Julian's Troubles

Over the past month, the WikiLeaks episode has continued on and on. The newest episode came late yesterday with the cops suggesting that rape charges (from two different women) were coming up in Sweden. Julian Assange, the head dude of WikiLeaks, had apparently gotten himself into a bit of trouble. Then this morning.....word came that the Swedes were dropping the rape charges but still investigating. The cops won't say much.

I read over five different Swedish news sites, and there's not much there. They all report cooperation on Julian's part and that the cops aren't finished.

Julian has been staying in Sweden a while....with what appears to be Pirate Party members (the radical political party that believes in free information, no copyright laws, and most chat like wild Brazilian monkeys on computer games).

I'm taking a guess on this....but I suspect that while he is moving around Sweden and trying to stay hidden.....he's been getting close with several women. I'm also guessing that he gave special favors and two of the women then figured out that neither were the "one and only". And I"m going to guess that both decided to get even.

Julian is probably standing there and happy that the Swedish cops don't typically believe everything that women say, and that his story is being accepted for the time being.

It'll become a big joke if we come to learn that Julian uses Pirate Party women for lusty purposes and doesn't have much of a relationship with folks other than using them.

Lessons learned? Well....Swedish women over the age of thirty and single....probably don't appreciate falling for a guy and then learning he might not be faithful. But to be honest....ladies from New Orleans and Red Bay are the same way....it's just that guys never get smart about this kind of stuff.

Oh, and the photo? Swedish women do like 'curling' alot....so if you guys were wanting to fake some sports chat and hope to get to second base....mention 'curling'. I'm thinking Julian never mentioned his preference for the sport.

The Titular Figurehead

Rarely does the arrival of some new government agency chief really mean much. This week...the new intelligence chief (former General Clapper) arrived and started doing his walk around the various intelligence agencies. He had a presentation to say what's important with him and whats not.

He basically stood there and made this pledge....he refused to be a "titular figurehead or a hood ornament."

It's a expression that you end up admiring. Alot of these these guys come and go for government agencies. They serve as this hood ornament and they run up to congress to do a hanky-spanky speech to get the folks all pepped up for or against them.

It'd be nice to have a real chief who doesn't plan on being a hood ornament.

I thought over this a while, and to be honest....hood ornaments are dying out....in both aspects.

When was the last time that you actually bought a car that had an ornament? It doesn't happen anymore.

And for company or government chiefs? Well....everybody has expectations today. Just being a figurehead and waiting for magic to occur has almost disappeared in the workplace today.

The Fix For the Mosque

I pondered over this New York City mosque episode. The Democrats and Republicans are still blasting away, and more city residents are going negative over the whole mess each day.

I have come to realize the perfect answer. They want to build this huge twelve-odd story building for a mosque. They admit there's no plan yet. They admit they have no money. They admit alot of stuff that would lead you to wonder why these guys are still so serious about making this happen.

So why does it have to be twelve stories? I'm thinking to let them build it and limit them to two mere stories, period. You can cut this requirement for $100 million back and you just need a mere $15 million to probably buy the property and put up a simple two-story building.

The fact that no plan exists and they really don't know how to use the square footage makes this mostly a joke anyway.

And at the end of the day.....a mere two-story building isn't much to look at and I think most New Yorkers would never even notice the building. I'm guessing the Islam guys have another agenda here and need this extra tall building for some secret purpose, and they will decline my idea anyway.

PEPCO & Its Woes

This week, we had this funny meeting up here in the Maryland area with the utilities commission and PEPCO....the local electrical company.

Since January, PEPCO has had this ongoing mess with emergency outages. During the winter period, there two or three snow storms and this serious problem with power out a week in some cases.

Then as June, July and August roared along....these massive wind storms came up and triggered more outages. There was a pizza delivery service that admitted that they were out for six days, and the guys working there....made nothing for that period....so they were curious how'd they might pay for rent or such.

So folks around this region of Maryland who get PEPCO power, are plain upset. Some folks are looking at fifteen days of lost power for the year so far, and they are thinking about the yearly average of one day.

So the fury came left and right. Frankly, the commission is very upset.

But there's this other side of the situation. You see, up in Maryland, there are county and town rules about cutting back on trees. Its generally a topic that gets you into trouble if you suggest a dozen trees on some street need to be cut down. The owners will complain. The political leadership will complain. And in the end....most trees are never trimmed until storms rumble through.

If you see a problem brewing here, you might be right.

PEPCO sat and took all this negative talk but quietly, you could sense that there's this major problem of overgrowth. More outages? Yeah, I'm already betting on it.

Luckily, I live in Arlington and the city gets all strict on trimming the trees along streets. We don't have outages much (a grand total of eight hours since the day I arrived).