Bouncing Hedgehog

Archive for March, 2010

Those of you who know me will know that I am a movie fan. I picked up a dvd a while back – The Tripper -  and finally got around to watching it. I liked the movie. It was a fun little comic horror effort that appealed to my somewhat warped sense of humor.  The movie had quite a strong political theme in some ways and definitely had a bone to pick with some of the “sacred cows” of American history. But what really got my attention though were the credits believe it or not. Usually the credits roll to music but not this time. They rolled to a speech. And it floored me. I am not used to American politicians telling it like it is rather than what they want you to think it is. It took a while to find the speech. It was given by Robert F. Kennedy Jr and although I had to find a transcript to see the complete speech (it was longer than the credits rolled for) it was well worth the effort. It deserves to be read, understood and listened to by all.

The speech…

I have been an environmental advocate for twenty years, and I’ve been disciplined during that period about being nonpartisan in my approach to this issue. The worst thing that can happen to the environment is if it becomes the province of a single political party. Most of the environmental leaders in our country agree with me. Five years ago, if you asked the leaders of the major environmental groups in America, What’s the gravest threat to the global environment?, they would have given you a range of answers: overpopulation, habitat destruction, global warming. Today, they will all tell you one thing: it’s George W. Bush. This is the worst environmental president that we have ever had. You simply cannot speak honestly about the environment in any context today without speaking critically about this president. If you go to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s web site you will see over 400 major environmental rollbacks that have been promoted by this administration over the last three and half years. It is a concerted, deliberate attempt to eviscerate thirty years of environmental law. It is a stealth attack, one that’s been hidden from the public. Read the rest of this entry »

I am always interested in reading through the comments that accompany many articles published by newspapers online. It’s always a good indicator of just how fucked up society in the US is. But, immune as I am to some of the crass points of view that get put forward, even I did a double take when I saw that someone was calling for a civil war in the US.

WTF? I thought to myself. He must be out of his tiny little less than average IQ mind. Apparently he wasn’t alone. Many posters were agreeing with him. The mind (well, mine at least) boggles that anyone in this day and age thinks that a civil war is the answer to America’s problems. I would hazard a guess that most, if not all, of these gung ho wankers have never actively been involved in any war let alone a civil war.

Ask anyone, anywhere in the world, who has been involved in a civil war whether they thought it was great idea that cured their county’s problems and I very much doubt you will get an affirmative answer.

Stupid doesn’t even begin to cover this one. This really is a case of danger in the gene pool.

Just what the hell is this country coming to?

I saw a commercial on TV recently,  T-Mobile if I remember correctly, that asked the question “What do you want from your wireless company?” The answer apparently was “cheaper bills than Verizon” or some such. Well, I guess cheaper where wireless plans are concerned is not a bad answer – although “cheap” and “wireless company” in the same sentence is a contradiction in terms.

So I thought long and hard about the question for oh…. at least 1 second and came up with a much better answer:

COVERAGE.