tvashtarkatena

My take on the tax code is uh hmmmm

The sun's getting hotter. In 250 million years, the earth will be a dry, lifeless hell. Why even bother to get up in the morning?

But will those boots be made in China?

I'll address these two common misconceptions specifically. The earth as three natural, cyclic pertebations in its motion, with periods varying from 25K years to 125K years, that are highly correlated with global climate change in the form of ice ages. The earth's axis precesses, wobbles, and its orbital ellipse changes. According to these cycles, the earth should be rapidly COOLING; we should be entering an ice age. Clearly, we are not...because of us. About 5000 years ago humans began reversing this trend by releasing two greenhouse gases: methane (from rotting vegetation in rice cultivation, which began at that time), and CO2 from burning wood and deforestation (which reduces the carbon sequestration from the atmosphere). Since the industrial revolution human caused greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion spiked. Fossil fuel emissions have a unique isotopic signature (they product carbon with a much lower content of carbon 14 due to their greater age), so there is absolutely no ambiguity as to where all this atmospheric carbon is coming from. It is coming from us. The second misconception is that we've only been taking data as long as we've had weathervanes. Actually, we have well over a hundred thousand years of data spanning over several ice ages from trapped air bubbles in Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. That same data was used to correlate the aformentioned pertebations in the earths motion to timing of past ice ages. From this enormous body of data we know that global temperatures are highly correlated with greenhouse gas concentrations, and we also know that we are rapidly entering a period of unprecedented greenhouse gas concentration. More disturbingly, we've observed several periods of rapid climate change (10 degrees in a decade) in distant the past. It could happen again just as suddenly.

There are too problems with Doomsday scenarios, economic or otherwise. First, they discount the complex system of checks and balances that tend to resist change in any one direction. Take our debt, for example. Will it cause us problems? Sure. Will it destroy us? No, in part because our debt holders have a vested interest in keeping our economy healthy enough to a) pay our debt and b) buy their stuff and keep THEIR economy healthy. And no, because when the debt gets bad enough we will elect people who will decrease it. Second, Doomsday doesn't sell well. The public at large would rather talk about solutions rather than how horrific their world is going to be in x number of years. Those who are NOT into solutions, who deny there is a problem at all, will exploit this to their political advantage, as the GOP so adeptly did after Vietnam. The only world destroying problem I see facing humanity is global warming and its many unpredictable, and possibly catastrophic, consequences. But even under our present do-nothing administration we see solutions being implemented at lower levels of government and by the population at large. Bush's denial of the problem probably did more to increase awareness than any other single factor...because of the strong reaction to that denial. This interlocking system of checks and balances has its analog in nature. Mass extinctions can and do occur, but they are rare due to complex systems that resist change in any one direction. Is the total downfall of America possible? Sure. Is it likely? Not really. Who would buy all that cheap Chinese crap? No one. Why am I talking like Donald Rumsfeld? I don't know.

I get alot of compliments on the vermouth infused gold fish in the heels

Don't make the spider cookies with the pretzel sticks for legs and Red Hots for eyes. Trust me on that.

cocktail hour dress code snob

Americans expect a Democratic majority to get us out of Iraq. For anyone other than a moron, that's a significant policy change. And I'm still buying a shitload of vodka for Nov 7. Already have the gin.

HUGE party at my house if that happens. Nothing is quite so satisfying as seeing a trainload of shitbags get what they have so rightfully deserved for so long.

No checks, just merchandise with receipts

The Carlos Castaneda of cane liquor. Myers should be used as a floater, not a primary source of hydration.

The predictions before the elections are...overflowing

There's a lot of gays and secular humanists in my neighborhood, so I carry an epistle in an ankle holster.

Elections are won by getting true believers to get off their asses and vote, then going for the soft, chewy center. And I think current estimates for the switch hitter vote is running at more like 15% these days. There's a whole lot of social libertarian/fiscal conservatives that are feeling very unloved right now.

The Krobar (the aforementioned basement tiki bar) respects tradition, but caters to individual tastes as well. We're not sticklers about vodka verses gin martinis, even though the owners prefer the latter. I'm a Sapphire man, but Tangueray's not bad, either. For sipping vodka, our patrons favor Hangar One for its hints of flowers and fruit, or Pearl for its butterscotch overtones, served it at room temperature so the nose can come forth unhindered. We've usually got 10 different vodkas at any one time, served chilled if requested. We can also dish up an ass-kicking mai tai, using our own recipe developed through extensive research. Our scorpion bowl's not bad, either. Tequila is where our experience falters, but we're working on it.

Now that is fucking hilarious .

Are you implying that gay marriage, illegal fruit pickers, and keeping cancer patients seperated from their bongs aren't more important than the war, energy independence, global warming, and nuclear proliferation?

Whatever the Democratic party stands for, it seems that a majority of voters agree with it these days. I seriously doubt that anyone would change their vote because of Kerry's 'reminder' of liberal arrogance, a schtick that's bought only by those who'd never vote Democrat under any circumstances anyway.

Democrat or Republican, when a president fucks up his lines it produces a few more consequences.

Kerry claims he flubbed a potshot at Bush by omitting the key words above. A screw up for sure, but hardly a significant driver in this election. It did speak to the larger divide between the 'arrogant' and the 'ignorant', the simpleton's lens through which the far left and far right view each other. As for the big deal the GOP is making of it, that's to be expected from a party that's pissing it's pants searching for something, anything to sell to the electorate. When in doubt, reach for that econo-sized bottle of anti-liberal sentiment. At least the GOP is defending marriage (in rhetorical terms, at least), even if they can't defend the country.

Now, now, one at a time, served in a crystal glass as thin as glacial firn under a summer moon. You wouldn't want the tiny archipelago of hoar frost to melt, would you? Gin or vodka?

Ah, the delicate pirouette of the swallow in winged flight. I shall compose a poem. And have another martini.

This lamoid is sipping a Sapphire martini as light and chilled as a cirrus cloud in my basement tiki bar. I love the rainy season...

If only they'd just given him a box of Cheeze Its. If only he hadn't had that lisp...