Tag Archives: politics
If not now, when? If not the ECB/IMF, who?
[Personal notes – feel free to skip or ignore this blog entry]
TLA – three letter acronyms.
The redbud tree is nearly denuded of seed pods, thanks to weather, birds and squirrels.
Two women jog down the road, one pushing a baby stroller.
An automobile speeds past, the driver disobeying speed limit signs posted in the neighbourhood.
The aquarium water filter/circulator gurgles, a gear out of gear, gushing few bubbles into the flow.
Some data points stare at me from the Internet browser software tabs:
- The beginning of wisdom
- To conquer or not to conquer – that is the question
- The law of unintended consequences – corollary no. 14f7
We live in the “I cannot” mode or the “I can” mode at any time.
We think simultaneously in both.
Raccoons chase one another in the attic space above our living room and bedroom, attracting the cats’ attention.
As my brother in-law noted, there is a certain thrill in the hunt, lying low, waiting for the prey to wander by, adrenaline pumping through your body.
But there is no thrill in killing raccoons that’ve chewed holes in the house eaves. They are not worthy prey when they are frolicking on top of fiberglass insulation or wandering outside to eat.
I share this house with my wife, two cats, spiders, crickets, lizards, bees, wasps, birds, raccoons, chipmunks, snakes, mice and other living things (dust mites, bacteria, algae, fungi, lichen, tropical plants).
Most of us, in pure classification terms only, are eukaryotes (a word I did not learn in childhood science classes). In pure numbers, most of us are invisible eukaryotes, with some prokaryotes around, to keep us on our toes, so to speak (for a description of alternate lifeform classifications, see Domain, once again).
But I digress.
A bicyclist passes by, followed by two trucks, one labeled “XFinity” and the other “Comcast.”
A few birds flit past, presumably to check if birdfeeders in the backyard were filled in the last few days (answer: no).
I, this set of states of energy, float within the comfortable confines of my ecosystem, a subculture, rarely threatened with external, immediate forms of death.
Sure, a plane could crash into the house, or a tornado whip through the yard during the next major weather disturbance, but the chances of either one happening are close enough to zero to allow me to ignore them. There is absolutely no chance of a driveby shooting or being kidnapped by spies in my life, meaning I need not be paranoid or feed the paranoid needs of others to be wanted/desired/meaningful, no matter now negative their paranoid needs may be.
Thus, I conclude, I exist within the “I can” mode most of the time.
What can I do?
I can build verbal trails, evidenced here, that are structured within a framework of satire and sarcasm, layering a thick molasses-like glue through and through, slowing down the progress from understood word meaning to misconstrued phrase, in order to deflect incoming signals, stimuli, like the funhouse mirror I’ve always been.
There are, of course, the narrative constructs of the Committee and the Book of the Future to place within a time-based structure.
What is real or not real is unimportant to me.
Reality is no better a term to use than to say (to an imaginary extraterrestrial alien), all lifeforms on Earth are exactly like the first one you found, Methanocaldococcus jannaschii.
Perception is reality, just as religion is reality to many and atheism is reality to some.
Was the EU your idea or the invention of a person with a bureaucratically political mindset (can there be politics without bureaucracy (or bourgeoisie, for that matter))?
Can a superculture, much like the UN, but much, much more than that (yes, Star Trek fans, you may think of the Federation of Planets; no, Star Wars fans, there will be no Galactic Empire), arise and absorb the political entities we now call countries while still holding allegiance to the power/voice of the people?
In other words, when do we directly vote for representatives of the supercultural administrative bureaucracy?
When do we say Earth is the first member of the Solar System network of colonies?
Should the EU members lead the way and declare themselves members of the UE (United Earth), rearranging financial categorisation of political entities accordingly, eliminating the [old] geographical boundary method of identification?
You can guess what the combined future prediction algorithms of all subcultures processed through the network of supercomputers have said in the Book of the Future, can’t you?
Time is irrelevant. Power shifts are inevitable. The truth is what you make it out to be.
The clock, not my stomach, tells me to eat food for lunch – that says a lot right there, doesn’t it?
Too Crass for Top Brass Knuckles
Someone told me Ol’ Peg Leg himself, Alex Trebek, was back at work, hobbling across TV theatre stages, but without his trusty parrot, Repeatedly, on his shoulder.
Canada should be proud, I’m sure, I imagine, possibly.
The Rod Gilmore Fan Club has issued its own set of paper dolls for him. I’m not sure what sartorial eloquence means but apparently his fans’ imaginations are wilder than a sports network’s ability to verify its morgue of information that clashes with its desire to become ever more profitable and pervasive (or should I say evasive?).
A rumour has it that Barney Frank will, as a last-ditch Congressional effort, launch an investigation into a sports network’s archives, in order to preserve journalism’s purity of investigative pursuit rather than pursuit of of the profit motive.
Like Jason Bateman’s observation of his mother’s maid, who carted furs to a storage unit that happened to catch on fire at an inconvenient time, the right Honourable Frank is alleged to have spies watching a sports network’s pages shredding and burning pages (but how do you shred and burn emails and voicemails? Hmm…) to preserve the appearance of innocence after the fact.
Flood a hard disk factory and watch the roaches come squirming out, looking for a bit of dry land and a byte to eat.
The title of this blog entry was going to be “It’s Raining, It’s Snowing, the Governor is Blowing,” but bygones are Bygones, a species of creature so vile that those who cough up bile because their gall bladders have no gall (mainly, the Gauls who are galling) can just barely feel what it’s like to have Bygone Days (a symptom dissimilar to migraine headaches) when Bygones, smaller than a speck of dust, are squirted into the air as soon as a person innocently, ignorantly picks up an item discarded by the person in front or beside, relieving the high-pressure of Bygone capsules, kinda like stepping on puff mushrooms or overstuffed ship containers exploding on the high seas.
This week, we cast aside appearances to the contrary and visit the Contrarian, an agrarian, not a librarian, with a brain so huge (in comparison to a flea’s) that autism is a natural state, rather than the exception to the norm. Speaking of which… Hey, Norm!
[Can you imagine being completely mental yet everyone you know and, most especially, those you don’t, call you Norm? Par for the coarse sandpaper, eh, you say?]
Have you ever been booed? Do you understand when your popularity was an illusion fostered by intimidation rather than admiration?
And lastly, don’t you love being part of the so-called One Percenters, with Ninety-Nine Luftballoons causing the next great war…sorry, with the remaining 99 percent of your species simply pawns doing your bidding — buying trinkets they don’t need, exchanging objects with planned obsolescence during a commercial orgy of a holiday — all for your profitable and viewing pleasure?
Ahhh-h-h-h-h…if one must be a particular set of states of energy, let it be this one, water dripping from the gutter and snow falling in the air on a late November day, with fellow citizens helping you pay your alleged tax burden and paying homage to civil [dis]obedience, where the military cannot hold you indefinitely outside of the protective, and nearly universal, laws of your land, where the current popular occupation, a member of Occupy [your locale], relives the Revival spirit of religious-toned gatherings and camp meetings of centuries past.
You know, the Bygone days, a golden era when everyone got itchy and excited due to Bygone infestations, wanting to jump and shout in unison with others, turning to the alpha members of the group, the leaders (often the driven or wannabe members of the One Percenters), to interpret the purpose of their feelings toward their medical afflictions and infections.
[Yes, this should have been called “Ode to a Bygone” but who’d’ve read it?]
Do you wonder about our fascination with the Roman god of war and agriculture, Mars?
When your descendants settle on the planet Mars, will they construct a monument to the mythological deity as a token of thanks for giving them a new home place to sprawl out upon?
After all, we’re prone to building edifices, one of the strange habits of our species.
In your locale, are there more monuments to peace or war? Is every edifice — skyscrapers, museums, or schools, for instance — a monument? Will the Arab Spring and Occupy movements have their own monuments one day?
=v=v=
Thanks to Dr. Brooke Uptagrafft, Dr. Karen Lamb and many more, such as Shelby at K-Mart, Ben at Zaxby’s, and Buddy’s BBQ.
Take nothing for granted, granite included
If I knew that our solar system was packed with living things (at least in the way we choose to define the term “living”), would I feel as compelled as I do to encourage us to devote xx.xx% of our resources toward populating the cosmos with living things from Earth?
The WordPress front page displayed a link to a blog entry titled, “Off the Couch and Into the Streets.” Rarely do I feel compelled to comment on a blog entry but I added one to Coleen’s:
Your blog entry popped up on the front page of WordPress, and the title “Off the couch and into the streets” caught my attention because I’m looking for a fun way to lose some extra weight. Thus, my expectations were different than you might have expected when you wrote this blog entry.
The Occupy [your locale] movement, Arab Spring, and any/all protestations against the common/established social structure are perennial, which usually fall under the label “counterculture.” I encourage you to feel and act differently, supporting your subcultural beliefs no matter how much you may feel crushed/oppressed by the common culture under which you live and socialise.
Having grown up during the 1960s global counterculture movement, my perspective, as a child at the tailend of the Baby Boomer generation, has taught and continues to teach me that those who protest will encourage others to act in less obvious, newsworthy manners, to effect longterm change.
I’m glad you have a job which gave you the flexibility and courage to join those who wanted to voice their displeasure with the current state of our common culture [one] day on the streets of Denver. Hopefully, through your job and with your friends, you can be the change you want to see today and into the future.
How do we express ourselves daily? In other words, do we carefully consider the words we use in social exchanges?
Saying I am the “99%” or I am the “1%” or any other label automatically establishes an artificial barrier.
Reminds me of taking the Myers-Briggs personality profile test as a requirement of working in a certain department at a company full of a variety of personality types, including conformists and nonconformists. After taking the test and, with another person who had gotten the same personality profile, saying that the test results were bogus, was informed that those who received that particular personality profile were prone to say the test results were bogus.
I feel the same way about the Occupy movement. The participants brag about how diverse and unlabelable they are — yet, they quickly chant about the “99%” and the “1%” without blinking a self-conscious inner eye.
Another commenter said, “It’s like telling a child “You just like to argue” and the child keeps saying “Nuh uh!”.” The same goes for those who are being labeled by the diverse Occupy movement participants.
To be frank, when I hear the Occupy movement chants through mass media soundbites, all I can think is, “Well, what if I’m one of the 1%? So what? Didn’t I earn my place in this financial position by saving (using the old adage of “pay yourself first”) and spending wisely? Sure, some of my Nike shoes or my wife’s Kathy Lee Gifford designer clothes were made using kids paid ‘slave wages’ but I stopped buying those items after I found out about their manufacturing sources. The University of Oregon and Stanford University, home to some students who have protested, didn’t refuse Phil Knight’s donations nor did the students refuse to attend those universities. Regis Philbin, a person apparently beloved by many, didn’t stop being Kathy Lee Gifford’s friend. I don’t have all the time in the world to investigate the raw material source and manufacturing location of every item I buy but will make reasonable changes when I find out. Some parts of me are just as susceptible to instant gratification and buyer remorse as anyone else in the 1% or 99% (i.e., all seven billion of us).”
That’s why using or not using labels is important to me. Also why I lump us all together into the label of “seven billion of us.” We’re in this thing as one. One planet, one global infrastructure, one solar ecosystem.
How do we train ourselves and one another to seek rewarding goals that limit destructive and detrimental effects on others, regardless of our entrenched differences?
This time of year, I look out the window and bare trees expose the view of row after row of shingled suburban rooftops.
The mortgage on my house has been paid off. The majority of mortgages for the rooftops out there are probably still being paid for.
Shall I blame or thank the finance/banking industry for suburban sprawl that makes my skin crawl?
Shall I adjust my view to show myself the people occupying those suburban boxes are paying taxes that support the roads that allow me to drive to unoccupied parks and forests set aside for my enjoyment via local/state/national proclamation and financial support?
If, as one person said, the rich have enough money to pay for half the population to control/kill the other half, where does that put me?
Well, I know where it puts where I want to be. I want to be one of the rich and when I get there, I don’t want to have to redistribute my wealth unnecessarily. I admit I like having the total population of my species at my control. I want to be Phil Knight and say, “Yeah, so what if my products have been made in sweat shops? My personally-directed donations are creating a whole new crop of those who will rule from the top”. If I’m going to be labeled as part of the 1%, I want to be Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Pierre Omidyar or Vladimir Putin, not a homeless person as part of the poorest 1%.
Tiny leaves float through the air outside the window. A woodpecker hops up and down tree limbs, presumably looking for hidden insects to munch upon.
Both public and private money has given me the time to sit here and make these comments. It’ll take 100% of us to improve our conditions, if we so choose.
Yes, our global economy is not perfect and never will be perfect. It displays characteristics of both an open and a closed-loop system, subject to the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Can we show how unselfish we are and share our wealth, of knowledge and financial gains, accordingly, while some of us compete against each other in the chess game of life to make things better for our descendants?
Live happily in the fact that today’s 1% will not be tomorrow’s 1% nor will today’s 99% be tomorrow’s.
If you don’t like what’s going on, take the opportunity to change it. If you don’t like accumulating massive debt to pay for a college education, find a company that’ll hire you for your current skills/talents despite the lack of a diploma. I did. But I eventually got around to completing a bachelor’s degree just to prove I can (and got my company to foot the bill – hey, I wasn’t born yesterday – which set me up for a career ladder promotion that wasn’t interesting to me, but that’s another story).
Nothing is set in stone, except perhaps your date of death, and even that fades with time and exposure to the elements.
Think the members of the U.S. Congress who sit on a supercommittee can cut over $1T from the U.S. government budget and make everyone happy? Wanna make a bet?
If it was me, I’d spread the cuts proportionally to those who are expected NOT to vote in the next election. Hey, it’s only fair, is it not? The U.S. is a democratic republic where lawful citizens have the right to participate in electing legislative, executive and some judicial representatives. Those who choose not to participate, or vote, get less of the government pie to eat – isn’t that one of the tales we learned in kindergarten?
We’ll see what we see when the time comes…
How…
Five data points, this time
I’ll leave it up to you to connect the dots:
When you need an excuse, any excuse will do.
Phantom of the guillotine is clearly discerned in many areas of the world’s capitals
Phantom of the guillotine is clearly discerned in many areas of the world’s capitals
Политолог Гейдар Джемаль — о том, почему многие демократически избранные лидеры могут вскоре с горьким сожалением вспомнить «старика Каддафи» Political scientist Heydar Jamal – that is why many democratically elected leaders can be shortly with bitter regret to remember “the old man’s Gaddafi”
Гейдар Джемаль Heydar Jemal
«Ливийцы, вы не понимаете, что творите! “The Libyans, you do not understand what he was doing! То, что вы сейчас делаете, не соответствует исламским законам» — таковы были последние слова лидера Ливийской Джамахирии, когда его, окровавленного и простреленного в нескольких местах, били рукояткой пистолета по голове молодые люди в среднем не старше половины срока правления того, кто неожиданно попал им в руки. What you are doing now, does not comply with Islamic law “- such were the last words of the leader of Libya, when it’s bloody and shot through in several places, struck on the head with a pistol grip young men on average no more than half of the term of someone who suddenly got into their hands. У некоторых из них ровесниками режима Каддафи, вероятно, были их отцы. Some of them Gaddafi regime peers are likely to be their fathers. Сцены, последовавшие за этим, очень напоминали разгул якобинских масс в начале 90-х XVIII столетия во Франции. The scenes that followed it, much like binge Jacobin masses in the early 90s of the XVIII century France.
Наверняка такая ассоциация приходила в голову «венгерскому графу» Саркози, когда он смотрел, как голое тело человека, с которым он еще недавно обнимался и от кого принимал щедрые подачки на свои выборы, таскают по улицам неукротимые берберы. Surely such an association came to mind, “the Hungarian Count,” Sarkozy, when he watched the naked body of a man with whom he has recently embraced and from whom they received generous handouts for their choices, drag through the streets of indomitable Berbers. «Вот она, сакральная жертвенность лидеров», — вероятно, думал французский президент, поеживаясь и поводя плечиком. “Here it is, sacred sacrifice leaders” – probably thought the French president, shivering and twitching shoulder. И думал так, скорее всего, не он один. And I thought so, most likely, he is not alone. Уличная расправа с последним харизматом мировой политики — это даже не смерть Милошевича в камере и не удавление Саддама по суду, хотя бы и шемякину! Street violence in recent Charismatic world politics – it’s not even Milosevic’s death in a cell and strangling Saddam on trial, even though Shemyakin! Дела в мире пошли такие, что призрак гильотины явственно проглядывает на многих площадях мировых столиц. Business in the world have gone such that the specter of the guillotine clearly shows through in many areas of the world capitals.
Каддафи ушел как мужчина, до конца сопротивляясь тем, кто захватил его в плен. Gaddafi stepped down as a man, until the end of resisting those who took him prisoner. То, что обстоятельства расправы свидетельствуют не в их пользу, подчеркивается сумбурностью и очевидной лживостью разнообразных версий в описании смерти полковника. The fact that the circumstances of the massacre is evidenced not in their favor, and emphasizes the confusion apparent falsity of various versions of the description of the death of Colonel. Особенно красочна деталь насчет канализационной трубы. Especially colorful detail about the sewer line. Все бы ничего, но вот один из повстанцев восклицает: «А он нас крысами называл! Everything would be fine, but here is one of the rebel cries, “He called us rats! А сам-то в трубе…» — и этим испортил хорошую пропагандистскую байку, выдав мучающий большинство антикаддафистов комплекс собственной ничтожности. But he himself something of a pipe … “- and this has spoiled a good propaganda tale, issuing a tantalizing most complex of his own insignificance antikaddafistov. Другой «боец» подробно рассказывал на камеру, как Ливия теперь хорошо заживет после расправы над тираном, и говорил при этом с таким качественным американским акцентом, который не у всякого преподавателя английского языка услышишь. Another “soldier” described in detail at the camera, as Libya is now a well-healed after massacres of a tyrant, and spoke with such a high quality American accent, which does not have any English teacher will hear.
Надежды знатока английского языка на скорый мир после устранения полковника вряд ли сбудутся. Hope an expert in English to a speedy peace after the removal of colonel is unlikely to come true. Слишком разнородны силы, составляющие ливийскую оппозицию. Too diverse forces that make the Libyan opposition. Теперь после исчезновения общего для всех врага явно наступает время выяснить отношения между собой. Now, after the disappearance of the total for all of the enemy clearly it is time to clarify the relationship between them. Ставки очень велики — крошки с приватизированного Западом «стола Каддафи», которые будут бросать представителям «новой власти». The stakes are high – the crumbs from the privatized West “Gaddafi table” that would throw the representatives of the “new power”. Вот уже кинули… одиннадцать миллионов (!) на то, чтобы искать и сдавать переносные зенитные ракетные комплексы, мол, они не должны попасть в руки (тут самое интересное!) «Аль-Каиде»! That’s already thrown … eleven million (!) On what to look for and take the man-portable air defense systems, they say, they should not fall into the hands (the most interesting thing here!) “Al-Qaeda!” Той, о которой кричал Каддафи Западу и которую Запад поддерживал как интегральную и наиболее эффективную часть оппозиционных сил. One, which cried Gaddafi and the West that the West supported as an integral part and the most effective opposition. Беспощадный факт: Запад платит гроши революционерам за то, чтобы они разоружились, причем платит из украденных Западом ливийских денег. Merciless fact: West pays a pittance for the revolutionaries that they disarm, and pays out money stolen by the West Libya.
Кроме того, мира не стоит ждать и потому, что очень многие, воздерживавшиеся от участия в боевых действиях из нежелания прослыть каддафистами, теперь с легким сердцем могут брать в руки оружие и учить молодежь как правильно понимать исламские традиции в части обращения с поверженным врагом. In addition, the world should not expect, and because many people, refrain from participating in the hostilities of the reluctance to pass for kaddafistami, now with a light heart may bear arms and to teach young people how to understand the Islamic tradition in the treatment of the defeated enemy.
Но и НАТО уже не имеет морального права бомбить все, что напоминает им «военные объекты, представляющие угрозу для гражданского населения», поскольку злодея, оправдывающего такие бомбардировки, больше нет. But NATO has no moral right to bomb anything that reminds them of the “military objects that represent a threat to the civilian population,” as the villain to justify such bombardment, no more. Продолжение вооруженного вмешательства в ливийские дела рискует превратиться уже во внутренний скандал самой Европы. Continuation of armed intervention in the Libyan case is already in danger of becoming an internal scandal of Europe itself.
Наконец, последнее: мир стоит на пороге протестного взрыва, который по своим масштабам намного превзойдет события 1968-го года. Finally, the last: the world is on the verge of explosion of protest, which on a scale far superior to the events of 1968. И поскольку больше нет СССР, предававшего левое движение Западу во имя пресловутой конвергенции, постольку последствия этой новой протестной волны могут заставить не одного «демократически избранного» хозяина жизни вспомнить с горьким сожалением и угрызениями совести старину Каддафи. And since there are no more Soviet Union, brought the leftist movement to the West in the name of the notorious convergence, to the extent the consequences of this new wave of protest may make more than one “democratically elected” master of life recall with bitter regret and remorse old Gaddafi.
If you perspire, are you a sweater?
If you brag about how much you perspire more than others, are you a sweaty pants?
Oh, the Committee is at it again. Some argue that, with Libya’s reorganisation under way, we should move the drone army/navy into Iranian, Israeli and/or Saudi territory and keep the global revolution on schedule. Apply the usual political pressure, at least.
What is your definition of despotism? A tyrant or a tyrannical society?
If a corporation was chartered in a geopolitical region that values freedom of speech, should the corporation’s policies and procedures actively protect freedom of speech? If not, should the geopolitical region’s representatives legislate/require/regulate/adjudicate corporate policies and procedures to ensure freedom of speech is fully protected by law?
In other words, beware the corporation’s fear of the power of the consumer to control corporate behaviour and influence profit margins. 😉
To be a kid again, absent of the knowledge of adult games, freely playing on the street, cataloging fauna/flora in the woods, impressing teachers with studious habits…
Enough of this chatter. Time for concrete action.
See you in a few days.
Increase your hits by linking popular topics of the day
So much to say, so little motivation to organise my thoughts today.
As long as officials in small countries that serve as tax havens can be easily bought and paid for, well…a supercommittee is practically useless and defenseless against such a system, n’est pas?
As long as highly-profitable speculation drives growth in one part of the world, the other parts will never succeed in corralling speculators.
Those are the problems.
What are the solutions?
See, life on Mars decades from now is no different than life on Earth today.
The full spectrum of muddied, transparent personalities exists outside of time.
Be an immigrant/artisan, you say?
Then take away the conveniences of modern life.
Until hardships or other means to provoke our competitive nature, our desire to feel alive, dominate, change is slow.
Molasses at the South Pole.
What did you expect to happen when an automated, robotised future freed us to enjoy leisure but took away our means of making a living?
Until the robots work for us, all of us, not just the automated factory owners, we live in a disjointed society/economy.
How do you spread the increase of productivity around?
My wife and I invested in the means of production via purchases and longterm holding of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. That way, we capture some of the benefits of continuous productivity improvement.
We avoided the debt trap of purchasing objects which reach their depreciation to zero within a few years.
House paid for. Transportation vehicles paid for. You know the scenario – we did not leverage debt, ours or someone else’s, in order to speculate.
Yet, we have enjoyed artificially-fast portfolio growth because of speculators. We have suffered artificially-fast portfolio decreases because of speculators, too.
That’s why our investments are spread across the globe, to capture differences in socioeconomic conditions.
Thus, our lives our intertwined with the richest and poorest of us seven billion sets of states of energy.
My wife participates in the office-style work environment. I manage a visibly transparent network that feeds this blog/never-ending story. Together, we, as past/present/future millionaires (in USD), have a keen interest in ensuring our global economy is relatively stable and free from control by selfish tyrants/hoarders.
Who are the selfish tyrants/hoarders?
They are the ones who gained wealth by high-risk speculating with the wealth/debt of others without providing a way to share the profit through dividends, stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other less/low speculative ways of channeling their hordes to wise, longterm investors.
What is the difference between high-risk speculators and low-risk speculators?
That, my friends, is a view that changes with the popular topics of the day; meaning, there is no easy answer to that question.
We hope you figure out how to enjoy the bounty of automation and increased productivity while some of us figure out how to define the constantly-changing difference between high-risk speculators and low-risk speculators and protect the wise investors from the wild, reckless ones.
That, in itself, is motivation to get out of bed every morning and compete in the marketplace of ideas to create a better future for all of us.
Snakebite and Peppermint Patti
Thanks to Lynn at Aubrey’s for serving my wife a snakebite and me a Peppermint Patti pie. Thanks to Patti Powell at Faith.
Congrats to Ireland in the Rugby World Cup – when economic hope is lost, there’s still hope on the field of play.
Thanks to Min at Another Broken Egg; Joshua and Nathan at Walmart.
Should Bob Costas replace Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes?
Several Hispanic-majority counties in Alabama and Georgia have seceded from same states, declaring their new territory Nuevo Jorge. Rumours that Carlos Slim financed this political realignment have not been substantiated. New Mexico Governor Martinez is said to be in negotiations to become territorial governor of Nuevo Jorge during its arduous application process for achieving statehood. Israeli and Palestinian authorities have refused to comment until their territorial disputes are resolved. Korean bloggers are debating any impact this has on their trade status (statuses? statii?) between China and the U.S.
Congrats to my rival secondary school’s marching band for performing at halftime during the battle between UTK and Buffalo; both college football teams showed flashes of perfection and much to build on. A nod to the mother of Buffalo player #12 (Alex Dennison – tight end), and her kids – hope you had a safe trip home.
Need to update the news of the future from Mars, as well as instructions for managing international affairs – the storyline never rests!
treetrunkdings 