ONE HAS TO WONDER

One has to wonder. You have a professional baseball team about ready to start the season. You also have a professional football team.

Yet, when you access the primary Pittsburgh paper you can find hardly anything about the Pirates but avoid nothing that is Steelers related.

Perhaps the primary Pirates beat writer is on vacation in anticipation of another long and agonizing season.

One has to wonder if, as Sports Illustrated suggests, the Apocalypse is really almost here. And, that is not because a national rag sheet just promised us that this coming Valentine's Day kicks it off.(Hallmark is going nuts hurriedly printing up Apocalypse romance cards)

Please consider this:

A federal judge in San Diego (California, of course) dismissed a lawsuit filed by PETA (if you have to look it up "fageddaboutit")
seeking to grant constitutional protection against slavery to a group of killer whales that perform at SeaWorld parks.

The judge reasoned the 13th amendment apples only to humans.
He did so only after listening in court for two days over the possibility of granting constitutional rights for members of an animal species.

PETA attorney Jeffrey Kerr said the group does not plan to give up the fight to protect orcas but did not specify it's next action.

Before you sit back and relax in your easy chair please keep in mind that in 2010 our Supreme Court decided that corporations were (in effect) humans - with the same rights ascribed to them.

They could (groan) have a whale of a good time with this one too.

Also, please consider this as you ponder the above sign:

FEMA has decided to waive debts to Katrina victims in a sum reputed to be in the area of $385 million - or the amount of Mitt Romney's petty cash fund.

These debts are those for which allegedly undeserving folks received improper money from FEMA - apparently in FEMA's rush to get the money out to the alleged victims.

See? Before this you thought the problem with the Katrina aftermath was that FEMA was slow on the draw in making payments.Not true!

However, this is not a blanket waiver. To be eligible for this waiver one has to earn "less" than $90,000 a year and a FEMA error must have led to the improper payments you received.

Of course, one might reasonably wonder if FEMA had not made an improper payment would there really be a good reason to waive something or would there really be a debt owed.

However, keep in mind here we're talking about being on the cusp of an Apocalypse and there are a lot of vapors or mind bending rays already showing up in the atmosphere according to Klystrom sources.

C'mon now, calm down! Do you really think there are that many people living in New Orleans that would qualify?

Finally - and this sure beats the hell out of waiting in line at the dormitory post office hoping your best girl sent you a letter or Mom included chocolate chip or PB cookies in the clean laundry case she was returning.

Relax, the "hardship" situation previously facing we college students is over.

At least in Shippensburg - right down the road from our home in Harrisburg.

The news is that "Students at Shippensburg University in central PA can get the 'morning-after pill' by sliding $25 into a vending machine installed at the request of the student government."

Obviously, the SGA there is a branch of government supported by Tea Party activists - but, who would certainly have come in handy when the guys on my floor at Grove City were stealing Mom's cookies.

The Etter Health Center at "Shipp" a school of about 8300 enrollees provides the Plan B One Step emergency contraceptive along with condoms and decongestants. (Don't even get me started on why the latter is included - you bunch of "preverts")

The trick here is that to be eligible for this "Katrina like gift" you must be 17 years of age or older - despite not requiring a prescription to make the purchase.

And, they put people in jail for purchasing cigarettes or booze for a minor? Believe it,there's a high school pep rally in the making.

Well, let's just see them wait for a check at the dorm post office from the Susan Koman foundation. That ain't about to happen!

But, you "can" be sure that Obama will see to it the selection keys on the vending machine are well lit at night. You'd hate to see a potential supporter in the general election spend $25 bucks for a decongestant.

Finally, a federal grand jury has indicted a Romanian on charges he hacked into 25 climate-research computers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. (Yep, that's in California too)

The accused faces one count of "unauthorized impairment of a protected computer" for putting the computers out of commission for two months.

PETA, as you can imagine, is outraged with their members shouting: "What? The government protects computers but is unwilling to do anything for killer whales?".

The article did not make it clear if the accused was in Romania when he committed this crime or we should just assume that because he's of Romanian descent - he must be guilty of such a vituperative act!

See you in "Never-never land".