Some fun

Get drilled ... and make it count

Get drilled:
Whenever I hear a conservative complaining about the high cost of gasoline (yeah, those Rolls do get pretty bad mileage, I hear) the next thing I hear is that the government should start drilling in ANWR and the Gulf. That, we hear, will solve all our problems.

Bull.

First, the government does not drill. Private industry drills.

Second, private industry is under no obligation to solve our gas price dilemma. They created it. They profit from it. They like it. Like it $49 billion profit per quarter. That's a lot of like.


Should we allow drilling in those areas, there is no guarantee that any of the crude pumped out will ever reach your pump. The oil conglomerates, just like the Arab sheiks, will sell the oil on the free market. The world market. And odds are, it will end up going to China, or Europe or somewhere other than Southwest Florida. It will not lower the price of gas here by a penny. You can take that penny to the bank.

You really think all that oil would go into domestic production for domestic sales? Naive, aren't you?

Because drilling in ANWR and the Gulf is not about lowering the price of gas. It's about raising he profits of the oil conglomerates.

You know, Bush's best buddies. Bush, if you remember, has been in the 'oil bidness' for a long time. And a lot of that time, he's been in bidness with his best buddies, the Saudi oil sheiks.

You really think it has anything to do with helping the American people? Other than those people who happen to be in the 'bidness?'

Not a chance.

Now: Make it count.

A while back I expressed concern that my Florida primary vote (Democratic primary) wasn't gonna count.

Now, I'm even more concerned that it will.

To whit: The Democratic Party said that if we in Florida held our primary in January, they wouldn't count our votes or seat our delegates.

Pissed me off.

They also put down rules: Democratic candidates could not campaign in states holding 'illegal' primaries. That'd be us, folks.

All the candidates but one followed those rules. They did not campaign in Florida before the primary. All but one.

Now, one candidate is fighting mightily to have the Florida votes counted after all.

Funny. The one candidate who broke the rules, Hillary, is also the candidate fighting to have the votes counted. How generous of her, to try and get our votes counted. Our delegates seated.

Funny thing, since she was the only Democrat who campaigned here, she won the primary. Now she wants/needs 'her' votes.

OK, Democrats. Before, I said count my vote.

Now, DON'T count it.

Unless we all play fair, it isn't a fair primary for all.

Sorry, Hillary. If you can't play by the rules in January, you shouldn't be allowed to change the rules in May.

(As an aside, never in my too-long life have I seen a nastier Democratic campaign that that being run by Hillary. Anyone who's that nasty, mean, spiteful, underhanded and unprincipled ...).

And so it goes.

The real Naples

Now that the hysteria seems finally to have died down, it's my turn.

Scores of horrified people assaulted the Naples Daily News with hysteria-filled letters after the publication of a photo and short story about female impersonators at a club in Naples.

I did not know there was such a club, and probably wouldn't have attended a show if there was. And I probably won't.

Not my kind of entertainment.

But to you hysterical folks: WAKE UP!

This is a part of the world in which you live. If you think you can drive through your big iron gated community bars and return to the blissful 1950s in which everything was wholesome, healthy, happy, straight and remarkably white, you are simply wrong.

This isn't the 1950s, folks (and for that matter, female impersonators existed then, too. So did blacks, poor people and even -gasp- homosexuals!). For some reason, you and the media found it easier and more convenient to ignore anything that wasn't Pat Boone back then. It was still there. It just was ignored.

It is a newspaper's job to reflect the community in which it exists. Reflect, not reinterpret. Not influence. Not ignore.


Spanky's is out there. In YOUR community. Female impersonators are out there. In YOUR community. As are gays, minorities, poor people, and (shock!!) Democrats and liberals.

Deal with it.

There is no place you can go that you can get away from that. Not even in your big ol' protected millionaires-only gated community.

Who knows what goes on behind the closed doors right across from your $4M home? How do YOU know dear Bob down the street doesn't put on a push-up and pumps once the doors are closed and blinds drawn? Do you REALLY know that Bill and Ed are just playing canasta every Friday evening when they visit? What do Madge and Betty and Mildred REALLY do out by their pool every afternoon?

The world is everywhere, folks. You can't avoid reality. You can't close your eyes real real tight and pretend everything's exactly what Saturday Evening Post depicted in 1955.

There's no chance you can close your eyes real tight, click your heels together three times and chant "there's no place like 1956; there's no place like 1956."

Real is real.

And as to the photograph itself, you can see more skin on any beach around here. Heck, you can see more skin walking down Fifth. Except THAT skin is sagging. A lot. The photograph wasn't pornographic. You KNOW that. It just depicticed a Naples you chose to believe doesn't exist.

Because if it doesn't exist, life for you is your own version of happier. But your own version of happier is a fallacy. A lie.

Sorry. Any 2-year-old knows that the world doesn't disappear whenever you close your eyes. Don't see a lot of 70-year-olds playing peek-a-boo, do you? ("If we just close our eyes, Marge, it'll all go away...")

Deal with it. Get over it. Live with it. It's 2008.

And so it goes.

Friday funnies

Equal time:




And so it goes.

Thanks, Ronnie

And airline deregulation was a good idea exactly why?

Yeah, because of deregulation, not are the airlines incredibly healthy financially, they're treating their passengers with great respect, too.

A New York City man is suing JetBlue Airways Corp. for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California.

And the pilot's justification?

...the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board,"...

Ronnie (or more accurately his handlers since Ronnie never had a clue what was going on) have made America such a nicer place in which to live.

Thanks again.

And so it goes.