So our local paper has a sound off section. This is where local people call in to mostly complain about their neighbors dog, or politics, local happenings, things of that nature.
Lately the topic has been about how Joe Biden said he knew where Dick Cheney was hiding out during the Bush administration… in a bunker under his house.
The general consensus is that he’s releasing information that should be secret and that lives are put at risk when something like this is released to the public. Uh.. what? Sorry, but I thought ol’ Dick was no longer a holder of any office of importance. Why does saying where he used to hide out even matter? Oh that right! It doesn’t. It’s just another nonsense talking point for the Republicans. They have nothing to say or criticize that matters, so they have to invent stuff.
Now. I think the part that gets me the most. Is that during the Bush years, there was this guy named Joseph Wilson. He was married to a chick named Valerie Plame Wilson. She was an undercover CIA agent.
He came out and said that the Bush administration lied about how Saddam Hussein was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. This made them angry as it was a corner stone of Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address and a “reason for going into Iraq”.
When Ambassador Wilson said that he’d investigated these claims and found them to be utterly baseless, that prince of a man Karl Rove outted Mr. Wilson’s wife to the press…followed by Lewis Libby and Richard Armitage just in case enough people weren’t listening to Karl.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that it’s a federal crime to out a CIA agent? Isn’t there some pesky law on the books concerning that? Wait.. It’s coming to me.. OH YEAH! The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.
Were charges ever brought against those guys who actually released information that mattered? Hell No!
So enough about Joe Biden. No one cares where Cheney curled up in the fetal position and hid out when times got rough in America. That’s old news and he’s yesterdays garbage.
Now, could someone please take out the trash. It’s really starting to stink up the place. Send it back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where it belongs. Be sure to include all it’s sleazy, snake in the grass buddies too! Dick can use them for target practice!
There has been alot of talk lately about taxing things like soft drinks, beer, junk food, etc… Things that can have a negative impact on your health. Lots of people up in arms about all of this tax talk. Doesn’t the government take enough of our money already? I say lets put an end to taxes and while we are at it… lets end all the wasteful government spending that gets done with those tax dollars… Here are a few things I can think of off the top of my head…
Lets completely do away with the education system. Who needs an education anyway… all that money that could be saved by not teaching our kids could cut our taxes immensely.
From now on we should fix the road in front of our own houses and wherever we drive. To hell with letting the local and state governments do it. We should do it ourselves. Imagine the tax dollars that could be saved if we just do it ourselves.
Police? Fuck the police! Buy a gun and take it with you wherever you go. You can be your own protection. Provide your own forensics to investigate crimes and all the other wasteful things those cops do. We don’t need em anymore. That should save us billions.
Military? Fuck em. You have a gun now since there are no police, so you can be part of the new militia. Lets hope no bad guys attack with planes, boats and better weapons. But, just imagine the savings….
The CDC. We don’t need no stinking CDC.. especially with all these recent outbreaks of new flu’s and the near pandemic of swine flu. What the hell do we need these guys trying to research a vaccine for the swine flu and keep people up to date on the spread of the disease? Screw that. disband the CDC and let us take our chances with the virus. Maybe this pandemic will only kill 5% of the world population… then again.. maybe it will take 50% since there will be no one working to stop it.
And speaking of research. To hell with all this government money that goes to research and development projects.. I mean christ.. Who uses things like the internet anyway?
Come to think of it.. theres one more thing that we need to put an end to… All the fucking whining people are doing! Shut the fuck up and pay the extra 3 cents on your bottle of coke or the extra $2 on your case of beer. There is a big difference between the taxes being imposed by our government and the taxes that were imposed on the colonists more than 200 years ago that caused the real tea party followed by a revolution. The difference is that we are seeing something as a result of our taxes paid. ALL OF US! What the fuck every happened to ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?
During the last election, Phil Graham said that we are a nation of whiners. While I disagree with the principles behind why he made the statement and believe that Phil Graham is a scamming motherfucker that should spend the rest of his days in prison for the legislation he helped to pass which in turn led to the economic issues we are facing today. He was right in the sense that we truly have become a nation of whiners. Everyone wants something from the government, yet no one wants to contribute. It’s getting old. Shut the fuck up, stop the whining, get off your ass and do something about it. If you don’t want to pay the taxes anymore, then find a better solution and run for office.
Apparently republicans are quick to forget. At least that is the impression I have been getting lately. There have been many moments that make me think that… but this morning I was getting my son ready for school and decided to turn on the tv to see what’s happening in the world. I turned the channel to msnbc to watch Morning Joe. Certainly not because I like Joe Scarborough… I think he is an arrogant, self serving asshole who couldn’t hack it as a politician. No, I have to admit, I watch it for Mika. Anyway… on to my rant… This morning the shit spewing forth from Joe’s mouth had to do with the release of the CIA memos about torture. He was rambling on about how several politicians knew what was going on back in 2002 and 2003 as they were heading up committees that were briefed on these actions. Yet they didn’t speak up or do anything about it back then and now they are outraged by the knowledge that we tortured. He went on about how in the aftermath of 9/11 they were all willing to do whatever it took but now that the country is “safe” they are outraged.
Seems like maybe Mr. Scarborough has forgotten a thing or two about how the Bush administration operated which pretty much falls in line with how the rest of the Republican party is acting these last few months (I could go off on a whole new rant just on that.. but im going to stay focused on my point and get this over with…).
I recall years of hearing shit like “you’re either with us, or against us” spewing forth from the almighty Bush administration. The patriotism of people being brought into question. Whether or not they loved their country. We were all told that the shit the President and his administration was doing was needed in order to protect our country and if it was questioned by anyone, the person was labeled as Anti-American or non being a patriot.
Maybe Mr. Scarborough has forgotten about all of that? Or maybe he is just going on being his old self serving, arrogant, asshole like self. Who knows, but there isn’t much room for anything else in his statements as far as I’m concerned.
I’m sitting here doing my normal morning ritual of checking email while I sip on a hot cup of tea. The tv is on in the other room and I can hear it, but I’m not listening. Something catches my attention and I look over and focus. “Obama and his liberal congress are spending $1 billion an hour of YOUR MONEY!”, it’s yelling at me. If I can find the vid, I’ll edit and embed it here so you can enjoy this glorious commercial.
ok. edit.. here is the vid..
This guy has been president for a couple days past 2 months. ALL the republicans have done since the day he was elected is bad mouth this guy. They don’t like his ideas, the directions he’s taking the country and all they do is act like a couple of spoiled children who just experienced their first spanking.
You guys had 8 years to screw things up so incredibly bad, but when the country finally gets fed up and gives control to the other side, in the hopes that they can unscrew us, you all throw a fit.. the likes of which I’ve never seen anyone over the age of 3 partake in!
Instead of attacking the other side, while offering no viable alternatives of your own, why don’t you guys go circle the wagons, hire some new PR firms and figure out where you lost touch with the people you go to washington to serve.
Americans want you to follow the constitution, not shred it at every turn. They want the right to free speech. Period. No strings attached. “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it!”
Crying heart liberals aside, we want the right to bear arms. There is NO reason why a guy who enjoys taking his sons into the woods to hunt, should be denied that pleasure. There should be no limitations placed on his ability to obtain hunting rifles and the ammunition for them. His ability to obtain a machine gun, I’m not so much behind because if you need a machine gun, to hunt… sorry buddy, you ain’t much of a hunter! But, the fact remains, that even if you ban Joe Q public’s access to buying a machine gun, the people who want to use them for nefarious reasons will find a way to obtain them anyway.
Well, anyway. I’m not going to map out a new plan for you. I’ll let you guys do that all by yourselves. Just sit down and take a look around. The US isn’t super left or super right. We are centrist.
We want a balance of things. Not all one side or the other. All we want is to raise a family, make a good living and live a good life. It’s really not asking for much, but lately, It has felt like that’s not what our gov’t wants for us.
I’ll let you in on a little hint, We know things are bad. None of us want to sit and watch anti-president commercials all day long on top of wondering where the mortgage payment is coming from. There won’t be another election for 4 years, so sit down and zip it. Your guy lost. It’s just sour grapes now and it’s making you look bad.
Get your act together and find a real leader for your party. Not Sarah Palin, Not Bobbi Jindal. These people are not going to fire up your base. You need someone with charisma to bring your message to the people and you need a message that makes sense. Hate doesn’t work.
With spring comes many things. Warmer temperatures, flowers, birds, oh yeah and spring flooding in the mid west.
Year after year I’m bombarded with images of homes submerged in water to their roof. People filling sandbags and crying on tv about how horrible this is.
Ok. Call me heartless here, but if I got flooded out even once. I’d be packing up and moving. There is NO WAY I’d be dealing with this year after year. Why there are so many people who still live so close to these rivers that flood like clock work, I just will never be able to wrap my head around.
Obviously I feel bad that they have their lives disrupted in this way, but if every time you walk through a door way, you hit your head on the jam, wouldn’t you learn to duck? Come on people. Use the brains god gave you! MOVE!
So anyway… a couple days back I wrote about how prison labor will be the new, cheap way to get things done. Imagine my surprise when I’m watching an associated press clip about the flooding and I see how they are using prisoners to help fill sand bags and protect towns from the rising river.
I guess I’m more in tune with what’s coming than I realized!
Today it’s sandbags and tomorrow it will be the toys your kids play with!
My significant other’s grandmother died last week. This meant attending a wake and funeral filled with his relatives. This isn’t a bad thing mind you, it just exposed me to some different people. One of them is a correctional officer. That’s just a fancy way of saying she works in a prison.
When I asked her why she chose that line of work, I was told,”I’m a high school graduate and it pays $20 an hr. Where else am I going to work where I will make that kind of money?”
At first, I began thinking about how we have several prisons in this general area. They are a huge employer and whenever there’s any talk of a new one opening everyone in the area gets their panties tingling with excitement.
I personally could never figure this out. Think about it this way. Yes. Now there are jobs, BUT, we live in a quiet town in the middle of Pennsylvania. The majority of the crime we had was a drunk guy beating his wife, a guy in front of a bar, or passing out on the sidewalk.
In the last 10 yrs it’s gone from that to where we actually had a gang fight a few towns over on saturday. The paper claimed they were in the “bloods”. Now, why the hell would the “bloods” be out in redneckville? Oooooooooooooh yeah! They got put in jail out here. They brought out the wife and little childrens and realized, hey, it’s cheaper to live. It’s easy to get on public assistance, get a decent HUD home, ect. When I get out, I can deal drugs through my old connections and make a killing. If that doesn’t work out, I can just rob all these old people who don’t even lock there doors! This must be eutopia!
I see bad things for this area in 10 yrs it’s going to be a war zone out there. From mayberry to the inner city.
There used to be lots of industry around. Dress shops, factories, small businesses… but they’ve all closed. The dress shops are in india now, the factories are in china or mexico, walmart squashed the small businesses. So all that’s left is prisons..
It also got me thinking about how I keep hearing how the US has the highest percentage of it’s people incarcerated. Something like 1 in 100 people are currently behind bars. 2.3 million people were in our prison system at the end of 2007.
It’s nothing new for non-violent prisoners to be used to do unpleasant tasks such as cleaning up the trash on the side of the road. In NJ as well as PA I’ve driven past the guys in the orange jumpsuits with gloves and a trash bag. It’s really awesome that someone who the tax payers are paying to house, clothe and feed can do something like tidy up the back roads and the highways. Right? For whatever reason, people are slobs and think the world is their garbage can. But that’s a blog for another day.
This brings me to the fact that the countries we’ve exploited for their cheap labor over the past few yrs, aren’t as cheap anymore. With our tanking dollar and the worldwide recession, it doesn’t save a company as much money to use outsourced labor as it used to.
Well, where else will you find people who are just sitting around idle to work cheap for you? Oh wait! I know where there are 2.3 million!
Our growing budget deficits will have people screaming about how we spend way to much money on housing prisoners and that they need to start “giving back”.
Unemployment brings more crime, so there will be even more people going to jail. Police will be screaming that they need better funding, more officers to deal with the growing crime problem. The people around here are mostly older. Living on SSI or whatever pensions they might happen to have. They can barely afford to pay all the taxes they pay now. There’s only so far you can stretch a rubber band before it snaps.
A new form of revenue must be found! Wait.. what about Corporate Prison Sponsorship??
Can you picture it? “Sneaker” correctional institution, “Pear” Penitentiary.. they’ll all wear orange jumpsuits with a company logo on it, sleep in a prison cell and during the day they’ll make cheap products for corporations that they’ll sell to rich and middle class people in china and india.
The entire thing will be subsidized by the corporate sponsor. They supply the money, you supply the labor and finished products. Correctional officers become your new “masters” and you become the new “slave”.
You BETTER make 50 pairs of shoes today!
How many tv specials have you seen about how “good” prisoners have it? They just sit around lifting weights, eating, reading and sleeping. It’s like a vacation for them on our dime! Now they can make your next gucci purse. Your new shower curtain!
Instead of made in china, everything you buy is going to say.. Made In Prison!
So several months ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to play around in the stock market.. that things had gotten so bad, stocks were so far off their highs and they’d fluctuate every few days. It’s $5 today.,$8 tomorrow, and $10 the day after and then it would go down to around $5 again.
While I was experimenting with things, I set up a profile in Google that let me track stocks of interest. You could tell it that you had X amount of shares per stock and it tells you how you’re making out financially.
Based on a 7200 close today, I’m sure you know what those numbers look like today.
One of the companies that I’d picked was a silver mine. I thought, with the dollar tanking, precious metals would skyrocket. When I looked today, their stock was worth 3 cents a share! There was also a notice about how their stock is being delisted.
I thought that was a curious thing…for a silver mine to be in bankruptcy. I mean, can’t you just mine more to pay your debt? But then I got to thinking about how there’s a lot more to the banks and their toxic assets and all of us living beyond our means for the last 30 yrs than meet’s the eye.
Allow me to explain. Over the years, we all got a taste of percieved wealth. We had access to credit cards, easy car loans, homes that increased in value rapidly, thus allowing us to borrow against it for home repairs, vacations, to pay off credit cards, whatever. Being able to do all those things, made you feel wealthy.
But it was all done on the wimpy philosophy. You know. I will gladly pay you tuesday, for a hamburger today!
Well folks. Today is Tuesday and everyone wants their money! The only problem is.. none of us have any.
So I rambled on about all that.. now to the point I want to make.
All they are talking about on the news is the banks and the auto industry failing. I’ve even fallen victim to this and I carry on about the trickle down theory when it comes to those jobs. People work in factories that make auto glass, carpeting, etc.. and when the car dealers go under, so do those plants.
But today, when I saw that silver company being delisted it really hit it home for me. It’s EVERY business that is staring over the abyss right now. I’m sure there’s some exceptions, so no need for flame emails, but the majority of business was run just like that. “Get your business a line of credit!”, the amex commercials said all day long.. and they never screwed around there. You always got like $30-60k on those babies. They take out loans for more equipment, expansion, car or truck loans, what have you.. and now. They aren’t making the money they are used to making.
This is what you really need to fear. Not so much the banks and the auto industry, but ALL business. Look at all the companies cutting costs and downsizing. It’s because they are freakin’ broke! They are all standing around holding a bag full of debt going.. awwww shit. Now what? The government can’t bail out everyone.. and they aren’t going to either.
So in the end, how many businesses are insolvent right now? That seems to be the word tossed around lately. I bet it’s at least 50%.
If what I am seeing is right, there is no light at the end of the tunnel at this point. It’s just a long, scary ride in the dark and it might even make you vomit before it’s over!
So you had to have noticed that every sports team under the sun is unhappy with their latest digs and they all want new stadiums. Even teams like the Yankees who’s stadium is an absolute icon, want something more modern and to add insult to injury, the stadium will be imploded once they move. Can I get a big round of Booooooo!! please?
Franchise owners have been on a spending jag that I just can’t even wrap my head around. They claim that ticket holders want big screen tv’s and private section bathrooms… yet I was pretty sure that fans really only want to see their team win. It never crossed my mind that I needed a big screen tv to watch the game on while I run down to get a hot dog. That was just part of the experience. When you get back, you’re supposed to ask, What did I miss?!? It’s a law or something.
All that has lead up to what I can only describe as the worst sticker shock in years for the people who fill the stadiums, weekend after weekend, in good weather and bad, faithfully buying their tickets year after year and feeling a bond with their team that cannot be explained if you’ve never lived it. Their team and the people they sit near year after year are “family” to them.
Imagine their shock when suddenly their family basically priced them out of not only their preferred seats, but right out of the stadium.
The NY Giants for instance… they are now charging $1000 - $20,000 a seat for the right to buy the ticket for it. Not the ticket itself, that’s extra of course… this is just for the ability to buy the ticket.
Uhm…. are these owners smoking crack? Maybe some of them need to be subjected to a few doping tests, because I think they are all high.
Everywhere I look, I’m hearing about companies laying off and cutting back. Just today I was reading that companies that normally throw lavish Super Bowl parties, have canceled them this year. Not scaled back mind you, outright canceled. That sounds like some pretty bad news for all these dumb team owners who forced cities to pay for these huge palaces thinking, oh it’s ok. They’ll just slam some big companies huge fees and they’ll pay it so they can comp the wireless rep a couple seats at the Jets game and then we’ll get lots and lots of tax money. Should be interesting to see how that plays out for them and if they have any recourse with the owners.
Maybe, just maybe instead of spending $100 billion on a new stadium, some of these team owners could spend some money building decent teams. It seems like every year it’s certain teams that dominate. Are you telling me that with all the high school and college football teams in america, the best Quarterbacks they can find are losers like Donovan mc nabb ? Or even better, Vince Young. These guys are horrible. How on earth did they get the big money contracts? Someone who does the recruiting needs a smack upside the head.
So this is to you Sports team owners…. Get your heads out of your asses. Football, Baseball, Basketball.. these franchises were built on regular families being able to afford to take the kids out for a day in the stands, cheering on their favorite players and paying $6 for a can of coke. NOT on making people shell out $20000 to be able to even BUY a ticket. Come on back down to earth and take a look around. There’s no solid gold toilets down here. We want to be able to go to a game and have fun… oh and to sit close enough to the field that the players don’t look like ants.
You’re forgetting who really drives your pocketbook. Us! The end user. The fan who shows up year after year even when the team you’ve assembled is nothing short of an embarrassment. Quit focusing on greed and opulence and start giving us what we want… cheap entertainment.
Have you turned the news on lately? It’s nothing but bad news. People are getting laid off, no one has any money to spend, credit lines are being pulled… It’s going to be the WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NOES!!!
Am I the only one who remembers all the way back to last christmas, and the christmas before that, and the christmas before that.. It’s ALWAYS going to be the worst christmas ever. I think it’s some kind of psychological manipulation to get us out to the mall, charging up a storm.
Speaking of malls, have you been to one during this incredible economic down turn? How close to the door did you find a parking space? Yeah, that’s what I figured. Get back to me when you’re done laughing.
Year after year all we ever hear is how the people aren’t buying enough worthless crap and the whole country is going to fall apart because no one bought the leopard skin print scarf at macys. I have news for you people, nothing has changed. Are we seeing a shift in employment numbers? Yep! There are a lot of people being laid off right now and while I don’t envy them their position(mostly because I’ve been in it before) they’ll over come. If they are willing to work, they will find some kind of job. Might not be the cushy job they were used to, but you have to put food on the table, right?
Many more people are opting to stay home this holiday and just enjoy their time with the family. This means instead of spending a huge chunk of cash on a plane ticket, hotel room, rental car, etc while visiting aunt matilda.. they are going to spend money on things for decorating their home, for each other, the kids, the grandkids, whomever. So while travel will be down, consumption will be up. They’ll all buy a nice christmas dinner and have a nice new years eve dinner at home instead of going out to an expensive restaurant.
So mark my words.. when it’s all said and done.. this will be an average or at the very worst a slightly below average shopping season and then after the holiday when everything is 90% off, people will stampeed to the mall and grab everything that’s left in a feeding frenzy normally reserved for a shark tank.
Life isn’t all wine and roses, but it continues on. Sometimes there are bumps in the road and right now the road is bumpy, but everything will work out in the end…. and if you really feel you’ve lost all hope and you can’t see anything positive at all, I’ll give you the best tip you’ll ever get. Turn off your tv. When you stop allowing your head to be filled with nothing but negativity, you’ll be astounded at how much happier you are in life. Don’t let talking heads in a box control you. Get out and live!
A 19 year old Florida college student recently committed suicide. Not a very uncommon thing in and of itself. But, this tortured teen took matters a step further and decided to share his death with the world via web cam. He took an overdose of antidepressants and then went to sleep on his father’s bed as a web cam broadcast his own pathetic end to the world. I am not a big fan of people who commit suicide to begin with. Life is tough. Deal with it and get over yourself. In the end you will be a stronger person and have valuable experiences to share with future generations. Too many people are coddled and allowed to be weak in tough times. It is killing our society by turning us all into a nation of whining pussies. This kid was no different. Apparently he had threatened to kill himself several times before, but either didn’t do it or simply failed.
But, the fact remains, that even if you ban Joe Q public’s access to buying a machine gun, the people who want to use them for nefarious reasons will find a way to obtain them anyway. 