This last storm had a lot of water in it.

When I fed the birds this morning, their seed dish had at least a full inch of water in it. That’s a lot of water in a 24 hour period. The mountains are white. The little ponds I have dug around the house are all full because the ground is saturated now. (My goal is to make sure that if a drop of water falls up here, it stays up here.)

From my back yard, it looked like the drought has been broken – at least for the time being. That’s a big relief. Last fall, I wrote that We Need Some Rain!. The Virgin River basin was down to less than a quarter of normal; the worst in the state.

I decided to check into that in more detail so I looked up the actual numbers from the US Natural Resources Conservation Service. If you look at the totals starting on January 1, you can see that this last storm has put us at least four inches ahead of last year. The big storm at the end of January was a huge boost too.

But the dry fall I complained about in October makes the total water year (which starts October 1) still only about normal. We’re now at 24.1 inches at Kolob. At this same time in 2009, we were at 24.4 inches – the 2009 water year was still just slightly better so far.

So if you think this storm is going to fill up Lake Powell, think again.

New York’s Massa is one more item of evidence.

Louisiana re-elected “Cold Cash” Jefferson every two years since 1990 and it took a video-taped $100,000 bribe payoff and a federal grand jury to get rid of him. The Governor of Illinois had to try to auction off an appointment to a US Senate seat before he was finally booted out of office. But then, Utah keeps re-electing Hatch – so we’re guilty too.

Now, New York’s Eric Massa has resigned under fire. He’s given three different explanations (health reasons, to avoid an ethics investigation for propositioning a male staffer, and most recently, because the Democratic leadership wants to get rid of him). He’s quoted as calling the While House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel a “son of the devil’s spawn.” (Actually, if rumors are to be believed, he’s not the son – just a drinking buddy.)

This keeps happening! It happens so much … Doesn’t it make you wonder about the kind of people who are still there passing laws? I know I do.

I was happy when New York’s Rangel was forced to give up his grip on the enormous power of the House Ways and Means committee. But I can’t forget that Wilbur Mills held that job for thirty-six years until he was caught dancing in the Tidal Basin with stripper Fanne Foxe, “the Argentine Firecracker”. The good folks of Arkansas had given him a resounding victory in his most recent election. After him, Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois was the House Ways and Means Chairman until he was forced out of it when he was indicted on corruption charges for his role in the House post office scandal. Counting all three, the most powerful committee in the Congress – the one that writes our tax laws – was controlled by proven crooks and nut cases 64 percent of the time.

How much does it take to convince people that something is seriously wrong?

In my blog, Rescuing Democracy: The “Town Meeting” Model, I suggest that maybe we need to adjust the way we elect people in this country. In brief, I think that this idea that we get as many people as possible to go out and vote might be part of the problem.

“A vote for me is a vote for Christ!”

“Your vote can stop liberals from taking away your personal Hellfire missile.”

“Eliminate all taxes with your vote!”

So … if you don’t like my idea, how do you want to start electing people who don’t have a serious personality disorder?

A friend passes on something worth blogging!

We’re pretty good at recycling things at our house. But a friend passed along a tip that showed us we can get better. I thought it was worth passing on to you.

Lisa sent me this email:

Many of us are looking for ways to make a difference. Check out what this 12 year old in Iowa has done.

http://recyclecaps.webs.com/

I’m hoping his web site goes viral (See Note 1). It could happen!

We’ve been throwing away our bottle caps! We won’t be doing that anymore. The site states that any store selling “Aveda” products will take the caps for recycling. I checked it out. Aveda claims that it’s true! There’s one location in St. George. (See the map.) Since it’s Sunday today and they’re closed, I can’t call and ask. But I’m going to start recycling my bottle caps anyway.

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Note 1: Viral. It’s a good thing. See http://www.answers.com/topic/viral