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I always liked this one.

I Know What Is Best For Everyone



By Edwin Wiersbicki

Listen to me, because I know what is best for everyone. There are a great many problems facing America today, and I have all the answers to all of them.

Everyone should listen to what I have to say and heed my advice because I am correct. When I say that lowering taxes is the solution to the Social Security crisis, you should agree. We can reduce juvenile crime by requiring school uniforms. It is crazy to pay a man $10 million just because he can put a ball in a hoop. Consuming a daily dose of Vitamin E will result in healthier, stronger dental tissue. No daughter of mine is going to step foot inside a church wearing a miniskirt. Those fat cats in Washington deserve each other. Parker pens are simply the best writing instruments on the market.

If your daughter is getting married, the groom's family should pay for bar expenses. Higher tariffs mean protection for America. It is important to support your local YMCA. Listen to me. We need longer jail terms for repeat drug offenders. If you are having a cookout to entertain friends, make both beef and chicken available. Wildly patterned ties are tacky–the simpler, the classier. I am right.

I also know the solution to the issue of campaign-finance reform. I wrote a letter to The Glendale Post-Gazette to inform the citizenry what needs to be done, and that letter was published on Oct. 9. If you wish to know what needs to be done about the problem of campaign finance, you should find a copy of the Oct. 9 Glendale Post-Gazette.

How do I know about everything? That's simple: by being smarter than everyone else.

Take, for example, the city council's plan to build a community swimming pool. They are wrong, and I am right. Not only will a community pool needlessly raise property taxes, but the traffic on Claybourne Avenue will double, causing delays for those heading to the Pine Street shopping area. I have alerted the members of the city council of this fact, but they have failed to heed my advice, because, as I mentioned earlier, they are not as intelligent as I am.

One of the things I like best about myself is that not only do I know what is best for everyone, I always make sure to come forward with this information. I do not passively sit by, doing nothing about the problems around me. As soon as I determine what is right for my community, state or country, I speak up about it, writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper or talking about it loudly at a local park.

I also know what is right for individuals. I recently informed Patti and Gus Schmidt that their son Steven was smoking pot, and I told them they should put a stop to it. The Schmidts are not perceptive, so they did not notice the warning signs of drug abuse. Fortunately, I am extremely perceptive and was able to intervene.

Tomorrow, I am going to write a letter to USA Today about the problem of international terrorism. That will solve this serious problem once and for all. Thank goodness for me.

This isn't really from the Onion, but I like those sign posts that say "On this site in (insert year here), nothing happened"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28338

Recent horoscopes:

Taurus April 20 - May 20
You will soon experience the kind of love that exists only in movies, but unfortunately for you, they're the ones starring Woody Allen.

Aquarius January 20 - February 18
Though many have argued over what came first, the chicken or the egg, all agree that causality dilemmas were a lot more fun before you showed up.

Cancer June 22 - July 22
Critics will call your first poetry collection a "stirring work of utmost courage and beauty," which just goes to show how much mileage that man from Nantucket has.

Tennessee Helpless Against New Basement Tornadoes

February 25, 2008 | Issue 44•09


MEMPHIS, TN—Officials from the National Weather Service issued a severe weather alert for all basements in Tennessee Tuesday after a deadly new weather phenomenon ravaged scores of residential downstairs areas, leaving every other part of the houses completely untouched. The recently discovered targeted cyclones, known as basement tornadoes, tore through cellars all over the state, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.

Calling the recent devastation the worst indoor weather event in U.S. history, weather service director Dr. John L. Hayes said that millions of residents who have for years been taught to seek shelter from twisters by taking refuge in their homes will have to drastically adjust long-held assumptions about tornado safety and preparedness.

A homeowner searches in vain for a moving box full of old Halloween costumes.
"If there is a violently rotating column of air in your basement, do not go downstairs," Hayes said. "Wait in an attic or at the top of a stairwell. If possible, find shelter in a structure lacking any kind of subterranean open space at all, such as a mobile home."

"Unless, of course, regular tornadoes are sighted in the area, in which case you should immediately get to your basement, provided you have one," Hayes added.

Meteorologists have measured the spiraling basement winds at speeds of up to 200 mph—powerful enough in some cases to drive a box of dryer sheets six inches into solid concrete. In all, the cyclones have caused hundreds of dollars in property damage by toppling artificial Christmas trees, smashing jars of fruit preserves, and overturning ping-pong tables.

"Some people lost their entire basements," said Knoxville-area relief worker Dan Weiss, who personally observed a dozen rec rooms that were completely destroyed, and a half-dozen more that might have been destroyed, though it was difficult to say for sure. "Everything they had ever stored was suddenly lost. So much extra stuff gone to waste."

Using Doppler radar, interior satellites, and computer models, researchers have determined that basement tornadoes form when warm dank air collides with a cool dry draft, creating a significant drop in pressure, and causing wind velocity to increase and whirl in a vortex of dust, debris, and cobwebs. Predicting where and when a basement tornado will strike is challenging, however, because they seem to jump from cellar to cellar by traveling through sump pumps.

"All we can say for certain is that unfinished basements are twice as likely to develop tornadoes," said Allan Boyer, a controlled meteorogist at the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK. "Also, when residents leave their washing machines and dryers running it creates the ideal environment for tornadoes, because of the extra spinningness it causes in the air."

Doppler radar shows how basement tornadoes form just over the foosball table in this Knoxville-area cellar.
The NSPC has developed a scale for ranking the intensity of basement tornadoes with the lowest rating, B0, only causing mild shag-carpet disturbances, and the highest, B5, capable of destroying workbenches and water heaters. According to NSPC statistics, independent-minded siblings between the ages of 16 and 19 who always want to be alone are most likely to be injured by basement tornadoes. The second highest at-risk group is families huddling in basements waiting for normal tornadoes to pass.

The outbreak of basement tornadoes has also raised a slew of privacy issues, pitting so-called storm hunters against homeowners, since those who study the deadly new phenomenon say they must gain access to private residences to be able to set up their equipment and observe the storms. Angry residents have already forced dozens of researchers camping in their cellars out of their homes, and at least two have been shot at or violently assaulted for peering through basement windows.

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the NWS have been working together to develop new nationwide evacuation guidelines, officials say it is a complicated process.

"Even if a storm warning goes into effect hours before a tornado strikes, we caution citizens against attempting to flee the area in automobiles, since this will dramatically increase their chances of being severely injured or killed by car tornadoes," FEMA administrator R. David Paulison said. "This could shape up to be the worst development in natural disasters since the 2003 spate of earthquakes that struck directly under doorways and large desks."

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Hehe, "So much extra stuff gone to waste." Like, "Oh, it's so awful; many of the crappiest of my possessions have been utterly destroyed! "

lol

Horoscope:

Aries: "After years of pondering just what has made Britain great, you'll finally come to the realization that it's the adjective in its full title."

(Okay, I made that up.)