Why are the outlets covered?

I am back. Only two days between postings, you say? I suddenly, well not so suddenly, remembered what I wanted to post on Saturday. Not that Japanese earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns were not interesting, they were and still are. That is some real shit going down, half a world away, mind you, but it is going down.

I did want to remind y'all, that the UN saw fit to give Libya a seat on its Human Rights Committee. They have since "taken" it away, but still. Giving Crazy Uncle Mo and Libya a seat on anything to do with human rights? Do they think that the "hug" of the UN will change the despot? I may be a bit cynical, but how fucking naive. Then again, it is okay as they are not risking their own lives or the lives of their own family and friends. It is all good to "experiment" like that when you do not have any skin in the game. Fucking bunch of UN lowlifes!

Sorry for the rant there, but then again, it is what I do.

My real reason for posting was this. The Lad is now 14. If I did not wish him a happy 14th in January (when his birthday is, by the way), then consider it now done, though belatedly. I went to plug my computer into an outlet on our main floor. I had to take the outlet cap, that we inserted in our outlets around 14 years earlier, out so I could plug in. I guess the question is how long do we have to leave those things in before we stop worrying that the Lad will stick something (finger, fork, paperclip, whatever) into a live electrical outlet? Why do we still do that? It is not like we regularily have young (and curious/stupid) kids coming into the house. Most importantly, why, after this long, has it dawned on me to ask this question?

I await your response. Ciao!

I have been to a post, a post with no name

I am back. When was I last back here? Slew of shit going on around the world now. I think my last post mentioned Crazy Uncle Mo in Libya....now we got a battle going on there. The biggest news lately is not in North Africa and the Middle East, but in the far east, Japan to be exact. They had one mother of an earthquake, followed by a tsunami with the icing on the cake, trouble (a rather large understatement, there) at a 40 year old nuclear reactor---with explosions, core meltdowns a possibility and radiation leaks. This is some "fun" stuff.

Oh yeah, and then it snowed, in Japan. The only upside is that the Japanese know they live in an active geoseismic area and have planned accordingly. Their building standards factor all those potential earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions into the equation. It may not be perfect, what is, but it is better than concrete slab housing in China, Iran, Pakistan, Haiti...need I go on?

The nuke issue is the outlier. It took the fifth strongest earthquake on record (not so sure how far back those records go, but I am pretty sure that the Shogunate was not measuring them. Maybe, it was a matter of the earth shaking and then tossing a virgin into a volcano to appease Mother Earth--apparently, she was viewed as a lesbian who loved fresh meat, who knew? That was going on in the land of the Mayans--fuckers and their doomsday calender, bringing this shit on) and a tsunami to fuck up this 40 year old reactor's cooling system to get us there. I think that is pretty good. Now, somebody has to find a way to prevent this Three Mile Island from turning into a Chernobyl (thank the Soviets and their high safety standards for that one, then again, what did they care if they killed off some more Ukrainians, Stalin starved millions of them and nobody seemed to care, what does that say?).

At least, there is hope. Spring training is winding up and baseball season will begin soon. Isn't that hopeful?

I was almost going to end on that happy thought. Obviously, I did not. I was thinking, even with better technology, does it make sense for Iran to go nuclear. I mean they could not care less about their own people, let alone other travelers on this blue marble--the Shi'ites are not too concerned with apocalypse scenarios--bring it on, they say. So, we have a Soviet/Russian designed reactor, with Russian trainers in another seismic area of the world. The outcome looks just rosy from these parts. Now, that is a happy thought.

Thanks for stopping by, but I am going to run. Ciao!