There must be someone with a sick...

sense of humor in charge of balancing things out in our universe.  Take yesterday for example.  I was at the first of the day's two movies and a couple came in just a few minutes before the show began.  The man was playing a game on his cell phone right up until the feature began.  Then he put his phone away and watched the movie.  But about 30 minutes into the film, he took out the phone and started playing his game again.  I wanted to say something but if the people right behind him weren't complaining, I wasn't going to.

A few minutes later, the woman with him turned around and went off on the man sitting behind her for kicking her chair as he uncrossed and recrossed his legs.  Is that justice?  They disturbed him, so he disturbed them back, although that wasn't the apparent intent of either.  Is that balance?  Seems to me it is.

Then when I was leaving the theater and pulling out of my parking space, there was not one, but two cars circling like vultures trying to jockey for position to get into my space.  Until one of the two realized that it was a blue placard space and apparently they didn't have one, while the other car had handicapped plates on it.  Parking close to where you're going is great, but paying $331 to do so isn't smart.

It's January 20th.  The President of the U.S. takes the oath of office today (tomorrow for the public) and another term begins.  The election is over.  The problems are real.  Let's release the partisanship and try to foster a spirit of bi-partisanship to deal with those problems.  That's the fantasy.  The reality was seen this morning on CNN when Barney Frank and a prominent Republican were discussing things political and the sniping about how both parties fingerpoint went on unabated.

If you need a new car and you can't afford it, you go get a loan.  When you can't get a loan, you find a less expensive car or you take the bus.  But when the federal government wants to buy something it just prints more money.  They can defer the pain.  They can postpone by more borrowing.  But sooner or later the lender is going to call in the loan. 

In post WWI Germany, the Weimar Republic just printed more money.  By 1924, one loaf of bread cost 200 billion marks.  That's what happens when you just keep printing money.  It loses value rapidly at a certain point in the process.

Other things I am pondering on a Sunday morning:

Why am I feeling so overwhelmed the past few days?  Life isn't all that much busier.  Maybe I'm just tired and still recovering from my illness.

Is it an act of rudeness or politeness to stop someone from telling you all of a joke because you've heard the punchline before and it's a fairly long joke?  If it's short, you just smile, listen and then give a courtesy chuckle.  And if you feel the need, you mention you've heard it before.  But why not stop a person from going through the whole, long, joke when you know it.  When you've been telling the same joke for decades?

I guess there are no limits to what scam artists will do to get money from people.  Someone selling coins that purported to contain silver from Ground Zero is going to pay $750,000 in fines.  How do such people sleep at night?

How much "extra" money do you have to have lying around to spend over $4 million to buy the original Batmobile?

There's a new report out that nearly 1/3rd of military commanders being 'fired' are getting fired over issues involving sex, sexual harassment and so on.  This isn't anything new, it's just a case of people keeping statistics now and that back before the Tailhook scandal, that kind of thing just got covered up for the most part.  Why don't people understand that this isn't new, it's just being looked at differently.

The late Stan Musial was one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball.  But looking at his career numbers also serves to remind us just how much better the late Ty Cobb was than anyone else who ever swung a bat, as long as we use hits and batting average rather than home runs to measure success.  Musial his .331 over 22 seasons.  Almost 3,700 hits.  Cobb hit .366 over 24 seasons.  Almost 4,200 hits.  But he wasn't the greatest player ever.  That title belongs solely to the late, great Babe Ruth. 

Ruth hit home runs like no one before him.  He his .342 over 22 seasons and would have been well over 3,000 hits except for one little thing.  He was one of the game's best pitchers during his first four full seasons in the majors and thusly played only every 4th game.  No one before or since will ever have a lifetime batting average of .340 while their winning percentage as a pitcher is over .600.  In fact, his is .676, the second highest of any pitcher in the Hall of Fame.  So why would anyone argue that any other player was the greatest ever? 

This Date in History:

On this date in 1265, the English Parliament met for the first time.
On this date in 1320, Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes King of Poland.
On this date in 1356, Edward Balliol abdicates as King of Scotland
On this date in 1649, Charles I of England goes on trial for 'treason' and 'other high crimes'.
On this date in 1841, the English occupy Hong Kong.
On this date in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union is founded.
On this date in 1936, Fujifilm is founded in Tokyo.
On this date in 1942, the "Final Solution" and its implementation is discussed at the Wannsee Conference.
On this date in 1972, Pakistan launches its nuclear weapons program.
On this date in 1981, President Ronald Reagan is inaugurated.  20 minutes later, the U.S. hostages in Iran are freed.
On this date in 1986, Martin Luther King Jr's birthday is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.
On this date in 1987, Church of England envoy Terry Waite is taken hostage in Lebannon.