Pie In The Sky

Pie In The Sky

The old phrase “Pie in the sky” is scheduled to be changed next month to “Pie in the Ethernet” and has no relation to the wonderful pies of Julian. It used to be that people would go to all kinds of meetings and meet people in person who might be helpful to know in what was called “networking”. I’m not completely sure about this, but on the computer, people were first enraptured with “youtube” and then came “facebook”. Finally we have been assaulted by hearing about whatever anyone is “twittering” about. Even though you don’t actually meet any people this is called “social networking” and it sounds like they got the terminology reversed. Must have been a Congressional decree. “Social networking” certainly must be on the top of the list of 2010 words to be banned. I don’t know how to do any of it, but probably should since I am shut-in much of the time. The trouble is if it really worked it would take too much time and energy to keep up and who wants to know all the events in a shut-in’s life- I got up, took some pills, drank some water, took a nap (for tomorrow, see yesterday). If it didn’t work and no one responded, it would be demoralizing. One such new website that I am really looking forward to is the one coming out next month that I alluded to at the beginning. The new site is called “pieinyourfacebook.sob” and allows you to firmly plant a cream pie on the face of somebody that you either like or dislike in facebook. At least I can depend on this to lift my spirits and since I don’t have anything on facebook, they can’t retaliate.

©2010 Eric Stamets

WikiLeaks Founder Gives Julian Bad Name

WikiLeaks Founder Gives Julian Bad Name

Everyone knows by now the name of WikiLeaks since it has been in the news so frequently lately. Google is even thinking about buying WikiLeaks because they could make so much money off of it. Many things today are named by initials or combining words to form a new one. For instance it is thought that WikiLeaks is a combination of the word “wicked” and a nicer word for “p… on you”. The founder of WikiLeaks is some guy named Julian Assange whose last name sounds like a French word combining the word ”ass” with the word “ange” which is evidently the French word for hole. The thing that is so maddening to the U.S. government is that it brings to light the lies, cover-ups and deceit that are carried out by our fine government employees (who will get pensions anyway) and Obama with his change and (we find out now) his all too transparent transparency in government. Add this on top of the insult that WikiLeaks is more secure than our government’s computers. If Julian Assange had just asked any American citizen, they could have filled him in on all the gory details of how the government lies and deceives without going to all the trouble of going through all the thousands of highly classified and coded “cables” that were somehow easily pilfered. Almost all Americans love our country but we must realize that the virtue of our government is that it lies a little bit less than all the others. Fortunately for the town of Julian, the mayor does not use cables to communicate and usually will prefer to chew someone out in person, which leaves no email trail but sometimes bruises. However since this WikiLeaks guy’s first name is Julian, we are getting repercussions in the gift stores and any business that has Julian in the name because of guilt by association. Sales are way down with anything to do with the name Julian and the mayor is mad it is hurting his hometown. Whatever you do, if you have a child in the next year don’t name him Julian or even if it’s a girl, Julia. They’re not in the top 10 dangerous sound alike names like Aiden, Braden, Caden, Hayden, Jayden, Kayden, Payden and al-Qaden for next year, but still give it a year for the controversy to cool off. Due to its notoriety and publicity it is projected that the most popular boys name for 2011 will be Wiki.

©2010 Eric Stamets

No Pardon For Billy The Kid

No Pardon For Billy The Kid

The outgoing governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson has finally made a last-day-in-office determination of no pardon for Billy the Kid for his role in killing a sheriff. It was expected that Gov. Richardson would cave on the last day in office and issue the pardon because he is a Democrat and keen on following in the steps of Bill Clinton and his notorious pardons as he left the presidential office in order to leave a “legacy”. Of course Billy the Kid is dead as well as the then-Territorial Governor Lew Wallace who evidently offered the pardon to Billy for surrendering and testifying in another murder, so we’re not 100% assured of what really happened in Billy not getting the pardon in 1881. So who cares? Well Mark Lee Gardner, author of a book about Billy and Albuquerque defense attorney Randi McGinn, who volunteered to handle the case for free say they do. McGinn says "A promise is a promise and should be enforced," and Gardner says "Still, regardless of Billy's crimes, the motives of Richardson or the hollowness of posthumous justice, it all comes back to Wallace's promise. A deal is a deal, and 129 years doesn't change that. Billy is owed a pardon." "Why would he [Billy] surrender himself ... unless there was something in it for him?" McGinn asked. Why would Gardner and McGinn make such a ruckus if there wasn’t something in it for them such as selling books and making a notorious legal reputation respectively? Let’s just wait a minute. Lew Wallace was governor and that means politician. Whoever is so naïve to figure that a promise or a deal from any politician might ever come to fruition or be serious for five seconds let alone over a hundred years should be sold a bridge somewhere immediately. If Billy was double crossed by the governor, it fits under the heading of Obama fighting “government as usual” and the tea party fighting “government as usual” which means they’ll both cancel out and conduct government as usual. They have to- they don’t know any other way. Has anyone said they know how to “govern as extraordinary?” In related news, Gov. Richardson traveled to North Korea before Christmas, not as a representative of the U.S. government, but evidently as an emissary from the State of New Mexico in order to diffuse the nuclear tension there (New Mexico is so “in” now). He met with the North's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Gye Gwan and issued a pardon from the State of New Mexico to North Korea. When asked why he had done this, Gov. Richardson replied, “Upon comparing the photograph of Billy the Kid with that of the leader of North Korea, the picture of North Korea’s leader didn’t look quite as demented. Plus I needed a legacy”.

©2011 Eric Stamets