Thanks and more [updated]

First of all I'd like to thank ABB's sister for providing me with some useful links to help me understand how things work in the US. I really hope you will start blogging again, C.

Secondly I'd like to hear some opinions about the following:

Late last night I was sitting by my computer, answering comment's people had made in my blog. The Tv-set was mumbling in the background and suddenly I heard Fox News was going to make some kind of report about Katrina. Some guy named O'Reilly, I vagely remember.

I won't pretend that I was fully concentrated, watching and listening to what they were saying, since this was close to midnight and I was pretty exhausted. Let's say I was listening and watching with half an ear and one eye closed...

At first there was nothing that made me react but suddenly there was this reporter talking about the 30 foot wall of water that hit the coast of Mississippi. I don't remeber if it was Gulfport, Biloxi or some other town or township almost completely flattened by the water. And this O'Reilly guy asked: Is this the american tsunami?"

I could actually see the reporter take a deep, deep breath before answering that: No, this isn't even comparable to the tsunami..." And this O'Reilly guy got a somewhat dissapointed look in his face.

Somehow I got a feeling that there are forces in the US that, for some reason or another, actually want to make Katrina to "the american tsunami" to make her appear even worse than she was. I mean, Katrina was really bad but to compare her with the tsunami seems a wee bit exaggerated. If I hadn't been so tired I would most probably have thrown my remote into the screen.

Now, what do you think about comparing Katrina to the tsunami? Do people in general think that these two catastrophes are comparable? Or is my hunch right, that someone wants to make it even worse than it was?

I had to get out and have a smoke and calm down a bit. As I came back in, the first thing I heard was that canadian rescue-teams had been in the area hours before the americans got there. This O'Reilly guy, with a grin on his face, askes the canadian ambassador if the purpose of getting there so fast was to embarrass the President, since the government in Canada is to the left?

What kind of question is that? It wasn't even funny.

Now, if I had been that ambassador, I would asked the guy to get the hell out of my face. Instead he talked about neighboring countries who should help each other out in the time of crisis. Had I been that ambassador I would actually ask my president to withdraw the rescue-teams... until I had recieved an official appology.

Wars have been started for even smaller issues than that question... or is just me being a bit to cranky? What do you think?

And after that there was some discussion about the rapper (I just cant find the link where I read about it first) who said that Bush didn't care for black people. I really wanted to listen to that discussion but they started interupting each other, not letting anyone finish his piece. Since I'm not used to that kind of behavior and not having the skills to understand everything that's being said in such a "discussion", especially in a foreign language, I cursed the Tv and got to bed, mad as hell.


Well, this beautiful morning here in Sweden, and a good nights sleep, and that the kids behaved, made me in a better mood. I can smell that fall is going to enter any day now and that this summer is soon to be gone forever.

For all these years I've always said that I loved the summer, but recently I discovered that it's actually late spring and early fall that are my favorite times of the year. Summers in southern Sweden are either insanely hot and humid or cold and rainy and very seldom in-between. And although we have many fine beaches, the water temperatures on the east side of Skane are just above freezing-your-ass-off. The west coast is much better in that way, with water temperatures up to 23 degrees Celsius (73.4 degrees Fahrenhet) in late July, if the weather has been warm.

This summer started out good but halfway through, it switched over to rain. And then came August with a couple of hot days that slowly have descended in temperature during the month until we're halfway through Septembre. Now the air has a crispness to it in the mornings, a small reminder that it's soon winter again, even if the most southern part of Sweden rarely recieves any snow until January.

But even though we now get reminded of winter, there will most surely come a brief period of indian summer in October. Just as sure that it's going to rain in November and most of December.

Hmm... I seem to have drifted away from what I originally was going to write about. Doesn't matter, today weather seems nice and I think I'm going for a walk to clear my mind.


[update]

Ok, so I've taken a long walk, without the dog. It was nice, just walking around the neighborhood, doing nothing and letting my mind go wherever it wished. Checked out both our cars (Nissan Sunny -85 and a Volkswagen Bus -89) so there hadn't been a break-in during the night. One advantage of having old cars is that thieves disregard them as interesting objects.

I also met up with CartoonBoy's taxi, fetched LittleAngel from day care, talked to LazyWorm about his homework and got RazorTongue something for her headache. Then I walked the dog and boy is he strong...

Back in again, I put LittleAngel in her bed for a nap, said goodbye to the wife as she went to work, prepared dinner (spagetti and minced meat, a staple food in our household), did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen table after LazyWorm's between-meals snack.

LittleAngel woke up, so I fed her and halv an hour later I took care of the other end. Where does all this gooey stuff come from? And why hasn't anybody found good use for it? I mean, it's sticky like glue and it stinks like... Well, anyway, those two properties should be useful for something. Not for fertilizing though. My neighbours didn't like that.

And now I'm sitting here again, waiting for the clock to turn to dinner time. We eat pretty late, around 6.30 so that the kids concentrate on eating instead of whining about less time for hanging out with their friends, having to miss an episode of "Kimpossible" or whatever. At 6.30 they're usually hungry enough to eat without the whining.

For some reason I can't come up with anything intelligent to write. I've got two comments which both confirm my suspicion that this O'Reilly guy is... well, not a nice guy.

So I was thinking of continuing the story of my life. Then I realized that this post was long enough. I'll continue tomorrow. Unless I get a better idea.