Saturday, September 03, 2005
Misc: Rehnquist dead, Chimps sequenced, an oil rant
Justice Rehnquist has passed on. The changes to come in the Supreme Court will generate lasting changes in America. So will the changes coming from nanotubes and cloning. I doubt that the events in New Orleans will have the same lasting effects.A chimpanzee's genome has been sequenced, revealing only 200,000 differences, most of them quite small, between humans and chimps. No feedback from the Intelligent Design people, they are all trying to reconcile God's Will with the drowning of New Orleans.
I gave myself the best present ever for my b-day. 0 balances on all my remaining credit cards... well, until I paid the mortgage. The idea of more americans paying off their cards should make Greenspan shudder, but fear not for our overstretched government's finances - I'm still broke, but trying to get caught up on my back taxes next. Only thing I can offer to help others out of a jam is blood, and I just donated some of that.
Wells Fargo promptly slashed my credit limit to 1/7th of what it was. I found that out when I tried to buy gas after paying the mortgage.
Gas is at 3.45 a gallon where I live. The Radish Crimson (a non-blogger) writes:
- The Weekly World News says we will be out of oil soon! With that in mind, $2.69 a gallon is a bargain!
But what else can one say? We've been dancing on the railroad tracks for quite some time, not believing that this nonrenewable energy source will ever stop gushing forth with limitless power. All those dinosaurs and antedeluvian plants gave their lives to give use cheap plentiful fuel to fill our Hummers and Navigators.
We've heard the loud blat of the train and discounted it. Here it comes, chugga chugga. Anybody care?
My wife said her next car is going to be one of those super energy-efficient jobbers that can zip around all day on a gallon of gas.
"Cool," I said, "but that will only work until one of those me-first types accidentally run over your peanutmobile with his Cadillac Escallade.
You see, in America, we have freedom. Freedom to do as we please, within reason. But there are limits to our freedoms. We have no freedom to protect ourselves from the selfish and shortsighted. But they have the freedom to squash our Cooper Minis like aluminum bugs with their big, bad Tahoes.
We don't have the freedom to take away their Ford Expeditions, but they have the freedom to own them, use them, run up horrendous bills on credit to power them, then declare bankruptcy and start fresh.
Yep, pretty much shaved apes, hooting and jibbering behind the wheel of a soon to be obsolete device.
Or maybe not. Who knows? I've lived through doom and gloom before. All we really need to do is to put a band together and make a rockin' hit single or two.
Think of all the acoustic jams in the world without oil. Living like the goobers in Tombstone. No Megamalls, just the local drygoods store.
Man, think of all the animals we'd have to produce, millions of horses and goats, yaks, steer. Better start breeding them right this minute.
And where will the Eagles play? Those stadiums are true energy hogs. They certainly won't exist.
I can't wait to be beside my son, guns in hand, picking off the neighbors as they try to get our last gallon of gas that I was saving for my last act of protest: self-immolation of my diabetic ass after eating a whole--no, wait--two whole wedding cakes. Man, that's how I want to go, seeing if the 1700 blood sugar level takes me faster than the flaming accelerant. Which will win I wonder?
