Easy solutions to hard problems 1: solving the national debt

Talk about pesky problems, the national debt has had us scratching our heads for years. I'm pleased to say I have an answer for ya.

Here's a plan that I'll implement if I ever get around to becoming prez. We use a technique developed by our own corporations. In a nutshell, it is this: consolidate our debt in one state, and then spin that state off as a separate country, which does the equivalent of filing chapter 11.

1) The state of Texas has an open secret that most Americans don't know about. As most lone star natives are aware, Texas has the option of splitting (or MIRVing if you will) at any time into five states, each with equal representation in the Senate. The boundaries of that split are to be determined by Texas. So Texas splits off four tiny states, perhaps with some gulf shore access, and we name one of them the "State of War".

2) An act of congress is passed, ceding all of our military assets, including most of the national debt, to the State of War. In reality, we cook the books to give the State of War only the debt, and very few assets - a few Sherman tanks, A10 wart hogs, fizzled nukes and chemical weapons, and any bond issues we don't feel like honoring. Plenty of corporate types - maybe some ex ENRON folks, would offer to do this work for us either pro bono, or bill it to the State of War.

3) The State of War declares independence, and immediately files chapter 11. Let the UN, the Hague, or whomever, take over receivership, and see about paying off the creditors.

4) Then we have a big party, and thank Texas for helping out in a time of need.

5) Oh, and the other three extra states are spares. For the time being, they can be loaded with Indian run casinos until we need to deal with future problems. For example, when welfare goes belly up in 35 years, we can create a "State of Unemployment", and pass all the debt and blame off to that tiny country.

Next time: a no-fault system for declaring and fighting wars.
--
Mike Russell - mike.russell-home.net

Singapore, Dec 9 and 10

Dec 9 - today was a travel day, starting off with the treat of seeing Angkor Wat from the air after our flight circled south to head for Singapore. We arrived in the afternoon a bit of time for roaming around in the rather heavy rain. Dinner at a Chinese food market that had a great variety of foods, though a bit crowded and noisy as the popular ones seem to be.

Dec 10 - Bird zoo--long MRT ride and then bus ride. Good but very wet visit. We skipped the simulated "Tropical Thunderstorm" show, since the real thing was happening. While the rain kept the birds down somewhat, it was still great. The bird zoo has huge walk-in atria filled with tropical vegetation, waterfalls, birds--and rain shelters and thunder and lightning.

The night zoo was even better, although still wet enough to keep some of the animals in their dens. Unlike the botanical garden (good, reasonably priced food), the night zoo food was so-so and expensive. The tram ride is good, partially because it goes places you can't walk, and partially because it is fairly dry. The bats were fantastic. The flying squirrels were good too--one brushed by Ann's head! The whole place is wonderfully atmospheric and the temperature was great. We took the last bus/MRT back--long( 1 hr versus 20 minutes) and not really worth it unless you are short on money or long on local color, but comfortable enough and it worked.

Small Internet victory after returning from the night zoo: I wired up a USB wifi adapter on on long cable around to the back wall of the hotel, with a wire creeping out one of our windows, sealed against air conditioning. The result appears to be a reliable Internet connection. To celebrate this newly robust Internet connection, I uploaded my picture to www.scroogeyourself.com. You are welcome to view it at your leisure here:
http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1258251071

Tomorrow we do a few things in Singapore, then head for the airport at 2pm.

Siam Reap, Dec 5, 6, and 7

Angkor Wat - the centerpiece.

Siam Reap, Dec 4 through 8

We're now in Cambodia, having arrived on the 4th with no hitches. After a morning on our own at Angkor Wat temple, we hooked up with David Cardinal's group. We visited temples, starting at 4 or 5 am to catch the morning light, for the next several days.

Singapore, Dec 3, 2007

Singapore, Dec 3, 2007

Greetings folks. Another fine, busy Singapore day. We got up early, hit up Starbuck's for some early morning java, and hailed a cab for a pleasant 20 minute air-conditioned ride to the zoo (pronounced zoo-eh here). Suffice it to say, this is a blow-away excellent zoo. Right up there in the big leagues with San Diego.

A pair of cheetahs were among the early attractions. They had quite a large, grassy area to romp in, and the keepers had hidden raw bits of meat here and there in the grass, so there was plenty of prowling going on.

There were two baby chimps. This was the younger of the two, with its mom.

The orangutangs were free to roam overhead in the treetops, which were connected by climbing nets. There was a new baby, already starting to do some experimental climbing, 50 feet above ground, while mom watched casually.

This rather lumpish looking lizard, and two more just like him, were busy roaming around their enclosure rather happily. I'm guessing that the warm climate perks them up, and they are really much more lively than we typically see them in colder climates.
The tapirs were one of the last animals we saw - this is a baby, still with about half his stripes.

Evening was spent in Little India, chowing down in one of the food courts. In a few scant hours, we will be heading to the airport at 4am, for our flight to Siam Reap, Cambodia, the location of the Angkor Wat temple complex.

Take care.

Singapore ,Dec 2, 2007

Singapore, Dec 2, 2007

Our hotel is the New Seventh Storey - a plain but well-kept hotel with one of this manually operated elevators. Air conditioned, and enough of a stray WiFi signal to keep in the Internet. Heaven!

Visited the ATM, bought our nifty transportation tickets, and hopped the air conditioned double decker bus for the Botanical Gardens.

The botanical gardens are gigantic! Within the gardens is a section dedicated to just orchids, with thousands of varieties. I personally only saw a few hundred of them, so I don't know. They might be exaggerating...

These particular orchids were a very vivid purple color that instantly washes out on camera.

Some bona fide liverworts. They look similar to the Nov 30 ones from Takora Gorge.

We took a break, then went to the river that evening for a boat ride and a nice dinner of pepper crab. Tomorrow, it's the Singapore zoo!

Taipei and Singapore, Dec 1, 2007

Taipei, Dec 1, 2007

Heading for a temple in Taipei, we came across these fellows, all dressed up and happy to have their picture taken. Some sort of festival was in progress, more than likely related to the round flowery signs that we in other parts of the country that I mentioned earlier.

One of the larger temples was setting up several giant marching puppets for a parade, and they strutted around in front of the temple. Evidently this was a big deal since there were two satellite uplink trucks, and TV cameras from Tapei channel 7 and PSB. This was serious stuff, with no clapping or other applause. I got a bit of video of this, which shows how they swing their arms in time to the rather raucous live music.

I always wonder what little kids think of these things. This guy looks as if he is wondering a little if the giant puppets are real or not, though he was only a few feet from seeing the people put on the puppet gear.

A somewhat bemused little guy and his mom, also watching the puppet spectacle.

Sliced fruits and vegetables at a juice stand in the "Tourist Market".

This puppy knows his way around heavy equipment!

We finished up our last day in Taipei, hopped on the plane for Singapore, and took a cab to our hotel, very tired. Our first reaction: man is it warm!

November 30, 2007. Taroko Gorge and Taipei

November 30, 2007 Taroko Gorge and Taipei

Morning sees us by the river - this was taken from the "suspension bridge" leading to the temple. On the bridge we met two Americans who said they had seen Macaques not far from the hotel. He gave us what turned out to be accurate directions, including climbing a steep rocky face, studded with chains, to a bamboo grove. Well, now we know what we're going to do after breakfast!

It's after breakfast, and up the path to look for apes. Finally, I got one of these big boys I've been talking about to pose - there were actually several of them, and I took enough pictures to catch one of them looking great. These butterflies are the size of a small bird. They look even more like a bird while flying because only the front wings flap - the rear ones act as stabilizers.

Following instructions, we climbed a steep rocky staircase with chains, and came to a bamboo grove. Now we're looking around for macaques. Didn't find any. Oh well - the rest of the walk was great anyway.

We've been seeing these all over the place - large bee or hornet's nests made apparently of mud, generally with live leaf stems growing through them. This one is about 8 inches in diameter. They appear to be inactive, but I could not get Ann to poke one with a stick while I recorded events with the camera.

Some interesting plants, about a half inch in diameter. I'm calling them liverworts, type of plant that has no need for fads like vascular systems and flowers. These are clustered on the wet vertical rock faces next to the path.

Whoa - these are big, nasty looking wasps, about 2-1/2 inches long! The one on the left was busy laying eggs in the exposed wood of a tree, when the second, smaller wasp happened by. They seemed to commune a bit with their feelers (as shown here) then the small one took off. No aggressive behavior, so even the wasps are kinder and gentler in Taiwan. Interestingly, a several of butterflies clustered close to the wasp as it was laying.

When I look at the image above, I see a burnt out camp fire with a bit of beer foam running down one side. This image should really be about four feet wide. In reality, this is a large falls at the end of the day's second walk, called "Nine Turns Gorge". It follows a section the path of the old highway, now replaced by an adjacent tunnel. This view was the high point of the trip, not only for the view, but because we did see a macaque, after all, today, pointed out to us by a fellow tourist. It was feeding quietly in a tree on the opposite side of the gorge.

Next stop, Taipei. We head into town on the sleek new "leaning train", which is similar inside to the HST we took from Tainan to Taipei a few days ago.

After checking in at our hotel, we go for a short walk to the fashionable Ximen (West Gate) district, the preferred night time habitat of young and cool people, such as ourselves. We are in search of some steamed dumplings to take back to the room ...

and we find them here - tasty soup-filled dumplings from a nice little shop. The proprietor simply beams with integrity. Our dumplings are in the slightly darker container in the bottom right corner. This is at #30 Hankou Street Sec. 2. Like most of such places, they do mostly take-out, and sell in units of one steamer-tray, not individual dumplings. No language is needed: just smile, point, look at the price on the calculator, pay, eat and smile some more.

That's it for today. Signing off, dateline Taipei!