Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Ask Dr. Babooner

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I admit I have earned a reputation for being a pest about climate change,  but only because I am 100% committed to changing hearts and minds on this before it is too late!

It’s true, I can get a little intense.

Even people who agree with me have asked that I tone down the rhetoric because they don’t want to hear about global warming all the time!  So  I’ve really forced myself to try to enjoy ordinary things, like going to a football game on a Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday I kept my mouth shut about car exhaust as a friend and I rode to the stadium in his enormous SUV, and bit my lip rather than speak up about the carbon footprint of charcoal grills as we tailgated and had some brats before kickoff.

When we were making our way to the gate I looked up at the stadium and saw an incredibly bright and unbelievably large scoreboard.  High above the field the lights were on, even though it was well before noon! It took all my strength to NOT calculate the amount of coal that was probably being burned at that moment just to make it all possible.

When I realized that this wastefulness was directed at pleasing the fans, I wondered  what would happen if the folks in the bleachers demanded that their teams institute Earth-friendly practices around the games they finance?

Suddenly I saw a large group of chanting people marching with protest signs and my spirits rose – I thought I was witnessing the dawn of the Eco-football movement.  But no! I admit I was just a little bit disappointed when I found out all the commotion was only about human rights.

Dr. Babooner, when I think about the ramifications of a warming Earth and the consequences of our greenhouse-gas-producing behavior, I usually get upset and say something dire, which typically causes these reactions:

  1. The people who disagree with me turn belligerent.
  2. The people who agree with me get depressed.
  3. Ultimately nothing changes.

    4. I’m tired of warning people all the time and seeing that they are not alarmed enough. How can I make my point in a way that will make a difference?

Earnestly,
Cassandra

I told Cassandra that in my opinion, being earnest about important issues usually does not endear one to the masses. I suggested she devote her energy to becoming a celebrity in one field or another – music, movies, sports, etc. Once famous, she should market her low carbon lifestyle as a commodity and people will fall in line – not because they want to save the planet, but because they want to be as cool as she is. Which would ultimately make the whole Earth cooler!

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Late Night Snack

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Today’s post is by Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

H’lo, Bart here.

Really interested in this story about how bad it is to eat late at night.  Here’s what opened my eyes – I never thought you could decide for yourself when the meals happen.

They say we bears are “opportunistic eaters“, which is another way of saying dinnertime is whenever I can find something, or when unsuspecting food wanders into my reach. And really, how could it be any other way? I have to get lots of fat built up for winter, so I can’t ever afford to say “No”!

Especially if donuts are involved.  

This makes me like a lot of people who seem to swallow things for entertainment, or just because it’s there.

I see the kitchen lights on late at night, and then I see the bedroom and bathroom lights come on even later!  Yes, I’m just out of sight in the trees, and I’m taking notes!

Those notes say your midnight buffets have to stop, because acid reflux is a nasty, should-never-happen type of thing, just like wrong-way drivers or falling down a ladder.

So here’s Bart’s Acid Reflux action plan: Whenever you feel the urge to eat something after dark, you should follow these simple Bart-approved steps:

    1. Find the food that’s tempting you.
    2. Put the food into a loose, open bag.
    3. Set the bag outside, in the yard, at least 50 feet from any structure.
    4. Bring the dog in.
    5. Turn out the light.

If the food is still there in the morning, you were meant to have it, so chow down.   The morning is a much better time to take in large quantities of food anyway!

Or so they tell me.  

If you follow my instructions you’ll feel better and sleep better.  

This is also a great weight-loss strategy!  The reason so many diets fail is this: people expect their excess pounds to just disappear, and that’s unreasonable.  But if you follow the simple steps listed above, you’ll really be donating your future fat to someone else who needs it more!  

It makes perfect sense.  Especially if you live right on the edge of the woods!

Your Pal,
Bart

How late is your last meal of the day?

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Scary Space Thing!

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, who has been held back so many times, he has more seniority than his teachers at Wendell Willkie High School.

Hi Mr. C.,

Me and my buddies are sure excited about tonight being Halloween AND Friday too!

There’s just something about running from house to house to fill up a pillowcase with teensy candy bars and then bingeing on them until you feel sick! And it’ll be even better because I don’t have to get up and go to school in the morning!

The biggest problem is figuring out how to dress. People say teenagers are lazy when it comes to Halloween. The guys I know make a big deal out of Not Trying Too Hard.

Last year my pal Willie got a roll of fifty “Hello, My Name Is …” tags, wrote a different name on each one, and then stuck them all on the front of his shirt except one, which he put in the middle of his forehead.

When people asked, he said he was dressed as “Identity Theft”.

That’s super cool, and also really lazy. But people seemed to like it, and a lot of them asked if he thought up the idea himself, which he didn’t, so he said “No, I stole it,” which made them laugh even MORE!

I had a great idea for a costume last night – A Comet!!! And here’s the reason. They’re bright, scary and FAST!

But the thing that really sealed the deal for me was this article. It says that probe that’s about to land on the comet called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has some kind of electronic nose, and it did some sniffing tests and radioed back that the comet smells like combination of horse urine, vinegar and rotten eggs.

Ugh!

But also … Sweet!

I was hoping to get my mom on board with this. I know we don’t have any horse urine but I asked her if we had some vinegar and rotten eggs, and she said she wouldn’t help with that part because it’s gross.

And as far as the costume goes, she looked up some instructions online and said it’s just too hard for ordinary people to make. I guess I can’t complain but how can it be harder than landing on a comet? I mean, c’mon!

She also said some pretty mean things about papier Mache. You make the comet’s head by mixing newspaper and paste and then layering it on a beach ball.

“It’s too fussy”, she said. “We’d have to wait at least three days to let it dry and by that time it would be Sunday.”

So I guess I waited too long, once again!

But I did find a great big Sun mask, so I suppose that’ll have to do.

People will say I’m the Sun, but I’ll have to argue with them. “No, I’m a Comet!” A stinky, rude one!” I wonder if they’ll buy that? I’m fast, so that’ll help. And maybe I’ll throw some handfuls of glitter behind me. Until it runs out anyway. Hope I don’t get arrested for littering, but my excuse will be “Comets are dirty.”

If people don’t like it, they can tell it to the Comet Head.

I wish it weren’t smiling, though.

Your Pal,
Bubby

What’s your best last-minute dress-up idea?

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Ask Dr. Babooner – Quarantine Edition

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m the chief executive of a northeastern state and I recently  made the difficult decision to impose a quarantine on all people entering my state from Canada out of fear that they might unwittingly be carrying  a dread disease – the  Bola-Eh Virus.

There’s a group of folks that went up there to provide care and comfort for the unfortunate infected population, and though some say they’re heroes and should be treated with respect, I have to manage a growing level of hysteria on my side of the line.

I can’t afford to have people think I was in any way casual about the Bola-Eh menace!

Babooner_Face_Mask

Sufferers appear normal at first, but gradually begin to develop a pronounced monosyllabic, sentence-ending vocal tic that won’t go away, and it gets worse until they are unable to speak without expressing it.

A fondness for hockey is another symptom.

As you might expect, the people in my state are mortified.  I hear from dozens of folks every day who are afraid they have contracted Bola-Eh, even though the experts say it is exceptionally  difficult to catch.

In fact, you can pitch a tent in the hospital parking lot and hang around in there for three days with an infected Canadian and you won’t catch anything but a raging case of disgust.

Because there is no scientific vaccine, I had to do something showy to protect myself (and the great people of my state) from Bola-Eh.  And I know my radical action worked, because imposing the quarantine has inoculated me against the kind of criticism I fear the most – a wild and withering conservative strain that quickly gets out of control. I still came down with a mild case of brickbats, but it’s a liberal variety that fades fast and leaves no mark.

Right now I’m feeling pretty good about my decision, but it’s too bad about those do-gooding border-crossers who have to cool their jets for three weeks in the Tent of Shame.

But at least they can catch up on their reading, eh?

OH MY GOD, I’ve GOT IT!

AC/CC

I told AC/CC it is an extremely dicey business to try to protect one’s self against criticism. There isn’t a drug, action, attitude or isolation suit that has been proven 100% effective. Some people choose another route and actively seek out criticism because they think getting disparaged will make them stronger. But in the end we all succumb, and it’s nice when there are a few left who are willing to say good things about us at our funerals.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Negative Energy

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings, Constituents,

With the midterm election now less than two weeks away, I just made the startling discovery that I don’t actually have an opponent this time.  The adversary I thought I was facing is a guy who left me a terse note at a bait shop in Leech Lake three months ago saying he was going to make me wriggle like a nightcrawler on the Hook of Truth.

When you hold public office, people say stuff like that to you all the time, so I wasn’t too troubled about being pierced but I took it as a signal to get busy with fundraising.

I have a talent for sizing people up, even over the phone!  Within a few words’ worth of conversation I can accurately name a person’s political persuasion and at lest two hot button issues.   It turns out there are a whole lot of rich people in America who are looking to reward any high official who happens to vote exactly the way they feel at the moment!

And they all live on lakes!

So I managed to collect a decent pile of money and then I realized there was no viable opposition because the Hook of Truth  guy was only good at turning phrases and could not come up with the filing fee.  He isn’t on the ballot after all.

But I know my funders gave me that money so I could mock and disparage someone, and I’m determined not to let them down!  All I had to do was find a person or entity who I could say was unequivocally in the wrong.

That’s when Lockheed stepped forward with a declaration that they have solved the elusive problem of creating massive amounts of energy with a compact device using cold fusion!

And then some other smarties stepped forward to say there’s no way they could have done that!

I don’t understand what any of them are talking about, but it’s not a difficult choice for me – I’m going with the skeptics.

Here’s the script for my first ad:

Music:
A heartbreakingly sad violin plays something classical and brainy.
Image:
A small boy rubs his sleeve on a frosted window to make a peephole, then looks out at the night sky.
Narrator:
Jimmy has dreams about tomorrow.
Image:
We see the boy from outside, his small face pressed against the glass. Camera pans up to see starts twinkling overhead.
Narrator:
He sees spaceships flying to Mars just like airplanes fly coast to coast today.
Image:
Flickering 50’s movies style aliens and spacecraft fill the screen.
Narrator:
Jimmy’s dreams are a harmless fantasy. But Lockheed Martin says his wish is coming true. They claim to have made an advance in cold fusion – something that could, if true, provide power for deep space exploration.
Image:
A woman puts her hand on Jimmy’s shoulder – It’s his mother. She lovingly invites him to go to the piano where we can see sheet music haphazardly stuffed into a little carrying case by the bench.
Narrator:
And for this, Jimmy is neglecting his piano studies. For this, he won’t be in his school orchestra. And for this, he won’t play in a terrible rock band when he hits his ’20’s – a rite of passage, bypassed.
Image:
Jimmy’s face re-appears in the frosted window, except this time it’s a sad, old Jimmy face. His life has been wasted.
Narrator:
Because Lockheed Martin got his hopes up, Jimmy wasted a promising life waiting for compact cold fusion to become a reality. That’s not his fault. It was always just about to happen.
Image:
Jimmy’s tombstone, with engravings that indicate he lived a long, unproductive life, and with a tiny zooming spaceship carved into the granite over his name.
Narrator:
Lockheed Martin’s Cold Fusion Dream: Wrong for Jimmy. Wrong for America.
Beechly:
I’m Congressman Loomis Beechly and I approve this message because I had to use the money against SOMETHING most people don’t understand.

 

I think that’s a great ad, and I’m only a little bit sorry I had to use it against a fine, rich company like Lockheed Martin. I would have much rather used it to attack some other, smaller, less-well-off person, but I just don’t have any opposition this year!

Maybe next year, somebody with deep pockets will fund an opponent for me, so I can really have a good time!

Politically Yours,
Congressman Loomis Beechly

What makes you Go Negative?

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Autumnal Color Riot Mentality

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Every year we have a wonderful Autumn tradition in our little town – a Pumpkin Festival that provides a lot of good old-fashioned fun for families from the surrounding area.

There is something invigorating about standing outside with a nice hot cup of apple cider on a sunny, brisk afternoon. The bright yellows, reds and rusts of the elms and maples frame a glorious display –  the deep blue of an October sky,  punctuated by crimson beams from police cruisers darting playfully through billowing clouds of tear gas!

Vivid piles of orange Jack-o-Lanterns dot the scene.  The sharp, invigorating air is filled with the falling of the leaves and the rising of rocks, skateboards and buckets as they are petulantly hurled at a line of officers in riot gear.

“I love autumn,” I whisper to my sweetheart.  I bury my face in the shoulder of his jacket to keep my eyes from watering.   My ears fill with a chorus of seasonal sounds – the delightful crunch of the leaves, the determined scraping of a bamboo rake,  and the insistent crackle of a bullhorn as the local sheriff orders us to disperse!

Dr. Babooner, I realize that not everyone fully appreciates the beauty of October, but  I always come to harvest time with thoughts of gratitude for being able to witness a remarkable transformation. The bounty is in.  The summer has surrendered.  The landscape erupts with color.  My car is upside down and burning on the street just a few feet from where I left it.

How can I help others embrace the wonder of this remarkable season?

Crisply,
Pumpkin Spice Girl

I reminded PSG that all beauty is in the eye of the beholder – defined not only by the things you see, but what you choose to overlook.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Apostle of Jazz

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Radio legend, jazz lover and gentleman Leigh Kamman passed away last Friday at 92.

Leigh was a rare individual in many ways, but particularly in the world of radio where the microphone amplifies the voice and also inflates the perceptions of listeners about the qualifications of the person doing the talking. The medium itself adds authority whether you deserve it or not. If you’re just smart enough to walk around the outside edges of a topic, many listeners will assume you know everything inside. Careers have been built on this.

Leigh Kamman was the real deal. With him, you got a radio host who actually knew what he was talking about. When it came to jazz, he was a true devotee, and his primary interest was in sharing the art and uplifting the performers. I can’t recall hearing Leigh say a negative word about anyone except himself. I think about that when I read music reviews where critics use their pedestals to bash performers who don’t live up to their expectations.

As a radio host, I admired Leigh for his ability to set a scene and transport a listener to someplace new. He did the most essential thing when enveloped you in his world. As the Jazz Image theme music – Django’s Castle – began each Saturday night, I waited with great anticipation for the moment when the music would fade and he’d step in with that voice to take us to an unexpected location. “Hanging upside down over the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth” was my all-time favorite. Just hearing the music by Gerry Mulligan’s band takes me back there – you can listen and fill in with your own Leigh Kamman memory.

I know several people who worked directly with Leigh on his MPR program, The Jazz Image. Each one was grateful for the experience, none more than Tom Wilmeth, who wrote this fine profile for the Jazz Times.

One of my favorite quotes is this one, where Tom captures Leigh’s inherent modesty:

Leigh consistently kept the focus on the music, and never on himself. He had spoken to Duke Ellington on numerous occasions, first as a 17-year-old fan at a train station! But he wouldn’t think of dropping this fascinating nugget into a conversation in order to impress. I had worked with Leigh close to three years before I heard him mention, in passing, about speaking with Charlie Parker. I froze at the tape deck with reel in hand. I asked him to expand a bit, but he drifted away to another subject.

When you know a lot about something you can use that information to intimidate others who are less knowledgable. I have seen smart people who are also enthusiasts of one sort or another wield volumes of minutiae to demonstrate that no matter how big a fan someone else might be, they are a MUCH, MUCH BIGGER fan. I guess there must be a good feeling that comes out of that, but I doubt that it lasts long.

Leigh Kamman was a distance runner – he had lived the life and had the history and the raw material to be that guy who made you feel inadequate and dumb, but he was principled and like a superhero, he used his immense power only for good – opening minds, gaining converts and spreading his love for the art form of jazz.

In what area are you an enthusiast?

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Duck Opener

102 Comments

Today’s Post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

At ease, civillians!

But at the same time stay very alert, because there are people walking around our lakes and marshes carrying guns, and they’re looking for things to shoot! The Minnesota waterfowl season opened last weekend, and ducks have been in the news ever since.

As a Bathtub Safety Officer, I’m charged with keeping people informed about the hazards associated with slippery, wet, hard surfaces in and around the bathroom, which statistics show is The Most Dangerous Room In The House. You simply can’t combine the disparate elements of water, tile, porcelain, soap, and naked, vulnerable people without taking crazy risks. And this precarious situation was made even less safe by the introduction of rubber waterfowl into the bathroom environment – a move I opposed but people ignored my warnings and now the bathtub duck population has exploded, worldwide!

Where do they come from? No one seems to know! I am deeply worried that there is some sinister force behind the relentless spread of these creatures, which have no official taxonomy but I categorize them as “Bathtub Ebola”.

Rubber bathtub ducks are eye-catching distractions whose distinctive call (“Squeak!”) can be quite alarming to an unsuspecting bather. Unfortunately, these ducks only sound off when they are squeezed or stepped on, usually by a person who has soap in his eyes and is blindly grasping around for a towel. If you are in that situation it means you have probably already lost your balance and injury is imminent!

That’s why I’m declaring a Bathtub Duck season in Minnesota, which commences immediately and ends only when I say so, which is probably going to be never.

Under the guidelines I am making up right now, you can bag as many ducks as you like as long as you remove them from the bathtub area and either pen them up in a safe, non-slippery enclosure, or extract their squeakers and deflate them so they can be of no harm to innocent bathroom users. I realize that this will offend some who think there should be as many of these yellow floaters around as possible, because they are “fun”.

I ASSURE YOU, there is nothing “fun” about these dangerous creatures. Here are two examples:

A giant bathtub duck appeared in Seoul, South Korea this week and after dominating the landscape with its imposing, Godzilla-like presence, it began deflating – much to the delight of the local populace, many of whom took pictures of the weakened rubberfowl. But it has since been pumped up again by its masters, and the people who were momentarily released from its mezmerizing spell have once again fallen silent. Where is the Minnesota duck hunting population when we so desperately need it?

Duck_Comet_2

And scientists got the “go-ahead” this week to land a probe on a rubber-duck-shaped object hurtling through space. Which raises the question – could comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko be the extra-terrestrial source of this Flaxen Scourge? The notion that there is a Rubber Duck Mother Ship rocketing around our galaxy is an admittedly wild idea that can only be tested by landing a probe right on its head. I am not a violent person, but I admit I’m comforted by the thought that the first thing the Philae probe will do once it makes contact is thrust a space-harpoon into the comet’s (hopefully soft) head.

Only then will we begin to understand the true dimensions of what we are really dealing with!

Stay Alert!
B.S.O.R.

What was your favorite childhood toy?

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Do The Locomotion

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Today’s post comes from marketing wizard and dealmaker Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

Because we’re interested in collecting piles of money, we’re always on the lookout for the next big weight loss fad!

Telling other people how to drop pounds off their frame is one of the great growth industries of our time, which is both true and ironic!

And there are thousands of ways to (supposedly) do it. You can use mechanical devices or take pills or buy a CD or watch a show or adopt a diet with ready-made food in carefully measured helpings.

Fortunes have been won with each of these.

But at The Meeting That Never Ends, we took on what I think is the most difficult weight loss / marketing challenge out there – figuring out how to make money off of simple walking. Because if you don’t sell high-end shoes (and we don’t), there isn’t a lot of equipment needed to go out for a stroll.

At first we thought we’d buy a company that sells electronic step-counters. This works especially well on people who have  bought in to the idea that taking 10,000 steps a day is all you need to do to become thin and sexy.

The problem is there’s very little sexy-time left in your schedule when you have to walk 10,000 steps a day, especially if you’ve spent all that time counting quietly in your head. Sex requires a lot of imagination and the fanciful part of your brain takes a bit of a holiday when you have to count up to 10,000.

But that’s where the step-counting devices come in!

And the sky’s the limit on price point – because people will pay a lot for a thing if they think it will dramatically improve their chances of getting lucky.

We were all set to go but then a bunch of killjoy researchers came along and said 10,000 steps is too much and you can get the same effect with only 6,000 steps. Suddenly our Pricey Love Pedometers were looking less necessary! And then some other prudish lab rats weighed in with the idea that walking won’t help you lose weight at all. All it does is improve your strength, mobility, mood, sleep and overall health.

But what good is that if there’s nothing to sell as part of the bargain?

Fortunately, a lightning bolt struck and I think we’ve stumbled on the next big exercise fad! It happened when I read this article about prehistoric kangaroos. It turns out ancient kangaroos walked around on two legs pretty much like we do. They were big, and the bigger they got, the less hopping they did until they got so huge they had to give up hopping completely!

So in the kangaroo world, walking is what biggies do and hopping is for little cuties. See?

But hopping is complicated. That’s why we’re just about to go to market with wearable kangaroo tails that will provide a counter-weight and balance for body-conscious people who are going to start jumping their way to work, or to the store, or just around the neighborhood for recreation!

Look for it. It’s going to happen! We think getting smaller through hopping is going to be huge.

Again, ironic.

Yours in marketing,
Spin

What makes you jump?

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The SlitherBot Threat is Real!

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings Constituents,

With the mid-term election less than one month away I have been looking in vain for an issue that will give me enough traction to wriggle back into office.

Many of my House colleagues are going nuts over Ebola, Immigration, Benghazi and Obama Care with varying results. Some high-minded politicians have tried to make a big deal out of Net Neutrality, and in the process have put their constituents to sleep.

I decided I wanted to go my own route and have been trying a few things on for size.

Most recently I decried President Obama’s admission that he didn’t have a strategy against ISIS. That critical angle really started to work for me and people were even sending money to endorse my assertion that the president should have started word-bombing Syria immediately, but when he began bomb-bombing instead, the contributions just fizzled out.

An earlier attempt to generate some genuine outrage fell flat when people simply refused to care that legions of robots are being programmed to cooperate.

I thought it would generate waves of concern among the populace that our beloved Congressmen could someday be replaced by machines that will compromise their personal needs in favor of getting things done. I guess I overestimated people’s fondness for partisan bickering. I really thought it was popular!

Now I’m second-guessing that, but I’m still pretty sure there’s a strong anti-robot feeling out there. I’d still like to exploit that fear, if possible. The key was to find something people hate as much (or more) than robots.

Fortunately, I just discovered something so alarming I think you’ll agree that Congress should pass a law restricting it as soon as possible – Robot Snakes!

Apparently some scientists (thank God they continue to tickle our worst fears with their outrageous experiements) developed a robot snake that will slither up a sand dune like a sidewinder. Through careful research they learned that sidewinders flatten their bodies out to get a better purchase on an unstable surface. Ugh!

Don’t get me wrong, this is probably useful knowledge that will benefit mankind somehow in the future, but for now I feel I’ve been gifted with the extremely sinister image of a robot snake with an eerily flattened body speedily writhing its way towards you (and your children!) across an otherwise peaceful and secure beach.

This must never be allowed to happen!

My opponent, and everyone else in Congress and the nation, have been silent on the looming SlitherBot threat! But if I am re-elected to represent the 9th District, I promise I will introduce legislation to prohibit the release of autonomous sidewinder robot snakes into the wild! Especially near bodies of water, which, as you know, is primarily what you’ll find in my district.

My critics will say no one anywhere is on record with a plan to do this, but as far as I’m concerned, that means the planning must be happening in secret, which is even more dastardly! Why go underground with it unless your aims are nefarious?

OMG. Could there be Underground SlitherBots?

Respectfully,
Your only anti-cyber-snake candidate,
Loomis Beechly

What election issue has your attention?