Like most years, 2008 had the good and the bad.  We floundered through another election, more exciting than most, and watched with horror the collapse of the financial markets from the implosion of the housing bubble as well as disasters caused by both Mother Nature (for example, the earthquake in China) and despotic dictators (for example, famine and cholera in Africa).  The good part is that mankind managed to survive it all and Gaia still is livable.

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The Gaza Strip is heating up again, so I thought I’d comment on two words that are often used interchangeably nowadays: terrorism and war.  Of course, there is also “War on Terrorism,” a phrase too often used since 9/11 to mean everything from invading Iraq to listening in on someone’s conversations with his seven-year-old niece in Istanbul.  The phrase suggests a priori that there is a distinction between war and terrorism.

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Did you know…?

The Bush administration is helping Santa one last time – NSA manages his naughty-nice list now.

But the EPA is ready to fine Santa – the coal he gives to the naughty kids has too high a sulphur content.

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Since I’m telecommuting today due to the impending snow storm, I was able to tune in to Mr. Bush’s brief message to the American people about the loans to Chrysler and GM.  The magnamious Mr. Bush said he did not want to burden Mr. Obama and his administration with this huge problem.  As if he solved it!  The excrement hits the ventilator March 31 anyway when these car companies tell Mr. Obama they need more money.  And, since Congress couldn’t get its act together, the present loan comes from the original $700 billion allocated to solving the financial crisis due to all the bad loans (which is only half through, by the way).  My opinions about this whole debacle have appeared in previous posts, so let me mention something new I’m worrying about.

While Mr. “Executive Orders” Bush says he’s doing Mr. Obama a favor, he’s certainly doing him a lot of disfavors in a stealthy fashion.  A new federal regulation, sure to meet the disapproval of the Obama administration (there are already bills in the House and Senate to overturn it), will protect workers in the health industries that refuse to participate in abortions or other services that violate their beliefs.  It is called the “Right of Conscience Rule.”

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Just when my anger at Wall Street bankers, the big three, and the US government started abating (it is, after all, the holiday season), along comes the news about Mr. Bernard L. Maddof and one of the biggest heists in history, his approximately $50 billion bilking of the rich and poor, the famous and not so famous.

He really doesn’t fit well into my “Capitalism Without Control” category since his activities represent blatant thievery.  I guess if you’re going to steal, you might as well do it big time.  No snatch and run for this man.  He’s in a league of his own.  Considering that retirement funds and charities were victimized by him, it’s hard to imagine a suitable punishment, but doing so makes me feel a little better.  However, what sets my tea kettle whistling is the ineptitude of the SEC.

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Arthur C. Clarke is recognized as one of the pioneers of sci-fi.  Often credited with the idea of a communications satellite (I believe his were in geostationary orbit), he showed time and time again that he knew his science.  Thus his writing is called “hard science fiction,” i.e. sci-fi extrapolated from what exists to what’s possible.

However, at the risk of speaking ill of the recently deceased, I will forever remember the end of his Rama series in which hard sci-fi is carried to the extreme and God becomes an engineer (rather, a group of alien engineers).  This is not an uncommon theme in sci-fi.  In Kubrick’s trail-blazing movie 2001, for example, the super aliens touch our ancestors through the black obelisk and they become sentient (come to think of it, the screen play was by Clarke).

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Now that we have a black President, is the issue of race going to die out in the U.S?  Probably not.  First, one black President does not make a race-blind society.  There will still be discrimination, whether open or hidden.  Moreover, human beings are amusingly complex and full of contradictions.  While race doesn’t matter in one instance, it may matter in another.  Electing a black President may be just fine on an abstract plane, but an Irish Catholic father may frown on his daughter marrying a black Jew just as the black Jewish parents may frown on their son marrying an Irish Catholic (I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a black Jew, but I know people that would be upset in such a situation with either a black or a Jew, so I thought the combination would really send them into a spin).  Finally, in spite of the melting pot we live in, a lot of us dabble in genealogy and are proud of our family tree.  This often reduces to just plain snootiness, not a pretty thing to behold.  In other cases it is just an innocent desire to know where we came from.  In most cases, that doesn’t help us know where we’re going, but it might help to understand why Uncle Joe and Aunt Matilda just can’t get along during the holidays.

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The big three returned to the Hill today, this time in their hybrids.  Larry, Moe and Curly have no shame!  It’s almost laughable that these clowns are leading three large U.S. companies.  No wonder these companies are in such poor shape.

This gunfight at OK Corral is shaping up to be a real battle.  I hope the collateral damage will be minimal.  There are several bullets already zinging around (this is a PowerPoint pun for those slidemakers out there), and they are:

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Classic sci-fi was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Starting with the ugly, there were the dime novels and comic books filled with gadgets and alien monsters, the latter inherently evil and the former always used in a good way to combat that evil.  Many a Saturday grade B movie double feature contained visualizations of this schlock.  I remember one particular one where the aliens in the backseat of the car had hypodermic needles for fingernails.  They injected alcohol into unsuspecting teenagers, causing their car crash to be attributed to teenage drinking.  Maybe an early campaign of MADD?  (Before I start getting protests, I have been known to contribute to MADD.  It seemed like the least thing a drinking Irishman can do – see my pic.  Unfortunately I was once excluded from the jury of a rather interesting DWI case by zealot lawyers that wanted nothing to do with either a MADD contributor or a college graduate.)

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