LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 638

Learn to fake sincerity and your fortune is made. Therapist, customer service rep, Cable TV angry person, self-help guru, the clergy... the sky's the limit!

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO SHAKE YOUR HEAD

When engaged in a perusal of the various news outlets real and virtual, some odd items come to your attention, compelling you to shake your head and turn the page, or the channel or the URL address, as the case may be. Even an event so mind-numbingly dull as The Winter Olympics brings its share of Duh moments. Take the TV commentators who were poking fun at Johnny Weir, a member of the America figure skating squad, for his downright pretty appearance and effeminate demeanor. Isn't it a drop odd that people who are experts on figure skating have anything to say about anyone's sexual druthers? Hellooo!!

Pot calling the kettle black or catty behavior? Either way, it is pretty amusing, which is more than can be said about the rest of this ordeal. Outside of a guy dying on a poorly-designed luge run before the Games even opened, a lady curler crying and the loser in the men's individual figure skating awarding himself a "platinum" medal in a fury for having lost the gold to an American skater, these Winter Olympics provided about the same amount of thrills that they usually do, damned few.

Even those "lucky" enough to attend the games in person got to witness only about a third of a second of any given race, with a blur and a "woosh" substituting for actually watching anything unfold. No wonder they love to watch the figure skaters and ice dancers, who at least don't leap out of the arena in the blink of an eye. Absently wondering how any of these things wound up the sports section of all places, you shake your head and turn the page.

Unfortunately, you're now perusing political news, always an adventure when you're not feeing very adventurous. You can't help but notice how politicians of all persuasions are touting a "bipartisan approach," their definition of bipartisan being that the opposition just shuts up and agrees with them. Republicans want Democrats to agree that our government is an instrument of malicious evil in every respect except in their use of military force and (!) torture, which are just fine, while Democrats want Republicans to pay some taxes one of these years, if it's not too much trouble.

What both fail to realize is that no one voted for compromise, they voted overwhelmingly Democratic and expect the Democrats to implement their agenda, and to hell with the Republicans, who had 8 years to figure something out other than torture, warfare, incompetence and bankruptcy, but couldn't. Why our president would seek a consensus with such people is a mystery to many of us wondering why there are still so many unindicted co-conspitrators pulling inside jobs, looting our banking system for billions instead of shopping for defense attorneys.

No one recalls the last administration courting the Democrats while they did pretty much what the hell they felt like doing, legal or not. So once again, being able able to make neither heads nor tails of our current political climate, you shake your head and turn the page. Then you encounter further difficulties, since you are now inspecting something called "Entertainment News." Once upon a time, there was no such thing as Entertainment News, the public being pretty much okay with the entertainment that the entertainers provided. Few felt any kind of personal stake in the personal lives of strangers.

Those seeking more would read the gossip columns or buy the trade dailies like Variety and the rest of us were off the hook when it comes to knowing who had a bizarre childhood (who didn't?), who married a transvestite dwarf in Vegas with an Elvis clone preacher presiding (and who hasn't done that at least once?) and which starlet can consume a cereal bowl full of tranquilizers washed down by a fifth of tequila. That sort of thing never came up and one could enjoy a good performance by an actor, a singer or a comic without the distraction of knowing some weird stuff you'd rather you didn't. Is dignity too much to expect? Seems so, mostly.

These days, it's getting harder watch your favorite performer without a mental image of farm animals in rubber lingerie, so you shake your head and turn the page quick before you find out anything else too peculiar to fully register. Now you're in the International News section, and you're wondering what to make of it all. Can it really be true that witch doctors in Tanzania hunt and kill albino humans for good luck charms? That's a pretty bold statement. Then you wonder who made up all those crazy things about Saudi Arabia, how they enslave half their population, their females, and how they chop off heads and hands in stadiums and charge admission like it was the damned Super Bowl!

That can't be right, can it? No way! They are, after all, our ally, and America would never ally itself with such baaaric butchers, no matter how much oil they have, right? Right? And so you turn the page again, searching, scanning, surfing, desperate for something, anything that makes sense in any medium. Your mouth is dry, your head is spinning and your hungry eyes finally find it. There it is!

Today's funny pages. The good news portion of the day. Finally, something you can relate to, and your head does not shake wearily back and forth, you do not turn the page with a sigh of cynical disenchantment. For a few minutes every day there are talking pigs, blue people, wise ass cats and a lot of crazy impossible fun stuff happening. Then you're done with the funnies and once again there's none of those things, which, all in all, seems a glaring oversight on Nature's part. Might as well laugh it up whenever we can.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 637

In case you do not have enough aggravation in your life, take up golf, and your misery will be complete.

MORE STUFF TO NOT CARE ABOUT ONE BIT. ANNOUNCING THE 2010 RAT'S ASS AWARDS!

Well, the New Year isn't new anymore, Life's Rich Pageant is marching earnestly along, and news of great and small portent flows like lava from an angry volcano, showering all of us and demanding our attention. Well, so what? That, my friends, is the essence of Not Caring: so friggin' what? There's all sorts of new and exciting developments to not care about, a veritable Cornucopia of Callousness to stir our deep-seted apathy. These are exciting times to be alive and ambivalent, indeed. Let's just scrape the tip of the Iceberg of Idiocy, if you will, and review the contenders for The Rat's Ass Awards:

The Winter Olympics: Always a reliable finalist for a Rat's Ass Award, as in "who gives a," these Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada are especially uninteresting since they are being held in, well, Canada, aka The Country That Wasn't There. Now that they are almost over, can anyone remember who won what in any category? Of course not! And why would anyone care? What usually takes days to forget now happens instantly. But we will remember the pretty blonde woman curler who cried. Crying? There's no crying in curling! It's the unavoidable Canada (non) Factor, and the usual Rat's Ass Award in the Bad Cabin Fever Category to The Winter Olympics.

American Idle: Who is Simon Cowell and what's the big deal with him going away? When you don't know or care about some super wealthy guy who seems to be famous (you're not quite sure) for being nasty, you just sort of shrug it off. Since actually finding out anything about the guy would entail watching some episodes of America Idle, it's best just cut to the chase and maintain your ignorance. A Rat's Ass to Mr. Cowell in the Go-ahead-and-let-the-door-hit-you-in the-ass-on-the-way-out Category. You're a bazillionaire.Who cares?

Tiger Woods' penis: Not since President Clinton was running the country with a huge smile on his face have we been accosted with 8 pages of details about the adventures of a famous penis in mainstream newspapers. As far as Mr. Woods' character is concerned, why would anyone be surprised (or even mildly interested) that he cheated on his wife when his whole life was a fraud? You see, the only reason that he was the best golfer ever is because he was an athlete! In al of recorded history, there have never been any athletes involved in professional golf, so it stands to reason that even a mildly talented athlete would beat the pants off the assortment of fat guys and scrawny geeks that are professional golfers. That's like letting LeBron James compete in the Special Olympics. Of course he's going to win all the prizes and make everyone else cry! So Tiger Woods' penis gets a Rat's Ass Award in the Boring Fraud Category.

Mark McGwire: Does anybody anywhere think that Mark McGwire did not pump himself full of steroids in order to hit 70 home runs one year? No, no one thinks that. All anyone had to see is him embracing the entire family of Roger Maris like Paul Bunyan scooping up a bunch of puppies to realize that this guy was one temper tantrum short of becoming the Incredible Hulk and wrecking a significant portion of St. Louis. Besides, Mr. McGwire got his comeuppance just 3 years later when his home run record was broken by another Incredible Growing Steroid Man, Barry Bonds. Now Mark McGwire returns to baseball as the batting instructor for the St. Louis Cardinals and we're supposed to be interested in this personality-free Uberjock? And the Rat's Ass goes to...

Guns in National Parks: There's a big hoopla going on about people carrying guns in National Parks. Should they or shouldn't they? Is it ethical or a danger to children? Well, there have been people with guns in National Parks forever. They're called Park Rangers and every so often they have to shoot a bear or a wolf who's eyeing someone's chubby baby as a potential meal, so maybe it's not such a bad idea for people dim enough to bring small children in close proximity to vicious predators to be heavily armed. Its not the kids' fault their parents are so friggin' stupid. But then again, what are the odds of these kids growing up to be any smarter than their peculair progenitors? Further, what are the odds that their goofball parents will be any more skillful with a rifle than they are with the lives of their children, especially when drinking a lot, which seems to be an integral part of the Nature Experience? Probably quite small on both counts. This is an especially rewarding problem to not care about due to its complexity and the existential questions about the thinning of the herd that it does not raise in our jaded and apathetic minds. Hopefully, it won't take too many "hunting accidents" to convince the authorities to reevaluate that whole Armed Drunken Tourist notion before sensible people start getting slain along with the dim. What the hell, let's just have done with it and give The Big Rat's Ass in the Scary-Morons-With-Rifles Category to those park patrons who come loaded for bear, in more ways than one! So what?

Lifetime Achievement Rat's Ass Award: For consistently maintaining low standards, demanding attention for pedestrian concerns and dubious achievements, the Rat's Ass For Lifetime Achievement goes to... Donald Trump, world class bore and serial trophy wife collector! We salute The Donald for never ever saying anything interesting or displaying the slightest interest in anything that does not revolve completely around Donald Trump. Poorly done! Unbrilliant! How very sad! Go away! Forgettable! Pathetic! How tawdry...

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 636

Nudist men fantasize about clothed women. Humans are incorrigible.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN WYOMING: TAXING THE WIND!

Legislators in the Great State of Wyoming have begun the process of the realization of the dream of King Canute, who famously tried without success to "command the tides of the sea." Their plan? To tax the wind! Brilliant! We've had water taxes forever, so why not make the wind pay up too?

It seems that Wyoming, a state that has enjoyed the good fortune to have recently undergone an energy boom with natural gas, has once again overcome being "only Wyoming," as the other 49 states refer to it, and have built themselves a sizable wind energy industry, making lemonade out of the lemons of being an almost deserted and wind-swept backwater of America.

Eager to rehabilitate their state's lousy image after having contributed America's only dictator to our history, one Shotgun Dick Cheney, Wyoming is trying to figure out how to most equitably tax the wind. In an area larger than Austria but sparsely populated by a me half a million souls, Wyoming has long been in the minds of Americans, well, not really there at all, just some place mentioned frequently in a childhood full of bad Western movies, and rarely, if ever, afterwards.

Taxing the wind seems like a pretty formidable task, but unlike King Canute, who commanded the tides to illustrate even a king's powerlessness over the forces of nature, these people are serious and mean business. Or at least the business of the power companies harnessing the wind. The fact that the central power companies purchase a lot of power from independent land owners who have installed giant wind turbines on their giant empty windswept Wyoming ranches further complicates their task. Who do you tax the most?

Of course they want to do this right, and not seem foolish before the rest of the nation, and so Wyomans' (or is it "Wyomingans?" Or is it "Who gives a rat's ass?") have not asked their most famous son to weigh in on this issue. Shotgun Dick's approach to taxation has always been to bleed the working classes mercilessly and leave the very wealthy untaxed. Like the rest of our fine nation, they need another rash of property foreclosures about as much as a kangaroo needs another glove compartment.

The nation watches as an emerging industry takes shape, both in corporate structure and in relation to the government under which it operates. It would be nice for a semi-nonentity of a state to provide the rest of our nation with a working model of alternative energy infrastructure. These new technologies will be of great importance to this nation and the world, and someone has to begin to sort out how all this work. We welcome Wyoming to provide us with something other that a dictator and fuzzy memories of "varmints and bushwackers" from old movies. Tax the wind.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 635

Anyone can work incessantly and be busy every waking moment. It takes real talent and imagination to take it easy, do very little and still get stuff done.

TIME FOR A NEW CONTRACT WITH AMERICA, NEUTER?

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of political disgrace, former Speaker of The House of Representatives, Neuter "Neut" Limpdich returns to the high profile life. He holds no office and probably couldn't get himself elected as Dog Catcher anywhere in America right now, but to the feeble minds of the disgraced conservative right wing, the man is a Messiah come to deliver them from the purgatory of Cable Talk Show Irrelevance. With an able assist from the hilarious comedy trio, "The House Massahs," Bull O'Really, Glen Bucks and Flush Limburger, Neut Limpdich is doing his best to pretend that the personal failings that betrayed actions and intentions the exact opposite of his stated policies are soon forgotten. It's an uphill climb, to be sure, but there's no shortage of unprincipled morons around to assist him.

Which is good news. Not for the conservatives, of course, but for a progressive movement led by a suddenly hesitant president that is faltering as a time when they should be enjoying their triumph and passing a bunch of enlightened legislation. All they need do to regain their lost momentum is to scan the field of their opposition and rejoice that there are no serious people within their ranks. The "mass-exodus" of 2 or 3 Democratic Senators and the election of a male stripper to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat are not cause for panic, no matter what "The House Massahs" say. If they had an idea between the three of them we'd know about it by now, but that hasn't been the case.

The last idea Mr. Limpdich had was back in the 1990's when he saw an opening to make an issue of President Clinton's penis. Major troubles with his own penis, however, undid the man, and the most memorable of his deeds was informing his trophy wife who was sick with cancer in the hospital that he had found a new, cancer-free trophy wife, with a better brand of Christian religion to boot (he generally changes religions with each new wife). Before that it was his Contract With America, a portfolio of legislation designed to undermine anything President Clinton was trying to do. Somehow Clinton (and his penis) managed to preside over 8 years of peace and prosperity in spite of Limpdich and left the nation with a huge budget surplus. At any rate, Neuter Limpdich was last seen in 1998 resigning from Congress in disgrace, the heavy door of Ethics Violations hitting him squarely in the ass on his way out.

No one missed him.

Fast forward a dozen years and here he is defying the axiom that there are no second acts in American lives. He has positioned himself as the new conscience of the right wing, outmaneuvering the two dim bulb pretenders, Sarah Bailin and Flush Limburger. The only drawback, at least for right wingers, is that having Neut Limpdich as your conscience is like having Popeye guarding the spinach garden. Sort of goes against the grain of what is trying to be achieved. Having learned that the term "Contract with America" smacks of corporate infestation at a time in America when no one trusts corporations, Neut has backed off that term, and also the "Republican Revolution" designation, what with the unholy mess his fellow Republicans left for the rest of us to fix.

None of which will deter the man from seeking the presidency in 2012, or suicidal right wing lemmings from following him off that cliff. Which should be taken as grand news for Democrats and progressives everywhere. With any luck he'll pick another Sarah Bailin as a running mate, maybe even the naked pin-up guy from Massachusetts, thus ensuring the conservatives 4 more years of whining from the altars of Cable TV "situation rooms," the closest thing to power they will see until they come to their senses and recruit some smart people who have at least some semblance of integrity and personal ethics, and maybe even a viable idea or two. Luckily for the president and his fellow progressives, that's not in the cards as long as people like Neut Limpdich are calling the shots for the opposition. They would do well to ignore the ranting fools and get on with their agenda before the right wing smartens up.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 634

Your idea of a perfect day might sound like a nightmare to the next person. The solution is simple: don't hang around with that person. Contrary beings that we are, that's the person that we almost always marry. It's not just you two.

INVASION OF THE GREEN PEOPLE

Have you seen them? Have they contacted you? Have they attempted to invade your conscious thoughts and brainwash you? Clogged your computer with e-mails espousing Green Causes? We are of course, discussing The Green People. They walk among us, shop in the same stores, use the same roads and mass transit systems, perhaps work with us side-by-side at our jobs, their children attending the same school as our children, seeming like normal human beings in many respects.

But they are different, they are Green People, and they have come to transform humanity and remake us according their own visions, and then... eliminate us completely!

Towards that end, they have already enjoyed remarkable success, especially in having much of humanity install mercury-laden coiled light bulbs in their homes. Their stated reason for such light bulbs was sound, that they would reduce energy consumption on a planet hard-pressed to keep up with ever-increasing demands for electrical power.

The suspicion, of course, is that Green People thrive on mercury and that with every broken light bulb on top of the uncounted tonnage of discarded bulbs, the air, soil and water of Earth will be slowly but inexorably infused with mercury, a deadly poison to you and I, but ambrosia itself to the Green People, washed down by the nectar of mercury-tainted water.

Then there is their insistence that we grow our own fuel for our cars and power plants, replacing petroleum with corn or sugar-based oils, promising cleaner and ever-renewable sources of power. What they neglect to mention is that these fuels will be just as expensive and dirty as petroleum, and that they will remove millions of acres of farmland from food production on a planet already plagued with starvation.

Today and tomorrow, and for every tomorrow until we can solve this plague, 36,000 people will die a painfully slow and tortuous death from starvation. 85% of these victims are children under 5 years of age. If we listen to the Green People, those horrendous numbers will skyrocket, de-populating the planet so that the Greens can easily take over.

The Greens also actively campaign against the use of clean nuclear power, even though the navy has been using this technology for over half a century without a mishap and the only serious nuclear reactor accident happened in Russia 24 years ago. Since that time uncounted millions have died from the effects of dirty internal combustion.

Greater fuel efficiency for our internal combustion engines is also discouraged by the Green People, who insist they must be scrapped altogether. What chance we will have to invent new technology without using our existing technology is left to the imagination, but imagination without access to a means of implementing our imaginings is an exercise in futility. They would have us live by windmill power, a technology perfected in the 7th Century.

The suspicion is that the Green People are aliens from outer space with a society advanced beyond our own by only about fifteen years, and so lack any of the diabolical weaponry we always imagined space invaders would possess. That being the case, they must resort to other means to decimate our population and take over the Earth.

Cleverly, they have used many of mankind's own very real problems as a weapon against us, and their success in seeding the planet with mercury via our light bulbs shows that they are apt students of pubic relations. That success seems to have gone to their green heads, and now they envision an America chock full of bicycle riders living in candle-lit homes, purchasing mercury-free water for a dollar a bottle.

Bicycles used to cost one-tenth of what they do now and pure water used to be free. Who owns the bicycle factories and clean waterworks? Green People! Where are the profits going? That's right, to the Greens! What do they do with the money? They put it towards world conquest, of course. Not much point in invading a planet and not taking it over, is there?

There will come a day when we are all drinking dollar-a-bottle water, and at that point the water they sell us will be loaded with mercury and we'll all drop dead and the world will be inherited by the Green People without firing a shot, or a death ray, and with our cities, farms, roads and infrastructure intact so that millions and millions of Greens from the Green Planet can just move right in, raid our fridges, watch our DVD collections and sit in our Jacuzzis munching on mercury-laden popcorn! And the government does nothing about it!

Is it too late to stop them? Have they infiltrated the Halls of Power so completely? Perhaps not.Or so we hope. But what can we do do resist the Green People, who are, after all, 15 years more advanced a civilization! They have razors with seven blades on the Green Planet, and have finally ceased using Roman numerals to count their Super Bowls, marking a significant cultural breakthrough for the Greens. Their cars get an average of 54 miles to the gallon! They had iPads 15 years ago! They know how "The Biggest Loser" ends!

So we have our work cut out for us to repel these invaders, those who would pretend to be fighting the great evils in this world while actively engaged in the worst of them. Now they offer us mercury, bicycles and windmills. And whales, too. Who knows toward what insidious ends the Greens conspire to attack whaling ships? Are the whales cooperating with the Greens?

Okay, maybe you can't blame whales for bearing a grudge against us, but there's got to be a good reason the Greens are "saving the whales." For what? We shudder to think. Our only defense against the Green People is the defense of the conquered from time immemorial. Breed with them!

As the numerous descendants of the Roman slaves and vanquished races of people did, who intermarried with and eventually outnumbered their conquerors, Rome had to fall from within before it could be defeated from without, with babies as the most effective weapon.

So, young men and women of America, your mission is clear: To marry and interbreed with the sons and and daughters of the Green People. A pilot program has been underway for a generation in Brooklyn, our most active incubator for interracial babies for centuries. There are already some very interesting half Italian, half Green children, or a quarter Irish and an eighth Cherokee, or Black, or Puerto Rican, Greek, Lebanese or any other combination of Green and human you'd care to name.

These children will be raised in a world where Green People are mainstream, much more reasonable, and at least half human! No one wants to wipe out their Mom or Dad, or at least not too many of us. Perhaps one day a new level of acceptance and understanding will be achieved with the election of our first Half Green President, and our two races can live in harmony on a peaceful globe.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 633

If being in love is not fun, joyful, mutually elevating and exhilarating, then the attraction is something other than love, and heaven help you both.

DEAR DOT KAHM: GET OVER IT, YOU SNIVELING WIMP!

Hello readers. I hope your Valentine's Day was a good one, or at least not too crushing a disappointment. So often we invest so much emotion and anticipation in one particular holiday that it can never live up to our fervent hopes and dreams. New Year's Eve comes to mind, or Amateur Night as those of us with a few miles on our odometers refer to it. Valentine's Day, with a more-than-able assist from greedy corporations, is tailor-made for a huge letdown. Love, like life itself, is a process, not an event.

Love is never perfect, any more than any of us are, and investing unrealistic expectations in something as magical and hard to define as love is a setup for major disillusionment. No need to go there. Appreciate your loved ones every day, and measure the strength of your relationships on their endurance, their continuing tenderness and understanding, and not on one particular day. If we fell out of love when a bad aday occurred, every relationship would be over inside a month. At most. That said, let's check the inbox and see how your lives are progressing. Or not, as the case may be:

Dear Dot Kahm: Gee, I wish I'd read your intro before I wrote this letter, but what's done is done. Anyway, I'm a single man in his late twenties and I've been dating Hillary for three years. Ours has been a special relationship and this Valentine's Day I decided to pop the question. I asked her to live with me. She turned me down, Dot, and I can't get over it. Now she's so mad at me she doesn't want to see me anymore. I knew she wanted to get married, but I figured that we'd ease into it. I've been crying ever since. What am I going to do? - Miserable in Manhasset

Dear Miserable: Here's what you're going to do: Get over it, you sniveling wimp! After three damned years, now you decide to take the tepid step of playing house? That's something lovers do in the first few months of a relationship if they're of a mind to do so. Three years is more than enough time to know whether or not you want to marry that person, and to know the mind of that person, if they have objections to living together versus marrying. Didn't you know? You insulted the lady, Miserable, and she is to be commended for not bitch-slapping your whining face purple! When it was time to shit or get off the pot, you farted and sat there like a mook. Maybe with the next lady who's good enough to invest a chunk of her life with you, you'll grow a pair of testicles and let her know that either you're not the marrying kind, and that's okay too, or that you want her forever, and then let her make her decision fully informed. As always, honesty is the best policy, starting with yourself, which you obviously are not.

Dear Dot Kahm: What's a mook? - Wondering in Wisconsin

Dear Wondering in Wisconsin: Mook is Brooklyn term, meaning a person who simply does not get it, whatever it is, unless it is about them. To a mook, the portion of any conversation not specifically about them sounds sort of like a feint humming sound, or background noise, and is paid no mind at all. That's a mook, as in: Don't be a mook. Never dignify a mook with a capital M, either!

Dear Dot Kahm: Like you, Dot, I am from Brooklyn. My boyfriend asked me where I'd like to go on a beautiful Sunday afternoon last summer and when I told him Coney Island, he laughed! He's not from New York and has never been there, but he had the nerve to tell me Coney Island is a chaotic old wreck in the middle of a slum. I just wanted to share a special place in my hometown with the guy and he completely blew me off, so I dumped him. Was I too hasty? - Coney Island Baby

Dear Coney Island Baby: Hasty, shmasty! There's magic in Coney Island girl, a place like no other on Earth. I'm glad you wrote me now, Hon, since the middle of a hard winter is the perfect time to think abut Coney Island. Let that fool visit one of those uber-boring homogenized and controlled theme parks in the middle of nowhere with his homogenized and controlled new girlfriend (which leaves out Brooklyn ladies!). No Nathan's, no freak shows, no gypsies from who-knows-where speaking who-knows-what language, no Cyclone and no Wonder Wheel, and no boardwalk with a beach filled with a million smiling faces! And here's some more good news, kiddo: by opening day, a rebuilt Luna Park will be open this year with 23 new rides. You were right to dump that chump, not only for his disrespect of Coney Island, but for dismissing your thoughts and wishes out of hand, and for insisting on sticking to an opinion based on no knowledge, facts or experience, as fatal a flaw and any human being can possess! Take your new man to Coney Island and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden too! He will thank you for sharing special Brooklyn places and for opening his eyes.

Dear Dot Kahm: What do you think about the exciting news that King Tut died of Malaria? - Brian Jiggs

Dear Brian: Not much. Shouldn't you be writing to Sammy Science? The only stiffs that excite me aren't mummies, if you catch my drift, pal.

Dear Dot Kahm: Are you single? I'd sure like to meet you. - Teddy Bear

Dear Teddy Bear: I am, and you sure can meet me, Teddy Bear. That is, if the photo you sent me is really you. If not, be prepared for a beat down from a black belt in RHIAW, which stands for Random Household Items As Weapons. Review my honesty guidelines before approaching.

Dear Dot Kahm: Do you believe in coincidence? - Wondering in Waukegan?

Dear Wondering: That's funny, I was just thinking about coincidence! What a ... oh never mind!

Dear Dot Kahm: My husband is a police detective, and he says there is no such thing as a coincidence! - Mona from Staten Island

Dear Mona: That's funny, I was just thinking about how cops never seem to believe in coincidences! Spooky, no?

Dear Dot Kahm: How's this for a coincidence - my name is Dot and I also come from Brooklyn! - Dot Saul

Dear Dot Saul: Sorry, but I think we've exhausted the subject of coincidence.

Well, readers, we seem to be getting off topic here, so good old Dot Kahm is signing off for now. I've got to get ready for a hot date with Teddy Bear.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 632

Summer never looks better than during a blizzard, and vice-versa.

GREAT, YET ANOTHER #2 GUY BAGGED, THE LARRY OF THE TALISTOOGES

Has anything gone right in Afghanistan since the opening weeks of that war when we destroyed their army and toppled the government? If that sounds like winning a war, well, that usually does the trick, but America was in Afghanistan for another reason, to capture the madman who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. He wasn't a part of the Afghansitan government, but a Sauidi Arabian of Yemeni descent, and he and his al Qaeda gang were being given a base of operations by the Taliban regime from which to train suicide killers and plan terrorist attacks. Both the head of the Taliban, one Mullah Omar, and Osama bin Laden escaped the initial onslaught and have been on the lam ever since, both still very active in their respective gangs.

For 8 years now we've been killing or capturing a series of #2 al Qaeda guys, possibly the least attractive job in Afghanistan. Now we get word that we have captured the #2 Taliban man, some goon with the mouthful of a name Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Meanwile, his boss, and the al Qaeda boss, both of them a striking 6 foot 6, have melted into the bleak landscape somewhere in the nebulous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Catching the #2 man in any organization might be a public relations coup, but doesn't really do the trick of crippling the organization.

That's like catching Larry of the Three Stooges and leaving Moe free. He and Curly would still be capable of all sorts of mayhem. And if the new #2 guy Curly gets apprehended, then Moe would simply go on with the show with Shemp and Joe Besser. Moe is the mastermind behind all the havoc perpetrated by the Three Stooges, the "brains" of that outfit, as far as brains go with outfits like The Three Stooges or the Taliban. Usually just enough to make a ton of trouble for everybody else, and it's always Moe's idea. It's the same with Osama and Omar. Without them, the rest of the Taliban and al Qaeda Stooges couldn't plan lunch, never mind a tyrannical government or a deadly terrorist organization.

Osama makes more inspirational videos than Tony Robbins while planning further attacks on the West as we capture or kill his latest Larry. And now we've started down that same road with the Taliban, with the big cheese Mullah "Moe" Omar still out there on the loose running the Taliban and organizing it into a lethal guerrilla force, waiting for the day America tires of searching for the twin Moes so he can seize power again. The recent assault by 15,000 soldiers on a Talinban stronghold in Afghanistan saw sporadic fighting by a rear guard Larry Brigade assigned to hold off the enemy until the rest of the Talistooge guerrillas melted back into the mountains.

Mullah Omar will simply have his Stooges reappear where the enemy is not, that's the name of the game in a rebel insurgency. He found out 8 years ago that the Talistooges were no match for a modern army and has tailored his tactics accordingly, while America and her allies have not. Unless and until they can capture a Moe, this war will be continue to be a stalemate. Kill or capture the twin Moes, and there is no more Taliban or al Qaeda for the other Stooges to follow. Enough with the capturing of yet another Larry. That's happened so often it's not even news anymore. Go after Moe or go home.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 631

Clear communication is important. No one misunderstands your message when you use proper grammar, precise pronunciation and a loaded shotgun.

JIMMY, THE BLOGGING DOG LOVES THE BITCHES

It's me, Jimmy, the Blogging Dog, fresh off a sweet few days with Zsa Zsa, The Bitch Next Door. Last week I reported that I had some new neighbors, the most interesting of whom was a sweet Golden Lab bitch who was coming into heat. There I was conniving how to get over the sizable fence separating the two of us when Voila!, the new neighbors found out who I was and couldn't open the gate fast enough to let me and Zsa Zsa get busy! Sweet.

Being The Canine Einstein, the only dog in the world that can communicate with humans in one of their own languages, has its distinct advantages. Dog owners line up to have me sire litters by their bitches, and if you know anything at all about dogs, that is one invitation a dog simply cannot refuse. Even Zsa Zsa has heard of me, but that doesn't mean our romance was a done deal. It doesn't work that way with dogs, not like it does with humans, where even the most puny and repulsive physical specimens get plenty of Vajay-j if they are famous. Not so with dogs, who have to measure up with the bitches in order to mate.

And this dog is proud to announce that Zsa Zsa found me plenty fit and worthy, and we spent an idyllic few days sniffing, licking, caressing and humping our damned groins off. Oh Dog, am I one happy camper! Zsa Zsa is now carrying a litter of mine, one of who-knows-how many I have sired. Of course the pain-in-the-ass human scientists are going to grab up the poor mutts and test the crap out of them once they're weaned, just to see if there's another dog genius among them, but there won't be, anymore than any of Einstein's, Galileo's, Newton's, Beethoven's, Hawking's or any other human genius' offspring were like them, brains-wise. No one can predict or command the appearance of genius.

Doesn't stop the damned fools from trying, though. Hell, they held me prisoner for over a year until I managed to convince them I would not speak or respond to them if they did not set me free. Not that I "speak" in the sense that humans do, since dog vocal cords and mouths can't do human languages. I type on a special keyboard designed for paws since I outgrew the regular one I used as a pup. Believe me, many is the day that I curse myself for letting humans know that I can understand and write English perfectly (which is more than you can say for some English-speaking humans). But then again, without this gift of mine, how many sweet Zsa Zsas would I have enjoyed over the years?

Talk about your double edged swords, eh? But dogs don't spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what might have been. Regret is mostly a human thing, and with only one-seventh of your life spans, dogs don't have the luxury of too much introspection. There's territory to be marked, butts to sniff, bitches to hump, food to be wolfed down, naps to take and a moon to be howled at. Hey, just because I'm a dog genius, that doesn't mean I'm not a damned dog. I love being a dog, and I love other dogs. A lot of my old scientist buddies assumed I wished I was a human. I believe I've already told you that's sure not the case.

If I were human I would know nothing of the past, but since I'm a dog I know in damned good detail what went on in the world of my ancestors, stretching back many thousands of years. We have extensive species memories handed down by our forebears. I don't know exactly how that is, I just know it is true from firsthand experience. I could tell you people tales that would surprise you. My ancestors marched with your armies, the "dogs of war," so to speak, with Caesar, with Alexander The Great, with all sorts of monsters. That's what we dogs considered them and all the "Great" nonsense was just a bunch of bullshit. "Alexander the Butcher" is more like it, same with Caesar and Ptolemy and all the other supposed great generals.

They killed just to kill, and killed more than they needed to kill, a huge waste to the mind of a dog. How much territory does a creature need when he's already well fed and has his choice of healthy mates? Dogs will only fight for survival and territory, and never more than he needs to live, and if intimidation does the trick, no life is taken. No sense risking injury unnecessarily, since that could leave your offspring and mates vulnerable if you are unable to hunt. Before we became humanity's slaves, dogs were pack hunters, descended from, and for eons rivals of, wolves.

We know plenty about fighting, territory and rivalries with neighboring packs of dogs and other predators. And we know plenty about human wars too, enough to know that we're glad not to be one of you. Not that I dislike humans, I don't. I find there are many admirable things about human beings, interesting and fun things too. The fact that most of you love dogs speaks well of your race too. If I could possibly explain all there is to know about dogs to you, I guarantee you'd love us even more. Unfortunately, the only medium I have to communicate with you is language, and as I've told you before, language is a very limiting form of communication.

Be that as it may, I will try to let you know some of what we feel, what we know, and the great many things we can sense that you cannot. Not that I have great hopes of success, since you people are all blind and deaf to well over half of the sensory information available in this world. It's like trying to describe snow to a desert dweller, or a symphony to a deaf person. Then I read about Helen Keller, who had to be as great a genius as anyone ever born to overcome her handicaps and communicate so effectively and so passionately, and I gain hope. I will do my best.

We have much in common, not the least of which is this terrible and wonderful world we inhabit, dancing under the same moon, caressed by the same soft summer breezes, buffeted by the same howling winds, warmed by the same sun, frozen by the same sleet and snow. We greet the same seasons and face the same rewards and dangers each has to offer. We have both known triumph, tragedy, hunger and bounty. We have experienced grievous loss and miraculous birth. We both feel joy and elation, darkness and anger, love and hope. We have both known fear and weakness and have both overcome them, sometimes together. These past several thousand years we have walked together, man and dog, as close as two species have ever become, ever. This is food for serious thought. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 630

Don't complain about useless things. Rainbows serve no practical purpose but no one complains about them. Cherish the absurd.

SAMMY SCIENCE EXPLAINS THE BIOFUEL MYTHS

Greetings, interneteers, science lovers and the curious. Curiosity is the root of all science, by the way. While much of science has to do with invention and innovation, it's origins were attempts by man to explain the natural phenomena that surround us every minute of every day. Observation led early man to realize that clouds held water, and that it could be delivered by gravity in the form of rain, sleet or snow. We looked at the stars and discerned a repeating pattern, and thereby learned to navigate the land and the sea by them. We experimented with fire (often with disastrous results) and learned to cook our food, heat our homes and power our engines. And so it goes throughout history, curiosity triggering observation and experimentation, and the provable results are what is left over, and we call these hard-learned facts science. Lets see what is piquing your interest today:

Dear Sammy Science: Will biofuels replace petroleum? - Akbar The Nervous
Dear Akbar The Nervous: While biofuels are promising and quite feasible, they may create as many problems as they solve. They will be every bit as expensive per gallon to produce, and as dirty a fuel as petroleum, and may cause even worse worldwide hunger than the planet currently experiences as farmers turn from producing food crops to more profitable fuel crops. This will in turn trigger the cutting down of even more of our vital rain forests, the planet's lungs, so to speak, to replace the lost food production, triggering a climatic and ecological disaster. In this scientist's opinion, greater fuel efficiency is the key to replacing or reducing our dependence on petroleum. To blandly think that because a fuel is possible to produce and is endlessly renewable it will solve our pollution and energy problems is naive. For the time being, Akbar, your little oil-producing tyranny will be still be excused for your barbaric behavior until greater fuel efficiency puts you out of business. That could take decades to happen or as little as one year, so it might be a good idea for your little sandbox satrapy to start investing in education and other industries so you don't have to go back to being camel riding nomads wandering the barren wastes when one of my colleagues cries "Eureka!"

Dear Sammy Science: My Mom and Dad say that what I am being taught in science class is all wrong and that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that there is no such thing as evolution. I love science. Can they be right about this? - Billy Datt
Dear Billy Datt: I hate to be the one to break it to you, son, but your parents are backwards assholes. Do they at least believe in the theory of gravity? They can test that one quite easily on the tallest building in town. Just kidding, Billy. I'm sure your parents love you, but just not enough to let you learn the truth. I can show them evolution right in my laboratory as viruses mutate and evolve before our eyes to resist vaccines. Ask them if their preacher can explain that one away, kiddo. Do yourself a favor and just humor them, but study hard and learn your science. Your teachers are telling you the truth. Let's let that be our little secret, Billy, since there's no way you'll ever convince Creationists to pull their heads out of their butts.

Dear Sammy Science: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, does it still make a sound? - Al Dontay
Dear Al Dontay: Well, by your own admission, no one is there in the forest, so how the hell do you know a tree fell? And yes, of course it makes a sound, you boob! The laws of physics do no change when we have our backs turned. When a person is deaf or blind, does that mean that sound and light do not exist for them simply because thy cannot perceive them? Your farts still stink when you're asleep and can't smell them, right? At least that's that's your wife tells me. And oh, by the way, she hates you.

Dear Sammy Science: Does Iran sending worms, a turtle and a mouse into space really mean that they can defeat us with their advanced technology like their president said? Shouldn't we just attack them now?- Bull O'Really
Dear Bull O'Really: I may have studied science, but I recall taking all the required history courses in school too and if memory serves, America and Russia sent dogs and monkeys into space 50 years ago and the space shuttles and orbiting space stations have been host to all manner of animals and smaller organisms for decades now. As far as the lawn jockey that passes for the President of Iran, don't forget that he answers to bearded old crackpots in wizard robes who think that suicide bombers go to heaven and get to screw 72 virgins. The better deal would be to encourage them to continue along their path. This way they remain a backward nation run by lunatics who pose no threat to anyone, and quite amusing to boot. How many world-class universities and high tech industries does Iran have? Last anyone checked, approximately zero. If it wasn't for their oil, few Westerners would be able to find the place on a map. The last time Iran mattered, it was called Persia, and then Alexander The Great conquered it. That was in 334 B.C. and it's been downhill ever since. Let the little guy have his illusions, and leave the war making for when there is absolutely no other choice. People like you give humanity a bad name, Bull.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 629

We get funny feelings about things for a good reason. We don't know what that reason might be, but ignore your deep instincts and inner voice at your peril.

DOPOTO REPORTS: YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A CANADA

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO), in our only capacity, that of drawing attention to what should need no explanation, cannot help but notice that the nation of Canada has emerged briefly from its self-imposed exile to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For two weeks, Canada will occupy a most unaccustomed position, the world spotlight. While many people were under the impression that Canada had entered some sort of International Witness Protection Program, in fact they are alive and, while not exactly kicking, which would be unseemly for a Canadian, breathing.

Senior Department Analysts have long been aware of Canada, even if much of the rest of world has not, and that seems to be just the way Canadians prefer it. For the second-largest nation on Earth, Canada has been remarkably anonymous, even to the point of insisting that their most talented and ambitious citizens leave the country to gain fame and success. The fact that they share a 3,000-mile border with the squeakiest wheel on the planet, The United States, has only served to strengthen their xenophobia and made them more determined to isolate themselves, even though their nation is the mirror image of America.

A dull, awkward and shy mirror image, to be sure, as if America consisted only of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but nearly identical in culture, architecture, political structure, language and diet. At least Minnesota gave the world Prince and Jesse Ventura, and Wisconsin... well, there's Liberace and lots of cheese... but the point is made. They gave us, what, Celine Dion? Canada, for all it's interesting history, breathtaking landscapes and potentially fascinating internal conflicts between French-speakers and Anglophiles, has been for over a century the dullest place on earth. DOPOTO researchers and analysts have confirmed this through extensive studies of the place, and have filed the requisite reports, that is when they could keep their eyes open.

So it seems that hosting the Winter Olympics would be a natural for Canada to gain her place on the world stage, being that much of that nation enjoys perpetual winter. Two staples of the Winter Games are sports invented by ice-bound Canadians, hockey and curling. Unfortunately, hockey has been assimilated and dominated by the United States and Russia, and curling is a bunch of people (!) pushing a stone around a sheet of ice with a broom. Very few people on Earth, including the participants in Curling, have any idea what the object of the game is other than to generate enough body heat to avoid freezing to death.

To add insult to tedium, a Canadian Olympic team hasn't dominated the Winter Olympics for decades. That would be like Australia getting soundly defeated in Australian Rules Football again and again. Well, this year, the Canadian Olympic Committee has vowed to try to win more gold medals than any other nation. Unfortunately for them, however, no one on the Olympic Committee gets to compete, and most winter sports experts deem this an impossibility, and Canada is not even expected to medal in Curling. The games also opened with a tragedy, the death of a luge sledder practicing on a Luge Run designed by someone unfamiliar with the sport.

While the opening ceremonies were conducted under flags flown at half mast, technicians were earnestly duct-taping wresting mats from a local high school to the sharp steel columns that line the Luge Run. And so the "quiet competence" that Canadians were so proud of turns out to be another illusion on their part. At least they can go back to their "prosperous anonymity," somewhat of a national motto, when the games are over and Canada once again enters the International Witness Protection Program and the rest of the world goes back to conjuring up fuzzy images of Canada involving maple syrup, mackinaws, moose, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and pictures of another country's queen on their currency. Then, The Country That Wasn't There will return to their accustomed place - out of sight, out of mind,and quietly shivering.

This was a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 628

Getting rich doesn't make a person any smarter, nicer, better-looking, wiser or more fun, it just means they have enough money to pretend otherwise. Don't encourage this sort of thing.

DEAR DISGRACED RIGHT WING POLITICIANS: GO FUCK YOURSELVES

This is for America's right wing politicians who are so bitter now that they are out of power. First off, let me say: Go fuck yourselves, you lying, arrogant and traitorous pieces of dog shit. Secondly, good riddance. And thirdly, don't make any plans for the immediate future to get back in power. Your abysmal record while in power speaks for itself, and your behavior when voted out of power reveals you to be the very worst sort of people that America has produced. You have no honor, no integrity and no courage, and you take pride in your ignorance and stupidity.

The American right wing in recent years has been playing by the Joseph Goebbel's playbook. Yes, that Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party Minister of Propaganda. He was the guy who put forth the proposition that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. That theory didn't exactly work out all that well for himself, his boss Adolph, for Germany or the world. No matter how many times he called the sky green, it persisted in remaining blue, and only complete assholes took anything he said seriously.

But there were enough assholes to do the whole world a lot of harm, to the tune of 50 to 60 million people killed, countless cities destroyed, wiping out the work of centuries, and a hostile world divided in a Cold War for the next 45 years. It was called World War 2 and it was started by lying right wing sacks of shit who had to be defeated at horrendous cost by sane people. Maybe today's lying right wing sacks of shit feel that enough time has passed that people will forget the tactics that gave rise to Naziism and opened the floodgates to World War. Not a chance.

Repeating lies over and over just makes them monotonous lies, never the truth. Saying things like "everybody knows" and "it's as plain as day" doesn't mean a thing when there are no facts and figures to back up such broad statements. For example, all of a sudden a whole bunch of right wingers claim to be experts on military courts, as narrow and rare a specialty as there is. They claim that military courts are a better and cheaper forum for the trials of accused terrorists, when the fact is that our regular court system has tried and convicted hundreds of accused terrorists while military courts have convicted fewer than a dozen.

Why the interest in subverting open and fair American justice? This is the sort of thinking that led to the traitorous legislation called The Patriot Act, as blatant an attack on The Bill of Rights as has ever been perpetrated. The subsequent spying upon American citizens and the interception of their mail was sold by fear mongers as a necessary measure, handing another victory to the terrorists to go along with 9/11. Here's what these right wing anti-American assholes did while they held power:

Allowed America's first and only dictator to rule for 8 years: By installing George Bush the Younger, a man who couldn't beat a 10 year-old at Tic-Tac-Toe, as the nominal "President," Shotgun Dick Cheney ruled America with an iron fist for 8 years from the office of the Vice Presidency. Representing the wealthy corporate and ruling elite, Shotgun Dick helped transfer trillions of dollars from the pockets of the working classes to the pocket of the super wealthy through a series of tax cuts. By the time he left office, the wealthiest among us, fewer than 1% of Americans owned more wealth and assets than the bottom 95% combined.

Gutted our regulatory agencies: By underfunding and short-staffing the agencies that oversee the people who handle everybody's money, the right wing politicians allowed the Greed Fest on Wall Street that nearly resulted in the collapse of our economy in 2008. There's a reason why every 7-Eleven has a camera trained on the cash register - money is a powerful temptation. By turning off the security cameras, so to speak, on those who handle trillions of dollars, people who were already fabulously wealthy proceeded to steal untold billions for themselves and did damage to our economy that will take years to straighten out.

Attacked the wrong country: By attacking Iraq based on a pack of lies, The Cheney Administration committed a war crime and cost America almost 4,400 of our precious sons and daughters in an unnecessary and illegal war.

Allowed New Orleans to drown: When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area, the Federal Government's response was slow and insufficient, and yet the puppet president Bush The Younger was instructed to praise the head of FEMA, the agency charged with responding to natural disasters. Hell of a job, indeed.

Violated the Geneva convention by torturing prisoners: By introducing Illegal and immoral Gestapo-type torture by Americans, The Cheney Administration put our own soldiers at risk of the same treatment in the event of their capture, and robbed this nation of whatever moral high ground we held and the global support we enjoyed in the aftermath of 9/11.

Betrayed an American spy for political reasons: The Cheney Administration was directly responsible for exposing Valerie Plame as a spy because her husband had been openly critical of his administration's crimes and tactics. This traitorous act not only put Ms. Plame's life at risk, but likely was a death warrant to anyone with whom she had dealings in the foreign nations where she operated. She had been engaged in tracking down and securing contraband nuclear material that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction, so the Cheney Administration's exposure of this operation also put the whole world at risk of a bootleg nuclear device landing in the hands of terrorists or unstable dictators. Cheney sacrificed a minor aide to pay for the crime, a grown man named (!) Scooter, and he got off with a minor offense, and then Cheney had the Puppet Bush commute his sentence.

Tampered with 9/11 evidence and helped material witnesses escape: After the 9/11 attacks, masterminded by Osama bin Laden, the Cheney Administration removed all the security tapes from the Pentagon, never to be found. Less than two weeks later, when the rest of the nation was still not allowed to fly so much as a kite, members of bin Laden's family were secretly flown out of America under protection of the United States Air Force. American investigators would consider the immediate family of the perpetrator of the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor to be "persons of interest" to be interviewed, whether or not they had any information on the attack or the whereabouts of bin Laden. It is no small coincidence that the bin Laden family had for decades been business associates of the family of the puppet President Bush. What didn't Cheney want the FBI to find out?

The list of criminal acts and outrages against the civil liberties of American citizens goes on and on. These people inherited a land of peace and prosperity with a sizable budget surplus and left it 8 years later an economic wreck, bogged down in 2 long wars, the gap between rich and poor wider than ever. It will take decades to undo the damage they did, to replace the money they stole and rebuild the economy they wrecked through greed and criminality. Is there any reason why anyone one would vote them back in power again? They have done quite enough damage already, thank you. Fuck them and their feeble lies and sour grapes whining. Their days of spreading fear and lies in order to divide, conquer and plunder are over. On the outside looking in is the place they earned, and it is where they belong. Fuck 'em.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 627

The time to join an organization that protects animals rights will be when every human being on earth is just fine. Then we can worry about poodles and monkeys.

SAMMY SCIENCE IN THE HOUSE!

Editors' note: In our never-ending quest to bring the readers of bobcrespo.com a broad array of topics to enjoy, we proudly introduce Sammy Science, a man who explains complex scientific subjects in easy-to-understand laymen's terms. In our increasingly technology and science-dependant modern world, let Sammy Science walk you through the perplexing array of science and technology. He will answer your questions, so feel free to send them in. Meet Sammy Science:

Greetings, interneteers! This is Sammy Science, PhD, here to answer your questions about science and technology. I am a Doctor of Biochemistry with a minor in Astrophysics, and studied at at both Stanford University and Harvard. These days there's a lot of new technology and scientific breakthroughs coming our way at dizzying speed, so this is a good forum to clear the air about many misunderstandings and to shed some light on what's new and exciting. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Dear Sammy Science: What's the real deal with global warming? I've lived in Virginia all my life and I don't remember so much damned snow and such cold winters! What's the story? - Buried Alive in The Whites
Dear Buried Alive: The truth is, that we really don't know anymore! It sure looked that way for a while, but now? Your guess is as good as mine.

Dear Sammy Science: I am a freshman in high school and I'm interested in a career in science. Which branch of science will offer me the best opportunity to make a difference in 10 years? - Jimmy The Geek
Dear Jimmy The Geek: In 10 years' time robotics and genetics will be hot. Human replicas programmed for sex will be quite popular, and for a guy named Jimmy The Geek, probably your best shot at get laid on a regular basis. Someone's got to field test the things! The field of genetics will also be booming, with scientists raking in big bucks to provide cloned organs for rich old coots who want to live forever. And Jimmy, a difference in what?

Dear Sammy Science: Is wind power feasible? - Joe Bagadonitz
Dear Joe Bagadonitz: Ask the Dutch, meathead! They've had windmills there for like, forever.

Dear Sammy Science: What do you think of the exciting reports that some dinosaurs had brightly colored feathers? - Eileen Ova
Dear Eileen Ova: Not much.

Dear Sammy Science: Is it true that elephants never forget? - Jim Dundee
Dear Jim Dundee: Yeah, sure, Jim, if that's what you want to believe, fine. It sure makes no difference at all in the grand scheme of things, so why not? Elephants never forget.

Dear Sammy Science: As an eminent scientist, I think it is your duty to speak out against using animals in laboratory experiments. What do you have to say to that? - Ophelia Kidney
Dear Ophelia Kidney: No. Unless of course, you are volunteering to take their place, Ophelia. I've been working on a neurotoxin to attack only cancer cells in the human body and leave healthy cells unaffected, but it needs to be tested further. So far I've used it only on pigs, who are anatomically the most similar mammal to humans, and while it has worked against the cancer cells, the dosage needs to be adjusted because the pigs keep getting paralyzed on the left side. You game? Just like pigs, I will treat you as humanely as possible, since no scientist is intentionally cruel to animals. You could help save human lives if you let me test my dosage levels on you. If not, please shut the fuck up about lab animals and let scientists save human lives.

Dear Sammy Science: I have a theory about black holes. I say that they are formed by beings from a parallel universe trying to get our attention. What do you think? - Marion Merriwether
Dear Marion: You've got a black hole of your own where the sun don't shine where you can stick that theory, Marion.

Dear Sammy Science: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? - Aldo Raimee
Dear Aldo Raimee: Good news, Aldo! About enough to make you a second wooden head. Then maybe you can think up a real science question.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 626

Don't make yourself crazy over things beyond your control. That would be most things, but not everything. Learn the difference and do what you can.

HAWAII IS A FOREIGN PLACE? TELL THAT TO THE PEARL HARBOR DEAD

So now the mental midgets of the right wing, having failed to convince sane people that President Obama is Muslim born outside the United States, now babble about his childhood in Hawaii, calling it a "foreign place" and "far from mainstream America." Meaning exactly what? The same can be said about New York City or California. Well, what the daffy right wingers are trying to do is to make people feel that being from Hawaii is somehow un-American. What, Jack Lord, Don Ho and Bette Midler aren't Americans?

Worse than messing with Jack Lord, his bionic hair and his "book-em, Dano," mantra, however, is disrespecting the Americans who died defending that American island on December 7, 1941 from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nobody back then dismissed their sacrifice as the meaningless defense of some exotic foreign land. Hawaii was then and still is America soil. Anyone born there or living there lives under the American flag. American law and the United States Constitution rule Hawaii, just like the other 49 states of this Union.

Is the right wing so short of ideas and policies that personal attacks are all they've got? Attack the man's politics, his failures to deliver on campaign promises, his naivete and inexperience, that's just fine and the American way. But to attack his patriotism because the guy grew up in Hawaii? What the fuck is that all about? How friggin' stupid do you have to be to go that route? Do any of them have any better ideas or solutions to America's many pressing problems? If so, they're sure keeping them a huge secret.

There's only so many times you can genuflect at the altar of Saint Ronald Reagan before people start remembering how dumb and dishonest he was too. There was a guy who campaigned against Big Federal Government and, once elected, proceeded to triple its size. He talked about being a tough guy and when the U.S. Marine barracks was blown up in Lebanon in the opening salvoes of the Terrorist War against the West, what was his response? He cut and run like the French Army, then diverted attention from his cowardly act by attacking Grenada, a tiny island less lethal than some of our own urban neighborhoods! His trickle-down economics exposed the conservative right's view of their fellow Americans as so many dogs fighting for scraps under the dinner tables of rich men. This daft fool is their hero?

He must be, since they've been promoting as their leaders and standard bearers some of the stupidest people around in recent years. Sarah friggin' Palin? Paris Hilton is smarter! How about that underwear model and nude cover boy they just got elected as a Senator from Massachusetts? Wow! Talk about the bottom of the barrel. And what about the media people elevated to political guru status by right wingers. Flush Limbaugh? Bull O'Really? Talented entertainers, perhaps, but completely bereft of any original ideas, unless "I got mine" passes as a policy and belittling the poor and minorities is in their view an original thought.

If they feel, like many people who backed him, that President Obama doesn't have a stiff enough spine to implement his agenda even with a commanding majority in both houses of Congress, let them say so. Don't go after his Hawaiian (American) roots. You can't fault the guy's intelligence or his personal life, since he was a law professor and is a good family man, but his performance as president is sure fair game. Why the personal attacks and the libel against Hawaiians? Could it be that that's all they've got?

At least they're not stupid enough as to ask Ms. Palin for any ideas. The last time she had an idea it was to join a political party that advocates Alaska's secession from the Union. That's not exactly optimum presidential candidate resume material, so now she's spoon fed ideas by slightly less stupid right wing political operatives before she is allowed to speak in public (at $100,000 a pop!). The only other idea coming out of the right wing is from former dictator Shotgun Dick Cheney (If anyone thinks Bush The Younger was anything but a puppet, guess again. Talk about stupid!) and that is that all our problems can be traced to the current administration's unwillingness to (!) torture people. That from a guy on who's watch 9/11 happened, and who threw New Orleans an anchor while it was drowning!

When you have nothing to offer but desperately want to be in power anyway, the only way to go is the low road; the repeated lies, the unfounded personal attacks and the scoundrel's last refuge, phony patriotism. The fact is, though, that a steaming pile of dog shit wrapped in an American flag is still a steaming pile of dog shit, and now you have to wash the damned flag under which we all live, even Hawaiians and Alaskans. The right wing would be taken more seriously if they could enlist some smart people to their cause. They could start with a few slightly-above-average recruits and build from there. Meanwhile, lay off Hawaii, where many brave Americans died defending this nation.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 625

Disasters large and small plague every life. Don't take it personally.

THE LIFE COACH IS CASHING IN, AND SO CAN YOU!

The Life Coach here, you there. My job is to coach people who can't figure out life, so my list of potential clients is practically unlimited. Listen, I'm not here to answer rambling esoteric questions like "Why am I here?" or "What does it all mean?" I leave that meaningless crap to losers like the clergy and philosophers, none of whom have earned the material rewards that The Life Coach has, and as everyone knows, the name of the game is accumulation.

I deal with life as it is, and it is hard, so our mission is to make our lives easier, and believe me, having a half-dozen huge homes, many fine automobiles and the company of many, many attractive women sure takes the sting out of life's inevitable disappointments. If it's spiritual fulfillment you're looking for, don't bother The Life Coach, you're too far gone down Loser Lane. Spiritual fulfillment won't put gas in my Maserati or champagne in the hands of my smoking hot girlfriends.

The Life Coach is all about Material Fulfillment, that which can be measured, touched, tasted and hoarded! To be brutally honest, The Life Coach's clients are mostly men, since women are a key part of my Set of Goals that I teach in my Better Life Seminars, and some seem to resent being treated as commodities to be collected, enjoyed and discarded when their time is up. Sorry sisters, don't blame The Life Coach. Nobody ever said life was fair, and it's not my fault that the fair sex is fair game for Life Achievers.

When you attend one of my Better Life Seminars, be prepared to discard your old notions about other people, such as the idea that they matter all that much. They most certainly do not, except for what they can do for you. It's all about you, what you can attain, accumulate and use. And forget the notion that all men are equal. We may have been created that way, but the clever man soon sets himself apart with aggressive accumulation. We're all going to grow old and sick and die anyway, so we might as well live it up while we can, with every means at our disposal.

My Better Life Seminars teach you to do just that. For the introductory price of a mere $300, you will be given the Rudiments of Overachieving, the art of getting all you can by any means necessary. Homes, cars, women, boats, cool gadgets, swimming pools, airplanes, artwork, travel, whatever it is you desire, these things can all be yours if you keep attending the Advanced Better Life Seminars to learn the fine points of Getting and Keeping. You will learn that playing fair is for losers, and guilt for fools. Always bear in mind that your goal is self-fulfillment, not the fulfillment of others.

Let those other people take care of themselves. The Life Coach Better Life Seminars, Advanced Better Life Seminars and Platinum Better Life Seminars are all about Looking out for #1. And don't be fooled into thinking that other people become #2 on your list of priorities. Life Coach teaches you the New Math For A Better Life, that the only number in your equation is 1, and leave the rest of the numbers to mathematicians and wimps. Better Life Seminars are not for the feint of heart or the mixed-up souls who haven't got their priorities in order. Life Coach can teach you to put yourself in the driver's seat, not only of any number of luxury automobiles, but of life itself!

If you want to make all your dreams come true and don't care how you do it, call 1-800-NUMBER 1 and get started on making the rest of the world eat your dust as you cruise away into a life of luxury, the life you deserve! Do not contact this web site directly since the owner of this half-assed outfit is one of those bleeding heart liberals who thinks sharing is good and honest dealings are the only way to get ahead. He'd like to be rid of The Life Coach, but I hoodwinked the fool into signing a contract so that I can promote my Better Life, Advanced Better Life and Platinum Better Life Seminars all I want and he can't do a damned thing about it. Trusting fools rarely read the small print. It's a beautiful thing, getting your way, especially at the expense of suckers. Sweet.

He thought he was getting one of those chumps who gives a crap about other people and would provide a useful service to all his readers. How funny is that? You will learn in my Advanced Better Life Seminar how useful suckers can be in furthering your personal agenda, and how you can pretend to be a sharing and caring jerk just like them until you get what you want. You will learn that greed is not the sin those other people would have you believe it is, that they only call it wrong because they do not have the brains, the balls or the iron will to get what they want by any means necessary. Blessed are the poor? They sure as hell are since you have yours and theirs too!

Suckers and bleeding hearts, don't waste your money. My seminars are for the bold, the strong and the winners among you. Enroll in my Better Life Seminar and learn to take what you want! Luxurious homes, fancy cars, travel, jewels, nightclubs, beautiful women one after another. That's what I can teach you possess, just like I do. Be nobody's chump, be a man of achievement; a user and a taker and a keeper! The envious looks of lesser men are alone worth the price of admission. Wealth for wealth's sake is yours when you follow the 10 Steps to Acquisition you will learn at The Life Coach Better Life Seminars. Call toll-free right now and get ready to move off Loser Lane!

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 624

As much as we'd like it to be, being a fool is no crime. Which is a good thing, since some people might think that we're fools.

LIBERAL LEFT WINGERS ARE IN GOOD COMPANY

Once again the conservative right wing has succeeded in hoodwinking Americans of below average intelligence with no familiarity with history or politics that liberal is a bad thing to be, almost a curse word. Well, what can one say except that when someone calls someone a left wing liberal, they're actually putting them in some esteemed company, those Americans whose politics looks out for the other guy as well as themselves, while the conservative philosophy is all about getting yours, and screw everyone else.

It sometimes takes courage to be a liberal, the courage to stand up for the rights of people you don't care for all that much. If you believe in America and The Constitution of The United States, you realize that everyone has a right to have their say, even those who would like to subvert that Constitution by seeking to establish a state religion or desire to violate the Bill of Rights when it comes to "certain people." They have no right to do these things, but they can talk about it all they like, otherwise their right to free speech is being violated. Liberals want no part of violating the rights of an individual or targeted groups of individuals.

Besides, liberals figure that the more people hear openly what these loony tunes are really about, the more they will realize what complete assholes they are. No one is under any obligation to take such people seriously if they do not commit any criminal acts, and their right to be an asshole must be respected. Talk is cheap. Accomplishments speak much louder. Here's a few people who might be considered by today's conservatives to be no good left wing liberals:

George Washington: Farmer, land surveyor, soldier, revolutionary and father of his country.
His accomplishment: America

Abraham Lincoln: Self-educated lawyer, Congressman, President.
His accomplishments: Preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.

Thomas Jefferson: Farmer, scholar, inventor, architect, ambassador, Secretary of State, Governor, writer, President.
His accomplishments: Writing the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, championing the Bill of Rights, defeating the Barbary Pirates who were attacking American shipping in Africa and founding the United States Military Academy at West Point.

John Adams: Farmer, lawyer, ambassador, Vice President, President
His accomplishment: Among many other acccomplisemtsefending the British officers involved in the Boston Massacre, setting an important precedent in equal treatment before the law, no matter how distasteful the defendants may seem, perhaps stands out as his greatest contribution to Americanism. He took the case in spite of his fear that it would damage his reputation, but his honor and his commitment to his beliefs were more important to the man. Of the eight soldiers charged with murder, six were acquitted and two were convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Apparently Americans didn't hold his integrity against him and elected him the second President of The United States.

James Madison: Lawyer, Secretary of State, Congressman, President.
His accomplishments: Prevented Great Britain from reclaiming her colonies in the War of 1812. Wrote the Bill of Rights. Collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay on what became known as The Federalist Papers, a series of essays and arguments urging the people of the United States to adopt the Constitution, which was no certain thing in the days following The American Revolution.

Alexander Hamilton: Political philosopher, economist, soldier, Congressman, Secretary of The Treasury.
His accomplishments: The Federalist Papers, contributor to The United States Constitution, advocate of a strong national army and navy, established the United States Mint.

Patrick Henry: Planter, lawyer, Governor
His accomplishment: The statement "Give me liberty or give me death!" This encapsulation of America still holds up. You think this guy would have shut up when the cynically named Patriot Act sailed thorough a fearful Congress and handed the terrorists a second victory to go with 9/11? He'd have put his life on the line defending the rights and the freedom of American citizens from this criminal and traitorous legislation.

John Jay: Revolutionary, diplomat, Secretary of Foreign Affairs under George Washington, First Chief Justice of The United States Supreme Court.
His accomplishments: The Federalist Papers and the establishment of the legal precedent that the individual states were subordinate to the Federal Government, further strengthening the Union of a young nation.

Thomas Paine: Revolutionary, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, author.
His accomplishments: The original blogger, his pamphlets, especially "Common Sense," "The Age of Reason" and "The Rights of Man," were instrumental in convincing the majority of British colonists to overthrow the monarchy and establish a democracy that scrupulously respected human rights.

Martin Luther King: Clergyman, Civil Rights activist.
His accomplishments: Leading a peaceful and aggressive Civil Rights movement that confronted the innate racism in American society, and in the process changed America for the better forever.

John F. Kennedy: War hero, Senator, President.
His accomplishments: Completing the unfinished work of Abraham Lincoln by introducing Civil Right legislation, starting the race to the moon and winning the highest stakes poker game ever played against Nikita Khruschev's Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Lawyer, Governor, State Senator, Assistant Secretary of The Navy, President.
His accomplishments: Social Security, minimum wage, the United Nations, The New Deal, winning World War 2. Generally considered, along with Washington and Lincoln, to be one of our 3 greatest presidents.

Lyndon Johnson: Master politician, Congressman, Senator, Vice President, President
His accomplishments: Passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965, continuing the work of the assassinated John F. Kennedy. Instituted Medicare, the highly successful medical program to take care of America's senior citizens, and Medicaid, to provide health care for the nation's poor. Initiated arms reduction negotiations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. His Great Society and War on Poverty programs greatly improved education in the United States and opened up job markets to minorities. Johnson also eliminated hunger from this nation with his Food Stamp and Public Assistance programs.

All these people acted upon their powerful belief in America values and the American people, and the universal human rights that our forefathers pronounced to be "self-evident," and did so even in the face of stiff opposition, even at the cost of their lives in a few cases. Few of them were particularly religious, but all of them were content to let anyone follow any religion they wanted to as long as they did not force it upon others. All were highly moral and ethical, morality and ethics having very little to do with religious faith. These men were and remain the conscience of our nation, the people who made America America. All of them left the world a better place than they found it. Left wing liberals, every man jack among them. So when someone accuses you of being a left wing liberal, be proud, be very proud. You're in good company.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 623

Scientists planning to communicate with alien beings should bear in mind that we can't even communicate with cows, never mind hairless gnomes with giant brains in UFOs. To them, we're the cows. Let's hope they're vegetarians.

JIMMY, THE BLOGGING DOG CRITIQUES THE SPACE PROGRAM

Hello humans, it's me; Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. This guy Bob Crespo that runs this boy and pony show here at bobcrespo.com is really starting to get on my nerves. Here I am, the only dog in the world who can write English and use a computer, and all this guy wants me to write about is what I think of humans! I keep submitting pieces about what's on my mind and he couldn't care less if it's not about a human. Well, screw him, I sell those writings to human scientists, at least they're interested in my observations.

Well, I paw-printed a contract with bobcrespo.com, and that's that, a dog is true to his word, so here I am checking out a bunch of news sites on the internet trying desperately to find something that catches my interest. Believe or not, my opposable thumb chauvinist friends, not every creature on this green globe is fascinated with humanity. You people are nuts! And I'm not talking monkey nuts or shrieking parrot nuts, they're just harmless whack jobs, but murderous psychotic weirdo nuts.

Between the wars, the football mania, the murders, the arson, the torture, the genocide and American Idol, I don't know what's the worst thing about you people. And what the hell is hockey all about? That makes no sense at all, even by human standards! Listen, I may be called The Canine Einstein, but that doesn't mean I'm smart enough to figure out humans. Hell, as far as I can tell, neither can humans! Half the trouble you get in to is from a lack of communication. The same people who are slaughtering one another when they are part of a military organization get along just fine when they meet one-on-one. And yet you kill one another without a second thought, members of the same species, without even knowing exactly why! How is that even possible?

I much prefer dogs, which always seems to come as a shock to humans, even though I am one. You don't see dogs killing one another over stupid shit. Back in the day, before we became a slave population under the thumb of humans, dogs would fight and sometimes (but only rarely) kill other dogs, but only over vital hunting territories or mating rights, for self preservation and the chance to pass on one's genes. No dog ever went into battle against rival dogs without knowing why they were doing so. We had no misunderstanding about our enemies, we knew exactly who they are, how they think and what they expect of out of life. Hell, they're dogs and we're dogs, so what's the mystery? Are people so radically different from one another? That simply cannot be. You are all of one species, for crying out loud! Nature doesn't work that way, it sort of makes every member of the same species quite similar.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be writing about something specific here, so let me get to the point, although that hockey stuff still gives me the creeps. What I want to mention is sending people to the moon, or rather, your president's decision not to send anyone else there anytime soon. Why? From a dog's point of view, that's probably the greatest thing you people have ever accomplished! It's the friggin' Moon, dammit! In case you haven't noticed, we canines have a thing for the Moon. Not just dogs, but wolves, dingoes, coyotes and foxes too, we all howl at the moon, sometimes for hours on end.

Why doesn't your president send one off us up there? You say a dog is man's best friend? Prove it! Send Jimmy, The Blogging Dog to the Moon. That would be Nirvana for a dog. Once I started reading up on this whole space program thing, I couldn't help but notice how humans all of a sudden abandoned it after some really impressive early achievements. What, was it boring to you or something? Inexplicably, at least to me, you stopped reaching for the Moon and the stars and built a whole bunch of flying cargo trucks called Space Shuttles and spent the next 30 years filling Earth's orbit with hardware. That's not romantic or exciting at all!

And don't forget, this internet, the computers, cell phones and all the other electronic gizmos you can't get enough of were all made possible by scientific advances that were the direct result of the Space Race! Imagine what else you clever mammals can invent with a renewed push into space. So that's one more reason to love the Moon, which, to a dog, is super important. It is important to you too, but you don't seem to realize it. Well, people, do some math here. If the Moon can move earth's oceans, what makes you think it has no effect on you? Like every other mammal on earth, you're made mostly of water. How can you figure that the Moon's pull doesn't affect humans?

For all your brilliance, sometimes you people are awful dumb. I'm no scientist, but I have to figure that your senses are even duller than I originally thought. You can't smell or hear worth a damn, and can't sense earthquakes or storms beforehand like just about any other animal can. There's so much I simply cannot explain to you because you lack the capacity to experience what is going on all around you every moment of every day, and seem to possess exactly no telepathy, a huge component of inter-species and extra-species communication. To have no empathy and telepathy is to be in a very real sense deaf and blind. Remember that the next time you talk about "dumb animals."

Well, that's all I have to say about the Space Program. I could go on and on about the Moon, but this very limiting form of communication that you call language doesn't allow me to get into the sort of detail and emotion required. Dogs would understand. Hell, even a canary would. You don't know what you're missing and even The Canine Einstein isn't smart enough to fill in the gaps. I am positive that at some point in human history you possessed these universal senses, otherwise you would never have survived, just like 99% of every species that ever lived. Extinction is more the norm than survival on this beautiful and terrible earth, and if you had species memory, that universal mental connection to the past and your ancestors that every animal possesses, you would know that.

So there's a price to be paid for your civilization and your dominance of the earth, and that is blindness, which is as close as a I can describe it to you sense-deprived creatures. Now that I think of it, that's probably why you invented alcohol and drugs and the like, to try to simulate the sensations that you are missing by having lost touch with them, but that's another a can of worms for another day. It's not that I dislike people, there's a lot of you I really love and admire, but all things being equal, I wouldn't trade places with your king, or your president, or whatever the hell it is you're calling your Alpha Male these days. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 622

Yes is the word we most long to hear.

THE DAY WILL COME WHEN...

We have seen the future and it is now. Look at all the futuristic crap we already have, and Steve Jobs just won't stop introducing more modern crap every two weeks or so, before we even figure out what the hell the last one was supposed to do. Every electronic device we have acquired in the past six months is already obsolete and we haven't even figured out how to use them yet. Who ever uses anywhere near one quarter of all the functions of their computer? And if so, why? For what? Now we hear that some other company has introduced touch screens a lot more advanced than Apple's, able to respond to an infinite amount of touches. Sounds a little kinky, no?

Still other companies are promising us computers that need no screens, just a pair of 3-D type glasses that project images in front of our eyes in thin air! Others promise that the geeky 3-D glasses won't be necessary, they'll just implant chips in our eyes and receptors elsewhere on our person that will connect us to the internet and powerful computers with just a thought. One supposes that cell phones will be included in our chip installations, so we can just do that thumb and pinky thing we use to pantomime making a phone call to actually make phone calls. Presumably, e-mail, calendars, contact lists, address books and GPS devices will also be built in. Wonder what will happen if we don't pay our phone bill? It all sounds kind of creepy and Star Trekky.

Speaking of creepy, the Japanese are thisclose to perfecting a lifelike sex robot, a computer with plastic skin and organs indistinguishable from the real thing and "fully functional." Fully functional? Given the very wide range of human sexual preferences, the researchers at the sex robot company must have had some very interesting experiences compiling the computer commands necessary to make a sex robot fully functional. The line for that job had to be pretty long, and undoubtedly the research was exceptionally thorough.

All in all, great news for girlfriend-challenged geeks the world over, and perhaps the end of life as we know it. Robot lovers would find no fault with us, will never refuse a request, never get sick or old or tired of us. And if we tire of them, we could always program a new personality, change their hair, skin or eye color, or simply screw around with other sex robots and never have to deal with jealousy, separation or divorce. Threesomes? Not a prob. Oddball sexual tastes? Just change the settings. Lots of people would swear off real spouses with their insistent demands, their aging and personality changes. Could be a real herd-thinner, this one, with the birth rate plunging drastically and production of sex-robots soaring.

Now add to the list of techno wonders a pill that will keep our muscles and bodies in perfect shape by fooling our bodies into thinking we've just exercised for an hour or so. Perfection without exertion! No more diets, no more jogging or sweating in gyms, no more wearing sweat pants all the time when we outgrow yet another wardrobe. Perfect 6 pack abs while we enjoy a perfect 6 pack of imported lager! Does it get any better than that?

Then there's the plan to seed the planet with trillions of tiny sensors so that nature can now talk to us, with lakes and rivers warning us when they are about to flood, the earth telling us it is about to quake, food crops reminding farmers that they are getting ripe and it's harvest time and who-knows-what else. Will we even need eyes anymore? If tomatoes will be able to tell us when to pick them, what will these sensors tell about us? Will there be such a thing as privacy anymore? Will everybody else find out all the crazy things we're up to with our sex robots? Sounds like Big Brother will be watching, and Big Brother will be everybody.

Back to the sex robot thing (that one's got everybody thinking furiously). These robots beg the question: If they can be created and programmed to be perfect replicas of human beings, why are we limiting them to performing sex acts? Why not send them to work? They don't need any sleep, and we'll sure need plenty of it from all the sex we'll be having. Let them deal with commuting and our crazy bosses while we chill! There's all sorts of lousy jobs they could be doing, like sewer cleaners, McDonald's clerks and dentists. They'd never give anybody any lip since they will be programmed to be cheerful and compliant.

And we'll all know if they're doing a good job or not with all those sensors feeding us data, maybe even program some of them to get two jobs so we can buy everything we want and not have to do a damned thing. Could it be possible that all this technical wizardry will help mankind evolve into what we've always wanted to become, healthy and robust stay-at-home couch potatoes with our every whim catered to?

So, maybe this confusing glut of perplexing technology is leading us to the Promised Land after all. Built-in brain video, beer, chips, perfect physical conditioning without any tedious physical exertion and sex robots to indulge our every fantasy? Sounds too good to be true, so it probably is. Odds are that none of these wonders will work remotely as advertised, and wind up being only more confusing gadgets to frustrate and torture us. But we can dream, can't we? At least that's one thing we can all do without technical assistance.

LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 621

When someone is suffering, that's not a good time to point out that there are people in worse shape. Contrary to popular belief, that does not ease their pain and they would not be remiss to take a swipe at you with a crutch.

GREED NEVER SLEEPS: TOYOTA GOES ALL DETROIT ON US!

Now this: In addition to the (!) 9 million or so vehicles that Toyota Motors is recalling to correct the self-accelerating gas pedals that have resulted in many fatalities, their expensive Green model, the hybrid Prius, has been experiencing the opposite problem, brakes that fail when they go over a pothole or other "irregular surface," sort of undermining the whole idea of having brakes on one's vehicle, you know, stopping the damned thing to see what the hell you just ran over. The results are potentially the same as the gas pedal fiasco, death behind the wheel. Since Prius also features that trick Toyota gas pedal, that car has the potential to kill its driver twice. Who says the Japanese aren't innovators but copiers? Hell, the best American car companies could do was to have only one fatal flaw per vehicle at a time!

Which just goes to show what success breeds in corporate circles. Contempt. Contempt born of greed, of course, since that is the only acceptable motivation for corporations in recent years. The passion for building a better and safer product, just like in Detroit, was for the founders of automobile companies, not the bottom line money grubbers who run these multi-billion dollar corporations these days. Once the founders of the automotive industry in both America and Japan were safely dead, their successors began earnestly cutting corners on safety and engineering and firing the skilled and dedicated workers who made these same executives so very wealthy by "outsourcing" their jobs to nations that pay their workers in shiny objects, seed corn and sunglasses.

And now Japanese automobile manufacturers will enter the inevitable period of decline experienced by America's Big Three auto makers. Today's corporate weenies don't care what business they are in, they only want to become instant multimillionaires by any means necessary. And if that means saving money on safety and pocketing the difference, or bundling billions of dollars worth of worthless mortgages and selling them as the greatest thing since dark chocolate, so be it. These so-called "automobile people" could just as well be selling oven mitts, washing machines or cookies, it makes no difference to them. Commitment to quality and innovation is a thing of the past, replaced in almost every large corporation by a serious commitment to greed.

It's not so much making the boneheaded mistake with the gas pedals (and now the brakes), the truly horrible thing was waiting for people to die before admitting there was a problem. In a move that would make all the unindicted coconspirators in the financial industry proud, Toyota executives attempted to pass off the unwanted acceleration problem on careless drivers failing to secure the floor mats. Nine million careless motorists. Who knows what they'll say about the Prius brakes? Maybe they'll go the Wall Street route and blame other car companies or, also like Wall Street, claim they had no idea there was a problem.

So far, the president of the company, Akio Toyoda, a master of understatement, has admitted that Toyota is "in a crisis" and has promised to appoint a committee of top Toyota guys to address the problem, just like the committee the last president of Toyota appointed to address the previous set of defects in their cars. The results? 9 million recalls and counting. No word yet on whether or not this new committee will concentrate on public relations or automobile design. Of course that would require Toyota executives to actually talk to the people who design and build their cars, said people generally unacquainted with the fine points of greed for greed's sake. Corporate executives are uncomfortable around such people,and vice-versa.

So far, the president of the company, Akio Toyoda, a master of understatement, has admitted that Toyota is "in a crisis" and has promised to appoint a committee of top Toyota guys to address the problem, just like the committee the last president of Toyota appointed to address the previous set of defects in their cars. The results? 9 million recalls and counting. No word yet on whether this new committee will concentrate on public relations or automobile safety. Of course if they opt to address engineering issues, that would require Toyota executives to actually talk to the people who design and build their cars, salaried people generally unacquainted with the fine points of greed for greed's sake. Corporate executives are uncomfortable around such people, and vice-versa.

When the head guys have no idea what goes on with their products, that doesn't exactly reassure either their customers or their stockholders. That's a crisis, alright. So look for Toyota City, home of the Toyota corporation, to start resembling its sister city (true fact) Detroit any year now; high unemployment, empty houses and people deserting the place in droves. So much for Toyota's dominance of the car market, and good riddance to the ugly pieces of crap with all the fun and flair of a Volvo, minus the reliability, longevity and safety. Looks like Toyota executives will have to get into a different business, maybe the Japanese Stock Market and investment houses. Keep an eye peeled for a huge scandal in a couple of years when Japanese financial institutions start selling multibillion dollar bundles of bad mortgages on tiny houses with paper walls.