Return to Normalcy-cy-cy-cy

Meet the New Congress/Same as the Ol' Congress

Gee, just when the icicles of cynicism over our government were falling from my nose, the first thing Congress does is vote for its new/old leaders (re-arranging the deck-chairs?) and in so doing, reveal true colors. The 'Pubs bring back racist good ol' boah Trent Lott (what a shining example of ... living in the 19th Century?), while the Dem's show just how unified they are...by electing the one guy the new HouseSpeaker doesn't get along with to be HouseMajLead. Brilliant. What was the strategy here, boys, "Let's show them wimmin to not git too uppity?"
Any billionaires out there (not too flaky) who can start a successful 3rd (4th/5th) political party?
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Speaking of Power Failures

The Island...the entire Island...lost power Wednesday after a brief flirtation with black-out on Tuesday night. I was at The Ranch of Erratic 1's/0's, where there was power-aplenty, but surge-protectors were working over-time.

K called to say "don't come home, things are a mess." And, indeed, they were. Driving into work there were no traffic lights (4-way stops), which would have made me late for a ferry if they'd been running on time. They weren't. Instead of their usual on-the-half-hour schedule, they were lurching into dock when they could. I caught the 10:39 ferry, having missed the 10:21. They had enough generator power to lower the dock-ramps. There was a line around the Freeland grocery store as they were giving out free ice cream from the now-useless freezer section. Freeland, indeed. And I got several calls from K where there was no one on the line. Verizon was also down.

I stayed with my sister, having the foresight to keep a sleeping bag in my car...a hold-over from my driver's training class so many years ago (Thanks, "Crazy" Ed!). Katheryn stayed at the cabin, having plenty of fire wood to keep the place warm and lots and lots of candles for light. She had a fine dinner of soup and grilled-cheese sandwich cooked on the wood-stove, and watched as fronts from the South and North collided, blew out the clouds over the Passage and provided an amazing lightning storm over the mountains. She thought it was pretty cool, though there was a dissenting opinion from the animals. On the mainland, I wore the same clothes to work the next day and took a shower in the first floor bathroom where one of the stalls had a stripped-out hot/cold knob and the other had no hot water at all. Sorta like camping at a multi-BILLION dollar facility. But now, the massive generator at Mt. Vernon is back on-line and the lights are back on. I got to finish editing my freelance work and Katheryn got to finish the fourth season of "Bewtched." We'd complain, but it seems like the power always shut off if someone sneezed in Normandy Park. We've been talking a lot about Nicola Tesla at work. And not in an Art Bell kinda way.
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Oh...and another thing about powerlessness: Just as I'm hearing a cheery radio report that because of free-falling oil prices, we'll probably be seeing <$2.00 a gallon gas, I pass by my "cheapest gas in town" stand-bys, and the price is up fifteen cents per gallon. Hmmm. What could possibly be coming up (say, in a week or so) that would cause the oil companies to raise their prices? This is why 1) I laugh too loudly when someone tells me that oil-prices are dictated by "market forces," and b) I think we're the turkeys being served up for Thanksgiving. It's a very simple equation. You increase the price at the time when car-travel increases and as long as you avoid expenditures like repairing or building a refinery you increase your profits exponentially . Then you can invest in, say, dry-holes and Senators from Alaska (or is that the same thing?).

On the other hand, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" was released on video this week. Highly recommended...if only to see Mel Gibson with the gooniest beard in Creation.
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Thanks to Tim Hunter for the title, but then he hasn't been using it for 20 years, so.....