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SLURPEE IS BETTER THAN BEER

 Our TV show “Mother Earth’s Weekly Squirms” was on. Elmer, Pasha, Huda, Tamil, and Shamus were eager to quiz me on my recent visit to Earth. They had watched my last interview with Ohama TV (blog January 1, 2011)

 “What was your most striking impression in America?” Pasha began.

“I’ve never seen so many more fat people,” I said. “The Michelle Obama plea for better food discipline doesn’t stick. You can’t sit normally in an aircraft anymore without being pressed out of your seat by fat flaps blubbing underneath or over your arm seats.”

“Isn’t the US Government doing something about that?” Tamil asked.

“The US Government is too occupied with regulating the health care law.”

“But shouldn’t that be in favor of reducing the intake of fats?” Huda asked, herself a dietician at our Mars City Health Clinic.

“I’m afraid not, they are more concerned with making people pay more for health services they won’t get.”

“What are these fat foods they eat?” Huda followed up.

“Giant cheese and pepperoni pizzas almost as large as UFOs, macho cheese hamburger rolls with oil-fried onion rings in-between, large cuts of lasagnas, huge hotdogs with tomato ketchup wrapped in big slabs of dough, piles of French fries loaded with salt, you name it.”

“What are hotdogs?” Pasha wanted to know.

“Long finger-size sausages,” I explained, hoping she wouldn’t pursue the matter.

“But why are they called hotdogs?” she insisted?

“Well, it’s difficult to explain this on family TV, but they resemble a male dog’s desire in the heat time.”

“Oh,” she said, giggling, looking around embarrassed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.”

“What else struck you during your stay?” Elmer asked.

“Political discourse has gone out of hand. The left is blaring that the right is destroying America and the right is countering that that’s exactly what the left has been doing.”

“So, no progress in US politics?” Elmer concluded.

“President Obama only held a slurpee summit at the White House with the Republicans, to discuss a roadmap after his drubbing at the November elections.”

“Any results?” Shamus asked.

“I think the Slurpee meeting had more significant results than the beer summit he once had. You remember, when he had to settle that dispute between a policeman in Boston who he said had acted stupidly by correctly arresting one of his friends for disorderly behavior. This time the President got the message. He signed the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, which made good economic sense at this time of distress. I think they should have more slurpee summits.”

“Remind us, what’s slurpee again?” Huda asked.

“A type of shake with lots of calories and no protein, sold in convenience stores and made infamous by Obama’s chief veggie cook, Michelle,” I said, though I wasn’t quite sure if I got that right.

“What was all that trouble we heard about these secrets that were leaked?” Tamil asked.

“You mean that wikkyleaks thing,” I said. “A lot of diplomatic cable gossip was released on the internet by some Swedish loon. Most of it was already known and insignificant. Hillary Clinton, who is Secretary of State, was mad because it put her in the wrong spotlight. But then, diplomats send a lot of nonsense over the wire to justify their existence. The best advice someone gave was if you wikki leaks, plug it.”

“We noticed that Sarah Palin is still in the limelight,” Elmer said. “What’s she up to these days?”

“She is actually standing up quite well against the socialist onslaught and has considerable following. The left is trying to kill her off because they see her as a political threat. Since most of America’s media is left, you only hear them constantly nagging about Sarah Palin on TV or in their papers. Others like center-right bloggers, radio talk shows and Fox News are more supportive of her. But the left has successfully made her into a lightning rod which is diminishing her chances for political office.”

“I recall that happened to other American woman in politics,” Shamus said. “Remember Geraldine Ferrara when Walter Mondale chose her as VP? The American press took her to the cleaners.”

“Despite all women’s progress in the USA, women are still fodder for male journalists and even female ones, when they don’t agree with their views,” Pasha found. “Feminists are leftists too.”

“How’s TV reacting to the elections?” Tamil asked.

“The left wing of TV – that’s all the old worn out news agencies – do as if nothing has changed. For them, it’s still Pelosi who’s the head of Government, with Obama sitting in her lap admiring her newest facelift. Fox News is trying to expose their hypocrisy and the Tea Party is roaring in the back. Socialist TV is losing audience and soon they won’t have anyone looking at them anymore except liberals and illiterate sports fans who don’t give a hoot about the rest anyway.”

“What about Europe,” Shamus asked. “Last time we spoke it was in sheer shambles.”

“It still is, and it won’t be over soon,” I said. “All Governments owe too much money because of their social welfare measures, and there’s only so much borrowing they can do. The richer nations such as Germany are increasingly angry that they have to put up the bill for people like the Irish who drank too much Irish coffee without paying for it.”

“Where do they get their money from?”

“The European Central Bank is funding deficits and so is Germany but they are balking and so, more recently, the Greek, Irish, Spanish and Portuguese government leaders have been seen trying their luck at the slot machines in Monte Carlo.”

“What will happen to the Euro then?”

“The same thing as with the dollar, going down the drain.”

“Will Earth’s economic and financial management ever improve?”

“I can’t see in the future, Shamus, but in fact it’s improving already as economic growth figures are better than a year ago. This means that the business cycle is wriggling its way upward again, as it always does, but it isn’t very visible yet. This is what politicians and their constituencies refuse to understand. They always think, talk and react short term. The best action in a downturn is no action at all. Let it burn out. Granted, the financial meltdown, which could have been prevented by less risky financial policies in the US housing market years before, was severe and it occurred at the same time that the business cycle was at its periodical downside, as happens every seven or eight years. That caused a sudden collapse that needed state intervention by shoring up banking reserves to maintain liquidity. But otherwise, the down turn would correct itself normally. True, some lose their feathers at the bottom because their business acumen was overly optimistic. But many recover and get back to normal if bureaucratic obstacles are removed.”

“So, we shouldn’t be pessimistic for 2011?”

“It all depends who’s mending the store. If the socialists will govern, the private sector, which is still very weak, will be very cautious for lack of confidence. The investment climate will remain subdued. Unemployment will remain on the high side. If Obama cozies up to the right, the investment climate and the business cycle may restore faster. Obama must be thinking about re-election too.”

“How does the center right coalition of Cameron’s conservatives and Nick Clegg’s liberal democrats fare in the UK?” Elmer asked.

“They maintain a policy of strict austerity by severe spending cuts. Their philosophy is to return from spreading the wealth around as Obama said to spreading the pain around, and to improve upward mobility in a sanitized economy. I think that’s the example everyone should follow now, provided they don’t cut too much too fast which slows economic recovery. In the US, it will look more like a stalemate as the conservatives have only the majority in the House and are not in Government. However, they have the finger on the purse and one of the major objectives should remain to cut the healthcare cost and constrain harmful environmental regulations that burden the economy for no good reason. What’s needed is a growth strategy, world-wide, but it’s unlikely that a socialist regime, like the current US administration, can produce one and the UK is too small to generate much momentum.”

“We know that you attended exploratory talks between the Americans and the Russians about possible collaboration to explore Mars from the International Space Station. How did that go?” Tamil asked.

“That’s a crazy idea of some wingnut at NASA. I attended that meeting at the invitation of Omaha TV on the condition I would not have to reveal my dual identity. The Russians don’t have the creativity or innovation for such an undertaking. Besides, the Russian Government and its economic system have turned completely corrupt. A sad state of affairs that shows the deteriorated conditions of Medvedev’s and Putin’s reign. They are more interested in sucking money from their nationalized oil and gas resources. Corruption plays havoc with their economy because of the ensuing price distortions and ill-directed incentives. Don’t bet on it, it won’t happen anytime soon.”

“Is climate change still on the front burner?” Pasha asked.

“Yes, the climate freaks are still at it. They nurture the gains of their innings in the nineties and even though Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun didn’t achieve their dreams, they are bent on keeping their early wins. Despite growing skepticism they managed to set up carbon schemes to shuffle money from rich to poor countries. On my way back up I noticed increased sunspot activity, it almost looked like almighty sun had a speckled face. That’s were the origins are. Everybody knows carbon’s a scam but there’s too much money that drives the slot machine. That’s it, a way to control the money flow. Socialists love that and too many good willing idealists fall in their trap.”

“Strife on Mother Earth seems to continue unabated,” Elmer said. “Is there light in the tunnel?”

“I’m afraid not. In Afghanistan, it’s everybody for himself. Temporary gains are for whomever pays more or is better at cutting off limbs and heads. This country is so backward that it will take ages to develop. Waziristan that nobody had heard of ten years ago is on the front page as much as Paris Hilton’s last joint that took her to the rehab. Pakistan is on the brink of collapse because radical Islam is contaminating its political and judicial systems. Israel and the Palestinians continue their bickering while the West is getting impatient with the lack of progress. But everyone wants Israel to make the painful concessions, while Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are quietly waiting to take over Abbas who’s week, and then drive out Israel with Iran’s help. That’s what the western pacifists forget: it’s not Abbas’s Palestinians Israel is dealing with, but Hamas and Hezbollah supported by Iran and they mean death for Israel. They got a bitter lesson when they gave up Gaza. So, don’t expect a solution there either.”

“Is there not anything Mother Earth can be optimistic about?” asked Pasha.

“America will never turn into a third world nation as the left is saying after the center-right won the last elections. It has a built-in strength to recover, as shown by the Tea Party, much different from other nations. Its technological innovation will continue to outpace other nations, replacing outdated systems that were considered revolutions as recent as five years ago. Businesses and banks, chastened after indulging themselves in reckless gambling and crony capitalism, will return to the ten commandments of financial management and that’s ten times quote “balance your books unadulterated” unquote. This will be followed world-wide. China and India will rebound as markets in America and Europe stabilize in 2011 and other emerging markets such as Brazil and Chili will continue to march forward. As long as regulation is streamlined to support good financial and economic management instead of blocking it, politicians keep their fingers off the pie, and socialist theology is replaced by the sound principles of Adam Smith, the business cycle will restore itself and put Earth back on the road. Those will be the quintessential themes for the 2012 elections in the US as well.”

“Thanks Mars Man, interesting discussion. We have to leave it at that,” Elmer said. “Till next time.”

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MARS MAN’S INTERVIEW ON EARTH

Boy, what snow! I was invited for a TV interview on December 24 in Omaha but could not find a place to land Space Scooter One in Nebraska. Bob Falkland’s cornfields and his hangar where I normally park were fully snowed under. Elsewhere in Nebraska it wasn’t any better. On the way down it looked bad all over northern USA. Finally, I made a deal with Vanderbilt Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, where they have a Space Port, and landed there on December 22. From there I hopped on a transport plane that happened to go to Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue near Omaha, where at least the runways were open. Kathryn picked me up in her studio limousine. Exhausted I reached her comfortable Omaha residence where Pete and Sue had also gathered for the Christmas days. What a joyful reunion.

Well, the interview took place on December 24 all right. Kathryn had assembled her “How the World Turns” panel, Fred Garfinkel, Tony Blanket, Charles Hammerschmidt and Bob Foolsman, all dressed in festive red ties and green vests. Kathryn, very attractive with her auburn hair wore a slick silvery gown and chaired.

I was a bit apprehensive about their questioning as aliens are usually viewed with suspicion in the USA, but after all I had Earthy links through Kathryn and our beautifully mixed kiddos Pete and Sue, who were sitting in the audience, so I had at least a partial immunity to illegal immigration. Kathryn opened the interview, introducing me and her panel to the audience and viewers. We had a same-time connection with my Universe Broadcasting Studio in Mars City.

“Mars Man, it’s a real pleasure to have you with us to give us your alien views. First tell us of life on Mars, as most of our viewers know so little about it.”

“Thanks, Kathryn, for this question that I shall be glad to answer. Mars is smaller than Earth and is populated by far fewer people, maybe twenty million, who live mostly in what Earth calls the large “Valles Marineris”. Contrary to what you believe on Earth, we have ample water, which we obtain from subaltern sources. Our society is different from yours in that we all look similar and have no obvious gender difference. We look, as I once said, more like those VESIcare creatures you see in that bladder health advertisement on your TV. Our procreation happens through meeting of minds and not through the sex drive that Earth is infamous for. We are technologically very advanced and explore our universe to make contact with other planets in our common solar system and have a close economic and technological relationship with Jupiter.”

“I didn’t know Jupiter had life too. How do you compare?” Bob Foolsman asked.

“Jupiter has a different constellation and its people are small and slim because of its greater gravity and hydrogenic characteristics. Their laser based society, like ours, communicates through radiation which they taught us to translate into our own laser based communication system.”

“Why haven’t  you sought more contact with Earth?” Charles Hammerschmidt asked.

“My fellow Martians have been on Earth many times, you know about those UFOs. Your military are keeping much of this secret because they perceive it as a security issue. The reason we are not exploring our relationship with Earth more actively is because Earth has many untreated diseases that could be dangerous for our society if transferred, and because of your ungrounded hostility for fear of an alien invasion. Martians are very peaceful and are not interested in invading Earth. To the contrary, your regular Rovers that you let loose on our soil tend to send unwanted signals to our community. Radio signals received from Earth also display a nature of wanting to transplant your society on ours, which we consider a threat.”

“How come you look and talk like us then?” Fred Garfinkel asked, looking sideward at Kathryn.

“I was planted on Earth with a special mission to study Earth’s knowledge of aerodynamics at MIT. For this I was given a habemus corpus injection that enables me to change my Martian body into your human body on Earth and back. It also brought with it your urge for sex in support of your need for procreation. As a result, I got attracted by Kathryn, who studied at Harvard, and we married. Our two kids, Pete and Sue, who are in the audience, have mixed bodies but cannot change back to my Martian assemblage. I understand, however, that they have problems at the TSA airport screening because they can’t see their bodies. This is because of their strong radiation they inherited from me. So, to their chagrin, they must always undergo that patting experience. ”

“Does that happen to you too?” Tony Blanket asked.

“The problem for me is that the change into the human body only completes in two days. While the outer part is almost immediate, the inner parts take longer. So, if I have to fly immediately on arrival, which I try to avoid if I can, they feel nothing when they grope me. Then they look at me, wondering where my parts are. They ask me to come to a special search room and lower my pants. When they see that my parts are still shaping up, they either faint or scream. So far they have let me go because they couldn’t  find a bomb device.”

I heard laughter in the audience.

“Let’s turn to your views on some of our main topics on Earth,” Kathryn suggested. “For example, you travel much in the universe. We have this divisive debate on Earth about global warming, or should I say climate change. Can you see that we have a pollution problem when you come down?”

“As you said, the topic became climate change before it was called global warming, as it proved to be a misnomer. Climate changes are natural and originate from the universe and affect all planets, including Mars. Global warming alarmists ignore that Earth is not the only planet. Human energy consumption may create environmental issues that can be overcome by more efficient use, and they are through simple regulations and market competition, but environmental lobbies exaggerate the impact to suit their own agenda to control the economy much like the socialists do. But the universe is a huge self correcting cosmos much greater than environmental lobbies can imagine. All what they are screaming about must be taken with a grain of salt as their conclusions are built on faulty assumptions. To answer you second question, what I see from up there is pollution spewing out of the White House when your president Obama smokes. Since the new House Speaker Boehner is a smoker too, he and the President may find common ground more easily when they sneakily take a joint together in the loo.”

“So you think that global warming, sorry, the climate change issue is overblown?” Kathryn asked.

“Sure it is. All this cap and trade stuff is just another way of plucking people’s wallets. Your United Nations group is very smart at it, but it’s just another tax gimmick to transfer payments from rich to poor. Deforestation in poor countries has a much greater impact on droughts than C02 emissions in industrial countries.”

“What  was in your view the most important event in 2010?”Fred Garfinkel asked.

“Undoubtedly  the emergence of the Tea Party in the USA that stopped the left wing Obama administration in its tracks. This can only happen in a country like the USA. European countries do not have the critical mass to raise this type of national resurgence. But even they, and maybe because of the American example, are coming to their senses rejecting the devastating spend thrift of their statist regimes.”

“On the other hand,” Bob Foolsman said, “you must admit that Obama made a substantial comeback after our November elections.”

“I think that’s grossly overstated. He had to swallow the extensions of the Bush tax cuts that he had campaigned against. Remember father Bush and his “read my lips” slogan? This was much worse. The two other bills that counted most, your trillion dollar budget bills and that nightmare of a dream act failed miserably.”

“You are an alien,” Bob followed up, “and have children on Earth. Wouldn’t you feel more sympathy for those alien children born in the USA?”

“First, I enter with visas. Second, my kids were legally born here. Third, yes I feel sympathy with those kids who were, not their fault. However, it was just another political gimmick to circumvent your border problem. Had you regulated immigration much earlier, this issue would not have arisen. Frankly, your administrations have been totally inept in dealing with this for decades now, one side because they like Hispanic votes and the other side because they like cheap labor. It’s about time you come to a comprehensive solution that benefits America as a whole, but it will only have teeth when you settle the border problem first.”

“How do you handle such problems on Mars?” Fred Garfinkel asked.

“Our society is too small to have internal border problems. We live peacefully together and have one language. When spaceships enter our stratosphere unauthorized, they are radiated back into space and never come back. Should one land and is hostile, or unwilling to identify its origin, they are forced to leave or catapulted back into space. We have only regular exchanges with Jupiter. But to draw a comparison, we are much firmer on controlling immigration because it’s the only way to preserve our identity. ”

“What’s the next most important issue we are facing in the USA?” Tony Blanket asked, changing the subject.

“That your politicians interfere far too much with the self-regulating economic forces that redress themselves automatically over time. Statist regimes like your current one steal from the kitty by promising give-aways that aren’t paid for and because they want to be re-elected and gain the upper hand. In Euro-currency Europe, where this has been going on for far too long, they now have to pay the piper and are voting conservative to contain and repair the ills of the social welfare state. If you don’t kick the statists and their leaders out, you will end up in the same boat and your and my kids will bear the brunt of it, if they do not already.”

“The new conservative majority in the House will only have partial power to do so,” Charles Hammerschmidt said, “because our Senate is still in the socialist camp and together with the statist President will make all efforts to block that attempt. Do you really think the statists will lose?”

“It depends on how much the American people are educated on the subject and are willing to take a stand,” I reasoned. “Your main media are infiltrated with socialists or left-wingers and are responsible for much of the misinformation and misinterpretation that has influenced the electorate. The ordinary citizen does not have the time to sift through all the information, or read the bills before the politicians vote, and is more interested in your Lady Gaga or MTV’s Snooki anyway. Cleverly-written and spoken speeches by the incumbent President conceal much of the disastrous effects of these bills. If the conservative block does not educate the populace adequately, and if they do not have a strong charismatic leader to articulate its views, you are right, the statists may win again.”

“And if the economy improves, as it undoubtedly will in the course of the natural eighth year business cycle,” Tony said, “they can claim that their policies worked. And if they win, don’t be surprised if they continue their strife for total control.”

“Government is good for the people, “ Bob said, “exactly because the people are unable to deal with society’s complex problems. Those who seek state control are doing so with that good objective in mind, and the people benefit.”

“Unfortunately,” I noted, “that lofty ideal has proved wrong in all cases. Replacing private initiative with group control has yielded only misery and decline. Even China recognized this and restored to some extent the incentive to produce and make money. And Americans aren’t like that, read “We the people”.

“Those days are gone, Mars Man,” Bob said, smiling contemptuously. “We live in modern times now. Government has become the people.”

“Your Tea Party that includes people from both sides of the aisle doesn’t think that and has spoken differently,” I said. “Don’t underestimate the populace. There’s more to come.“

“Thanks Mars Man and panel for an interesting conversation,” Kathryn said. “Our time is up. We wish  you well  on  your way back. Please come again.”

“Thank you all, it was a pleasure,” I ended.

PS: I had a lovely time with Kathryn and the kids at Christmas and New Year ’s Eve, lively conversations about the intriguing aspects of Earth’s cultures, civilization and its curiosity towards space. I traveled back on New Year’s day to California and mounted Space Scooter One back to Mars, this time filled with good government fuel so as to avoid another alien scare over California’s coast. Good-bye, and a happy New Year. Till next time from Mars.

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