Shocking! Devil Not Causing Earthquakes

And you have long thought Pat Robertson had proven that Haiti's pact with the Devil back in the 1800's caused their 2010 earthquake. That earthquake caused horrific effects, including a visit by Sean Penn and a photo of George Bush and Bill Clinton together.

Well, forget that.

Unless Satan is a Capitalist (yes, yes, Barak), he did not cause the end-of-times-of-2011 earthquake that seems to have rattled a McDonald's near Youngstown, Ohio.

Hold on. Ohio? 

Ohio votes Republican!

More evidence that the Devil can not be involved.

The earthquake was not all that bad, a 4.0 on a 10.0 scale (unless Barak raises yet another ceiling). It probably didn't knock the tranche'd pickle off of a single Big Mac or jiggle a chocolate shake. People in Youngstown probably thought it more Walmart price rollbacks, you know, when the Zorro'ed price cards fall away from new, lower ones. Or maybe, Newt Gingrich's polls hitting.

Severity, however, is not the point. The point is what or who caused the earthquake.

Brine.

Wait. Don't flee to the nearest Ru Paul Iraq Indirectly Caused 9/11 Website. Real elucidation awaits. Here, not there.

Brine.

The stuff that makes Heinz pickles down I-76 from the quake?

Not really, although you may have just solved the pickle juice recycling crisis.

Brine is used in Fracking, which is the only way to profit from natural gas stored in the rock under Youngstown and other places. Fracking is all the rage, since it will make America the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. This even though nobody really wants to be the Saudi Arabia of anything, unless you think women drivers...

The United States can not long survive without Fracking. America needs to cook with gas. Figuratively and actually, too.

Natural gas burns cleaner than anything this side of, say, the Sun. It is a great way to make electricity and char Rib Eyes to Pittsburgh Rare. Had America used natural gas instead of coal to industrialize, there would be no Global Warming. Or Al Gore movies. Greenland would be 0.8 inch lower in the water, where it was when the Vikings first rammed a Dragon Head into it. Antarctica would cover Terra Del Fuego, which would just be mapped as Northwest Antarctica, Magellan having circumnavigated only the Falklands for all the damned ice.

Fracking is all about Brine and some benign chemical additives and their high-pressure injection into the gas-hording rock. The rock fractures and America gets gas for it pipelines and twelve fuel cells. Of course, to keep the gasless rock from collapsing, Frackers shoot in sand, long known as compatible with brine and little crabs, into the space where your new water heater fuel used to be. You know how well sand supports your sandal much better near that briny water?

That's the theory, anyway.

Some environmentalists, who obviously do not have land in Youngstown to license, decry fracking as certain to give you earthquakes as well the most environmental-friendly fuel this side of, say, the Sun.

Uh.

Turns out that, however dumb they look hum... hugging trees, these guys are right again.

Earthquakes. Not Satan, Pat. Brine.

So, Youngstown! American! Stop with the Pickle Fracking Juice already!

Not to be confused with Battlestar Galactia-speak. Although, thanks to a few little earthquakes, Youngstown, along with the rest of the now-former Saudia Arabia of Gas, are Frakking doomed.

Stop With the Scouting Trip Stuff!

Angelina Jolie was in Haiti last Wednesday.  Not everyone hid their children under rubble.

Gelina was there without her better-name-half, reportedly checking out the adoptee pool. She was in the Dominican Republic part of the island the day before, but those kids all have good jobs in T-shirt factories.

Besides, her visit was official.  Gelina is an ambassador of goodwill for the UN, Americans having a such surfeit of that for the UN.  She had to visit a quota of medical facilities, housed in smaller-than-Cirque tents, as part of her mission.  She went to villages that care for newly orphaned Haitians youngsters, many seriously hurt in God's Pat-Robertson-Approved Retribution (but we've covered that).

One boy, who had lost a leg, laughed out loud about some goofy book he was reading.  At least, Gelina thought it was, but she hadn't read Sarah Palin's work before.

Many of you may mock Gelina's jaunts around the world adopting locals.  But I don't care what her reasons are.  She goes where most of us won't even catch on the Discovery Third World Channel.  She is a big star, played Lara Croft twice and could simply do her nails in Hollywood if she and her party-of-the-first-part-name could stand the place full time.  Now that you mention it, she is perfect for my latest screenplay, too.

Unlike Americans, most folks in the underdeveloped world did not see "Changling" and don't worry she'll lose or even take their children.  She is also beautiful with a smile any kid would remember well beyond next week's dinner.

Does anybody accuse Bill Gates of using his Foundation's good work to get Africa addicted to Windows Mobile OS?  Well, all right, but that was before.

So lay off Gelina.  She, that smile and her heart at least end up in the right places.  So, last Wednesday?  I was here in Naples, pretty damned close to Haiti.  Where were you?

What snow?

The Soleil Also Rises

George III did actually learn something from Katrina.  No formaldehyde-based FEMA-brand trailers for Port au Prince as we expected.  No domed stadiums, either.

Circus Tents.

Only for the Haitian government.

All the way from Reno, Nevada.

Nope.  And I tried for an hour to come up with something half as good, too.

Tom Schrade, who used to own a piece of what used to be the Reno Hilton and still listens to his wife, is donating these things to Haiti.  Mind you, Tom wasn't using them much and these are top of the line circus tents.  Cirque du Soleil tents, no less, with heating and A/C, lighting, Port au Jeans and chairs.

And I'm sure the elephant... well, I'm sure the have been cleaned up to Haiti standards. 

As if the tents were not enough, the thirteen shipping containers it takes to the big tops from Reno to Haiti will themselves serve as apartments.  At least until some smart developer converts them into waterfront condos.

Conrad Hilton's Foundation, hip-deep in Haitian relief already, will finance the shipment and Bill Clinton's Foundation will handle the paperwork.  I guess foundations are not just tax shelters for the ex-Presidents, wealthy heirs and Bill Gates among us; they actually do stuff like this.

Cirque du Soleil, a Quebec bunch who could wow you in a pup tent, used these tents originally at Vegas' Mirage a while back.  These tents have traveled before, to Myrtle Beach, probably to house some golf course, and then back to Nevada, no doubt to keep the slots dry.

If you've ever seen Circle du Soleil perform, you know they do it in French, which makes the bathroom and exit signs ready to go for Haiti.  If you haven't seen Cirque at least on TV, queue up a disc from NetFlix, especially in BluRay if you can.  Try to get one with these soon-to-be-historic relief tents.  It'll make the idea of tents filled with French-filibustering politicians and hand-sewn voodoo dolls (not that the dolls have to needle each other nearly as much to work) seem very, very tame.

And unlike all that Bush emergency housing assistance for Katrina victims, this help is already on the way.

Suspending Return Tickets

You would never expect the US Department of Fatherland Security and Disaster Disasters to show compassion.  That's not why George III invented it.  It is supposed to curtail civil liberties, raise terror alerts and read your emails.

But along comes a disastrous earthquake in Haiti, and the Katrina-Kops are suddenly all soft and humane. 

Now-temporary Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced that she is suspending Haitian deportation.  You have to admit that is awfully sweet.  A few days ago, Haitians illegal in the US were being sent home to their pretty Caribbean half-island quicker than you can get a passport with a tracking chip in it.  At that time--those good days seems ages ago now--our ousted Haitians had huts to go home to and the prospect of landing a dollar an hour job by the time you got your next 55" TV.

Well, the Haitian huts are gone and job prospects have dimmed, so Secretary Janet had second thoughts about plopping even an illegal alien down onto Hell's Beach with cameras rolling.

And her slightly less-temporary boss, sent the Navy and Coast Guard out to help out any Haitians, the one's sailing the wrong way, with their navigation.

Except there doesn't seem to be a boat or raft left in all of Port au Prince.  We'll have to help the Haitian's rebuild them, too.  It might be cheap... more humane to send a big cruise ship and sail them all to another Frenchified paradise, say Montserrat.

Bush & Clinton to Work with Devil

Yes, the Bush that does come first to mind, not the usual one.  The second one, called, with appropriate deference by some, George III.

They are going to Haiti, in the wake of a brutal earthquake, hoping to improve housing as both men did while in the White House.  Of course, during their 16 years in Washington, they had the help of the Fed, mortgage brokers and Wall Street.

In Haiti, it will only be Satan.

Rev. Pat Robertson revealed Satan's role in Haiti's government very recently, although, Pat said, Satan has been sort of President Emeritus in Haiti a long time.  That was thanks to a deal with the Haitians to force Napoleon Whatever to give it up in 1803, the same year he pulled off a sweet short-sale of the Louisiana Territory to the US for half a Bank CEO's base salary.  I think Pat would agree that Thomas Jefferson got the better deal.

Satan, apparently, has been fuming ever since, sticking Haiti with voodoo, the French language, pushy tourists and a Gross Domestic Products lower than a Bill Clinton speaking fee.  He did get even with Jefferson, as Pat Robertson will probably tell you, with something called Katrina.

Bush and Clinton can hardly make things worse in Haiti than Satan has, so they are a good choice.  One good fund raiser a piece and Haiti's housing will rise again.  Assuming China has not purchased all of 2010's the corrugated sheet supply already.

And those repossessed Katrina-FEMA trailers would look great in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince. 

It probably won't matter, but Satan may be of little help after all.  Reports have him skipping town before Bush and Clinton even land there.  We know where he's going, too.  Pat Robertson is sure Satan still has his place just outside Orlando.

Go to Google Disaster Relief Page to Help Haiti Out