Man, Oh Man: Turkey Zombie Apocalypse

If you have some of the friends I have on Facebook, you know the west coast of the United States is about to be abandoned. People actually believe that the Fukushima nuclear disaster is going to cause the whole coast to glow in the dark. Danger! Danger! Run Away!

I have long advocated shutting down every nuclear reactor in the world, but try to keep my distance from hysteria as well. There is something called background radiation, which was around before scientists started trying to make critical masses. It varies according to where you live, and it is tolerable. You need a lot more radiation exposure than background radiation to suffer any immediate or even long-term harm. Fukushima is bad, but the only people who need to get hysterical about it are the Japanese.

People still live in the Marshall Islands. Their main zombie apocalypse concern these days: rising sea levels from global warming. But in a single incident in 1954, Castle Bravo, the Bikini Atoll was exposed to a 15 megaton nuclear explosion. Way worse than Fukushima. In fact the United States of America tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Not a good thing, but not quite the end of the world. Or a reason to abandon California.

Me, I am more worried about the Butterball Zombie Turkeys. You will find it difficult to purchase a fresh, large, Butterball brand turkey this year. Frozen, yes. Small, yes. Other brands fresh and large, yes. But something is amiss in Butterball land, and either corporate spokespeeps are covering up, or corporate scientists don't know the cause. The turkeys did not bulk up. A tiny signal, but isn't that the way zombie movies start? Just a hint, a bad cold, if you will. Then by Thanksgiving 2014 only the rich can afford turkeys. A month of food stamps for a turkey? Maybe it is a Tea Party plot.

Reading an old book about the Holy Roman Empire helps keep a detached perspective. People actually used to believe that the Pope was the spiritual emperor of Earth. Wait ... about a billion people still believe the Pope is the spiritual emperor of earth. More than believed it in the Dark Ages. What is the difference between a Roman Catholic at Sunday Mass and a zombie? A rosary.

The economy is recovering, creeping up on the poor slobs who would really, actually, collect unemployment and stay at home and watch TV, than work. My proposal is too build a giant tomb for President Obama. It would have a square base, one mile by one mile, and would be built of stone. Every unemployed person in the country would be employed cutting stones out of quarries and carrying the stones - no heavy equipment allowed because that would contribute to global warming - and placing them in a roughly pyramid shape.

What really, really worries me is that we are spending so much money occupying foreign nations with troops and private contractors when we need to prepare for the federal debt apocalypse. What's the point of imperialism if we can't tax the other nations and pay off our debt and have a better life? It just doesn't make  any sense. Must be that Tea Party again. They recognize the debt problem (unlike Liberals, who think the problem is imaginary), but they are against new taxes, even on South Korea and Afghanistan and Israel. We protect them, they should pay protection money!

Jeepers! Man of man! My pyramid idea is going viral in progressive Democratic Party circles ...

Republicans, Democrats, and Zombies

I am busy with freelance work, but thought I would write a brief note or rant on some topics of the day.

Saw Warm Bodies, the zombie comedy, last night. It only had 2 stars at Netflix, so I was ready for disaster, but actually it was quite good. I'm guessing the low star rating is because either it pissed a key reviewing group off, or it is not genre-specific enough. It is a zombie movie, but without enough gore to satisfy horror movie fans. It is a Romeo and Juliet, but probably repulsive to lovers of romance. It is a political and social allegory, but not strident enough for leftists. It has a happy ending, which is especially disappointing to certain types of people.

Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans are holding the nation hostage, and why not? They've owned us since the two-party system solidified after the Civil War. While I sympathize with the social concerns with which the Democrats use taxpayer dollars to buy the votes of the people that the Democrats allow the corporations to underpay or underemploy, I agree with the Republicans (who are secretly big spenders, having been born into big-spending families) that the national debt is a problem. I dislike much of the Affordable Care Act, but I am in the under $75,000 per year, over 55 but too young for Medicare crowd that the Act helps so much. My cost for insurance will go down, and the Sickness Industry will continue to overcharge just about everyone for their services.

Will the Republicans force the U.S. to default on its debt? Was a time when cutting back spending or raising taxes would at least allow the U.S. government to muddle through. No longer. The interest on the debt, if combined with the inability to issue new debt to repay old debt, is looking to spiral out of control. And if there is danger of default, interest rates will skyrocket. Only fools hold U.S. federal bonds now. Mostly the same fools who sold all their stock market holdings at the bottom in 2008.

The silver lining would be the rest of the earth would be released from bondage to the U.S. There would probably be a world-wide recession or depression, but at least U.S. imperialism would be over. No pay, no work, even for soldiers. Oh, wait, maybe not, the contract U.S. soldiers sign does not allow them to negotiate for pay. They can be kept until the end of their enlistment even without pay.

The big business guys, as greedy as they are, are (mostly) not entirely irrational. They have been pressuring the non-Tea Party republicans to raise the debt ceiling. Then the budget bickering can continue.

And the new, non-happy ending info I picked up from my freelance work this weekend is that solar and wind energy require massive amounts of copper. The copper is mostly dug out of huge open pit mines and results in major pollution issues. The energy needed to mine the copper comes from mining coal ...

Too much, too many people, too much. But I have a pleasant life, for now, with the apples nicely ripening, the pears all picked, and an apple pie I made last night waiting to feed my face, should the zombie apocalypse cut off food supplies. Or should the politicians hurl us back into the pit of the war of each against all.

Democrats Are

I keep being forced to the conclusion that ordinary, rank-and-file Democratic Party members, or voters are scum. By scum I mean every and any bad word you can think of.

Given that there are tens of millions of these so-called "people," you would think there would be a few Good Democrats out there among the pimps, whores, faux-greens and moral vacuum heads that constitute the Democratic Party. But there aren't, because a good person would simply leave the party. A good person could not stand to be stewed in the corrupt muck of the party.

I knew, during the Bush era, that this was the truth. Yet under President George W. Bush many Democrats, sometimes even Democratic Party politicians, said things that made them sound human, even humane. Democrats in Congress criticized Bush and the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. They criticized the health care system. I knew the Congressmen and Senators were lying, thieving sons of hyenas, but I thought maybe some of the ordinary people who voted for them really wanted peace and justice. I thought they might abandon the Democratic Party when it failed to deliver on its promises.

I heard them myself, the two-faced personifications of dishonesty, here in coastal California, saying they would elect Democrats, they just needed a few more seats in the House and Senate, and a good President, and then we would see that they were good people, with good hearts, in a good party.

I knew they were deluding themselves, but I deluded myself too. I thought when the Bush Administration policies, which after all are just ruling class policies, continued under a Democratic administration, they would turn against their sacred Democratic Party.

But no. While I have seen former Green Party members who made the mistake of voting for Kucinich and then Obama come back to the Green Party, I have not seen a single long-term Democrat stand by what, only a year ago, they professed to be their principals. I have yet to see a Democrat around here leave the party. They aren't even acting disgusted. They are still acting like teenagers drunk on beer and a local football game victory.

I have seen the lot of them start talking the way Republicans talked just two years ago. They support Obama's war crimes against the people of Afghanistan. They do it by flipping some neural circuit, I guess. Now that the war in Afghanistan is led by a Democratic Party President, and in particular a black one who talks like a member of the intelligentsia, they think it is a good thing to spend billions of dollars in Afghanistan imposing Western culture on a people that don't want it. Now they seem to really hate the Taliban. A year ago, they might not have liked the Taliban, but at least they had common enemies, George W. Bush and the Republicans. Today yesterday's Peace Democrat would roast a Taliban baby on a spit if Barack Obama hinted he wanted a nice meal to go along with this Peace Prize.

A few Democrats I know, a very few, are still saying things like "but what I really support is Single Payer (health insurance)." But for the most part they will eat whatever donkey manure Obama feeds them, and whiney "just as good as single payer."

Did the Democrats hold hand with the Republicans to make the most massive transfer of public funds to the super-rich since the founding of this Republic? If the Republicans had done that alone the Democrats would be screaming. Since the leading Democrats were at the table, gobbling campaign donations and tips from hedge fund managers, the following Democrats can only hope that their homeless encampments, Obama-villes, aren't too cold this winter.

It is way past time to admit that the electoral process in the United States of America is a sham. The two parties just take turns shoveling whatever the ruling class decides onto the backs, and into the brains, of the American people.

I feel like I am in a zombie movie, only zombies come in two types. Democrat and Republican.