Republicans seem to have forgotten that there are protocols when you deal with the President, such as respect. They demanded it for the Chimp, they can offer the same respect for the current President. It has always been considered rude to interrupt the President of the United States, just like it is considered rude to interrupt the Queen.
I am so tired of all the crap.
BBB
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Pump Up The Volume
Will I pay to read the NY Times online? Of course not. I've been boycotting the Washington Post for a year and to tell the truth, I haven't missed much. Do the reporters deserve to get paid? Of course, especially when they do their job. And let's face it, for the past twenty years they haven't. They've been going after ratings, not reporting the news. Or, as the saying goes "if it bleeds, it leads".
For some reason the Fourth Estate sold its soul for access. Not to report the news, but to make the news and they, along with the "candidates" they've chose to "represent" us, have pretty much destroyed everything this country was founded upon and held as a shining beacon of freedom to the world.
Not that I enjoy sounding old, but when I was a kid the remote control was whoever Dad asked to change the channel. Usually between NBC and CBS until that upstart ABC started to become popular, and if the picture was too snowy you fiddled with the rabbit ears until there was a relatively clear picture. And if it got snowy when you moved away, you got sent right back to hold it into position until the show was over. You got to put your arm down during the commercials or if the picture mysteriously got better. All for the price of the television.
When I was twelve we moved to Lompoc, which received one station and that was from Santa Maria. Fortunately there was this thing called cable and for about six bucks a month we got much clearer stations and some of them were from Los Angeles which was a couple of hundred miles away. And they showed most of their stuff in color. With less roller derby.
Then Showtime came along. Dad loved it. He said it released us from the puritanical beliefs of the few who thought that fun was illegal. I think it was because he enjoyed watching those girls(1:48 is when the guys watching start hyperventilating) do the exercises.
Now it costs me thirty dollars just to get the basics on television. Due to technology and the old television dying, I pay extra for HD because HD televisions look better that way and now that everything is digital they get me for the SyFy channel. What a racket.
After I left home and joined the Army I lived without television for many years and didn't miss it. I watch more of it now because it isn't safe to walk at night in most neighborhoods, movies are ten dollars at the theatre and most local libraries have either closed or cut back their hours and their varieties of books. Which leaves the internet.
I've been using the internet regularly since I got my first computer back in 1996, an IBM Aptiva. I originally had a 28.8K modem, followed by a 56.6 that I installed later. I (as in me) upgraded the RAM twice as well as increasing the 75 Pentium processor to a little more than 200. I was one of the first in San Diego to get cable and couldn't understand why it wasn't available to everyone. I still remember watching Princess Diana's funeral on cable and marveling that it was only a few seconds behind the broadcast networks. Then I got the bill.
I now pay $57.99 for internet access and I refuse to pay for Showtime or HBO on television (thank you Netflix!) because I already pay more than enough for the less than ten channels I actually watch, why would I pay more for content that other countries enjoy for much less?
Once I discovered the internet, my interest in books took a back seat. For years nobody had ever seen me without a book and all of a sudden books were history. Television news, which was rapidly becoming infotainment was watched rarely, if ever. The internet had everything and it was much faster with a greater variety than newspapers which left my hands dirty. No more dead tree editions for me.
Online I read Canadian, British, German, French, Israeli and Chinese newspapers, foreign newspapers do have English versions. Even al-Jazeera had been known to print true journalism, unlike some of what passes for newspapers here in the states. The United States press long ago ceased to be über alles, but the citizens don't know it because news is as censored as if the sixties editors of Pravda were running today's news organizations.
So why would I want to pay to read the NY Times? Or any other paper online? I don't, and I won't. The last time NY went behind a paywall, that experiment didn't last long and cost some of their best writers their readership. Newspapers are once again getting the stupid idea that if they hide their content behind a paywall that bloggers will disappear and people will start reading the papers again. I would love to have had some of the drugs they were passing out at those meetings.
Citizen journalism isn't going to disappear, it will be enhanced by people who are actually interested in getting the unfiltered news to a starving public and don't need millions of dollars to do it. It won't be long before someone starts a channel devoted to news around the world, not what Fox and CNN think are the important news around the world delivered by bobbleheads that can't speak for themselves without a wire attached to their ear.
Will the NY Times miss my money? Probably not for a while, but just like the Titanic, hubris goes before a fall. Or obsolescence as the case may be. Then they'll try to shut down the internet, which I doubt the young people will put up with for longer than a day or two. Has anybody paid attention to the furor when Twitter goes offline? Imagine if the the whole internet crashed and it wasn't the result of a war or natural disaster. Kids may not think that protesting the war, torture, or elimination of the Bill of Rights are important, internet and cell phone access is a whole different kettle of fish.
And to show that this isn't really such a radical idea, Christian Slater long before he was forgotten.
BBB
For some reason the Fourth Estate sold its soul for access. Not to report the news, but to make the news and they, along with the "candidates" they've chose to "represent" us, have pretty much destroyed everything this country was founded upon and held as a shining beacon of freedom to the world.
Not that I enjoy sounding old, but when I was a kid the remote control was whoever Dad asked to change the channel. Usually between NBC and CBS until that upstart ABC started to become popular, and if the picture was too snowy you fiddled with the rabbit ears until there was a relatively clear picture. And if it got snowy when you moved away, you got sent right back to hold it into position until the show was over. You got to put your arm down during the commercials or if the picture mysteriously got better. All for the price of the television.
When I was twelve we moved to Lompoc, which received one station and that was from Santa Maria. Fortunately there was this thing called cable and for about six bucks a month we got much clearer stations and some of them were from Los Angeles which was a couple of hundred miles away. And they showed most of their stuff in color. With less roller derby.
Then Showtime came along. Dad loved it. He said it released us from the puritanical beliefs of the few who thought that fun was illegal. I think it was because he enjoyed watching those girls(1:48 is when the guys watching start hyperventilating) do the exercises.
Now it costs me thirty dollars just to get the basics on television. Due to technology and the old television dying, I pay extra for HD because HD televisions look better that way and now that everything is digital they get me for the SyFy channel. What a racket.
After I left home and joined the Army I lived without television for many years and didn't miss it. I watch more of it now because it isn't safe to walk at night in most neighborhoods, movies are ten dollars at the theatre and most local libraries have either closed or cut back their hours and their varieties of books. Which leaves the internet.
I've been using the internet regularly since I got my first computer back in 1996, an IBM Aptiva. I originally had a 28.8K modem, followed by a 56.6 that I installed later. I (as in me) upgraded the RAM twice as well as increasing the 75 Pentium processor to a little more than 200. I was one of the first in San Diego to get cable and couldn't understand why it wasn't available to everyone. I still remember watching Princess Diana's funeral on cable and marveling that it was only a few seconds behind the broadcast networks. Then I got the bill.
I now pay $57.99 for internet access and I refuse to pay for Showtime or HBO on television (thank you Netflix!) because I already pay more than enough for the less than ten channels I actually watch, why would I pay more for content that other countries enjoy for much less?
Once I discovered the internet, my interest in books took a back seat. For years nobody had ever seen me without a book and all of a sudden books were history. Television news, which was rapidly becoming infotainment was watched rarely, if ever. The internet had everything and it was much faster with a greater variety than newspapers which left my hands dirty. No more dead tree editions for me.
Online I read Canadian, British, German, French, Israeli and Chinese newspapers, foreign newspapers do have English versions. Even al-Jazeera had been known to print true journalism, unlike some of what passes for newspapers here in the states. The United States press long ago ceased to be über alles, but the citizens don't know it because news is as censored as if the sixties editors of Pravda were running today's news organizations.
So why would I want to pay to read the NY Times? Or any other paper online? I don't, and I won't. The last time NY went behind a paywall, that experiment didn't last long and cost some of their best writers their readership. Newspapers are once again getting the stupid idea that if they hide their content behind a paywall that bloggers will disappear and people will start reading the papers again. I would love to have had some of the drugs they were passing out at those meetings.
Citizen journalism isn't going to disappear, it will be enhanced by people who are actually interested in getting the unfiltered news to a starving public and don't need millions of dollars to do it. It won't be long before someone starts a channel devoted to news around the world, not what Fox and CNN think are the important news around the world delivered by bobbleheads that can't speak for themselves without a wire attached to their ear.
Will the NY Times miss my money? Probably not for a while, but just like the Titanic, hubris goes before a fall. Or obsolescence as the case may be. Then they'll try to shut down the internet, which I doubt the young people will put up with for longer than a day or two. Has anybody paid attention to the furor when Twitter goes offline? Imagine if the the whole internet crashed and it wasn't the result of a war or natural disaster. Kids may not think that protesting the war, torture, or elimination of the Bill of Rights are important, internet and cell phone access is a whole different kettle of fish.
And to show that this isn't really such a radical idea, Christian Slater long before he was forgotten.
BBB
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Profiles In Courage? Not This Decade
President Kennedy once said "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." How quaint.
Despite all the action movies (the Die Hards, True Lies, Passenger 57, etc.) that Americans are so fond of, an incident that an individual person has a one in 10.4 million chance of being involved in has once again brought out the stupid and the fearful. The same people who vociferously scream and wail about how their Second Amendment right to bear arms must not be infringed upon are willing to give up what's left of their Fourth Amendment rights so they can occasionally fly in an airplane. Instead of training and using animals to sniff out explosives, expensive and invasive full body scanners will be used. As Petrillic tweeted:
Five year olds. Are you sure? Last time I checked five year olds didn't wear diapers. Unless they were developmentally delayed. Which might explain the self serving behavior of the almost never right. Once again the land of the free and the home of the brave is losing its collective shit, crying out for the government to save them from the bogeyman. This would be the same government that they accused during the "health reform" debate of intruding on their personal freedoms.
Or as Charles Bouley wrote:
Meanwhile, Jim DeMint decries the lack of a unified response while he holds up the confirmation of TSA nominee Errol Southers because he's concerned that Southers might let TSA employees join a union and then complains that the Obama administration isn't taking terrorism seriously.
The America that I grew up in, the one I was willing to die to protect, is long gone. In its place are sheeple led by politicians that only serve themselves and their corporate masters. We might as well call the nation Stepford instead of limiting it to a fictional town in Connecticut.
BBB
Despite all the action movies (the Die Hards, True Lies, Passenger 57, etc.) that Americans are so fond of, an incident that an individual person has a one in 10.4 million chance of being involved in has once again brought out the stupid and the fearful. The same people who vociferously scream and wail about how their Second Amendment right to bear arms must not be infringed upon are willing to give up what's left of their Fourth Amendment rights so they can occasionally fly in an airplane. Instead of training and using animals to sniff out explosives, expensive and invasive full body scanners will be used. As Petrillic tweeted:
TSA - Protecting you from yesterday, tomorrow.It won't be long before terrorists find another way around the system, they always do and even more liberties will be lost.
Five year olds. Are you sure? Last time I checked five year olds didn't wear diapers. Unless they were developmentally delayed. Which might explain the self serving behavior of the almost never right. Once again the land of the free and the home of the brave is losing its collective shit, crying out for the government to save them from the bogeyman. This would be the same government that they accused during the "health reform" debate of intruding on their personal freedoms.
Or as Charles Bouley wrote:
Once again America had the chance to be in the driver's seat, in a position of power. Instead, American media, and officials, chose the victim route and the cowering and scampering to get under tables began almost immediately. Suddenly, passengers became prisoners on flights, not able to move during the last hour, having to ask permission to go pee like in second grade.Mr. Bouley, thank you for pointing that out. Too bad the media would rather fan the flames of fear instead of nurturing the calm of reason.
snip
The coverage and knee jerk reaction became too much for some, myself included, so it was back to holiday TV. Somehow in the afternoon we all found ourselves watching "The Tale of Despereaux" on cable; the story of an outcast mouse that uses bravery, courage and honor to help a princess (of course). But the movie spoke of Americans, not mice. In the film, Despereaux is an outcast because he's a mouse that refuses to be afraid. As flash cards are shown in his mouse class, when a cleaver appears, he doesn't hide and scamper like the others, and simply comments on how they are used to cook. His Peachie has doodles of cats because he thinks they're cute instead of fearful agents of death. The mouse council doesn't know what to do. What if he teaches other mice not to fear? After all, "he has to learn how to be afraid, after all, no one is born afraid..." says the mouse leader.
Meanwhile, Jim DeMint decries the lack of a unified response while he holds up the confirmation of TSA nominee Errol Southers because he's concerned that Southers might let TSA employees join a union and then complains that the Obama administration isn't taking terrorism seriously.
The America that I grew up in, the one I was willing to die to protect, is long gone. In its place are sheeple led by politicians that only serve themselves and their corporate masters. We might as well call the nation Stepford instead of limiting it to a fictional town in Connecticut.
BBB
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Tuesday Quickies
I voted no. On what grounds is Tiger Woods' accident any of my business? Or yours? When, where, how or who applies only to the parties involved. It is none of my business if he was leaving the house at 2:25 am, nor is it any of my business where he was going. How the accident happened may be of interest but it isn't critical to our existence on the planet. No alcohol was involved and Tiger was the only one who was injured and if he doesn't want to speak about the accident, that is his business. Because he is a celebrity does not make his personal life my business. Honestly, with every day that goes by reality appears to drift further away from the news media as they get closer to the twilight zone. From balloon boy to gate crashers to single car accidents, infotainment (I can't believe the spell checker thinks that's a real word!) rules the news cycle. ABC wasn't content with gossiping about Tiger, they added another star and an ambulance chaser to make the story even more titillating.
I've tried reading Little Green Footballs off and on for the past five years but the vitriol and hatred for anyone who disagreed with their view was too much for me. I guess it was also too much for Charles Johnson. Over the last few months he has been bemused by the invective coming from the right and he has officially decided to part company. I'm adding him to my blogroll, some of his stuff is pretty interesting.
Wow, just wow. How can people live with themselves having that level of hatred? Somewhere between my teens and my forties the definition of Christian behavior changed. And not for the better.
BBB
I've tried reading Little Green Footballs off and on for the past five years but the vitriol and hatred for anyone who disagreed with their view was too much for me. I guess it was also too much for Charles Johnson. Over the last few months he has been bemused by the invective coming from the right and he has officially decided to part company. I'm adding him to my blogroll, some of his stuff is pretty interesting.
Wow, just wow. How can people live with themselves having that level of hatred? Somewhere between my teens and my forties the definition of Christian behavior changed. And not for the better.
BBB
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Dumb De Dumb Dumb
Did you see Wolf Blitzer on Jeopardy! Thursday night? What an idiot and I say that because he didn't know anything.
I've watched Jeopardy! since it was Art James and Don Pardo and this was one of the worst performances I've ever seen by anybody. When they do a Celebrity Jeopardy the answers aren't as difficult as they are during regular play and nowhere near as difficult as Tournament play. More along the lines of the Kids Tournament whose contestants are between ten and twelve years old.
It was Wolf, Dana Delaney and Andy Richter. After the first five questions, Andy took off and never looked back. 32 questions correct and 2 wrong. Dana was pretty accurate, 11 correct and 2 wrong, but Andy was quicker on the trigger and she didn't get much of a chance to give the correct question. And Wolf? 5 right and 6 wrong. William Hurt's character in Broadcast News would probably have done better. Try and convince me the news isn't scripted.
Wolf was negative going in to Final Jeopardy, they gave him a $1000 dollars because it's for charity and he still missed the final question. Category was Famous Actors and the answer was:
It looks like actors and comedians have as much right to voice their opinions on politics as the newscasters do and with a little more knowledge to back them up. No wonder the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are considered trusted sources for news. They may be comedians but at least they know something besides reading from a teleprompter. I wonder how many people sent Wolfie this.
It should be his new theme song.
BBB
I've watched Jeopardy! since it was Art James and Don Pardo and this was one of the worst performances I've ever seen by anybody. When they do a Celebrity Jeopardy the answers aren't as difficult as they are during regular play and nowhere near as difficult as Tournament play. More along the lines of the Kids Tournament whose contestants are between ten and twelve years old.
It was Wolf, Dana Delaney and Andy Richter. After the first five questions, Andy took off and never looked back. 32 questions correct and 2 wrong. Dana was pretty accurate, 11 correct and 2 wrong, but Andy was quicker on the trigger and she didn't get much of a chance to give the correct question. And Wolf? 5 right and 6 wrong. William Hurt's character in Broadcast News would probably have done better. Try and convince me the news isn't scripted.
Wolf was negative going in to Final Jeopardy, they gave him a $1000 dollars because it's for charity and he still missed the final question. Category was Famous Actors and the answer was:
Ironically, he lost the leading role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" because he didn't look presidential.That has to be the easiest Final Jeopardy answer they've ever had. And he missed it. Seriously. How could anybody over the age of fifteen not know that it was Ronnie Raygun? Wolfie, did you even bring your thinking cap to the show? I guess not knowing the definition of irony and being incapable of remembering that only one actor has been elected president would preclude one from using logic to figure out the question. Plus, he proved he couldn't spell and he didn't know where Jesus was born.
It looks like actors and comedians have as much right to voice their opinions on politics as the newscasters do and with a little more knowledge to back them up. No wonder the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are considered trusted sources for news. They may be comedians but at least they know something besides reading from a teleprompter. I wonder how many people sent Wolfie this.
It should be his new theme song.
BBB
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
A Conspiracy For Dummies
After the 2000 election I thought the United States intellectual capital had reached bottom, but I was wrong. The aftermath of 9/11 and the furious attempt to make someone, anyone pay for the tragedy proved that. First it was innocent civilians in the country that harbored the soon to be forgotten Osama bin Laden. But that wasn't enough to soothe the national psyche and so the military and the press were mobilized to attack and invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, that had no weapons of mass destruction (but did turn out to be the weapon of mass distraction) and no need for us to disrupt the fragile balance of power that was preventing internecine warfare. And more innocent civilians paid the price. To the average American with their yellow bumper sticker that was acceptable for more years than it should have been.
During the Clinton years what passed for public discourse took a serious right turn. Into the gutter. With the help of Fox News and a rotund drug addled pundit we were well on our way to becoming a hate nation. Getting a blowjob from a consenting woman who isn't your wife is front page news for months. Fraternizing with underage pages of the same sex, consorting with prostitutes while wearing a diaper, carrying on an affair in another country or while living in a Christian enclave, and soliciting other men in bathroom stalls while claiming to have the moral high ground is nothing to be ashamed of or investigated with the same zeal. As long as you are a Republican. Unfortunately for the GOP, one Republican did lose his political career over his sexual antics and is indirectly responsible for the president we now have in office. Very few people remember Jack Ryan (not the Tom Clancy guy) and his wishes to have sex with his now ex-wife Jeri Ryan in a public venue.
Having read all of the aforementioned Tom Clancy novels I can say I love a good conspiracy. I still think there is more to the Kennedy assassination and while I don't believe that George Bush was behind 9/11, I do believe that the arrogance of the crew without a clue contributed to the success. Underestimating your enemy is a good way for them to succeed. So does ignoring presidential memos titled "Bin Laden determined to attack in US". But this latest conspiracy is one I can't even entertain without a grimace and wondering how gullible and desperate some people can be.
When I was in the Army I went to see a JAG lawyer about my citizenship. I was born in England in a USAF base hospital as it states on the birth certificate I can no longer find but my passport states that I am and American citizen. My mother was not a citizen at the time (she became one two years later) and I was concerned. The lawyer assured me that I was a natural born citizen and could run for president if I wanted because my father was a citizen and I was born on American soil even if it was located in England.
Obama's mother was a US citizen and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. The State of Hawaii has certified his birth and explained why they release the documents they do and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. There were birth notices in two Hawaii newspapers two weeks after his birth forty years ago and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Obama has traveled on a US passport in and out of the country several times before becoming president and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Hilary Clinton didn't find anything and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the lawsuit and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Numerous newspapers and fact finding organizations have found the birther questions to be without merit and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't.
No matter what documents get produced, no matter if someone comes forward that attended his birth and attests to his being born in Hawaii, no matter what information is released, there will be no satisfying those people who rabidly believe that Obama was born in Kenya. Because in the back of their minds there is no way America could produce a black man who could grow up to be president. They are supposed to be singing, dancing, acting or in jail. And that's it. Anything more and they must be one of them foreigners.
We are on our way to becoming a nation of whiners, crying for do overs. Don't like the governor of California? Spend millions of dollars the state doesn't have and recall him. Don't like the current President of the United States? Make up spurious claims in the hope that he resigns in disgrace, gets impeached with evidence that isn't there (instead of impeaching the previous occupant with evidence that did and still does exist), or hope that someone you don't know enacts the Tiller solution. Anything but face the truth. A majority of Americans elected Obama as the lesser of two evils.
Those of us who had to suffer through eight years of a presidency that we thought was stolen know how you feel and you are going to have to do just what we did. Wait for election day. November 6, 2012 is your next opportunity to set things "right". Until then, quit demeaning yourselves by ranting and raving about an issue that has no merit. And no proof.
BBB
During the Clinton years what passed for public discourse took a serious right turn. Into the gutter. With the help of Fox News and a rotund drug addled pundit we were well on our way to becoming a hate nation. Getting a blowjob from a consenting woman who isn't your wife is front page news for months. Fraternizing with underage pages of the same sex, consorting with prostitutes while wearing a diaper, carrying on an affair in another country or while living in a Christian enclave, and soliciting other men in bathroom stalls while claiming to have the moral high ground is nothing to be ashamed of or investigated with the same zeal. As long as you are a Republican. Unfortunately for the GOP, one Republican did lose his political career over his sexual antics and is indirectly responsible for the president we now have in office. Very few people remember Jack Ryan (not the Tom Clancy guy) and his wishes to have sex with his now ex-wife Jeri Ryan in a public venue.
Having read all of the aforementioned Tom Clancy novels I can say I love a good conspiracy. I still think there is more to the Kennedy assassination and while I don't believe that George Bush was behind 9/11, I do believe that the arrogance of the crew without a clue contributed to the success. Underestimating your enemy is a good way for them to succeed. So does ignoring presidential memos titled "Bin Laden determined to attack in US". But this latest conspiracy is one I can't even entertain without a grimace and wondering how gullible and desperate some people can be.
Obama's mother was a US citizen and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. The State of Hawaii has certified his birth and explained why they release the documents they do and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. There were birth notices in two Hawaii newspapers two weeks after his birth forty years ago and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Obama has traveled on a US passport in and out of the country several times before becoming president and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Hilary Clinton didn't find anything and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the lawsuit and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Numerous newspapers and fact finding organizations have found the birther questions to be without merit and that should be the end of the matter. But it isn't.
No matter what documents get produced, no matter if someone comes forward that attended his birth and attests to his being born in Hawaii, no matter what information is released, there will be no satisfying those people who rabidly believe that Obama was born in Kenya. Because in the back of their minds there is no way America could produce a black man who could grow up to be president. They are supposed to be singing, dancing, acting or in jail. And that's it. Anything more and they must be one of them foreigners.
We are on our way to becoming a nation of whiners, crying for do overs. Don't like the governor of California? Spend millions of dollars the state doesn't have and recall him. Don't like the current President of the United States? Make up spurious claims in the hope that he resigns in disgrace, gets impeached with evidence that isn't there (instead of impeaching the previous occupant with evidence that did and still does exist), or hope that someone you don't know enacts the Tiller solution. Anything but face the truth. A majority of Americans elected Obama as the lesser of two evils.
Those of us who had to suffer through eight years of a presidency that we thought was stolen know how you feel and you are going to have to do just what we did. Wait for election day. November 6, 2012 is your next opportunity to set things "right". Until then, quit demeaning yourselves by ranting and raving about an issue that has no merit. And no proof.
BBB
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday Morning Observations
That is kind of the point, isnt't it? Schwarzenegger is California's version of hurricane Katrina. Get rid of the poor, elderly and disabled by any means necessary, let them die if he has to and California will be the Golden State once again. Completely missing the point that the people who actually do the work, the ones that clean the buildings, pick the fruits and vegetables, serve the food in restaurants or other such "lowly" jobs can no longer afford to live there and that eventually there won't be anyone to give the rich their due.
The older I get, the less geek cred I have. Along with not having any interest because I think we're in a technological holding pattern at the moment and I'm waiting for something a little more interesting than Twitter.
The problem with Texas having a known creationist in charge of the state Board of Education is that Texas has great influence on textbook printings. Publishers are as cash strapped as any other business and can only afford to print a select number of books. If Texas wants to teach creationism as part of its curriculum then a lot of other states (and children) will be exposed to the same nonsense.
The New York Times is considering charging for access. Again. Good luck with that. All it did the last time was take themselves out of my reading rotation. I don't pay for Wikipedia and the Times version of information sharing isn't much more accurate.
The Quit bull (love that term!) is still babbling. So she chose not to play "their game". What game would that be? The one where you have to cross the finish line in order to collect your reward?
BBB
"It does not look like rich people are leaving California in order to avoid income taxes," Kolko said.
Tax critics often claim the state's high cost of living and tax structure drive high-income earners out.
The study found that the rich — those in the top 20 percent of income earners — leave California at only a slightly higher rate than those who arrive. For those with incomes above $200,0000, the departure rate is only 1.09 households for every one household that arrives, the report said.
Meanwhile, 1.73 households with annual incomes of $22,000 or less depart California each year for every one out-of-state arrival.And yes, one of the factors in my decision to move to Nevada is that they have no state income tax. I don't mind paying taxes, as long as they are used to benefit the public not just a select few.
The older I get, the less geek cred I have. Along with not having any interest because I think we're in a technological holding pattern at the moment and I'm waiting for something a little more interesting than Twitter.
The problem with Texas having a known creationist in charge of the state Board of Education is that Texas has great influence on textbook printings. Publishers are as cash strapped as any other business and can only afford to print a select number of books. If Texas wants to teach creationism as part of its curriculum then a lot of other states (and children) will be exposed to the same nonsense.
The New York Times is considering charging for access. Again. Good luck with that. All it did the last time was take themselves out of my reading rotation. I don't pay for Wikipedia and the Times version of information sharing isn't much more accurate.
The Quit bull (love that term!) is still babbling. So she chose not to play "their game". What game would that be? The one where you have to cross the finish line in order to collect your reward?
BBB
Friday, June 19, 2009
Canceling The Washington Post
My letter to the Ombudsman regarding the firing of Dan Froomkin. They have been removed from Google Reader and I will no longer refer tor link to them in any way. My hope is that more people follow suit and that the "paper" goes out of business. Soon.
BBB
For quite a while your paper has been going downhill and now you have hit rock bottom. You might as well start referring to the WaahPoo as a written extension of Faux News since it is now impossible to tell the difference. While I may miss Eugene Robinson, I can no longer read, link or in anyway treat you as a trusted news or opinion source. What is sad for you is that quite a few other people will be treating you the same way. You will be eliminated from my news sources, I will not read anything that is linked to you and I will be deactivating my account. If I didn't live all the way across the country I would have had a subscription which I could have canceled at the same time. Your paper is no longer fit to line the bottom of a birdcage and you will soon be printing in a vacuum.I remember when papers printed news, not propaganda. Along with quite a few of the other founding principles of this country the Fourth Estate has gone the way of the Dodo bird.
Enjoy your paper's remaining time, it won't be long before you go the way of the Rocky Mountain news, but unlike the them I will not be sad to see you go. You have had some good stories and reporters in the past but recent decisions have made you irrelevant.
Goodbye.
BBB
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Justice? I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
This absolutely takes the cake for judicial stupidity. My blood pressure is so high I think I'm going to have a stroke. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, what the hell is wrong with the state of Oklahoma? Are the people in this state out of what little minds they have? It's okay to shoot a perpetrator in the head, get another gun a few moments later and pump five more bullets into a motionless body but repeatedly raping a four year old girl and forcing her five year old brother to watch it is only worth one year in jail and he gets credit for nine months already served? Are you effing kidding me?
She was raped, she was sodomized and she most certainly didn't ask for it, dress provocatively or use suggestive language to lure this pervert on. As if that would ever be an excuse for rape under any circumstances. The child advocate and her supervisor should lose their jobs due to gross incompetence since they obviously have not a clue as to what advocating for the defenseless means. The prosecutor should be fired for stupidity and an inability to punish real criminals which just so happens to be his job and for not investigating the past history, and this guy definitely had a criminal history, of this cretin because perverts don't start at 64, they've been at it most of their lives. And the judge, well he should be recalled. If there ever was a time for an "activist" judge, this was it. He could have used common sense and said no, this creep belongs in jail for twenty years no matter what kind of plea bargain was arranged and let the inmates take care of him, ala Jeffrey Dahmer. Or maybe the trial should have taken place in Ohio, their prosecutors seem to have a handle on ensuring that creeps get appropriate sentences for raping a child.
So what if the perp gets labeled a sexual predator and has to pay a $1000 fine, is that going to make the rest of this girl's life any easier? How about when she is an adult and realizes that what he did to her was determined to be worth a tiny slap on the wrist? Now is the time for the Michelle Malkins, Laura Ingrahams, Nancy Graces and Ann Coulters of this world to get up and scream their tiny little heads off about the injustice that was committed here instead of the made up stuff that babbles brainlessly from their talking heads.
Oh yeah, and the state of Oklahoma should be boycotted, not a dime of tourist money should they get until this situation is rectified. Heck, the Interstate shouldn't even travel through it.
BBB
She was raped, she was sodomized and she most certainly didn't ask for it, dress provocatively or use suggestive language to lure this pervert on. As if that would ever be an excuse for rape under any circumstances. The child advocate and her supervisor should lose their jobs due to gross incompetence since they obviously have not a clue as to what advocating for the defenseless means. The prosecutor should be fired for stupidity and an inability to punish real criminals which just so happens to be his job and for not investigating the past history, and this guy definitely had a criminal history, of this cretin because perverts don't start at 64, they've been at it most of their lives. And the judge, well he should be recalled. If there ever was a time for an "activist" judge, this was it. He could have used common sense and said no, this creep belongs in jail for twenty years no matter what kind of plea bargain was arranged and let the inmates take care of him, ala Jeffrey Dahmer. Or maybe the trial should have taken place in Ohio, their prosecutors seem to have a handle on ensuring that creeps get appropriate sentences for raping a child.
So what if the perp gets labeled a sexual predator and has to pay a $1000 fine, is that going to make the rest of this girl's life any easier? How about when she is an adult and realizes that what he did to her was determined to be worth a tiny slap on the wrist? Now is the time for the Michelle Malkins, Laura Ingrahams, Nancy Graces and Ann Coulters of this world to get up and scream their tiny little heads off about the injustice that was committed here instead of the made up stuff that babbles brainlessly from their talking heads.
Oh yeah, and the state of Oklahoma should be boycotted, not a dime of tourist money should they get until this situation is rectified. Heck, the Interstate shouldn't even travel through it.
BBB
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Fourth Estate Continues To Fail
There isn't a doubt in my mind that the national press are incompetent at best and bordering on treasonous at worst. An independent Fourth Estate they most definitely are not. For the last fifteen years they have persisted in reporting one side of the story, the GOP side, no matter what the circumstances and no matter what the story. Fair, balanced and objective no longer seem to be the operating requirements for "journalists". In depth reporting has gone the way of the dinosaur and bloggers have had to take up the slack.
The press, along with what passes for Congress for that matter, breathlessly reports in glowing terms or jumps to do the bidding of anything that the GOP wants. Virtually without exception and definitely without question. There have been a few that haven't followed the party line but it's more like throwing a few slices of bread to the masses and then they "see the light" and fall back into line.
I've watched in amazement and with quite a bit of disgust as they hang on to every word that anyone named Cheney utters, determined to anoint them as the second coming of the GOP. Torture? Not a problem for anyone except what they term the liberal left or foreigners that don't know what they are talking about because they didn't suffer through 9/11 and therefore don't know anything about the effects of terrorism. Heaven forbid that they should accurately report what torture is or that it is against the law in the United States and around the world and that it doesn't make us safer but it does make us less trusted.
If the press had done their job objectively before the 2000 election the outcome would have been much different. If they had done their job after 9/11 the United States would not have been hoodwinked into invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (I'm sorry but I can't use 9/11 twenty five times in one article), had no weapons of mass destruction and wasn't a threat to the United States. But they didn't and as a result hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children either died or are suffering miserably. And that includes citizens and taxpayers of the United States.
If the press were doing their job objectively today, Cheney and his family would not receive the exposure they are getting and it most certainly wouldn't be as positive. Last week there were not dueling speeches between the President and a former Vice President, there was a Presidential speech (that I didn't bother listening to because it wasn't necessary) and a rant from an angry, fearful coward who knows he broke the law and doesn't want to go to jail. But not to the press, not even remotely. Cheney is being held up as the man who has our national security interests at heart and Obama doesn't.
When I was a young girl in the sixties, the New York Times was the paper of record and in the seventies the Washington Post was the leader in exposing the Watergate scandal. Today neither one can be depended upon for objective reporting and then they wonder why newspapers are folding for lack of readership. They can blame it on Craigslist or Twitter but the truth of the matter is that the press doesn't do their job of reporting the news, they are too busy trying to make the news into something that pleases their masters. Which amounts to inane babble that informs no one and prevents the truth from being revealed.
The press spends their time carrying water for people who only care about themselves and their so-called legacy and refuse to see that they are repeating the mistakes that got us into the Iraq debacle in the first place. Once again while the US is preoccupied with straw men, North Korea is not only rattling it's saber, it's testing nuclear weapons and threatening its neighbors. And the press? They are concerned with how wonderful Cheney is and why the Obama administration relies on background briefings instead of giving them every name, rank and serial number of their sources. As if the Bush administration was as open as possible. Is Jennifer Loven serious? I don't remember any complaints when Bush and Cheney quoted unnamed sources stating that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or when Jeff Gannon was masquerading as a reporter. If I was President Obama I would start calling on the smaller news outlets exclusively and ignore the hypocritical Cheney ass kissers such as the AP, NY Times and the Washington Post. And that isn't arrogance, it's common sense since the press is going to make up the story they want anyway. Just like they have done for the last fifteen years.
BBB
The press, along with what passes for Congress for that matter, breathlessly reports in glowing terms or jumps to do the bidding of anything that the GOP wants. Virtually without exception and definitely without question. There have been a few that haven't followed the party line but it's more like throwing a few slices of bread to the masses and then they "see the light" and fall back into line.
I've watched in amazement and with quite a bit of disgust as they hang on to every word that anyone named Cheney utters, determined to anoint them as the second coming of the GOP. Torture? Not a problem for anyone except what they term the liberal left or foreigners that don't know what they are talking about because they didn't suffer through 9/11 and therefore don't know anything about the effects of terrorism. Heaven forbid that they should accurately report what torture is or that it is against the law in the United States and around the world and that it doesn't make us safer but it does make us less trusted.
If the press had done their job objectively before the 2000 election the outcome would have been much different. If they had done their job after 9/11 the United States would not have been hoodwinked into invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (I'm sorry but I can't use 9/11 twenty five times in one article), had no weapons of mass destruction and wasn't a threat to the United States. But they didn't and as a result hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children either died or are suffering miserably. And that includes citizens and taxpayers of the United States.
If the press were doing their job objectively today, Cheney and his family would not receive the exposure they are getting and it most certainly wouldn't be as positive. Last week there were not dueling speeches between the President and a former Vice President, there was a Presidential speech (that I didn't bother listening to because it wasn't necessary) and a rant from an angry, fearful coward who knows he broke the law and doesn't want to go to jail. But not to the press, not even remotely. Cheney is being held up as the man who has our national security interests at heart and Obama doesn't.
When I was a young girl in the sixties, the New York Times was the paper of record and in the seventies the Washington Post was the leader in exposing the Watergate scandal. Today neither one can be depended upon for objective reporting and then they wonder why newspapers are folding for lack of readership. They can blame it on Craigslist or Twitter but the truth of the matter is that the press doesn't do their job of reporting the news, they are too busy trying to make the news into something that pleases their masters. Which amounts to inane babble that informs no one and prevents the truth from being revealed.
The press spends their time carrying water for people who only care about themselves and their so-called legacy and refuse to see that they are repeating the mistakes that got us into the Iraq debacle in the first place. Once again while the US is preoccupied with straw men, North Korea is not only rattling it's saber, it's testing nuclear weapons and threatening its neighbors. And the press? They are concerned with how wonderful Cheney is and why the Obama administration relies on background briefings instead of giving them every name, rank and serial number of their sources. As if the Bush administration was as open as possible. Is Jennifer Loven serious? I don't remember any complaints when Bush and Cheney quoted unnamed sources stating that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or when Jeff Gannon was masquerading as a reporter. If I was President Obama I would start calling on the smaller news outlets exclusively and ignore the hypocritical Cheney ass kissers such as the AP, NY Times and the Washington Post. And that isn't arrogance, it's common sense since the press is going to make up the story they want anyway. Just like they have done for the last fifteen years.
BBB
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Freakin' Unbelievable!
The out of touch with reality old fogies have struck again. My take on the Supreme Court determination that the FCC can fine television stations for unplanned "fleeting expletives"? Fuck 'em! I hardly ever curse on this blog but I do in real life. As do most people, especially those under pressure or who have had a little too much to drink. And have you heard the kids of today? They learned those words at home, not from watching broadcast television and if they are watching cable that's a parental problem, isn't it? Hearing the F or S word does not make me think about sex or using the bathroom, they make me think the person was either really surprised or really upset.
So, it's okay to penalize a station for unplanned speech by an individual they can't control but not okay to penalize a station for inciting to riot, deliberately spreading falsehoods, encouraging intolerance towards others or lowering the IQ of the nation under the guise of "fair and balanced" news? What's next boys, strip searching 13 year old girls for Advil without their parents being notified? That smacks more of pedophiliac sexual tendencies on the part of those who think it's okay than expecting an accidental curse on live television to affect children for the rest of their lives. Big Brother, indeed.
BBB
"It suffices to know that children mimic the behavior they observe -- or at least the behavior that is presented to them as normal and appropriate," Scalia wrote. "Programming replete with one-word indecent expletives will tend to produce children who use (at least) one-word indecent expletives."Deadwood was not the issue, Cher and Nicole Ritchie were. I guess frak" isn't allowed either. A one off is not a show replete with one word expletives and if children are mimicking the behavior they see on television, then shows such as Survivor, 24, and the Power Rangers shouldn't be allowed. Or maybe their parents could pay more attention to them and what they're watching so they can explain that it isn't real and life doesn't really work that way.
So, it's okay to penalize a station for unplanned speech by an individual they can't control but not okay to penalize a station for inciting to riot, deliberately spreading falsehoods, encouraging intolerance towards others or lowering the IQ of the nation under the guise of "fair and balanced" news? What's next boys, strip searching 13 year old girls for Advil without their parents being notified? That smacks more of pedophiliac sexual tendencies on the part of those who think it's okay than expecting an accidental curse on live television to affect children for the rest of their lives. Big Brother, indeed.
BBB
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Fascinating, Just Fascinating
Another entry in the too much time on their hands category. Absolutely fascinating.
I especially liked the Pong game, that was quite ingenious.
BBB
I especially liked the Pong game, that was quite ingenious.
BBB
Friday, March 27, 2009
Spin Me Right Round
For a good portion of my teen and young adult life I lived in the Lompoc area. We started with Vandenberg AFB and then moved to Vandenberg Village which was halfway between the base and Lompoc. As we would travel to visit Solvang, the La Purisima Mission was on our left and across from the most spectacular field of flowers just as you left town. This quiet and beautiful place, so packed with history, is on the Governor's list of state parks to be closed. How much more can this state lose and still offer a quality of life that makes it worth it for an individual to live here and pay higher taxes while corporations pay practically none?
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of dealing with Nevada state employees. It seems that if you call for information about their Medicaid program your name goes on a list and pretty soon all these associated agencies start calling you and offering their services. When I first started looking I thought we were going to move to Las Vegas but still couldn't afford it. The other day Medicaid called to check and see if I needed any help filling out the paperwork and I told them we were moving to Reno instead. Two hours later the Reno office calls me and then yesterday an Alzheimer's group called and asked if they could send me an application for a grant for my mother to help make the move less traumatic and to help her out. It's like being in the Twilight Zone but in a good way. Oh, and did I mention that the energy company bills you for the deposit and if you can't pay it in one month they give you two? They don't even have a state tax, do they put happy pills in the water?
Having been a child of the military and a veteran myself, I can say that universal health care works. Sometimes slowly but it works and is much better than nothing at all. Health care is a right for everyone and should not be reserved for the very rich or the very poor. Unfortunately those in the middle have to either do without or pay so much that they have to do without other things in their lives such as saving for their child's college. I've had insurance in the past but no longer qualify due to asthma and a tendency for kidney stones and have had to rely on the county health care system when either of those flares up. All other problems I'm managing by myself but as I age that will only go so far. Whatever the solution is, it shouldn't be to prop up the insurance companies and their mountains of paperwork.
Good thing DiSH has its moving program though they might not be any more financially stable than any other highly overpriced television provider either. Tumbling dice is the best way to describe our economy. And the reason they are still tumbling is because the board is slanted downhill.
Consumer spending may be up while income is down, but what did they spend what they don't have on? The article never says. It was too happy that the savings rate was above 4% for two months in a row. The only people making money off of me are the banks. Two days ago BofA said they would probably decide my case in my favor (photos, persistence, plus merchant fraud helped) but they still haven't refunded the $500 (or the $140 in fees yet) and California lowering my check by $101 with less than 24 hours warning has made me even more resolved to get the heck out of here. If I'm going to make less money, I would rather know it ahead of time.
Plus, the people really do sound happy in Nevada.
BBB
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of dealing with Nevada state employees. It seems that if you call for information about their Medicaid program your name goes on a list and pretty soon all these associated agencies start calling you and offering their services. When I first started looking I thought we were going to move to Las Vegas but still couldn't afford it. The other day Medicaid called to check and see if I needed any help filling out the paperwork and I told them we were moving to Reno instead. Two hours later the Reno office calls me and then yesterday an Alzheimer's group called and asked if they could send me an application for a grant for my mother to help make the move less traumatic and to help her out. It's like being in the Twilight Zone but in a good way. Oh, and did I mention that the energy company bills you for the deposit and if you can't pay it in one month they give you two? They don't even have a state tax, do they put happy pills in the water?
Having been a child of the military and a veteran myself, I can say that universal health care works. Sometimes slowly but it works and is much better than nothing at all. Health care is a right for everyone and should not be reserved for the very rich or the very poor. Unfortunately those in the middle have to either do without or pay so much that they have to do without other things in their lives such as saving for their child's college. I've had insurance in the past but no longer qualify due to asthma and a tendency for kidney stones and have had to rely on the county health care system when either of those flares up. All other problems I'm managing by myself but as I age that will only go so far. Whatever the solution is, it shouldn't be to prop up the insurance companies and their mountains of paperwork.
Good thing DiSH has its moving program though they might not be any more financially stable than any other highly overpriced television provider either. Tumbling dice is the best way to describe our economy. And the reason they are still tumbling is because the board is slanted downhill.
Consumer spending may be up while income is down, but what did they spend what they don't have on? The article never says. It was too happy that the savings rate was above 4% for two months in a row. The only people making money off of me are the banks. Two days ago BofA said they would probably decide my case in my favor (photos, persistence, plus merchant fraud helped) but they still haven't refunded the $500 (or the $140 in fees yet) and California lowering my check by $101 with less than 24 hours warning has made me even more resolved to get the heck out of here. If I'm going to make less money, I would rather know it ahead of time.
Plus, the people really do sound happy in Nevada.
BBB
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Infotainment Instead Of News
Well isn't that just awful, the pundits have lost patience with the President. As if I care what the pundits think. I remember when they were relatively good (This Week with David Brinkley, Tony Brown's Journal and the good versions of Meet the Press and Face the Nation) and confined to their place voicing opinion, not making it. I lost all respect for them during the Clinton affair. They perpetrated and encouraged a witch hunt against a sitting President whose only results were to expose private marital discord to public ridicule and to ensure that when the bumbling idiot that is George W. Bush took over and ran this country into the ground that they could say that the country was tired and that all talk of impeachment was off the table and we must support the President otherwise we were automatically guilty of treason. One must not criticize the President. Unless he isn't the President that the wingnuts wanted, then all bets are off.
And people wonder why today's youth are so confused and who could blame them? On the one hand they were taught that it is okay to try to impeach a President for lying about having sex outside his marriage (like that hasn't been done before!) but it isn't okay to impeach a President for lying about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, allowing an American city to drown on worldwide television, spying on innocent Americans without any oversight from the court system, considered the Constitution as an old piece of paper, destroyed the military and then cut benefits to veterans, gave the orders that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in two countries, let the Grand High Poobah of the Taliban live free after the most traumatic incident this country had seen in a decade (funny how the FBI could find Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols within days but the military and the CIA can't find a 6'5" man on dialysis in a country where we've been for eight years) and I'm supposed to think that pundits opinions are the word from on high? Oh my, I'm just quaking in my boots. And what the heck is wrong with a little patience? Bush got eight years to screw up this country while the press was complicitly quiet and because Obama hasn't fixed everything that the press has just noticed is broken in the last four months while only being in office for two of them, he doesn't know what he's doing?
Maybe the President is combative because the press asks stupid questions. Repeatedly. Substance is no longer the press' forte. If half as much time was spent on researching what the public needs to know as the news spends on letting us know about the lives, loves and tweets of today's entertainment crowd maybe the President and I could take them seriously.
Our country is in deep doodoo and avoiding the issues is what the press does best and they are at the top of their game. Unfortunately these guys are so clueless that it probably hasn't occurred to them that if they reported the news in an objective manner that maybe so many papers wouldn't be going out of business for lack of readership.
As Anna Z pointed out so eloquently, why is it that nothing can be done about the AIG bonuses but the government has rules and regulations in place to deal with the last dime of a Medicaid patient because it is considered government money and must be repaid by any means possible? The rich can commit crimes and escape punishment on a consistent basis but the poor must be stripped of everything, including their dignity.
Not that the press notices these things, that would be too much like doing their jobs and they would rather be voicing their opinions instead of reporting the news. Bloviating is their specialty which is why they think everybody else does it too.
BBB
And people wonder why today's youth are so confused and who could blame them? On the one hand they were taught that it is okay to try to impeach a President for lying about having sex outside his marriage (like that hasn't been done before!) but it isn't okay to impeach a President for lying about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, allowing an American city to drown on worldwide television, spying on innocent Americans without any oversight from the court system, considered the Constitution as an old piece of paper, destroyed the military and then cut benefits to veterans, gave the orders that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in two countries, let the Grand High Poobah of the Taliban live free after the most traumatic incident this country had seen in a decade (funny how the FBI could find Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols within days but the military and the CIA can't find a 6'5" man on dialysis in a country where we've been for eight years) and I'm supposed to think that pundits opinions are the word from on high? Oh my, I'm just quaking in my boots. And what the heck is wrong with a little patience? Bush got eight years to screw up this country while the press was complicitly quiet and because Obama hasn't fixed everything that the press has just noticed is broken in the last four months while only being in office for two of them, he doesn't know what he's doing?
Maybe the President is combative because the press asks stupid questions. Repeatedly. Substance is no longer the press' forte. If half as much time was spent on researching what the public needs to know as the news spends on letting us know about the lives, loves and tweets of today's entertainment crowd maybe the President and I could take them seriously.
Our country is in deep doodoo and avoiding the issues is what the press does best and they are at the top of their game. Unfortunately these guys are so clueless that it probably hasn't occurred to them that if they reported the news in an objective manner that maybe so many papers wouldn't be going out of business for lack of readership.
As Anna Z pointed out so eloquently, why is it that nothing can be done about the AIG bonuses but the government has rules and regulations in place to deal with the last dime of a Medicaid patient because it is considered government money and must be repaid by any means possible? The rich can commit crimes and escape punishment on a consistent basis but the poor must be stripped of everything, including their dignity.
Not that the press notices these things, that would be too much like doing their jobs and they would rather be voicing their opinions instead of reporting the news. Bloviating is their specialty which is why they think everybody else does it too.
BBB
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Life Without Credit
Russ over at Scholars and Rogues, has an excellent article about credit cards being equivalent to usury and used George Washington as an example as to some of the other reasons why our Founding Fathers started the Revolutionary War. One of my college professors had told us stories about ol' George's spending habits so it wasn't a total surprise but if the Founding Fathers thought that 5% interest was robbery, I wonder what they would think of us putting up with 30-36%?
I no longer carry credit cards, they won't let me have one. They don't even send me offers. Which is okay by me because when I run out of money to pay my bills and unlike my government and huge corporations, I stop spending. I just wish there weren't so many bills left over. The last few years of taking care of mom has taken a severe financial and emotional toll as it has for many in my generation. Every month I run out of money about two weeks before I run out of month. And just like a lot of other people we are falling through the cracks.
I don't own video games, I don't go on vacation to exotic places, I don't go out to eat very often and unlike some women, I only own two pair of shoes and one purse. I hate clothes shopping which is unfortunate since mom has magically disappeared almost everything I own several times. So, where did my money go? Rent, food, cell and gas. At the end of the month rent is not going to be an issue because unless a miracle happens we'll be homeless and that bill will go the way of the dodo. Thank goodness my two year contract is up with DiSH on the 17th and I can cancel the cable without penalty. Which I can also do with mom's phone as of yesterday since no one calls her and even though I have it set to answer when she flips it open, she misses most of my calls and uses it mainly to see the time. I can't justify the expense so there's another $10 a month saved.
Last year when gas was getting close to $5 a gallon here in San Jose I put myself on a gas budget. I bought a $100 gift card at Costco at the beginning of the month and when it ran out, I walked or stayed home. And even though I am not within walking distance of anything important such as food, I cut my driving by over 70%, a practice that continues to this day though now the requirement is one tank per month.
Could I use a credit at this moment? You betcha. When I bought the used 1994 Infiniti I checked Carfax for everything except how much it cost to tune it up. It never occurred to me that it would be more than $100. Boy was I naive. Depending on the place it is anywhere from $942 to $1200. Mainly for labor. You have to take half the engine off just to get to the spark plugs! Which can only be platinum. As tight as things are I would need to spread that amount over twelve months and hope that nothing else goes wrong. If I'm not willing to take that chance why would a creditor? So, I'm cleaning it and selling it this weekend.
Fortunately I do have an iPod and it will help entertain me while riding the bus. Since public transportation was one of the things that the Governator decided wasn't important enough to be funded and he had to give corporations a $1B tax break, I will walk a mile or two to get to a bus stop where I can pay higher fares and go fewer places. It's tough losing one's autonomy in California, the state isn't designed for it. On the bright side, there is the added benefit of increasing my cardiovascular health and helping me to lose weight.
Like a lot of people I've cut back everywhere I can, I even live in a crime ridden area because the rent is cheaper. Mom and I would like to move out of the state but we can't for three reasons. One, we don't know anything or anyone in the places mom wants to go so we would have no idea about the quality of the neighborhood. Two, she loses her Medicaid until residency is established and the drugs the doctor just put her on are as much as her Social Security each month so that presents a huge problem but three is the kicker. It seems we need a credit card to rent a truck. Not pay since they are only to happy to accept cash, just as security to rent.
It's sad that our nation has become the laughingstock of the world. Our news exports scenes of beautiful people doing nothing but attending parties or adopting babies while the poor and the middle class are blamed for not being one of the beautiful people. Hospitals are content to let people die in the waiting room, food banks are teeming with more people than they can healthfully feed while restaurants are throwing out unused food by the tons as the dinner rush becomes the dinner trickle. Meanwhile, those that have not only blame those that have not, they seem to spend every waking moment trying to get the last penny from those that don't have it to spare and then call them deadbeats because the have nots can't afford all the new rates and penalties on what they already don't have.
How many tent cities will it take before the populace can drag themselves away from AmericanIdol Idle and see that the flood waters of debt are at their doorstep and still rising? How much longer will the people tolerate bailing out the banks when they can't bail themselves out of the mess they're in? Especially without a job. Telling people not to live above their means when everywhere they turn all they see is stuff that they are brainwashed into needing is like telling an eight month pregnant teenager that sex is even better after you have the baby but abstinence is the way to make your parents happy. Some other advice needs to be given.
There's a reason why Clara Cannucciari is becoming so popular that she is getting ready to release her first DVD at the age of 92. She knows a Depression when she sees one. Cooking from scratch is an art, cooking with cheaply available ingredients is magic in the land of Mickey Ds, Whole Foods and tight budgets. I remember many of those meals from when I was growing up and you know what? They still taste good. Comfort food rocks. I may like caviar and champagne but fried potatoes and club soda taste just as good when you're hungry. Plus, you don't need credit to enjoy them.
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I no longer carry credit cards, they won't let me have one. They don't even send me offers. Which is okay by me because when I run out of money to pay my bills and unlike my government and huge corporations, I stop spending. I just wish there weren't so many bills left over. The last few years of taking care of mom has taken a severe financial and emotional toll as it has for many in my generation. Every month I run out of money about two weeks before I run out of month. And just like a lot of other people we are falling through the cracks.
I don't own video games, I don't go on vacation to exotic places, I don't go out to eat very often and unlike some women, I only own two pair of shoes and one purse. I hate clothes shopping which is unfortunate since mom has magically disappeared almost everything I own several times. So, where did my money go? Rent, food, cell and gas. At the end of the month rent is not going to be an issue because unless a miracle happens we'll be homeless and that bill will go the way of the dodo. Thank goodness my two year contract is up with DiSH on the 17th and I can cancel the cable without penalty. Which I can also do with mom's phone as of yesterday since no one calls her and even though I have it set to answer when she flips it open, she misses most of my calls and uses it mainly to see the time. I can't justify the expense so there's another $10 a month saved.
Last year when gas was getting close to $5 a gallon here in San Jose I put myself on a gas budget. I bought a $100 gift card at Costco at the beginning of the month and when it ran out, I walked or stayed home. And even though I am not within walking distance of anything important such as food, I cut my driving by over 70%, a practice that continues to this day though now the requirement is one tank per month.
Could I use a credit at this moment? You betcha. When I bought the used 1994 Infiniti I checked Carfax for everything except how much it cost to tune it up. It never occurred to me that it would be more than $100. Boy was I naive. Depending on the place it is anywhere from $942 to $1200. Mainly for labor. You have to take half the engine off just to get to the spark plugs! Which can only be platinum. As tight as things are I would need to spread that amount over twelve months and hope that nothing else goes wrong. If I'm not willing to take that chance why would a creditor? So, I'm cleaning it and selling it this weekend.
Fortunately I do have an iPod and it will help entertain me while riding the bus. Since public transportation was one of the things that the Governator decided wasn't important enough to be funded and he had to give corporations a $1B tax break, I will walk a mile or two to get to a bus stop where I can pay higher fares and go fewer places. It's tough losing one's autonomy in California, the state isn't designed for it. On the bright side, there is the added benefit of increasing my cardiovascular health and helping me to lose weight.
Like a lot of people I've cut back everywhere I can, I even live in a crime ridden area because the rent is cheaper. Mom and I would like to move out of the state but we can't for three reasons. One, we don't know anything or anyone in the places mom wants to go so we would have no idea about the quality of the neighborhood. Two, she loses her Medicaid until residency is established and the drugs the doctor just put her on are as much as her Social Security each month so that presents a huge problem but three is the kicker. It seems we need a credit card to rent a truck. Not pay since they are only to happy to accept cash, just as security to rent.
It's sad that our nation has become the laughingstock of the world. Our news exports scenes of beautiful people doing nothing but attending parties or adopting babies while the poor and the middle class are blamed for not being one of the beautiful people. Hospitals are content to let people die in the waiting room, food banks are teeming with more people than they can healthfully feed while restaurants are throwing out unused food by the tons as the dinner rush becomes the dinner trickle. Meanwhile, those that have not only blame those that have not, they seem to spend every waking moment trying to get the last penny from those that don't have it to spare and then call them deadbeats because the have nots can't afford all the new rates and penalties on what they already don't have.
How many tent cities will it take before the populace can drag themselves away from American
There's a reason why Clara Cannucciari is becoming so popular that she is getting ready to release her first DVD at the age of 92. She knows a Depression when she sees one. Cooking from scratch is an art, cooking with cheaply available ingredients is magic in the land of Mickey Ds, Whole Foods and tight budgets. I remember many of those meals from when I was growing up and you know what? They still taste good. Comfort food rocks. I may like caviar and champagne but fried potatoes and club soda taste just as good when you're hungry. Plus, you don't need credit to enjoy them.
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Waah, Waah, Waah
She can believe whatever she wants but just like every other Republican taking the blame herself is not an option. It's always someone else's fault with "those people". Maybe if Palin hadn't said so many obviously stupid things, the media wouldn't have made such an issue of them. She can't see Russia from her front door, she didn't have the vaguest idea of what the Vice President job was and she butchered the English language at every opportunity, just to name a few. Tina Fey did her image more harm than Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric combined. Like any good caricature the skits were based on the truth, the sad part was that they didn't have to change anything she said to get a laugh. Glasses, hair and twang were all that were needed as they repeated verbatim her latest verbal faux pas. If you can't stand the heat, get out of politics. And yes, unbalanced media is a threat to democracy, the last eight years proved that.
Speaking of biased media, in their latest hatchet job CNN never mentions that it was the Republicans who refused to cooperate and that Obama did try to include them in the stimulus process. They decided not to participate and then decried the lack of bipartisanship. Through the eight years of the recent Bush presidency the Democrats, unfortunately, never voted lockstep against any of his proposals. Seven Democrats in the House voted against the stimulus and I don't hear them crying about being left out in the cold. Funny how the people who voted against the stimulus are all too willing to take the money. Republicans, always willing to take not so willing to give.
I'm not particularly fond of quite a few of the recent Supreme Court Decisions but this proposal sounds messy and removes the judicial branch from its coequal status. The not subtle dig at Justice Ginsburg sounds like it came straight from Senator Bunning's office.
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Speaking of biased media, in their latest hatchet job CNN never mentions that it was the Republicans who refused to cooperate and that Obama did try to include them in the stimulus process. They decided not to participate and then decried the lack of bipartisanship. Through the eight years of the recent Bush presidency the Democrats, unfortunately, never voted lockstep against any of his proposals. Seven Democrats in the House voted against the stimulus and I don't hear them crying about being left out in the cold. Funny how the people who voted against the stimulus are all too willing to take the money. Republicans, always willing to take not so willing to give.
I'm not particularly fond of quite a few of the recent Supreme Court Decisions but this proposal sounds messy and removes the judicial branch from its coequal status. The not subtle dig at Justice Ginsburg sounds like it came straight from Senator Bunning's office.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Obstructionist Republicans
Federal or state, it makes no difference. Republicans in Congress continue to crow about not supporting the stimulus bill and California Republicans continue to stand in the corner and hold their breath. Why is it so hard for the media to point out that even though California has a Democratic legislature that it is Republicans, and Republicans only, who will not compromise on the budget issue? Even though this budget isn't the best for those who don't have money, those who have been laid off or disabled, those who don't have health insurance and those who don't want to buy a new house, something must be done before the state grinds to a halt.
Businesses will receive a 1 billion dollar permanent tax cut, I guess they need it more than the average citizen. Way back in 1978 when I voted for Prop. 13 I had no idea that businesses were going to benefit from the property tax bill also. There are buildings that have stood empty for years because the company doesn't want to sell the land and make the tax rate increase. Which means that lower property taxes are paid and revenues have not kept pace with inflation. Meanwhile a good proportion of the people who this proposition was designed to protect have either moved or passed away. There are a few left and they should be protected but the business protections need to be eliminated.
Gray Davis was recalled over a budget crisis and Arnold Schwarzenegger took over and immediately proceeded to try and balance the budget on the backs of the little people. Several years later and they are still using the little people to try and balance the books repeating ad nauseam the tired old canard that Republicans have used for years. If businesses have to pay more taxes, a higher minimum wage or let their employees have breaks for lunch and get paid for overtime, then the whole business structure will collapse. What a load of hooey. Slavery was supposedly abolished in 1865, let's keep it that way.
Businesses use the roads, their employees use the emergency room in lieu of preventative healthcare. Corporations have the ear of the governor, their employees have the sound of silence. Corporate taxes go down, employee benefits disappear. The elderly paid taxes at a higher rate than we do now during their earning years, now they are treated as disposable and considered to be a drain on the economy. If it wasn't for them this state would never have achieved the greatness it did, now they are being punished for being old and are portrayed as leeches for using services that everyone else imagines are theirs.
We are one of the few nations on earth that treats its elderly as disposable. Which is interesting since we all grow old eventually. If you're lucky, otherwise it's just people's memories of you that get old. Growing old gracefully is not a privilege reserved for the rich, it's a right that everyone is entitled to. Too bad the Republicans have no respect for their elders.
Ten thousand people could permanently lose their jobs if this crisis isn't resolved. Just what the state needs. More unemployed. As I have reason to know, rents are not cheap in the Bay area so cutting a disabled person's income by thirty dollars will increase the homeless population and why should someone who through no fault of their own be forced to survive on the street while the fat cats continue to be driven around on the taxpayer's dime? If we can't afford to help the weakest among us what makes us think we are so great?
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Businesses will receive a 1 billion dollar permanent tax cut, I guess they need it more than the average citizen. Way back in 1978 when I voted for Prop. 13 I had no idea that businesses were going to benefit from the property tax bill also. There are buildings that have stood empty for years because the company doesn't want to sell the land and make the tax rate increase. Which means that lower property taxes are paid and revenues have not kept pace with inflation. Meanwhile a good proportion of the people who this proposition was designed to protect have either moved or passed away. There are a few left and they should be protected but the business protections need to be eliminated.
Gray Davis was recalled over a budget crisis and Arnold Schwarzenegger took over and immediately proceeded to try and balance the budget on the backs of the little people. Several years later and they are still using the little people to try and balance the books repeating ad nauseam the tired old canard that Republicans have used for years. If businesses have to pay more taxes, a higher minimum wage or let their employees have breaks for lunch and get paid for overtime, then the whole business structure will collapse. What a load of hooey. Slavery was supposedly abolished in 1865, let's keep it that way.
Businesses use the roads, their employees use the emergency room in lieu of preventative healthcare. Corporations have the ear of the governor, their employees have the sound of silence. Corporate taxes go down, employee benefits disappear. The elderly paid taxes at a higher rate than we do now during their earning years, now they are treated as disposable and considered to be a drain on the economy. If it wasn't for them this state would never have achieved the greatness it did, now they are being punished for being old and are portrayed as leeches for using services that everyone else imagines are theirs.
We are one of the few nations on earth that treats its elderly as disposable. Which is interesting since we all grow old eventually. If you're lucky, otherwise it's just people's memories of you that get old. Growing old gracefully is not a privilege reserved for the rich, it's a right that everyone is entitled to. Too bad the Republicans have no respect for their elders.
Ten thousand people could permanently lose their jobs if this crisis isn't resolved. Just what the state needs. More unemployed. As I have reason to know, rents are not cheap in the Bay area so cutting a disabled person's income by thirty dollars will increase the homeless population and why should someone who through no fault of their own be forced to survive on the street while the fat cats continue to be driven around on the taxpayer's dime? If we can't afford to help the weakest among us what makes us think we are so great?
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
During The Commercial Break
Have you ever wondered what television news anchors do during the commercial break? Straight from WGN-TV, an intimate look at that most serious of institutions.
They must really like each other.
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They must really like each other.
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Monday, February 09, 2009
According To Those In The Know
Why is the Washington Times still kissing up to ex-President Bush (that felt really good to write)? Because talk is considered presidential only when the public is being lied to? Maybe Obama got access to the complete data only after he was sworn in and the outlook really is bleaker than it looks. We have been lied to for so long that maybe we can't handle the truth and maybe we can. And only the truly clueless believe that employment is at 7.6% since many people have dropped off the rolls or are working part time jobs which are rarely gainful employment. And that benefits thing? Not so much.
What I find interesting is that those who always tout education and hard work as the way to change one's life for the better then do everything in their power to eliminate those opportunities for those who need them the most. Expecting Paris Hilton and her compatriots to become the doctors of tomorrow is as foolish as thinking that 38 kids in a classroom with no computers, books or food in their stomachs are going to design a rocket that lands on the moon.
But with the cuts to NASA I guess that isn't important anymore.
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Brad Blakeman, a senior aide to Mr. Bush from 2001 to 2004, said the new president's language is immature.For eight years bipartisanship has been defined as Democrats should sit quietly and listen to their betters, follow their advice and bend over and spread their cheeks as directed. The American people didn't like the results of that and decided that they wanted change in how things were done. Now bipartisanship is defined as you can spend all the time and effort you want trying to listen to my concerns and I am still going to vote against you and accuse you of not bringing me in on the negotiations. But still, people leave comments like this after Bush got everything he asked for and in some instances, more from the Democrats in Congress.
"It's not presidential. An American leader needs to be hopeful and optimistic - and truthful. Everything he says is parsed; everything he says is searched for deep meaning. When he goes to 'DefCon 5' on the economy and says that we're on the brink of catastrophe, it's absolutely insane."
It really sucks when the "Liberal" Chickens come home to roost !!! Now look at just who is begging for a Bi-Partisan Congress !!!And yes, Limbaugh is a portly chatterbox.
Now that your Democratic Congress is in place, lets see just how you deal with the stonewalling that the Dem's have shown us how to do for the past years...
That's how I understood Obama's dismissive reference to the AM radio entertainer: Times are serious; Rush Limbaugh's not. Needless to say, the portly chatterbox made the best of it, remarking that Obama supporters expect everybody to bend over and grab their ankles just because the president had a black father. To which Jay Leno made the perfect rejoinder: Rush grab his own ankles? That'll be the day.The American people know that this is the stimulus package that isn't and how it got that way. So much of what would have been helpful was cut from the bill by the centrists that it won't help those who need it the most but it did comfort the comfortable. As more people become unemployed why was it necessary to cut food stamps, aid to the unemployed and the states who can't print their own money at will like the Feds?
What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses? A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished.But as President Obama pointed out in Elkhart, this bill isn't perfect. It's coming out of Washington and it had to go through Congress. Wow, the vitriol from the commenters is amazing in its anger, hatred and stupidity. At least from those in Elkhart who still have an internet connection.
What I find interesting is that those who always tout education and hard work as the way to change one's life for the better then do everything in their power to eliminate those opportunities for those who need them the most. Expecting Paris Hilton and her compatriots to become the doctors of tomorrow is as foolish as thinking that 38 kids in a classroom with no computers, books or food in their stomachs are going to design a rocket that lands on the moon.
But with the cuts to NASA I guess that isn't important anymore.
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Sunday, February 01, 2009
Rich, Bitch And Snitch
Now even the rich are whining. Three pages worth and it's hard to read without realizing how clueless some people are. I understand the principle, but it's hard for me to feel much sympathy since even they admit that they can afford to live there.
Is Gaza like the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation? Professor Levine offers a multitude of reasons why they are similar and one on why they are not and determines that they are not the same because not a high percentage of enough Palestinians have been killed. Not that Mr. Levine cared when the 200,000 Rwandans were dying but they are useful now. And here all this time I thought I was good at rationalizing anything. Politicide, genocide, they're two sides of the same coin. Either way it falls the Palestinians will never have anything but a below third rate status and the world will continue to watch and do nothing except say "stop that." Until it's too late.
Speaking of rationalizing, Kathleen Pender thinks the job cuts announced this month should be put into perspective. That it isn't really that bad when you look at the percentages. Maybe she should sit outside some of the major retailers and see how full the parking lots and the baskets that come out of them, aren't.
Two weeks after a fellow officer shot an unarmed, handcuffed, lying face down on the cement, man in the back the story is that the victim was trying to kick him in the nuts so that's why he hit him in the head and then had him in the position so his fellow officer could use what he now swears he thought was his taser to shoot a man who was already subdued. They are trying this case in the media and just like with rape victims they are trying to use the victim's past against them. And the cop who did the shooting has been granted bail. It might be $3 million but it still brings to mind an interesting question. Why do cops get granted bail at all? If I committed murder I wouldn't be granted bail and neither would anyone else I know. Being rich has its advantages also, just ask Phil Spector. Yup, she walked in the door of his mansion where she had never been before, grabbed his gun and committed suicide. Next thing you know I'll be believing in fairy godmothers.
So Michael Phelps likes to get stoned when he isn't competing. There is nothing wrong with that since in no way is pot a performance enhancing drug, but you shouldn't let people take photos of you hitting the bong. And to the person who did it for the money, shame on you!
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That's tough to do when you live in a place where the board of the country club recently approved a plan to spend $60 million in upgrades. That has caused some tenants, like Goodwin, whose annual expenses run to $80,000 for a 720-square-foot, or 67-square-meter, home, to put his property up for sale.I can almost hear tiny violins in the background.
"It was a grandiose program that went directly into the eye of the storm," he said. "I used to be rich and by American standards, I still am. But now it is a time for people like me to hunker down."
Is Gaza like the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation? Professor Levine offers a multitude of reasons why they are similar and one on why they are not and determines that they are not the same because not a high percentage of enough Palestinians have been killed. Not that Mr. Levine cared when the 200,000 Rwandans were dying but they are useful now. And here all this time I thought I was good at rationalizing anything. Politicide, genocide, they're two sides of the same coin. Either way it falls the Palestinians will never have anything but a below third rate status and the world will continue to watch and do nothing except say "stop that." Until it's too late.
Speaking of rationalizing, Kathleen Pender thinks the job cuts announced this month should be put into perspective. That it isn't really that bad when you look at the percentages. Maybe she should sit outside some of the major retailers and see how full the parking lots and the baskets that come out of them, aren't.
Two weeks after a fellow officer shot an unarmed, handcuffed, lying face down on the cement, man in the back the story is that the victim was trying to kick him in the nuts so that's why he hit him in the head and then had him in the position so his fellow officer could use what he now swears he thought was his taser to shoot a man who was already subdued. They are trying this case in the media and just like with rape victims they are trying to use the victim's past against them. And the cop who did the shooting has been granted bail. It might be $3 million but it still brings to mind an interesting question. Why do cops get granted bail at all? If I committed murder I wouldn't be granted bail and neither would anyone else I know. Being rich has its advantages also, just ask Phil Spector. Yup, she walked in the door of his mansion where she had never been before, grabbed his gun and committed suicide. Next thing you know I'll be believing in fairy godmothers.
So Michael Phelps likes to get stoned when he isn't competing. There is nothing wrong with that since in no way is pot a performance enhancing drug, but you shouldn't let people take photos of you hitting the bong. And to the person who did it for the money, shame on you!
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