Find The Link

Some dude sent me a video as a comment on the post I wrote on the ninth of this month titled “Political theater.”

I watched it.  I deleted it.  It was stupid.

The video was titled “the small speck”, “teeny tiny spot” or some such, and after watching for about 90 seconds I was annoyed.  This video attempted to dumb down the concept of taxation to the point of ridiculousness.  I would post the video here, but it is a truly stupid piece of crap, and while I have been responsible for some stupid crap here myself, I will not purposefully place out there for public consumption someone elses stupid horse crap.

The concept envisioned though was a fairly ridiculous one.  It made a claim that an incredibly small group of people(congress) ganged up on America and forced taxation down our throats(with the help of the EVIL Internal revenue service.)  The person who created this video has apparently never heard of the enumerated powers of congress.  The concept that congress is a “gang” trying to “extort” money from us for no real reason is at once far fetched and silly.

The entire concept of the video goes beyond that though, and if you watch the entire thing seems to imply, without saying as much, that ALL American government is somehow a “gang of parasitic control freaks”, to use the term the provocateur who voiced this viddy states.

Also makes it seem like ALL things that the government does are in some fashion if not evil, then at least horrible wrong for the people.  I don’t see it, I don’t see it at all.  Government does bad things.  True.  FISA.  The Patriot Act.  NSA warrant-less wiretaps.  But it does many good things as well, and I cannot sit here and condone calling government evil that does a great many things to help its citizens.

The promotion of the general welfare is maintained through things such as WIC and unemployment insurance and other such services.  Justice is established by police and the courts.  The common defense is well taken care of by both the federal and local governments.   All of these things require money to upkeep and maintain.

The people who put out this weak crap are trying their best to undermine any capacity of “We The People” to maintain a more perfect union, and they promote the destruction of the general welfare by undermining the psychological underpinnings of the essential functions of government.

So, whoever you are dude.  Go fist yourself, you Un-American ass-hat.  I don’t mind you hating taxes.  This is America, hate away.  I don’t mind you voicing your opinion.  It’s America, yammer on, I do.  But when it gets to the point of subversion of the very concepts within the constitution that you wish to undermine, there I draw a line, a hard line.

No one likes taxes, but only an idiot would try to foist the view that congress is a “gang” that only acts against America’s self interests with the intent of simply taking money from innocents (there are no innocents) to do unnamed nefarious things that you don’t want done.

They ain’t angels, but they aren’t demons either.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night!

Cats Don’t Mind, Neither Do I

At 7:00 am, I woke up.

That’s always where the trouble starts, isn’t it?

It was a relatively cool 85 degrees out, as I recall, and the sun was blazing like nobody’s business as I dragged myself out of bed.  After I got the first

Roddy up top, Minky below

of my morning routines, which involves side-stepping my running shoes and whatever other crap accumulated on the floor the day and night before out of the way, I went to make coffee.  I saw one of my two cats, Roddy, was just under foot, and happily avoided stomping the furry little bastard into oblivion.  The cat also saw me, and made a beeline to the kitchen.  Little guy knows that when I make my coffee, I also get him his breakfast, and he wants his food as bad as I want my coffee.

“MEW!” he says to me, looking me in the eye the moment I walk into the kitchen.  “DUDE!” I respond in as similar a tone and timber as I can manage. He jumps onto his table, after stretching and clawing one end of it with rapier sharp claws.  I don’t mind, and neither does he.  After looking at me intently for a minute, he takes up laying on the table, trying to be as nonchalant as he can manage, but he’s got his eye on me, both of us ignoring the heat of the kitchen from the heat of the hottest summer either of us have known.

I go to work on getting my coffee ready.  I realized as soon as I walked into the kitchen that I had in fact forgotten to clean out the pot after my last cup of java the evening prior.  Slightly annoyed by this, I go through the how many ever step process of vaguely cleaning out the pot.  And when I say vaguely cleaning I mean it.

I pour some tepid water on the percolator top, take out and rinse the spreader plate just a lil, dump yesterday’s grounds, and then rinse that bit just enough to make sure the grounds are off, water the stem a mite, dump out the remnants of yesterday’s coffee, swish some running water around the coffee maker once or twice, then add water, coffee and the bits of the coffee maker in the correct order, and make some more coffee.

It makes for strong coffee on the days when that happens.

It is vitally important to note that I do clean it most of the time, and keep the insides of the coffee maker spotless when not in use, but sometimes I forget. Remember to ask when coming to visit if I cleaned the coffee maker properly or not.  I might not give a straight answer, but you’ll get some mighty fine coffee, or at least coffee that hasn’t killed anyone in hours.

I hit the button to begin the coffee making magic, or tragic, depending on your viewpoint.

The cat knows the routine.  When I hit the button on the coffee maker, he gets up and stretches, getting ready to eat.  I go to where the cat food is, grab two cans of beef cat food, and give the signal that breakfast is about to be served.  I clank the cans together twice, loudly.  The first can of food I open, I open and begin to put in the other cat, Minky’s, bowl.  I add a ¼ teaspoon, maybe even less of fiber to his bowl, as he needs the help, otherwise he has issues, like constant diarrhea, which this stuff helps alleviate.

He craps funny, but it isn’t a joke. Mix in his fiber, mix, mix, mix.  Coffee maker makes a noise, it is ready to go.

Mix in his fiber, put the can in his bowl upside down, and with a herky-jerky motion, tap the can on the base of his bowl very rapidly, causing the can to make a rapid “tik-tok” noise.  While doing this, Roddy gets up, even though it isn’t his food.  He knows he’s next.  I open his can while taking a momentary break from working on Minky’s food, and let Roddy sniff his can.  Eyes wide, nose pointed slightly up at the can, he sniffs, then licks the can.  I pull the can back and tell the boy to relax, and begin again to work the “tik-tok” of the cans, this time both cans simultaneously.

Minky is a lump, he is still in the living room, teaching the world what the word “inert” means.  The coffee is beginning to percolate, I can smell it now.

Roddy puts both feet on the counter, which is all of 4 inches away from his table, leans forward as far as he can and sticks his nose in the bowl.  I push him back, and tell him to cool his jets.  He does, but gives me a plaintive “MEW!”  So I say “DUDE!”, and pull the cans out of their bowls.  Make sure all the food is in their bowls, and place them on their respective tables.  Roddy fairly well leaps on his food, slurping away like he hasn’t been fed in a week, despite the fact that he has a bowl of dry food on the table that I am about to toss, one he has had access to all night.

Minky is nowhere near the food.  I grab his bowl, and bring it to him in the living room, to let him sniff the food.   He does momentarily, shows some interest, ears perk up, he looks ready to eat, moves his butt like he’s going to get up and come eat.  I bring the bowl back inside, then walk back into the room.  He’s still resting, his butt has moved, albeit two inches to the left, and now he is reclining on his side when he was on his stomach before.  Shows no signs of having even seen the food a mere 15 seconds ago, and seems to want to not eat.

So I bring him in the kitchen to his bowl.  I know, I know, I spoil the boy like I’m his servant.  So what?  He’s my cat, I’ll spoil the boy as I please.  He eats, Roddy is done before Minky even starts.  The coffee still isn’t ready, but it’s close.

I have a long day of running and running around in 100°+ temperatures.  7 miles of running, walk a mile and a half to the store to get food, come back, do laundry, cook, workout, look for permanent employment.  Cats don’t mind.  Neither do I.

Dammit that coffee is taking it’s sweet time this morning, isn’t it?

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Call It Deja Vu…

But I get the feeling that I’ve written this before…

You had to know John Boehner, and by extension the right, wasn’t serious about a budget agreement.  First wrote that on the 9th of this month, and here I am writing it again.  I write it because it is true, I write it because it is the way that the right and in particular speaker Boehner have responded to seeing a possible deal come through that he and his political cronies on his side of the aisle would not get the lions share of the credit.  So what does the dumb-ass do?

Walks away.  Again.  The deal would have worked, the one IO have heard spoken of would have cut debt by something like 3.7 trillion dollars over the next decade.  But the President brings this thing together, gets a lot of people to bite on losses.  And Boehner does this.  To us.  To Americans everywhere.

When I first wrote about this, two weeks ago, It was not as bad as it is now.  There is not as much time now, making this a much more dangerous political game of chicken that Boehner is playing with American businesses, and the fragile American economy.  It’s not like the economy is doing all that well, so threatening it in the name of political brinksmanship is all the more painful to watch.

Mr. Boehner, if you keep this up, not only will we be asking you where the jobs are, we will be asking you why you destroyed our economy.

President and the Senate have done as much as they could do within the political framework, the only putz here is you, Rep. Boehner.

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You know for all that I have heard much on this, and many different solutions to this nations insane debt crisis, which has been exacerbated by both sides over the years, most of them are the same old thing from each side.

Republicans want to keep taxes down, would like to see a world without taxes, though how you’d pay for stuff, living like that I have no idea.  I can’t pay a cop to do stuff for me out of my pocket directly, or the fire dept., should I need them.

Democrats want to keep things going as they are, and don’t want anything to happen to any of their pet social programs.  The programs are necessary, but they cost an arm and a leg, they need to be streamlined without losing effectiveness for the people they are meant to help.

I heard a suggestion today while listening to the radio today, don’t remember who it was exactly, it was on bloomberg radio, around 2 pm.  A national sales tax, on everything, or tax increases on everyone + some streamlining of Soc. Sec. and Medicare and the defense budget.  Why?  Simple.  Even if you cut government costs by 20% across the board, which would be damnably difficult, if not impossible, you would still not be able to pay for all the things that government does.  You need taxes to go up to pay for things.

Amazing concept.  Increasing revenue by increasing revenue.

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That’s it from me, America.  G’night.

Today

I feel weird.  Something seems out of place.  The world is somehow slightly askew.  It feels that way for a reason.  I got a paycheck today, and add to that the money I got that unemployment gave me a day ago and it means only one thing.  I have money!  It feels weird!  It’s been so long since I have had money in the bank that it just seems abnormal to have money that I can spend.

I don’t trust it.  It will run out, it will disappear, it will go away.  It always has in the past.  No matter how hard I have worked in the past, money has never stuck with me.  It disappears.  Money isn’t something I trust, or like to be honest.  It is not something you can build a life around.

If you can, just understand money is like water, and like water, it can evaporate. I’d need to hit the lottery to feel secure financially, and if you feel like you can build your life around the money you make, just make sure you realize that you are building your life on a  foundation of sand.

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I am a tired rhino.  I ran in nearly 100 degree heat today, over 6 miles on hills and through the park.  I did what I could to run fast today, and happily I was not slow.  The humidity was a pain as well, made a hard run in the heat even worse.  The heat showed on the run paths today, the amount of people out there was almost nil, and the runners who were out in it were of the top-tier variety, there was a race in the park, and it looked like almost no one showed up.

Not surprising.

The weather is supposed to be hotter tomorrow.  Going to run tomorrow too.  Tired is not a bad thing.  I enjoy busting my ass running, and tired isn’t something that bothers me.  It’ll make sleeping easier and deeper later on.

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The NFL looks like they are going to finally get a deal done. Good for them.  I think we have all been waiting for this to happen, at least all us sports fans.  I was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing for most of it.  I was at one point thinking they should just call the season, just stay out.

The debt ceiling looks like it’ll get increased.  At this point it is just a matter of time.  They’ll play this crap out, and milk it for all the political theatre they can get out of it.  In the end the deal will get done.  All else is bullshit.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Work, Or Something Like It

I have been busy working, happily busy, but it is weary work.  I like getting paid, and I like working hard, and manual labor of the type I am doing is something  I am suited for, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  The work I did today was fairly monotonous, but strenuous work.  I will not state precisely what I did, but let it be said that I broke a serious sweat for the entire day, and was entirely spent when I left the office.

I’ll take this over working in my old job any day of the week.  The old job, copy operator/supervisor paid more, not a lot more, but more, but it was evil work, for evil people, that was never ever appreciated, and was usually looked at as extraneous bullshit by the people around the office.  No one cared about the work we did, and as a consequence it made it real easy for us to do the same thing.  It rubbed off, part of the corporate culture for those lower on the rung is to be paid and treated like crap.

I work twice as hard now, and like I said, make less money, but the work is necessary for these people, and the appreciation is noticeable, and makes the job a TON easier.  I really had no idea how important a thing it is to feel that until it came my way.

I am sore all over after the days work today.  Feels good, like a real hard workout.  I had no idea that moving around large, unwieldy crap and unbolting and unscrewing other large unwieldy things from the floor so I  and others can move a very large amount of crap out of one building in Manhattan and move it to Long Island would actually feel good.

Sucks that this job is only going to last 8 more days.  2 more days this week, 4 next week, 2 days the week after.  What can you do.  I’ll just enjoy the work for as long as it is around, and hope something permanent of this variety comes along soon.

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That’s it from me, America.  G’night.