Dis-Appointment With Destiny

 

_{Copyright March 2014, by Robert Barrow}

 

 (Inside the office of Dr. Thaddeus A. Dreamcrusher, Certified Pre-Conception Counselor. . .)

 

The participants:

 A young married couple, posing questions asked by either he or she, indicated in italics.

 Dr. Dreamcrusher, C.P.C.C., responses not italicized.

 

______________________________

"Doctor, we're so concerned about the obstacles encountered in having children, but we really want a baby.  Can you help us?"

"Well, with the latest statistics indicating that one out of every 68 or so children may be autistic, I'm afraid I can't offer you much hope."

"There must be something medical science can do."

"Of course, medical science has given you the American Medical Association, and woe be to anybody who tries to circumvent its standards in this country.  But not to digress -- look, there is a very significant chance that any child you produce during a few animalistic sessions of intense fornication, even guided by the love you feel for one another, will be autistic.  Do you really want to chance bringing an autistic child into the world?  And the day will come when you both die, and who will care for your child then?  A state institution with borderline recommendations, staffed by scary or murderous caretakers?"

"Our passing won't matter.  We plan to have several children, so there will be others to care for a child with that diagnosis."

"Well, that's right out of a storybook, but let me ask you this -- isn't it rather selfish of you to automatically assume that your non-autistic children should be delegated with the immense responsibility of drastically altering their lives in order to care for a perpetually troubled family member intentionally made by you both?"

"Oh doctor, we may not even HAVE an autistic child."

"Maybe not.  And many of them can do very well on their own with early treatment and care.  But the odds are increasingly not in your favor."

"What causes autism, what can be done?"

"A world full of smartie-pants researchers don't have the final answers, but they stress genetics.  Personally, I believe that decades of poor nutrition, farm fields depleted of proper nutrients and scores of chemicals introduced haphazardly into our lives and bodies probably have a significant impact.  If you accept that humans have evolved due to conditions of necessity, who's to say that bizarre man-made substances introduced into the environment of our own physicality don't provide a relationship?  We humans are our own Petri dishes by virtue of our shotgun ingenuity."

"But we want babies, there must be something. . ."

"You're not listening..."

"We are!  But you make it sound so, so bleak.  I mean, to say this is all due to chemicals and inadequate farm fields. . ."

"It might be worse, actually.  Sometimes I wonder about all those UFO sightings and close encounters reported in the fifties, sixties and seventies.  I wonder whether some force of which we have virtually no understanding could have affected some portions of human population, resulting in gradual mental or physical changes."  Or maybe, as some scientists suggest, human DNA's box of surprises is reaching a plateau, and it's all downhill from here anyway."

"Doctor, that's the craziest thing we've ever heard."

"Really?  Well, your rampant desire to make babies in the face of increasingly disastrous odds is the craziest thing I've ever heard."

"But -- but it's the natural thing!"

"Yes, it is normal and natural to want to reproduce.  And mercury, lead, arsenic and rattlesnakes are also part of nature.  So, I guess the best I can do today is say -- choose your poison."

"Well, this is outrageous!  We don't care what you say, doc -- we're going to make lots of babies and we're starting at soon as we get home!"

"(Sigh) Undoubtedly with the assistance of erectile enhancement pills, topped off by testosterone supplements which will probably kill you someday, and -- who knows, perhaps cause genetic alterations affecting the distant future.  Good luck."

"You know what, doc?  Sex just isn't much fun anymore."

"Not for its offspring, no it isn't."

 ______________________________

The Most Dangerously Incompetent Show on Earth, 2014

State by state, outraged teachers and angry parents continue attempts to push the expensive Common Core boondoggle over a cliff before already at-risk student brains become further sauteed by lesson plans developed by intellectual defectives and political operatives located far, far away from their school systems.  Yes, this, even as Americans from all walks discover that Obamacare came wrapped in a pretty package containing personal economic poison.

 

Perhaps towering far and above any of that at the moment, however, is a fact that every American needs to know and understand right now -- President Obama and the Obama bunch are directly responsible for the cancellation of missile defense systems that were solidly intended to be built in Eastern Europe.  When Mr. Obama assumed office, he apparently wandered on in with a personal fantasy that diplomacy and kindness -- with a little bow here and there -- can tame any U.S. enemy.

How is that working out for us?  It sure as hell is working out for ol' Vlad Putin, and surely will for China, Iran, North Korea and all the usual suspects.

 

I remember when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on a table at the U.N.  Putin is successfully pounding both of his shoes on Obama's head, and Obama, ever the diplomat who cures all ills with a speech, responds pretty much with, thank you, but that's not right and we'll just have to do something?

As everybody's costs of living rise because of Obama's misguided energy directives, and because of regulations concocted in the dark of political night by human university-bred cockroaches scurrying to take power from the people, remember the "who."  If the military draft returns faster than you can blink, remember the "who." 

Should the time come around when lengthy prison sentences and other forms of punishment can at last be pronounced upon a gang of folks who currently believe themselves immune from their own laws and the people's outrage, simply because they cower or blunder in our names without obvious potential consequence behind impressive government nameplates -- and we're not excluding members of Congress here -- that could be a very good day for the country.

Bits and Pieces for March 2014

Every time I tap out a word on the keyboard, I have to ask myself, whose useful idiot shall I be today?  What actions otherwise innocently performed cause others to either benefit or decline?  Whom do I serve by virtue of the definitions attached to mere words, all stirred, cooked up and poured into a paragraph?  Are today and a cascade of yesterdays unworthy of the digital white space upon which they receive muse or loose interpretation?  As we use others, we, too, are used whilst drifting along the surface of a bottomless river, flush with human piranha, each emotional carnivore of many appetites resembling the other because, ultimately, they are the same, they are us, and we they.

As I stand perilously at the edge of the UFO research cliff:   The evidence, what little there was, seemed almost rock-solid, suggesting that somebody in (ala "Fantasy Island") the plane, the plane!  had messed around with vital instrumentation.  No matter -- CNN apparently decided to reinvigorate failing TV ratings by surmising that perhaps a black hole or "Bermuda Triangle" could be involved.  Hey, why not invisible aliens, or perhaps a real-life "Twilight Zone"  creature sitting on a wing, redirecting flight plans?  Arghhhhhh!  Yes, the world has changed overnight -- and the damned TV networks, taken as a whole, have done exactly what to further serious and scientific interest into UFOs and other enigmas?  Instead, we get this nonsense by the ton.

And speaking of phony journalism in the mainstream media, I wish just one -- I'm not asking much, just one -- MSM journalist attending the White House news briefing of their choice would stand up during Q & A and accuse the president and his bunch of being nothing more than liars and frauds, top to bottom, and then resign from his or her news organization.  Of course, that golden individual might want to check out alternative employment opportunities first -- but I'm pretty sure the job offers would come pouring in from sources all over the country world.  The WH news briefings are just evil scripted theater anyway, and this president puts on the best fantasy presentations when he appears on brainless TV entertainment talk shows, where no hard questions that might actually dispute the emperor's decrees dare to be asked.

The versatility of Malaysia Airlines:  Oh, for a return to the good old uncomplicated days when criminals, not a flight crew member, hijacked airplanes, and the air marshal stayed with passengers, having no necessity to hold a gun on the pilots instead.

Or are we just engaging in premature e-speculation?  To continue. . .

Just imagine, a 777 aircraft so integrated with computer technology that, that -- what is it they used to say in an era of earlier technology?  Oh, yeah  -- practically flies itself, and apparently does fly itself with a little unintended encouragement, and who needs to endure the inconvenience of infected food on a cruise ship, when you can sit back without a care in the world on an airplane while instrumentation smarter than you possesses the ability to propel your butt straight down for a refreshing deep-ocean swim?  Somehow, the missing 777 reminds me of that old 1950s TV commercial where pitch-lady Betty Furness -- and this was live TV, mind you -- appears in a commercial touting a (for then) state-of-the-art refrigerator, and suddenly discovers as she praises its advantages that the fridge door refuses to open.  Me, I'd have assured viewers that this feature simply keeps the food inside fresh and longer-lasting.

It's at least refreshing to know there was no UFO radar target accompanying the plane.  I guess.  Could'a been the fifties' Lake Superior UFO - aircraft mystery incident all over again.  Talk about creepy.

Taken together, news accounts seem to paint an aircraft functional at sea, on land and in the air --  all at the same time --  but not necessarily in that order.  Good grief, the skies are more complicated than ever. Was the craft hijacked to another country with the kind assistance of somebody amongst a few tech-oriented passengers known to be aboard?  Did the pilot or copilot pull off a suicide mission, treating passengers to a death party atmosphere (and we do mean atmosphere!) far above life-sustaining oxygen levels and time-limited oxygen masks, before plunging a doomed vessel way deep into Davy Jones' locker like a murderous knife thrust into an unsuspecting chest?  What a dilemma. Air marshals apparently aren't the answer, nor are reinforced doors locked securely enough to separate pilots from passengers.  What's next?  Perhaps clusters of armed citizens could be crammed into the pilot's cabin during flights, warding off any potential threats as a protective mass.  Bonus -- this tidy little change in air regs might also protect passengers from stressed-out pilots who decide, for religious, emotional or just what-the-hell reasons to ditch a big chunk of flaming metal and its occupants into the unforgiving deep.  If. . .if. . .you can't trust your pilot, and you can't get to your pilot to do something / anything during a moment of crisis, one might suggest air travel has become more dangerous than road rage on a busy highway.  Unless a satisfactory solution -- perhaps involving a still perfectly airworthy 777 (why didn't they just call the plane a 666?) --  is found for the Malaysian airliner incident, and unless its pilots and crew can be vindicated through evidence yet unknown, who can ever enjoy flying the formerly friendly skies again?  Will air travel's thrill become equivalent to taking two Viagra followed by an antifreeze chaser?  Drink up, gang, sky's  terrorist's hideaway's   sea's   final destination's the limit.

The times they are a changin'?   Sen. Rand Paul speaks to university students in California and receives a standing ovation?  Rand Paul?  California?  From "climate change" to the winds of change in one day. . .

Climb for success:  He wasn't a terrorist, just a 16-year-old boy whom, I suspect, saw the new World Trade Center in NY City as Mt. Everest and decided to ascend its heights.  And he did.  Trouble was, this Mt. Everest was guaranteed to be secure from terrorists and teenage boys.  I say, good for the kid.  In an era when all efforts are made to advance women to any heights they desire, boys are either being left behind or condemned for everything growing boys need to do, and when all else fails society utilizes the court system to make them into monsters, if only temporarily, until the damage is done and testosterone diluted.  You know what the crime in NY City is?  Not the boy's ill-advised action, because ultimately he's the conquering hero who showed up all the currently red faces for the phonies or incompetents they are -- and he'll probably get jail time or "public service" hours to atone for being a little 16-year-old nobody who single-handedly exposed credentialed idiots.  No, the crime wasn't the climb.  The real crime lies among city residents who may  have elected a prettied-up communist as mayor.  How's that little climb working out for taxpayers and rational minds?

Too much time on their hands:  Forget Putin and problems in Ukraine, pay no attention to a continuing lack of good jobs, ignore the continuing flood of criminaliens at the borders as border patrol agents' lives are jeopardized by regulations issued by dangerously inept university watered-and-grown intellectuals affiliated with the White House, and, by all means, overlook terrorist activities disguised as workplace violence at Fort Hood.  Clear your heads, because there are bigger fish to fry -- and it all comes down to the word, bossy.

Are we nuts?  Now, reminiscent of a cockroach infestation, progressive insects have stepped forward to blame the word, bossy for major ills holding young girls back from becoming successful.  I could spend a few paragraphs exploring this, but since banning any word really makes no sense in a rational American society -- which rarely exists anymore -- why bother?  Unfortunately, there are people -- and yes, feminists, too (I once took a college course taught by a feminist in the seventies, and she was spooky and not altogether happy that men shared space with women on the planet), up in arms about calling girls bossy.  So, you're called bossy.  So what?  Get over it and learn something in school instead of shedding tears while conjuring up 100 ways to ban a word.  Want your young ladies to be successful?  Pull 'em out of public school and substitute home schooling or legitimate charter schooling.  If you really, really think the bossy controversy is a travesty, just wait until Common Core attains proper speed (if we let it).  You'll pray for the return of both bossy and bullies.

In my day, the word "Bossy," often denoted the name of a farmer's favorite cow.  By the way.

Yoo-hoo, we see you, too!   A few senators were caught off guard and highly upset that the Obama Administration's CIA may have been spying on them.  Well, that's the pot calling the kettle hacked.  I'm not happy at all about anybody spying on us, and certainly not the CIA on Congress, but if a few U.S. senators who have done their share of dirty work in putting Americans under the digital microscope finally may have received a taste of their own bitter medicine, maybe those who sleep will awaken.

No bang-bang in the Ukraine:   As U.S. politicians on the wrong side of history continue in their quest to take guns and ammo away from our own people, just look at the freedom lovers in Ukraine, the ones who don't desire a close friendship with Putin and Russia.  If anybody needs heavy munitions, it's those folk, but they've given up so much in that line (including nukes) that they're ripe to be conquered.  After all, home-style Molotov cocktails can only take one so far.  A few days ago, one of the TV network correspondents reporting in the Ukraine interviewed a smart, fresh-faced 18-year-old boy (his first name was Yarosh or something. . .) who realized to the very core of his youth the hell his people were facing, and he was very certain about the circumstances.  I think in George Washington's time he would have been the ideal freedom fighter, so watching him was a little like going back in U.S. history.   In many parts of the U.S., unfortunately, I think we would be hard-pressed to find 20 young men as aware and ready to fight, or even recognize political evil, wherever it exists. In the meantime -- remember to  k e e p   y o u r   g u n s.  And don't forget to stockpile the ammo so's there's plenty for the whole family!  When even law enforcement personnel across the country are coming forth and warning of Second Amendment infringements passed by legislature morons, legislation which they have no desire (and sometimes have avowed no intention) to enforce, you know wrong is just plain wrong.  Keep those guns and ammo -- don't beg to become America's version of Ukraine's neutered dog.

Speaking of neutered, remember that President Obama made the decision not to install missile defense shields anywhere near Putin's Eastern European neighborhood.  And just years later, here we are.  But Obama, he does deliver a good speech, yes?  He feels confident about solving every horror with a speech.  He takes no responsibility for this new baby's birth, of course.  Russia's dictator, America's dictator. . .

Will the military draft return?  How could it not?  Active duty personnel are tired to the bone, having endured multiple deployments.  I know there's no "buzz" out there, but if I were you, ages maybe 18 to 26, I wouldn't get too comfy surfing the Internet 20 hours a day, feeling secure that no military authorities can tap you on the shoulder, offer heartfelt greetings and then whisk you away.  Lower downside:  No escaping to Canada (per the Vietnam Era) this time because agreements to block this popular escape route for draftees were arranged long ago.

And while it may be more essential than ever to have high school students in top shape to defend their country someday -- if they even know they have a country -- committees of school board morons and legislative election hopefuls meet to ban anything on the athletic field which might cause injury, tears or booing & hissing among spectators.  Damn, I'm actually starting to gain increasing respect for school bullies -- they'll be the only remnants of toughness left in the USA.

Trans-gendered Military:  Gay military personnel have and will continue to perform well in the military, but even I need to draw a line on allowing trans-gendered folk in.  For one thing, the idea is supported by B. Clinton's former surgeon general J. Elders, enough said.  Beyond that, trans-gendered people can have more than the usual adaptive and emotional hurdles with which they deal every day.  When push comes to shove -- or shoot -- in a war situation, I'm not sure that those carrying the baggage that comes with a lifetime of such problems can perform adequately.  Unless one's personal hostility, anger and frustration can be converted into a "killing machine."  Acceptance among one's fellow soldiers may be a substantial obstacle as well, to say the least, and without a cohesive unit you have a problematic entity during combat.

Brain freeze in the man-made global warming weather shed:  Official members of the International Chicken Little Society (not a real society, but should be) continue pulling their feathers out in a sweat, while rational folk need only pay attention when weather forecasters routinely say things such as "biggest snowfall since 1932" or "longest period of sustained cold weather since 1959."  Well, I made up the dates, but the very fact that dates are almost always given, indicating a precedent, indicates again and again that weather extremes are normal and recurrent.  Been there, done that.   I suspect an expanding abundance of people opening up more land area exaggerates effects already present to one degree or another.

 
Bill Gates defends Common Core and people continue to hate it.  Maybe I'm the one with a problem.  I don't remember anybody electing Gates to public office to plot out your kids' education, and certainly not to the surprising, nevertheless almost draconian level we're starting to observe.  Yep, I'm old and I'm out of touch and apparently I just don't get it -- and till death I'll remain confident that a world rebuilt upon a foundation of computer components, Pac-Man and his advancing digital family is a world ripe for destruction and lives thrown into utter chaos.  Everybody thinks he or she is Captain Kirk and solutions coming down the digital turnpike will set us free.  To paraphrase from Ed Murrow, good night and good luck goodbye. I know what we are.

Clueless White House Frauds Reading From a Bad Script

About that photo of the president speaking for 90 minutes with the Russian master:  Were I a cartoonist (oh man, to exchange words for pictures in order to communicate with those who hate or refuse to read, but vote at the polls anyway, self-saturated with candidate and issue ignorance. . .) I'd be inking a scene of President Obama as a ten-year-old, attired in knickers and one of those beanies from the fifties, the ones with the spinning propeller on top.  He'd be standing, holding a giant phone receiver to his ear, conversing with Russian dictator Putin and wearing a facial expression akin to a child being informed that his hamster was just found mysteriously dead in a cage decorated nevertheless with sweetness, light, Common Core and government hamster food.  How could anything go wrong?

Is anybody really amazed that Putin, following the Sochi Olympics, was pre-set upon conducting his own games, games of a nature he couldn't lose?  Has he not long claimed ownership of even vast ocean oil reserves in areas disputed by the international community?

 

Another vision, another cartoon. . .a stadium in Sochi, V. Putin looks like a monkey, holding a wrench.  His monkey wrench wins the Olympics, all the gold.  He is Vlad the Impaler for a new age.

But never fear.  We have Obama, and he is like one of the one percent, after all.  While he was busy making plans to cut military spending back to pre-WW II levels and relying upon less but more “advanced” warfare technology, as he was simultaneously transforming America fundamentally in his assumed role as a national bully, Putin did his own dance, waltzing all over the people of Ukraine.  What's to stop him?  Oh, right, almost forgot -- a 90 minute phone call from America's Oval Office darling.

While Mr. Obama availed his family of frequent and outrageously expensive taxpayer-paid vacations (oops, here comes another, though put on hold by Putin's discourteous plans), throwing pricey White House dinners for international thugs and parties dripping with Hollywood celebrities and self-important social frauds at his whim, Putin simply played the laid-back role and KGB'd himself up.  When Obama debated with Mitt Romney before the last election and ridiculed Romney for classifying Russia our number one geopolitical concern, team Obama laughed their butts off.  While Obama's hand-picked regulation wizard Cass Sunstein lurked in the background, virtually unnoticed by the American people, writing rules and restrictions serving, in any case, to put a damper on individual liberty and small business freedoms, Putin made plans to regain for Russia a little of what the Soviet Union had lost just a few years ago.  While the Administration dismissed and apparently covered up Benghazi incident essentials, and while some thug element encouraged the IRS to pursue political targets, the details only to be shadowed away by a top-level person embracing the Fifth, Putin was doing his thing.  Putin, you the man, Putin -- whose own version of "Fast and Furious" in Ukraine left both the Obama bunch and European Union hoodlums wallowing in the dust.  Who’s the good guy here?  Zero of those.

We respond by dispatching the laughable secretary of state ketchup John Kerry, clinging to echoes of a declining U.S. military announcement delivered to the world just days ago by secretary of defense Chuck Hagel.  Plus (sigh) we observe the efforts and mouthing off of the indefatigable Sen. John McCain (lovely day for a new war, yes?).

But we revel in Obama, the empty suit, the university intellectual surrounded by others of a similar ilk who probably agonize over merely color-coordinating their socks each day -- and, better still, Obama has his phone and knows how to dial, and he speaks and talks and talks and speaks with world leaders, warning and scolding.  Putin is not listening.  Why would he?  Obama's fortunes have been focused primarily upon regulating and admonishing the American people in his party's quest to hope-and-change us against our will.  No time to watch much beyond our shores because, after all, we're in a warm and fuzzy global world now.  Obama and the bunch bestowed Obamacare upon us, and the world is at peace.  Everywhere he goes, the prez seems to make a point of blaming America and apologizing for the history that made America great, despite obvious imperfections and injustices eventually conquered regardless of the odds.  Simply put, the internationally and self-beloved leader has no foreign policy.  Oopsie.

And while nobody was looking, Russia just signed a new alliance agreement with China -- the same China, by the way, which just killed or captured members of a group of radical Muslims who perpetrated multiple stabbing murders among innocent shoppers a few days ago. 

While the world chowed down on that intoxicating drug called the Olympics, Putin kept a cool eye on vast oil and gas reserves  -- and accompanying power -- which make he and Russia indispensable to unwilling, yet currently option-less European recipients.

"It is not one world," the late radio news commentator Paul Harvey was fond of saying.   Not even "one world" in the USA, where Eric Holder tells states not to enforce laws -- and even if he references just one law, he may as well reference them all.  Is gay marriage more important than the power of international thugs?  Apparently.

Our president’s foreign policy?  What foreign policy?  Domestic affairs and bullied transformations are his thing.  The primary stake this disappointment seems to have in foreign affairs is the location for his next absurdly expensive family vacation, courtesy of the public dime. 

Russia is expected to honor borders, but in the USA we put up with treasonous legislators who ignore ours.

Of course, Obama would never reinitiate plans (which he scuttled) to put up missile defense shields in Russia's global backyard.  Better to leave Poland and other nations in that sphere shaking in their shoes.  Besides, this is the president who promised the Russians he would have more ability to negotiate changes after the last elections.  Well, there you go. . .

Barack H. Obama is destined to go down in history as the first black worst president ever elected in the United States.  Truly, a leader of distinction.

So if bakers, despite religious beliefs, have to bake gay wedding cakes under penalty of law now, Muslim cab drivers should certainly have to accommodate seeing-eye dogs and as much booze as their fares can bring along.  Test cases should be very interesting, once voters clean house and elect leaders who don't mind angering religions of hatred.

No thanks again, Oscars.  Every year I wait for it, and every year it's not there.  No words of appreciation spoken directly to active U.S. military personnel or veterans.  Plenty of praise for past and current slaves -- which is just fine -- but none for the dead and living millions of Americans who helped bring an end to evils around the world.  You folk in the gated Hollywood communities do realize, don't you, that yours would be the first heads rolling down Sunset Blvd. if not for dedicated uniformed people, literally ready to sacrifice their lives so you can continue to produce and star in releases of varying "artistic" quality?  Of course there are many who care and contribute generously to military and veterans organizations, but words spoken before international press cameras would also mean so much.

Will Hillary run?  Rumors circulate that she may be ill and won't be available for the run in 2016.  I'd be more inclined to see her run, and if winning spend only a few weeks or months before resigning for "health" reasons, thus allowing a very party-cunning, strategically chosen vice-president to assume the presidency without caveat, and a progressive hell on earth will continue.

The SATs are reconstructed to appease morons.  Oh yeah, sure, the Scholastic Aptitude Test folks are just taking out things they put in back in the nineties.  I don't buy it.  The vocabulary portion will include commonly used words, rather than terms rarely encountered?  Hmm, that probably means the leftist educators will exclude words such as patriotism and heroism so kids, especially the illegal ones, can relate to words contemporary Americans cherish, such as communist sympathizer, obedient Marxist and greetings, comrade!  Good thing, too, that the essay is optional because folks scoring tests would be hard-pressed to find a coherent paragraph anywhere in the stack.  Lift me up?  No, dumb me down.  Can't wait until Common Core makes children brilliant.

Drones for everybody:  Prices continue to decrease, and soon everybody on your block will find an affordable drone, obviously to spy on somebody else in the finest tradition of governments around the globe.  I find it necessary, therefore, to reiterate my contempt for drones, and again I declare that any said drone which malfunctions and lands near me will be promptly sledge-hammered and pieces deposited there, over there, over in that spot and -- well, that's the end of the story.

The Lois Lerner and Darrel Issa love duet, part 2:   Once again, the gang was all there and Issa spoke questions of pure love to Ms. Lerner regarding naughty IRS tactics on the loose..  In return, she showered Issa with flowers of the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer any of five romantic questions.  Issa widely closed the session so that Rep. Elijah Cummings could gain political hay by attempting to make some statement that nobody wanted to hear.  Someday, I predict that Cummings will be vindicated and a black man will become president.  Maybe an attorney general also.  I know, it sounds impossible. . .

If the singularity occurs once man and machine become one, what happens if instead a "dualarity" happens simultaneously?  Would dueling singularities cancel one another out?  Or would they become pals and destroy the earth together?  (Pay no attention, maybe I need drugs. . .)