The Big Awful Troof About Economics

I've decided that I'm going to share with you my Big Awful Troof About Economics, and you're all gonna scream and run away from crazy old Wiggy. But that's ok, I'm on a tear.

Here it is, and it is simple.

Take a pile of clean, dry, sand. Put it on a flat surface that's big enough to hold it. Try to make it into a hill. That's right, just pile it up.

You may note that you don't get too far. Unless the sand is wet and sticky, it won't take very many interesting shapes - it doesn't work together, and the result you get is a long, low, vaguely pryamid-shaped cone with a very wide base and a very short height.

This is the state of economic strata in a capitalist system. There are a LOT of poor, a LOT of middle class, and fewer and fewer upper class individuals in the USA. The loot is not distributed equitably - the rich have more per capita than the poor - that's why we call them 'rich'.

Ever buddy with me so far?

Now, take your sand pyramid and remove the base from it. Make it so there are no poor, only middle class and rich.

Right. You can't do it.

And neither can any political party.

The Republicans get votes from the rich and the upper middle class who wish to stay that way - and the Republicans give lots of breaks to them to ensure their loyalty. Screw the poor. They get some votes from the lower middle class and the poor by promising them that they, too, can be rich someday if they work really hard. And since it does happen from time to time, there are usually some examples to cite.

The Democrats get votes from the poor and the lower middle and middle-middle class who wish to move up the ladder - by promising them largess in various forms as their due, their 'right'. The Democrats point out those who are already rich and well off as undeserving souls who should have their loot taken away and redistributed for the good of all (all except the rich and the upper middle class, presumably, because they're bad for having gotten there). They get some votes from the upper middle and upper classes because some people will always feel guilty for being rich when there are still poor, and some people are just plain idiots.

Both parties neglect to point out that there must always BE a base to the pyramid. No base, no pyramid.

And rightfully so. Who, in their right mind, would point out to a nation that has more guns than people, that the poor should remain that way - that nobody is going to do nothing for them - that they'll make it on their own or not at all? That political party would have a shiv up their yib-yob before they could say "Fong me!" So nobody can tell the troof.

Both parties are playing an ugly, ugly, game. Both promise largess to one group or another - the rich, to help them remain that way and the poor, to lift them up out of poverty. Evil.

I have a cleaner message - that one must face reality. In a capitalist, free-market economy, there must always be poor and a lot of them. However, the goal is that they be working-class poor. Non-working poor are a drain on the economy. There must also be a middle-class. They support, manage, and profit from the businesses run on the backs of the working-class poor, and they in turn support the big business owners and speculative investors, the rich. One might say that the rich do nothing, but that's not true. They spend money, and they invest it. When they spend on luxuries, they support those industies that produce those luxuries. When they invest money, they create businesses and jobs indirectly by buying stocks that support private industry and bonds that build infrastructure. The only time a rich person's money is not working to help the American economy is when they take it and leave the country for good, or stash it all in a mattress or something.

The good news is that the boundaries between the economic layers are porous. A person can move from poverty to wealth, through hard work, good ideas, perserverance, luck, skill, or even criminal activity. There are no promises - a person who is very deserving might not make it - a complete prat might just triumph. The system is not random, but probably inscrutable in terms of determining who succeeds and who fails.

But the one thing that anyone who WANTS to lead people politically should be saying; you have to try if you want to succeed. If you don't try, you sink like a stone. If you're ok with that, then have at it, brother.

The Big Lie of the Republican Party is that they want to help the poor. Well, in a sense, they do. They want to help the poor to remain poor. The problem they're having of late is that their overzealous support of the rich have put too many poor into the 'non-working' category. That's bad.

The Big Lie of the Democratic Party is that they want to lift the poor out of their poverty. First, consider this - if a party derives its power from the working-class poor and promises that they won't be poor anymore - what vested interest do they have in destroying their own power base by making that come true? Right. Second, when pressed, they will sometimes admit that they can't make it so that there are no more poor. But, they insist, they want to 'raise the bar' so that everybody has MORE and thus the poorest of the poor are now where the richest of the poor were last decade. That's a function of technology and jobs, dimwits. If you abolish pennies, then the nickel is the new penny. There is always a 'lowest' and how comfortable it is to be in the lowest position has to do with jobs, food, and housing.

The Big, Awful, Troof About Economics (TM) is this - we need working-class poor. Lots and lots of them. No one wants to say it, so I will.

And I say this having been a member of that group, and knowing full well that I could return there on short notice.

Smooches,

Wiggy

LiberContrarian

The question was asked recently, why I am a 'registered' Libertarian? Especially since in the USA, the Republicans and Democrats control purt near ever thang. What's the point? Isn't it just spittin' against the wind for distance?

Well, not in my half-baked, beer-soaked philosophy of politics, it isn't. Let me explain.

First off, as has been mentioned - Libertarians belong to a small political party that takes positions from both the Left and the Right and combines them to come up with a party platform that insists on maximum liberty for the individual, hence the name. The Libertarians believe that governments govern best which govern least.

Where the Repubs would restrict the right of the individual to pursue happiness as they please (by engaging in bedroom acrobatics or with unusual partners, or by taking drugs, etc), the Libs would restrict the right of the individual to own guns, to have their own propery kept from prying government eyes, and so on. Libertarians tend to think that ALL the Constitution and ALL the Bill of Rights were pretty neat things, and pretty much self-explanatory, and pretty much ought to be kept more-or-less intact.

I want my first amendment and my second amendment. I want freedom of speech and freedom to own personal firearms. I want to have the freedom to talk about guns and the freedom to shoot guns at people who talk. Wait. Scratch that last one. OK, then.

Anyway, there's lots more that Libertarians believe, and I won't drone on and on about it - there's a link in the title of this rant if you're interested.

My basic, indissoluble political desire is this - leave me the hell alone. Oh, sure, Brandeis said it more eloquently, but then he prolly had all his teeth and brain cells intact - I do the best I can.

What do you call that political philosophy? I'd form the "Leave me the Hell Alone Party," but I'm too lazy, and the Libertarians pretty much have it nailed down anyway.

I am a Libertarian, not because I agree with everything that the Libertarian platform proposes, but because I can't in good conscience get behind either the Republican or the Democratic party agendas. I'm just way too far beyond that nonsense these days. So I'll live with the few little disagreements I have with the Libertarians and call it good.

Why not just call myself 'independent'? Why not just take a position with the Republicans (who come closer to my beliefs than the Democrats, but not by that much)? Why continue to support a losing party? Why 'throw my vote away'?

I have several reasons for this. First, there are two parties because people didn't want to 'throw their vote away' and support died out for other political parties. That can never change until people start to move away from the two biggies.

If people move away from being Repubs or being Democrats, and become 'nothing' or 'independent', then their voice is just that - their one voice. Even if some group wanted to pander to them - how could they?

By being a 'registered' Libertarian, I am one of the growing number of people who make sure that rules and laws are met that keep Libertarian candidates on the ballots in numerous states. The numbers game is also how federal matching funding for political advertising is done.

As a Libertarian, I also contribute in a very small way to being a 'demographic' that someone must consider in their electoral campaigns, if not actually try to pander to. "What do the Libertarians say?" should become a question that every politician asks their handlers and spin doctors, just like they currently do for the NRA and the AARP and so on. The bigger the Libertarian party becomes, the more likely that is to happen. So I joined, and I wait patiently for all the other US citizens with brain cells and a tad less greed than the rest of us to come join me.

Many essentially Libertarian ideas get co-opted by Republicans and Democrats alike - they pervert them, but they take them. They didn't just come up with that crap on their own, they got it from us. It may be small comfort, but at least it proves they're watching us.

And that brings up another question. What about voting? Well, I vote. As often as I can, in local, county, state, and federal elections. However, I don't vote some kind of party line. Heck, with Libertarians, there usually isn't one. If the contested office is between two unaffiliated people, like it is with judges here in NC, then I refrain from voting. I don't know who they are, I don't know what their records or beliefs are, so I don't vote one way or another. If it is a contest between politicians who are affiliated with a party system, I try to vote for the Libertarian if I can - I try to research before the election to see if I can find out more about them. If in a total quandry, I may vote for the Republican - seeing them as often the lesser of two evils. But there are some Democrats that I have powerful respect for, and I vote for them - such as Richard Lamm, former Governor of Colorado. Brilliant mind, good leader, decent person. Naturally, he ended up leaving the Democratic party - who could blame him?

And another thing about voting - I don't encourage people to do it. I learned this from my favorite Jehovah's Bystander, Milcom Miasma. He pointed out that stupid people who don't research the issues and the candidates, but who just vote for the tallest guy or the most white or the cutest smile or the best ad campaign or the catchiest jingle or the one who promises them the most - these morons should stay away from the polls - they do more harm than good.

Don't mount Herculean efforts to get people registered to vote, to get them to the polls - hell no! People who have to be cajoled into voting shouldn't. That simple.

So that's why I'm a Libertarian, even though my vote may not get me what I want. Except for the 'don't vote you morons' bit - that I got from Milcom and he is right.

Libertarian Hugs,

Wiggy

PS - Although I must admit that I am greatly tempted by the Monster Raving Loony Party - those Brits are wacky!

Yes, Rhonda, There Is A Digicam

So I got a call from my obnoxious sister in North Dakota who was obviously under the influence of too much Lutefisk. She has apparently decided that although she has no desire to blog, she should be able to call her brother any time she wants and demand an instant reply to any question her so-called friends have posed in the past.

So, this is for Rhonda - who had asked me about what digicam to buy - because she likes my photos. But not my blog, because I don't reply to her requests instantly.

Rhonda, I'm not sure what digicam would work best for you. I know what you mean with the half-second delay - and many digicams still have that problem, although in general, it gets better with every new generation of digicams to come down the pike.

Get it, 'pike'? North Dakota, northern pike? I slay myself.

I recently assisted a good friend's father to find the right digicam, and he seems quite happy with his choice. I thought he'd do well with the Kodak DX7440. I also recommend the docking station, and the printer dock if you really want to print your own photographs. Otherwise, Walmart and Walgrees, etc, have low-cost printing kiosks for the digital memory sticks and you can take them in and print there.

I am including a link to a place I've relied upon for years, Steve's Digicams. He reviews all the digicams that come out, and although like me, he is loathe to make recommendations for specific people because he does not know what might be important to them, he does have a section called "The Best Cameras" and these fit roughly within certain categories, as you'll see if you go there. You can click on any particular camera and read all about it. Most likely, you'll want to just skip to "Steve's Conclusion" and read just what he sums up about the pros and cons of any particular camera.

I hope Rhonda, that you don't lose the faith. Of course there is a digicam - it lives in the hearts of every good boy and girl. As long as there is a credit card, there will always be a digicam.

Merry Digimas,

Wiggy

Movies we need to see

I'm back in Wilson, thank goodness.

And I was thinking about movies that have never been made, but which should be:

Retief of the CDT, based on the books by the late Keith Laumer.

The Warlock Unlocked by Christopher Stasheff.

OK, that's it. Just a couple of wishes for movies that I'd like.

And Saint Vidicon, of course:

Saint Vidicon of Cathode

Nothing more serious than that. Have a nice day!

Smooches,

Wiggy

We're Innocent When We Rant

I stole that title (and modified it a bit) from Tom Waits, and I hope he doesn't get all mad at me again, because I just got over the last time. OK, then.

So, if you read my last entry, I was in Charlotte and bored. Which, I still am. But now it is several hours later and I have consumed beer. Well, two bottles. I am a lightweight. That's probably good.

My coworker and I dined at the "Omaha Steakhouse" which is across the street from the La Quinta Inn where we're staying tonight. I had a Sirloin that was mighty good, but I waited too long to eat the mashed potatoes and they became a solid block of some sort of solid blocky thing. Almost no effort to make it go airborne, is what.

So my sister called me the other night, just checking to say hello. Or maybe she wanted something. With my family, I am never sure. She accused me of once saying that my family was stupid or evil or something, because I complained in this blog that they continue to send me those emails warning me about the evils of Doctor Pepper, or informing me that if I forward this email to six of my closest friends, Bill Gates will give me his favorite car as compensation for having them kick my butt for spamming them or something. Well, she's not the one who does it, but I've got a few familial members who do persist in that sort of thing. Although, come to think about it, I haven't heard from them in awhile. Egads, maybe I did say something awful about my family. I'm sorry, family! None of you are stupid. I'm the stupid one, because getting your family mad at you is not a good thing, it pretty much sucks.

Anyway, my sister wanted me to post something on my blog for her coworkers up there in North Dakota, which apparently they read this from time to time and find it amusing for some reason. She said she got into some kind of heated debate over fingerprinting. That's right, those unique little identifiers that ever buddy with fingers has. Some of her coworkers apparently feel that ever buddy should just march on down to the local police department and put their fingerprints on file with the police. And why not? If they've done nothing wrong, they've nothing to hide, right? Solve a lot of crimes, is what. And no harm done to the average citizen.

Really? Well, I have to agree with my sister and take the opposing viewpoint here. My fingerprints are mine. That is, they are unique to me, they're attached to the ends of my fingers. They belong to me, as it were. Yes, I leave them ever where, but that's a side-effect of having epidermis, more or less. And yes, if I'm sitting in a smoky bar with an undercover agent for the FBI and a mastermind in the ways of espianage, and he picks up a glass I've used to drink highballs in and sends it to the lab for analysis, they can get my fingerprints, sure enough. But that's property I've abandoned, eh? Once I put my trash out at the curb, the police can paw through it if they want to. Why they'd want to, I have no idea, but still.

In the meantime, my fingerprints are mine. The government may not have them voluntarily under any circumstances.

"The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men—the right to be let alone."

-Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The right to privacy itself is built on this simple building block - that we all have the right to be left alone. Privacy itself means that all that conveys meaning about me is my possession, to be given out or withheld as I wish. There are limits. For example, if I go out in public, I may be photographed. In this case, I have chosen to go out in public - I did not have to do so, and in fact, if I wished not to be photographed, I had only to remain inside my house like Howard Hughes.

Privacy also means to be secure in my property and my possessions. Few things are more personal to me than my fingerprints, which they say are unique in all the world. Well, I've got some nasty old skivvies that are pretty unique, but let's not go there, this here is a family blog.

Now let's take another look at that argument about giving up one's fingerprints voluntarily. If we have done nothing wrong, we have nothing to fear. Is that right?

Once upon a time, it was legal to drink alcohol in this country. Then, it was illegal. Then, it was legal again. During the time it was illegal, if your fingerprints could have been found on a beer bottle (presuming they had that technology at the time and cared to use it for this), the police could have arrested you and convicted you of violating the law. That was a very unpopular law. How would you have come down? Would you have given up a glass of wine with dinner, a beer after a barbecue? Or would you have been one of that nation of scofflaws who continued to drink?

Let's take it a little farther. Let's install a device in your car that will report to the police any time you speed. If you don't speed, you have nothing to fear, right? What about a device that notes when you do a rolling stop at a stop sign or red light. And we're not going to install it in a traffic light, we're going to install it in your car. Your car will inform on your to the police if you break any laws. You ok with that? How long will you have your license, do you suppose? And assuming you're some kind of goody-two-shoes, what about the 90% of your coworkers who will soon lose their licenses and not be able to come to work because they can't drive anymore and the public transportation system can't handle all of them at once? Say bye-bye to your nice economy, to the company you work for, to your job.

And what about laws that haven't been thought up yet? It was once legal in the USA to own machine guns. Not anymore, that law was changed in the 1930's. We're seeing more and more laws against things that used to be legal - I think we can all take a guess and agree that someday fairly soon, smoking tobacco will become illegal. You a smoker? How do you like the idea that your fingerprints on a cigarette butt might send you to jail? I'm just using this as an example, folks. If you think 'That could never happen' you might want to think again - lots of things become illegal over time and from the perspective of the person living when it was legal - they would have thought the very idea preposterous. Why on earth would the government ban cocaine in patent medicines, the stuff is good for you, right?

Then you've got the whole issue of state's rights. This USA is a union of states. The whole idea was that the federal government was supposed to be somewhat weak, given only enough power by the states that formed it so that it could raise an army and treat with foreign nations with one voice. That and regulate interstate commerce, which turned into a real nightmare, but we don't have to go there now. So you may have heard - there is no such federal crime as 'murder'. That's a state issue, and every state defines it differently. It may not seem like it now, but the various and several US states were supposed to be essentially little sovereign nations of their own - they just agreed to have a caretaker-type government over them to keep one state from doing things like leaving the union or imposing cross-state taxes, or closing borders, etc. So what in the world would the federal government be doing collecting fingerprints for anyway?

OK, winding down now - as it happens, you fingerprint happy folks are in luck anyway. You already have your index fingerprint on file if you have a driver's license in most states. And if you've ever been in the military, they've got your fingerprints on file. And so too with most federal licenses, like gun dealers and so on. The issue is not really the right to collect fingerprints anymore - I may not like it, but that battle's mostly over. The battle now is over the right of the federal government to collect them up and store them in a cross-referenced database that any law-enforcement agency can examine.

Paranoid I am. Fair enough. But mark my words - best intentions aside - if you give the federal government free reign to collect, store, and search private information on all American citizens in one massive database, the day will come when not the kind of crooks you imagine will be getting arrested. It will be your neighbor for checking out a book from the library that is on the now-restricted list. It will be a teacher who said something unapproved where the microphone in her classroom could hear it. It will be something derogatory you said about an elected official into a telephone or via an email message to a friend in an unguarded moment.

And if you don't believe me - tell me this. NAME ONE TIME (just one) when the federal government has instituted new regulations making a given status or action a crime and then later removed it voluntarily. Even prohibition had to be removed by the states. The federal government does not give power back to the people. EVER. Keep giving up your rights voluntarily, because "you have nothing to hide." Remember that when they come for you or your children's children.

Now, getting back to the serious issues at hand - on my woozy way back from the Omaha Steak House, I recall my coworker asking me something about Hilary Clinton. I started channeling my late father, with a statement about the futility of gun control, suggesting instead that the government needs to start giving away guns and ammunition to citizens, and ended up by nearly shouting that "Hilary Clinton is not just wrong, she's evil." I think I pantomimed horns on the top of my head and ran around the street yelling "It takes a village to raise an idiot" or something like that.

So that evening ended well.

I anticipate a quiet ride back to Wilson tomorrow.

Peace Out,

Wiggy

Bored in Charlotte

God, I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored, I could not be more bored. I'd set my pants on fire for a larf, but hey, I don't smoke anymore. Bored!

I had to drive to Charlotte today on account of bidness. Well, that's not totally true, I actually had to be driven to Charlotte. This is because of some recurring nastiness on the part of my boss, who fails to understand my absolute need to be driven everywhere in a stretch limo and worshipped as one would worship a minor diety. And it is only 200 some-odd miles from Wilson to Charlotte, NC, is all I'm saying. Little limo drive would do me good. Drinkies and stuff.

And my air conditioning is broken in my 1996 Chevy Lumina, which is pretty much a good car except for that - and the fact that it still has expired New Mexico license plates on it, which is all North Carolina's fault, but I won't get into that now.

So my coworker drove, and as a result, I am stuck here in the La Quinta hotel in Charlotte, bored to tears, and not much to do until dinner time. It has been beastly hot and humid all around NC since about Sunday, and all I did then was to rip the leather covering off of a 50-year-old folding camera and replace it with leather from a lady's boot that I got at Goodwill for 3 bucks. That got some odd looks, I can tell you.

So, I heard some thunder and looked out the window and holy cow! it has clouded up and is about to commence with the rain. Looks like it might be a good one, too, is what. So, since my coworker is asleep or dead down the hallway in her room, I grab my digital camera and head out to see what's what. Gotta be something going on.

Right?

First thing, right off. You know those red-light cameras? Well, I guess they got them here too. But they tell you about them first. Seems a fair trade-off.

But some wag has covered up the 'En' and now it says 'forced'. Not really all that funny, if you ask me. But it must have been to someone, that sign is a good 10 feet in the air. People are strange.

Then I see this sign, I don't know what to make of it. Towed in? Towed in where? Somebody explain this one to me.

Well, this is all pretty boring, so here is a photo of my boring hotel in boring Charlotte and my boring, boring, life. Nice dark clouds, though. I seriously need a drink.

Oh yeah, I loved this one. The smelly elevator. Smells like salami mixed with gym socks, what's that about? Anyway, I've seen my share of elevator inspection forms. Most times, they're bad copies of bad copies of a form somebody paid off an inspector for. You can hardly read them, but who really cares? Not this one. Has the photo of Cherie Berry on it. Now, ignoring the impossible name, who or what is Cherie Berry? Well, she's the North Carolina Commissioner of Labor, is what. What? Commissioner of Labor? Out inspecting elevators? Seems odd. But then, ever thang is odd in North Carolina.

And wait just a darn minute. A photo? A photo of Cherie Berry, Commissioner of Labor? On the elevator inspection form? Um...boggle. Why? Why, in the name of Hairy Male, do I want to see Cherie Berry's mug as I plunge to my death in a smelly elevator from hell? And if I'm not going to plunge to my death, also why do I want to look at Cherie Berry? Is there some greater good being perpetrated here?

And then, the final insult. I'm getting warmed up, and here the elevator ride is nearly over. Yes, it is hard to read, sorry. It is a brass plaque that instructs Firefighters how to operate an elevator. Yes. I read the instructions, even though I am not a firefighter. They are the exact instructions one would need if one were born too stupid to know instinctively how an elevator works.

And I have to wonder. Oh, Hair Male, pray for me. Why does a firefighter, brave and bold and bursting with desire to put out fires, need instructions on how to operate an elevator? And what, pray, is a firefighter DOING on an elevator? If he is engaged in fighting a fire, perhaps he might want to take, you know, THE STAIRS? And if he is just visiting, again I must ask - how is it that he needs instructions on how to operate an elevator?

There has to be something more to this. But in the meantime, I am now officially bored of this and I am hungry. There is a steak place nearby, and I'll bet they have beer. I'm outty.

Bored!

Wiggy in Charlotte

Built Ford Tough. Just Not In Reality.

Ever now and then, I pay attention to a television commercial. This evening, Mrs. Wiggy and I were watching HGTV - something about nuts with too much money who build houses in the Great White North or something like that. Buncha trust fund babies, as far as I could tell, names like Hemingway and Sellers. Anyway.

A commercial came on for Ford trucks. I've seen this one before, it shows a Ford truck with a bunch of Ford executives sitting in a crew-cab style pickup truck while it crushed from both ends by massive bulldozers. RRRRR!

The truck gets the squeeze, all right. But look, the cab is intact! And the Ford executives, they get out and stand proudly in front of the steaming hulk of their truck. Wow, look, they put their fat-cat asses on the line. They're proud and brave. Whew, I'm sure glad they're OK.

But wait.

What's that on the screen, in little teeny-tiny letters?

Dramatization. Underbody Digitally Modified.

OK, let me get this straight. The bottom of the truck was digitally modified.

Um, why? Did the guts of the truck spill out of the bottom, making a big mess of gasoline and oil and brake fluid and so on? I would expect it to, it just got crushed by a pair of bulldozers, for crying out loud.

Or did something else happen?

Maybe a couple of Ford execs got the pinch. Oooh, that's taking incentive programs to a new level, eh? Or maybe it was some captured GM execs. They'll do anything for money these days.

But come on. I understand 'digitally modified' - it means almost nothing, it doesn't say what was done. How was it changed?

I see disclaimers all the time - some guy racing the newest Blortbag 2000 and tear-assing through a four-wheel drift that would have made Hunter Thompson proud and the disclaimer tells us that he's a professional driver on a closed course. Well, no screaming eagle shit, there, pardner. I didn't think he was your average Joe Sixpack on his way to work. Well, maybe in some cities...

But this disclaimer pretty much says "You know what we just showed you? About how safe our truck is? Well, that's pretty much crap. OK, then, see ya." It contradicts the commercial itself, is what.

Nobody expects TV commercials to tell the truth. Ever dang thing is new, improved, new and improved, cheaper, bigger, better, and so on. By this time, everything should be perfect, cost nothing, and come in unlimited quantities.

But this is something new. We show you a picture of how safe our truck is, then we say in tiny little letters that no, this didn't really happen.

Now, I don't know if Ford trucks are safe or not. But I do know that they are selling us a line of crap, hoping that no one sees the little disclaimer where they pretty much admit they're lying. I got a flying middle finger for them, and it's not digitally enhanced, either.

Best,

Wiggy

Just some photos

I just enjoyed taking these photos today, so I thought I'd share them. I used a Pentax digital SLR and a WWII-era Kodak Aero-Ektar lens from a bomber airplane. Hot geeky fun!

Later,

Wiggy

The Anti-Flag Burning Amendment

The Anti-Flag Burning Amendment

-or-

My Pantaloons Have Been Disgraced

I am not sure how this all got started again. It seems to come along a couple of times every decade, doesn't it? Somebody gets all hot and bothered about flag-burning and how it is a bad, unpatriotic, anti-American thing, and it is something to which a stop ought to be put.

Let me begin by asking - do we have a flag-burning epidemic here in the USA? Have there been a terrible lot of lunatics running around, pulling down the very patriotic US flags that fly over Denny's restaurants and Post Offices and burning them? Has there been a run on US flags at Lowes, with subsequent flag-caused conflagrations in public spaces? I'm thinking not, but please clue me if I'm way off base with this.

I should also say that I'm a veteran of the US Armed Forces - a Marine, to be precise. I love the USA. I love our flag. I would never intentionally disgrace Old Glory or treat it with less than the respect that I feel it deserves. I'm a patriotic guy, and I'm pretty much of the unpopular opinion that if people hate it here, they should try to change things to something they do like, or leave. I think Michael Moore needs a swift kick in the whiney, crybaby, ass, and yes, I think he does hate the USA.

I also treasure our Liberties. We fought hard for them, some 200-plus years ago, and we ought to consider keeping them around. We in the USA are unique in the world, pretty much - our Liberties are better than anyone else's. Sorry France, sorry England. Love ya, but your freedoms are way second-class compared to those of the USA. See, our Liberties are not derived from the government and promised to the people. Ours come from the people and we specifically forbid the government from interfering with the rights we defined. That is a fundamental, and I think important distinction. Rights that are given can be ungiven. We instead have never ceded to the government the right to curtail ANY of our rights, except where we have specifically permitted it.

The famous "Bill of Rights" about which our friends in other countries have heard about until they want to puke do not give us citizens any rights. No. Read it again, I'll wait. Are you back? OK, good. What the Bill of Rights does is prohibit the federal government from interfering with specific and defined rights that we citizens reserve for ourselves in perpetuity. That's right, prohibit. Don't believe me? READ IT AGAIN. The Bill of Rights does not say "You citizens have the right of free speech." No. It says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..." Are we clear? How hard is this to understand? I'm a conservative, and thus, much less intelligent than my liberal friends (just ask them), but even I get this. Congress is forbidden means Congress is forbidden. Q.E. FREAKING D.

So, some time ago, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS for short) said that burning a flag is a protected expression of speech - it is a statement. Some clot-heads would argue that the Framers of the Constitution meant actual words spoken into the air as the only definition of 'speech', but what then of printed words? What of pictures and photographs? Are they not also saying something? And if they're speech, then so are demonstrations of anger, dismay, shock, horror, and so on. As long as you don't interfere with other Constitutional rights, then light that flag up, brother. Have a weenie cookout on flags. Knock yourself out. And no, Johnny, you don't have the Constitutional right not to be offended, so get over yourself.

Do I like it when people burn flags? Hell, no. If it is people in other countries, I don't care much. They usually can't get a real flag anyway, so they draw the wrong number of stars and bars on a sheet and burn that, along with a caricature of some current US president that looks like a giant Ken doll. I figure they're entitled to hate us if they want, God knows we only give them a bazillion dollars a year in aid to hate us, I'd hate us too. And anyway, the heat from the fire is pretty much a good locater for where the Sidewinder missile we fire from offshore should go. OK, just kidding on that last part.

When it is people in the USA who burn flags, I figure they're either severely fashed about something that matters to them, or they're wackos. Since I'm often fashed and pretty much of a wacko myself, I can dig that. I'm not the flag-burning kind of wacko, but I guess we wackos can give each other some space here.

No, I don't like it when people burn the flag of the USA. But I shrug and get on with my life. I can't make anyone honor the symbols that I hold dear. And if I could - do I want fake respect for my patriotic symbols? I mean, come on. It's a flag. Cloth and dye, some thread holding it together. The meaning it has is the meaning I give it, in my own mind. Those who honor it with me are my brothers and sisters in patriotism and this mutual respect for our symbol draws us together, but that feeling would not vanish if the flag were suddenly destroyed.

It is a symbol. If it could be harmed by someone burning it, it would not be a symbol anymore.

Is any of this sinking in?

Anyway, since it has been decided by SCOTUS that the government can't stop people from picking up dog poop with a US flag if they want to, the only way to change that would be to introduce another amendment to the US Constitution.

You see (and a lot of you lot don't), you can't pass a law forbidding something that the Constitution and Bill of Rights says you can't pass a law forbidding. The only way to get your forbid on is to amend the Constitution yourself. Which we do here in the USA from time to time, but it is a very Big Deal.

Passing the enabling legislation in Congress is only the first little baby step. Then it has to go to each state in turn, be debated and voted upon, and only if two-thirds of the 50 US states pass it, does it get tacked on to the US Constitution. According to Wikipedia, "over 10,000 Constitutional amendments have been proposed in Congress since 1789; in a typical Congressional year in the last several decades, between 100 and 200 are proposed." But the US Constitution has only been amended 18 times since it was created, and only one amendment directly counter-acted another.

So what do you think the chances are that there will actually BE an anti-flag burning amendment put before the states, let alone that it will pass and become a new amendment to the Constitution? I'd put it somewhere less than than the chance that Bill Gates will send me his entire wealth in a single check to thank me for my public service, and somewhat more than the chance that I'll regain my sanity this decade.

And that, finally, exhaustingly, brings me to the point of this screed. Thanks for hanging in there.

Do you think, my intelligent and smart and wonderful droogies, that the members of Congress are somehow not aware of the facts of amendment proposals? Do you suppose that they are clueless to the concept that nothing they do about this matters even a little bit?

OK, they're pretty much a pack of ravening wolves and pretty stupid in general, I'll give you that. But they ain't quite that dumb. They know perfectly well that this is nothing but talk.

Incendiary talk. Puffery. A chance for them to look good by being all patriotic and stuff, and a chance to make the Other Side look like unpatriotic communists or something. Who would take a stand against an anti-flag burning amendment? Why, a commie who hates his mommie, that's who! Rotten old mommie-haters. Boo! Boo!

Well, since we've established that none of this fooferaw matters in the slightest, then what's it all about? Just trying to make a few political points shy of an election? No, no elections in sight for a while yet.

This, my friends, is what they call a red herring. There is something going on in the magician's other hand, and we're being distracted with this divisive foolishness.

If you ever hear a politician expound on the need for an anti-flag burning amendment, please take note:

1. There is no flag-burning problem at present.
2. There never was a big issue with flag burning.
3. It is a terribly divisive issue.
4. Nobody in their right mind is in favor of burning flags, even the people against the amendment.
5. Make sure your hand is firmly on your wallet.

The chances are about 100% that it is not your flag, it is your pantaloons that are about to be disgraced by having been groped by the government's dirty fingers yet again.

It is not about flags. It never was.

Smooches,

Wiggy

On a More Serious Note - Government Taking of Private Property

I don't often get too serious on this here blog. The world's already a serious enough place, you don't need me getting all Wiggy with it.

In the USA, there has always been a concept called "Eminent Domain" (which has nothing to do with Eminem) which says that the government (local, state, federal) can take someone's private property - usually land - for public use, without permission from the property's owner. Generally, compensation must be given, but the agency that takes the property also determines what the property is worth.

This has raised a lot of hackles in the past, and although it does not sit well with a lot of folks, it has been the law of the land in the USA since there was a USA.

Let's say that a city wants to get rid of a slum and replace it with modernized public housing. They attempt to buy the properties in question, but if the owners do not wish to sell, the government entity in question condemns the property, throws everyone out, tears down the buildings, and builds what they want.

The key, until today, has been that this taking has had to be for a public purpose. In other words, if the government was going to interfere with the private property rights of an individual, they had to first demonstrate that it served some compelling public interest.

This is a property rights versus needs of society issue, and there can never be an answer that serves everyone or make ever buddy happy. Society has needs - if they are genuine, they must trump the needs of private property owners if those collide. I'll buy that.

Supreme Court Expands Power of Eminent Domain - LA Times

The Constitution says government may take private property "for public use" if it pays the owners "just compensation." Originally, public use meant the land was used for roads, canals or military bases. In the 19th century, railroads were permitted to take private lands because they served the public.

But today, things changed.

The US Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that government entities had the right under Eminent Domain to take private property and give it to another private entity. The 'catch' is that it must be 'for the public good'. Of course, the Justices failed to define what the 'public good' might be. They weaseled on that - it could be a small town that wants a Walmart, and Walmart will build one for them if it gets the nice private lake your house sits on and your family has owned for a gazillion years. Walmarts are good, says the small town - and you get to go live in your car.

It is decisions like this that really gripe my wagger.

Smooches,

Wiggy

The Cult of TTFL (Trust The Force, Luke)

I am a geek. I know it. You know it. I love it. I make my living being a geek. I grok technology. I love to try all the new stuff, I write Perl scripts to automate my bird feeder. Ultra-geek.

And I've been doing it a long time. Ran a BBS in the 2400 baud modem days. Got my first Internet account in 1985, made my first Usenet post in 1989. I'm an Internet OG (old guy).

But I am the very first of that generation that was born into the non-digital age and raised in a slowly-accelerating age of technology. I'm old enough to remember the first color TV my parents bought. I predate cable TV, microwave ovens, MTV, Nintendo, Pong, Asteroids, Mario Brothers, Apollo, astronauts on the moon, personal computers, cassette tapes, 8-track tapes, music Compact Discs and MP3's.

I wrote my first computer programs in BASIC and stored them on punched paper tape. My first workstation was a shared-use TTY terminal (no glass tube, just keyboard and typewriter/paper interface) and a 300 baud acoustic modem to a mainframe computer. I learned COBOL on a MicroVAX in college.

In other words, I have a foot firmly planted in both worlds.

And I'm no Luddite. I don't long for the Good Old Days(TM), I enjoy technology and all that that implies. OK, I enjoy a few Luddy pastimes, but come on, they're not that bad. Just film photography and bowling, really. OK, I collect old cameras, but I have a digital camera too, honest!

I worry about the generation that came after mine. Those twenty-somethings who grew up in a world that had already largely absorbed the fact that everything would be computer-controlled or assisted from that point on.

My parent's generation distrusted computers.

My generation has respect for computers, but doesn't think they're all that.

My niece and nephew's generation thinks that anything that is NOT computer-generated or controlled is untrustworthy. And that unbending trust in technology just creeps me right out.

They're the TTFL (Trust The Force, Luke) generation, and they're scaring the hell out of me.

If a computer tells them that 2 plus 2 equals 5, they're not going to get out a pencil and try to figure it out for themselves. They're not even going to suspect that 5 might NOT be the answer - curiosity about such things has been bred out of them.

I was arguing why an auto-focus camera was not always right. Sometimes, it can be fooled into giving an inaccurate result. Silence. Stunned, surprised, disbelieving silence.

This cannot be. The auto-focus on a digital camera is computer-controlled. It cannot be wrong. If it says that an image (no longer called a 'photograph', by the way) is in focus, then that's what it is. Any appearance that the resulting image is not in focus must be due to other factors. It could not be that the auto-focus could be wrong. It would be more likely that the item being photographed was fuzzy than that the camera botched the job.

I made the mistake of insisting that *I* can focus a camera better than an auto-focus lens, most of the time.

I feel like John Henry. But I won't let that Steam Drill beat me down, no, no. I'll die with this SLR in my hand, Lord, Lord. I'll die with this manual focus camera in my hand.

If these kids' clocks told them that it was noon at midnight, they'd be laying on the beach with sunglasses on in the middle of the night - no way could the clock be wrong, must be something wonky with the sun.

These are the people who want computerized voting. What could go wrong? Technology doesn't make mistakes. There won't be any of those pesky 'Hanging Chad' problems when the technology weenies are running the elections. The answer may not honest, but it will be definite.

Technology is great. TTFL is Bad Mojo.

Winding a Watch is Cool,

Wiggy

Say Hello To My Little Friend

This our newest kitten - Zone V. "Five" for short.





The Day Lillies are out - looking good!



As are the Hydrangeas (am I spelling that right)? Never mind, it's late.



Molly smells a flower. Strange for her, she usually eats them. Well, to be fair, she eats more or less anything. This time, she just smelled.



Milo says hello to Five.



Mrs. Wiggy's Geraniums and Asparagus Grass. I dunno, I just take the photos. Nice, huh?



Milo is tired. What a sleepy dog. All tired out after eating our kitchen floor, no doubt.



Milo helps Mrs. Wiggy plant a thing. OK, what he's mostly doing is being a pest, but he does that with great enthusiasm. So that's good. Important to be passionate.



And Molly likes to check to make sure Mrs. Wiggy is doing OK, and if anything needs licking. Molly is good at that. Happy to oblige. If we needed a lot of stamps licked, she'd be our girl.



Your hero tries to murder Milo - but his neck is much too thick for Wiggy's weak and childish hands.



Molly giving me her soulful look. Those two different-colored eyes - creepy!



"We're innocent when we dream, when we dream, when we dream. We're innocent when we dream." - Tom Waits. Tom never met this little monster.



And that's it for a Sunday night.

Oh, one more - a photo from the Stadium Friday night. It was everything I hoped it would be...and more, my friends, and more.



I was wandering around in the Beer Garden, taking photos (really) and I came across this stalwart. I tried to get a photo - he spun around on me. I asked pretty please, he said no. Just then, a "Yuengling Girl" wandered past - he grabbed her, spun her around towards me, and demanded that I "take the pitcher now!" So, I did.

Later, won a Yuengling baseball cap - the Yuengling Girls wandered the stands, tossing out t-shirts and caps. I caught a cap, and Mrs. Wiggy asked if the girl who threw it was the one I took the photo of earlier. I allowed as I hadn't noticed, so could not recall. Mrs. Wiggy persisted - was the girl earlier blond, brunetted, long hair, short hair... I could not recall. I told Mrs. Wiggy that I was too busy trying to frame, compose, and focus. She sighed. "I worry about you," she said.

Well, I guess.

Good Night,

Wiggy

Yuengling Night at Fleming Stadium

Friday morning here in beautiful, sunny, Wilson, North Carolina. We've had a bit of a hot streak recently - hot and humid, it felt like we were living in a sauna for a week. And there's more of that coming, this being the South and all. But at the moment, we've got a bit of a break, and welcome it is, too. It's 76 degrees out, 53% humidity, and it will only get to about 85 degrees and the humidity will actually be dropping as the day goes on. Well, ok then.

Last night, we came home with a new kitten. This was a found object at the building where Mrs. Wiggy works. She's been worried about me since my old sack of fur, Pooka, passed away a year ago - wanted me to have another cat. We were going to get a gray kitten named 'Mouse' from our relatives in the Great White North, but our schedules never meshed enough to do the transfer and the cat eventually sort of grew up and was given to a local family, I understand. So this found kitty is gray, and Mrs. Wiggy went 'Awwwww' and that's pretty much all she wrote.

I'll post a photo as soon as we can get the bouncy little thing to hold still and make a precious face at us for five minutes. Maybe I'll use some NyQuil, that always calmed down my nephews when I used to babysit them. Hehehehe, for some reason, when I used to babysit, my nephews just always seemed to have colds. Babysit for eight hours, sis? No problem, that's about half a bottle of NyQuil - I've got that right here. Send 'em over.

So, Mrs. Wiggy allowed as how since she basically named our Dogs of the apocalypse, Molly and Milo, and since she had already named her two cats, Diarmuid and Fiona before we met each other, then I should name the new kitty. Oh joy! Nothing like inflicting a new name on a small creature, brings out my creative side. Well, everything brings out my creative side, come to think of it. If you read creative as intensely cruel for the sake of a laugh, anyway.

OK, so I get to name little grey kitty, do I? I rubbed my hands together in my best Snidely Whiplash imitation. I would have twirled my mustache, but I tried that once, and damn, it hurts!

Hmmm. Let's see. Physical specifications; small, furry, gray with white boots and a white face, big golden eyes. How about 'Spot'? No, says Mrs. Wiggy. Ah. Didn't know she had veto authority. That changes things.

In a few minutes, we had eliminated all of the English and foreign curse words I know, which is probably pretty predictable, if you know me.

I finally decided on one name that Mrs. Wiggy did not object to. I'm not sure why not. We're going to call the cat "Zone V." "Five," for short. You see, your hero is a photographer in his spare time. Ansel Adams, one of the most famous photographers ever, invented this system for exposing film correctly - he called it the 'Zone System' and many photographers still use it. Mostly crusty old badgers, but you get the idea. Anyway, "Zone V" is medium gray. And that's what she is - medium gray. Also, since we have two cats and two dogs, this is number five in our stable. So, I'm very clever, and Mrs. Wiggy is going to have to endure questioning eyebrows from her friends, family, and coworkers when she tells them the cat's name, and then she can sigh heavily and say "My husband named her." And they'll all go "Ohhhhh" in sympathy because hey, it's me.

So we had an enjoyable time at home last night. Diarmuid, who is our large and not terribly bright orange male cat, knew that something was up and he didn't like it, so he spent the evening growling at the box we brought Zone V home in. Well, I told you he is not terribly bright. Yes, that's right, growl at the empty box. You nitwit. Come to think about it, he could be a Congressman.

Zone V saw the puppies, who are now getting fairly close to weighing fifty pounds each, and she did a great imitation of a drop of water dancing across a hot skillet, all the while hissing and spitting. She seems to have no fear, though. Once she figured out that we had them more-or-less locked in the kitchen behind a Walmart plastic mesh force-field, she came right up to it and proceeded to stick her tongue out at them and curse in a most unladylike fashion. To boldy steal a wonderful line from "Tad Annoyed," she was 'getting her neener-neener on'. I love that line!

We all tease the puppies, though. It's fun, and the only real revenge we get for them eating large structural segments of our house. Here's Mrs. Wiggy getting her neener-neener on:



Well, we somehow all lived through the night. The puppies have continued to eat the floor in the kitchen, it is pretty obvious that we're going to be living like the Beverly Hillbillies in about five more weeks. I mean, you shouldn't have to 'mind the splinters' when you go into the kitchen for a cuppa joe. And by golly, if their digging habits in the backyard continue, I can just hire a truck to pour in some concrete and we'll have that ol' cement pond, just like the Clampetts.

So tonight, my little droogies, is Yuengling Night at Fleming Stadium. And what is Yuengling Night, you ask? Well, the fact is, I'm not sure. I mean, I know what Yuengling is. It is beer. Really good beer. Well, really good beer considering that it is American beer and you can buy it in grocery stores. I am am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Yuengling Night is when they back the semi-truck reefer up to the stadium and proceed to get the town as drunk as possible. And that's what America is all about, isn't it? If you're gonna try to sell me stuff, I don't want to hear about it on TV or the radio. I want you to pry my muppet face open and pour the stuff in. Preferably for free. And keep doing it until I can't hardly move. Then we'll all drive home like drunken little Weebles, and sleep it off, snoring to keep our annoyed spouses awake.

And you know, I have to take a minute and mention the setting as well. Fleming Stadium is a great place. It is right inside town here, just about ten blocks from our house. It's a great stadium. Built in the late 1930's, it looks like one of the baseball fields used in the film "A League of Their Own" if you recall that one. It's small and intimate and has a great grandstand. You can get in for a couple of bucks, sit wherever you want. Buy beer and watch a semi-pro summer college team play baseball the way you remember it from when you were a kid.

When the game is over, they let the under-5 kids come out and run around the bases; sometimes they have fireworks.

Yeah, the whole thing can be a little cheesy. I mean, the name of the team is the "Tobs" for crying out loud. Short for 'tobacco.' And the team mascot? A freakin' tobacco worm. Yeah, no fooling.




Next Monday? Tank-top night. And then we all get in our Firebirds with our mullets flying in the breeze, and we go home, brush our tooth, and go to bed.

Laugh all you want - I know I do.

But I'll tell you this - in Wilson, North Carolina, there is a real, honest-to-Ruth baseball stadium where they still play real baseball and drink beer and watch the shadows get longer over the playing field as the sun goes down on a hot summer night and the lights come up. We have a miniature train, provided by the local Kiwanis, that runs around a track in a small park and gives the kids rides - no lawsuit has shut it down yet. And if this isn't America, I'm not sure what is. Oh, man. I'm gonna bust out into a John Cougar Mellencamp song any second now. Well, there are worse thing. I could be singing Springsteen. Whatta world.

If Mrs. Wiggy goes for it, I'm gonna go drink some beer tonight and have a couple of slices of America.

Bottoms Up,

Wiggy

Tearing Down the Walls Between Generations

In my office, we have an Administrative Assistant who likes to write cheerful little aphorisms on the whiteboard in front of her desk. Happy little quips and comments on life's trials and tribulations that are intended to make you smile as you tear through her desk with a chainsaw. OK, I made up that last part.

Today's witticism is

"It is a statistical certainty that 100% of the shots you don't take won't go in."

The first thing this made me think was that my boss's boss has been playing too much golf. The second thing this made me consider was that the author of this glop obviously is not up on their quantum mechanics, or even Zen koans. Hmmm. Well, that leaves us with philosophical inconsistancies that start with Plato and one-hand-clapping and end with Planck's Constant and me chasing people around the office while wearing a gorilla suit, a pink tutu, and a strap-on marital aid again, screaming

"How do you know how many shots you haven't taken?"

People should think about the consequences before writing junk philosophy like that on whiteboards. Dangerous mutterings ahoy. It's just a good thing that the AA didn't dot her "i's" with little smiley faces, or it would have been on, baby.

Well, that's not what this was about. It's about the young man who cut Mrs. Wiggy off in traffic this morning.

I saw it happen, since I was in the car behind Mrs. Wiggy. That is, we drive two cars to work, because we go to different places. We start out in the same place though, so for awhile, we follow each other to work. Well, one of us follows the other, we're not that metaphysically hip. That's illegal in Wilson, North Carolina. We have baseball, though, so that kind of makes up for it.

So we came to a traffic light, and I found myself alongside the callow youth who had cut Mrs. Wiggy off mere moments before. I began to speak to him through our open car windows - he had to turn his radio down to hear me, which he did. Obliging lad.

I informed him that he had, in fact, driven around my wife at a high rate of speed and then cut her off, which act I disapproved of. I said this while making direct eye contact and kept a friendly expression on my mug, which does not look at all like Charles Manson on a crack binge, having lost his contact lenses in a sand storm.

The youth replied to my comments:

"You don't know me like that."
"Excuse me?"
"You don't know me like that."
"Know you like what?"
"Like that. I ain't tryin' to be hearing that."
"Hearing what?"

I eventually parsed that the young man was informing me that since I was not known to him and a member of his circle of friends, I was not allowed to make criticism of his driving skills. Either that or he was informing me that he had hearing problems. I'm not sure.

I persisted in informing him that his manner of driving, while perhaps impressive on a race track in the presence of giggling high school girls and his besotted peer group, left something to be desired on the city streets alongside people who just wanted to get to work. He replied,

"I'm just gettin' my speed on."

Having tumbled to the scheme, I recognized that he was telling me that this was the speed he normally drove, and he intended to continue doing so in the future. Or he was having intimate relations with the "C" from E=MC2, you decide. Either interpretation was a bit of a mind-boggler for me.

Since I realized that communiction was going to be somewhat of an issue, and we were stopped at a red light, I decided that pictographs, which have served our virtuous explorers and cocktail parties so well in the past, would be useful here. So I exited my vehicle and opened the trunk of my car and retrieved a wooden Louisville Slugger, which is amazingly adept at getting points of view across. It translates well into many patois and seems to say quite clearly:

"I believe I have the floor, Mister Chairman."

Or, in the words of his generation, I was just gettin' my bat on.
He seemed to have grasped my meaning, and although he left in great haste shortly thereafter, I trust that he'll be a bit more careful driving his car on city streets with his remaining fingers. I felt that my civic duty has been done for the day.

Communication, after all, is key. By recognizing the differences between our generations and reaching for symbols that we could both readily understand, I feel that I performed a valuable service, which I had quite hoped to be able to repeat in the future.

I must hasten to add that Mrs. Wiggy witnessed this incident and she was not as pleased as I might have otherwise hoped. Quite unlike those fine novels where the fair damsel faints into the arms of the brave knight who has rescued her from the dragon, apparently, brave knights are to be restricted to giving the dragon a stern look in the future. And doing the dishes.

Maybe I should have used a nine-iron.

Love,

Wiggy

Interstellar Smut

In keeping with my recent discovery that I can make just about any old news story into some kinda smutty thing, I bring you this:

June 14, 2005
Researchers Discover 'Earth's Bigger Cousin'

Orbiting a small red star called Gliese 876, a planet that is nearly twice the diameter of Earth, and maybe seven times as massive, appears to be a distant relative.

What's dirty about this? Well, nothing. Yet. But then...

Virtually all of the nearly 150 other extrasolar planets identified so far have been larger than Uranus, the icy gas monstrosity in our own system that is about 15 times the mass of the Earth.

OK, so now I'm five years old, obsessed with poop jokes. Still, there is something inherently funny about referring to Uranus as an "icy gas monstrosity in our own system". And describing the size of things by comparing them to Uranus? Man, that's good comedy.

So, your hero decides to grow up a little bit - I mean, come on. All the 'Uranus' jokes were done back in the 1940's for crying out loud. Nothing new here. Oh, but wait...there's more...

The only exceptions have been three small planets reported orbiting a degenerate neutron star.

Yeah, those three small planets, wearing leather jackets, were hanging out with that degenerate neutron star, smoking cigarettes and being discourteous to women. They probably shake down the good stars for their lunch money - "Psst, hey kid. That's some nice Van Allen Belt, your mommy buy you that? Is that solar radiation in your lunch bucket? What, you gonna cry me some solar flares? Hand it over!" Kids these days!

Man, I need to get some work done. This is bad. Or maybe I'll go chase around some employees in the parking lot.

With my car, I mean. It's like a bazillion degrees outside today, if I'm going to be a monster raving loony, I'm going to do it in air-conditioned comfort.

Woweee,

Wiggy

My Personal Magician

Got this in the email from life-long buddy Milcom Miasma this morning. Made me blow coffee through my nose:

Wigs,

Apparently Michael Jackson's personal magician - Majestik Magnificent appeared on Larry King Live last night to assure us all that Michael is completely innocent. Well - that's certainly good enough for me. If you can't trust a 46 year-old man's personal magician...

Smooches,

Milcom

I must say, that's a fine idea. I need a personal magician as well. Can you imagine it?

Boss: Say, Wigwam, I notice you haven't turned in a TPS report in weeks now. When can we expect that?

Wiggy: I dunno, have you looked behind your ear?

Boss: Wow! You're amazing, Wiggy! There they are, behind my ear!

Wiggy: Don't thank me, thank my personal magician!

Boss: Thanks, Majestik! [wink]

I'd never have a problem finding parking anymore - but some unlucky folks would find their automobiles turned into rutabagas. People come to my door to sell me crap - not anymore! Wham! Little scampering white mice, which our cats would make short work of.

Oh, the fun I could have. We all need a personal magician, don't you think?

And here I am, stuck with my own personal proctologist instead. Oh, it's not that he's not fun. After all, he amazes me with the stuff he finds while rummaging around in there. I thought I lost that tricycle in 1972.

A personal magician would just be more entertaining, is all I'm saying.

Keep Conjuring,

Wiggy

Deep Impact, Baby!

Oh yeah...chukka, chickah...[imitating Yello song here, sorry]...

Comet to suffer Deep Impact from US probe
For scientific purposes

Remember the blockbusters "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact"? Well, it seems that so do the scientists, since they’ll be attempting something quite similar. A NASA spacecraft steered from the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will attempt to blow up a comet next month, thus answering basic questions about the formation of the solar system by offering a better look at the nature and composition of these frozen celestial traveling bodies.

Ha! No, that's not why they want to blow up a comet! They want to blow up a comet because hey - they can say "Look at me, I blew up a freaking comet!"

We're talking about geeks here. Geek guys and girls, and folks, they're really, really, repressed. They don't get to do the Bruce Willis movies, they don't get to do Demolition Derby and Monster Trucks & Tractor Pulls, they're no Evel Knievels.

But oh, do they want to blow stuff up. And who can blame them? I like to blow stuff up as well. I can't think of anyone who doesn't. We like big fireballs and huge kabooms, and the bigger, the better.

The probe, code named Deep Impact (told you they've seen the movie), is scheduled to make a close encounter with comet Tempel 1 on July 3, when it will separate into two parts: a craft the size of a SUV that will fly by the comet, acting as an amplifier for the information sent by its photographer sidekick, the size of a washing machine. While the flyby craft watches, the kamikaze impactor will navigate itself into the path of the oncoming comet.

And it is probably programmed to broadcast the radio message 'Hey! You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? 'Cause I thought you were talkin' to me. You want some of this? Huh? You want some of this?' Being geeks, they'll probably broadcast it in Vulcan and Klingon on all standard subspace frequencies.

The idea is to reveal the interior of the comet, which is thought to contain material that has not changed since the solar system was formed, and the information will be gathered by the four data collectors the Deep Impact spacecraft is fitted with.

Yeah, baby! Reveal the interior of that comet! Come on, don't be a tease, show daddy what you got!

Only *I* could turn comet exploration into something smutty. I'm so proud.

The comet's orbit should not be significantly changed following the impact. Tempel 1, discovered in 1867, orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter every 5.5 years, and has a nucleus the size of the District of Columbia.

Whattya mean, the orbit "should not be significantly changed following the impact?" Dude, you're blowing the frickin' thing the hell up! Blowed it up good! Blowed it up real good! You do this thing right, we ain't gonna have no danged old comet no more.

You're just saying that so no tree-huggers get involved and demand that you knock it off before you drop another Skylab on their punkin haids, is what.

Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the mission is like "a bullet trying to hit a second bullet with a third bullet.", and then added "We are really threading the needle with this one. In our quest of a great scientific payoff, we are attempting something never done before at speeds and distances that are truly out of this world."

Oh, God, that science talk gets me going. RRRRRR! Talk tech to me, baby. Talk tech to me. Slower now..softer..ah, that's the spot.

Anyhow, this experiment has another important goal, shedding light on Earth's encounters, past and future, with comets.

Revenge! This is all about revenge! You comets mess with us, we're gonna mess with you. You see this? Hah? You see it? That's what you get when you mess with Earth!

"Without a doubt our planet will be hit again many times in the future, unless we can prevent it from happening," said astronomer Ken Wilson of the Science Museum of Virginia. "We're not sure yet what the best way to do this is, but in order to figure that out, we've really got to better understand what comets and asteroids are made of and how they're put together. So, in a sense, Deep Impact is our latest attempt to get to know our potential enemies."

Yes, our potential enemies who might, er, throw comets at us. Well, it could happen.

Man, I love this stuff. I hope it's on Pay-Per-View. I'd stay home from work to watch this one.

Smooches,

Wiggy

And Sometimes, It Rains

You know, sometimes you go into work in the morning and you stare at your desk and you think, "Whose stuff is this? This doesn't look like my stuff. I don't recognize any of it."

Then you realize you're sitting at someone else's desk, and that explains everything rather neatly. That also explains why the person whose desk it actually is was yelling at you while you merely stuffed him under the desk and playfully beat him over the head with a ceremonial oar that you found in the hallway display case. Which was alarmed, apparently. Argh, those bells!

Or, perhaps it is all a plot and this is your desk after all. Those sneaky bastards, they'll stop at traffic signals.

Later on, you go home for lunch, and it rains while you're trying to let the puppies outside for a romp. Bologna and cheese with ketchup is mighty good, though. And anyone who says differently - well, they're really, really insane. It really was raining, and you can prove it.

But then you have a Little Debbie's Oatmeal Creme Pie, and life is very, very, good again. Just as Little Debbie herself commanded.

Ah, if only you could bring beer to work. It would be much better than this quart of cheap tequila. Which sucks, because, no limes.

Happy Days,

Wigwam The First

Emerge VISA Card Company

I recently had a credit card account sold out from under me - if you have a VISA or MasterCard in the USA, you've probably had it happen to you at one time or another. The account was with Fleetbank (which has since become Bank of America), and they sold it to First National Bank of Omaha, which administers it under the name "Emerge." They should call it "Complete Craphead National Bank" instead, is what I think.

So I get this letter in the mail with a new credit card inside, a letter, and a phone number to call to 'activate' my new card. This has happened to your Wigster before, so that's not a big deal. Usually, you call the number, punch in some personal data, and then get transferred to a bored, gum-popping teenager who tries to get you to buy additional services that no one needs or really wants. You say no, no, no, and eventually they stop reading from the script, tell you your card is activated, and hang up on you.

Not this time. I called, punched in the information it asked for, and then was transferred. But this time, it was to a person who barely spoke any English. I mean like nearly none. She asked me for my birthday more than six times. She could not even understand the word "July" for my birth month. She kept repeating "June? June? April?" I have no idea what she meant. Maybe she thought July was an icky month to have a birthday and she wanted me to change my birthday. Not that bad an idea, but not really in my control.

I finally gave up. I figured I'd call in the morning, during business hours, and get someone who could speak English or who could at least transfer me to someone who spoke English. I was going to complain about my personal financial data ending up in some foreign country without my permission, but frankly, it would be like hollering at my dogs. It lets me blow off steam, but the dogs just cock their heads and me and bark from time to time, as if to see if they can actually get me to explode and shower them with bacon bits.

I am a very optimistic person, as it turns out. My head did explode, but it is not filled with bacon bits. Ah, rue the day, rue the day.

So, today, like a complete moron, I called the customer service number. Let me give you that number. 1-888-233-9538. That's the number for "Emerge" VISA and MasterCard customer service. Go ahead, give 'em a call. I'll wait.

Are you back? You may have noticed that the recording is scratchy and hard to understand. That's the best it ever gets. Really. The first thing it asks you is to put in your Social Security Number and press the # sign. So you do. And it grinds for awhile and then tells you that it can't find your account. So you are prompted to put in your VISA account number and press #, which you do. Then it asks you for your Social Security Number again. You enter it and this time, it recognizes you. You know how I know I didn't just mistype my SSN the first time? Because I've been through this menu more than twenty times today, that's why. It is broken the same way each time, so it ain't me.

Then, you listen to a scratchy, hard-to-understand voice message and you eventually get to the point and press "9" for a customer service rep. Then you go on hold.

For about 15 minutes. Never less than 5, sometimes more than 20. Not even nice music on hold, sadly. Nothing you can hum to.

Finally, you get through. To whom? To the same people who don't speak English that you could NOT communicate with the night before.

I went though all this, folks. I finally succeeded in getting my card activated. Then I made a huge mistake.

I asked my interest rate.

Oh, don't ever ask that. God help you if you do. Because they don't know what your interest rate is. They don't have access to it. They say you have to call the customer service number to get that information. You know, the one you already called. The one you dialed to speak to this happy numbskull. You try to explain this to them. All they can do is apologize but unfortunately, you have to dial the customer service number - they recite the number again, like you're a child and don't understand. You tell them again - YES, I UNDERSTAND. THAT'S THE NUMBER I DIALED TO SPEAK TO YOU. Then you recycle and go through this pattern until you get tired of it.

I never got the information. They have NO IDEA what my interest rate might be. Or they don't want to tell me what it is. You decide.

Several times through the loop, I threw a change-up pitch. I asked to speak to a supervisor. You know what that gets you? An introduction to Mister Click and Mister Dial-Tone, that's what. Or, you can ask THEM to transfer you to this mythical 'Customer Service' number that no one can actually dial. That's entertaining, because then you get put on hold for another twenty minutes before THEY ANSWER THE PHONE AGAIN. Yeah, the same guy. Or gal. And they pretend they don't recognize you from before. You have to give your bona fides again, and listen to them explain to stupid ol' you how you have to DIAL THE CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBER if you want to talk to customer service.

I finally called the one number that was different from the others. It is the number they give you to dial if you don't want to accept their terms and you wish to close the account. I called it. The same Customer Service person ("Roxanna Samuel" to be precise) answered. I ignored the obvious and just told her I wanted to close my account. She took my bona fides for like the fifth time today and asked me WHY I was closing it.

"Because you cannot speak English."
"What?"
"Because you cannot speak English. That's why I'm closing my account."
"Spanish?"
"English."
"What?"
"I am closing my account because you do not speak English."
"I...am...closing..." (she says, as she types it into her computer terminal)... then she twigs that I am talking about HER. Duh.
"Sir, I speak perfect English."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do, and Spanish too."
"Well, then I'm closing my account because you are too short."
"What?"
"The bluebird only flies backwards at night."
"What?"
"Precisely."
"Sir, I need to know why you are closing your account."
"Exactly right."
"What?"
"That's why."
"What?"

I could go on, but it is all too painful. For you as well as me, I'm guessing. Sorry, I had to vent. I finally told her I was closing my account because I hate Mondays and let it go at that. I doubt she got the Bob Geldof reference, but there you go.

So here's the deal. Save yourself some grief. Don't do bidness with Emerge VISA card company or First National Bank of Omaha. Well, unless you speak Spanish and are really tall. Or own bluebirds. Something like that.

Smooches,

Wiggy

FNBO Emerge
P.O. Box 105555
Atlanta, GA 30348-5555
1-888-233-9538

First National Bank of Omaha
1620 Dodge Street
Omaha, NE 68197
1-877-932-3626

Give Me Cinnamon Rolls and Nobody Gets Hurt

This morning, Mrs. Wiggy had to leave early - she was taking Molly to the Vet to get, er, tampered with. I feel sorry for both of them. Milo is beside himself, looking around the kitchen and whimpering softly. He's really lost without his sister. Poor guy.

Speaking of sisters, today is Wiggy's sister Therma Lou's birfday. HA!

Therma Lou is 40 years old today!

Paid for by the "Get Even with Therma Lou Committee"

OK, enough of that. Happy Birfday, Sis. I Love you. Even if you're all old now. Hehehehe.

What I really wanted to talk about...

One of my co-workers brought in cinnamon rolls from "Inner Banks Market" today. For which, bless her. She shall be spared in the future event which shall become known as "The Great Debagging and Radishing of 2005," er, forget I said that.

So she comes up to me with this little tray of tiny cinnamon rolls. Cute little things. She offers me one, but before I can reach for it, she wants to tell me a story. Not really a good idea, to wave food in my face and then deny me while trying to say words and stuff. I try to maintain calm. It doesn't work.

"I got these at Inner Banks Market," she says.
"Very nice!" I reply, eyeing my prey like an eagle looking over a three-legged fat hampster.
"Inner Banks has a lot of good food," she continues.
"Yep. They sure do. Can I have the cinnamon roll now?"
"And their parking lot is easy to get in and out of, too."
"Shut up! Just shut up and give me the cinnamon roll!"
"Oh, you want the cinnamon roll?"
"Hell, yes, I want a Cheesy Poof! Now hand it over before I throttle you!"

Ah. My inner child is actually Cartman. I knew that. Well, we all did, didn't we?

She opened the lid and I grabbed a tiny cinnamon roll, and she retreated warily. Good idea. Like an F-16 jet fighter engine intake, my soup-suck should be labeled "Warning: Keep Hands and Feet Away!"

Having consumed the tiny cinnamon roll, I am not sated, but I am a bit ashamed. Perhaps if I apologize, I can get another small cinnamon roll.

She may talk again. I must steel myself. There is work to be done.

Stays Crunchy, Even in Milk,

Wiggy

Inappropriate Business Behavior

I had to go to a meeting this morning. I was the last one there, so I had to be the 'facilitator'. That means that I had to stand by the white board with an erasable marker in my hand and write down what people said. This is generally not a problem for me.

But today, I was in a mood. It is raining out, I'm in kind of a dream-like state, and I'm grooving on it. Some sort of coma-stupor-frenzy or something.

So there I am, daydreaming, and suddenly I realize I've been asked a question.

"Uh, what?" I ask, intelligently.
"What were you laughing about just now?" my boss asked me.
"Oh. Was I laughing?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
"So, what were you laughing about?"
"Oh, nothing. No big deal."
"No, we're all friends here, we would like to know. What were you laughing at?"

My little droogies, I urge you...do not, for the love of God, answer this question if it is ever asked of you. Or at the very least, lie about it. Did I tell a fib? I did not. Stupidly, I told the troof.

"Well, I was kind of daydreaming..."
"Uh, huh..."
"And I was thinking..."
"Uh, huh..."
"That Mrs. Wiggy is going to buy me a big huge apron to wear while I barbecue on our new grill."
"Uh, huh..."
"And if I wear that, I'm going to be kind of hot."
"Uh, huh..."
"But since the apron will be covering my front, I can probably just not wear pants."

And a kind of silence filled the room. And not the happy, contented, we're all glad to be here sort of silence, either. No. The angry, confused, kill the wabbit kind of silence. Silence that preceeds mayhem or the cutting off of important bits. The kind of silence that tells you that you've gotten your snarglies all twisted up.

Silence.

More silence.

Finally, my boss made a brief note on his notepad, cleared his throat, and started talking again.

Soon, I was daydreaming about what kind of chef's hat I need if I'm going to barbecue with no pants on. It should be a good one, don't you think?

Beware,

Wiggy

NOTE:I have just returned from lunch, and it appears that at least one of my co-workers have been troubled by my vivid imagination. At least to the point where they felt they had to express themselves creatively. Whatever works, is what I say. Not a bad likeness. I'm a little fatter than that, though.



I guess I'm kinda proud - I'll be front and center in many troubled dreams this night! Bwahahahahaha!

Officially Old

I am now officially old. I had to parse every word of the title of this Boston Herald story. Not an MTV News headline, no. Boston FREAKING Herald.

The title of the news story:

Snoop peeps fingered in onstage de-blinging

The mind boggles with what my ancient imagination can construct from these simple words. I shudder to think of it. You should too.

My first thought was that it was an 'onstage de-bagging' and I'm thinking COOL! Hardly anyone gets debagged anymore, and onstage yet? Unheard of. G.G. Allin is dead, man. Wendy O. Williams is dead. True sailing is dead. Oh, wait, I'm quoting Jim Morrison again. And of course...he dead, Mistuh Kurtz.

However, I was wrong. No de-bagging took place.

Turns out, some guy climbed on stage during a concert and got knocked about by security - and now claims he was invited onstage and deliberately robbed. OK, then. Nothing at all like my what my fevered imagination had come up with.

I am very old now. But somebody should be getting de-bagged, dammit.

Eh?

Wiggy