Coot’s News Service for April 29, 2012

 Posted by at 04:25  Headline News
Apr 292012
 

It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature! 

waters on the Adams river thick with Sockeye s...

waters on the Adams river thick with Sockeye salmon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once again it’s time for our Cantankerous Old Coots news report. I don’t know if Bob is getting to me but all of the stories today are about government. Now that I think about it, these days it is hard to find any aspect of life where the government hasn’t gotten itself involved. And as soon as the government starts messing with something, they find unintended consequences that they have to fix which cause other unintended consequences and soon enough we have a whole government bureaucracy to manage something that took care of itself for millions of years at no cost. Once you intervene into Mother Nature’s affairs, there is just no getting out. As they are finding out it Oregon. It’s not so easy to do something nice for the beleaguered salmon. First you have to say ‘May I’.

Oregon asks to kill salmon-eating birds

In California, lawmakers discover that loveable sea otters just can’t play nice with fisherman and don’t believe in the rule of law.  Bill would keep Southern California’s controversial ‘no-otter zone’ in place

Bill would keep Southern California’s controversial ‘no-otter zone’ in place

Don't fence me in

The other story this week takes us back to Germany. German politics is always interesting because Germans seem unable to manage with only two parties. With two parties, politics is simple and boring. You have a majority party and a minority party. One controls and the other fusses. When you have three or more parties, then nobody has a majority and politics is a mess. Messy politics, coalitions of people that don’t get along and gridlock are probably the main reason the European Union was formed. With the EU, bureacrats run everything and voters don’t count. Like the EPA back here. Governing is easy unless you are the poor citizen.  But I digress.

German’s used to love the Green party but with the solar debacle, Green has gotten a bad name and out of nowhere a new party has emerged to take it’s place.  Move aside Christian Democrats.  Make way for  – The Pirate Party. ARRRRG!.

German Pirate Party Attempts to Reinvent Politics 

Don't mess with the pirate party

As usual, Bob has sent some more stories that titillate his funny bone.  Don’t blame me.

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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CNS for March 25, 2012- Do it yourself!

 Posted by at 04:10  Headline News
Mar 252012
 

Well, I did get one vote last week.

That’s one third of the votes cast in our survey. Maybe it’s not a mandate but it’s better than a kick in the teeth so here we are with another edition of the Coots News Service. Trying to find upbeat stories gets harder and harder. If there is good news going on anywhere, the reporters sure do a great job in covering it up.

Too old to drive?

It may not be good news but the environmental disaster that is Germany just keeps rolling on as this story tells.  It seems that senior drivers in Germany are causing more accidents and nobody wants to do anything about it.  It’s not that German seniors are bad drivers so much as the German driving laws don’t account for diminished driving skills with aging. The German philosophy is ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’. They don’t ask seniors to prove that they still have the chops to drive.  Once you have a drivers license, you never have to requalify.  The result is more accidents involving seniors. But the politicians, as usual, don’t want to antagonize a voting block even if it means putting everybody at risk.

 Unrestricted Seniors Endanger German Roads 

Germany still shies away from stricter rules, insisting that retirees’ right to drive should not be restricted. Anyone who has ever passed the driving test is allowed to get into the driver’s seat, even if he or she is 95, has been using a stair lift at home for years and no longer recognizes the neighbors. The only thing government officials, doctors or relatives can do is to encourage them to give up driving.

I spent some time trying to find stories that are upbeat or provide help in making life better and finally inspiration stick. It’s always been my thought that if people stopped spending $10 or more a day on fancy coffee drinks at Starbucks, the recession would be over. Saving that money would probable make up for the surge in gas prices and eliminate hunger as well. It isn’t that there is anything wrong with coffee. Coffee is good. Recently, scientists have actually proved it. But who needs all the extra calories and the extravagant costs of those fancy coffee drinks? Nobody, that’s who.

Be a Better Home Barista 

There are nearly 7 million tons of coffee beans consumed worldwide on a yearly basis. Coffee consumption is rivaled only by tap water in North America. If you’re a coffee drinker and you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where you had coffee but no coffee maker, you know how frustrating it can be to figure out a way to brew a cup of morning coffee to start your day. Here’s a quick, easy method for brewing a pot of coffee when your resources are limited.

 

So today, the CNS serves you up information on how to get that healthy coffee working for you while saving money. Drop the barista at Starbucks and do it yourself at home., Everybody wins.

If anybody still has a suggestion for this CNS assignment, even though I won by a landslide, you can still cast your vote right here.

 

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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CNS for January 22, 2012 Those crazy Germans

 Posted by at 05:06  Headline News
Jan 222012
 

This week there is news!

Deutsch: English: Otto Von Bismarck, Chancello...

Image via Wikipedia

The crack Coots News Team uncovered three good stories this week. Go figure! Weeks go by where the news just isn’t worth any attention and then we have three stories that deserve highlighting. I can’t decide if the news mongers are clueless rabble-rousers like the Wall Street protesters or fiendishly intelligent manipulators of public sentiment like our politicians. Anyway I had to make a choice today between Congress, the LA Unified School District and Germany. Any one of the three is abundantly scorn-worthy but I finally made a choice.

The winner is Germany.

Image via Wikipedia

It wasn’t even close. If there is a country that deserves to stand in the corner and wear a dunce cap, it is undeniably Germany. No other country comes close. The twentieth century should be dedicated to Germany, the instigator of our only two World Wars. Let’s just give them full credit. Germany invented World Wars and the two we experienced would never have happened without her. If we spent the first half of the twentieth century stopping those German World Wars, we spent the last half repairing the damage. There is just something terribly wrong about Germany. So much hubris, vanity, self congratulatory snobbery all wrapped up in a nice little package along with cuckoo clocks, strudel  and cars you can’t afford.  You couldn’t invent Germany.

The European economic crisis had it’s beginning in the welfare state mentality created by Bismark which became the model for the bloated European welfare system collapsing before our very eyes. You would think that Germans would be ashamed of their history and eager to create a new identity. Maybe that is why they support the European Union. Why else would they embrace its endless bureaucracy and limited freedom and rights. It all may be a smokescreen to hide the poisonous impact of the German state on the world under cover of the bland and oppressive European Union, just what Orwell warned us about. Who can say that Germany hasn’t been running a surreptitious World War III exporting German thinking to the rest of Europe? If so, it seems to be failing but that’s not the point of today’s story. Germany may be bad news for the world. German thinking may subvert reason and self interest as it spreads its influence throughout the world but Germany isn’t content with destroying the world. Germany is out to destroy Germany as today’s story demonstrates.  Maybe we should all be cheering.

It’s all about purity

Solar energy boondoggle

Today’s story is about Germany’s quest for ideological purity in energy. If there is an energy source that comes close to the purity of the old Nazi notion of the master race, it is energy from the sun. It is so pure, so natural and lets be honest so blond and blue eyed. No nasty combustion producing pollutants. No misbehaving particles from reactors to damage the neighborhood. The sun is the mother’s milk of energy sources. What German wouldn’t love it? And therefore the uber-wise Germans have decided to get rid of nuclear energy and seriously limit producing electricity from those nasty fossil fuels. But like always with Germany, reality trumps German intellect. All powerful as the German state may be and brilliant as the German intellect has proven itself, there is still a small problem with solar energy in Germany. The sun don’t shine in Germany and no amount of intellect or money will change that face. It’s taking Germany to bankruptcy. They have found the solar subsidy sinkhole.

Re-Evaluating Germany’s Blind Faith in the Sun

I wish I could trust our own government to be more practical but that German thinking is quite contagious.

 

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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