Terrible Analogies

Is it just me, or does this clip from A Bug’s Life eerily echo the events currently unfolding in the Middle East?

It’s amazing what the power of the people can accomplish once the wall of fear has been dismantled. And although not reflecting positively on our economy, this toppling of oppressive regimes whose only purpose is to benefit themselves has been a long time in coming. I can only hope that when the dust finally settles that the people implement changes that represent positive steps forward. Their future is in their own hands.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

Oh, happy day!  Look what I found in the mailbox yesterday:

It seems like I get these things like clockwork every few years.  Do I have a sign on my back or something that says “sucker”?  I can’t wait to hang out all day in a muggy waiting room, sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, surrounded by people just as depressed about their current circumstance and I.

I’d like to claim a financial hardship or medical condition to get me out of this mess, but there’s nothing I can think of this go-around.  And I just know if I try to weasel my way out of this that I’d be exposed for the fraud that I am.

There’s just no winning this time.  I might as well just suck it up and do my civic duty, and hope that I’m not chosen to be on a jury.  Perhaps I should tell the judge that “they all look guilty to me,” or mention that I believe in jury nullification, and hope that he gets the message?

This graphic has been making the rounds recently, and I thought it a valid enough argument to give it another point of exposure.  This is the perfect example of a broken political system, and another reason to hope for a revolution:

It seems that election time brings out the grump in me…

Yesterday evening I cracked open a beer, put on The Grateful Dead’s album Grateful Dead From The Mars Hotel (“U.S. Blues” indeed…), donned a pair of studio headphones to drown out all distractions and got down to filling out my absentee ballot for this year’s midterm elections.

I don’t know about you, but I’m having serious difficulties voting for either of the leading candidates for California Mayor, and found myself siding with the libertarian this go-around.  I can’t trust somebody who spends $140 millions dollars on a campaign (money shouldn’t matter…can we equalize the playing field for everyone here?), has a long history of not voting, and says one thing to a certain group of people then completely contradicts herself when speaking to another group.  I also don’t get the warm fuzzies when a 70′s relic refuses to speak on the issues on the radio, backtracks on statements, plays dirty politics, and who didn’t do a stellar job for California the first time around.

We Californians are doomed.

In fact, I find it difficult to trust any politician nowadays.  What I really, really want is a politician who doesn’t want to be a politician.  I want somebody in office who doesn’t have a self-serving agenda.  Somebody who believes in transparency.  Somebody who isn’t in the game for money or power.  Somebody who has, first and foremost, the people in mind.

But that’s also part of the problem, isn’t it?  The people.  We keep voting for incompetency.  Until we’re able to get our own stuff together we’ll never see true change.  Until we stop voting for sound bites and power suits and empty promises, we’ll continue on down the muddy rutted road that we currently find ourselves mired in.

Until such time when I can trust the people we place into power, when we have people who are not beholding to special interests, partisan politics, career fast tracking, rubber stamping, pork spending and back room deals calling the shots, then please continue to describe me as a vocal doubter and dissatisfied voter.  You can rest assured that there are more of us out there than you’d care to believe, and we have our eyes on you…

With an estimated 56,000-84,000 barrels of oils a day pouring out of the damaged well in the Gulf Coast, and with President Obama poised to address the nation this coming Tuesday, it seems as if we’ve blown past the “worst case” scenario and have careened head-first into the dark gaping maw of disastrous uncertainty.

This is the type of event that changes nations.

BP is doing its best to white-wash the news by imposing virtual marshall law on the Gulf Coast area, forbidding both the curious and the professional from any and all hotspots.  BP has even gone so far as to purchase key search words on Google and Yahoo in an attempt to deflect negative press.

Still, pictures of the spill are getting out, and the damage is extensive.  The loss of wildlife is disheartening.  As of this post, the BP spill is currently standing at 66 million barrels of oil.  That’s six times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster.

Shoot.  I’m not one to really take up arms, march in the street, and rally around a cause, but this disaster is so unprecedented and catastrophic that one would have to be truly dead inside not to recognize the problem and the desperate need for a solution.

If BP can’t control an oil spill, how would they control a cup of spilt coffee?

This would be funny if it weren’t so sad…