Well, after getting the crap kicked out of me by Hurricane Dolly (barely a Cat 2, if that), I sure hope that FEMA has it's act together.
My home will probably not have power till Thursday. After sleeping in a house with no electricity (read here: no A/C... I swear, man was not meant to live without A/C!), I broke down and took a hotel room in a neighboring town 40 miles away. Best night's sleep ever!
Now my brother in law has power while I don't so we are crashing with him till the interim. My posting will be limited needless to say.
But...what about the Kittens that Omnae always wanted to have?
Ah, just in time for the Imperial family reunion.
I wouldn't count on it if I were you. Back in '04 we only had the National Guard and local emergency response teams to help us, with nary a sign of anything named FEMA in sight. But hopefully you'll only have to go through this one time this year. =D
I never thought I'd agree with Park, but actually, what he said up there was pretty much spot on. (speaking as an outsider looking in).
The only thing I would say is this, if you think voting for a president will solve your oil issues, I think you're mistaken.
There may be short term solutions out there, but the fact is, the entire world is feeling the squeeze right now.
OPEC set the prices generally, and while you may be able to find oil in Alaska or some other remote place, it is just a short term solution; what happens after that?
Russia?
Well, with whats going on in Georgia right now, thats looking kinda shaky right now.
As a Brit, I find oil prices are ridiculous.
My point is, at the risk of sounding patronising (not what I am trying to do of course) , don't let that be the 'be all and end all'
Very easy to say being a Brit and all, I mean its day to day we all have to worry about right?
I'll let you in on a few expenses I have to pay, and you can make the comparison yourselves as to how it measures against what you guys have to pay for:
I have a small economic Nissan Micra, (zero marks for class, but hell if it gets me from A to B reliably then right now thats more important, lol)...
It can take roughly 40 litres of Petrol (unleaded) during the recent 'spike' in oil prices for us, I found it was taking about 47 - 48 pounds to fill up.
Right now, I see petrol prices at the pump are about: 1.15 to 1.19 a litre. (pounds, obviously).
A whole chicken costs me about 4-5 pounds , more if your after something fancy, (lol)
Tube costs me for a month about 130.0 pounds. Thats only for 'Zones 1 - 4'
(On the London tube the distance is kinda measured in zones, of which there are 6).
Rent: Mine is cheaper now, since I am sharing, but before I moved, I was paying about 800 pounds a month for a small on bedroom flat in South London (excluding bills).
Council tax was about 100.00 a month back then.
Electricity about: 35 - 40 pounds a month.
Right now everyone's going off on one about how the economy is getting bad.
To be honest I think if everyone stops running around flapping their arms about and calms down, its not that bad, things could be a lot worse.
Bottom line is, with developing countries like China getting on the act, oil prices etc are gonna rise, I think cost of living is going to get more expensive generally.
Thats just the home front, as for international politics, well.
I'm sorry Kach, if you think honestly think Al-Quaida (sp?) is finished , I think your deluding yourself, it was always a 'loose' group anyway, and now its just looser, which just means it makes those part of it or at the least carrying on its 'legacy' that much harder to track.
I know our security services are on overtime.
I have never seen MI5 - MI6 advertise so much recently for new agents, never before in my life! I was tempted to join myself--(not bad packages, lol)...
I have friends who are in Afghanistan now, and if you think that situations resolved , think again.
Iraq, seems to be settling down a little, but who knows what will happen, once both the US and coalition forces pull out of there, won't know till it happens.
Then there's Russia, they have been messing about for a while now, we've (NATO) have had to warn their Jets off of our air space recently, then there was that Russian spy guy who was killed with plutonium in a resturant in London.
Now we have Georgia, its hard not to be concerned by it.
Turbulent times we live in.
Do you feel you can trust Obama or McCain to deal with these issues head on for your country?
Ignore the hype, really look at what ideas they are proposing and trust your instincts.
Thats all you can do huh?
We'll have a general election soon, so we won't be far behind, and I don't think Gordon Brown will survive it, I see David Cameron (Conservative) gaining power.
(for the record, I won't be voting for either of them, lol).
Good points there. Seth. Fuel is expensive, security is a problem and Afghanistan is a mess. I would say that improvements are being made in Afghanistan, but imposing western values is a slow process. Think how long it took us to get from a pseudo-religious dictatorship (a la the Taliban/Al Qaeda) to a democracy here in the west.
But you're right: it's not only fuel that's getting more expensive. I'm involved in the engineering and metalworking trade and the price of metal is going through the roof. It has been increasing for the last few years - mainly, I'm told, due to demand coming from China. It's pretty much a fact that Earth can't support everyone living an average western lifestyle*. In order for us to have the internet (and therefore TRF!), etc there has to be some poor sod in Africa starving...makes you feel good, huh? I suppose as more and more countries decide they want a western lifestyle it'll only get worse, no matter who's in the White House or Number Ten.
(*Of course, that's only based on current means of power generation.... which brings us back to power and how it would be better to ditch oil and switch to something. Personally, I'd argue in favour of Nuclear Fusion: Clean, safe, efficient.... just a little bit out of our reach for the next for decades. Ho hum.)
Also, I can't see either Brown OR Cameron getting enough votes to form an effective government, Seth. We might have a minority government or something in the end, where they'll have to form a coalition to get anything passed. That's not happened for a while in this country, I don't think? It could be interesting anyway. Personally, I'll probably vote for Cameron since he went to university at the same place as me.
Mind you, so did Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (famous for being in command of British Forces during the Battle of the Somme) and look how HIS pet project turned out...
Florida ditched options recently for a high speed rail transit system, but I was thinking of how neat it would be if we had our own version of the Shinkasen Bullet train system, and have it run off of a nuclear power plant, to where you can get from Point A to Point B at 250mph without consuming any diesel or unleaded gasoline.
