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I interrupt this cruise, somewhere out in the sunshine of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, to get a few things off my chest:

All Hail Obama. Hope, change, a new beginning.

If you buy the rhetoric, we are on the dawn of a new Golden Age, where everyone will have a good job, high-quality medical care, limitless renewable energy, freedom from random wiretaps or roving bands of waterboarding Republicans, a Constitutional right to publicly demonstrate in favor of war criminals and avowed intended mass-murderers to be, a full, healthy, low-fat vegetarian stew in every pot, and a puppy. Well, maybe not a puppy, because that would be speciesist slavery. Maybe one of those Japanese dog-robots (a Green one, of course.)

We are told that it's mandatory to tolerate a religion that is at its core fundamentally intolerant, but forbidden to tolerate in public places a religion that teaches as a core value the act of forgiveness.

We believe that it is just, right, and proper for the government to command that banks lend money to people who do not have the ability to repay those loans, and we also insist that when this scheme collapses, that it's a "failure of capitalism," not a failure of government. Because we believe, a priori, that government does not, can not fail at what it does.

We believe that the way out of an economic crisis brought on by too much debt is to spend more money.

Does any of this really make sense to anyone?

It gets better.

The political party holding the reins of all parts of the Federal Government for the next two years came in promising to be "the most ethical" government in history, but is so ridden by scandal at all levels--even before it takes full power--that newspapers don't even bother telling which party the crooked politicians belong to.

We have tax crooks writing tax laws. We have other tax crooks being appointed to the position which will enforce those laws.

We believe that because agenda-driven, government-financed scientists say that because of carbon dioxide, the Earth is getting warmer, (despite the documented flaws in their computer models, the limitations in modeling such a huge, chaotic, complex system using digital computers, and in contradiction to the plain evidence), we should take our already-teetering economy and completely destroy it, advancing into a Brave New World where Americans and Europeans will live like Indians and Chinese, except more so.

On a note of particular and personal interest to your humble writer: dieticians and nutritionists overwhelmingly believe, contrary to everything that's known about human biochemistry, that low-fat diets are superior for most humans to low-carbohydrate diets. Once again, the academia-media-government complex has promoted bad science, bad health, and bad policy because of narrow political agendas rather than any true sense of what is right and true.

Our entire society is a long, long, long way from sanity. We have constructed so many intellectual and legal houses of cards that the miracle is not that things are falling apart, it's that things have stayed together for so long.

What we're seeing is an entire civilization suffering a massive Tragedy of the Commons. In fact, that's a pretty good analogy of what all socialist schemes boil down to--everything is a "common good" that everyone has a "right" to, creating an unsustainable demand for pretty much everything. Then you tie that to the inevitable government interventions in the economy, which are ALWAYS destructive of wealth. Always.

Always.

At its best, government takes wealth from productive persons, takes a cut off the top, and distributes some portion of the remainder according to political requirements--not economic requirements, not humanitarian requirements, not "social-justice" requirements. Political requirements--as in paying off the people who keep you in power. Period.

That is exactly why free market economies perform better, make more people more wealthy, utilize resources better, are cleaner and "greener" than government-controlled economies. Always have been, always will be.

Does anybody study history any more?

Socialism. Worked so well everywhere else it’s been tried, eh?

If you want to tear down the achievers in society, then socialism is for you. If you want to improve, in absolute and in relative terms, the lot of the common man, then freedom and economic liberty are the only games in town.

The 2009 Circle Hawaii Cruise - Holland America Zaandam, January 5-21, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Four

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January 11 (Sunday, Day 7, Kona, Hawaii)

The day started a little cool and cloudy, but we signed up for the Zodiac snorkel adventure so the three of us got to the lounge by 7:45 AM with the rest of our adventure snorkelers. We were put on the first tender to shore and met up with the two Zodiac captains. We boarded the second Zodiac and hung on tight (and kept a foot under the taut rope running along the floor of the Zodiac at all times so as to not fall out). The captain was radioed about the first Zodiac seeing a whale about 20 yards away. We weren’t that lucky and didn’t see any. We missed the whale by about 5 minutes!

The Zaandam peeking through the palm trees

More after the jump . . .

The 2009 Circle Hawaii Cruise - Holland America Zaandam, January 5-21, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Three

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January 9 (Friday, Day 5, At sea)

M.C. Escher print, ms Zaandam aft staircase between decks 6 and 7

We turned our clocks back one hour and everyone enjoyed the extra sleep. Snookums, Filbert and Judy went to the 10 AM Dam dollars golf challenge.

More after the jump . . .

The 2009 Circle Hawaii Cruise - Holland America Zaandam, January 5-21, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Two

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January 7 (Wednesday, Day 3, At sea)

M.C. Escher print, ms Zaandam aft staircase between decks 1 and 2

Snookums went to the big cabin to see how everyone was doing and Judy told her that Dad threw up and was seasick. This from a man that neither of us have ever seen throw up and also from a man that always told Mom to just relax when she was seasick and that it was all in her mind. By the time Snookums saw him at 11, he was sitting in bed reading so he couldn’t have been too seasick. Anyway, he was fine and the day continued without incident.

More after the jump . . .

The 2009 Circle Hawaii Cruise - Holland America Zaandam, January 5-21, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part One

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

January 5 (Monday, Day 1, Flying to San Diego, California)

We were ready two hours before the SuperShuttle arrived to take us to the airport. However, on the way to pick up Snookums’s parents and sister (Judy), Filbert realized that he forgot the humidifier for his C-PAP. So, we picked everyone up and headed back to the Palatial Abode for a quick stop.

We made it to the airport in time and got in the long Southwest luggage line. We forgot that it was the first Monday after the holiday season and the flights were full. We got to the gate about 5 minutes prior to pre-boarding so all was well.

Enroute to Phoenix

More after the jump . . .

The ciderthat I actually started on December 15th 2008 has been brewing for about 20 days, so it was time to siphon it off from the primary fermentation pail into a carboy for settling. The initial hygrometer reading for the cider was 1.055, and the reading today was 1.012, which works out to just under 5% alcohol in the cider, if I'm doing the math correctly.

My hard cider's new home--for the next month or so

Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan has been fired.

“After giving this careful consideration, I have concluded that a change in our football operations is in the best interests of the Denver Broncos,” owner Pat Bowlen said.

Shanahan’s record was 146-89, but the Broncos remained stuck at only one postseason victory since John Elway retired in 1999 after Denver’s second championship.

This season was especially ugly. It included a historic collapse that saw Denver become the first team since divisional play started in 1967 to blow a three-game lead with three games left.

From White Coat Underground, apparently a doctors' blog:

In the mid 20th century, when antibiotics were invented, strains of Staph resistant to penicillins rapidly evolved.

Time for an aside: “Evolved”, as in “evolution”. I know that very few of my readers are likely to be creationists, but this is one of the reasons creationism/intelligent design is so dangerous. Knowledge of evolutionary biology allows the prediction of antibiotic resistance. Creationism does not–its teleological arguments simply posit that God created resistant bacteria because He knew ahead of time about penicillin (or some such nonsense). ID has no predictive value, and is therefore worthless. End of digression.

Emphasis mine.

Gather the kids and Grandma, turn off the TV, and partake of the utter Dave Barryness of the

Dave Barry's 2009 Year In Review. A taste:

December

The CEOs of the Increasingly Small Three automakers return to Washington to resume pleading for a bailout, this time telling Congress that if they can reach an agreement that day, they will throw in the undercoating, the satellite-radio package and a set of floor mats. "We're actually losing money on this deal!" they assure Congress. Finally, they reach a multibillion-dollar deal under which the car companies will continue to provide jobs, medical care and pension benefits, but will cease producing actual cars. The restructured operation will be overseen by the federal government, using its legendary skill at keeping things on budget.