Author: cosmo

Last week I was privileged and honored to receive a personal letter from Senator John McCain, in which he announced his candidacy for President. Of course he rambled on about his service in the armed forces and his long history in the Senate, dropping a few names here and there to impress me.

But then things got a little weird. The rest of his letter was a survey in which he asks penetrating questions about domestic and international policy. He wants to know how I, a common American citizen, feel about the pressing issues facing our country today. Although I don’t have a problem with that in principle, some of the questions were surprising.

Umm, what? Who on earth would say “I disagree”? Is there someone out there who thinks the tax code should be more complicated and more unfair? What kind of question is that?

Again, what kind of boneheaded question is he asking here? “No, John, I think the government should keep spending money like it’s going out of style, funding every crazy pork-barrel project they can think of!”

Hmm. Let me think about that, John. No, I disagree– I think we should increase the federal deficit, because we all know the positive results that brings.

John, I think we should give our troops muskets. Forget this body armor crap, too. Davy Crockett coonskin caps were good enough at the Alamo; they’re sure good enough for the troops in the Middle East today.

I used to actually respect McCain. That all changed a few years ago when it became clear he was one of Bush’s yes-men, and idiotic stunts like this survey only reinforce my opinion that he’s either

( ) a bonehead
( ) unable to form his own opinions, thus asking us to form it for him
( ) both

I shudder to think that someone like him may actually become President some day.

“There’s always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little – and it’s always somebody else.”

— Cullen Hightower

(Particularly apropos as Tax Day approaches and I need to scrape together the money I need to pay the IRS. It seems like I pay them every year, sigh.)

“We expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money.”

— President George W. Bush

Hah hah! That George is such a kidder. He says this just as Congress approved a $122 billion-with-a-B request for additional funding for the Iraqi civil war. When has Congress ever been wise about spending money?

Not satisfied with the usual docket of issues and problems facing the Minnesota state legislature, Representative Patti Fritz is leading the charge to make a major impact on the world.

She wants to make the Tilt-a-Whirl the official state ride.

Whee! That’s taxpayer money well spent. And it’ll work out nicely with Minnesota’s official state muffin (blueberry). No, I’m not kidding.

Durango : 1
Saturn : 0

I was parked at a light and this woman in a big Durango (also parked at the light) backed into me. Of course since she was driving a huge SUV, the bumper basically rode right over the top of my hood, crumpling it. The car still runs, although I can’t tell if anything is damaged because I can’t open the dang hood.

Now begins the excitement of getting it repaired, dealing with the insurance company, yada yada. Argh.

Last November, voters in Missoula, Montana passed a ballot initiative to give marijuana-related crimes the lowest priority in police work. Police, as we all know, are often overburdened with caseloads and struggle to keep up with the crimes and situations they’re asked to investigate. The voters thought that making pot lower on the list would help the police deal with more “important” crimes.

I don’t have a problem with that– it makes some sense. But this week, two of the three city council members in Missoula decided that the voters didn’t really understand what they’d voted for, so they took the liberty of amending the new rule.

That’s right– several months after the vote was cast, the council changed the wording. They adjusted the law so that only “small” marijuana crimes (those that aren’t felonies) would be pushed to the bottom of the police to-do list.

When asked about why they thought it’s okay in a democratic society to retroactively change laws voted upon by the people, council member Fed Van Valkenburg said:

Wow.

So this is a guy entrusted by the public to manage the laws, and he thinks he gets to change them on a whim because he has “a gut feeling”.

Chalk up another KO against democracy.

A quote from madpainter on Digg, regarding the ongoing furor over Gonzales’ dismissal of federal attorneys:

I just logged into my Discover credit card account, and I saw this lovely ad on the page:

While I applaud them for implementing enhanced security, and I realize they need to have some kind of stock photography to go with the little ad box, I’m curious about their choice of a little girl hugging her dad. What does this mean?

“Oh, Daddy, I’m so thrilled that you’re using enhanced security now!”

When I was up visiting Tom we were talking about the book Into Thin Air, where the author talks about the point where he was just about to die, and lamented the fact that he had a song stuck in his head and realized that he didn’t want to die to that song. It turns out the song was by the band Boney M, and Tom had cranked it in his car as we drove through the mountain passes of Washington.

The song, with the mysterious title “Brown Girl in the Ring”, includes such spellbinding lyrics as

And of course

But heck, I can’t make out the words that closely, so maybe I’m hearing them wrong. In any case, despite the horrible lyrics, it’s actually a very catchy song and sure enough, that refrain (“tra la la la la”) really gets stuck in your head.

Yay, Boney M!

In 1995 I opened a credit union account, because it was a requirement to get a 5% discount on a car through the Hughes/GE employee purchase program. The minimum amount you could put in the account was $5.00, and since I didn’t plan to use it for anything at all beyond qualifying for the car program, I dropped in five clams and let it sit.

Now, twelve years later, I decided I’ve finally had enough of the monthly statements, so I called them and asked that my account be closed. Of course they sent me a check for the balance in the account:

Through the magic of compound interest, I’ve managed to accumulate the grand total of $7.13 on the account. Woo hoo! Now that’s putting money to work!