The most honest capitalist has got to be Bayer CEO, Marijn Dekkers. The Bayer company created a cancer drug called Nexavar which costs Indians (of the India variety) $69,000 a year. That's a lot of money and you may know how much Indian's love to bargain. In 2012 an Indian court licensed an Indian company to market the drug at a 97% discount. Wow. That's a steep discount. The same drug costs $96,000 a year here. And that's where Dekkers's honesty comes into play. He says the drug "isn't for Indians but for western patients who can afford it." Does it get more honest than that?
Martha MacCallum of Fox news claims there is no pay gap between men and women and that women are paid exactly what they are worth. She added:
“I think most women do not want to be treated as sort of a special class
of citizen. They want to go to work every day, they
want to get paid for being a professional, for doing their job really
well, and they don’t want to be treated like some special group of
people who have to be, y’know, given a little special handout just to
make sure they’re OK.”
That might be Martha's version of honesty, for all I know. She may really believe that. In fact, she adds that when you factor in the time off women get for dropping babies in the field, they actually make more than men. So there's that!
I just don't know what to make of this honesty. I get the argument that it costs money to develop drugs and yada-effing-yada and that's the end of the argument for any God-fearing capitalist- that you have a God-given, Constitutional right to a profit. It's written somewhere that you do....just not in the Bible or the Constitution.
What I don't get is why medicine and healthcare has to be operated at a profit. And not only a profit but an obscene profit at that.
Well, because that is our system! It's as simple as why women make 77 cents on the man's dollar. It is profit. DUH!
Martha didn't come right out and say it but, that women work for less is why women work at all. Two things happened in the early seventies that were a direct result of the women's liberation movement. Corporations discovered that women would work for less money than men. And, if you got women out of the house and into the workforce, you could get people to buy more things and pay more for them. Two could spend more money than one. EZ credit made that even more possible and I should say that three things happened due to women's lib.
To Martha and to the GOP and the corporations they serve, this is accepted fact. The CEO's tell us that the country cannot afford to raise the minimum wage. The so-called "GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!" and we can't afford to pay our women what we pay men and we can't afford to pay our least skilled workers a living wage? Our economic system is so fragile that girls can beat it up? Are you fucking kidding me?
That's why- dickhead that he is- you have to appreciate Dekkers's honesty. You can't afford it and we didn't make it for you. Therefore, you can't have it!
Martha MacCallum and the other Faux blondes are being less honest with us. I mean- has she ever turned down a raise at FOX thinking it might put her into a Hannity bracket? I'm going to say no. I'm rather certain that she has an agent which is like extremely personal Union representation. I'm thinking she's less honest than Mr. Marijn Dekkers. That's probably why he makes more than her. Yeah, that's it.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
Then, ON TO POLAND!
Can we not piss on the Holocaust enough that we must defecate too? Listen to this asshole:
That was from billionaire venture capitalist, Tom Perkins, in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal called "Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?"
People find this Nazi stuff appealing for a variety of ignorant reasons. Obama and his healthcare reform has been compared to Hitler. Matter of fact, pretty much everything Obama has done has been compared to Hitler. Comparisons of Obama to Hitler are as ubiquitous as those memes where Hitler complains about (usually) football games but pretty much anything including The Oscars. Those are funny though. Seriously comparing anything to the holocaust other than other acts of genocide is obscene.
Rich people have suffered no indignities other the The Kardashians and Paris Hilton. Kristallmacht- the night of broken glass- the breaking of windows at rich-owned shops would be so hard to pull off with malls closing a 9:00 pm that it would just be silly. And what about the uber-wealthy who don't own shops that made their fortune but pushed paper around or inherited their wealth from family? No glass to break there! Many rich people already live behind fences with guards. Why would they leave those gated communities (ghettos?) for the other kind? I'd venture to say that this venture capitalist is a fucking idiot.
How can people even consider making these outrageous, insensitive claims. How did this asshole get to be a billionaire with such a convoluted 'thought' process. Must be a corporate raider or some Rmoney-like gig. Politics- I could see. Him writing that as a ordinary citizen I can see. I say that because I have seen non-wealthy idiots extrapolate like that. I question why he didn't hire someone to write the letter for him. He's a billionaire. Is he that cheap? Certainly not a job creator.
I saw a cartoon of a man and some kids sitting around a campfire. A disheveled man says to the children, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." Some people think that way. That's extreme capitalism. This is why you hear ordinary people disavowing global warming or calling for the complete dismantling of the EPA. They have been told to believe that carbon emissions and pollution are good for the shareholders and, therefore, good for all. Well, they are ordinary people or they get paid to post as ordinary people on the internet. But evidently many people see making a mess as progress. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?
The notion that Americans don't like rich people is pretty flimsy. Most of us want to be rich ourselves someday. I personally intend to win the lottery. Many of the republicans among us not only want to win the lottery but they have planned for that by supporting the lowering of taxes on millionaires. Now that is planning ahead! How many of us become rich without supporting a party that caters to the rich? What a fox paws that is!
We don't persecute the rich. But ya know, some day we might have to. If they keep taking all our money, we will have to. It's bad enough that they trick our most gullible citizens into screeching against their own interests on the internet, they also trick them into voting for people who can implement those policies against their self interest and convince these rubes that they are patriots for doing so!
The Nazi's and their holocaust were not a revolution. Some day we will rise up against our oppressors but it won't be (hopefully) in defense of our wealthiest one percent. It'll kinda be the other way around, Richie Rich. A famous communist once said that, if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. True. But did you know that if greedy, obnoxious rich assholes were not ruling an entire country, making a mockery of capitalism and virtually enslaving 99% of a country, communist revolution would not be necessary.True story, comrades.
Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its “one percent,” namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the “rich.”From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent…. This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?
That was from billionaire venture capitalist, Tom Perkins, in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal called "Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?"
People find this Nazi stuff appealing for a variety of ignorant reasons. Obama and his healthcare reform has been compared to Hitler. Matter of fact, pretty much everything Obama has done has been compared to Hitler. Comparisons of Obama to Hitler are as ubiquitous as those memes where Hitler complains about (usually) football games but pretty much anything including The Oscars. Those are funny though. Seriously comparing anything to the holocaust other than other acts of genocide is obscene.
Rich people have suffered no indignities other the The Kardashians and Paris Hilton. Kristallmacht- the night of broken glass- the breaking of windows at rich-owned shops would be so hard to pull off with malls closing a 9:00 pm that it would just be silly. And what about the uber-wealthy who don't own shops that made their fortune but pushed paper around or inherited their wealth from family? No glass to break there! Many rich people already live behind fences with guards. Why would they leave those gated communities (ghettos?) for the other kind? I'd venture to say that this venture capitalist is a fucking idiot.
How can people even consider making these outrageous, insensitive claims. How did this asshole get to be a billionaire with such a convoluted 'thought' process. Must be a corporate raider or some Rmoney-like gig. Politics- I could see. Him writing that as a ordinary citizen I can see. I say that because I have seen non-wealthy idiots extrapolate like that. I question why he didn't hire someone to write the letter for him. He's a billionaire. Is he that cheap? Certainly not a job creator.
I saw a cartoon of a man and some kids sitting around a campfire. A disheveled man says to the children, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." Some people think that way. That's extreme capitalism. This is why you hear ordinary people disavowing global warming or calling for the complete dismantling of the EPA. They have been told to believe that carbon emissions and pollution are good for the shareholders and, therefore, good for all. Well, they are ordinary people or they get paid to post as ordinary people on the internet. But evidently many people see making a mess as progress. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?
The notion that Americans don't like rich people is pretty flimsy. Most of us want to be rich ourselves someday. I personally intend to win the lottery. Many of the republicans among us not only want to win the lottery but they have planned for that by supporting the lowering of taxes on millionaires. Now that is planning ahead! How many of us become rich without supporting a party that caters to the rich? What a fox paws that is!
We don't persecute the rich. But ya know, some day we might have to. If they keep taking all our money, we will have to. It's bad enough that they trick our most gullible citizens into screeching against their own interests on the internet, they also trick them into voting for people who can implement those policies against their self interest and convince these rubes that they are patriots for doing so!
The Nazi's and their holocaust were not a revolution. Some day we will rise up against our oppressors but it won't be (hopefully) in defense of our wealthiest one percent. It'll kinda be the other way around, Richie Rich. A famous communist once said that, if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. True. But did you know that if greedy, obnoxious rich assholes were not ruling an entire country, making a mockery of capitalism and virtually enslaving 99% of a country, communist revolution would not be necessary.True story, comrades.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Positively 4th Street
Well, I guess the Virtual Wake for Angela is over- at least on the Chicago Dregs thread, that is. I think it still goes on at The Washington Post site where it appears she had a couple hundred friends and frenemies. The Dregs number but ten by their own count, even though several more people post there. They've always been more exclusionary than exclusive. It's not so much that a person is good enough to get in, it's more important that some must be kept out.
Not me, mind you. I had my chance to be a Chicago Dregular years ago and I passed. When I post there now it's because I can and because some there think I should not. A lot of people confuse the openness of the internet with email. There's a huge difference! It's lost on dregs. Anyway, the point is I don't feel excluded, no matter how much they want me to. I've never come around to get back in. I was never that far 'in' anyway. I don't know why they can't get that.
Most of these people are assholes. For Chrissakes- the likes of Sublime, race and edog are in this gang! Somehow Ferrerman makes those jag offs look good??!! Apologies to any dedicated non-readers not up to speed on these miscreants but those three are teapublican, misogynist racists and, I'm not. I think most of the previous male dregs fit that bill too, now that I mention it. I caught a lot of grief from the Lady Dregs (they wear pink jackets that match the guy's pink jackets ) back in the day for picking on the likes of rational and nova. In fact, rational famously asked his daddy to ask some fake mob guy he did trim work for to have me killed. Mob hits don't work that way. Defaming a fake internet therapist who turns out to be a fake, internet therapist (surprise!) is not a whackable offense. Well, not mob whackable....
So, on the Chicago thread portion of the Virtual Wake For Angela, the dregs seemed to spend more time condemning me rather than praising her. Everyone mourns in their own way but, that's pretty fucked up. They've always had a funny way of doing things. I was rather surprised at the folks who didn't stop in to mourn her and/or say hello to the remaining dregs. Hard to say if the word didn't get out or if more people just didn't care.
There weren't any Original Gangster dregs on the list of ten that PEllen presented for Angela's friends and family. Maybe race was OG. He was there when I first came around. He's A770's bitch still too, as is Sublime. They've posted with her all these years. I guess that the other OG's didn't want to be part of that. Even the poster formerly known as "Teri at home" didn't get in on the memorial flowers gift. Well, maybe she wasn't asked. That "...some of you will be receiving PM's...' stunt that PElican pulled was kinda exclusionary. I guess that's what that was about.
I'm going to close with Mr. Dylan wearing his own shoes...
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Positively+4th+Street/3OQMMd?src=5
Not me, mind you. I had my chance to be a Chicago Dregular years ago and I passed. When I post there now it's because I can and because some there think I should not. A lot of people confuse the openness of the internet with email. There's a huge difference! It's lost on dregs. Anyway, the point is I don't feel excluded, no matter how much they want me to. I've never come around to get back in. I was never that far 'in' anyway. I don't know why they can't get that.
Most of these people are assholes. For Chrissakes- the likes of Sublime, race and edog are in this gang! Somehow Ferrerman makes those jag offs look good??!! Apologies to any dedicated non-readers not up to speed on these miscreants but those three are teapublican, misogynist racists and, I'm not. I think most of the previous male dregs fit that bill too, now that I mention it. I caught a lot of grief from the Lady Dregs (they wear pink jackets that match the guy's pink jackets ) back in the day for picking on the likes of rational and nova. In fact, rational famously asked his daddy to ask some fake mob guy he did trim work for to have me killed. Mob hits don't work that way. Defaming a fake internet therapist who turns out to be a fake, internet therapist (surprise!) is not a whackable offense. Well, not mob whackable....
So, on the Chicago thread portion of the Virtual Wake For Angela, the dregs seemed to spend more time condemning me rather than praising her. Everyone mourns in their own way but, that's pretty fucked up. They've always had a funny way of doing things. I was rather surprised at the folks who didn't stop in to mourn her and/or say hello to the remaining dregs. Hard to say if the word didn't get out or if more people just didn't care.
There weren't any Original Gangster dregs on the list of ten that PEllen presented for Angela's friends and family. Maybe race was OG. He was there when I first came around. He's A770's bitch still too, as is Sublime. They've posted with her all these years. I guess that the other OG's didn't want to be part of that. Even the poster formerly known as "Teri at home" didn't get in on the memorial flowers gift. Well, maybe she wasn't asked. That "...some of you will be receiving PM's...' stunt that PElican pulled was kinda exclusionary. I guess that's what that was about.
I'm going to close with Mr. Dylan wearing his own shoes...
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Positively+4th+Street/3OQMMd?src=5
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Cause For Effect
I have a Facebook and real life friend, who some days describes herself as a Ron Paul-style Libertarian but, most days, is even nuttier than that and is a tea bagger. Suffice to say, Christy simply hates Obama and democrats and will align with anyone else who does.
Christy is dirt poor. A mutual friend of ours advised me a few years ago that Christy has used every kind of entitlement available in her state. Things have been tough for her and the kids, for years. It would seem incongruous that someone like her would be so sternly against a helping hand but, it's shockingly common among red-staters like her to vote against their best interests.
I feel bad for Christy. But, she makes it extremely hard to feel bad for her. The friend who advised me of Christy's plight? She's one of the most genuine, loving people I've ever had the privilege of knowing but, she defriended Christy due to the sheer volume of reichwing hate that clogs up Christy's FB page. When it's not hate, it's insane paranoia. It's frustratingly sad to watch an old friend descend into the madness depths of politics. She sees government conspiracy in absolutely everything.
Justin Beiber's arrest for drag racing and DUI? I jokingly predicted that the reichwing would see it as just another deflection from current administration *scandals*. Sure enough there was a cartoon meme that read: "Justin Bieber arrested? What story are they trying to distract us from now?"
Now, I know from funny. Probably that meme's creator was being cute. In tandem with another meme on her page of the ubiquitous Keanu Reeves wondering: "What if terror attacks and shootings are staged by our own government to generate the support needed for an oppressive police state?"
Wow. That is some paranoia. It's fairly generic though. Some people on the left believe Cheney orchestrated the 9/11 attacks in order to get a very lucrative war with Iraq and a Patriot Act thrown in for good measure. There were people who believe Roosevelt allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to happen so as to spark an isolationist America into supporting a very necessary war in Europe. Plausible but....why does he allow the better part of his naval fleet to be destroyed? Why intentionally handicap yourself like that? Within moments of Sandy Hook, crazies were proving that a government hit team perpetrated the massacre of the children. Why? To give reason to the confiscation of all our guns, of course. Well, that little slice of obscenity might fascinate some but, it's short-lived when not a single measure was taken in the literal wake of the murdered children or the year since.
I'm sickened and saddened that Americans think like this. This bullshit is not part of the republican party platform but they don't take a moment to disavow such talk in their extended ranks. Crazy people vote too, ya know. This is more than sour grapes based on losing the last two presidential elections. It's an avenue towards winning the next one. Well, if a filthy, back-alley of depravity can be an avenue, that is. All roads may lead to the White House but, you do not have to take each one.
Christy is not alone in her insanity. Topix and Facebook are chock full of such whack jobs. Who really believes this shit and who just wants to? Does Christy? It certainly seems as if she does. She doesn't do much vetting of posts. Most republicans would be ashamed to have the aforementioned memes on their Facebook pages, associated with their names. Christy probably fancies herself a patriot waiting for Obama's private army to come for her.
Don't hold your breath, Christy. You won't turn blue- don't worry about that. It wouldn't help your cause anyway, whatever your cause is today.
Christy is dirt poor. A mutual friend of ours advised me a few years ago that Christy has used every kind of entitlement available in her state. Things have been tough for her and the kids, for years. It would seem incongruous that someone like her would be so sternly against a helping hand but, it's shockingly common among red-staters like her to vote against their best interests.
I feel bad for Christy. But, she makes it extremely hard to feel bad for her. The friend who advised me of Christy's plight? She's one of the most genuine, loving people I've ever had the privilege of knowing but, she defriended Christy due to the sheer volume of reichwing hate that clogs up Christy's FB page. When it's not hate, it's insane paranoia. It's frustratingly sad to watch an old friend descend into the madness depths of politics. She sees government conspiracy in absolutely everything.
Justin Beiber's arrest for drag racing and DUI? I jokingly predicted that the reichwing would see it as just another deflection from current administration *scandals*. Sure enough there was a cartoon meme that read: "Justin Bieber arrested? What story are they trying to distract us from now?"
Now, I know from funny. Probably that meme's creator was being cute. In tandem with another meme on her page of the ubiquitous Keanu Reeves wondering: "What if terror attacks and shootings are staged by our own government to generate the support needed for an oppressive police state?"
Wow. That is some paranoia. It's fairly generic though. Some people on the left believe Cheney orchestrated the 9/11 attacks in order to get a very lucrative war with Iraq and a Patriot Act thrown in for good measure. There were people who believe Roosevelt allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to happen so as to spark an isolationist America into supporting a very necessary war in Europe. Plausible but....why does he allow the better part of his naval fleet to be destroyed? Why intentionally handicap yourself like that? Within moments of Sandy Hook, crazies were proving that a government hit team perpetrated the massacre of the children. Why? To give reason to the confiscation of all our guns, of course. Well, that little slice of obscenity might fascinate some but, it's short-lived when not a single measure was taken in the literal wake of the murdered children or the year since.
I'm sickened and saddened that Americans think like this. This bullshit is not part of the republican party platform but they don't take a moment to disavow such talk in their extended ranks. Crazy people vote too, ya know. This is more than sour grapes based on losing the last two presidential elections. It's an avenue towards winning the next one. Well, if a filthy, back-alley of depravity can be an avenue, that is. All roads may lead to the White House but, you do not have to take each one.
Christy is not alone in her insanity. Topix and Facebook are chock full of such whack jobs. Who really believes this shit and who just wants to? Does Christy? It certainly seems as if she does. She doesn't do much vetting of posts. Most republicans would be ashamed to have the aforementioned memes on their Facebook pages, associated with their names. Christy probably fancies herself a patriot waiting for Obama's private army to come for her.
Don't hold your breath, Christy. You won't turn blue- don't worry about that. It wouldn't help your cause anyway, whatever your cause is today.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Good help is hard to find.
I caught part of the movie "The Help" the other day on TNT. I didn't see enough of it to give it a proper review but, I think it makes for an excellent segue into today's discussion of race.
The movie is set in a time when this young Ferrerman (as pictured) barely new that black people existed. They were never featured on any of the three channels of my parents black and white television and there were none in the biggest part of my world, school and the neighborhood. I lived in a suburb of Cincinnati back then. My Wonder Years, where a kid could roam around without winding up on a milk carton. Mom would relate later that blacks- like the maids of the film- were to be out of town before sundown each day. No one we knew had a maid. In those days, all the moms stayed home raising children and/or watching soap operas. I had seen my first black person- as I recall it- on the train to visit grandma in Chicago. Mom says I was referring to the black conductor on the train but I distinctly recall a very dark, Aunt Jemima-looking woman seated nearby I remarked, "Mama, there's a chocolate lady!" Conductor or woman, mama was very embarrassed. But, I was about three years old when this happened. I think all the grown ups understood. Black people were a new discovery for me. They had not yet been given "their special rights" as some republicans and Supreme Court justices might call them.
But enough about me. How did the rest of the country feel about Negroes at the time?
Well, it depended upon where you lived. Cincinnati borders Kentucky so, given that proximity, racial guidelines were a bit less official than they were in Jackson, Mississippi. There were Jim Crow laws in the south as well as verbal laws passed on amongst the whites and the blacks. Young black children were undoubtedly versed very early on in how to interact with white people so they could live to tell about it. Could you imagine telling your children not to look an entire race of people in the eye? How to address that race properly? Where to sit on the bus and not to sit at the lunch counter at Woolworths?
People, this happened in my lifetime! I'm not that old!
Fast-forward here to 2014. No less a conservative *leader* like Sarah Palin uses the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birthday to exhort our half-black (but black) president to stop using "the race card" because, doncha know, we're in a post-racial society. The race card? There are like two black people in the entire GOP and a white lady, former half-term governor of a state that wasn't even a state when I was born, is telling the black president of the United States, on the birthday of a murdered black civil rights leader, that he makes too big of a deal of race??!!
Bitch, please! If there's no racial issues in this post-racial society, why are you asking the president to tone down his (non-existent) race card playing on a Federal holiday for a great American? Or, were you merely playing the "lack of fucking decorum card" you play so well?
You don't solve racial issues in fifty years, especially in a country where one party has declared The War On Poverty to be a lost cause. Retreat. Pull out all the "troops". The GOP has never met a war they didn't like except the one on poverty. These stupid assholes want to go back to Iraq! But, somehow fighting poverty is too expensive and futile. Iraqis can't decide their own fate but, poor American's can...as long as they have no help from the government in the form of money or, special rights... Go and figure that.
I believe the deck is still stacked against black folks. If you have to take one card out of the deck, how can the game be fair to all? Every other card can be played- by the dealers- but, you can't play that one. The one they say you don't need. That's a heavy hand. One that smacks all of us. We the people just haven't figured out yet that we are all in this together.
Why Miss Palin, would you care for some pie? I made it jus' fo' you....
The movie is set in a time when this young Ferrerman (as pictured) barely new that black people existed. They were never featured on any of the three channels of my parents black and white television and there were none in the biggest part of my world, school and the neighborhood. I lived in a suburb of Cincinnati back then. My Wonder Years, where a kid could roam around without winding up on a milk carton. Mom would relate later that blacks- like the maids of the film- were to be out of town before sundown each day. No one we knew had a maid. In those days, all the moms stayed home raising children and/or watching soap operas. I had seen my first black person- as I recall it- on the train to visit grandma in Chicago. Mom says I was referring to the black conductor on the train but I distinctly recall a very dark, Aunt Jemima-looking woman seated nearby I remarked, "Mama, there's a chocolate lady!" Conductor or woman, mama was very embarrassed. But, I was about three years old when this happened. I think all the grown ups understood. Black people were a new discovery for me. They had not yet been given "their special rights" as some republicans and Supreme Court justices might call them.
But enough about me. How did the rest of the country feel about Negroes at the time?
Well, it depended upon where you lived. Cincinnati borders Kentucky so, given that proximity, racial guidelines were a bit less official than they were in Jackson, Mississippi. There were Jim Crow laws in the south as well as verbal laws passed on amongst the whites and the blacks. Young black children were undoubtedly versed very early on in how to interact with white people so they could live to tell about it. Could you imagine telling your children not to look an entire race of people in the eye? How to address that race properly? Where to sit on the bus and not to sit at the lunch counter at Woolworths?
People, this happened in my lifetime! I'm not that old!
Fast-forward here to 2014. No less a conservative *leader* like Sarah Palin uses the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birthday to exhort our half-black (but black) president to stop using "the race card" because, doncha know, we're in a post-racial society. The race card? There are like two black people in the entire GOP and a white lady, former half-term governor of a state that wasn't even a state when I was born, is telling the black president of the United States, on the birthday of a murdered black civil rights leader, that he makes too big of a deal of race??!!
Bitch, please! If there's no racial issues in this post-racial society, why are you asking the president to tone down his (non-existent) race card playing on a Federal holiday for a great American? Or, were you merely playing the "lack of fucking decorum card" you play so well?
You don't solve racial issues in fifty years, especially in a country where one party has declared The War On Poverty to be a lost cause. Retreat. Pull out all the "troops". The GOP has never met a war they didn't like except the one on poverty. These stupid assholes want to go back to Iraq! But, somehow fighting poverty is too expensive and futile. Iraqis can't decide their own fate but, poor American's can...as long as they have no help from the government in the form of money or, special rights... Go and figure that.
I believe the deck is still stacked against black folks. If you have to take one card out of the deck, how can the game be fair to all? Every other card can be played- by the dealers- but, you can't play that one. The one they say you don't need. That's a heavy hand. One that smacks all of us. We the people just haven't figured out yet that we are all in this together.
Why Miss Palin, would you care for some pie? I made it jus' fo' you....
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Another one bites the dust
She was a Queen fan. I think she would appreciate the title here.
There was another death in TopixTown. This time it was evidently real though. It wasn't faked for someone's self-aggrandizement.
It's almost always sad when someone dies. Angela- this someone- was in her forties and died after a rather brief battle with lung cancer. I think she found out maybe two months ago? Something like that. It was the icing on a really crappy life cake, the diagnosis coming a week after losing her job. It happens every day.
She was a long time poster on the Chicago regs thread and many other message boards. I do recall her boasting about being on the internet longer than anyone else in the world maybe. She really liked the message boards. And, she was pretty good at them.
I fairly liked her even though she twice (that I know of) wished me dead. Honestly, wishing Ferrerman dead is shockingly common on parts of the internet. And, she once volunteered to publicize all my personal info, another common occurrence on the net. Where do I find these people? Oh yeah- Topix!
I guess I grade these imaginary people on a curve, because they are imaginary because it never bothered me that she wished me dead. Why should it? She couldn't actually do anything about it. Just internet bravado.
I also didn't hold her death wishes for me against her because, when she wasn't doing that, she was usually pretty interesting. Not a lot of people on Topix can be that.From the start I was kinda leery of her. Though I was new to the internet, I wasn't at all new to liars and big talkers. Frankly, the way she talked about softball, anal and oral sex, drinking and porn, I thought at first that she was a dude, maybe even a gay dude, pretending to be female. That happens a lot on the internet, Topix in particular. It's a mixed up, jumbled up, shook up world, for sure. When I tended bar though, I knew a lot of real life women who were that bawdy. So, they do happen. When she wasn't posting that kinda stuff, she had a good liberal mind and the sense of right and wrong that goes along with that. And that's really what I prefer to take away from the oblique experience of knowing her.
On the dregs thread, reactions to her demise were as you'd expect on a social media site. Death is a shock even when people are imaginary but, it is obviously less urgent. The grieving process didn't last long. Imaginary people grieve in their own way. Former posters dropped in to say hello and mention that they were sad but, like a wake it was a lot of socializing. Then everybody goes back to regular posting.
Not a lot of people were happy to see Ferrerman at the virtual wake'. But, ya know- some of them never are anyway so, what are ya gonna do? You could almost hear them thinking: "You bastard! Redheadwithglasses hated you as much as edog, Sublime and PEllen all rolled up into one! Why are YOU alive when SHE is dead??!!"
Yikes! Harsh, but, I get that a lot. Some of the most miserable people on earth don't like me. I count that as a blessing, if you're scoring at home.
Rest in peace, Red.
****************
As a side note, I have to say that a couple of people reported awakening at 3:30am, the moment of the morning she died. That's really odd, isn't it? Odder still, this Ferrerman awoke that morning. I generally sleep through the night (clear conscience) but that morning got up, went downstairs and took an aspirin. I remember thinking that I should have checked the time but, I did not. Spooky, eh? Why would Angela leave this earth and awaken me for it? I dunno. Why would she awaken those other two? Maybe I just felt a toothache coming after all....
I shoulda looked at the clock.
There was another death in TopixTown. This time it was evidently real though. It wasn't faked for someone's self-aggrandizement.
It's almost always sad when someone dies. Angela- this someone- was in her forties and died after a rather brief battle with lung cancer. I think she found out maybe two months ago? Something like that. It was the icing on a really crappy life cake, the diagnosis coming a week after losing her job. It happens every day.
She was a long time poster on the Chicago regs thread and many other message boards. I do recall her boasting about being on the internet longer than anyone else in the world maybe. She really liked the message boards. And, she was pretty good at them.
I fairly liked her even though she twice (that I know of) wished me dead. Honestly, wishing Ferrerman dead is shockingly common on parts of the internet. And, she once volunteered to publicize all my personal info, another common occurrence on the net. Where do I find these people? Oh yeah- Topix!
I guess I grade these imaginary people on a curve, because they are imaginary because it never bothered me that she wished me dead. Why should it? She couldn't actually do anything about it. Just internet bravado.
I also didn't hold her death wishes for me against her because, when she wasn't doing that, she was usually pretty interesting. Not a lot of people on Topix can be that.From the start I was kinda leery of her. Though I was new to the internet, I wasn't at all new to liars and big talkers. Frankly, the way she talked about softball, anal and oral sex, drinking and porn, I thought at first that she was a dude, maybe even a gay dude, pretending to be female. That happens a lot on the internet, Topix in particular. It's a mixed up, jumbled up, shook up world, for sure. When I tended bar though, I knew a lot of real life women who were that bawdy. So, they do happen. When she wasn't posting that kinda stuff, she had a good liberal mind and the sense of right and wrong that goes along with that. And that's really what I prefer to take away from the oblique experience of knowing her.
On the dregs thread, reactions to her demise were as you'd expect on a social media site. Death is a shock even when people are imaginary but, it is obviously less urgent. The grieving process didn't last long. Imaginary people grieve in their own way. Former posters dropped in to say hello and mention that they were sad but, like a wake it was a lot of socializing. Then everybody goes back to regular posting.
Not a lot of people were happy to see Ferrerman at the virtual wake'. But, ya know- some of them never are anyway so, what are ya gonna do? You could almost hear them thinking: "You bastard! Redheadwithglasses hated you as much as edog, Sublime and PEllen all rolled up into one! Why are YOU alive when SHE is dead??!!"
Yikes! Harsh, but, I get that a lot. Some of the most miserable people on earth don't like me. I count that as a blessing, if you're scoring at home.
Rest in peace, Red.
****************
As a side note, I have to say that a couple of people reported awakening at 3:30am, the moment of the morning she died. That's really odd, isn't it? Odder still, this Ferrerman awoke that morning. I generally sleep through the night (clear conscience) but that morning got up, went downstairs and took an aspirin. I remember thinking that I should have checked the time but, I did not. Spooky, eh? Why would Angela leave this earth and awaken me for it? I dunno. Why would she awaken those other two? Maybe I just felt a toothache coming after all....
I shoulda looked at the clock.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Meme ME!
I saw a meme on Facebook that had a picture of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman and maybe Ted Cruz(?) and the caption said: "Let's Stop Making Stupid People Famous". Yes, let's.
It got me to think though that my experience on Topix has been the opposite. Stupid people have made me famous! How 'bout that?
Really, if not for a very small but obsessive base of fanatic stalkers, I'm just a very good poster whom some people enjoy, some others don't like and many would just shine on by because "...there that Ferrerman goes again about politics and/or spanking women's bottoms..or both...." Just a profile in the crowd. Instead I have people who wait on my every post and those of my compatriots to adorn those posts with negative, "clueless", "nuts" and "spam" icons. Of course, it's more than passive/aggressive icons though. Private Messages abound where Ferrerman is doing this or that and being this poster or that poster or whatever nonsense goes on behind the scenes in the all-important world of those that are anti-Ferrerman, in thought, word, deed and sentiment.
I guess I could thank them for making me Topix-famous, but it really doesn't matter. I go on as I would without them.
They go on as they do because of me.
And so it goes...
It got me to think though that my experience on Topix has been the opposite. Stupid people have made me famous! How 'bout that?
Really, if not for a very small but obsessive base of fanatic stalkers, I'm just a very good poster whom some people enjoy, some others don't like and many would just shine on by because "...there that Ferrerman goes again about politics and/or spanking women's bottoms..or both...." Just a profile in the crowd. Instead I have people who wait on my every post and those of my compatriots to adorn those posts with negative, "clueless", "nuts" and "spam" icons. Of course, it's more than passive/aggressive icons though. Private Messages abound where Ferrerman is doing this or that and being this poster or that poster or whatever nonsense goes on behind the scenes in the all-important world of those that are anti-Ferrerman, in thought, word, deed and sentiment.
I guess I could thank them for making me Topix-famous, but it really doesn't matter. I go on as I would without them.
They go on as they do because of me.
And so it goes...
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
The Ferrerman Solar Energy Plan
PRIVATIZATION!
All solar energy needs is for someone to own it. Same with the Post Office, but that's a story for another day. Fifteen dollars to mail a letter isn't outrageous when you consider that the founders waited weeks for mail that now could be delivered overnight, for $15. The key to everything in America is privatization- someone must profit from every aspect of life, from womb to tomb, or we become communists. No one wants that.
Now, I'm not talking one man like in a Bond film where some albino creates a deathray and threatens to destroy the sun and yada yada. No such melodramatic nonsense. It's not necessary. I'm talking a corporation. It doesn't have to be Exxon. Just someone who knows about energy and how to promote it.
Just get some Congressmen together and, after some money is exchanged, award the rights to the sun to Exxon (or whoever) and then lease it to them, perhaps for one dollar a year. But, only for one hundred years, with an option for one hundred more.
Of course, no one can physically possess the sun. Can't be done. But, they can possess the rights and, in a court of law, that's even better.
The earth, as some may know, revolves around the sun. This means that when it's daytime here it's nighttime on the other side of the world like in France or Australia or whatever. People are used to that. It rises in the east and sets in the west too. You can almost set your watch by it, That's gotta change.
The media will have to help out. With their help, the viewing public can forget this business of the earth rotating, revolving and all that. Just put it on their teleprompters that there are certain factors that cause solar shortages and only higher prices can remedy that. They could make a killing on summer! Winter would take a bit of work though. There's less sunlight in winter...but that's because there is a shortage of solar and the price is going to have to go up to reflect that. The Marketing Department would call that period, "Daylight Savings Time". We could all pull together as a country and conserve solar energy and if we have to pay a little but more, so be it. The payoff is in the period formerly known as "summer" where we bask in the patriotic glow of sunshine...during the summer sunning season, where- with demand being high- prices reflect that volume of need....
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking. "Ferrerman! What about cloudy days?"
Cloudy days are the invisible hand of the free market but, with a twist. Government subsidies cover the Solar Companies for their cloudy day losses. And, as always, anyone caught illegally harnessing solar power will be subject to fines and incarceration. As for the poor and homeless who live off the solar paid for by others(!) isn't it just about time we killed those moochers?
All solar energy needs is for someone to own it. Same with the Post Office, but that's a story for another day. Fifteen dollars to mail a letter isn't outrageous when you consider that the founders waited weeks for mail that now could be delivered overnight, for $15. The key to everything in America is privatization- someone must profit from every aspect of life, from womb to tomb, or we become communists. No one wants that.
Now, I'm not talking one man like in a Bond film where some albino creates a deathray and threatens to destroy the sun and yada yada. No such melodramatic nonsense. It's not necessary. I'm talking a corporation. It doesn't have to be Exxon. Just someone who knows about energy and how to promote it.
Just get some Congressmen together and, after some money is exchanged, award the rights to the sun to Exxon (or whoever) and then lease it to them, perhaps for one dollar a year. But, only for one hundred years, with an option for one hundred more.
Of course, no one can physically possess the sun. Can't be done. But, they can possess the rights and, in a court of law, that's even better.
The earth, as some may know, revolves around the sun. This means that when it's daytime here it's nighttime on the other side of the world like in France or Australia or whatever. People are used to that. It rises in the east and sets in the west too. You can almost set your watch by it, That's gotta change.
The media will have to help out. With their help, the viewing public can forget this business of the earth rotating, revolving and all that. Just put it on their teleprompters that there are certain factors that cause solar shortages and only higher prices can remedy that. They could make a killing on summer! Winter would take a bit of work though. There's less sunlight in winter...but that's because there is a shortage of solar and the price is going to have to go up to reflect that. The Marketing Department would call that period, "Daylight Savings Time". We could all pull together as a country and conserve solar energy and if we have to pay a little but more, so be it. The payoff is in the period formerly known as "summer" where we bask in the patriotic glow of sunshine...during the summer sunning season, where- with demand being high- prices reflect that volume of need....
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking. "Ferrerman! What about cloudy days?"
Cloudy days are the invisible hand of the free market but, with a twist. Government subsidies cover the Solar Companies for their cloudy day losses. And, as always, anyone caught illegally harnessing solar power will be subject to fines and incarceration. As for the poor and homeless who live off the solar paid for by others(!) isn't it just about time we killed those moochers?
Monday, January 13, 2014
The Golden Touched
There's just something about the Discovery Channel reality show, Bering Sea Gold, that restores my faith in reality television. Most reality TV is fake and scripted and rather obviously so. See: Amish Mafia or Moonshiners among dozen's of others that are heavily scripted and rely on tremendously untalented, non-actors to, well- act- and it shows. Reality TV is the drunken step-brother of the documentary. You could learn all you need to know about moonshine in a single 90 minute documentary but you can fill a Tuesday night time slot about moonshine for years to come if you treat the show like it's Beverly Hillbillies making moonshine. A documentary tells a story through editing, via the soul of the filmmaker while reality just shows up.
Bering Sea Gold is about some of the goofiest knuckleheads you've ever seen, but it puts them on barges and slapped together boats, offshore of Nome, Alaska diving for gold in the summer. It even shows the same folks diving under the ice in winter, as well. Ya gotta be nuts and they are. Some of these people are- at times- pretty much homeless. If there are big time gold-dredging operations they must not be interesting because none of those are featured. Though the Pomrenke family has hundreds of thousands invested in their barge, dredging operation, it's from years of expanding rather than somebody starting out with a small fortune in search of a larger one. There's some unseen benefactors behind the scenes backing some of these people. But for the most part I think these people are backed in the usual manner of, money from friends and family and desperate credit card choices.
Essentially, to mine for gold you need a barge of sorts seaworthy enough to go a few hundred yards off shore and a diver experienced enough to dive what looks to be about 25 feet down and operate a big shopvac that sucks up material from the Bering Sea floor. Like mining on shore, the material runs through a sluice catching (hopefully) little bits of gold that add up to big money.
This is tough stuff. The Bering Sea is never pleasant. The dive suits are heated. It's Alaska. Nobody who does this is too normal. They just couldn't be.
The drama seems real. These people seem to work hard and not play well with others. I seriously question if Steve Reidel and Scott Meisterheim aren't mentally ill because they seem stubbornly determined to NOT make any money at this. Steve is just a free-spirited goofball and Scott is an asshole. I think that between the two of them they've made about $12 diving for gold. They remind me of guys I've worked with who were always looking to go home for any reason. None of the men are what you might call normal as anger issues abound. That far up north it might as well be the bi-polar ice caps.
There is one woman regular, Emily Reidel, daughter of Steve. You watch him and you have to grade her on a curve allowing for having him as a father. All things considered, she's pretty normal. Attractive too. They don't doll any of the fellas up for the shoots so with Emily, what you see is Emily au natural. She cleans up pretty well too. Everybody in life and reality TV has to have a back story and hers was that she got into gold dredging hoping to finance a trip to Italy to study opera. Well, why not? But, three seasons later she's still in Alaska, now as captain of her own dredge. She has history with Zeke, another captain that may have been of the friends with benefits persuasion. He was in love with her in season one but it seemed unrequited. That story is there but I don't feel as if they've exploited it unnecessarily and I like that. It's a gold show. It's not the Cheers bar.
One man- Vern Adkison- is searching for gold because he is a staunch, anti-government conservative of the Ron Paul variety, I might guess, because he wants the gold for its enduring value as currency. He doesn't trust the Fed. I wonder if he doesn't spend his spare time on the internet... This old guy has spent every nickel he has and gone into debt to find gold. When the economy collapses and he's sitting on a million dollars in gold, he'll be able to afford that loaf of bread that going for $100k.
Programs like these are heavily edited. The genius is in the production. That is why 'The Deadliest Catch' still holds people's attention after so many years of the same guys catching crab. They let stuff happen and they film it. If they miss something, like Zeke Tenhoff getting arrested and fighting with the cops, they deal with the aftermath of that rather than fucking around trying to recreate it as others might do. I highly respect that. Zeke's description to his mates of his arrest and incarceration was far better than if the cameras had been there. The guy is a maniac. Last season his childhood friend committed suicide with a pistol. It was the second of his childhood friends to die in that manner. This can't bode well for Zeke.
I kinda root for these people. I can't help it. If you and a couple of rag-tag lunkheads can dive into the frigid waters of the Bering Sea and find gold, find as much as you can. Though there is a lot of luck involved, there is nothing easy about it. If I were more comfortable in the water and less comfortable in my sanity, I might do it myself.
Bering Sea Gold is about some of the goofiest knuckleheads you've ever seen, but it puts them on barges and slapped together boats, offshore of Nome, Alaska diving for gold in the summer. It even shows the same folks diving under the ice in winter, as well. Ya gotta be nuts and they are. Some of these people are- at times- pretty much homeless. If there are big time gold-dredging operations they must not be interesting because none of those are featured. Though the Pomrenke family has hundreds of thousands invested in their barge, dredging operation, it's from years of expanding rather than somebody starting out with a small fortune in search of a larger one. There's some unseen benefactors behind the scenes backing some of these people. But for the most part I think these people are backed in the usual manner of, money from friends and family and desperate credit card choices.
Essentially, to mine for gold you need a barge of sorts seaworthy enough to go a few hundred yards off shore and a diver experienced enough to dive what looks to be about 25 feet down and operate a big shopvac that sucks up material from the Bering Sea floor. Like mining on shore, the material runs through a sluice catching (hopefully) little bits of gold that add up to big money.
This is tough stuff. The Bering Sea is never pleasant. The dive suits are heated. It's Alaska. Nobody who does this is too normal. They just couldn't be.
The drama seems real. These people seem to work hard and not play well with others. I seriously question if Steve Reidel and Scott Meisterheim aren't mentally ill because they seem stubbornly determined to NOT make any money at this. Steve is just a free-spirited goofball and Scott is an asshole. I think that between the two of them they've made about $12 diving for gold. They remind me of guys I've worked with who were always looking to go home for any reason. None of the men are what you might call normal as anger issues abound. That far up north it might as well be the bi-polar ice caps.
There is one woman regular, Emily Reidel, daughter of Steve. You watch him and you have to grade her on a curve allowing for having him as a father. All things considered, she's pretty normal. Attractive too. They don't doll any of the fellas up for the shoots so with Emily, what you see is Emily au natural. She cleans up pretty well too. Everybody in life and reality TV has to have a back story and hers was that she got into gold dredging hoping to finance a trip to Italy to study opera. Well, why not? But, three seasons later she's still in Alaska, now as captain of her own dredge. She has history with Zeke, another captain that may have been of the friends with benefits persuasion. He was in love with her in season one but it seemed unrequited. That story is there but I don't feel as if they've exploited it unnecessarily and I like that. It's a gold show. It's not the Cheers bar.
One man- Vern Adkison- is searching for gold because he is a staunch, anti-government conservative of the Ron Paul variety, I might guess, because he wants the gold for its enduring value as currency. He doesn't trust the Fed. I wonder if he doesn't spend his spare time on the internet... This old guy has spent every nickel he has and gone into debt to find gold. When the economy collapses and he's sitting on a million dollars in gold, he'll be able to afford that loaf of bread that going for $100k.
Programs like these are heavily edited. The genius is in the production. That is why 'The Deadliest Catch' still holds people's attention after so many years of the same guys catching crab. They let stuff happen and they film it. If they miss something, like Zeke Tenhoff getting arrested and fighting with the cops, they deal with the aftermath of that rather than fucking around trying to recreate it as others might do. I highly respect that. Zeke's description to his mates of his arrest and incarceration was far better than if the cameras had been there. The guy is a maniac. Last season his childhood friend committed suicide with a pistol. It was the second of his childhood friends to die in that manner. This can't bode well for Zeke.
I kinda root for these people. I can't help it. If you and a couple of rag-tag lunkheads can dive into the frigid waters of the Bering Sea and find gold, find as much as you can. Though there is a lot of luck involved, there is nothing easy about it. If I were more comfortable in the water and less comfortable in my sanity, I might do it myself.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
A Programming Note For The Thinking Impaired
It's Sunday and for many folks that means time for the Sunday Morning News Shows. Not Ferrerman! I'm watching 'Die Hard' with Bruce Willis and his original hair. I've seen it a hundred times and I know how it ends. Same with The Sunday Morning Shows.
Matter a fact, remember when the republicans were first trying to make BENGHAZI!!!!!! into 'IRAN-CONTRA: THE REVENGE' ? I remember John McCain (NOT John McClane) noting that Hillary Clinton and/or Susan Rice "....had all made the rounds of The Sunday Morning Shows...' down-playing the notion that BENGHAZI!!!!!!! was as bad as 9/11 like republicans were beginning to say. As I recall, McCain made the rounds of The Sunday Morning Shows to declare this. It's pretty clear that he and his kind in D.C. put a lot of stock in what is said on The Sunday Morning Shows. I don't. They are as scripted and phoney as Bruce Willis crawling through air ducts. In real life that are not made to support the weight of a full-grown actor. They move air which is as light as...air...not people!
The Sunday Morning Shows are for politicians to lay out the upcoming week's political bullshit for their rivals and for the political junkies that need that info but don't know it's just dog whistle stuff. The Sunday Morning Shows is where a republican politician will go on one program and demand: "Where are the jobs, Obama??!! Tens of millions are out of work- more than your BIG GOVERNMENT figures claim! People need help! Why aren't you helping long-term unemployed people who have given up hope???!!"
That's some pretty powerful bullshit there. I say bullshit not because I'm a democratic Ferrerman but, because I'm a democratic Ferrerman who knows that on the next stop on The Sunday Morning Shows, the exact same motherfucker will solve long-term unemployment by denying long-term unemployment benefits "....to people who clearly don't want to work and would rather suck off the government teat!"
The same guy! On one show there are no jobs and it's the president's fault and twenty minutes later there are tons of jobs but millions of people too lazy to get them because they prefer getting paid to do nothing! Are they Congressmen? How dare they...
So which is it? When the distinguished gentleman from The Great State Of Duplicity speaks out of both sides of his mouth, which side do we believe?
He's actually saying the same thing, just two different ways. His actual message is: President = BAD! And unemployment BENEFITS = BAD!!
This is what politicians have always done. You'd think that the immediacy and permanent record of television, combined with the internet, would expose the shit out of these lying bastards but, you'd be wrong. It doesn't matter. Jon Stewart exposes their hypocrisy and lies four nights a week and they still keep him busy with their bullshit because people hear only what they want to hear. Politicians know this and tailor their message to their constituents, the ones that don't wine, dine and align them. The people help out by willingly listening to a congressperson lie to them. They are convenient lies.
Politics is about right and wrong. It's almost Biblical. Ask yourself , "What would Jesus do?" Would Jesus bomb this or that country? Would Jesus not feed the poor or heal the sick? Would Jesus say, "Fuck you, you non-job having moocher!"?
Of course not. You don't have to be a Christian to have Christian values. In fact, most Christians do not have Christian values. If they did, they would be the ones desiring healthcare for all plus food and clothing for the poor. Instead, it's Godless democrats who do that. Fucking ironic, huh? Odd too that The Sunday Morning Shows are on when people- Christian people- are supposed to be in church, not listening to politicians lying. Hmmm...shouldn't the politician be in church too? Well, at least we know where Ferrerman is and what he's not watching on TV.
Matter a fact, remember when the republicans were first trying to make BENGHAZI!!!!!! into 'IRAN-CONTRA: THE REVENGE' ? I remember John McCain (NOT John McClane) noting that Hillary Clinton and/or Susan Rice "....had all made the rounds of The Sunday Morning Shows...' down-playing the notion that BENGHAZI!!!!!!! was as bad as 9/11 like republicans were beginning to say. As I recall, McCain made the rounds of The Sunday Morning Shows to declare this. It's pretty clear that he and his kind in D.C. put a lot of stock in what is said on The Sunday Morning Shows. I don't. They are as scripted and phoney as Bruce Willis crawling through air ducts. In real life that are not made to support the weight of a full-grown actor. They move air which is as light as...air...not people!
The Sunday Morning Shows are for politicians to lay out the upcoming week's political bullshit for their rivals and for the political junkies that need that info but don't know it's just dog whistle stuff. The Sunday Morning Shows is where a republican politician will go on one program and demand: "Where are the jobs, Obama??!! Tens of millions are out of work- more than your BIG GOVERNMENT figures claim! People need help! Why aren't you helping long-term unemployed people who have given up hope???!!"
That's some pretty powerful bullshit there. I say bullshit not because I'm a democratic Ferrerman but, because I'm a democratic Ferrerman who knows that on the next stop on The Sunday Morning Shows, the exact same motherfucker will solve long-term unemployment by denying long-term unemployment benefits "....to people who clearly don't want to work and would rather suck off the government teat!"
The same guy! On one show there are no jobs and it's the president's fault and twenty minutes later there are tons of jobs but millions of people too lazy to get them because they prefer getting paid to do nothing! Are they Congressmen? How dare they...
So which is it? When the distinguished gentleman from The Great State Of Duplicity speaks out of both sides of his mouth, which side do we believe?
He's actually saying the same thing, just two different ways. His actual message is: President = BAD! And unemployment BENEFITS = BAD!!
This is what politicians have always done. You'd think that the immediacy and permanent record of television, combined with the internet, would expose the shit out of these lying bastards but, you'd be wrong. It doesn't matter. Jon Stewart exposes their hypocrisy and lies four nights a week and they still keep him busy with their bullshit because people hear only what they want to hear. Politicians know this and tailor their message to their constituents, the ones that don't wine, dine and align them. The people help out by willingly listening to a congressperson lie to them. They are convenient lies.
Politics is about right and wrong. It's almost Biblical. Ask yourself , "What would Jesus do?" Would Jesus bomb this or that country? Would Jesus not feed the poor or heal the sick? Would Jesus say, "Fuck you, you non-job having moocher!"?
Of course not. You don't have to be a Christian to have Christian values. In fact, most Christians do not have Christian values. If they did, they would be the ones desiring healthcare for all plus food and clothing for the poor. Instead, it's Godless democrats who do that. Fucking ironic, huh? Odd too that The Sunday Morning Shows are on when people- Christian people- are supposed to be in church, not listening to politicians lying. Hmmm...shouldn't the politician be in church too? Well, at least we know where Ferrerman is and what he's not watching on TV.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Barbarians At The Gates
There was a scene in last season's episodes of The Walking Dead where the town needed all hands on deck in an impending battle with the enemy of the non-dead variety. The Governor called for all hands and a Woodbury citizen protested that some of those hands were just teenage children.
"Teenagers" replied The Governor, "are a 20th century concept."
He then reiterated his command. ALL hands on deck. It was the 21st century, after all.
Teenagers are rather recent development in society. They are also becoming a vanishing breed. For all intents and purposes, teenagers began with the post-war, baby boom generation. The fifties brought about the first generation of teens that were expected to be consumers and enjoy life before going off to college or work in the trades, marry and raise their own children to be consumers. They rocked and rolled and watched TV. It was a great time to be a kid and it was only going to get better.
There were always privileged children who lived the easy life and had the latest this and that, but the end of WWII brought about a mass of children whose parents wanted the best for them. The American Dream was born. It's the American dream as we've known it, collectively. Your version may vary but it likely includes your kids having Xbox and maybe working a few hours at the mall to purchase their own games .or weed.
In the old days, lots of kids went to school perhaps just long enough to learn how to write their names and do some ciphering before they went off to work the farm or support the family in the local factory or coal mine. Most kids worked. It was generally hard, filthy labor that paid little. Children died, and lost limbs. It was just the way it was. The American dream for most then was to eat. For the entrepreneurs, the dream was the rewards of hard work- other people's hard work. That dream still lives on.
I think it's that dream that has been eroding that middle class dream of shopping malls and Rock N' Roll High Schools.
You and I would think that shopping malls filled with teenagers buying stuff would be awesome for anyone's version of the American dream but, that's why we're stupid losers who don't have corporations. I've said it before on these pages: As cool as we think we are, we can be replaced.We can be the third-world labor force. I'm sorry- what did you think breaking Unions and not-raising the minimum wage would do?
It's all well and good to screw the guy who puts your Big Mac together out of fair wages but, why should you be immune? I know you think you're valuable at your job but the reality is that a kid fresh out of college can do it for 1/4 the cost of paying you. Not as well- not at first-but your company doesn't care about that. They were paying you $80k This kid will do your job for $20k. Do the math. Remember when you said these people should take any job- regardless of pay? Your job is any job. Why didn't you see that coming?
Well, they forgot to tell you that part. Rather conveniently for them, wouldn't you say?
Aside from the Union-busting and the haggling over the minimum and the quest to eliminate it instead, they also have a major boner for the handouts that you despise- welfare and unemployment compensation. You may have noticed that Social Security has been referred to as an "entitlement" as has "medicare" even though you, me and most all of us pay into that. They have just about succeeded in convincing idiots that SS is 'welfare'. The alternative is the lottery of 401k's I guess. What could go wrong there, he asked, pointing to Wall Street ...
I think two years ago Missouri dropped their Child Labor laws, rather quietly. Nike sweatshops didn't spring up overnight in St. Louis but, why did they do that? When Mitt Romney was caught on tape with his 47% comment, he had already openly admitted that it was tough to compete with China when they had to use barbed wire fences and guards to keep out people who would force their way in to work for 98 cents per hour. And how 'bout that trampoline spread out in the Atrium of the dormitory for Happy Fun Hour? How do we (them) compete with that?
Well, for starters, eliminate the minimum wage, welfare and other safety trampolines- nets- that people could count on because those things, along with Unions and retirement money, make people soft and complacent and not the thrifty working class necessary for a strong country. Weird but, we were strong when we had all those things. Then they made us weak? How did that happen? That was the old days. I guess they just didn't work out and we have to go back to the old, old days. That must be it.
"Teenagers" replied The Governor, "are a 20th century concept."
He then reiterated his command. ALL hands on deck. It was the 21st century, after all.
Teenagers are rather recent development in society. They are also becoming a vanishing breed. For all intents and purposes, teenagers began with the post-war, baby boom generation. The fifties brought about the first generation of teens that were expected to be consumers and enjoy life before going off to college or work in the trades, marry and raise their own children to be consumers. They rocked and rolled and watched TV. It was a great time to be a kid and it was only going to get better.
There were always privileged children who lived the easy life and had the latest this and that, but the end of WWII brought about a mass of children whose parents wanted the best for them. The American Dream was born. It's the American dream as we've known it, collectively. Your version may vary but it likely includes your kids having Xbox and maybe working a few hours at the mall to purchase their own games .or weed.
In the old days, lots of kids went to school perhaps just long enough to learn how to write their names and do some ciphering before they went off to work the farm or support the family in the local factory or coal mine. Most kids worked. It was generally hard, filthy labor that paid little. Children died, and lost limbs. It was just the way it was. The American dream for most then was to eat. For the entrepreneurs, the dream was the rewards of hard work- other people's hard work. That dream still lives on.
I think it's that dream that has been eroding that middle class dream of shopping malls and Rock N' Roll High Schools.
You and I would think that shopping malls filled with teenagers buying stuff would be awesome for anyone's version of the American dream but, that's why we're stupid losers who don't have corporations. I've said it before on these pages: As cool as we think we are, we can be replaced.We can be the third-world labor force. I'm sorry- what did you think breaking Unions and not-raising the minimum wage would do?
It's all well and good to screw the guy who puts your Big Mac together out of fair wages but, why should you be immune? I know you think you're valuable at your job but the reality is that a kid fresh out of college can do it for 1/4 the cost of paying you. Not as well- not at first-but your company doesn't care about that. They were paying you $80k This kid will do your job for $20k. Do the math. Remember when you said these people should take any job- regardless of pay? Your job is any job. Why didn't you see that coming?
Well, they forgot to tell you that part. Rather conveniently for them, wouldn't you say?
Aside from the Union-busting and the haggling over the minimum and the quest to eliminate it instead, they also have a major boner for the handouts that you despise- welfare and unemployment compensation. You may have noticed that Social Security has been referred to as an "entitlement" as has "medicare" even though you, me and most all of us pay into that. They have just about succeeded in convincing idiots that SS is 'welfare'. The alternative is the lottery of 401k's I guess. What could go wrong there, he asked, pointing to Wall Street ...
I think two years ago Missouri dropped their Child Labor laws, rather quietly. Nike sweatshops didn't spring up overnight in St. Louis but, why did they do that? When Mitt Romney was caught on tape with his 47% comment, he had already openly admitted that it was tough to compete with China when they had to use barbed wire fences and guards to keep out people who would force their way in to work for 98 cents per hour. And how 'bout that trampoline spread out in the Atrium of the dormitory for Happy Fun Hour? How do we (them) compete with that?
Well, for starters, eliminate the minimum wage, welfare and other safety trampolines- nets- that people could count on because those things, along with Unions and retirement money, make people soft and complacent and not the thrifty working class necessary for a strong country. Weird but, we were strong when we had all those things. Then they made us weak? How did that happen? That was the old days. I guess they just didn't work out and we have to go back to the old, old days. That must be it.
Patriot Pay Day!
Maybe we've been going at this minimum wage thing all wrong? What if we lowered everyone's pay instead?
I don't know everyone and it might seem kind of presumptuous and assholey of me to think everyone makes too much money, but that's a pretty big club. You, me- we all fit right in.
Seriously, anyone who thinks $7.25 an hour is "plenty" or even "too much" to live on, ought to try it. Put your pocketbook where your mouth is. Help a country out.
If you can sit there, presumably fat and sassy, at your computer and say that $10 an hour or the $15 many economists say would be closer to being in-line with current cost of living is too much or that it would hurt the economy, they I can feel free to believe you make too much money. You're hurting the economy. Cut it out!
Cut your pay. Don't be chintzy either. Take it down to the $7.25 an hour you think is just fine and even a living wage for others. You'll be alright just like they would be alright. You know this because you said so yourself. You weren't lying about that, were you?
What might be the benefits of such a mass, across-the-board pay savings to America? Well, prices would go down, I guess. I mean, if they would surely rise with an increase to the minimum, they'd surely plummet if everybody took a massive pay cut. That's Economics 101. I'm not the internet economist that other people are but, low labor costs are the key to low, low prices. volume. Volume. VOLUME!
And, for those of you who still believe in trickle down after 30 plus years of that fantasy, profits would fucking jump! That can't ever be a bad thing, can it?
Isn't it time the country pulled together like this? If half the country knows people can live cheerfully on the minimum, lets make it the maximum for all of us. No, not the job creators. They can't live on the minimum. They are not as strong as we are. They can't survive without tax breaks. We can. It hurts them- physically- to pay taxes. Subsequently, many don't despite having billions of dollars they could be using to pay for roads, schools and the etc's of life in America that make us awesome, despite those etc's being socialist as all get out.
But you know, if I say that Mr Exxon or Mr Walmart "make too much money", I raise the ire of dipshits all over the internet who will call me a communist. Somehow, they have been told that taxing rich folks is "redistribution of wealth". Worse, the stupid fuckers believe this. They say: "How can you say $100 Billion is 'too much'?" That's just idiotic. The same folks say $15 an hour is "too much". Idiots.
Idiocy though, can be forgiven. Assholicy, can not.
Talk to your boss. Take that cut. Live on the Federal minimum wage . Treat yourself. We'll throw in welfare- if you qualify and if it's still there. And by all means, keep your insurance. You owe it to yourself and, you can afford it!. Really, you owe it to America. Don't we all owe it to our job creators? They think we do.
I don't know everyone and it might seem kind of presumptuous and assholey of me to think everyone makes too much money, but that's a pretty big club. You, me- we all fit right in.
Seriously, anyone who thinks $7.25 an hour is "plenty" or even "too much" to live on, ought to try it. Put your pocketbook where your mouth is. Help a country out.
If you can sit there, presumably fat and sassy, at your computer and say that $10 an hour or the $15 many economists say would be closer to being in-line with current cost of living is too much or that it would hurt the economy, they I can feel free to believe you make too much money. You're hurting the economy. Cut it out!
Cut your pay. Don't be chintzy either. Take it down to the $7.25 an hour you think is just fine and even a living wage for others. You'll be alright just like they would be alright. You know this because you said so yourself. You weren't lying about that, were you?
What might be the benefits of such a mass, across-the-board pay savings to America? Well, prices would go down, I guess. I mean, if they would surely rise with an increase to the minimum, they'd surely plummet if everybody took a massive pay cut. That's Economics 101. I'm not the internet economist that other people are but, low labor costs are the key to low, low prices. volume. Volume. VOLUME!
And, for those of you who still believe in trickle down after 30 plus years of that fantasy, profits would fucking jump! That can't ever be a bad thing, can it?
Isn't it time the country pulled together like this? If half the country knows people can live cheerfully on the minimum, lets make it the maximum for all of us. No, not the job creators. They can't live on the minimum. They are not as strong as we are. They can't survive without tax breaks. We can. It hurts them- physically- to pay taxes. Subsequently, many don't despite having billions of dollars they could be using to pay for roads, schools and the etc's of life in America that make us awesome, despite those etc's being socialist as all get out.
But you know, if I say that Mr Exxon or Mr Walmart "make too much money", I raise the ire of dipshits all over the internet who will call me a communist. Somehow, they have been told that taxing rich folks is "redistribution of wealth". Worse, the stupid fuckers believe this. They say: "How can you say $100 Billion is 'too much'?" That's just idiotic. The same folks say $15 an hour is "too much". Idiots.
Idiocy though, can be forgiven. Assholicy, can not.
Talk to your boss. Take that cut. Live on the Federal minimum wage . Treat yourself. We'll throw in welfare- if you qualify and if it's still there. And by all means, keep your insurance. You owe it to yourself and, you can afford it!. Really, you owe it to America. Don't we all owe it to our job creators? They think we do.
Friday, January 3, 2014
It's just business. They're taking it personal!
People on the internet often say: "If I ran my imaginary business like the government, I would be OUT of my imaginary business!" Well, I think they are out of their imaginary minds.
Government is a business. They have customers (that's us), employees (some of us), they make a product (war and stuff, I guess), and they have a CEO and a Board of Directors. That would be the President and Congress. They even have competition in the form of other countries. It is a business!
Now, along comes the GOP and their political wing, the teabaggers. At the very best, the GOP wants to take over government and downsize it- make it smaller. At it's worst, the teabaggers amongst them want to completely dismantle it. They think we'd all be better off foraging for berries in the forest.
Three hundred plus million people looking for berries in the woods is just fucking stupid so, forget about those stupid assholes.
These other assholes- the lamestream republicans- the ones that think Reagan was a great president, they euphemistically believe in "small government". Small government is a government that exists only to wage war and does so without taxing anyone but lazy poor people. This might be their motto:
"From each lazy person, to the job creators, according to what bizzaro Jesus would do."
Governments, like any business, are subject to failure. Your local pizza place has probably had an "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!" sign on it a few times in the last couple of decades. Every four to eight years here our government puts out the "under new management"sign even though it's not really "new". There's always holdovers on the Board of Directors and other employees and it's about as 'new' as Sal taking over his cousin Vinnies pizza place. It's kinda all for show. Most of us know that.
But, here's the thing. You can tweak a business and try and make it better by doing this and maybe not doing that but, in a country like this (we're pretty big) you can't make it a small operation after it's become big . Microsoft may have started in a garage but, they're not going back to their roots by going back to the garage. You know why? Because Bill Gates is not a fucking idiot. It's that simple. Yes, it would be cheaper to run Microsoft in a garage but it would be fucking stupid.
So, you can't run America from a garage. The founders never even did that, for you Constitutional scholars out there. The country was not founded in Washington's Ye Olde Coach House after all. Ye can google that.
Besides, who takes over an operation the size of the United States telling the customers that they are going to do LESS for them? A LOT LESS! I can't believe they get people to go along with that but, they do. It would be like Sal and Vinnies Pizza but, instead of them making a pizza (roads, for example) you bring in all the ingredients (concrete, asphalt etc.) and you make your own pizza (road)- just for you! And you pay Sal and Vinnie! NO YUCKY ENTITLEMENTS!!!
Man, if republican's intend to run the government like a literal small business, how soon before they torch the place for the insurance?
Government is a business. They have customers (that's us), employees (some of us), they make a product (war and stuff, I guess), and they have a CEO and a Board of Directors. That would be the President and Congress. They even have competition in the form of other countries. It is a business!
Now, along comes the GOP and their political wing, the teabaggers. At the very best, the GOP wants to take over government and downsize it- make it smaller. At it's worst, the teabaggers amongst them want to completely dismantle it. They think we'd all be better off foraging for berries in the forest.
Three hundred plus million people looking for berries in the woods is just fucking stupid so, forget about those stupid assholes.
These other assholes- the lamestream republicans- the ones that think Reagan was a great president, they euphemistically believe in "small government". Small government is a government that exists only to wage war and does so without taxing anyone but lazy poor people. This might be their motto:
"From each lazy person, to the job creators, according to what bizzaro Jesus would do."
Governments, like any business, are subject to failure. Your local pizza place has probably had an "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!" sign on it a few times in the last couple of decades. Every four to eight years here our government puts out the "under new management"sign even though it's not really "new". There's always holdovers on the Board of Directors and other employees and it's about as 'new' as Sal taking over his cousin Vinnies pizza place. It's kinda all for show. Most of us know that.
But, here's the thing. You can tweak a business and try and make it better by doing this and maybe not doing that but, in a country like this (we're pretty big) you can't make it a small operation after it's become big . Microsoft may have started in a garage but, they're not going back to their roots by going back to the garage. You know why? Because Bill Gates is not a fucking idiot. It's that simple. Yes, it would be cheaper to run Microsoft in a garage but it would be fucking stupid.
So, you can't run America from a garage. The founders never even did that, for you Constitutional scholars out there. The country was not founded in Washington's Ye Olde Coach House after all. Ye can google that.
Besides, who takes over an operation the size of the United States telling the customers that they are going to do LESS for them? A LOT LESS! I can't believe they get people to go along with that but, they do. It would be like Sal and Vinnies Pizza but, instead of them making a pizza (roads, for example) you bring in all the ingredients (concrete, asphalt etc.) and you make your own pizza (road)- just for you! And you pay Sal and Vinnie! NO YUCKY ENTITLEMENTS!!!
Man, if republican's intend to run the government like a literal small business, how soon before they torch the place for the insurance?
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Aaron Rodgers To Fill In At Tight End
Turning to sports, Green Bay Packer quarterback, Aaron Rodgers denied rumors that he is gay. How fortunate for him that Packer fans suck.
OK, that was mean. Saying something nice....Aaron Rodgers sucks better than Jay Cutler!
This is not going to be easy...
Evidently Rodger's roommate and personal assistant...Kevin Lanfilsi... has put out some tweets that, well, sound like Lanfilsi was actually Rodgers' favorite receiver- not Jordy Nelson. And, he's a bit disgruntled.
In the radio interview, Rodgers apparently broached the subject himself, rather than fielding the question from a reporter. That's damage control. That's calling an audible at the line when you think the defense is on to you.
Kind of a dumb call on his part. Maybe he saw a blitz coming? The relationship is his business after all and, my guess is that if there is any romance between these two and it's over, he knows better than fans and media about what's happening or is about to happen.
As a Bear fan, I've made jokes in the past about Rodgers being gay. See above. It goes with the territory of fandom really. It's just joking around, what Father Francis Mulcahey would call: "Jocularity!" I can't say I ever thought about who Aaron Rodgers achieved orgasm with. It's not really important, ya know. Except for people who are obviously out and about, I tend to look at people at the face value of their sexuality. Honestly, I assume most people are straight and bitching about the men or women in their life regardless of team affiliation. I'd no more be concerned about Rodgers love-making partner than I would be about Jay Cutler and his girlfriend, Kristin. Really.
Part of being a Ferrerman is my free and open mind. Oh- and jokes! So, if I make fun of Rodgers for being kinda Johnny Jolly in his loafers and for his BJ Raji preference, I'm just playing! I know it's bad though like taunting a guy by saying he plays "like a girl..."
There's nothing wrong with being a girl or with being gay. Or being Black. Or being anyone who cares about others. We really need to stop diminishing people in society for who they are- for what we perceive that they are. Our perceptions are our problems. Our perceptions become their problems. That is the problem.
I probably should quit calling them the Green Gay Fudge Packers?
This isn't going to be easy....
OK, that was mean. Saying something nice....Aaron Rodgers sucks better than Jay Cutler!
This is not going to be easy...
Evidently Rodger's roommate and personal assistant...Kevin Lanfilsi... has put out some tweets that, well, sound like Lanfilsi was actually Rodgers' favorite receiver- not Jordy Nelson. And, he's a bit disgruntled.
In the radio interview, Rodgers apparently broached the subject himself, rather than fielding the question from a reporter. That's damage control. That's calling an audible at the line when you think the defense is on to you.
Kind of a dumb call on his part. Maybe he saw a blitz coming? The relationship is his business after all and, my guess is that if there is any romance between these two and it's over, he knows better than fans and media about what's happening or is about to happen.
As a Bear fan, I've made jokes in the past about Rodgers being gay. See above. It goes with the territory of fandom really. It's just joking around, what Father Francis Mulcahey would call: "Jocularity!" I can't say I ever thought about who Aaron Rodgers achieved orgasm with. It's not really important, ya know. Except for people who are obviously out and about, I tend to look at people at the face value of their sexuality. Honestly, I assume most people are straight and bitching about the men or women in their life regardless of team affiliation. I'd no more be concerned about Rodgers love-making partner than I would be about Jay Cutler and his girlfriend, Kristin. Really.
Part of being a Ferrerman is my free and open mind. Oh- and jokes! So, if I make fun of Rodgers for being kinda Johnny Jolly in his loafers and for his BJ Raji preference, I'm just playing! I know it's bad though like taunting a guy by saying he plays "like a girl..."
There's nothing wrong with being a girl or with being gay. Or being Black. Or being anyone who cares about others. We really need to stop diminishing people in society for who they are- for what we perceive that they are. Our perceptions are our problems. Our perceptions become their problems. That is the problem.
I probably should quit calling them the Green Gay Fudge Packers?
This isn't going to be easy....
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