What do Karl Eikenberry and Carrie Prejean have in common?

      Not a whole friggin lot…except they both appear in this blog.

        

It’s completely confidential and you are being inappropriate”

“I think you are being extremely inappropriate right now and I am about to leave your show.”

Dog reviews Carrie Prejean's book

    At which point, had I been Larry King, I’d have said good riddance to that little lump of annoying twaddle that is Carrie Prejean.  Normally I try to tackle weightier issues, but just for a minute, I’ll go here.  If she had said to him that even the reason for settlement in her case wasn’t up for discussion, which she didn’t do, I think I would almost see a reason for her little girl hissy fit, which is what this is, I have seen grown women defend themselves, and it doesn’t look like this, she’s having what looks like a pre-teen snit. 

     She just wants face time, which would explain her not leaving the set when she got all huffy there.  Spoiled little rich kid, that’s how she comes off. 

     The botox beauty queen has just about milked this whole “put upon” thing for all the publicity it is worth.  Larry was just asking Miss Idiot a simple question, and she couldn’t handle it, which amazes me.  What would she have done with the press exposure had she won her stupid miss pretty crown? It would prolly have killed her, she should be happy she lost that pageant, she can’t handle the spotlight.

    Maybe she needs to do a second porn viddy or have some more plastic surgery or something.  Whiny lil shit.

    That was fun, but now it’s onto more weighty issues.

   _______________________________________________________________

    An Afghanistan strategy emerges, finally. What I mean by that is that President Obama has made the rather sensible decision to put into any plan that comes out an exit strategy, regardless of the size of the troop increase that will come out after he gets back from his week long trip in Asia.  Former ”Commander of the Combined Forces in Afghanistan” and current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry said that any additional troops in the region would make the Afghan’s more dependent on the U.S. and would not be a wise choice given the amount of corruption in Afghanistan under the Karzai Administration.

  

     That’s what this situation needs.  The President listening to voices on the ground that know the situation, like Eikenberry, not republicans, who say the President is dithering, not pundits and other media types who confuse the issue by making their opinions known without the knowledge  necessary to even speak on the subject.  Judgement based on expert knowledge. And let the Afghan’s pick up some of the slack for their own damned issues. 

     With the right training and the right mindset, they can handle the Taliban themselves. We have to go hunt Bin Laden, and he’s in Pakistan, so spending long years with the Afghan’s, when the real issue is in Pakistan makes very little sense. Get what we need done to fix the issue, which means fight through this slog, train the Afghan’s to fight and fend for themselves while we both fight Al-Qaeda and get Bin Laden, fix it right this time, and be done with it.

    Good on you, Mister President.  Take the time you need to get this done right. Don’t speed through and fuck it up, like Bush did with Iraq.  Democrats always have been better with foreign policy, and here’s your proof.

    _______________________________________________________________

   That’s it from here. Later!

Today’s nuggets, Via marksquotes:  Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.  Thomas Jefferson

Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject.  George Washington

The mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.  James Madison

Anagram: Can’t Stop To Save My Soul/ Postman Covets Outlays

      

     I’m looking for work, and there are job openings out there, but no one calls back.  It happens, and I will find something, that isn’t the issue, it seems that the more I look the less I see out there on the job front.  My wife is now helping me do this, and in fact sent in some resumes to a few places that I probably normally wouldn’t have.  Places in new jersey, jobs where the job description is close to but doesn’t really match my skills.  Maybe I should have been looking there in the first place, but I tell you I am not enamored of the thought of going back to working on copy machines.

     Which is why I’m so happy that on Monday I’m going to be going to be looking into training in other fields, so I can have a career and not just a McJob.  Don’t get me wrong, any work that pays the bills is fine by me, but just the thought of going back to those benightedly useless tree killing pieces of shit that do no good for anyone anywhere, and make it possible for the people who work them to just barely make ends meet, makes me wretch. 

    A lot of good people waste their lives working in offices, and I’ll be damned if I stick around and do that for the rest of my life.  My wife deserves better from me.  The World deserves better from me.  I deserve better from myself. 

     That said, I’ll go back to it if I have no choice.  Temporarily though, not permanently.  I’ll gladly break rocks in the sweltering heat and the frozen tundra for the rest of my life before contemplating working in a copy center as my main source of income.  Better to die burnt and blistered on a God forsaken rock shoveling shit than go back to that. 

   Just filled with happiness today, ain’t I? 

   _______________________________________________________________________________________

     I’ve been filling time until I can get myself work again.  Running more, much more.  Eating more, much more.  Starting fights online, if you read my previous post you know what I’m talking about.  The running is perhaps the easiest for me to do.  Sure I beat the hell out of my feet and my legs, but so what? I also make myself stronger.  I now run longer distances, much longer than I used to.  Time was when the most i would do, absolute maximum would be 40 miles in a week, and this year I hadn’t hit 30 miles a week up until last month.  Been racking up the mileage this month though.  Been working in 2 and 3 day blocks, with one day off in between.  Just finished a 2 day block where I ran 26 miles in those 2 days, and the previous 3 day block, I ran 32 miles.  58 miles in my last 5 run days.  This time 2 months ago, I would be lucky to have run 25 miles in that time.  

     And I took today off and I’ll have Saturday off, so it’s looking like tomorrow may well be another very long run.  Might go 3 hours, just to see if I can do it.  That would be, if I have my times correct, 22 miles tomorrow.  We’ll see. 

    But that’s OK.  I have been taking cold baths afterwards to heal up faster and I tell you it works wonders on my legs.  No worries. And I am actually gaining weight because I am hungry as hell after these long runs, and I eat like a damn pig. 

    The fights online are almost as addictive as the running and eating are.  I actually registered with the newspaper the Kansas city star just to fight with people.  I saw an article there on Jimmy Carter bringing up the race card, and there were these people saying he’s an idiot and he has no idea what he’s talking about and Obama got all these white votes therefore there is no racism.  That kind of happiness.

    

      A short aside.    

    I will not say every bit of anger at the current administration is race based.  It clearly isn’t, but the undercurrent is there, and it isn’t inconsequential.  Witch doctor photos, the birthers, Rush Limbaugh’s racist rants, these things are part of the discussion, and they are racist.  Denial of racism doesn’t make racism go away, it just covers it up for those who want it covered up.  And what happens when you fight on the side that has this as a weapon in it’s arsenal is you get pegged with the tag  “racist” yourself, like it or not, true or not, because you stand with those who are racist. 

     Back to the fighting.

    I don’t mind if you think he’s an idiot.  It’s a free country, speak your piece.  Now the other stuff I have an issue with, so I went out of my way to register with this newspaper just to mess with these people.  I walked in and picked on quite a number of people.  They called me moron, they hated me something fierce.  I didn’t mind.  Let’em yammer, ain’t no skin off my ass.  They were yelling about Van Jones and Professor Gates.  Peripheral issues at best, I thought, and told them so.  They called me more names.  LOL says I.  Old issues say I.  If you can’t see inherent racism in white people yelling about black people who have nothing to do with the main issue (Jimmy Carter, the alleged idiot, talking about how there’s still hate in America), then you are blind.

       They didn’t respond to that last bit.  Gave’em something to chew on, and I don’t think they liked the taste of it, either.

     If you are going to hate, Own it, be it, Live it.  Don’t run in fear from the truth your own emotions confront you with.

   _____________________________________________________________________________________________

      That’s about it for me, except the quotes.  Later!

Today’s nuggets, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Via wikiquote:  It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that. At first putting forth great effort to be sure that you have grasped the basics, then practicing so that they may come to fruition is something that will never stop for your whole lifetime. Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply think, “This is not enough.”

By just one single word martial valor can be made apparent. In peaceful times words show one’s bravery. In troubled times, too, one knows that by a single word his strength or cowardice can be seen. This single word is the flower of one’s heart. It is not something said simply with one’s mouth.  A warrior should not say something fainthearted even casually. He should set his mind to this beforehand. Even in trifling matters the depths of one’s heart can be seen.

Anagram: Humans Are Odd/ Darn Madhouse

      Gonna have some fun and vent a little at the same time.  Sound Like fun? No? Too Bad, the ride has already started.  Strap in and let’s GO!

    

    Yes Indeed. I am known for the occasional statement of the insanely, blisteringly obvious, and today’s blog title nails it yet again.   Humans

NUTS!

are odd. I should know, I’ve been odd at people for no readily apparent reason for years.  I’ve gotten pretty good at it as well.  Especially my irrational hatred of all things “Tourist”.  I’ve had a group seemingly following me for some time now.  Well not following precisely, more like getting continually annoyed at one group of them that I see every day. These are a bunch of (probably)18 and 19 year old foreign exchange students from Wagner College.  Probably about 25 or 30 of them.  The problem? They exist.  That to me is enough to set me off ranting at a loose end for no readily apparent reason. 

   What do I have against kids that age? Nothing.  What do I have against Wagner College? Nada.  The reason for the anger is…well…  there is no good reason.  It is completely irrational.  Has no basis in logic. But to me it doesn’t need to. 

     There are three buses that run the same route. The other two buses are generally empty, but regardless of which bus I take, these ASSHOLES take the same one I do.  I  jump on the first one that shows up, they do too(the S62).  Next day, I go to the one that’s furthest away(the S 61), they do too.  All I want to do is go home on a relatively quiet bus, where I don’t get jostled by stupid 19 year olds who don’t watch what the fuck they’re doing.  The other two buses that run that route fit that bill.  But invariably the bus I get on these annoying little TWATS get on and make a long commute longer.  The other two buses, relatively empty.  I TRY to get the buses without the kids, but the ugly smelly bitches seem to like me.  This has been going on for over a month solid.  I take the 66, the Wagner douches take the 66.  If I take the 62, so do these punk  fucks.  If I take the 61, they go out of their way to pass two other empty buses and jump on it.  I’ve tried taking the same bus every day, so did they.  Mine.  I have tried other things as well, nothing works. Apparently I’m stuck with the schmuck fucks.

    

    I could be calm about it and relax, and the issue would probably go away. But i tell you this, I can’t work it like that.  If it was only once in a while I wouldn’t mind, but every day?  C’mon, I want a break, ya know?  Just leave me be.   AND If you happen to be reading this and you are from Wagner College, and you get off of the bus at Highland Avenue and Victory Boulevard on Staten Island, GO AWAY, YOU SUCK, STOP FOLLOWING ME.

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, That felt GOOD. 

    

  And one more, why the hell not?

 

That’s it from here.  Later!

Today’s Nuggets, By Lewis Carroll, from Wikiquote:  ”I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”

Twas brillig and the slithy tothes,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
the jaws that bite and claws that scratch
Beware the jubjub bird
and shun the frumious bandersnatch.”

   

Anagram: Sixty Five Hours/ I Survey This Fox

       It’s been a very long week.  Between working and commuting and running and talking with a conservative who seems to think that liberal = evil and Barack Obama and the democrats are somehow personally responsible for his business sucking, it’s been hard to get even a few minutes away with the wife and the cats.  And I haven’t blogged in what feels like an a dogs age.  I missed the Sotomayor hearings.  A whole lot went on in the market, and I missed most of it.

  

      Sixty Five hours between work and commute this week, and it looks like it’s gonna be another long one next week. A quick piece of personal news here.  The job of 2nd shift supervisor of the place i work at, where I’ve been temping for something approaching 3 months, likes me, enough where it looks like I’m going to get that position on or around August 17th.  Nothing official, as I have yet to talk to anyone “officially” yet, but the word coming from the bosses in the office is that it is set in stone.  I’m thinking the only thing that would keep me from accepting is a lowball figure.  I’ve been working for over 2 decades at this point, and I am, not only one hell of an  operator, I am good with the people there, I get the job done, and everyone likes what I’ve done around the place.  I deserve something commensurate with that level of expertise and proper handling of the work and people.  I’m sure I’ll get it.

    No worries.  They’re good.  I’m good.  The combination fits. 

   But work isn’t what really took it out of me this week.  My previous post, seemingly a million moons ago, told the story of a man who seemed both dyslexic and drunk, talking crap about conservatism and… to be honest i don’t remember exactly.  It has evolved. And the story has turned around a lot.  He started able to write and spell… like a seven year old, and now he can not only spell, but conjugate verbs, create proper paragraphs, and make valid points.  Methinks this is a separate person writing now, the difference is so vast. 

     But the point is the same.  I am a socialist who doesn’t understand how taxes and business works, and who has it wrong ideologically. But to Me, he is the right wing nut, hell bent on defending rich people against the interests of the little guy.  I have invited him on several occasions to tell me, after he called all poor people Mooches, what programs he would get rid of?  Who would he throw under the bus.  He keeps saying government is too large, so I give him the scalpel and say, “Cut”, if you have a compliant, show me a solution.

    And he refuses, and rants a bit more about taxes and how small business is getting screwed by Obama.  He claimed that anyone making more than $1,000,000 during this tax year in New York will pay 58% in taxes.  I figured he meant federal, so I said no.  35%, he said all taxes, including city and local tax, and did the math. 

    His math was shitty.  I pointed it out to him.  He was off, on the high end by by over 11%.  He didn’t respond, except to call me a socialist, and to yet again explain how small businesses are taxed like personal income, how 40% of your capital is gone before you turn on a light and other such grandiose statements.   He had said earlier that he FELT that he would have to work till September before he any of his income was his, to which I said Bullshit.  He did not respond back to that rather subtle point.  Felt.  The day “Felt” means damn thing to as far as income is truly concerned has yet to dawn on this earth.

   The one thing that I feel very uncomfortable about here is that I am almost took on the role of defender of taxation, but adroitly avoided that when I realized that is what he was trying to get me to do.  Now he has become little more than a politically motivated tax law instructor.

   I’m waiting for him to mention the laffer curve and supply side economics so i can flatten him.  He has yet to jump in front of that Bus.

   No one likes taxes, but the government has the right to tax us, it’s in the constitution, article one, § 8, clause one.  It’s in the sixteenth amendment.  It’s in, to my knowledge, the constitution of every state in some way, shape, or form.  And there are no legal boundaries that have to be adhered to, according to what I know.  At one point the top tax bracket was taxable at a rate up to 91%.  A mere 25 years ago the number was at 50%.  And now I am hearing bitching about the rich being taxed an additional 7 cents on the dollar. 

   The poor don’t have the means to pay for government, the middle class is already overburdened, as is small business (and i don’t say that just because I’ve read this yammerhead writing about it ad nauseum for the past week) It must come from somewhere.  Government has not once, in any meaningful way, shrunk in the lifetime of anyone who will read this, and as government grows, so too must the cost of that growth be paid for.

    What would I give to make that cost less? anything.  But I don’t have the means to make that come about.  The Democrats have had their shots at it, and so have the Republicans, and both have failed miserably, so shrinking government is not an feasible realistic option.  What to do?

     Tax the rich.  There is no other way.  The problem comes when the laws are passed and tax codes are made in such a way that those in the upper middle class, like our conservative friend, the insurance sales company owner, are hit as hard as the top .1% of all wage earners in America. 

    Luckily we have a democrat in the White House.  We’ll avoid that trap.  Yes taxes will go up, but that was, and has been inevitable, since the day the Bush tax cuts ripped a major hole in the tax base of this nation, which is what pays our debt and pays for the services this nation and it’s people need. Douglas Holtz Eakin, McCain’s #1 economic advisor undertook a study of tax rates at the head of the CBO back then, which found that any new revenue that tax cuts brought in paled in comparison with their cost.

  That’s about it from here, except a second viddy from the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

   

Catch Ya Later!

Today’s Nuggets, By Andrew Jackson, Via Wikiquote:   I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Anagram: Will You Stop That?/ Lost Without Play?

       

     I have to rant about something for a second.

Full of Crap

      I have been trying, unsuccessfully for about ten minutes to access a site that has in past been quite beneficial to my political research, but it seems this site has been hacked.  The site is part of a Florida newspaper, the St. Petersberg times, and the site itself is called politifact.com.  This site looks critically at all statements from, both sides of the political fence and judges them on the truth in their statements or lack there of, as well as  whether any of the politicians involved have flip-flopped on any particular issues.

     Politifact, if you start from another portion of the page, say their truth-o-meter, seems to work OK. But the moment you go to the main page it immediately sends you to some fake spyware bullshit program that puts a freeze on IE.  Which is where I was working.    Needless to say, the story i was going to write, based in part on politifact statements about Michelle Bachmann on Cap and trade, and my learning about cap and trade is momentarily halted so i can run my anti-virus while I post the video that made me want to look once more into politifact.

    Dammit, I HATE when that happens.  I’ll drop a line to the people over at politifact and have them clean up their site.  They probably already know about it and are probably trying to clean it up, but you never know. 

     More Fun with Michelle Bachmann.  She is the gift that keeps on giving… to the left.

     

Also Full of Crap

    I don’t know that Cap and trade is the best way to go on making the country greener and more environmentally friendly, but that is more because i am not 100% up on the effects and costs of cap and trade, but I can fix that, and I do know a few things, the bare basics. 

        Cap and trade is basically a tax on pollution and polluters.  The more you put out in the way of greenhouse gases and the like, the more the company pays.   Companies have the right to choose how or if they will reduce their carbon emissions.  As for costs, i cannot speak to that subject, but I am reading up on this subject and will get back to you when I am done.

    It’s a big subject, it is going to take a while.  Bear with me.

     Getting to the subject of Rep. Bachmann herself, she does make herself an awful easy target, does she not? She has been on my radar, and the radar of quite a number of others for quite a while.  It started with her assertion that there should be a panel put together to root out anti-Americanism, McCarthy style.    I guess she didn’t realize that most Americans look upon that particular era in history as something of an embarrassment.

   After that was the happy little comment she made about armed revolt against President Obama and his Cap and trade program.  Mind you, i don’t think she was actually trying to foment revolution, bluntly stated she is too stupid to be a revolutionary, but making statements asking citizens to be “Armed and Dangerous” and following that up by badly paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson “having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.”  paints what can only be called a rather awkward stumbling bumbling picture of herself in the minds eye of the American people. 

    Add to that the fact that her church believes that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, and you get some idea why she is such a ripe target for the left.  She thinks people on the left are Anti American and has said so a number of times.  She thinks the Pope is the Anti-Christ.  She is afraid of socialism taking control in America.   I have written on that subject numerous times, and I’ll just say it is both stupid and baseless and leave THAT rant alone.

     I am done, except for a final viddy and a few quotes.

   

That’s it for me.  Later!

Today’s Nuggets, Via wikiquote:   The national argument right now is, one, who’s got the truth and, two, who’s got the facts… Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we’re not going to make much progress.   Michael Adams

Such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness.  Thomas Paine