Of Playing Ball

I love to see ten gangling gorillas slapping the ball around under bright lights to the roar of fans. I do not much care about the Romans, even though they knew what it was all about: you win, or you dead. Too intense for me. I know more about Kobe, less about the 250 pound marbled Kobe-ushi who lives next door. I know what Phil ate for lunch. Phil, the coach, not Phil, my son. I do not know much about my son, even though I see him almost every day from the corner of my eye while I am watching my game or something. Let me stop for a minute and thank the media for achieving this state of atomicity. Frugal, minimalist, independent. Each individual wired to the signal, now in High Definition.

I play the ponies and politics alike. I toss my coinses and make my choices: heads, Obama, tails, McCain. I want to say the Romans knew how to make a salad of the Caesar they did not like. But it does not make much sense in this ethereal, make-belief world. I want to thank our media keeping me fully informed without being rude. I can watch the floods from my cozy couch. I know all about the real issues: Barack’s pastor, Iran’s weapons of mass destruction, the lying clawing Hillary, gays getting married, kids going to jail for smoking marijuana, abortion, Oprah’s makeup artist, and Britney’s bosom. I stay wired while I get my high fructose corn syrup fix and stuff my face with cheesy chips. See how comfortable I am with their first names: Barack, Hillary, Iran.

The other day someone told me a General Eisenhower joke. The General said in 1956, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

Wanna hear another war joke?

I know illegal Mexicanos dropping in on us is a big problem. They take away cotton-picking jobs at bargain wages that I could do if I wanted. And then they send all the millions they earn to their home in Oaxaca where their farm is dead but the U.S. government subsidized Iowa corn is cheap. May be I can take a vacation there. It will help their local economy, wiping my pale ass. Ha, ha. If they are nice, I will tell them a secret: free markets does not mean free movement of labor. No, I think I will join the war - as a contractor, shoot some Hajis. It seems like a fun thing to do as I watch it on my TV. They say it pays well. And the mothers are crazy about their Marines.

I do not need the money, really. I am on the buddy list. And the buddy-kitty is about 2.5T dollars. Ask IRS. I votes for my Congressman, he votes for me with dollars from the kitty. Perfectly legal like as in a Bill. I scratches his back, he mine. It is a regular church: steal from the poor, distribute to the rich. Why do you think Bill Gates is worth a $100B and the Pope wears Dorothy-red shoes?

Did you know hot air is free? The cool air is not. You pays for it, because my little company smokes coal and belches sulfer dioxide. I have a license to smoke the city brown, the same city that spends the tax money and spins its wheels (pollution?) to show it is on the job cleaning air. Talking about city services, please do separate the garbage into recyclable and not. It helps my buddy corporations make a living. You know corporations are like very rich human beings. Ask the nearest Judge, the corporations live and breathe and can trump your eminent domain any day. Like OJ, they can buy whatever whenever.

Here is another joke, this time about water. A liter of soda is yours for a dollar. The carcinogens and fatteners are free. My buddy HMOs want you fat and marbled. But here is the funny thing. It takes about 7 liters of potable water to make a liter of soda. Seven liters of bottled water can be had for 7 dollars, if you are lucky. I will do the math. Every time you buy a liter of soda, my buddies eat up a loss of 6 or more dollars just to be a good citizen. What a deal.

Okay, okay, I know the math is kind of heavy. So hear this: All over the TV, the rumor has it Winehouse is ill and Britney is gonna climb the Eiffel Tower in the nude for AIDS benefit. Can you beat that?

Population Purge

The human population reaches 9 billion around 2042. The non-fossil energy, about the only kind available at that date, may sustain about a billion, about the same as the pre-industrial count. Maybe add a few percent more to account for the wisdom we have gained since the 1800s. But I doubt it.

Prices of everyday goods are rising as the demand for energy soars. Soon Dorothy may have to replace her red shoes with those made of discarded tires from her SUV. No roads of gold, no air travel, and no spin around the block. The little wizard is counting on dirty coal to run his fantasy world a little while longer.

New technology? Yeah, that! Ask the Federal Reserve, Bernanke will print it. Ask the Congress, it will fund technofixes with defunct dollars. The blue collar scientists, however, are looking for a hole to crawl in before it hits the fan. Going from fossil fuels to sustainable energy is like asking a crack baby to get high on plain water! The best of them, wind and solar, are subsidized by oil, utilize high-maintenance technology, and offer miniscule energy-density compared to oil. A whole new infrastructure is needed – about 191 million new vehicles just for the US to carry on with its non-negotiable way of life.

Let us build solar-electric airplanes, now! But wait, GAO says we have this $53 Trillion debt. Double or nothing.

“The only humane approach to the impending comedy,” says Alex the Anatosaurus “is to institute population rationing. I been there. I extinct.” The plutocracy, hankering after the good old feudal days, is against population rationing because, when the oil is gone, they fancy a hundred slaves for target practice. The priest cannot survive without supporting the rich, and, you know, He wants the destitute illiterates to keep buying his keep. The middle class does not have the money to buy a decent brain to think with. The poor and the Armageddonites have their eyes fixed on their just reward – after they are dead – that’s a lot of TNT to clear the deck. In the meantime, do not worry, the soldiers are dying to ensure that SUV tanks are full and the boob-tube is blaring sweet-nothings.

Anyway, here is Mat Noir’s list of population control method.

• Forget carbon credits. Institute child credits. Reserve 1.6180339887 children for every female for the next 25812.807449 days. (Bernanke must have a couple of brain cells to maintain liquidity in child credits on Chicago Commodity Exchange. If a couple exceeds their credit, cut off the little pinky of the female, and that of the male as well, the one between his bandy legs.)
• Use a random number generator as in “your number is up.”
• Treat dementia with an over dose of barbiturates. Like Kurt Vonnegut said the doctors should stop curing pneumonia, "the best friend of old people."
• Mandate drinking and driving, encourage drag racing.
• Fire all firemen.
• Clone Stalin - the purge expert.
• Learn from Eating Raoul, the movie
  
• Klone Kavorkian.
  
• Deny medicine to proselytizing religious kooks. Ask them to pray to their favorite god for good health or go complain in person.

But I hear China is ready to scrap the one-child policy. That’s what happens when you own America and, the nouveau riche Chinois, flush with political power and foresight of a billy goat, shake their Pavlovian penis at the Mandarin communistards.

There was an old empire who swallowed a dove

There was an old empire who swallowed a dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a barrel of oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a bushel of corn,
She swallowed the corn to make the oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a lake,
She swallowed the lake to water the corn,
She swallowed the corn to make the oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a bonfire,
She swallowed the fire to boil the lake,
She swallowed the lake to water the corn,
She swallowed the corn to make the oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a bible,
She swallowed the bible to stoke the fire,
She swallowed the fire to boil the lake,
She swallowed the lake to water the corn,
She swallowed the corn to make the oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.

There was an old empire who swallowed a Franken-apple,
She swallowed the apple to proof the bible,
She swallowed the bible to stoke the fire,
She swallowed the fire to boil the lake,
She swallowed the lake to water the corn,
She swallowed the corn to make the oil,
She swallowed the oil to fly the bomber,
She swallowed the bomber to bomb the Babylonian,
She swallowed the barbarian to feed the dove,
We do not know why she swallowed the dove,
Perhaps she will make love.