There are ill winds blowing today. The political ill winds have been obvious lately. You find George Bush getting his way on the congressional votes on all his pet issues. The President called this a "do nothing congress" but this congress has done more to violate peoples' civil rights than any republican congress did. Who would guess the President would make an issue out of hungry children and children who need medical care? The President favors not helping them, and he's the winner. Now they have this stuff in the nation of Niger they are trying out called "Plump-a-nut" or something that tastes like peanut butter or something. It's gone a long way twords eridacating starvation in places in Africa. The political ill winds are blowing favorably to to the President because on ABC the other night they featured a trash piece on Al Gore saying his science was bogus and all of his scientists were just political hacks, and none of the "real" scientists believed in Global Warming. The media is referring to a melt down in the Berock Obama campaign. The candidicy of Obama has been a great disappointment to all his backers, and many who contributed money to him are now having second thoughts. His money appears to be drying up. On the Republican front we're told that Giuliani is winning there because he's the only liberal fighting against a host of conservatives such as Romney, Huckabee, and Fred Thompson. As we've known for the past year now two centerist candidates, the ex Mayor of New York and Senator Hillary Clinton will be the nominees. Hillary is remaking her image on an almost daily basis. Now she is trying to appear more feminine and "motherly".

The other ill winds that are blowing are these Santa Ana winds. Yesterday I checked on the program "This Week" on ABC and they were having coverage of the fires. Fires around here are almost a non event except this season of the year where Southern California seems to be "in flames" like the song goes, "I see your hair is burning. Hills are filled with fire". I remember the fires referred to in that song- -from late September 1970. We had a bad season in 1993 and in 1997 and 2003, I think, and the past year there has been a continuous fire season. It used to be fire season began July first or something. I know we were fighting fires in February. Other places in the nation have had fire problems. In the west the "mega fire" has become much more common. The statistics on wild fires in the west are almost Gore-esque. This modern phenominum of the West being on fire dates back to 1988 in Yellowstone where they first announced the "let burn" policy. It seems the "mistake" we were making all these years was putting out small forrest fires and now there is all this dry brush to worry about. It used to be fires of 200,000 acres were rare, but now fires of five or six hundred thousand acres are common. Every fireman on the line believes in Global Warming. The average temperature has only gone up one degree but the fire season has been extended by 78 days, and of course around here it's much longer. The drought around here in Southern California isn't helping. We had our second lowest rainfall total ever last year, exceeded only by the 1960 - 1961 season. It was about four inches. In fact, we may have SET a record last year. In Atlanta they have a severe water crisis because all their lakes are drying up. We've had ration rumblings around here, too. But in the southeastern US it's gotten really bad. I believe when Sylvia Browne said the hurricane season would be Worse this year I announced in a blog that hurricanes in the US would be less than usual. How ironic that the whole Southeast is suffering from a drought, in the middle of hurricane season! Of course if you need to cool off just book a ship cruise through the Northwest polar passage, since that area is free of ice now. It would take a first rate fool to deny that we've had major climate change in America lately. Of course in the sub Sahara they have had a decades long process of the desert advancing and greenery retreating and this accounts for a lot of the mass starvation in what is known in geography books as the Savanna lands, or the sub Sahara. The thing is convincing women to use birth control to curb the population problem and that with modern health measures, half their children won't die before age five.

The Boston Red Sox are American League champions now. It was a depressing experiance to watch last night. Actually much of the time after it became clear the Indians would not win the game, I was in Sketch drawing a Greek temple. The Red Sox finished with a flury last night. Even before winning game six, some were predicting it would be a "Sox and Rocks" Searies. I would have preferred a Rocks and Rock & Roll series. The Rockies have a lot of nerve claiming "Rocktober" is their own word. KLOS has been using the expression "Rocktober" since 1981 and perhaps they should sue. You know how those Born Again Christians in Colorado love to ride other peoples' tail winds. Of course I hate the Red Sox because they're always beating the Angels. Rather than be jinxed, I think the Red Sox are leading a charmed life.

On a personal note, with any luck I'll have D S L in a couple of days, that is, if you can trust the phone company. I don't see why you have to BUY a modem if you're only "trying it out" for one month. I'm not sure why I'll be paying ten dollars more than advertized in their mailings. But still you're really not in the modern era unless you have D S L so we'll see how it shakes out.