Friday, December 17, 2010

Oh, The Stupid Get More Stupider

When it snows here, that is. There I was yesterday, shooting a round of friendly billiards with my conservative, not a republican, buddy, actually getting along, even when he claimed to an observer of our game and fellow lover of fine draft and grits that we get along because I am just stupid, to which I simply agreed, no arguing with a half truth among those sorts, when, as a local rustic, returning from a momentary smoke break entered the rear door to the billiard parlor, we discovered that the gods had begun dusting the environs with a powdery, delicious snow. Realizing that I had an appointment at the local Sam’s Club and knowing that the avenues and boulevards would soon be teaming with housewives, escapees from three local high schools, and Korean, Indian, and Pakistani merchants hustling to snatch up gallon upon gallons of milk and racing to corner the market in Clark Bars and M & Ms, I decided to forgo the rigors of straight pool to get a jump start on my marketing and on the imminent surge in traffic.

The thoroughfares were instantly slick, and I was not out of the parking lot more than a mile before I watched a giant SUV whizzing in a three tight circles before coming to rest firmly against a power pole. I am admittedly suspicious of Samaritans but nonetheless, pulled to a stop just beyond the crumpled vehicle, got out, trudged over to the driver’s window of the huge black Escalade and tapped gently on the window. The window lowered with what can only be considered an expensive whir and the driver, a woman I suppose in her mid-thirties, turned, held up a finger, and continued listening to her Blackberry. In the back seat, several toddlers were safely encumbered in infant seats and seat belts and all seemed much better off than I. The On Star device in the Cadillac was burbling something about Mrs. SuchandNot’s being in an accident and a clearly British voice was reciting a list of what procedures had been initiated for her benefit. I felt relieved and since mom seemed to be totally engaged with the Blackberry, I turned to get off the shoulder before I was flattened by a Bud truck. I was nearly away when the good woman clicked off her device and said, “Oh, thanks so much for stopping. The children were released from the Downtown School of Christianity and SAT Prep, and after picking them up, I was listening to Glenn Beck’s show about how reconnecting with the Founders could lift us spiritually. I was so sure that with the four-wheel -drive engaged I could not possibly lose control. But no matter, a limo has been sent. I do hope they will hurry because Sarah Palin is the guest on the O’Reilly Factor, and I do so want to hear her rationale for drilling for oil in ANWAR. You do realize that these gas prices are so ridiculous, why it takes a hundred dollars to fill this vehicle and that’s if I don’t use high-test. And at nine miles per gallon, I just so hate to fill up with gas that comes from some Muslim theocracy. But in any case, here is a five for stopping; I assure you that we are fine and the children are, too. They are watching a DVD on hedge funding and commodity trading.” I was tempted but did not take the five, figuring she would need it this summer to buy a gallon of fuel. I walked back to the old Focus marveling on how composed she was during such dire times. How we react to stressful times is a true indication of our rearing, what?

I was trying to edge onto the road when a pickup with tires as high as my waist busted on by with a blare of the horn and a spray of slush over my windshield. As the wet snow cleared from window, I did see Nuke Obama and Charlton Heston Is God bumper stickers and one nifty decal of a dear little boy urinating on a donkey. How droll we Americans are, I thought as I followed the truck to the next stop sign. Even with gentle braking, I did slide a bit as I approached the sign; the roads were slipperier by the minute. As I arrived, the pickup which looked very much like a Marine ready assault vehicle roared away from the stop in a rooster tail of snow and stone. The truck spun twice, skidded, and fishtailed for about fifty yards before going nose down into a four foot ditch. Before, I could pull off again to offer assistance, the driver had begun a steady spraying of mud and muck across much of the three lane connector road as he tried to rock his way out of the ditch. I did pull over about twenty-five yard up-road but admittedly was a bit nervous about approaching this gargantuan truck while the operator was gunning the engine and hopping back and forth between first and reverse. Finally the surging stopped, I eased my way out the door, took a couple of steps toward the ditched truck, and yelled. “You OK?” The driver bounded from the cab, hit the road, slipped, and landed, soles of his Dan Posts skyward, flat on his buttocks, John Deere Cap slightly askew. I am guessing the poor fellow was a bit embarrassed because he lept up and began yelling, “Effin gubment, fcqwacin do nothing gubment. Pay all these g-damn taxes and sonsabitches can’ even freaking salt the roads. That’s the mothereffin trouble with this county; bunch of retard democrats sitting around the county roads figurin what damned democrat-development to salt first while they let the main roads go. Shit.” With that he went to kick the step up to his cab, missed, caught his balance a bit but slid down into the ditch and wedged just under the huge, stainless exhaust pipe. Lucky he didn’t set his Wranglers on fire. “Do you want me to call a tow truck?” As he wriggled out from under the struck and managed to stand, he replied,“No, dude, I was talking to my old man when I went in the ditch; he’s coming with the Hummer to get me out. This is a bitch; I am supposed to meet my woman at the Turtle for happy hour. Now, I got to wait. I am goin’ to cell Ford and tell them how bad their damn traction is on this sucker, shit forty thousand and the bitch won’t hold the road. Proly some freaking regulation from freakin Nader keeps them from building ‘em they way they need to. But thanks, dude, dad ought to be here in a bit; he's about to get off from work at DMV.” As I walked back to my car, I did notice two stickers on the front bumper: Palin for Prez and Support Cheney’s Skeet Range.

This stuff happens all the time here; an inch of snow brings out all sorts of not so sharp republicans, causes mayhem, and throws all sorts of people together, literally. I was only a bit late to Sam’s but was able to snag the last gallon of milk, the next to last rotisserie-chicken, 4.99, and one loaf each of white and wheat bread. There were plenty of eggs, a bargain on coffee and five pound cheese, and I made it home, only two fender benders slowing down my progress. I am hunkered down now waiting for the big melt. I hope my billiard-buddy got home OK; he’s susceptible to goofiness when it snows.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Shut it up, just shut up Shut up

I just never stops- nearly every day, dufusest Joe Scarborough brings some republican on to sputter some wisdom about debt, taxes, insurance, conservatism, etc,. you know all the stuff that makes the republican world spin. This morning he brought in a Florida republican representative, Vern Buchanan. Gosh, it was a breath stealing moment, and I nearly choked on my banana-filled omelet watching this fellow allow how the national debt is ruinous, how democrats are gawdawful spenders, and how democrat's stuff needs to be cut and all. Yet, when Mark Halprin asked what SPECIFIC areas in the federal budget Buchanan would cut, it went something like this:

Halprin: What areas in the US budget would you focus on to cut spending?
Buchannan: (with Adam’s apple bobbing like a shipwrecked Somali pirate) Errr, spit, swallow, hmmm, the whole budget is errr umm open to examination.
Halprin: The budget is no secret what specific areas are you in favor of cutting or reducing.
Buchannan: Hm, spit, swallow, hack, cough, errr, well all of it is on the table.
Halprin: We know it is all on the table but in what areas would you apply the knife?
Buchannan: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhghgh, errrrrr, there are places to look . . . aggggghhhhh
Scarborough: Oh the Medicare is killing us and Social Security.
Buchannan: Arggggherhmmmmmmmmmmmmm yes definitely entitlements are killing us.

OK, so I am picking on another boob of a republican, but is there a conservative in office who can articulate a solid idea about how we can get the mess under control in the light of day or do all of them simply moan, sputter, and phlegminate when asked direct questions?

Here are some interesting specifics on good ol’ Vern Buchannan. He is a former owner of American Speedy Printing, a franchiser chased around the courts for all sorts of ethical and business violations in the late 80s and early 09s. He also borrowed 15.4 million from Merrill Lynch which he said he felt no obligation to repay when his company went belly up. A Michigan creditors’ committee accused this fine conservative of taking excessive compensation and other actions to make American Speedy look more fiscally sound than it was. Plus, the IRS chased him for nearly a decade trying to get at taxes owed on the Merrill deal. Buchanan owns reinsurance companies based, guess . . . in Turks and Caicos Islands and part of another reinsurance firm in Bermuda, businesses which are tax havens. To show that he was adept at understanding the plight of the American tax payer and to acknowledge that he understood the tax code well, in 1999 Buchannan entered into a real estate deal and civil suit with and against other developers whereby he was able to buy and sell a condo and pay 20 percent capital gains on the profits of 1.6 million rather than 39.6 percent tax on earned income. And who says conservatives are too careful? In 2010 he filed his financial statements as required by House law, in 69 pages, 100 million in assets, placing him easily in the top five of the richest members of the House. This data is arguable, of course, because the law, as enacted by the House for financial disclosure, is so loosely constructed Buchanan can legally report that his net worth is from minus 69 million to plus 366 million (funny but of the richest members of Congress he is the ONLY one to show that maybe he is broker than I). I think that with his vast experience in business (he declares he is the head or partner in about 50 businesses), his deep familiarity with courts, his fathomless knowledge of the tax codes that he should be able to command a vocabulary which would enable him to target places in the budget that he recommends for reduction in order to conserve fiscal responsibility. Not Vern, hell if you took errr, hmmm, chawcgker, and argggghh out of this fellow’s working vocabulary, he would be mute.

I really do not care what people make, not really, even though I do my share of grumbling. I do care that we elect a bunch of citizens who stir stuff up with fear, hate, disinformation, and demagoguery and who despite seedy histories get elected anyhow. I do not care if people are democrats, republicans, teapartiers, independents; I just can’t throw in with them if they have a track record and vocabulary like Buchanan’s.


http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=412196
http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/index.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/index.php
http://buchanan.house.gov/
PS Buchanan's financial disclosure shows a 9000 dollar Maryland pension?

Monday, December 13, 2010

Oh, Where Are Your Cojones?

Dear Prez:
I am hoping you will take a look back about a year and a half ago and pull out my letters where I offered a bit of advice plus asked you for a job, offering to work real cheap compared to the bloodsucking-know-nothing-parasites you hired to keep you in good standing with Mericans and all, a pretty tall order no matter how nice your wife is or how cute your kids are. Of course the wizards there at the White House had to know that 30 percent of people were not going to care for you no matter what you did. Then, when you throw in the republicans and DINOs and other retards who ain’t going to admit ever that you might possibly stumble into a good idea, well heck, as I said before you ought to just hang up the phone, go on down to the gym, and shoot some hoops.

Look, you put together a stimulus package and the republicans went ballistic; you turned it over to the states to spend as they wished and the states' rights republicans went ballistic over all the silly shit ways states came up with to spend it. The states took it, spent it and the stimulating sort of worked but don't forget not one, not one republican could step away from the lock-step-voting-apparati of their party and cast a vote for that spending plan simply for the psychological good of the country. And, old pal of a president, forgetting that they were the party that just handed you the largest debt ever passed to a president, they labeled you a tax-and-spent-reverse-racist-socialist-Hitler. They are the best at rewriting history. Hell, dude, you are the perfect answer to republican prayers.

You are black, sort of, thus linked to all the black-lazy-don’t-want-to-work-welfare problems, all the brown-illegal-steal-our-jobs-Mexican-immigrant problems, and with your foreigner-name it’s your entire fault that Mericans can’t get through an airport without an x-ray or a titty feel. It’s your entire fault, all of it. Dude, how DID you get elected; better yet, where are all the mother-suckers who voted for you? They sure have slipped out of politico-radar-range haven’t they?

See, I was right, when I said you should have signed me on for the paltry sum of 30K a year plus a room for me and the Fuzz; we would have bunked right there in the White House; I could have given you a base-gross-vulgar view of life, and Fuzz could have romped around with your hound, teaching it some manners. But you’d rather listen to all those quasi-demo-neo-Progresso-dumb-asses who could not guide a golf ball down a rain spout. First thing, I would have got you in the frame of mind to shut up the stupid stuff: for example we'd have put your birth-certificate and the newspaper’s birth notice up on YouTube with some genius like Axelrod going over both, line-by-line, real slow, so as to make it easy for conservatives and republicans to understand. Then, with the petty BS out of the way, I’d have had you come out for a special tax on Wall Street and the investment banks, say a penalty tax for their screwing us to no end, a screw-tax. Oh, the republicans and financiers would have screamed about how such a deal would ruin business and about how the cost would deepen the recession what with it trickling back to the stock owners and all. But then you’d have said, a la Dickhead Cheney, “So? Only 4.3468 percent of Mericans own stock anyhow.” There are about 2 billion stocks traded on the NYSE each DAY and I’d have had you figure an insignificant tax on each trade,in All exchanges. It does not take much of an accountant to figure that a very small surcharge per stock on over a BILLION stocks would add up real quic, building a nice get-out-of-debt-off-the-boys-who-put-us-there-fund. Oh yeah, sir, then I would have had you do a real good thing by figuring out a deeper penalty tax on the derivative-trades that Wall Street still refuses to make transparent. These taxes would go to the same deficit-reducing fund. The gist is that these rotten asses know the government has to bail them out every time they fornicate the Merican public because that IS the only way to avoid disaster; therefore, they never stop screwing the tax payer. Let their industry pay for the anguish caused by their greed. And guess what, if those boys and gals in the legalized gambling business of stocks, commodities, derivatives don’t want to play ball, shit, just freeze their assets and nationalize their asses. I think a bunch of Mericans might just shift right on over to your side if you show you are fed-up with our getting sodomized every day by those jerks and that you will hold them accountable for their actions.

There’s a lot I would have had you sign up for, sir. I know you are busy and all trying to explain to John Boehner what compromise means and the difference between a compromise and being compromised; he’s a republican for sure, after all, rejecting a word as if it isn’t really in the dictionary, or maybe there is a republican dictionary, probably is when I think about it, and probably has about a third the entries of a abridged dictionary. Just let the Boner slide, and go ahead and tell people that without mandates to new technology and shifts in energy use, we might as well get prepared for about 9 percent unemployment for a few decades. I have no clue why you are meeting this week with CEOs to try to get people back to work; a CEO is not going to give up a benefit or hire a soul if such action would affect her package of riches. Instead, you could insist that federal agencies that use vehicles for traveling less than fifty miles a day, including the sorry-assed congress, FBI, CIA, NSA, etceteratum have to use electric cars. I do not give a damn nor should you if the vehicles are goofy looking; every postal delivery person with the exception of some rural carriers could be driving one as I type. And I think, despite my eternal dislike for his politics, T-Bone Pickens may be onto something when he wants to take large transportation fleets and convert them to natural gas. So what if his old lady has twelve million shares in a company positioned to provide the infrastructure, other companies would hop on the idea too. Then, to get a cleaner fuel cheaply to heat homes and operate businesses, you could arrange for an expansion of infrastructure to deliver natural gas throughout Merica, and if the gas and oil boys are not lying about the reserves, that ought to perk up jobs plus help out our national security. If the wretched oil, gas, and coal companies interfere with ANY of these mandates, you nationalize the mineral wealth of the United States. Hell, if they are going to call you a socialist, Mr. P, and then you might as well teach them what socialism really looks like. Holy oil changes, this country screwed up way long ago when it let a few own all the peoples’ wealth, anyway. OK, have you got it: stomp on the throat of the financiers; kick-off a campaign to put people to work doing something other than serving Big Macs and dumping bed pans; show the oil-boys who is boss. Pretty easy and considering you got no chance in hell of getting reelected you could have a blast in the meantime. Oh, before you go to bed, go on and suck it up and free the homos in the services; if they are volunteering to take a bullet for me and you, they should not have to be liars.

BTW, BFFF, I am still available, but you’d better get up with me soon; I am considering starting my own medical marijuana delivery business, Need Weed? We Speed! See, I get a huge van and fill it with all sorts of exotic grass, deliver door-to-door, set up in the lot available next to Micky D's . . . .