It didn’t take long for the bloom to come off Obama did it? All it took was his stimulus package to take care of that. Of course I don’t know why anybody should be surprised.
A lot of people got upset because during the campaign he kept talking about making changes, then as he was appointing people to various cabinets it seemed like it was the same old faces. Well fucking DUH! Did anyone really expect he would appoint people who hadn’t done these jobs before? It wasn’t like he was going to appoint regular people to these jobs!
And if that wasn’t enough, people really got bent out of shape when the stimulus bill came out. People have been screaming so much about it that you’d think he was spray-painting graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I know that there has to be some “pork” bullshit in any budget, or in this case stimulus package, to make these criminals, I mean congressmen, happy. If there isn’t something there that isn’t for their constituency, then they will vote against whatever the bill/budget/package is. It’s called compromising. Bill Clinton was an expert at it & we had a good economy while he was in office didn’t we?
I know the argument is that during the campaign Obama said he wouldn’t put “pork” items in the budget, but like I said, it’s called compromise. Plus, he’s a politician therefore he lied…get the fuck over it.
It’s nice to see though that a politician finally stood up to a company CEO begging for money and said, “Yeah, we’ll give you more money. But only if you quit.” Whether it’s the right thing to do remains to be seen. On one hand, I like the idea of a CEO getting canned because he ran his company into the ground, but on the other, it could be setting a dangerous precedent. Do we really want the government, specifically the CINC firing CEO’s of businesses?
Of course if Dumm-ya and congress had put this stipulation in the bailout package to begin with, maybe Obama wouldn’t have to do it. Makes you wonder if the bailout package was setup this way on purpose.
Since we’re on the subject of the economy…
When you get right down to it, the fact the economy went into the tank is everybody’s fault. Especially us, the ordinary people. You know why? Because none of us know shit about finance. We don’t know about things like subprime mortgages, balloon payments or compound interest. We don’t read our mortgage agreements or credit card agreements, I bet most of us know what the interest rates on our credit cards are. We don’t know how things like 401K or hedge funds, which is why a guy like Bernie Madoff can rip thousands off to the tune of $50-billion, I repeat, $50-BILLION dollars. We’re such mathophobes (no, that’s not a real word – just one I made up) that we’ll just turn over our money to someone to invest for us and not worry about it as long as there’s an increase in our money. Wow, nothing can go wrong there can it?
We also had people buying homes they couldn’t afford and now face foreclosure. Of course it’s fashionable to look at these people as victims but think about it this way: If you’re making $30k per year, shouldn’t you at least suspect that a $400,000 house is just a little out of your price range? Apparently people didn’t. Of course it’s easy to blame banks and mortgage companies, but hey, if you’re willing to get screwed…
Shooting People in Bunches
Ever notice that these psychopaths who go nuts and shoot multiple people come in bunches? It’s like one person does it, it goes out in the news and the other nut jobs go, “Hmmm. What a great idea.” Maybe we shouldn’t put these things in the news when they happen.
In The News
The Oakdale, CA Rotary Club has an interesting yearly fundraiser called The Testicle Festival that they hold every April. For $50 a ticket, people can have themselves a dinner of bull testicles. No word on whether or not there is a vegetable. Author’s note: that’s just nuts.
It’s possible that America’s dumbest criminal resides in Pennsylvania. A retired police chief named John Comparetto was robbed at gunpoint by a 19-year old man. What makes our young man so dumb? Mr. Comparetto was at a convention of narcotics cops being held in Harrisburg, PA. Mr. Comparetto and many of his fellow conventioneers stopped the alleged robber as he tried to get away…in a taxi.
Work Stuff
Working for an insurance call center means I get to speak with people from all over the country. Having been in the Navy, I had been previously exposed to people from the South, but had forgotten over the last 20 years that people from Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Tennessee and most of South Carolina do not speak the English language. For example, a letter like “A” can sound like 8, H, E coming from the mouth of one of these people. In fact, they should only be allowed to speak with us if there is an interpreter on the line.
First, a little bit of background…
In order for us to make a vehicle change on a policy, something called a VIN (vehicle identification number) has to be given to us. The VIN number is a combination of 17-digits and numbers that tell us the vehicle year make and model number as well as other information that does not matter to my story. Anyway…
A man called me once from one of these states to make a vehicle change to his auto policy. Ordinarily, a vehicle change takes 5 maybe 10 minutes if nothing else has to be done. Well, this guy’s accent was so bad, it took almost 20 minutes to complete the job. Plus as I was talking to the guy, he was carrying on a second conversation with someone who was in the room with him so his concentration wasn’t where it needed to be. It may seem like I’m exaggerating, but if you've ever spoken to someone from one of these areas, you know I’m not.
We finally get everything done and as the guy is hanging up the phone, I can hear him say, very clearly and concisely I might add, “That was the dumbest sumbitch I ever talked to.” I just busted out laughing even though the call hadn’t totally disconnected and was still being recorded.
Recently, I had an 80+-year-old man actually tell me that we (meaning the company) shouldn’t screw him because he is part of the “Greatest Generation.” Although I didn’t, I really wanted to say, “Who the fuck are you? Tom Brokaw?”
Then I wanted to say, let me tell you about the Greatest Fucking Generation pops…
First, your generation let an anti-Semitic megalomaniac take over a country, turn it’s laws and constitution into a joke, kill 6-million Jews, another 4 to 5-million “undesirables”, and start a war that ultimately killed about 50-million people…
Then you gave us the atomic bomb plus other assorted nuclear weapons…
Then you let a couple of billion Chinese communists (backed by the Russians) invade Korea, resulting more American deaths not to mention the deaths of who knows how many innocent Koreans, plus never resolving the issue - leaving a problem that STILL exists today…
Then you gave us a nice little ditty called Vietnam…
Then you elected, in a space of 12 years, Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Fucking Reagan…
Greatest generation my fucking ass.
That’s all folks. This ends the entertainment portion of your day. Get back to work.
