Lady Fruitcake & the Energy Spiel

Tallyho - Michelle Bachman, my dear Lady Fruitcake, is off again. First it was $2 a gallon gasoline that President Bachmann would bring back, now she's dropped into the eternal uber-conservative's fantasy of Infinite Domestic Energy Through Better Extractive Industry. See following quote.

"The United States is the number one country in the world for energy resources," the Minnesota congresswoman (Ms. Bachmann) told a central Florida town hall meeting, arguing that in shale deposits alone the U.S. easily outstrips the total oil supply of Saudi Arabia. "That doesn't even include ... all the oil in Alaska."

Never mind that working a shale deposit require millions of gallons of water and even further energy expenditure to wring from the groaning earth some few tablespoons of very crude oil which may arguably power several camping lanterns in the United States for a day or two. I exaggerate for effect, but you get the picture.

They want to start sucking out shale oil right here in my Pretty, Great Although Slightly Wacko State of Utah. It's a desert, part of the dry and getting drier basin and range system so memorably written of by John McPhee in his book, "Basin and Range." We're already about to go to war with Nevada over their plan to siphon the water from under the Snake Valley, thus causing it to either collapse into the mother of all sinkholes or else blow away and deposit several feet of dust on the Salt Lake Valley (where, let me tell ya, we got sufficient problems already with chunky air).

Here's what it looks like so far...

Isn't that special??? Utah is justly renowned for rugged, wild landscapes, both desert and mountain. This here operation somehow just does not quite sing "tourists - ka-ching!" to me, but hey I'm just a crabby old lady.

Here's some more - tar sand operations in Canada? Got ugly?

For more skinny, together with righteous outrage, go here (they are smarter and better-informed than I am): http://www.theecologist.org/investigations/energy/304963/tar_sands_tearing_the_flesh_from_the_earth.html.

Lady Fruitcake wants all of y'all to share these wonders! Isn't she the bee's knees, and a real Suzerain of Short-Term Gain, to be followed by long-term and likely unending regret?  So sad when one can only hope that the outlandish Bushoid likes of Rick Perry will eclipse this very dim bulb.

Then, of course, there's Mittens Romney in the wings. This is a down-and-dirty blues song without end. I mean, I've been reasonably good, so the rest of y'all must have done something really really really bad for it to come to this. I do believe it's 5 o'clock somehwere, so if you will excuse me...

A New Meaning for Rockin' Chair

Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll - that's what geezers and geezettes my age grew up with. Freedom Riders, We Shall Overcome, Summer of Love, Woodstock (well, my mama wouldn't have let me go anyway - my job was pulling down the good grades...), Joan Baez, extreme hair, and all that. And now we are retired, about to retire, thinking about retiring, to that Ole Rockin' Chair.

But the rockin' is different than what our parents and grandparents did; we are rockin' to Golden Oldies radio, resurging vinyl, and to Beatles, Stones, Creedence Clearwater tribute bands, and to new kidz like Beyonce, Kanye, Garth, Mariah, the Righteous Babe, and all that. Still crazy after all these years, and still rhymin' with Simon, emoting with EmmyLou, diggin' on Dolly (the original self-made power woman). Duuuuuuudes!

We who survived, through luck, pluck and by the skin of our teeth, should know by now that the music is not enough. There's STILL something happening here, and what it is is becoming extremely clear. Greed-heads, liars, controllers, fools, pimps for God, and out-and-out loons are trying to rule the world and they really do not care who or what they destroy in the process of establishing their Evil Empire, wherein the rest of us will be 21st Century serfs expected to pull our forelock, bow, and acquiesce. The bread and circuses handed to us are electronic - silly toys to keep us chained in maxed-out-credit-card Hell and distance us from one another and from the horror outside the window. Throw that crap away unless you're using it to foment dissent, otherwise it's just Anti-Social Media and a waste of our precious time - don't think twice, it's not all right. Talk to someone face to face; you will be astonished to find he/she is human, just like you.

I would like to hear a Roger Daltrey primal scream from us 60s leftovers; we should be mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore. If you're going to stand up for the vulnerable, the helpless and hapless, the animals, the forests, the rivers and streams, the farmers and ranchers (should we really pave it all and depend on a country whose name we cannot spell to feed us, really, should we??), the very air we suck down ever so many times a minute - if we are going to stand up, the hour is getting late so let's do it.

99% of the politicians are wearing the Emperor's new clothes and this should be pointed out daily and fearlessly, with regard only for facts as opposed to rumors and lies repeated so often they're taken for truth, and with a real (not fake Beck/Palin/Bachmann/Romney/Perry et al.) moral outrage. Follow the money and shine a light on its nasty source.

Get the rockin' chair rockin'. Remember what it was like to take situations in hand and go for broke. Don't be afraid; we're old - what can they do to us?

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

No Grovelling, Please: We're Campaigning...

I read the news today - oh boy!
Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, formerly the moderate and rather sensible governor of my Pretty, Great and Rather Strange State of Utah, said out loud, in his own voice, in public, that he would probably accept if Michelle (Lady Fruitcake) Bachmann were nominated and asked him to run with her as her VP.
Gasp.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, since we old people do forget things and get things mixed up with other, unrelated (but fascinating) things, BUT isn't Ms. Bachmann the one who claimed that sharia law was in force in "several" American cities? No names offered except for one town that didn't exist anymore, and another one that was astounded to learn it was operating under sharia law. Isn't Ms. Bachmann also the one who recently promised that, if she were President, she would bring back $2 a gallon gasoline? From whence she would bring it, economists and oil futures speculators - not to mention the Princes of OPEC - are still consulting their GPS devices and ouija boards.
I can understand that formerly sensible guv Huntsman really, really, really would like to hold national office, but oh my heck 'n hockeysticks, is he already that desperate? Even Mittens (well, what else is Mitt the diminuitive of?) would probably not sink that low. Besides, I doubt that Mitt and Michelle would be a peaceful pairing - fruitcake and shape-shifting amoebae generally don't mix...
Sorry: I just call 'em like I see 'em - there has got to be some benefit from being so old you don't give a rat's patoot what anybody thinks of what you think.
Point of discussion: Jon Huntsman, please call home - it's very important. You've left your identity on the dresser.

The 800-pound gorilla

The current 800-lb gorilla (there've been many over my lifetime) - in the room, while everyone tries to sip their drink and ignore it - is a simple economic truth: ya cannot continually cut spending unless ya increase revenue. If you lose your job, you'll give up a lot of things to cut your outlay, but if you have a functioning brain cell, you'll also do your damndest to increase your income by looking for work.

The zealot chuckle-heads who have highjacked the admittedly never-very-wonderful-since-Abe-Lincoln bit it Republican Party refuse to entertain this economic truth. Like all zealots, their vision is down the surprisingly narrow (for such huge...uh...never mind) tunnel of their own....uh...never mind, keep it a family-friendly blog, eh?

Oh, and the 800-lb gorilla has a girlfriend; her name is Eliminate The Cap On Earnings Subject To Social Security Taxes. Bah-dah-boom-bah-dah-bing - Social Security becomes and remains viable.

Hey, I'm forgetting the 800-lb gorilla's extremely incorrigible teenage kid - American jobs shipped to countries who'll do it for dimes. Who benefits from this? Not the American worker, fer shure. Not the exploited foreign worker, fer dang shure. The beneficiaries would be the shareholders, CEOs, COOs, CFOs and assorted other Os of corporations doing the job-shipping. They make big bucks and all we get are lousy, cheap T-shirts. And all our politicians get are giant campaign donations and a lot of whining in their (mostly) shell-pink ears every time anyone raises the idea of penalizing companies who export perfectly doable jobs with a butt-biting surtax on their profits. Me, I'd rather pay the extra five or seven bucks for a T-shirt, a pair of American-made shoes, knowing some of the money went to a fellow citizen, who'd spend it right here.

Yeah, it's great to help people in other countries, but at the expense of American workers, at the expense of American know-how - I mean, do you even know anyone who can repair shoes? Are any of the shoes we get even repairable? People - we don't make anything for ourselves anymore except rhetoric (hot air - hmm, could this contribute to global warming) and foreign entanglements (George Washington advised steering clear of these, but hey what did he know)?

The 800-lb gorilla, his girlfriend and his rotten teenage kid will never go away unless regular, middle-of-the-road, non-zealot Americans wake up, shut off the TV, the video game, the i-whatzit-of-the-week, and let both the poxy houses of the federal government know what we demand to be done.

Said my piece for a Monday. Now go ye forth and do likewise, y'all.