This Saturday in the Portland Metro area, we experienced 4 seasons worth of weather in a single day and my theory is Al Gore is responsible.
To begin with, the cherry trees in my apartment complex went into full bloom about two weeks ago, more then a month early. The media says it was the early spring type weather we were having. Then came Saturday.
When I awoke and went out to get my morning paper, it was snowing, horizontally. An hour later the sun was shining. Then a twenty minute hail storm beat the hell out of us with pea sized chunks of ice followed by rain mixed with snow. Another hour of sunshine followed that made me regret leaving the house wearing a hoodie. Then more ice cold rain, followed by hail. Then another period of sun so strong it caused the moisture to steam off the blacktop. We finished the day with broken clouds and and occasional rain showers for the rest of the evening.
“So, The Angry Jew has finally been convinced of the reality of Global Warming” you ask?
Hardly.
I picture Al Gore holed up in his lair at the controls of his insidious weather machine, laughing maniacally and vowing to teach the world not to mock his theories.
I may not be right, but it sure is a lot more fun to think about then the alternative.
No, I am not talking about Condi. As world food prices continue to rise, many rice producing nations have capped or, or in some cases, eliminated exports altogether.
With the almost 100% increase in price on the world market, this staple for nearly half of the worlds population is being kept at home amid rising fears of shortages and civil unrest. Food riots have erupted in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Sengal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
While we in The United States are fortunate to be a rice exporter, countries ranging from Sengal in West Africa to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific are heavily dependent on imports of this simple staple.
Vietnam announced that its government will cut exports by nearly a quarter this year. India has banned export of all but the most expensive grades of rice. Egypt has announced it is imposing a six month ban on rice exports, and Cambodia has announced it will ban all rice exports except those approved by the government.
What does all this mean?
Well, I am not sure, but since rice is one of those rare commodities that is usually a surplus item in rice consuming nations, we can only begin to imagine the ripple effect it will have on world agricultural prices.
The only thing worse then having to work day shift, for me, is having to do it the week after a vacation. I don’t see how you people do it.
Maybe I have worked odd hours for so many years that I am just not capable of working when the rest of you do. To me, it is just an unnatural act to roll out of bed and go to work. I need time to ease into my day.
This last week, I had to work the day shift to cover for a coworker who was on vacation. Now, at my plant, day shift starts at 7am, but, because I am a senior person, I have to be there at 630 to get my machine ready to run. Which means I have to get up at 5am so I can have coffee, check my email and get my brain into gear.
Now that is when we are working straight shifts.
So, of course, this past week we HAD to work overtime. So now my shift is starting at 5 am, which means that I had to be there at 430, which means I am up at 3 in the morning. This statement contains a blatant falsehood.
There is no such thing as 3 in the morning. 3am is the middle of the freaking night. It is the afternoon of the night. It is not a time to be getting up and starting your day, it is when you are staggering into bed and ending it.
So, I am going to stick with swing shift. Go ahead and look down your noses at me and brag about how you are out partying on Friday night.
Just remember, while you are enjoying that one little advantage, I am getting up whenever the hell I feel like it. I starting my day in a slow, calm, rational manner. Having breakfast, sipping my coffee, reading the paper, surfing the net and writing this page.
All I need to be complete is a swing shift kind of girl.
A big Angry Jew congratulations to The Drug Enforcement Agency, who are making great strides in cleaning up their act.
A 2002 audit by the Justice department found that the front line soldiers on our war on drugs were having just a wee bit of trouble hanging onto items such as laptop computers and guns.
A follow up report just released found that the DEA is making progress. They lost a whopping 50% less computers then they did in 2002, although they are not following procedures for storage and reporting of the loss of potentially classified information, but hey guys, don’t fret, we all know it take “baby steps”.
They are still having a little bit of trouble with the whole gun thing. They lost 22 firearms and allowed another 69 to be stolen since the 2002 audit.
Way to go guys. Glad to see you are making progress.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a complete inventory of all US nuclear weapons and components to be completed in the next 60 days. This after the US accidentally shipped those 4 nuclear fuses to Taiwan 2 years ago and just found out about it last week.
HUH?
You mean we don’t know where they are all?
Is anyone else scared?
I mean, can’t Gates just call some one in the Pentagon and say “Dude, wheres my nukes?” You would think they would have a whole team of people doing nothing but keeping track of these things and then another group of people just checking the work of the first team. We are talking Nuclear weapons here people.
Now, back in the day, I worked with “Special Weapons” while serving in the Navy, a thought that has cost many who know me more then a few sleepless nights. Imagine, someone like me with access to THE BOMB.
Back then it took three ID’s , two security checks, and a thing we called the two man rule just to get near the dammed things. Everything that was done, and I mean EVERYTHING, was done by a checklist and no one person was ever allowed to be alone with them. If you had to take a piss, your partner went with you, and there was a squad of marines was on hand, just to make sure everyone played by the rules.
Have the procedures changed that much since I have been gone?
What the hell is going on.
Now we are “accidentally” loading them on B52’s and flying them halfway across the country, and if we are not doing that, we are shipping parts by accident halfway across THE WORLD.
I, for one, thank God that we have a forward thinking SecDef like Robert Gates, who prudently ordered this inventory. It’s a shame we didn’t think of that about two years ago. Or maybe twenty years ago. I can just imagine that conversation.
“Hey, maybe we should be counting these things every couple of months just to see if they are all there?”
“Are you volunteering to do all that extra paperwork?”
“Me? Hell No. I have Redskins tickets this weekend.”
“See what I mean, don’t be such a worry wart. Who would want to take one anyway?”
I just wonder if they are going to tell us if anything is missing?
You would think that someone would have told the Air Force that I am constantly having great fun at their expense. It would then follow, that they might try to tighten things up and give me less cannon fodder.
Alas, it is just not to be. The Air Force is tripping over themselves trying to explain why 4 fuses for Minuteman Strategic Nuclear Missiles were shipped to Taiwan back in 2006 and they are just now finding out about it.
Apparently the folks in Taiwan had ordered helicopter batteries and were shipped the four fuses by mistake. When Taiwan contacted the Air Force wanting to know where their batteries were and that they had received these fuse things, the Air Force told them to just go ahead and get rid of them. The folks in Taiwan said no as they were marked explosive. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Ryan Henry emphasized how “disconcerting” the mistake was to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has “made it a personal priority to effectively deal with this matter.”
You Think?
He said that a preliminary investigation of the items did not show that they had been tampered with, and he lauded the Taiwanese authorities for how “responsibly” they handled the incident.
The technology for the nose cone fuses is “quite dated,” Henry said, specifying that they were from a system built in the 1960s, which is true. It is also true that the Minuteman is currently the ONLY land based ICBM currently in service.
I would like to think I am a pretty reasonable kind of guy. I make mistakes, I’m human and I don’t expect anyone to be perfect. Clinton’s latest gaff, however, has stretched what I am willing to accept and has pegged out my BS Meter.
For those of you who have been trapped in your caves. Hillary trotted out, as an example of her readiness to lead from day one, the story of how her and Chelsea landed in Bosnia “under sniper fire” while on a good will visit back in ‘96.
During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Well poor Hillary has gotten her tittie in a vise because CBS had video of her , on the tarmac, meeting and greeting with the locals.
Now, as expected, Hillary has stated she misspoke and the incident was a “minor blip.”
And this my friends, is why she has to GO.
For Hillary, it is just politics as usual. Planted questions, “Whoops, I didn’t know that the retired gay general was going to ask a question about gays in the military. It’s not like he was an adviser on my campaign…opps, sorry, he was, I misspoke.”
If we allow this woman into the White House, this is what we can expect for the next four years. Just business as usual on the Beltway. Tax dollars wasted, broken promises, back room deals, scandal after scandal.
She has been doing her best to sling mud at her competitor for the job, but it keeps blowing up in her face. Nothing she has tried to throw has seems to stick. In a way it is kind of erie.
Lets face it Obama is a great orator. His speeches are inspired and just make you feel like there just might be hope for this nation. When was the last time a politician made anyone feel that way? I have read all the Op/Ed pieces about how he is a shallow but charismatic speaker. That he does not have the experience on “how the Big Boys play the politics game.”
But, just for the sake of argument, their is more to it then that. Maybe it is something that we have been without for so long that we just don’t recognize it. Maybe, just maybe, he is a LEADER.
We don’t see those very often. Someone, who through force of personality, can motivate people to give their absolute best effort. That’s what he seems to have done with his campaign, why not with the nation. Maybe that is what is truly broken with America. We have no one we can believe in, to lead us, to motivate us, and we haven’t for a very long time.
What have we got now? We have Darth Cheney telling ABC News that he biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty. So what if he committed them based on bad intelligence and how exactly is he bearing the greatest burden? I would think that the troops who have been stop lossed for tour after tour after tour might just have something to say about that.
Is this what we really want for the next four years. I might not agree with Obama’s politics, but maybe it is time we stepped out of the box and tried something new.
Hell, if voting for Obama guarantees that I wont have to hear that shrieking harpies laugh one more time, well, thats enough for me .
Congratulations to Reader Jenn, who was the first to write in with the correct answers. be watching for my Trivia Challenges to come. I have to get my hands on some “Jew Gear” to give away for the next one.
It seems I inadvertently made the trivia challenge impossible for some readers as it appears my videos only appear to readers who use the Mozilla Firefox web browser. While I encourage all my readers to use Firefox, as it is more secure and faster than IE, it does make the challenge a little too difficult, so I am going to give you the title of the movie.
First Reader to get the rest of the questions right will claim the autographed copy of Joanne Fluke’s novel
As many regular readers know, I got to see an old friend of the family this week. Author and Baker Joanne Fluke was in town on a book tour this week promoting her latest Hanna Swenson Novel, The Carrot Cake Murder. She was kind enough to autograph a copy of her first Hanna Swenson Novel, The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, for one of my lucky readers.
Now then onto the challenge. One of the Winners of the 1st Annual YouTube was Mr Chocolate Rain, Tay Zonday, in the music catagory. As any regular viewer of YouTube knows, great videos inspire great parodies, like this mashup I found today, which brings us to the challenge.
Be the first to answer these questions regarding the film the video is taken from, and the autographed book is yours.
1. The Title of the Movie
2. The author of the short story the movie is based on.
3. The name of the Hollywood Diva who played Arnies wife.
4. The line that Arnie’s girlfriend delivers to after Arnie shoots his wife in the head
