Rapture Wrap?

As a follow-up to my recent post on those who feel the impending apocalypse is sufficient reason to ignore the environment, I offer the following bumper sticker, recently spotted in California:

Today's Moments of Zen

It was reported that lobbyists had once provided former (now imprisoned) Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham with free limousine service, free access to hotel suites, and the services of prostitutes; it was also reported that the limousine service that was used to ferry the prostitutes had received a contract worth $21 million from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Louisiana state senate approved a bill that bans abortion except when the procedure can save a woman's life; an amendment to allow exceptions in the cases of women who have been raped or are victims of incest was defeated.

A Liverpool, England, man was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for getting drunk and singing "YMCA" on a flight from Florida to Manchester while his wife wept and comforted their three children. "He makes no excuses," said the man's lawyer, "for his loutish, idiotic behavior."

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Good heavens people! What in the world is going on here? Those have to be some of the odder stories from the past week, or the past year for that matter. Indeed very odd, yet when you think about it, strangely related...

So, you may be wondering, how exactly are philandering federal bureaucrats related to tragically misguided abortion laws or drunken British louts? Well, bear with me here. It's actually quite simple.

It seems ironic that our mostly male law makers will go out of their way to write up and support legislation that restricts a woman's right to make decisions about her sexuality and her own body, while at the same time they cruise around in limos with prostitutes and charge it all to the tax payer!! No, that's not ironic, it's shameful. In fact, it's downright inexcusable. It's enough to drive a sane man to excessive drinking and acts of idiotic behavior in public, like singing YMCA at full volume on a transatlantic flight, maybe...

See? I told you they were related.

Flying By Numbers

Some stats from a recent day spent flying from San Antonio to Vancouver (via Dallas):

5:30 – time of scheduled wake-up call
never – actual time of wake-up call
6:00 – time at which I happened to roll over and look at the clock
6:30 – time of arrival at check-in counter for flight to Dallas
7:26 – scheduled departure time
45 – number of minutes in security line-up
5 - number of seats by which flight was oversold
30E – number of my assigned seat
30E – number of seat assigned to and occupied by a sharply dressed Hispanic businessman
2 – number of other seats I was directed to sit in prior to occupying my final seat
550 – estimated combined weight (in pounds) of the two individuals on either side of my middle seat
0 – number of available arm rests
1 – number of opportunities I was given to relocate to a less “crowded” seat, but was prevented from doing so because the obese gentleman to my left refused to stand-up “yet again” (I’m not kidding!)
39 – number of minutes that gentleman snored through the flight
40 – duration of flight to Dallas, in minutes (thank God!)
2 – number of hours scheduled for layover in Dallas
1 – number of oil leaks discovered in left hand side engine of Vancouver destined aircraft, after all passengers were loaded
5 – number of times engine was restarted in hopes that the leak would “go away”
0 – number of successful attempts
2.5 – number of hours “de-planed” passengers waited for a replacement aircraft
55 – number of minutes that passengers were further delayed, once loaded on the 2nd aircraft, waiting for food services to stock the galley
4.5 – total number of hours behind schedule that I arrived in Vancouver