Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
He is reachable at:
littlemrmahatma@yahoo.com

All writings are copyrighted 2003-2008 and trademarked: Little Mr. Mahatma

tBlog Mirror

Some fun links:
Little Miss Attila - polar opposite and origin of LMM.

Critical Sites:
Dr. Forbush Thinks
Slashdot
Games Slashdot
UserFriendly
James Randi
Snopes
Home of the Underdogs
The Sun Online

For those generous in spirit, heart, and wallet:

Shaq + Great Coach (Riley) + Great Player (Wade) = 1 Championship Finals + ? Rings

Kobe + Great Coach (Jackson) + No Real Center = 1st Round Elimination

Either the Lakers get a great center real soon or they'll be a long ways from any Finals any time soon.

It's been a quiet Memorial Day. We had piano lessons today. The final ones we're having on the Westside. The kids have outgrown their teacher and now we're trying some new tutors next week closer to home. Coming home though was a bear. Typical rush hour on the 405: packed and plenty of idiot drivers gabbing on their cellphones switching lanes without signalling.
I'm amazed that so many BMWs, Mercedes, and Lexuses don't have working turn signals. Why isn't there a recall?

I'm tall and skinny and most clothes manufacturers assume that Americans are more wide than long. I spent the past couple of weeks scouring Macy, Bloomingdales, Robinsons-May, JC Penneys, Nordstroms, Nordstroms Rack, and Sears for clothes.

Out of sheer disgust and utter desperation I bought at Sears three pair of pants size 30x32. Two of the pair were Sears brand and they fit OK. The waist wasn't too distorted and the length was a shade under flood embarrassing. The third pair was Dockers and the 30 waist was too big. I shouldn't have bought them.

Yesterday I remembered that the last time I shopped for pants I had great success at a western wear store in Bakersfield. Since this place catered to rodeo types they had a tremendous selection of skinny-ass pants and I found a plethora of pants to choose. I went online and sure enough they had business casual pants in my size. But I didn't want to go to Bakersfield just for pants.

The pants I found were Wranglers and further investigation showed that there may be a couple of places in the San Fernando Valley that carry the Wrangler bsuiness casual line. I hope so because this is ridiculous. Pants makers need to realize that not all Americans are fat tubs of lard, especially those of us with blast-furnace metabolisms.

Folks, we've been conned enough from Neocons, Republican or otherwise. Let's make sure that we're not conned again. No more Bushes, Liebermans, Roves, Wolfowitzes, or any of their ilk. We deserve so much better and so does the rest of the World.

Bush: U.S. won't relent in war on terror

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 

WEST POINT, N.Y. - The U.S. will take the fight against terrorism to every shore 
and outpost in pursuit of enemies like none before, not relenting until their 
defeat and showing the same resolve that won the Cold War, President Bush told West Point graduates Saturday.

"America will fight the terrorists on every battlefront. And we will not rest until 
this threat to our country has been removed," the commander in chief said in 
his commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy.

"Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never 
back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than 
complete victory," Bush said.

Because, in the Bushian view which he has repeatedly stated, you're either with him or against him.

Worse, President Putin recently mentioned that he will start up the Cold War again because, I suspect, he realizes that America has an easily manipulated fanatic at the helm and this fanatic has not ruined the infrastructure of America but divided the country as well. In short, we are - thanks to Bush - MORE vulnerable than ever. With Bush acting as a strutting bully he has united more of the world against us if not overtly than covertly. We're stretched militarily, depressed morally and ethically, and politically sick.

Bush is trying to sound like Winston Churchill - tough and inflexible - but comes across as a one-note Willy. It's time to change the tune and the player.

So when I got home from work I called them to clear things up.

Let's get one thing clear: the thing to fear from the IRS is their answering system. I ended up calling twice because their stupid menuing system does not have, repeat NOT have, the one option needed for this situation. All the options assume you want to pay. I wanted to talk to a human. Out of sheer frustration I started hitting the buttons that weren't menu choices.

Bingo! The magic button was #. TO TALK TO A LIVE HUMAN HIT THE # KEY!!!

I got a human, a very real and extremely nice woman who listened and took all the relevent information. It was so nice talking to her that I didn't mind it when she said they could find no trace of my payment in the system, meaning some slob got a bonus of my money or my money disappeared in to the black hole of Bushian Economics.

But, since I have the cancelled check, I just need to mail in a copy and all will be forgiven. Until next year.

But the clincher, th eone for the memory books was one guy was this rather short, pudgy gentleman gabbing away with his friends while puffing on a cigarette. See the disconnect?

Nice healthy activity - bike riding - offset, nay!, verily ruined by a most unhealthy activity - smoking. Yet there he was.

Sometimes I hate that I work with computers. They don't make life any easier; they just make you put effort into a different direction. I once went a whole week without computers. A WHOLE WEEK! It was great - no worries about e-mail, viruses, drive crashes, spam, or anything. And then at the end of the week - this was a vacation - when I had to go back into the world of computers, I realized that now I was a week behind in everything: e-mail, anti-virus updates, drive backups, and so on.

Oh well. Just 1.5 more days until a 3 day vacation.

So I'm staring at these things and I cannect it up to my work computer to see how and if the things will synch up. OK, the critters use MS ActiveSync over the serial port. No problem, although I also use the serial port to Hotsync to my other development targets: Palms.

Two syncs both demanding the serial port and me too damn old to keep crawling under my desk to switch cables. But I notice that the mini-notebooks have a USB port and I make the Executive Decision that I will use THAT connection for ActiveSync.

Except the notebooks came with a serial cable and a USB adaptor but not a USB cable per se. I look at the adaptor. One end is a proprietary P.O.S. connector. The other is a standard female. So I would need a male-to-male (A-A) connector. No problem.

I went online and everywhere has it: CompUSA, Staples, Frys, Best Buy, and so on. I should order through the company but they only order twice a month and I want the cable NOW. So I figured to pick up a cable after my Orange-line Metro commute. My stop in Woodland Hills was literally down the street from Best Buy, CompUSA, Staples, Circuit City, and Frys.

Right. I decided to go to Best Buy first. Found the cables section and, and, and they're sold out of it. Even at the rip-off price of $29 they're out. They have a bazillion (A-B) USB cables but not mine. I cornered a worker and he slyly pulled rank on another worker who grudgingly looked on their computer which I assumed was tied to their inventory but could have been Minesweeper. He said they may have some in back and he disappeared for about five minutes. He came back. Nope, no A-A cables.

Fine, CompUSA was right across the street. They'd have it. Good old CompUSA. I went in, found the cables section and nada. Not even an empty placeholder. Same with Staples. Nothing. And in both places no one came to help me, although I stood in the cables section looking like a lost idiot. No help.

Circuit City was better. No cables, but within a minute of finding the cables someone asked if he could help me. Even better, he explained why they didn't carry the cables (not enough profit margin and the A-A cables were somewhat obsolete) and suggested an alternative: Fry's. Kudos to Circuit City.

Fry's. I used to love the place. Now it's a mix of love and loathing. Sure, they have a great selection and their prices are sometimes unbeatable but to return stuff there is hellacious. But I digress.

I found the cables section and sure enough they had a snazzy, gold-plated, A-A USB cable for only $29.99. Of course. Typical. But the cable section was a mess and - what the hell - I continued looking and, and, and - BINGO! - a cheapie, no-name A-A cable for $9. Perfect.

And lesson learned: when you need the obsscure and obsolete, try Fry's first.

House passes $2.7 trillion budget plan
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: May 18, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The House voted along party lines early 
Thursday morning to pass a $2.732 trillion fiscal 2007 budget plan and boost the 
federal debt limit, but only after Republican leaders promised party moderates 
that they would increase spending on politically-sensitive education and health-
care programs.

Now look. The Bush Administration and Us-First Republicans have not only run us into an unbelievable debt but they're giving themselves the means to continue the siphoning. They are out of control. If anything the limit should be reduced. The pork projects and earmarks should be removed and the Republicans swatted for bad behavior. This is beyond irresponsible; it's criminal.

I think I'll call my credit card companies and tell them that not only do I not plan to pay off my cards completely but that I am unilaterally increasing my limit. If they want payment in full they'll have to deal with my kids or their kids or their kids' kids. Does that make any common sense? Hell no but somehow it's good Administration in these Bushian Times.

And I thought about how easy it would be for those trucks to be loaded with explosives and how godawful damaging it would be if they blew up. And I thought about how for all the talk about making America safe the politicians don't get it. They don't or can't think outside the box. They think about themselves and wear highly colored glasses.

You want to make a terrorist statement in LA? Talk about target rich environment. I've blogged about this before. I mentioned the freeways and how easily someone with a truck could take out an overpass or connector but it never dawned on me that the electrical grid was so exposed. Even better, we're talking about the media capital of the world so if they did anything they'd get plenty of coverage.

If anything we're lucky that we haven't been hit by evil nasties. On the other hand, why should they bother? The next earthquake, and believe me we're overdue, will do the work for them. Yeah, you bad, old terrorists, just keep hanging down at the beach staring at the exposed female flesh. We all do it. Don't feel too bad. Just go with the flow and chill.

It all sounded good...except that we've had repeated mentions from others that the Bush cabal had strong desires to go in to Iraq well before 9/11 and were just looking for an excuse. That's why they ignored certain information, distorted other information, didn't verify not enough information, and just outright lied, to get an invasion going, to get a U.S. presence in Iraq.

And that is why Bush's approval rating is in the dumps. Nearly everything he says, particularly about Iraq, is shallow, wrong, or nothing more than spin. That's why he keeps finding other issues - like illegal immigration - to grab the spotlight. Anything to keep our eyes and ears away from Iraq, unless it looks like good news. Sure, Iraq has the makings of a govnerment...this week. Next week it could easily be a peaceful, effective entity or downright civil war.

With todays multi-national, conglomerate, uber-corporations we too often see that in divulging our information to one branch we, in effect, give our information to all branches. How often do we see on forms little checkboxes asking whether our information can be shared within the company or with allied companies? How often are these checkboxes conveniently pre-checked for us?

Whenever my my wife and I fill out a form, under the second address line we'll put something like "#DM" to signify that we just applied to Dumbcrap Magazine. (Often we aren't even so cryptic. We'll put "#Dumbcrap Magazine" and the person copying over the data does so automatically.) Then we'll see whether that Magazine sold our name. It happens too often even when we specify that our name be sold. Yeah, we could probably sue but frankly we don't have the deep pockets like companies so the years and costs of such a lawsuit jsut aren't worth it.

Point being, that our privacy is under attack from many sides. Businesses are bad enough but how can we trust the Government to protect us when it, too, is in the Privacy bashing business.

This, of course, is denial at its fullest. We have stacks of laundry and dishes to do. All rooms need to be vacuumed and dusted. The cars have an inch of dirt on them. The pool needs sweeping. The garden needs weeding, pruning, fertilizing, picking, and a variety of other verbs ending in -ing.

And it's just me. I'm feeling really lazy. No energy to do what needs to be done. But I realize this and am working up the strength to stop typing and go do something worthwhile.

OK, here I go. I am going. Yep, watch out.

Going. For real.

Going.

Gone.

This is obvious but I broke this one too. I had a meeting set for right after lunch. Noon came. I went out, got settled in over a chicken aioli sandwich, and relaxed. Until I relaized that I had ten minutes to run back to work, tear up to my office, finish the paperwork needed for the meeting, print, run out, up the stairs, and into the conference room. I'm surprised I didn't vomit over everyone.

Worse is that once I settled down and my heartrate returned to its usual semi-comatose state, I found myself falling asleep. That's bad, real bad. And to keep awake I started to think of things to keep me awake. Thinking led to dreaming and dreaming led to...WAKE UP!!! PAY ATTENTION!!!

It's safe to assume that scheduling a meeting right before lunch is just as bad. No one cares about what's going on. They're just watching the clock and nodding in agreement to whatever is being said. If you ever need anything approved then, yeah, schedule a meeting right before lunch. Just don't get caught yourself on the receiving end.

Stupid me, stupid me, stupid me! I broke Rule 47. I had a meeting at 5:30 and sure enough the damn thing continued until 6:30. So instead of missing all my bus connections on time, I missed them much later and got home way too late to be any help to the wife and too late to spend some fun time with the kids, though they didn't exactly rush away from the computers to greet me.

It's very frustrating. I *FINALLY* get a job, a great job, and the damn commute is going to kill me. I plan to check into carpooling or something, anything to speed up the commute.

But this is LA and in going across the Valley there are no shortcuts. The only commute worse would be over the hill to the Westside. My neighbor does that and how she keeps her sanity is beyond me.

But for you Dear Readers learn from this. NEVER BREAK RULE 47!

On the other hand, a Clippers/Heat Finals would be awesome to see Shaq show that while there are many Kobe's (like Dwayne), there's still one Shaq.

On the other hand, I like Elton Brand so much that I don't care who the Clippers play just as long as they win. Certainly, the players deserve to win.

On the other hand, Donald Sterling and Elgin Baylor don't deserve to win. Sterling's been such a tightfist for the past umpteen years and Elgin Baylor - great player - has repeatedly proven a lousy GM. They've had so many potentially great players over the years yet have contended so infrequently.

But what the hell. Go Clippers!

The Bush Adminstration wants you believe it so but there are three problems with this.

First, you are more likely to die from a car accident then you are from a terrorist incident. Far, far, FAR, FFFFAAARRR more likely. Heck, you're more likely to win the Lottery than to get involved in a terrorist incident. As I've blogged before, tobacco and alcohol kill more Americans than terrorists but you see no action on those fronts.

Second, with all the secrecy surrounding what the Administration does, we have no measure the effectiveness of their anti-terrorism actions. They could say to us "With our illegal wiretapping, we stopped 200 terrorist actions last month!" and we'd have no way to judge the truthfulness of the statement. We are expected to believe what they tell despite their history of repeated lies. That ain't gonna cut it. Bush wants to strip us of our privacy then we need to see open and honest results.

Third, with the amount of information they plan and want to collect there is an increased risk of false positives. That is, a greater chance of a message looking suspicious and implicating an innocent person. And with the Administration we have now you could be picked up and shipped to Guantanamo without any recourse - none! No lawyers, no explanations. Is that what you want? I'm sorry but the little shred of security we'd receive for the amount of privacy and freedoms we give up isn't an equitable trade. It isn't America.

Move of Halliburton Meeting Draws Fire

By KELLY KURT, Associated Press Writer 

DUNCAN, Okla. - Halliburton earned a record $2.4 billion last year, but Houston 
executives will forgo Texas-sized luxury when they come to this rural 
Oklahoma county seat this week.

First Lady a Real Mother
I should have realized this would be a special Mother's Day when I flipped the TV on in the morning and saw Laura Bush on ABC's "This Week". She's scary. Not Maria Shriver skeletal scary but too much face lift and botox scary. Laura Bush seems to have this Joker's inability to not smile or move her eyebrows. Consequently whatever she's talks about, whether humorous or serious, she says with this alarming wide-eyed mainc look. Perhaps she's trying to hide something; perhaps she's trying to come off as a perpetually perky person.

But she's scary. No wonder Dubya likely abuses the bottle.

I must do things right for my status is at stake. If I make one worng decision, give one incorrect gift, kiss one wrong cheek, then my life is forfeit. Heck, I'm still wrestling with the hierarchy. Does my wife take precedence over my mother? If so, then my mother gets insulted and I get a day with slow sighs and The Sad Look. You know, "I brought you into this world and this is what I get..."

But if I show deference to my mother over my wife then it's the "You have to live with ME!" glare for the rest of the day.

And if I waste too much time on both of them my mother-in-law will make clucking sounds to her daughter - my wife - about how much better she could have done. She could have married someone WHO CARES.

And the adopted mother will sit, quietly suffering the agonies of martyrdom for being the one left out.

The final topping: the kids will be running rampant leaving a path of destruction for daddy (ME) to clean op and/or fix because it's Mother's Day and they can't be expected to do EVERYTHING.

But it will be worth it, I think, because at the very end a mothe will ask me what I want for Fathers Day and I'll say "To be left alone!!!" and they'll smile and that will be that. Right? RIGHT???

I survived my first week with only minor flesh wounds. I think I did more eating than working but there were shoes to be dropped and they decided to temper the drops with calories. To refresh your memories, after ten months of being laid-off and over 170 job applications and over 20 interviews, I got a job. The difficulty was or is switching an HRIS mentality over to Marketing but this company wanted my technical skills more than my limited Marketing experience.

So far I've helped out but I still have a tremendous amount to learn in the remaining week before my co-worker goes on vacation and I have to cover for her.

What I'm finding particularly frustrating is the IT. In my old job at a World Class aerospace company I had Admin rights to my machine so I could install the programs I needed to do my job. This was a somewhat uncommon exception to the company rule but the IT people there knew me and trusted me since I was once a sysop.

Not so with the new company. To install a program or an upgrade I have to call the Help desk which has been outsourced out of country. They, in turn, will call the IT people to come down from the floor above me to install my programs, or the Helpdesk will remote install my programs. Either way it's annoying. I'm too hands-on and too experienced for this.

Both companies are so worried about their users installing virus-ridden programs, which is understandable. But both companies also make an even greater mistake. Neither company teaches or preaches the users to back up their data. To me, that's the greater crime. The companies have spam-filters, virus checkers, and active firewalls up the gazoo.

Data backups? Nada. Today, one of the Senior VPs had a hard-drive failure. Think the data was backed up? Nope. Think the Senior VP had a conniption? Yep. Think anyone told the Senior VP "Hey dipshit, did you back up your data?" Nope. Think the Senior VP is going to learn to back up his data? Maybe but only if his secretary does it for him.

Anyway. The first week is over and done. There's plenty to do. Nice folks, nice atmosphere. Unless I win the Lottery, I think I'll go back.

ABA rates Bush nominee 'not qualified'
Posted 5/10/2006  
WASHINGTON (AP) — The American Bar Association rated one of President 
Bush's judicial nominees "not qualified" Wednesday, prompting a call from a 
liberal group for the president to withdraw the Mississippi lawyer's nomination.

A panel of the nation's largest lawyers group voted unanimously to give its 
lowest rating to Michael Wallace, Bush's nominee for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court 
of Appeals. 

If the nomination weren't bad enough, consider that the Bushes are now going for the next step:

A 3rd President Bush? First 2 All for It

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

ORLANDO, Fla. - Could there be a third President Bush? The current chief said 
Wednesday that younger brother Jeb would make a great one, too, and has 
asked him about making a run. The first President Bush likes the idea as well.

Jeb Bush, the Republican governor of Florida, has one asset that his 
presidential brother doesn't right now — approval from most of his 
constituents. While George W. Bush's approval ratings are in the low 30s, 
some 55 percent of Florida voters surveyed last month by Quinnipiac University 
said Jeb was doing a good job.

NOW is the time to let the politicians know that Dubya is bad enough and should be, at the minimum, impeached if not outright incarcerated. Tell them to not even bother with Jeb. The Bush dynasty must end. Two disasters is enough from that clan.

Kobe is a great player - no doubt. 82 points in one game is unbelievable BUT given a choice between Kobe or Shaq and the Coach I would have taken the latter. Shaq, despite his fitness problems and encroaching age, is still unique. Kobe is replaceable, like with a Dwayne Wade. Imagine if the Lakers had kept Shaq and Coach and gotten Dwayne. They might be playing the Clippers right now.

Amazingly my co-worker agreed. We also agreed that Elton Brand is still severely underrated yet a class act all around.

He asked about the Dodgers and we had the same assessment. We both had stopped following the team when the O'Malleys sold out. Pretty amazing consensus of opinion considering the guy is about ten years younger than myself.

On soccer we differed but in a good, friendly way. He likes Brazil in the World Cup; I'll be rooting for the U.S. and the Netherlands. How and why the U.S. is ranked #4 in the world is beyond me but whatever greenery the judges smoked, I want some.

He also explained to me the big brouhaha about the Mexican player Blanco who is one of my personal favorite players. He said it was about money but if a reader with clearer knowledge would pipe in I'd appreciate it. And if someone could tell me how to pronounce his first name "Cuahtemoc" I'd appreciate that as well.

Work is fun so far but there are shoes waiting to be dropped, like I'm supposed to learn what one of my co-workers does so she can go on vacation in two weeks. Damn tall order considering there is zero project tracking, meaning there's no documentation as to what's where.

And that's why we have Mylanta and Tums...

Anyway. Howard Dean recited a litany of ethics violations and illegalities of the Bush Adminstration. Essentially, every one in the cabinet is under some sort of investigation or has a close underling under investigation. What he didn't say was that they all could without exception be under an investigation. But he summed it up nicely when he said that this was an Administration of Corruption. Nice to hear but I wanted to yell to him "What are you as Chairman of the Democratic National Party, doing about it?" Why wasn't he leading a charge to, frankly, impeach the President? And thereby is the problem of the Democrats. They have no balls. None. I like Dean but I wish he would DO something to lead instead of griping.

Hillary? She lost my vote because she keeps popping up on these pissy little issues that really shouldn't issues but they're safe, like violence in video games. Yawn. We've had an entire generation raised on evil comic books. The world survived.

Lieberman? He's a republican and nearly as right-wing as Bush.

Kerry? GOD NO!! He was dull and ineffective once. Not again.

Gore? Nope, he's gone. In fact, all the familiar names are passe. The Dems need fresh blood and they need to support fresh blood, instead of relying on known losers.

Then there's John McCain looking like a bird-fed cat. e once had my admiration despite his politics for being a straigh-shooter but now...I just can't bother with him.

Personally, I liked Colin Powell. I just wish he had never put up with the Bush Admin crap and had loudly called them on it. He seemed to have a shred of integrity but I guess it got locked away for the duration. Pity.

So far the only complaint I have about the job is the commute. My previous job took me 40 minutes one way but I had to drive. This jobs take 1.5 hours one way and I drive just to the train station. Still that's a long day and more time away from my family than I'd like.

But I'm committing to a six months tryout. Unless I screw up so royally that I get fired, I'm determined to tough it out for six months before re-assessing my commitment. If I stay it will have to be for an additional four and a half years so that my pension gets vested.

That's all for now. Must sleep, sleepy-bye. G'night!

The illegal immigration problem in America is not one easily solved but I think it is solvable. At least the Mexican problem may be solvable. But let's backtrack first.

The issue sprouted up when Republicans pushed a bill to get rid of the immigrants. After the outcries started they, the Republicans, flip-flopped a la Kerry and backed off that idea. But the idea is still valid: the immigrants are here illegally so get rid of them. Yet despite the validity of the argument, it simply won't solve the problem. Building and expanding the border wall with Mexico won't solve the problem either. Besides the cost in maintenance and surveillance, do we want the Land of the Free to look like the Berlin of old? How can Freedom and Democracy be compared to a mined "No Man's Land" between countries?

Wall or no wall, there will still be illegal immigrants. They see this country as one of opportunity and therein lies the problem and solution. The problem is that too many businesses here are willing to "hire" these people. What a choice: hire a legal American with all the inherent paperwork or "hire" an illegal for cash under the table. Bureaucracy loses every time.

Amnesty won't solve the problem. It's unfair to those people who played the process of becoming an American legally. Why should the illegals get to jump to the front of the line? If anything, amnesty demonstrates that the current process is too complicated.

Creating some sort of administration to oversee these people won't work. You'll get some people but, again, that choice of playing by the rules and dealing with a bureaucracy versus quick and easy looms up to favor the latter.

It's keeps coming back to business. There has to be an incentive for companies to not hire them or a reason for the illegals to stay in their own country. Doubtful that businesses can be completely convinced to not hire illegals because the odds of being found out is too slim. Kind of like cheating on your taxes. Odds are you'll get away with it. Sure you may eventually get caught, but for businesses the penalty can be easily offset by the profit in the meantime.

The solution is to make an environment where the immigrants can prosper at home. I think Vincente Fox was on the right track when he nearly signed a bill making drugs legal in his country. If he were to make, for example, only marijuana legal in Mexico, that would create a massive new market to exploit. You'd have jobs from bottom (growing) to top (oversight and taxation). You'd have a tourist industry similar to what the Netherlands enjoy but one that can take advantage of the proximity of the U.S.. In short, you have a reason to keep more illegals at home.

Even more reason: as the U.S. becomes more totalitarian, Mexico would boom by becoming a democracy of American dreams. As the U.S. removes the rights of citizens, Mexico should do the reverse. As the U.S. seeks to exploit it's Microsoftian position as THE world leader, Mexico should become the free rebel. By doing so, I feel the country will blossom. By having a nation where religious and political freedoms are truly free, Mexico could fulfill the American Dream and laugh all the way to the bank.

And the border? The Mexicans would have a hard time keeping us Americanos out.

But Mama Nature has this quirk of ebb and tide and always, always winning. I was talking with my mother (I do that occassionally) about the next country to take over the world. The days of a Hitler invading and grabbing landmass by force are in a way long over. No one will conquer the world by force. Instead they will over-populate and infiltrate from within. I suggested, based on that premise, the future world leaders will be likely Chinese, Indian, or Mexican, just to name three of the fastest growing world citizenships. Please don't take this as racist but instead, what I think, is a clever way to take over a country. If I wanted to take over the US I'd have as many citizens from my country enter and populate. Grab the elections. Take over.

By now, you may think that I'm a crackpot, an asshole, or making a obvious reference to the whole immigration situation and you're right on all three counts. However the immigration issue in my opinion is one of business. The focus should be on those businesses employing the illegals. But I'm getting severely sidetracked.

So back to my original train of thought. Populations expand but without the infrastructure, like health care, those populations are also likely to suffer a debilitating epidemic. Ebb and flow. What's the point? I forgot. Back to Immigration.

OK, so let's assume the Hispanics do a major power grab. So what? As their population gets better healthcare, jobs, and education, they are more likely to have a reduced birthrate, setting things up for the next population. Ebb and Flow.

But what really bugs the crap out of me is the recent proposal to penalize the oil companies that gouge a whopping $150 million. Yeah, that'll teach them. They make billions in profit off of gouging and the penalty is a slap of the wrist. History repeats itself. How many subsidiaries of Halliburton are under investigation for fraud? And comparing their fines to what they took in, folks, we're in the wrong business.

I guess, what's riling me is that soon I'll be again bringing in a paycheck. And one of the decisions I have to make is where to put some of it away for retirement. Frankly, all the choices leave me with a sour feeling, that no matter what I decide, once the money is out of sight, it's gone. It's out of control.

Seriously. The Oil companies will be spending millions on advertising to show that they're not doing anythinig illegal. You see there are reasons that prices are so high. A couple of years ago the excuse was that too many refineries were undergoing repairs then along came hurricane Katrina. Now it's the simply the price of a barrel of oil due to foreign problems.

One would think that with the massive profits they've posted they would have fixed the refineries by now.

In any case, in the LA Times there was a full page ad with a chart showing where our gas dollar goes. Ready?