IMPS & ASSES INSIDE A CUL DE SAC INSIDE A TICKING CLOCK (OR TIME BOMB?)

"epic crossing"By James Wolf

“Sausage making is not pretty. But the sausage we have, I think, is a very different sausage from when we started.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

H.L. Mencken

***

Tick tock

Barack…

Time is running out

&

Congress is a lout!

Politics is a scourge

On the people’s splurge! 

(Or vice versa)

The 

Race

For

The White House

Is 

As

Hungry

As 

A head louse

But NOT as quiet 

As 

A church mouse!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

CHANGE THE WORLD

A microscopic photograph of fluorescent-stained Spirochaeta americana. The red spiral-shaped figures are dead cells; green ones are living. Credit: Richard B. Hoover, Elena Pikuta and Asim Bej, NASA/NSSTC University of Alabama at Huntsville, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

MO (short for Molecule)

MOLLY (short for Molecule)

MO & MOLLY are a married couple.

MO:

Honey, where are my glasses?

MOLLY:

Honey, don’t you remember, the doctor manipulated your vision gene, and so you don’t need your specs anymore.

MO:

Oh, right. But where’s my iPod?

MOLLY:

Honey, now I really think you’ve lost your…marbles…I mean your brain…I mean…Oh, I don’t know what I mean anymore…we’re so tiny and have such miniscule brains. But one thing for sure: WE DON’T HAVE EARS…so you’re just dreaming about that iPod!

MO:

You’re right, and I’ll stop my inquisition, but I do have one more question. When is our appointment with the doctor?

MOLLY:

Which doctor?

MO:

The one that’s going to change us into a new life form.

MOLLY:

I’m not sure. Let me look for the appointment card. Oh, here it is, on the green sofa in the back of our Petri Dome. It says: Monday at 2:00 P.M.

MO:

Good! We still have time to do a little gambling before we’re transformed into a new form.

MOLLY:

Right. I’ll start packing our things. Go ahead and start the Microbe Bus, and get it warm. Oh, I can’t wait to get out of this Petri Dome and go on a little outing!

***

QUOTES BELOW are from Life Out There ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe Right Here on Earth

by Dennis Overbye

THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Reproduction is the job of any life,” he explained, but Earthly organisms have evolved a spectacular set of tricks to improve the odds of success---everything from peacock feathers to whale songs. Dr. Joyce’s molecules have not yet surprised him by striking out on their own to invent the molecular equivalent of writing a hit pop song.

“It is only a matter of time”, he said, “before they do.”

Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School and his collaborators have embarked on an ambitious project to build an artificial cell that can replicate and presumably evolve.

“In my view, a terran laboratory will make synthetic life before NASA or the E.S.A [European Space Agency] ”.

Dr. Steven Benner

The Benner group has: Initiated synthetic biology as a field. The Benner group was the first to synthesize a gene for an enzyme, and used organic synthesis to prepare the first artificial genetic systems. These systems have been used to direct the synthesis of artificial proteins having unnatural amino acids, in FDA-approved clinical assays for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C that improves the medical care of over 400,000 patients annually, and to support the first artificial chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.

[SOURCE: http://www.ffame.org/people/sbenner.html]

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!

AFTER WATCHING http://www.history.com/videos/who-killed-the-neanderthals?cmpid=PaidMedia_Outbrain_HIS_TOPICVID&utm_source=his&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campa

[NOTE: Please watch the video WHO KILLED THE NEANDERTHALS to understand my words below, especially the portion of the video which says that the first encounter between Cro-Magnon hominids and Neanderthals might not have been violent…BUT today, after thousands of years for Evolution to “brew” our genes, we now have our present-day WORLD and the U.S. Congress.]

NEADNERTHALS ARE NOTHING TO SNEEZE AT, BUT GO AHEAD, SNEEZE AWAY AT THESE MORE INFERIOR HUMAN BEINGS WHO REMIND ME OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

YES, I AM SAYING THAT DEMOCRATS ARE THE REPUBLICANS’ CRO-MAGNON BRETHREN, SMARTER AND (MORE IMPORTANTLY) MORE SANE THAN THEIR CONSERVATIVE COUNTERPARTS!

CLIMATE CHANGE MAY ULTIMATELY DO US IN, BUT RIGHT NOW, THIS VERY DAY, THIS VERY MINUTE, AS SECONDS TUMBLE INTO MINUTES AND HOURS---APPROACHING THE 11^TH HOUR ON AUGUST 2---IT IS THE NEANDERTHAL BRANCH OF HUMANITY THAT IS ENDANGERING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

WHO WILL PREVAIL?

IF THERE IS A DEFAULT (AND AGAIN, THIS IF IS STILL A MIGHTY WORD), THEN WE CAN LAY BLAME ON THE LESS INTELLIGENT OF OUR SPECIES.

WILL GOOD DEFEAT EVIL?

LIGHT DEFEAT DARKNESS?

CRO-MAGNON DEFEAT NEANDERTHAL?

I AM STAYING TUNED (PROBABLY TOO MUCH SO), BUT I FEAR AND TREMBLE BECAUSE THE NEANDERTHAL REPUBLICANS ARE NOT WILLING TO COMPROMISE.

PRESIDENT OBAMA MUST USE HIS EXECUTIVE POWER AND ORDER A DEBT CEILING INCREASE IF THE CONGRESS DOES NOT DIG OUT OF ITS PRIMORDIAL BOG.

BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS CAN SLUG IT OUT LATER DURING THE RUN TO THE 2012 ELECTION TO VOTE ON THE ECONOMY.

IT'S THE GENES STUPID!

GET THE LEAD OUT OF YOUR CAUCUS!

“...I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.”

Mark Twain
- "Foster's Case," New York Tribune, 10 March 1873

***

UPDATE: 7-28-2011

I have a cartoonist's brain. The words and pictures are in my brain, but my hand is not deft enough (NOT daft) to draw what I hear and see, so I'll just describe what I would draw if I could, using the following words as the caption beneath my work of art:

"Get your ass in line," Boehner told the rank and file. "I can't do this job unless you're behind me."

I would draw Senator Boehner walking (an orange glow coming from the halo above his head). Mr. Boehner would be holding a golf club in one hand and the bill he wants signed in the other hand. Behind him are ALL of the House members, walking backwards BUT following behind Mr. Boehner with their own BEHINDS exposed!

NOTE: Words by Mad Plato are between parentheses.

"How many times does he
(Mr. Boner...I mean Boehner)
have to throw red meat to the extreme right in his caucus to please them?"

Sen. Charles Schumer (D) New York

***

“Anyone who says that either entitlement reform or tax increases are off the table does not have a plan for sustaining American greatness and passing on the American dream to the next generation.”

“Alas, that is the Tea Party. It is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission. No American politician was more allergic to debt or taxes than Thomas Jefferson, but he also appreciated the need to have the resources to make the Louisiana Purchase and insisted that on his tombstone it be written that he founded the University of Virginia. “

Can’t We Do This Right?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

July 26, 2011

The New York Times

***

IT'S THE MONEY STUPID!