Key indicator down at end of week

Today's scorecard includes several data points that are expected to factor into a slight downward variance in the International Rubbish Index (1).

Segolene Royal, the ex-wife of French President Hollande (as opposed to the ex-live-in- partner or the girlfriend for whom he dumped the latter) has been brought back into the cabinet, despite her lack of real depth in areas such as nuclear energy. Last time she was in charge of things, she said publically that France depended on nukes for 17% of its energy, whereas the real number was 77%. This comes at a time when France is dithering its way toward backing out of its near-criminal reliance on nuclear power, and so there is some concern with this frankly silly management change. Score: -1.

A man who hit a 10 year old boy in Detroit when the youth stepped out in front of the man's pickup was mobbed, beaten into a coma, and robbed as well. A Detroit police sergeant said "... this is not conducive to how the city of Detroit generally handles things...” For the sheer nerve of that statement: Score: -2.
2014 04 09: update: he wasn't robbed. That was a rumor.

And an ad on the back cover of Archaeology Magazine touts tourism in Texas, concluding with the slogan "Texas: It's like a whole other country." Score: Here's hopin': +1.

In summary, adding the indicators produced a net reduction in the IRI, leaving it down 2.

(1) The International Rubbish Index or IRI is an indicator of the extent to which things appear to be going to hell in a handcart. It is maintained and published by the Research Institute of Michigan, a subsidiary of Wood-Charles Associates.

Dumb Will Find A Way

So there hasn't been a lot of traffic here lately, mostly because the Wood-Charles staff have been writing other things, in other media. (For extra credit, what's wrong with the following:

vector vList {0,1,2,3,4};
for (int i = 0 ; i <= vList.size() ; i++) 
{ 
      vList.push_back(i); 
}

Show your work.)

Anyway, for those who weren't paying attention, 2013 was the year in which, to paraphrase Trevor Rabin, Dumb Will Find A Way. Viz:

• So the evil state wants to keep you from killing yourself and those around you? The Obama-Pelosi conspiracy is gradually outlawing cigarettes? Nice try, Bloomberg-NannyState-Fascists! We can fix this! E-cigarettes! You can still fool yourself into believing that you look like Humphrey Bogart. You can still lean casually on the bar and ... what? But it's not a real cigarette! It's not even tobacco! I'm not "smoking"! All right, so how about this one? Looks nothing like a cigarette, Okay? I admit, it does look like I'm sucking on a flashlight, but still ... Dumb found a way, at least for a while.
  
• All right, all right. Grump. So we can't give ourselves lung cancer any more. We're losing our freedoms every day. But I know! Skin cancer! Tanning salons! We can expose our pasty white carcasses to artificially harmful rays! Hell, even in Florida there're 1261 melanoma shoppes. Big growth industry. Hint: invest in pharma stocks now. Dumb found a way.
  
• Meanwhile, Comrades, here in Soviet Uni ... I mean, Russia, is big problem. We got nasty country, nasty government, nasty terrorist persons. We host the 2014 Olympics, but many degenerate hooligans refuse to come. What to do? Ah, is brilliant! We arrest punk band, Greenpeace counter-revolutionaries, random gay persons. Then, to show how modern and enlightened is Russia, we let them go! Dumb is find way!
  
• One third of Americans claim not to believe in evolution. Enough said.
  
• Colonial chickens come home to roost! In perhaps the ultimate manner, France is being reminded of just how good an idea it was to have colonies in Saharan Africa, that is, French boys are being killed in an effort to fix their grandparents' mistakes. Alors, l'an dernier, I could not find ze Central African Republic on ze map. Maintenant, Je suis buried there. Dumb eventually found a way.
  
• At least in the CAR, the conflict is between people of two more or less different religions. Elsewhere (South Sudan, Syria, Iraq, etc.), people of the same faith, albeit different sects thereof, are killing each other with everything from modern artillery to machetes. Of course, the actual reason isn't simple bigotry, it's a scramble for what small amounts of power, money, and food are still left on the table, but it's more convenient to say "There go the (insert sect here)! Get 'em!" Post-colonial Dumb continues to find a way.
  
• If you're a small frog in a comparatively medium-sized pond and you have little in the way of ethics and brains, you're at risk. The gateway drug of local politics can lead you to all kinds of disastrous situations. If you're not careful who you hang out with, you might become Mayor! All over North America, big-city mayors are stumbling (sometimes literally) into difficulties, while the morons who voted for them cheer them on. Beds at Marion Barry House are at a premium. In Detroit, Toronto, San Diego ... dumb got found out.
  
• Finally, we offer this transcript of a meeting. "Okay, Mr. Rodman, now, when Hillary ... I mean, the Democrats ... win in 2016, we think you have a good shot at a State Department post. Ambassador or something. But you need some international credentials. Something to show you can go abroad and deal with foreign governments and leaders. Have we got a concept for you!" Dumb appears to be finding a way.
  

One of your editor's resolutions for the new year is to post more of this mean-spirited, sarcastic rubbish that I you know and love. We'll see how it comes out.

Our spring line-up

From one of the more enthusiastic military junk dealers whose catalogs I get.


Here's a deal you can't pass up! Not one, not two, but four ludicrous Italian Crusher hats. You'll be crushed, no doubt, when you wear these beauties into combat and your enemies die laughing. Luigi, que pazza?! How many times I'm-a-tella you? The pockets, they go on the pants, on the pants, not the hats.

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Clearly, somebody took Mussolini's hearkening back to the glory days of Rome a bit too seriously. "Never issued:" I bet they weren't.

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And finally, evidence that the French military is following our lead in doing away with don't-ask-don't-tell, they're dumping their field closets. Just the thing for camping it up at the old campground.

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That's all for now!