Usual Rubbish

Rabbit hole.


Well, I haven’t seen it. What kind of belt is it? Nothing of the kind. What am I, your valet? Damn it, man – use your eyes! Oh…. the Kuiper Belt. Right… nope, haven’t seen it.

Then there’s that third reason. A little known fact about the “Goldilocks Planet”: it lives right next door to the mother of all black holes (I believe that’s referred to as the “Three Bears Neutron Star”). Before we took off, we asked the Gliseans how best to navigate back in the direction of our home system. They gave us what was, for them, some pretty typical advise – go left, but not too far left; then take a right turn at the asteroid… not the BIG asteroid, not the LITTLE one, the JUST RIGHT one… and so on. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) took all this down in his memory banks, then plugged himself into our spacecraft’s navigational computer and passed the directions along. (It may have been my imagination, but he always seems to have a self-satisfied smirk when he hooks up with that terminal. Nevertheless…)

Okay, so we follow these asinine directions, and we find ourselves being drawn off course by some unseen force… a mysterious power beyond the understanding of man or machine. Mitch Macaphee called it … “gravity”. Yes, the black hole just to the right (not too far!) of the Goldilocks Planet was drawing us in relentlessly. Next thing, everything goes dark. It’s like driving through the Holland Tunnel. All the way to Holland. Need I draw you a picture?

So, okay, we’re supposed to be at a gig in the Kuiper Belt by Tuesday of next week. Care to start a pool on whether or not we make it? I’m betting no. Cover me?

Political Rants

On capitulation.

Okay, so the president has a bit to apologize for. He’s not alone in that respect – plenty of blame to go around here. Fact is, the administration is certainly wrong to criticize the liberal-left for denouncing the deal he cut with Republicans this week. If the president was painted into a corner, it was not by the left. The Congress members who were dead set against raising the tax issue before this past election were “Blue Dog” conservatives, worried about offending their constituencies – the same voters that would soon send more than half of them packing.

It is now these conservative Democrats that Obama is relying upon during the lame duck session to shepherd this deal through the House. It seems likely that most Republicans will support it, so he hardly needs the entire Democratic caucus. In any case, the capitulation happened a long time ago. At this point, the main thing is making certain that unemployed workers get the help they need. I don’t care how we get there, particularly, so long as they don’t give away the store… and reserve the right to start fighting again fresh on January 1.

There will be a lot to fight about, particularly when you consider how the Republicans have been behaving in the wake of their electoral victory. To wit,

  • Jim DeMint has talked about the possibility of making unemployment insurance more like “a loan” to give unemployed people incentive to go to work. No, really… he’s serious.
  • The main talking point on these upper income marginal tax cuts is that they are “NOT tax cuts”, that to not implement them is, in fact, a tax increase.  I heard Jon Kyl plying this one yesterday. A little wordplay here – perhaps they don’t remember that when they invented these tax cuts nine years ago, they put an end point on them. The tax cut has a time limit; when that passes, it’s over. Extend it, that’s a new cut because it involves additional billions. Got that, Jon? 
  • Tax cuts for the rich don’t add to the deficit. Unemployment benefits do.

You get the picture. One last point… it was mentioned in passing on NPR business news today that American corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash. Sitting on it.

Again… do these people really need a tax cut?

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Three of them.


The gravity’s not too strong, not too weak. The water is not too wet, not too dry. The inhabitants are not too short, not too tall…. MAN this place is ANNOYING!

Yes, this is Big Green, reporting live from the Goldilocks Planet, recently discovered orbiting the star Gliese 581 – technical name is Gliese 581g, actually, one of six sibling planets (Did Goldilocks have siblings? Don’t know. What an exasperatingly ill-defined folk tale!) After its recent discovery, we decided to make it a stop on our ENTER THE MIND: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE interstellar tour, but now I’m beginning to have some regrets. It’s just to damned perfect down here. It’s a planet of anal retentive mo-fo’s (though they’re not too obsessive about it … which if anything is even more exasperating).

Take our itinerary (please!). We showed up to the first gig about fifteen minutes late. You’d think we’d shot somebody. The Glieseans were running about with five of their six appendages in the air (actually, hopping about, come to think of it), gesticulating and vocalizing some kind of hypnotic alarm call that sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into the automatonic equivalent of a trance. Since he’s been elected to lead the schlep squad at our various gigs (a punishment if ever there was one), that meant his leadership skills (such as they are) were temporarily suspended. That made us even MORE late. And the Glieseans started hopping about again.

It gets worse. When they get really, really frustrated (which took us about half an hour to accomplish), they retreat to their beds and pull the covers up over their oddly-misshapen heads. (Strange thing is, they all seem to have three beds, even the ones who live alone…. and they always sleep in the smallest ones.) I’ll tell you, it’s a good goddamn thing we brought our own craft services with us (the mansized tuber is our chef this time out), ’cause all these fuckers eat is porridge. Peas porridge. And they don’t care if it’s hot or cold. (Sometimes they leave the stuff sitting around for days on end… deeeeee-sgusting).

Okay, well… have to get back to it. Supposed to play tonight, and I’m hoping to get some shut-eye before the bears come home. (What bears? Don’t ask.)

Weird ass music since 1986