So here it is March 2006, and as far as I can tell the world is still here, but for how long? Pretty much every one out there who has ever stood in line at a grocery store checkout has heard of Nostradamus and his occasionally close predictions either about a "bat child" or the "end of time" ( in my perfect world you would here an echo every time you said "the end of time"). But it's occured to me that in this time of great uncertainty and unrest that only Hanna gets the most fortuitous of opportunities to hear my thoughts regarding the signs of the apocalypse (and perhaps more importantly, my predictions on when the next "bat child" will appear)! So in an effort to remedy this most unjust of situations I have decided to publish my thoughts on the future.
Now anyone out there can take the easy road and focus on the obvious signs of the end of time such as, oh, say the increase in weather catastrophies such as floods, mudslides, typhoons, tsunamis, hurricanes and whatever else nature throws at us (who knows the geologists may be right and it may just be the end of the most recent ice age). Then there are those wonderful ironies that I don't know nearly enough about, like the name of the new president in Iraq -"Talibani". I'm sure I'm not the first to think that this cannot be true, and has to be some really obvious punchline to a joke we've all heard too often.
Rather I've chosen to focus on one of those signs that is right in front of us. Like the friend with that lazy eye that we stop acknowledging, I've decided to look at the most obvious to me. Some time ago I said to Hanna that I figured that in the near future we would hear of a court case involving a complaint over the inadequate size of toilet seats for those of the (how do I say this politically correctly? (maybe more importantly, why do I care about being politically correct when speaking of an ever growing faction of Western society that is "morbidly obese"?)) "larger persuasion". My remark was to the effect that if I ever heard of any such legal case, than how could I not see this as some sort of sign that we had slipped so far in our priorities as a people as to signify that the end of time, or at the very least a thoroughly ridiculous time to live in, had to be near.
I fully acknowledged that for any such legal action to occur, the plaintiffs would have to be able to provide some sort of alternative to the common toilet seat.
Well lo and behold it has come to our attention that such toilet seats are available and marketed as "size friendly". Seriously, check it out for yourselves at www.greatjohn.com and ask yourselves how long before someone with a strong enough union, or a hungry enough lawyer to back them, demands that their toilets in the workplace be "upgraded". My guess is it comes from the public sector.....
Offended?......good, we all should be.
Oh yeah.... the next bat child will be found in a small village in Venezuela in .....let's say... June.
Matt
1 comment:
speaking of predictions. i've expanded my area of expertise. Not only do I predict significant changes to weather, and proclaim them publicly at the farmer's market, I now predict publicly the demise of the US dollar, and hence its economy. What's happening? Later this month, Iran plans to start selling oil for euros, and any other currency it wants to sell it for. Up until this time, oil has only sold for US dollars, except for a very brief period of time by Iraq, just prior to the invasion. (was that the reason for the invasion? could well have been). As it stands, every country has to hold huge reserves of US$ to buy oil with. If they can all buy oil with their own currency, the demand for the dollar will fall.
According to economists, the us has 3 options: the first will be to do nothing, resulting in the return to the us of all those worthless dollars. Massive deflation will follow, resulting in a depression that will make the 39's look like a picnic. The second option they have is massive inflation. By turning on the printing presses full speed, they could instantly pay off the foreign debts they hold. (about 8 trillion). That, of course, would result in major inflation and high interest rates. interestingly enough, the us fed has announced that later this month it will no longer publish m3 money. That means it won't tell us how much much new money is being printed.
The third option they have is to invade Iran. And you know that they're already rattling their sabres, under the guise of preventing Iran from developing nuclear power generating capacity.
So, which will it be? Massive inflation or another invasion? We won't have to wait long to find out.
Meanwhile, here in Saskatchewan, we've been suffering from heavy snowfall. It's been snowing off and on for the last 2 weeks. I'm getting sick of winter. Oh well, I guess it beats yellow dust or bubonic plague.
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