The new year starts out with wild and crazy weather. Records cold temperatures in Florida and biblical floods in Australia. Then tornadoes kill seven in the midwest and birds fall from the sky. Mother Nature appears ready to show puny humans who is boss. Even Al Gore is silent.
Florida needs more global warming as December posted the coldest weather ever recorded in Miami. Despite a record hot summer, the yearly average temperature was down 1 degree for 2010. Despite the cold temperatures, Miami avoids a white Christmas.
Meanwhile a flood of ‘biblical proportion affects 200,000 people in southeast Australia. Experts say that this has nothing to do with global warming. This part of Australia sees precipitation swings and has just completed a drought cycle. NOAA seems to have missed this one.
Killer tornadoes devastate the midwest leaving seven dead in Missouri and Arkansas. Mewesterners are used to tornadoes but this New Years pod of killers suggests that 2011 may be a year to remember.
Update: Thousands of birds fall from the sky in Beebe
Experts have no idea what is causing the birds to fall from the sky. Some are just flat out dead but others are merely dazed and confused and after reaching the ground they wander around in circles. Unlike the birds in the Hitchcock thriller, these birds seem to have no evil intent
With a start like this 2011 seems destined to shake us all up. Any body read Revelations lately?
On to more mundane news. Movie attendance has dropped for 2010 and taxpayers must delay filing their taxes for 2010.
Well, duh. This Coot is compelled to attend a movie at most twice a year, usually from the coercion of my son. I can’t forget that movies used to have a plot, character development and laughable special effects. Movie makers have forgotten everything about movie making except effects. They assume that the audience can’t follow a plot so they just use the same one over and over. The most adventurous they get is to remake old movies like True Grit with special effects and profanity. With nothing to attract an audience and skyrocketing popcorn costs, no wonder people stay home and watch reruns oc CSI.
IRS says too bad if you want to file your income tax early this year. Don’t blame the IRS, though. It is all Congress’ fault because until Congress acted to postpone the Obama tax increases, the IRS couldn’t program their computers. It’s probably on purpose since the government will have to borrow from the Chinese in order to come up with the refund money anyway.
And some people just got fired up about the new year. I guess the cold was too much for them.
The woman says it was all an accident. She lit a cigarette while trying to find her car keys and accidentally set her boyfriend on fire. The boyfriend is recovering in a Philadelphia burn center. He had no comment about his hot New Years Eve.
Rioting prisoners set fire to British jail
Prisoners in a medium security prison in Britain riot and finally set fire to the jail in protest of taking breath tests. Must be the cold that sets off the desire to set fires. These prisoners say they just ad enough when guards attempted to check their breath for illicit alcohol. If they can’t have alcohol to keep them warm then a fire is the only alternative.
People are still upset at the TSA for feeling up innocent traveler. One traveler take extreme measures to no avail. Airports across the country are looking to hire private companies to avoid the TSA government monopoly.
Charlottesville man protests airport security, is arrested
You just can’t please the TSA. Even stripping to your skivvies is not enough to please the officious TSA. It is a sad day.
As few airports use private companies for security screening of passengers but as the furor over the indecent feel ups that the TSA has begun, more are looking to get out from under the TSA thumb. TSA still has oversight but airports have more control over screeners who get carried away. Under private management they can actually fire people.
And finally an update from California. California can’t live within its means, make a budget and provide the services we expect from local government but it can tell you what to do. Californians have 725 new things they can’t do thanks to their hard working (and very well paid) full time legislators.
There Oughta Be a Law: Californians Getting 725 New Ones in 2011
Just what we need in California- more laws. There are so many things you can’t do legally anymore that it is dangerous to step outside your house. At least for now you are still free to do what you want in the privacy of your home. The legislature had to have something to come back for next year.
So that is how 2011 is getting started. It is bound to be a fantastic year.
