Whatever your party affiliation, your convictions, or opinions, we can all agree that it is our civic duty to get out and vote.
For us PA voters, there has been a huge deal made about Photo ID being required for voting. In fact, the stupid ads were still be played on the air even after the Supreme Court shot down the law requiring ID. So, in case you are still confused, I will say it one last time....
In Pennsylvania, you will be ASKED, but NOT REQUIRED to show Photo Identification at the polls, unless you are voting for the first time in a new polling place.
OK, so get out and vote. The lines will be long, but I'd rather complain about wasting an hour of my life instead of not being able to complain about the next four years.
On Monday, I kind of took a jab at my wife over her saying that they killed Obama Bin Laden.Well, I apologize because everybody seems to be having trouble getting the name right.Now, normally I would laugh at the fact that FOX News got it wrong.I’ll let you stew on that for a bit.However, it seems that CNN, local news affiliates and even people can get the names mixed up just as much as Geraldo Rivera.
Check out 1:02 for the huge fail.
Now, as I was coming back from lunch during my day long sit-and-wait-to-be-told-that-I wasn’t-going-to-be-picked-for-jury-duty, I passed by one of the televisions which was showing HLN.The crawl at the bottom was “NYC FIREFIGHTERS REACT TO OBAMA’S DEATH”.
As an amateur humorist and lover of all things quirky about language I have to find the funny in all this.In our time, we have had a murderous Al Qaeda leader named Osama Bin Laden and a President of the United States named Barack Hussein Obama.Now, what are the odds that, one day, these two people with similar sounding names would cross paths where one would end up being killed during the others Presidential term?It boggles the mind.
As we move through the life cycle of this news story, there will probably be countless other grammatical slips and I hope that we have the common sense to realize what they are and move past them.However, I’m sure somewhere in the White House, Michelle is asking her husband about his ‘other wives’.At least, I hope she’s joking about it.
With that, I leave you with the only possible to tie this all together.
Everyone wants to have that philosophical, frozen in time debate about where they were when something happened.
“Where were you when…”
Our parents had the ‘When Kennedy was shot’ for their generational question. Mine was, ‘When the Challenger blew up’. The tail end of that generational question will be, ‘When 9/11 occurred.’ The new generation will have a tossup. Will it be, ‘When Michael Jackson died’ or ‘When Osama Bin Laden was killed’?
Given that the average teenager has limited experience with Jackson’s music, apart from Akon working with him in his final years, I’m thinking that Bin Laden’s death will rule out. Just saying.
In any case, we have way too many ‘moments in time’ for us to keep remembering every little detail. However, I have the feeling that when anyone ever asks me where I was when I heard Osama was killed, I will be able to recall exactly what I was doing.
I was scooping out cat poop from the litter box.
My wife yelled down to say, “They got him. They killed O[inaudible].”
I said, “What?”
She yells down again, “They killed Obama[inaudible].”
I dropped the scooper into the litter box. My heart jumped into my throat. Someone just assassinated the President?!?!?
“Pause that, shit! I’ll be right up.”
Turns out the first time she yelled down she said, ‘Osama Bin Laden’. When I asked her to repeat it, she flubbed it and said, ‘Obama Bin Laden’.
Regardless of malapropisms, I stayed up an extra hour to watch all the coverage and nearly slept through the alarm this morning. My thoughts swayed between relief that they had finally gotten the man responsible for planning the 9/11 attacks to fear that retaliation would commence while we celebrated. After all, there is a need for Al Qaeda to establish relevance in the wake of this news and that scares me.
Then I heard the news that they buried the body at sea. That’s just flipping wonderful isn’t it? We just endured the onslaught of Donald Trump crying, “Show us your papers, Obama” for the last few weeks, now we’ll have continuous cries of “Show us the body.” The naysayers will probably do the following.
It’s election time. Obama is using this to boost numbers.
The body was conveniently buried to cover up that he has been dead or is still alive.
This is to take focus away from the birthing issue.
Has it really come to this? Are we really that divided of a nation that we look at every little thing that goes on as a conspiracy? Can’t we just take a little comfort in the fact that a terrible person has come to justice, one way or the other. I’m not going to go out and dance in the streets but I’m glad that those affected by the attacks in 2001 are one more step towards closure.
I’m also glad I wasn’t doing anything embarrassing when I heard the news. “Where was I when Osama was killed? Oh, I was in the bathroom, having an intestinal issue. It was taco night.”
As a footnote I would to extend my sincerest support for those who have fought and died to protect us from harm. I also commend SEAL Team Six for pulling off this operation with as little loss of life as necessary.
Round four of the nominations goes to the political d-bags that made this year so d-bagarific. Yes, the list of noms looks a little slanted towards one side, but stick with me on this one.
Christine O'Donnell
She ran for the Senate in Delaware under the banner of the Tea Party Movement. What happened after the primaries was one of the funniest campaigns since Sarah Palin looked up from her house and saw Russia, declaring six more weeks of idiocy. As far as her own idiocy is concerned, here are some highlights, in no particular order. She criticised reckless government spending yet she had financial difficulties that made her look more fiscally irresponsible. Then she attacked her opponent, Mike Castle, by insinuating that he was having a homosexual affair. She ended up winning the primary. Various stories floated around that she was in a Masters program at Princeton, while she didn't receive her undergraduate until 2010. Her LinkedIn profile was a bit off, listing Oxford as a place of study, and she claims it was not created by her. She asked voters to keep an open mind about her but played the conservative, no hey diddle diddle with your kitty in the middle because it was just as bad as adultery. Meanwhile, her own past was wrought with various sexual experiences including the best of all, the witchcraft card. Oh yes, if you haven't seen the videos or heard the stories, little miss goodie two shoes was a witch.
Was she?
No.
First off, she was poser. Anyone remotely associated with the real kind of witchcraft that gets bastardized in the media and throughout organized religion has nothing to do with Satanism, yet O'Donnell claims she dabbled in witchcraft and had sex on a Satanic altar with animal blood. Um, Satanism and Witchcraft are two different things. Pagan (real witch stuff) predates Christianity. So, she's basically stupid in two religions. Also, going on that whole crusade against evil pretty much makes her a hypocrite. This witch shouldn't be throwing rune stones.
Bill Maher showing witch clip from Politically Incorrect
Sarah Palin
Palmgate, Fencegate, Trig-Gate, and pretty much any other list of ridiculous gates that have come out of the three ring circus that started once she decided to quit her job as Governor of Alaska. Well, she had to, in order to spend more time gaining fame from the media circuit in order to build up a following should she feel the urge to, oh I don't know, run for President in 2012. First she used her son, Trig, as a prop in most of her early appearances. Then we had the Hillbilly Palm Pilot or the Palin Prompter occur. As a contributor to Fox News, Palin supposedly interviewed LL Cool J and Toby Keith, but both of those interviews were lifted from previous interviews in which Palin was never involved in as an interviewer. As someone who continually berated the President for using a teleprompter it comes as a surprise that she would get caught red handed doing the same thing during a speech. Not to let an opportunity to make waves go by, she also defended idiot extraordinaire Laura Schlessinger's use of the "N" word during a radio show. Apparently, Palin forgets that First Amendment rights do not extend themselves to employers, who can fire or suspend whomever they want to, for violating company ethics. The latest in d-baggery is the whole reality show that allows Sarah Palin to hunt and slaughter just about anything she can get her sharpie palms on these days. If only the camping trip with Kate Gosselin would have turned into a Timothy Treadwell documentary, or a pillow fight, that would have been something.
Palmgate from Inside Edition
Bill O'Reilly
The political pinhead made major news during the whole Ground Zero Mosque debate when he went on The View and pretty much generalized the entire issue of 9/11 as "Muslims killed us on 9/11." That statement and the ensuing argument caused Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to leave the set, much to the chargrin of Barbara Walters who chided her cohosts for the act of defiance. The entire issue over the Mosque site can be boiled down to the d-baggery statement, uttered by O'Reilly. Whether or not the Mosque should be built near or within a few city blocks is debatable. It could be called a power play or a simple matter of available real estate. However, the misconception that Muslims were responsible for what happened on 9/11 is the basis for most of the issues we have in this day and age. The assigning of blame to an entire class, race, gender, or religious identity for the actions of extremists within that group is what has eroded the fabric of humanity. All Muslims are not terrorists, just as all Christians are not like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. All political pundits are not like Bill O'Reilly, just the d-bags. :)
Bill O'Reilly on The View
Glenn Beck
The Rally to Restore Honor was neither a rally or honorable. It was a publicity stunt, pure and simple, down to the date and location of the event, August 28 at the Lincoln Memorial. Beck billed his rally as a way for Americans to unite regardless of political affiliation or religious background. Figures in attendance were grosely miscalculated as much as the message that was being given at the rally. Boiling it all down, it was simply a way to generate publicity for Beck. He is, by his own admission, not a political pundit. He is an entertainer. He says he could give a rat's ass about politics. If that is not honorable, then I don't know what is.
Tea Party Movement
The movement was supposed to be a call to arms for Americans, tired of government. What it became was a puppet of the GOP's plans to take back government by using waht they felt was a necessary tool, fear. Fear that government, and Democrats, were trying to socialize, grow, and take over everything in America. But, I guess I should disqualify them and I do. I am simply playing into my own argument of blaming an entire organization for the acts of individuals. Those individuals used the Tea Party as a platform to be racist, homophobic, ethnocentric, comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin, among other d-baggery. So, I humbly excuse the Tea Party Movement from being nominated and move onto the winner of this round.
Politicians in general
There I go, generalizing again, but I can't help it. This year was all about the political process. The movements, the elections, the bills, the everything. It has all boiled down to this. The political process in this country has been about getting in control, not actually doing the right thing for America. It doesn't matter if it's a Democrat or Republican, Red or Blue, Left or Right. Whether it be Mitch McConnell declaring that his highest achievement should be to make Obama a one-term president or Obama going back on his word to end the Bush era tax cuts, everything has been about control, not the American people. In the words of Bill Murray from Ghostbusters II, "I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to lie to me and kiss my butt?" Mitch McConnell's single highest achievement should not be making sure that Obama is a one-term president. It should be to do what is best for the people he serves, whomever might be in charge of country. He needs to not stall or kill things as a power struggle, but to work together and get things done in order to make this country a better place. Instead of working against each other, how about they all start working with each other. We all wanted change and we would have gotten it if they would have all stopped playing the part of the bitter playground kid who didn't like how the game was going and took their ball and went home. Suck it up, d-bags. We elected you. We changed the team line up in 2010 and don't think we won't do it again come next election. Everyone is getting a full count from now on and there is little room for anyone to screw up here.
Politics is a slippery slope. You grease the wheels for months, garnering support for your cause, and when you get a hold of the brass ring people expect results. I’m not even talking about the ones who paid for it. I’m speaking of us, the general public who made the call. Unfortunately, instead of being patient while plans are set in motion, we’re looking for instant gratification and so is the ticker on Wall Street.
The economy is in the outhouse and most of America is in the poorhouse. Well, not everyone. The tenet of “He who dies with the most toys wins” is alive and well in America. In recent weeks, there has been more fingers of shame pointed at bad behavior then ever were, domestically, in the past few years. To equate to an office environment, the Obama administration is calling everyone into the break room and informing us all that we are all required to work more efficiently and cut down on expenditures. Usually, the boss wouldn’t name names in public. He’d address the group as a whole allowing the guilty parties some anonymity in order to change their actions but folks from AIG to GM are still thinking that the Administration is talking about someone else and continue to do business as usual. Finally, Obama had enough and publicly called out AIG for its bonus scandal and also asked Rick Wagoner to step down as CEO of GM. Both of which have had polarizing effects on the public and the economy.
Then the question arises, should Obama have done it? Is this positive movement towards that ‘change’ thing he spoke of for months prior to the election? In a word, yes. There are those who think that it’s not the job of the White House to make these requests. However, who’s job is it? It’s obvious that the reason we are in this mess is because no one bothered to watch the trends. It’s not just the fault of the previous administration, but it’s their fault that is wasn’t stopped sooner. The fact remains that this is a country of the people, for the people, and by the people and we have every right to question what we think is wrong, whether you are for the current administration or against it. Either way, we gave the administration the right to cover our asses.
When we elect an official to put our best interests forward, we give him/her the power to speak and act on our behalf. When that entails our tax money being used to bail out troubled corporations, whether they deserve it or not, the official exercises, by proxy, our wishes. Therefore, we and the elected official acquire the ability to make that call. Now, the President can ask for the resignation of Rick Wagoner, but it was up to the board of GM to approve it. There is the rub. Everybody talks about how this is the first step towards Socialism when all it is calling out someone for farting in the car. As long as you ignore the problem, Stinky McGee will keep letting them rip.
Then there’s the case of Bank of America wanting to spend TARP money on sponsorships for sports deals. Well that’s just great. We just gave Jack our only cow to sell and he came back with magic beans. It’s like giving someone money to pay off their debts and instead of doing just that, they turn around and try to double it at the craps table. I didn’t spend my stimulus check or tax refund on scratch and win tickets. I paid off some debt and bought some items for the home. I stimulated the economy.
Maybe we’re asking for too much here. Maybe bailing out these big companies was a bad idea. We hoped that by shoring up their assets, they’d help grease the frozen wheels on the economy and get it going forward. Instead of doing that, perhaps a better message to them would have been to reap what they sowed. Of course, letting them fail would have been the first domino in a huge That’s Incredible display that would have made things worse. Yet, everyone was so quick to get the TARP money out to stop the bleeding that nobody bothered to make sure that we were stitching up the wounds and not just putting a band aid on it. There should have been some provisions on how the money was spent. Grants given with some language attached that specified the purpose of the money. Instead we gave Joe, the copy room guy, an expense account and sent him to Vegas for a conference. Now, AP is looking over Joe’s expense report and asking, “What the hell is this $500 charge for special services?”
Here in Pittsburgh, we faced a similar situation. The city was given a grant in the neighborhood of $400 million dollars, to construct a tunnel from the main part of the city to the North Side. The purpose was connecting downtown with the main sporting areas and a new casino that is being built near them. In a time when the city was in jeopardy of losing a major hockey franchise, needed a new arena constructed for sporting and other events, and also needed major overhauls to the transportation system and road infrastructure, it seemed silly and irresponsible to spend that kind of money on an underwater tunnel for an underused light rail system. Yet, that is what the money was allocated for by its donors. We didn’t have a choice. We either had to use it or lose it. So, drilling and construction began on what is called the North Shore Connector.
Now, there is talk that it may not be completed because of a ballooning budget due to materials and the poor economy. Still, the money, given to the city, was specified for a certain project. Not like the drink tax or Onorato tax, as we like to call it, which give the city the ability to add a 10% tax to alcoholic beverages in order to pay for the Port Authority’s budgetary expenses. When the final tabulation was made at the end of its first year, there was a huge surplus beyond what was forecast. Instead of using that money for its intended purpose, Onorato wanted to spend the money on other projects like bridges and roadways. This was met with huge amounts of criticism because the opinion of instituting this tax in the first place was a major point of contention with residents who were then threatened with the idea that if they don’t pay the drink tax, property taxes have to go up. Let’s say the shoe was on the other foot and the Bar and Restaurant Owners Association was hurting for money. If the Port Authority had added a tax increase on transit fares to help them out, which they would never do, and the Bar and Restaurant Owners Association decided to use that money for other expenses instead of their budgets and payrolls, there would have been a major uproar over the issue.
Now, in the case of public opinion over the economy, we need to either be a little more patient and make more concessions. This was my biggest fear when Obama was elected. Not ‘what’ he would do, but how we would perceive it. We believed in change, yet we want someone else to do all the work. We need to take a little more responsibility for making things happen. That goes for unions, CEO’s, and everyday Americans. Our short attention span approval ratings need to get a reality check and we better start realizing that we need to be the force behind change. The coach can call the plays. He can design them, inspire us with a rousing “Gipper” speech, and give us all the tools for success, but ultimately, we have to go out on the field and win the game. For once, in a long time, there has been no glossy film put upon a Presidential Administration. We got what we asked for and there’s been no attempts to hide any actions. It’s just time for us to grease the wheels a little bit on our own and make the country go a little smoother. Thing is, we all have to give it a little push.
Bailouts.. TARPs… Recession… Stimulus… No matter how you label it we’re a little McScrewed. I use that term because that’s probably where I’ll end up working with the way things are going. The government seems fit to throw money at organizations that have shown they can’t be trusted with money. The promise is that the Federal Government is giving IOU’s to banks to stabilize credit and in return they pay back the loan with interest. In theory, there should be a profit.
Now, I don’t know about you, but the last time I used an IOU was when I was a college student and a little short on cash around the holidays. I used my student computer account and Photoshop to create these little “Coupons” for my parents that basically stated that I would clean out the garage or wash the cars instead of buying them a present. That was 15 years ago and I never did make good on those IOUs. So, how do we know the banks will pay back the Government? In essence, the Government just became Fannie Mae and the banks became the American homeowner who bought a sub-prime mortgage.
For the most part attitudes have changed but still people are conducting shady business as usual. John Thain, there’s a guy we’ve all read about in the news, he was the Merrill Lynch CEO that used $1.2 million dollars to renovate his office and gave out billions in bonuses to executives days prior to the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. In his defense, he cited that a lot of the losses Merrill Lynch suffered were due to his predecessor. Ok, the man had a $1400 garbage can in his office. You tell me who is to blame for this? Oh, and his answer for why he gave the bonuses, “if you don't pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise.” Well, guess what, Bucko. You were supposed to be the best and you almost destroyed the franchise.
This type of mentality doesn’t surprise me when you hear about all the rumblings along Wall Street in response to President Obama’s decree that salaries will be capped at $500,000 for executives of companies receiving TARP funds. Now, there is anarchy and bedlam in the board rooms as executives find themselves suddenly in a salary freeze. What to do? What to do? Rudy Giuliani has said that if you take away bonuses and incentives from these people that the rest of New York will suffer from reduced patronage at restaurants and other establishments. Sorry, Rudy, but these guys aren’t going to McDonald’s or even Houlihan's and they aren’t creating unemployment buy losing a few zeroes in their paycheck. They already created unemployment by letting their companies become so screwed up.
Look, if you are a company that is going to the Government and asking for millions of dollars to help keep you afloat then you need to tighten your belts, too. Guess what? Everyone else has to so don’t think we’re picking on you guys. My salary got frozen along with a lot of other folks’. You’re going to have to start living like the rest of us. If you can’t, then you’ve proven our point. You work for a financial institution for pity’s sake. Did you not learn how to manage your money? Now, if your company was solid and didn’t need financial assistance from the TARP, then by all means, do what you want. By that token, you should be acting responsibly and mindfully of the economy. If anyone believes we’ve already seen the bottom of this hole, then they’re just as delusional as bonus backed bankers.
Just like we, as regular taxpaying, nine to five working folks need to realize that everything didn’t change in November. You try stopping a speeding locomotive on a dime. It’s impossible, even for Superman, and sorry to say, Obama is not Superman. No one is. It’s going to take a lot of time and patience to slow this speeding train and get things working properly. Unfortunately, we are an short attention span audience. We want something to happen right now. We want our credit lines to be fixed, our jobs saved, and our President to wave a magic wand and make all the bad people go away. An economic stimulus package won’t solve all the problems. In my opinion, I don’t think I’ll be getting one of those rainbow sherbet looking checks with the Statue of Liberty on it. I think this package is more for the businesses that give us our other checks, the ones we get every other week. That’s so we can keep getting them. This isn’t a hand out. This is an opportunity to create jobs to fix roads and bridges. It’s a chance to upgrade our cities instead of building up on the degraded infrastructure that has been allowed to lapse into the old standards of the 20th and in some really depressed areas, the 19th centuries.
Is the Government doing the best they can for the nation. I hope so. I don’t think you can narrowly point to one man, one company, or one administration and say, “Shame on you.” This has been allowed to go on for years and people figured, it’s only wrong if you get caught. Somebody out there screamed and waved their arms, trying to be heard as the voice of reason and was ignored as is usually the case in any disaster movie. Well, now the economy could be the basis for a new Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film, in fact they’re probably sitting around trying to figure out how to work in huge explosions to take out their fictional Fannie Mae’s or Lehman Brothers. Be sure that Hans Zimmer is firing up the synthesizers trying to find the right set of chords to play as President Obama, as played by Will Smith or Jamie Fox, slowly stands up with that stern look on his face as the camera pans up and around him in slow motion. This is the moment you’ll be waiting for because that when he’ll get pissed and go on the offensive, taking out bankers left and right without having to reload. Once you wake up and realize that life is not a movie, albeit almost a bad one, you’ll go back to your job, look at other companies’ postings and wildly throw your resume about hoping that one of them is in better shape and willing to hire you.
If you think that throwing money at the problem will make it go away, then all you’ll do is live from bailout to bailout, stimulus to stimulus, and we’ll be right back where we started when this whole mess reared its ugly head. We all need to be aware that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We need to change our course as individuals whether we make $500,000 or $50,000 a year. We need to realize that when it does get better, it won’t stay that away. We need to be ready for the next big hole or out of control locomotive, otherwise we’ll be saying “Would you like fries with that?” instead, “I’d like to supersize that.”
