…and his boy Sherman

Huzzah and congratulations! Perhaps Peter will deign to photocopy the award and fax it to you.

Or not, if it’s one of those bulky platuette-type deals.

By the way, I wonder if you saw this….Shroedinger Improves Accuracy

Who out there enjoys irony? Well tell me how you like this one.

Much of the East Coast and especially the Southeast has been under severe to exceptional drought conditions for about a year. It simply quit raining. Here in Charlotte, with reservoirs at historically low levels, the Mayor and even the Governor made radio spots asking the citizens do what ever possible to cut back on water use. To my great delight and surprise, water consumption dropped 10% - 20% across the state - a thrilling and heartwarming example of the citizens voluntarily sacrificing for the common good.

This week the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utility Department came before the County Commission to ask for a 15% increase the the water rates for the coming year. Okay class. I want you to guess what the Utility’s reason for the increase might possibly be……. This will require you to use your critical thinking skills……………… Okay, time’s up. Put down your pencils…… All right, who among you guessed the reason was because the population of the area is not using as much water as they normally do, so the Utility is not selling enough water?…….How many got it right? A show of hands please. Excellent! Everyone got it. Good work, class. I am so proud of you!

A fitting reward for those who did as requested and then went the extra mile to conserve - a 15% increase in their water rates. Nice.

It’s about time, Adam!

Congrats to all!

the oh so modest Adam would neva point you at a link like this. I see his fingerprints all over it, though.

Cooper,
Here in Durham water rates are on the rise too. Ours will be a tiered system to charge the bigger consumers more. At the Durham Bulls game friday they interviewed a lawn care guy who reminded everyone a healthy lawn is a wet one. Encouraged everyone to water 2-3 times a week. Never mind the radio and tv ads discouraging this… The city of Raleigh outlawed new garbage disposals (saying they increase water use), but no one is talking about the Aquafina water bottling plant that uses city water to fill their bottles. sigh.

SeattleTammy, you see Adam’s fingerprints all over this week’s New Rules? Really? Damn, Adam wash your hands, man! With a new babe in the house, I don’t need much of an imagination to know what your fingerprints would be leaving behind. I know you’re a guy and all, but you’ve got a certified germ factory on premises, so for the good of humanity I must implore you to watch your hygiene. And don’t think I’m above ratting you out to Edith, either.

Well, finally! Tomorrow we leave on our junket to America! And yes, I did have to pack my new brown loafers. Hasn’t anyone noticed that I wear a long robe and nobody will be seeing my shoes anyway? I like the red slippers; they’re comfortable. I guess I’ll have to admit that I lost that battle.

Cardinal Bernie Law has been trying to get me up to speed about the press in America and what I should and shouldn’t say in front of the cameras. Personally, I’m not worried at all about the main stream media. They spent all of last week jumping up and down about Obama’s “Bitter” speech and gave President Bush a complete pass on the torture techniques story. I wonder if the president really did know about the torture talks, and Cheney is now protecting him by saying W was out of the loop. Or maybe the president really is as stupid as we all think and Cheney kept him out of the talks because he was worried that Bush might “wander off the ranch” (Americans really do have the best euphemisms for mental deficiencies) during one of his press conferences and spill the beans.

Also of concern is the memo I wrote back when I was “God’s Rottweiler” and told all of the the American bishops and cardinals that they should “stonewall the press about the sex scandals”. Cardinal Bernie, Franco Zeffereli and Father Juliet (I know, a most unfortunate name, but we Catholics are famous for that sort of thing.) have been brainstorming about how I should respond to such a question. The best they’ve come up with so far is to “stonewall the press about the sex scandals” and if that doesn’t seem to work, just say - “So!????????” Also the DC and New York dioceses have been busy rounding up all the homeless people and they will be using them to beef up the crowd for the television viewers.

Time will tell whether that will work. Well, the bump and a beer seems to be relaxing me quite nicely, so I’m off to bed.

A bump and a beer, Benny? You got friends at the Sidetrack Tap? They call it a beer and a bump, by the way. I assume the bump is Maker’s Mark, you being his principle representative and all.

Sigh, why can´t the Pope go to Seattle and WWDTM come here?

Benny–I see you´re giving the mass at Yankee Stadium, will you be spending the rest of your time in the lovely South Bronx? If so, I might suggest leaving the loafers and slippers and going for something you can run in.

I saw my first Expelled commercial on TV tonight. Ben Stein trying to present himself as edgy and anti-authority…what a crock.

Adam,

Many congrats to everyone involved with the Peabody win. WWDTM needs to hurry-up and come for another visit to Portland.

Ann, I believe I was also led to the Pharyngula site from another commenter here. In fact, the floor of the lurker’s lounge is lettered with links. It’s like cyber-confetti on New Years day.

If one believes Jonah Goldberg and the producers of Expelled, it appears that the reeaallly evil people are liberal atheists. They’re Nazis-squared. That’s like a Nazi times ITSELF!

I fear that the end result may involve the Neocons, in order to keep all that NaziFascism from spreading, ordering their complete extermination.

Because those folks just don’t get irony.

McCain just proposed solving the risk-free-consumption-caused, foreign-oil-dependent-war-exacerbated recession by… removing the gas tax???!! Coop, if he loses, I think you´ve got your next candidate for president of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities commission.

And if he wins, I´m shooting myself.

Oh, boy! I can’t wait to hear “The Peabody Award-winning…” added every time the name of the show comes up! Congratulations!

Mein Gott! Security is extremely tight in the land of the free. Tell me does everyone in America wear cheap black suits with white shirts and red ties, sunglasses (at night?) and talk into their sleeve? I don’t really understand what’s happening. First the agents took me out of the airplane via the baggage chute for security reasons. And then we were whisked away from the plane in a shabby white van with no windows. We drove at high speed for forty-five minutes and stopped in a heavily wooded area. A set of steps led down into a concrete bunker. One of the agents later told me that when the door to the bunker closes, a fake bush swings into position and hides the door nicely.

I must say I am more than a little disappointed with my accommodations. We were supposed to be staying at a five star hotel, with foot massagers and vibrating beds. Instead I’m in a large underground room, surrounded by the Secret Service and a huge bank of high tech medical equipment. They say not to worry about all the EKG machines and defibrillators; that they are here for someone named “Angler”, who has to come here on a regular basis and get plugged into an energy source. At least the bed is comfortable and the bathroom is clean. They’re bringing me a sedative now and I should be sleeping soundly in a couple of minutes. “Welcome to America”, indeed.

4-16-08

Dear Diary,

You’d think as a cabinet member, I would get a couple of tickets to see the Pope when he came to town, but - Nooooo - Josh Bolton forgot to take care of that little detail and so if we wanted to attend, we were on our own. That is this administration in a nut shell; we can’t seem to find our butt with both hands.

So I turned to the real center of power in DC - the bureaucrats; specifically Mildred. She had 25 tickets that she was going to scalp at the front gate and use the money for breast enhancements. Out of the kindness of her most generous heart, she let me have two of them…. for $350.00…. each. I guess that was a pretty good deal because I found out later that she was shucking the religious rubes for upwards of $600.00 per ticket. Amazing.

Patricia and I arrived just as the program was beginning and we found seats towards the back. We never got closer to the Pope than 150 yards, but even from that distance, there was something about the Pope that just didn’t seem right. Just a feeling I had.

After the Pope gave his talk at the podium and was sitting down, I thought I heard W say to him, off mic, “Awesome speech!” At least he didn’t add “Dude!!!!” at the end of that sentence. Maybe
in the future. when people ask me how I served my country, I’ll tell them that actually, I was Secretary of the Interior during the Bush 41 administration.

It’ll all be over soon.

Dirk