Cruzin in Ioweigh

Texas Senator Ted *Teabagger* Cruz, a wholly-owned subsidiary of C3PO Gesellschaft, has been stumping madly in the Iowa carcases, hoping for 51 percent of the vote. It probably wouldn’t do him much good because everybody is now assuming that Donald T. *Captain Underpants* Rump will be the nominee of THAT party, but Teddy is still in there pitching. 

However, we can't expect this *doubleplusgood ducktalker* to go on forever like the Energizer Bunny, a mechanical contrivance to which he bears a certain superficial resemblance. Rumor has it Ted is secretly planning to soon retire from politics and become a novelist, and in fact has half completed his first fiction book, *Honey, They Shrunk My Hormones.* 

Cruz is also something of an amateur archaeologist, and will be spending some of his leisure time, of which he will have 24 hours a day in the near future, searching for deer femurs in the deserts of Utah and Arizona, then claiming that these bones are the remains of camels, unicorns, or gryffens. Teabaggin Ted has always had a fertile imagination. 

Happy Trails to You, Until We Meet Again.

a fine family fortune

'

     Surname    $ (in bllions)

1, WALTON -- 127.6

4 individuals, heirs of Walmart founder Sam Walton, own over $30 billion apiece.

2. KOCH -- 82 Bn belongs to the brothers Dave 'n' Charley.

3. GATES, Bill -- 76 Bn = largest individual fortune.

4. MARS -- 70.2

3 sibs hold 23.4 bn apiece -- there's money in sugar addiction.

5. BUFFET, Warren -- 62

6. ELLISON,  Larry -- 47.5

7. BEZOS, Jeff -- 47

8.  ZUCKERBERG, Mark -- 40.3

9. BLOOMBERG, Michael -- 38.6

10. PAGE, Larry -- 33.3

11.  BRIN, Sergey -- 32.6

12. ADELSON, Sheldon -- 26

13. SOROS, George --24..5

14, KNIGHT, Phil -- 24.4

15. BALLMER. Steve -- 21.6

16. ICAHN, Carl -- 20.5

17. DELL, Michael  19.1

18. JOBS, Laurene -- 19.1

19. CHAMBERS, Anne Cox -- 18

20. ALLEN, Paul -- 17.8

In order to undertsand what a BILLON dollars is, you first have to have a complete grasp of a MILLION.

Everybody knows what a THOUSAND is. Chances are yr house is worth 100-200 thousand.

Or at least, that's what you're paying for it.

1 MILLION = 999 THOUSAND plus one more THOUSAND. So clearly a million bux is alotsa dough, It's more than most of us will earn in a lifetime!

OK, so a billion dollars is 999 million + one more. An almost inconceivable amount of cash, or to put it another way, 10 million $100 bills.

             

That's what we're talkin about when we discuss family fortunes ranging in value from
 $17,800,000,000 to $127,600,000,000.

christmas friday cat blogging

So we  come home from 24 hrs in Surprise & find Cat Face in the laundry basket I prepared 4 her just B4 we left...

She's such a well-behaved, no-maintenance little beast, she's always a pleasure, & very independent. 

furrills?

Is this the real face of Yeshua ben Yusuf of Nazareth, known 2 Christians as Jesus (the) Christ? It surely is a lot closer than the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired dude we usually see in upper North America. 

Keep in mind also that Jesus, if he was average height and weight for the time among his people, would have been in the neighborhood of 5' even and 110 pounds.

eye witless 2 histy

Dear Angry,

Arn't U evr afraid oƒ BURNIN up in yr own righteous indignation, not to mention indigestion?
& blieve it or not, even though i'm a 72-yr clean hippie freak, I agree with yr attitude entirely. I-2
will vote for either one -- on the other side of coarse.

I guess U COULD  say the main diff between U  and me is that while I & mine  are celebrating  a great and transformational victory in November,  you'll be looking at the same problem that plagued U in 2012, namely: how can we get somebody  b-soides OAFS (old white guys like U & me; old farts)  interested in some body like Romney or Drumpf, or Teddu Cruzu?

I don't think there's any way that the national Republican Party can continue on the way it is, without filing the intellecral, moral, and spiritual equivalent of chapter 11 or 13. 

wedding day -- 10/9/2015

My lovely bride Kathleen & I tie the knot with the help of Father Luigi, The massive white shirt at the right of the pic belongs to kit's grown son, Billy Shaw.

eating one's words

I never liked eating my words. They taste bitter, especially when 
one says nasty things sbout somebody he doesn't like anyway.

A couple of days ago I wrote a post here in which I accused  Hillary Clinton of being incapable of exhibiting either passion or spontaneity. Then, the evening of the next day, speaking at a venue at which she showed up an hour-and-a-half late, she showed both, almost as if she was answering my blog (although I'm sure she wouldn't know me if I walked up to her and painted her white.)

The reason she was so late to her own party was due to a meeting that ran long, between herself and some Somalis.The speech was scheduled at the University in St. Paul for 5:00, but it was closer to 6:30 when she finally showed, much to the relief of her grateful, very patient audience.

The speech doesn't seem that special at first,beginning with acknowledgements and boilerplate, but she begins to warm to the announced topic at a few seconds past 8 minutes. 

I don't know what went on at the meeting with the local Somalis, but I know she showed up for her speech loaded 4 bear, and made a liar out of me.

friday cat blogging

We've decided the laundry basket is the best place in the world 2 B.

BesT place 4 sleepin & best 4 being awake.

Invariably, however, it doesn't last; after a day or 2 the clothes and towels get put away, and nobody wants to hang out in an empty basket.

Nothing 2 do now but wait out the week or so until paradise reappears.

comme back, redd (huh)

Redd Foxx left us in 1991.  But I've found myself wishing in this campaign season that he was still around.

Ben Carson, in purporting to know about  things other than surgery, turns out to be the biggest phony in the field. If Redd was here it would take him less than a minute to cut this fake genius down to size.

"Dr. Carson, I know we've never met. But haven't I seen yo picture on the rice box?"

snart snoerk -- vasectomies @ 7/11

Boy,  Tailgunner Ted  Cruz & ye 7 other dwarves are playin "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,  U're the Fascist," & thinkin it'll stick. The primaries are comin rite up, TED. My advice is to not continue this line. Doing so will make you look like an ahistorical boob, and a very pathetic example of a tough cowboy. Adepto vestri stercore simul.
2 months ago  ::  Oct 16, 2015 - 9:47PM#2
catboxer Posts: 14,069	oh  my. I forgot to mention the kitchen shears and pizza wheel, but have changed my mind & now do not wanta go there. It's 2 gashly.

خوب، مغز آمریکایی تمیز

 Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Obama's Iran Deal

When i saw that headline a couple months ago my immediate reaction was:

so what?

Over half of Americans disbelieve in Darwinism.

About a third think the climate ain't changin. or if it is "I didn't do it!"

About a third of us think women should obey their husbands.

12% of Americans a few years back believed that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. (Cited in Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture.)

This is a time 2 check world opinion and forget this exceptional backwater, where people in their millions have been brainwashed by the corporate media.

above it all

\

So what say ye? Is she floating serenely above the fray, like Nike Athena looking down from Olympus  upon us ant-like mortals below?

Or is she more like (as Mr. Kunstler would have it) "gliding above the election arena like Rodan the Flying Reptile — caw! caw!"

I saw but didn't hear* her posture of the week for 12/8-12/14, with its not-so-subtle message: "Peace & Love will 
rule the World" raining down on us humans from heaven, but triangulated and engineered to counter the violent fulminations of one, specific mouth-breathing politician.

Don't get me wrong...I'm glad she's targeting T. Rump, but I can't understand why she seems to be unable to do this -- or anyting else, spontaneously.** Even when she's righteous, she comes across as a big phony.

*I usually watch political coverage on TV with the mute button engaged.

**Want spontaneity? See this!

President Sanders

health care in amerika?

After nearly 2 full months of intensive work in the field, I'm happy to be able to report back in the affirmative. Yes, there IS health care in Amerika, but of course it's riddled with problems, most of which stem from health care enterprises in this country existing mostly as for-profit businesses.

The largest health care "providers," such as Arizona's Banner Corp, an Arizona 21st-century non-profit corporation, are full-scale governmental-private enterprises, structured to prevail in the 21st century, Truly a medical-industrial feature of the Arizona landscape, and the second largest employer in the state (second only to Walmart.) Banner is also delivering some of the best quality health care in the country, and Banner Bayview is easily the nicest hospital I've ever stayed in...like a five-star hotel in some respects.

However, lest you think I'm about to launch into a full pro-Banner PR campaign I should tell you I was nearly delivered into enemy hands in that hospital, and my little odyssey could have ended a disastrous wreck then and there, as it might have six weeks later, in another time & place.

What began as a routine biopsy ended up taking me close to the edge -- I'm not sure just how close -- and ended the way it began: very badly. 

Part of the problem at the outset was personnel too young and immature for an adult job. I was put under the care of a nurse of about 18 who was also a control freak. When the biospy result went badly, which was not at all her fault, she refused to call in reinforcements, and behaved badly in other ways as well.

On Thursday, October 23 I checked into the hospital for a biopsy. I was unconscious during the procedure, but shortly afterward became aware of intense pain in the chest as my right lung precipitously collapsed.

A team of doctors hurriedly moved to insert a tube in that lung, through the right side thoracic wall. This first attempt to reinflate the lung went badly, however, and by the morning of Oct 24 I looked like this.


The condition is called "crepitus," and consists of air getting between the skin and what lies underneath. 

The next day we did Chest Tube 2.0,
with similar results, although there was some improvement -- for one thing I was awake and aware more than with chest Tube 1,0, although I'm still not sure whether that was a blessing or a curse.

This is a good place to leave it, at a "What will our hero do now?" moment, or more precisely, "What will be done to him?"                                                         

.