Bad boobs and banning Merry Xmas

I will have to learn to live without our Dear Leader.

The media is abuzz with idle speculation over multiple scenarios concerning North Korea's stability. One consensus is that Kim Jong-Un is not up for the job. His vomitous appearance and cloned image of his father convey a sense of decadence with a hint of perversion. Whomever is in control, they at least possess the firepower to keep their enemies at bay.

The conventional wisdom regarding firepower is that a nuclear arsenal, however small, is obligatory for self preservation. Witness Libya who surrendered their plans to build nukes and Syria who had their nuclear program blown away by Israel. Both  these nations were rendered powerless as a result. While we would love to take out North Korea, we will not because of their arsenal and because they have the perceived will to use it. The same goes for Iran. And we walk around Pakistani issues like a cat on a hot tin roof owing in part to their weaponry. In Pakistan's case, we have the added problem of their weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, fanatics, fundamentalists or what have you.

Sad news for less well endowed ladies who found a new life in prosthetic breast implants from the south of France. The silicon used was of industrial quality and poses a high cancer risk. I believe we are talking numbers in the 100s of thousands, mainly from Europe and the UK. Unbelievable that in this day and age the manufactures would flaunt sub-spec prosthesis. This will become a major issue both legally and for who will foot the repair bill.

We have a raging battle over employment tax. It is a bit complex. Some time ago and in an effort to stimulate spending, our Congress and its Democratic majority passed a bill temporarily suspending payroll deductions for social security purposes. This was madness as our SS was already in deep trouble and could ill afford any reduction in contributions.

The term of the bill has elapsed and O wants to renew it for another year.  O wanted to compensate for the lost income by assessing a surtax on the super wealthy. This got right up the nose of the ultra right wing, gazillionaires, tea party members and the like . After some debate, it was proposed to extend the bill for two months. Further debate yielded argumentation over the time period with the Senate agreeing to let the issue remain unresolved while they went home for Christmas.

Is it any wonder that the US estimation of Congressional effectiveness is in single digits?

To further complicate matters, the pipeline bill came into play. This bill goes far in ensuring US approval for an oil pipeline from middle Canada to the refineries in the Houston area. O says wait until the environmental impact assessments are completed before we reply yes or no. In the meantime, Canada says to us 'get cracking lads' or we will build our own pipeline to the Pacific and sell the oil to China.

Approval for the pipeline bill was tacked on to the employment tax bill. In short, the House said they would approve extending the term for not paying social security deductions from payrolls if Government would agree to approve the pipeline project. Now, everything is on hold until after the holidays.

Never mind, our government will sort it all out. Indeed, they just decreed that all official US correspondence shall refrain from using the term 'Merry Christmas' or any other facsimile. Fortunately, we can suggest that addressees may 'have a happy holiday' just as long as the type, nature and content of the holiday in question is not defined.