Soetimes the job hunt isn't the important thing...

I woke up today with no motivation at all, and great difficulty mustering the energy to get out of bed. So I got a late start, fiddled around with some errands, and barely got any job-hunting work done. I did check the Santa Clara County employment site, and saw a position that I qualified for- with twenty minutes left before it expired. Fortunately I had an application on file with them, and managed to get it out in time- hopefully somethng will come of it.

After that, it was evening, and I saw that the rain had given way to spectacular cloudscapes (I love living in a place with actual weather), and so I decided to go for a late afternoon walk. This time I decided on the uncertain perils of Sunnyvale, and took a walk along the Bay park. On one side was the freeway to Milpitas, on the other a seasonal wetlands, that had something like twenty, count-em TWENTY snowy white egrets, doing what egrets do...which is nothing except look beautiful. I walked far enough to see the actual bay (unimpressive in this area), saw a bunch of ducks and a blue heron flying away...and something I 'm sure was a small otter swimming in one of the flood control pools.

And for once I had long horizons- THere were no trees or buildings blocking the sight lines, the rain had swept away the smog, and the mountains were crystal clear under the dramatic lines of clouds. I could see Mt. Diablo, even, far off in the distance on the horizon, what I'm certain was Mt. Tam, looking misty and mysterious.

All in all, it wasn't that bad a day.

Nasty Conspiratorial Thought for the Week

SO I've been thinking about the motives of South Dakota Governor Mike Round's signing of the recent anti-abortion law. True there's the obvious reasons that he may sincerely believe in challenging Roe vs. Wade, or he may be simply pandering to his conservative base. But I have to wonder if there’s a hidden motive. Consider this:

1. South Dakota is having a demographics problem- the majority of it's rural counties are losing population. 90% of the total number of cities in South Dakota have populations under 3,000, and the entire population f the state is less than that of San Jose.



2. The same person who sponsored the anti-abortion bill, ALSO sponsored a teen sex education program where the only contraceptive method that allowed to be mentioned was abstinence. This was a duplicate of a program that, after it had been enacted elsewhere, was associated with a dramatic increase in the number of teen pregnancies.

So my nasty suspicion? South Dakota is trying to stem it's population decline by encouraging more people to get pregnant, and then making sure they have babies. It won't work of course- that's not enough to get people to stay in that state. So in ten years, matters will escalate; pregnant women and women with children will be prohibited from leaving the state. In fifty years, SD will be sending out raiding parties across state lines to steal women, and lacing its milk products with fertility drugs.

Obviously we need to nip this in the bud: it's not too late to build a wall around South Dakota, and cut off all contact. That's a better option that being forced to call in UN Peackeaping troops.