Who Dropped The Ball in 2018?

As we close out the year that was 2018, the news self-reported about how they (i.e. journalists and editors) have the high honor of dropping the Times Square ball on New Year's Eve to ring in the 2019.

Of course, they don't see the self-referential irony...

 

Let's hope journalism goes back to being a more reliable institution rather than team cheerleaders in 2019!

The Point About The Government Shutting Down

The government has shut down again...
Of course, it's Friday and the government always shuts down on Fridays...for the weekend. Ever try to file a passport application on a Saturday? Exactly.

However, there is a point to be made about the government shutting down -

Let Them Eat Crumbs...

Some people just aren't happy unless they are unhappy.

Madame Nancy Pelosi, the Dauphine of the Democrat Party, held a press conference to excoriate businesses for giving their tax cuts to their employees and called the $1000 and $500 tax savings to each worker, “pathetic.”

Perhaps it’s because, in her world, “tax returns” never mean returning money to the people who worked for the money. Of course, now she and others see it as a money that is being denied the government to fund “valuable services,” such as Studying Russian Smokers, Hamster Cage Matches, and the most ironic of the ironic, Paying For A Study To Find Out Why Politics Causes Stress.

When the shoe was on the other hand, though, like when President “No Refunds” Obama passed a $40 tax cut, it was a “Victory For All Americans.”

There’s a lot the “little people” can do with $500 to $1000 in their hand. Despite a respite from the dreaded and irritating monthly rent payment, it could also make a difference in fixing a nasty oil leak so your driveway stops looking like a Jackson Pollak painting.

What else could you do with your $1000? You could get an iPhoneX and help out a struggling Apple. Or here are a couple of other ideas:

                            Sail to the Caribbean or eat 83 slices of avocado toast,

                              A purebred puppy,

                                A custom fitted business suit,

                                 Camp out in Disneyland for 9 full days.

 

I’m sure most of us can come up with some good ideas, after all, what’s the first thought when we hear Powerball has hit a new record payout? No, not, “gee - those odds must be astronomical!” We think about what we would do if we won the billion dollars or whatever it is they are offering.

During the first debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season, that should be the first question: “How did you spend your tax cut?”

The answers might be quite illuminating…especially if they bought lamps with it.

When it comes to tax dollars, just whose money is it anyway?

At least Marie Antoinette let us eat the cake…not just the crumbs.

This Year's First Blizzard Is Da Bomb!

The first great weather phenomenon has arrived just in time for the news to ramp up again after the holiday break. It’s time for all the indoor weather forecasters to get put out in the middle of awful weather conditions to make it look like they are hearty troopers rather than party poopers.

It’s being dubbed…The BOMB CYCLONE! Not that they’d expect any of their viewers to really understand the term, but they get to say “bomb” and “cyclone,” in the same title, which sounds like it would be a hit disaster film.

This storm received various unofficial names (other than the unprintable ones used by those suffering through it on the way to work in the morning). Some of the more colorful names are: Storm Grayson,  Explosive Cyclogenesis, The Blizzard of 2018 (which old-timers will wistfully use to describe it to the youngins 50 years from now), and Storm Brody. The storm was also dubbed a "historic bomb cyclone" by meteorologists who love explosive hyperbole. But, given the fact that most people skip over the news weather reports like they skip over a vitamin supplement information about “steroids on steroids,” the weather casters have to take what they get and run with it.

Of course, we here on the West Coast find it a challenge to be sympathetic to snow issues. For us, snow is something you visit in the mountains in the winter, nothing to be feared. We get a little frost now and again but for most of us, our biggest frost danger comes from our freezers going ice-crazy.

But of course, just you wait - the next earthquake will hit and you’ll hear our weather people calling it the Megathrust Earthquake of 2018!

Oh, well, East Coast Weather people, just remember: There’s no business like snow business!