Friday Follies...
Here we are at the end of the week, the start of the weekend, AND the beginning of a new month. Can we STAND the strain?
Tell you one thing...the past week has made the Space Mountain Ride at Disneyworld look about as thrill-packed as sitting in the barber's chair...with the barber out to lunch!
The GOOD news is that we can leave all of LAST MONTH'S BAD NEWS behind us.
The BAD news is that we have that NEW MONTH with which to create MORE BAD NEWS.
Sorry, that's the cynical optimistic pessimist in me again.
But that aside, let's see what's shakin'...
-- Supreme Court Judge David Souter says he's going to retire sometime around JUNE this year.
Okay, can we say PERFECT STORM here?
This retirement will no doubt produce available candidates that will lean more to the far left, and that's the last thing we really need now, not that leaning to the far right is much better.
Too liberal is JUST AS BAD as too conservative. The uber-liberals want to change ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, while those uber-conservatives don't really want to change much at all. At least that's what I've seen over the past decade or two.
If we could only have a government that would busy itself running this NATION, instead of trying to intrude (further and faster) into all our lives, we'd ALL be better served, and THEY would be better elected officials.
Yeah...I know...dream on, Bob.
-- More meth labs have been found in LaGrange and Noble counties in Indiana (big surprise there, huh?), and arrests HAVE been made by the state police.
WTG, people.
Now, IF ONLY we, in Fort Wayne, could get the multi-agency drug task force back our of the ICU and out finding those dealers (hint, the low-level guys on the SE side will take you UP the "corporate" ladder), maybe we could claim similar headlines, depending on whether or not the prosecutor's office thinks it's enough of an "airtight" case.
To that end, I would say that not EVERY case will be a slam-dunk, so hunker down, get ballsy, and take it TO those perps, damn it!
THAT is what makes a good prosecutor or district attorney...the ABILITY to take victory from the jaws of defeat.
Stop caving to the ambulance-chasers, and stop with all the damn PLEA-BARGAINS. This isn't an episode of "LET'S MAKE A DEAL", for God's sake! Monty Hall isn't running the damn show here.
But enough about judicial attributes and rhetoric.
Moving on...
-- The whole Chrysler - Fiat deal just sound so bad to me on so many levels.
And the ONE thing I find totally WRONG about it, is not the fact that they're bankrupt, or that the government does any kind of bailout thing, or even doesn't bail them out. Oh, no.
Sherman, set the WAY-BACK MACHINE for America, circa 1991 - the Chrysler motorcar company.
It seems that a certain MODEL of that era was a perfect CLONE of a JAPANESE car maker, one MITSUBISHI.
The DODGE STEALTH and the MITSUBISHI 3000GT were IDENTICAL, except for very minor differences (headlights and fascia) and name tags.









Don't believe me?
Here's the facts, ma'am (or sir):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Stealth
And this is NOT the first time Chrysler spent some "bedtime" with OTHER car companies. Going back to 1979, the Dodge Charger "2+2" and the Plymouth Turismo TC3 had AUDI engine parts all over the place.
So my question becomes (in his best Horatio Caine)...WHERE are these OTHER car companies when Chrysler was sleeping with them for years, hmm?
Where IS Audi? Where IS Mitsubishi?
Why is FIAT the ONLY "player" in this mix with Chrysler anyway?
And who the hell wants FIAT? Certainly not I (and neither do you...trust me).
Cripes, some Fiats make the Russian-built TRABANT look like a Lincoln MKZ...LOL!
This is a royal clusterf*ck in the making...
-- OUR local AIR really sucks, too.
(and just when we were working on the water quality...)
Allen County air quality was given an *F* (and that doesn't stand for FINE) for OZONE. You know, that sweet fragrant air that you smell when thunderstorms hit (it's an ionized particle thing)...well, it's not EXACTLY that.We're talking about the "bad" ozone, and not the "good" ozone.
Yes, Martha, there IS a difference!
The "good" ozone is that which keeps harmful radiation from bombarding us in the UPPER atmosphere.
The "bad" ozone is at ground level and causes pollution.
Here's the *411* from WIKI, for all you chemical engineering folks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone
Suffice it to say, it would be NICE if we could somehow gather up all that nasty, polluting and oxidizing OZONE down HERE, and get it up the upper atmosphere, where we could replenish that THIN layer that keeps us all from becoming crispy critters and keeps oncologists rolling in money.
What I'm curious about is how something that HUGS THE GROUND can even GET up into the atmosphere to begin with. Is Delta airlines or UPS giving it a ride or what?
That's like saying that FREON (R-12 & R-22) ruins the ozone layer. Well, if you can tell me HOW a gas that is HEAVIER THAN AIR is mysteriously transported into the stratosphere, I'd say alrighty then, let's do away with that stuff.
Sorry...just not seeing it, though.
Maybe my favorite "environmangelist", Al Gore is using his PRIVATE JET to haul that crap up there...I KNEW it was a conspiracy...LOL!
It's all HIS fault that we have ozone depletion above our planet AND ozone pollution ON our planet.
Betcha those Mexicans are smuggling that damn ozone across our border!.
Tell 'ya...if you spend too much time wondering about ALL the troubles we have with the economy, taxes, the government, the swi...I mean the "N1H1 INFLUENZA A" outbreak, The Middle East, Pirates from Somalia, illegals coming to the USA, drugs, crime, gangs all on our streets, kids out of control, families in crisis, schools that pander to the lazy instead of challenging them, bailouts for banks, car companies going bust, and that ingrown toenail and cavity on your molar...you'd go CRAZY, right?
Well, it's MAY. Time to think about a few other things, and hopefully they will be less fraught with angst.
That's what GARDENS are for.
So wherever you might happen to go, either on foot, by bike, by bus, by horse (by God), in your car (instead of running along beside it), or even in your mind (don't wanna know about that)...
Take it easy, and...
Stay safe out there, America.