Psychopathic Cruelty

Atrios says that the oilmen are about to raise prices on gas again.  Let me guess, it’s the Iran thing, isn’t it?  The speculators are going crazy with delight.  Let’s just rattle some swords and make the Persian Gulf look all dangerous.

Or is it the refineries again?  They need to be scrubbed or something.

Whatever it is, one things is for sure.  It’s going to bite.  It will have a devastating impact on the economy.  Transportation will become more expensive and the cost of everything we eat will start to spike too.  All this and we still have a lot of people out of work pinching their pennies.  Fueling up is going to cost a lot of what we don’t have.

All of this to put the thumbs to the American public until we scream uncle.  I guess we were just too resilient.  We’re all just hanging in there until after the election, hoping things will start to turn around, doing our best Grapes of Wrath imitation.  They can’t have that.  They need to inflict real pain.  They need us to be so angry at the feckless Democrats that we turn on them.  Good!  Let’s see how long the Democrats are willing to stick with their current line up.

But for the rest of us, especially those of us who are unemployed, this really sucks and it’s cruel.  The people who have hoarded the oil are cruel.

What astonishes me is how many people on the right seem to think that we went to Iraq to get cheap oil.  Noooo, people.  This is not why we went to Iraq.  We went to Iraq so that the oilmen could keep oil off the market.  They are keeping it to themselves in order to make money and to manipulate a country that is dependent on it.  Why do you think there is all this pushback about global warming?  If we all changed to electric vehicles and solar power, how the heck are they going to extort us for money and political advantage?  You’ve been had.

And this is just in from Derek Lowe of In the Pipeline.  For the last several years, the pharmas have been shutting down business in places like NJ and PA, and moving a handful of scientists, the “best of the best”, as they say, to Massachusetts.  This weekend, Pfizer decided to lay off 40 of them.  So, now, even the best of the best in MA are getting the ax.  That’s bad news for the people who were already moved from their homes in Collegeville, PA to Massachusetts.  Relocation followed by unemployment.  Not good.  In fact, it’s just more cruelty to those families whose whole lives were uprooted, kids and all, only to be told that their projects are to be stopped and they’re out of a job.  They join the rest of the dispossessed in a precariot existence, bouncing from job to job with fewer and fewer benefits and domestic stability.

Now, you Doormat Democrats can wail and gnash your teeth about how terrible the Republicans are and will be and woe is us.  But I would remind you that all of this has taken place on Obama’s watch and much of it during the first two years when there wasn’t a thing to stop Democrats from reinstating the New Deal and then some.

Face up to it: The Democrats are a complete and utter failure.  I don’t like it either but that’s reality.  I’m no fan of Republicans and wouldn’t recommend anyone vote for one but for gawd’s sakes, stop being such fricking Doormat Democrats.  The squeeze is on and real people are getting hurt out here.  Stop giving Obama a pass and all this praise for having mass and taking up space.  He’s a complete failure and it’s not going to get better in term two.  If anything, it’s going to get worse.

Get angry for once.

Tuesday: Yearning for Summer

This year, I want to do some raised bed gardening, which is hard to do in a townhouse development, so I’ll have to move.  Once, a long, long time ago, we tried growing corn.  Um, that didn’t work out so well.  Corn is a nitrogen hog.  It’s really not worth the effort. Better to go to a U-Pick farm.  Wait, before you go to the U-Pick farm, start the water boiling.  Add a tablespoon of sugar.  Go pick your corn (assuming you have a farm close by).  Pay for it.  Dash to your car and drive home as quickly as possible.  Peel the corn while you’re driving.  As soon as you’re in the door, plunge it into the boiling water.  Wait 4 minutes.  Ok, 3 if you’re like me.  I don’t like my corn mushy in any way.  I want it to be hot but still crispy.  Remove the corn from the boiling water and spread with butter.  Sprinkle liberally with salt.  Accompany with sun ripened Jersey tomatoes.  Ahhhh.

One of my Indian colleagues, Suresh, told me that his family ate fresh corn barbecued  and doused with lime juice instead of butter.  I’ve tried this and it’s delicious.  Here’s another Indian barbecued corn recipe I found today from Veena’s Kitchen on YouTube:

Are you hungry yet?