Sunday Not Funnies

Posted by LK on 5/09/10 • Categorized as Blog, Business, Conflict, Energy: alt and conventional, Environment, Featured, Financial Markets, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Psychology, The Economy and Markets, The Press

This past week is one that’s becoming the rule rather than the exception, when 4 or 5 stories, any one of which, by itself, would normally command an entire front page, fight for space above the fold.

And we’re not talking healthy sextuplets or destitute grannies winning power ball.

We’re talking dark winds of change material.

To wit:

On 5/2, following the Times Square car bomb that bombed on Broadway, I wrote:

“And yes, this was a successful act of terrorism. There may have been no explosion, or loss of life or property, but havoc was created, and another small infusion of paranoia and vigilance now occupies a part of the collective citizen brain that had previously been occupied with creative and productive, instead of protective, thinking.”

Since then the Triborough/RFK bridge was shut down because a disgruntled boyfriend left his rented truck abandoned to piss off his girlfriend and the volume of 911 and 311 calls has increased substantially. Yes, better to be safe than sorry, but our heads and our hearts have been affected, and any Israeli will tell you that’s no small part of effective terrorist actions.

On 5/3, from the subtly titled “Janet Napolitano is An Idiot”:

“We have no evidence that it is anything other than a one-off”. This from Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Insecurity, on ABC’s “This Week”, less than 24 hours after the Times Square car bomb failed to ignite. This from a member of an administration that urged us, and correctly so, not to jump to conclusions.

And, continuing on 5/4:

My Spidey sense started tingling upon hearing about the early morning arrest of Faisal Shahzad, the alleged and inept car bomber. After spending 5 months in Pakistan, probably a good part of that time in training, the best he could muster was a collection of gear that was connected more by desire than live wire.

Sure enough, as reported in today’s NYTimes: “Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Sq. Plot, Holder Says”. That’s Eric Holder, as in the Attorney General of the United States. Napolitano should have taken some of the fencing she didn’t use to seal the Mexico/Arizona border and place it between her brain and her mouth.

On 5/5, turning to the growing Euro-Mess:

Making things even more difficult are the Greeks themselves, who have become so used to excessive vacation time, sumptuous pensions, and all sorts of other government goodies that, in protest, they’re currently shutting down airports, schools, hospitals and other vital public services to the point that the country’s paralyzed, which indicates they’re not having an easy time accepting the austerity measures required to slowly but surely climb out of their pit of debt.

And this was before the Greeks started rioting. Yet another announcement of yet another approved plan has just be released. This makes maybe the 15th time that’s happened, with no positive movement.

And then, on 5/7, in “The 98 ton Band-Aid”, I expressed my bewilderment at the BP crew:

What confuses me is the lack of surety, and caveats galore, emanating from the people involved in the capping. They don’t know how the 98 ton container’s going to hold up under the pressure a mile down. They don’t know how maneuverable it’s going to be.

Why the lack of confidence? And why is up so much easier than down? Why can we send vehicles, manned and unmanned, into space, at planetary distances, and be able to precisely intercept a moon of Jupiter, or, decades ago, land and retrieve men on and from the moon? The physics of increasing water pressure at greater depths isn’t a big mystery; it’s the same science that was used to drill the damn well in the first place, with what I’d guess were far more precise tolerances than are required to place this Ironman like barn on top of the deep sea gusher.

Sure enough, the only thing they were right about is that they very possibly weren’t right. You don’t need to be the president of Mensa to come to the conclusion that if they don’t know enough about the science of what happens at those depths, THEY SHOULDN’T BE DRILLING DOWN THERE, AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Man, some pockets were lined but good to gain approval for licenses to drill, before the oil companies even deserved their learner’s permits.

But everything’s going to go well this week. I just know it.