Category: Politics, Religion & Money

I’m not big into driving for its own sake like my buddy Bismo is, but I’ve always noticed the makes and models of other cars while behind the wheel. Without thinking about it, I make mental notes about other vehicles, and I can recognize many cars with the smallest of visual cues. For example, have you noticed how the fenders are now flat vertically around the wheel wells? That’s a recent design trend.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I carry a percentage of typical car vintages, and some weeks ago, while commuting on the Mass Pike, I realized that it seems there are fewer new cars on the road these days. Since then I’ve been consciously looking for brand-new cars, and I’ve confirmed there really are fewer of them showing up compared to a year and more ago. The way things are going, we’ll probably be hearing auto dealers proclaiming “The 2009’s are here, so come on down!” for another year or two.

Michael J. Fox — who I think lets his ‘Parkie’ friends call him Mike — says “screw you” to Rush Limbaugh, for ignorantly mocking him before the 2006 midterm elections. Limbaugh, an Oxycontin abuser who needs Viagra, is no stranger to the effects of prescription drugs, but he got it completely wrong when he said Fox must have gone off of his meds, or was acting, to exaggerate his condition. It’s actually exactly the opposite. Fox was showing the side effect of taking a certain Parkinson’s medication over a period of many years.

Thursday evening at 10, on ABC, M.J. has a special that’s a companion to his new book, “Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.”

Sorry to get political, but a couple of weeks ago this news tidbit caught my eye.

Around 10:45 p.m. an armed robber entered an Alcoholics Anonymous center in Columbia, S.C. The robber brandished a handgun and ordered the people inside the center to “Gimme what you got.” One of the AA visitors, who is also a Right-To-Carry permit holder, drew his gun and fired at the armed criminal, striking him multiple times, ending the robbery. The robber was taken to a local hospital where he died. (The State, Columbia, S.C. 04/13/09)

Guns and booze. Always a winning combination. A recovering alcoholic with a gun. What if he weren’t recovering and he brandished it while drunk?

The following week on the BBC World Service, I heard a lengthy protest against gun control by a typical NRA mouthpiece. Here’s what I don’t get. If the NRA’s position is that gun control doesn’t work, then why fight it? Prove the point by letting every piece of gun legislation pass, then sit back and smile smugly when gun violence goes up.

Actually, I know why they would never take this tack. It’s because they really believe that if they compromise at all, then gun ownership will be banned outright, and the government will turn into a dictatorship and they won’t be able to form a well-regulated militia. But of course we already have a well-regulated militia. The National Guard.

A tea party protesting a tax increase? A tax increase for who? These people, perhaps….

[flv:/Video/NOV07/Smirnoff.flv 400 300]

It’s ridiculous that the President of the United States has to intervene directly with something like the AIG executive bonuses, but if he doesn’t do it, who will…?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_on_go_pr_wh/aig_outrage

D.F. Rogers has one of his typically funny comments — “If Obama went to Harvard Business School, instead of Harvard Law School, he’d understand why these bonuses are perfectly legitimate.”

Wall Street, the big bankers, and the rest of them, still just don’t get it. There may be plenty of free beer, fellas, but you can’t drink any more. The party’s over. You have to sober up and face reality.

Enough with the BS excuses that, “Hey, as a percentage it’s not that much money.” Obama is right to say, “This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values.”