Yesterday, when I went someplace with a large, black asphalt parking lot, my car thermometer that was showing 109 degrees on the concrete street began just blinking and couldn’t register the temperature on the asphalt. Thank you all, but I think I’m beyond needing to hear remarks that it is hot in Oklahoma in July. Since you’re the same people who tell me it is cold in Oklahoma and bitch and moan in February, you can leave that out of our conversations as well. When it’s too hot to have the top down on my convertible, it’s too hot. Further, if the top is up on my Midlife Chrysler, no man is truly free. I also do not feel the need to hear you say something incredibly stupid about man-made climate changes.

Sen. Inhofe, this includes you. Perhaps, Sen. Inhofe, you may wish to direct your attention to other areas. Clearly, you know absolutely nothing about climate because you are fast earning the title of most clueless U.S. Senator, which puts you in some pretty scary territory considering your Republican cohorts. May I suggest you consider a discussion with our other U.S. Senator, Dr. Tom Coburn? That whole “C Street” and “The Family” stuff with Sen. Ensign might be a good place to start. In all your glorious Republican Party-ness, maybe you might could possibly discuss just how inappropriate it is to pay off a blackmailing cuckold to the tune of $96,000 in just-under-the-radar-reporting-requirements payments of $12,000 from Sen. Ensign’s parents, Vegas casino millionaires.

OTOH, I may be getting more conservative than I used to be concerning another issue: the 2d Amendment. I have been someone who thought it perfectly appropriate and constitutional to restrict the private ownership of automatic weapons, rifle propelled grenades, bazookas, and even so-called “Saturday Night specials”. Just right now, I’m trying to re-think my notions of the “right to bear arms.” What’s got me there is watching the Iran demonstrations. I realized that the maurading Basijis with batons on motorcycles who have beaten and injured so many protestors in Teheran wouldn’t last long in America. Oh, maybe the crowds would have been dispersed by these thugs on the first day, but the second day? There’s enough firepower in the hands of private individuals in the good ole’ U.S. of A. that yahooligans on motor bikes wielding clubs wouldn’t last long against an angry American crowd on the second day.

Of course, Americans didn’t take to the streets in 2000 when a coup put Bush in the White House. I’m not so sure that if the events of the 2000 election should take place in today’s economic climate that things would be the same as they were back then. A botched election plus 10-12 percent unemployment and some empty bellies has a way of making crowds more unpredictable because jobless angry people have nothing to lose, the very definition of freedom if we listen to Kris Kristofferson and Janice Joplin. Is anyone else finding themselves listening to Bob Dylan while watching the events in Iran, specifically “The Times They Are A-Changin'”? Or, maybe, The Who’s “We Won’t Be Fooled Again”? In a discussion of these matters last night with the Oz, he said something I thought was brilliant: “I’m too old for the army, but I’m just old enough for the revolution.”

Speaking of the 2000 coup d’etat, the latest news about W’s secret surveillance programs and the possibility that Cheney directed a secret assassination squad outside all oversight makes me long for a Congress and, yes, even a president, with the backbone to frog march those war criminals into a cell next to Joseph Padilla or maybe someone as yet unnamed in Gitmo.

It’s too hot to write any more. Anyone else hot? Gee, do you think it’s hot enough? Wow. It’s really hot, isn’t it?

Blogblah