матрациI don’t want this blog to turn into the ramblings of some news junkie, echoing what you can find a thousand places on the internet, but lately there have been a number of stories that I just have to comment on.

1. The Market “Crash”  Some moron types “b” when he meant “m” and Wall Street goes into a death spiral.    Why is such sloppiness allowed in such an important occupation?   What is wrong with the system that allows that to happen?   I sure am glad that the controls for our ICBMs have better safeguards (they do don’t they?)

2. The Gulf Oil Spill.  Don’t these people test things?  Even the smallest backwoods school has fire drills and safety inspections.  How could something as important as a cut-off valve not be ready to be used?  And they had to wait until after the accident to fabricate a containment device.  Were none of them Boy Scouts and learned “Be Prepared?” I wonder what the powers-that-be at BP would think if their BMW/Mercedes/Hummers were so poorly maintained.  Bet the mechanic would be looking for a new job.

3. The Time Square Bomber.  First, the only way this was discovered was when a street vendor saw smoke in the SUV.  Where were the “authorities”?  Second. the alleged perpetrator should turn in his terrorist license.  Any high school  chemistry student could build a better bomb.  I mean – firecrackers!  He could have at least gotten some decent aerial shells – the kind available all over dozens of states.  He should also learn that to make ANFO you need a certain type of fertilizer – just dumping oil on Rapid-Gro isn’t going to do much.  Lord help us if there ever is a smart terrorist.

4. The Arizona Immigration Law. I hope Arizona has a lot of police officers to spare.  Let’s see – I’ve heard 12,000,000 illegals.  If one cop can check the papers of 5 of them every hour then that’s 2.4 million man hours.  If you want to get the job done in a year (assuming 8 hour shifts) that’s  822 officers doing nothing but checking papers.  And that’s just to find the guilty.  It doesn’t count all the perfectly legal people they need to be checked along with the illegals.  Even if as many as one in 10 is illegal (which I doubt), Arizona needs 8220 new officers to find them in a year.  And don’t forget, the population of illegals is not static.  Plus there is the problem of not remembering who has been checked and who has not.  Maybe they need to make all those suspicious looking legals wear a yellow star to show they have been checked.

5. The Iceland Volcano Just goes to show that no matter how big your bank account, you can’t argue with Mother Nature.  And the “big” volcano in Iceland is still over-due to erupt.  If you have plans to go to Europe, book a ship and take a dust mask.

6. The financial “crisis” in Greece.   Greece is an nation of tax evaders.  It’s no wonder they can’t pay their debt when everyone there (at least those with money)  blatantly avoids paying taxes.  Of course, the US is going the same route, but we do it differently.  Instead of lying about our income and wealth, we elect sleazy politicians to give the rich tax cuts.  The result is the same – not enough money to run the country,  but the US rich can then still claim they are law abiding citizens.

You will notice that the majority of these stories have their basis in the same thing.  “People not doing their jobs properly.” In the future, take a look at the big stories in the news and see how many of them, at their root, involve sloppy, lazy, incompetent people who just don’t want to do the job they are hired for.