be feeling pretty desperate by this point. (Probably well before this point, if I know engineers.) No matter what they’ve shoved at the leak, or crammed down it, it just keeps chomping it all down.
The thing behaves like a rampant belly fat burner wreaking havoc at a gluttony convention. (Okay, so that’s pretty lame, but you get the point.) I just saw a FoxNews story online citing a Louisiana newspaper that says BP is getting ready to announce that the “top kill” effort, which looked so promising just yesterday, is a failure.
The BP people are getting ready to make another try at some effort that failed earlier. But the story now seems to be, in all truth, that the auxiliary wells being drilled to intersect the broken one may be the ultimate solution — but, of course, those are a few months away.
May God help the Gulf and may God help us all!
Taming oil spill monster truly awesome, amazing story
Speaking of news stories — I suspect before all is said and done the whole nightmare of the devastation caused by that out-of-control oil spill and the details of how and when it’s gotten back under control may rank as one of the top news stories of this century.
Is that too much of an exaggeration when I say “top news stories of this century”? I think not. Consider all that’s involved with this tragedy.
1. Devastation to the Gulf Coast and perhaps even beyond if things go badly. That alone will mean perhaps decades to clean up and restore those marsh lands and various Gulf regions to decency.
2. The horrible impact on the lives and livelihood of millions who live in the region.
3. The rapid game of “catch up” being played by the scientists and engineers trying to get a handle on deep water drilling and safety.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This deep water oil monster continues to growl and spew like some sort of living creature hyped up on vitamins and steroids and bent on zapping all living things in that part of the ocean.
Personally, I’m confident that the beast will finally be brought back under control. But I have no optimism on dealing with the devastation it has brought. Certainly now more than ever we need to devote our economy and technology to a radical investment in alternative energy and escape the hold of the oil monster(s) out there.
Have you returned your Census Form yet? Only once or did you do it twice??
Have you returned your U.S. Census Form (or questionnaire or whatever you want to call it) yet? You should.
On the other hand, as Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” jokingly suggested last week — if we all refuse or fail to return our Census Forms, we’ll create a ton of temporary jobs for Census workers. Maybe??
We got the form in the earliest mailing, some time last month, and my wife filled it out and we mailed it in the very next morning. Good citizens, I thought, metaphorically patting myself on the back.
Last Thursday, we received our Census Form in the mail — for the second time?????
After looking it over carefully, my wife discovered a short paragraph in the middle of a small sheet included with the form telling us that, if we’d already mailed in our Census Form, please not to mail in this one.
WHAT????????? WHAT????????????? WHAT????????????
Just for grins, I called a toll-free support number for the Census located somewhere (I forget where?) on the Census Form. Or maybe I found the number online?
Anyway, after punching “0″ repeatedly on my phone pad, or maybe there was an automated voice-activated option, I forget — I got through to a real, live person. I believe her name was “Debbie.”
I told Debbie about the duplicated form, and her response was something very close to: “Yes, we’ve been getting a lot of calls about that second mailing. But if you’ve already filled out the form, just ignore the second one.”
Now I have heard nothing the last six months or more about the Census any more than this: “Please send in your forms. We need that information. And by returning your form promptly, you’ll save the Census Bureau over $1 Billion.”
So I asked Debbie — “Isn’t it rather confusing AND expensive to send out a second Census Form mailing??” (I always speak with double or triple question marks when I’m especially angered and/or confounded.)
“Oh,” Debbie explained, “by sending out that second mailing we expect to save more than a $1 Billion.”
So, faithful readers, what have we learned today?
1. Everything related to the Census appears to be counted in $1 Billion increments.
2. If you consider a margin of error of maybe one or two percent — you can BET maybe MILLIONS of people will complete the Census Form and mail it in at least TWICE — making any accurate Census Count of the U.S. (See the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, I believe it is.) simply a joke.
Ah, well. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. Maybe after a ton of ad money spent on television and radio propaganda, enough people really do understand what’s going on and really will return their forms — once. Or, maybe not.
Coming down to ‘crunch time’ for health care reform
All news points to a resolution of some kind, an “up or down vote,” on the President’s health care reform efforts within the next week or so. Fortunately, I’ve been able to get by medically and “healthwise,” without a lot of health issues in recent years — beyond simply trying to find the best weight loss supplements or vitamin/mineral supplements.
But if I had any sudden, catastrophic medical problems I would have to rely on the good will and generosity of our local hospitals and emergency room personnel.
One of the most interesting facts about the whole furor for and against a better or radically different health care system is that old cray, “Why must we make major changes instead of simply fixing the parts that need fixing one-by-one and keeping the current system’s structures in place?”
I’ll tell you exactly why serious, major work is needed right now: For about 100 years (since at least the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt) everyone from local to state to federal officials and health care people from top to bottom have been trying to get the job done. If it hasn’t worked to make important changes providing coverage to all for 100 YEARS, it isn’t going to get done little-by-little in the next 100 years.
Simple facts, folks. America is supposedly the world’s “leader” in all the glories we sing about, i.e., economic power, political freedom, military might, world leadership, etc. Yet we are the only major industrialized nation in the world without some form of universal health care.
I fear that the current HUGE health care reform plan being understood and misunderstood actually doesn’t make enough changes.
But it may well be better than the lame, insurance owned system we call “health care” now!
Battlegrounds in fights over censorship changing
I remember back in the “good old days” (say, anytime before about 1970?) when censorship and censorship issues making the news generally focused on matters of sex and/or graphic violence. But in recent years, with the advent of the Internet and corresponding availability of “information” — ranging from real information to widespread access to p*rn sites — the battlegrounds upon which censorship issues are fought have been changing.
Today’s censorship battles focus far more on issues of political and personal liberties, matters of individual and national freedom of access, than on sex or graphic violence. Which as I see it, is a good thing.
It’s far more important that people in nations such as Iran and China have open access to news than whether a celebrity exposes her breast at the Super Bowl. And it seems as though censorship battles today are focusing on important stuff rather than celebrity nudity and trivia. (The cheapening of “news” or “journalism” into nothing but celebrity trivia feeding frenzies is a matter for another day.)
I did a search on Google News just now on the word “censorship,” and that’s what started me thinking about the matter. Of the top ten results I got, eight dealt specifically with information access being withheld from people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and China. One dealt with political matters here in the U.S. Only one was related to some sexual issue.
When our world is more concerned about dictators shutting there people up than it is on skimpy french maid costumes or nudity in movies, maybe it shows the world is growing up. The only worthwhile “battleground” on which to fight censorship battles has to do with these broad issues of freedom and knowledge, of personal liberty. In this case, I say good for us!
Cautious signs recession may be ending, but jobs still lagging
I’ve read a number of stories and reports online and off-line (yes, in the “real” daily newspaper I still read most days) in which economists are saying there are cautious signs that this recession may be ending, or at least that we’ve turned a corner, bounced off the bottom, or whatever. But most of those articles and reports say that new job creation still isn’t happening — but also that (and I don’t know whether this is true or not) job creation is usually the last thing to recover when we’re coming out of a recession or economic downturn.
Which is to say: All those people out there hurting for jobs could use a little less economic theory and probably a little more income!
All this makes me sad and somewhat angry at the way our country’s economy has been going the last couple of decades, not just during this current recession. We have moved well away from a manufacturing- or production-based economy to a service-based economy. I don’t think you can place any “blame” on anyone in particular for this. It’s largely because we’re part of a world that’s changed radically in the last 20 years.
The good news, here in Springfield, Missouri, for example is this: Our area is extremely “service” oriented, so we’ve survived the recession job losses better than somewhere, say, like Detroit. The bad news here in Springfield, Missouri, and in much of the country is this: Service-based economy means jobs that are overall low paying. In Springfield specifically, the second or third largest segment of our job market is calling centers or the “fulfillment center” industry. Although a number of calling centers closed or cut back employees in the last year or two, they remained fairly stable. But the top wages at such places — TOP wages, not entry level — run around $9-$10 an hour.
So though the recession may be looking better, and though job losses are declining, new job creation is still not there — and in areas such as ours, jobs which were not hit hard by the recession continue to be low paying and not too hopeful.
But perhaps hopeful is the key word we need to focus on. Every uptick in the stock market, stabilization of home values, and leveling off of the unemployment rate is a good thing. And those of us who’ve lived a few years in this great land know that we’ve survived and prospered in America through some really hard times. We will again!
So-called ‘birthers’ display continued ignorance, arrogance
Not long ago, I posted a video dealing with the idiotic so-called “birthers” and their insistence that President Obama’s was not really born in the U.S. and is, therefore, constitutionally disqualified to be president. These folks (I’m no longer even willing to call them “good folks”) are continuing to publicly display their ignorance and arrogance.
That video referenced above, taken from no less than Lou Dobbs’ CNN show, seemed pretty conclusive to me that the whole idiotic mess questioning Obama’s American heritage is, well, an idiotic mess. But, of course, as an old saying I love goes: “Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.”
The fools who choose to revel in conspiracy theories around every corner seem to thrive on the idea that Obama is either 1) secretly a Muslim, 2) a blatant socialist, 3) a godless man leading America down the path to eternal destruction, 4) a foreign-born thinly disguised terrorist of some sort who captured the presidency, and/or 5) all of the above.
(Let’s not forget the flip-side: Many out there still believe Obama is some sort of Messiah or Messiah figure who’s going to solve all of the world’s problems; while others see him as the Anti-Christ.)
In reality, he’s a highly intelligent, well-meaning “freshman” president seeking to deal with the mess our nation is in. I voted for the man and would give him high marks in many ways. I am NOT in love with the huge financial tab he’s running up. I’m not sure his policies to confront our economic crisis and our health care crisis are the best, nor am I convinced they are working.
But I’m also willing to cut him a bit of a break and say he’s only been in office less than a year.
This “rant” about those who question Obama’s citizenship began this morning when I looked at an online reader’s poll run by our local newspaper. (You remember newspapers?) They asked the question: “Do you believe President Obama has adequately answered allegations that he is not an American citizen.” Appallingly, they got over 700 responses (large for their polls) with only 44.1 percent saying “yes,” and 55.9 saying “no.”
I was astounded at the general ignorance and eagerness to believe idiotic drivel and lying gossip (that’s exactly what the so-called “birther” movement is). But then I remembered something important that puts this in perspective: We live in the land of Jay Leno’s late famous “Jay Walking” episodes. If you ever watch Leno on “The Tonight Show” stopping people on the street and asking them basic, obvious questions related to American history and/or politics, you know exactly what I mean.
People in our nation are overwhelmingly ignorant and uninformed/misinformed about our history and our politics. Not because they lack access to facts and reality, for the most part, but because they simply do not want to learn and (to paraphrase that famous Jack Nicholson line): “They can’t handle the truth” on so many issues.
End of rant. For today, anyway. I feel much better now. How about you?
Obama birth certificate story put to rest for all but nuts out there
I swear, one of the most insane, nutty issues surrounding President Obama has got to be the paranoia surrounding his birth certificate. Here’s a video you need to see. It SHOULD put the matter to rest for all but the real nuts out there. For those folks, you couldn’t possibly present enough evidence. But for the rest of us, this should do it:
Our leaders are only human — but does that give them license to mess up?
Whether you’re talking about politicians, film and TV celebrities, or prominent sports figures, our culture thrives on putting individuals up on high pedestals so that we might “look up” to them, perhaps see them as role models, even point to them and encourage our kids to say, “Gee, Dad, I wanna be just like Joe when I grow up!” (Not sure, but I think that expression “just like Joe” was connected to New York Yankees great of the ’30s and ’40s, Joe DiMaggio.)
Maybe the recent death of former NFL Quarterback Steve McNair will pound one more nail in the lid of a coffin in which we can bury that cultural thriving. Whatever the final story is about McNair’s death, he plainly wasn’t living the heroic life we would want our children to emulate. And that only makes him one in a line of such folks we really don’t want for childhood heroes — names like former President Bill Clinton, Gov. Mark Sanford, former Sen. John Edwards, et. al. — well, pretty much “et. al.” back to the beginnings of recorded history.
I personally have a hard time understanding why fame, wealth, and power seem to cause the worst to show in so many people. But I think there must be such a connection: Fame, wealth, and power seem to 1) make people targets of those who would prey on their fame, wealth, and power, 2) cause people to think they are somehow entitled to break the rules, and, 3) make it easier to “get away with” breaking the rules. But maybe that’s just my opinion and doesn’t begin to touch on all the realities surrounding infidelity.
All I know is this: My two children grew up understanding that honesty, hard work, and integrity matter in every relationship, from employment to matrimony. I thank God (really, I do) for the way their lives’ turned out — and I thank God for the incredible wife I’ve been in love with for 42+ years. My purpose is not to condemn the Mark Sanfords and Steve McNairs of the world, but simply to cause anyone reading this to reflect on the matter of heroes.
Who are your heroes? Why?
« Previous Entries