Snow and Earthquakes and Shooting People

Yesterday the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl in their first ever appearance in the “big game” ending 40 years of misery for their fans ... most of their fans. True to form, someone decided that the best way to show their support was to discharge a firearm in the middle of a crowded intersection. Nothing says you love your team like destroying property and hurting people! The shootings occurred at about midnight, at the intersection of Iberville and Bourbon streets, in the Crescent City's French Quarter, authorities said in a statement and three Saints fans received gunshot wounds to their legs ... for them the misery continues, win or no win.

So, it snowed this weekend ... a lot. I will qualify all this by telling you that I was born and raised in the great north east (where the snow comes from) and find snow related histeria to be absolute foolishness. In Washington DC they have never seen snow ... I guess. The snow has shut down the Federal government. I read today that more than 200-thousand federal workers were told to stay home Monday as transportation remains paralyzed by snow and ice. Two hundred thousand!?! Did you know that there were that many people on the payroll? I didn’t. So what does the President do? (Mr. Shovel Ready) Did he call in an army of snow plows to get the thing opened up, bring in the salt trucks, cover the streets in sand? Um ... no. President Barack Obama called the storm "Snowmageddon" - a play on words combining "snow" and the apocalyptic event in the Bible known as "Armageddon." The inevitable end of the world. Nothing can be done, all you salary employees just take some time off and relax. I guess all that government stuff is as unimportant as I thought it was. Blizzards like that one would get an hour delay to the schools in upstate New York, maybe two hours. But in Washington, they can’t figure out what to do. Don’t worry, the snow will melt soon and that 200,000 strong group of the most uncreative problem solvers in the world will get right bact to solving all of our problems.

Controversy over the voter list in Ivory Coast is threatening to once again push back long-delayed presidential elections. Election-related protests erupted around Ivory Coast this past week. Ivorian investigators have confirmed evidence of "fraud" in the voter list for the country's upcoming presidential elections. “Fraud” in this case is nothing major, just a half a million registered voters who are not from the Ivory Coast ... what’s a few hundred thousand ineligible voters between friends? The current President of the Ivory Coast is Laurent Gbagbo ... who’s legal mandate to rule ended in 2005, but since they can’t seem to have an actual election he’s still the president. Cute. It’s been FIVE YEARS FOLKS! Get your act together! So where is the organization that $921 million of our tax dollars go to every year to handle this kind of stuff? Don’t worry, the UN peace keepers are on the job, they have “called for calm amid the protests” and they are “urging” the organization of elections as “soon as possible”. Well, good, at least someone is stepping in to move the process along.

A magnitude 5.7-earthquake shook southern Mexico near the Oaxaca coast today, setting off evacuation alarms and swaying buildings as far away as Mexico City. Please pray for the people there that the devastation and casualties will be minimal. There is no information yet, but I am hopeful that the people there will be OK.