You may have noticed...

You may have noticed a tapering off of blog posts recently; a good reason exists for this phenomenon: We're moving! That's right, the 357s are voluntarily downsizing and moving to another home. This one will be more centrally located in the city (although it will be farther away from my work...how'd that happen?...oh, yeah, a one word explanation: wife) and exactly 1,000 s.f. smaller.

So, I've been busy moving stuff that we could mostly live without to temporary storage. It's amazing the amount of useless items one woman can accumulate in eleven years at one house. Of course, I've accumulated a fair amount of things too, but mine all have a purpose.

Anyway, I've got to get going. I have to run another load to the storage unit, although I'm tempted instead to take a detour to the dump.

Take care.
DAL357

Uh oh!

Call me cynical, but the first thought that muscled its way to the front of the line in my mind wasn't, "How sad that people died and had property destroyed in this storm." No, it was, "I wonder how much money this is going to cost the USA?" Heck, I don't even know if the US government will be sending "aid," a euphemism for tax dollars, but I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if it didn't.

Isn't it awful that a human being can't feel at least a bit of compassion for a disaster without thinking about how much he'll be fleeced for it? But that's the kind of reaction the US government has wrought with its innumerable instances of largess to folks who should be their own government's concern. Thanks, FedGov, for making me so callous.

By the way, notice the term "global warming" used below--this must have been a slip-up. I thought the new term for this is "climate change," since global warming now may or may not be happening. But since adopting the phrase climate change, the totalitarian-at-heart environmentalists can now have all of the bases covered no matter which way the wind blows, or at what temperature. Neat, eh? Also, isn't it frugal of this "reporter" to tie two different things into one news story? By piggybacking the holy grail of the environmentalist movement, global warming/climate change, onto a tragic occurrence, the environmentalist message gets more exposure.

One other thing: the Indian government should be able to afford to help its people, with all of the programming jobs and 1-800 help number jobs that have gone there from the US, their tax base must have risen in recent years, giving them more capital to work with for such contingencies.

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Millions displaced by cyclone in India, Bangladesh
By Sujoy Dhar Sujoy Dhar


KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Cyclone Aila has displaced millions of people in India and Bangladesh, only a fraction of whom have access to food and drinking water, officials said on Wednesday.

The cyclone has killed at least 210 people in the flood-prone region, though officials said the death toll could rise, and rescuers have struggled to reach millions still marooned.

Cyclone Aila hit parts of coastal Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, triggering tidal surges and floods.

Officials say more than one million people have been displaced in India's Sundarban islands in West Bengal state alone, one of the world's biggest tiger reserves and which is already threatened by global warming.

Heavy rain triggered by the storm raised river levels and burst mud embankments in the Sundarbans delta, destroying hundreds of thousands of houses and causing widespread flooding in the eastern state, and triggered landslides.

Global warming experts say rising sea levels have seen the fragile Sundarbans lose 28 percent of its habitat in the last 40 years.

Nearly 2.3 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have moved to government shelters in West Bengal, the aid agency Save the Children told AlertNet.

As water levels slowly recede, hundreds of thousands of families who sought refuge in shelters, schools and other buildings are now returning to find their homes either washed away or submerged in water. [Man, that's some crackerjack reporting! What else would one expect from a flood, clean floors and windows?]

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Take care.
DAL357

Infinite hubris coupled with economic ignorance

Does it ever end? I suppose it will someday, but for now the attitude of the current idiot administration/party in power, as opposed to the last idiot administration, seems to be "in for a penny, in for a pound." They can't wait to display the depths of their economic illiteracy to the world. Check out the following hyper-moronic plan to stimulate U.S. auto sales.

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Obama, lawmakers agree on "cash-for-clunkers" bill
Tue May 5, 3:49 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers reached agreement on Tuesday on a legislative proposal designed to stimulate U.S. auto sales, which have fallen to near 30-year lows.

The one-year plan crafted by members of the U.S. House of Representatives would offer vouchers worth up to $4,500 for owners to replace their less fuel efficient vehicles for models that get better gas mileage.

The goal of the "cash for clunkers" legislation is to sell 1 million vehicles.

"By stimulating consumer demand for new vehicles, this proposal will directly benefit domestic autoworkers and automotive manufacturers, which have arguably been hardest hit by the current economic downturn," said Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and staunch industry ally.

House Majority leader Steny Hoyer has embraced the proposal and said in an interview with Reuters in April that the measure would be acted upon quickly once proposed.

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Why only $4500 towards a new car? Why not give the things away to everyone (citizen and illegal alike) and make those factories really hum?

Truthfully, I don't really care anymore. As someone I read recently said, it's all the Democrats' baby now; they can't blame the impending fiscal ka-boom on those worms known as the Republicans, who stand for nothing except a different version of big government. In fact, I implore all idiotic ideas be not only proposed, but adopted, thereby hastening the day of reckoning.

Take care.
DAL357

Swine flu update

Update: SHUT THE HE** UP ABOUT THIS MEDIA-DRIVEN NON EVENT!!! It's obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain that this is NOT the population-reducing pandemic that's been predicted for decades by sci-fi writers and epidemiologists, at least not yet. If the virus goes into hiding, morphs into something more deadly, then resurfaces during the next cold-and-flu season, we'll have something to worry about. But those are BIG ifs. In the meantime, try to refocus on how we're all getting bent over a barrel by a government run amok, elected by a people who are willfully deaf, dumb, and blind, for this flu thing is most assuredly an attempt to distract you from the real epidemic: venal politicians and the idiots who elect them.

Take care.
DAL357