This explains everything!

I've been knee deep in MINI for a week now so I haven't had much time to check the news, but I just popped my head up to check my local onion for a recap of what I'd missed this week, and according to top sources, the "CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years." (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43014) Now I'm only writing this to further spread the word because this was news to me. I had no idea this was common practice in our nations intelligence services to use black highlighters. Now I understand why Bush's friends have been blacked out on top secret documents that have been released. People who were involved in everything from torture leniencies to the very fact of why we went to war, they weren't hiding them, they were pointing them out for others to know what to look for. According to this finding, this administration has been the most cooperative administration with the public's outcries for a transparent government in the history of this nation. They've gone out of their way to make sure we don't miss a thing, from secret meetings with the oil big wigs to billions of dollars that were simply lost in Iraqi reconstruction and overcharges from Halliburton. It's all making a lot more sense now. Now I can breath a bit more easy and concentrate on my work, it's all going to be OK. And on top of that I've now been here long enough for the free pizza! Yay!

$2.99?! $2.99!?

I wrote this on Friday and forgot to post it. Silly me with my 100 hour work week.
The turkey has settled into somewhere in my body and is going into hybernation for the winter. Triptophan is a tranquilizer to keep you sedated so you don't notice the turkey just sits in your body keeping you "beefy" till spring. A Native American taught me that. And so I was going through the usual black friday ads and revelling in the after mail-in-rebate prices of tech stuff. $9.99 for a bluetooth headset, $7.99 for 90 CDRs, $2.99 for a comp-usa brand airport hub (Apple's goes for $199 fyi), and $2.99 for a wireless adapter for our computer, I mean come on! Give me some of that! I just bought a wireless hub used off ebay for $40. And then I made it to the store in the city after work and nothing was there, I mean NOTHING. And you know you'd think I would have learned by now if I don't get run over by fat 40 somethings in WalMart I'm not gonna get anything at a discounted price. Such is life.

Soul for sale! Soul for sale!

So I started freelance today at a dream job, let just call it "Frawberry Strog." And it's on a pitch for a dream client, let's just call it "nimi." And as standard practice I was immediately sat down with my W9 and page upon page of "sign here on the dotted line so we can sue your ass for writing in your blog that we exist." So here I am. I just want to see what happens... teehee

As goes GM so goes 30,000 people to the unemployment line

Word is spreading as I write this that GM is bringing its production in line with its sales which means closing 6 plants and laying off 30,000 jobs. And of course the first thing every news man will start quoting is "As goes GM so goes America" and wonder where "America" is at this moment. An America that could have prevented a lot of this from happening by creating universal healthcare. GM has to add $1500 to every car it sells just to cover it's health coverage legacy costs. It's understandable when we talk about business that you'd better keep up with the times and always be part of today's economy. Toyota will now be the #1 car company because it handles legacy costs much better. And to a large extent this is true, GM is getting what it deserves for being an uncontrolled behemoth. But there's also something to be said for 30,000 people who will now have to be reobsorbed into our economy which is having enough trouble finding places for the nations refugees of Katrina. So the saying still holds because we know what America is when we look at what happened to GM and what the effects of outsourcing are, what the effects of not dealing with our oil problems sooner are, what the effects of not taking an active roll in hybrid technologies in our car companies are, and what our effect of letting businesses deal with the insanely spiraling up prices of medical coverage are. And sin of all sins, "If we give tax breaks to big business, they'll use it to create more jobs." Yeah we can see how well the largest tax breaks in history for the rich and big business are doing. They're not stopping outsourcing, they're not increasing minimum wages, they're not even saving jobs let alone creating new ones. Businesses hire new people when they make more money having someone new rather than if they can get it done with fewer people regardless of what they pay in taxes, end of story. Tax breaks can be used to increase investment in one's company but more than not they just increase CEO's salaries which are also at record highs this year. GM is to blame for sure with its bad planning for a lot of this, but the structure of America is also to blame. Now I am a big fan of the saying "it is to hurt before it is to heal" (Never Ending Story), but there's so much more we could have done and there's much more that we have to do. It will hurt for us to heal as well, but if we don't face up to how we're restructuring America into a nation run on daddy's credit card, 30,000 jobs lost is going to seem like a drop in the bucket.

Why bacon greese should stay on the bus.

Poor Miss Brown and her 47 Hustle has been having a rough time on the bus. Well here's a tale to lift her spirits as I promised in her comment area. On the first day of Spring, March 21, 1976, my father was getting on a bus in NYC to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He'd been going to the Met a lot lately as he was getting a divorce from his wife. Because of their 6 kids he still lived at home but slept on the couch. So he spent a lot of time alone contemplating at the museum. Mind you this is a man who lived with his folks till he was drafted in WWII and then moved back in with them till her married in 1949 at age 26 when he moved in with his wife. He had never lived alone in his life, nor was that going to change. And on this very special day when he boarded the bus there were only two people filling seats, one of whom was Susan Decker of Manhattan, New York. My father made his way over and sat beside her and they began to talk and struck up quite a nice little conversation. He had just "updated" his wardrobe, which in 1976 meant HUGE lapels on his button down shirt. My mother was on her way to meet two of her cousins for a "fancy lunch" at The Plaza Hotel. Her stop came sooner than they were prepared for and when Susan got off, my father did not. That is until a minute later when he made the driver stop blocks before the next stop so he could get off and run back to the Plaza where he made his way through the crowds of people till he found my mother sitting with her two cousins. "My name is Wolfgang Schwarz and I would be honored to take you out on a date." "My name is Susan Decker" she replied, "and I'm in the book." My father, like a good German Jew, bowed and left with a smile on his face. He proceeded to call every Susan Becker in the phone book for the next two days with no luck till he remembered Decker not Becker and phoned her up. They went out that night and were engaged 2 weeks later, married 6 weeks after that. So you see Miss Brown and all you worry warts who think there is no hope on the bus, I say to you I and my brother are living proof of what magic the bus holds for us all.

I'm goin' shoppin' I'm goin' shoooppppin'

Every Thanksgiving the stores go crazy with these freaky free deals on select items to get you in the store so you buy the more expensive items. And I tell it it works! Those bastards take me for everything!
But one of their tricks is to get the special sales out to you only at the last minute, like 2 days before the sales start to keep you on your toes. Here's a little trick to beating the system. bfads.net Stands for Black Friday ads. Black Friday is what the stores called the Friday of their biggest total sales day of the whole year. And this site gets the ads up early so you can plan on what you want to get and shop for those items specifically. Avert your eyes from the LCD TVs! I'm definitely getting myself some free flash card readers and 100 stack CDRs, what are you getting?

Who's going to be the new Gerald Ford?

It's starting, you can see the wheels turning. Right after winning reelection in 1972 Vice President Spiro Agneu got taken down. He was a naughty boy and deserved it. So in came VP Gerald Ford, one of the nicest people left in Washington to make everything go down easy again. Then there came Watergate and we got the only man to be VP and President without ever beng elected to either. Now in 2005 Cheney is being distanced from Bush, it's only a matter of time before PlameGate hits him Squa' in the nuts. And with his backroom dealings trying to keep torture in the rule books his low approval rating is sealed. It was always supposed to be like this. We always believed him when he said he'd never run for president cause honestly, who'd vote for this guy. Now we know why. He knew he could only take it to the edge if he wereready for the step down so some guy could sweep in and keep Republicans safe again in the '08 ticket. Will it be Colin Powell? John McCaine? Even Condi? This will be one case of history repeating itself I'll be ready for.

Well, it's official, I'm a terrorist again.

The beard is back and it has been about a month to the day since I shaved last. Needless to say it is growing handsomely and has taken on a life of it's own. Just like it used to be. (I use Herbal Essenses conditioner, the purple one, for it FYI)
So here we go again with the odd looks and the, "OK, he looks Jewish but he could be Liberian. I'm just not sure. What's that in his hand? It looks like a case of some sort, and it's black!" It's a fucking portfolio bag people! If I'm looking a little distraut it's cause I'm running late for somewhere, not the land of 72 virgins, somehwere on this astral plane. I can't wait till I have to fly again. My electric toothbrush always goes over well. But being in NY with the constent ringing of the "You are subject to a random search by the NY MTA," I guess it really can't get any worse.
But in the end, fuck it. Look at me like that, be suspicious, I actually feel safer knowing you don't trust my beard. What a world we live in where I feel safer for that reason. And of course I'm looking at you too little old lady with that oversized bag and whatever contents may be shifting around in there or mr. homeless man with one too may cans in his cart. The man with the beard is just as paranoid as you are.

Honor and integrity

Having an affair is wrong. Having an affair when you're the president, yep, even more wrong. Lying about it in front of a grand jury? That's perjory my friend. Any of our god damned business? Hells no! Did he leak anything more to Monica than what ended up on that blue dress? Were trade secrets lost? We're people bought and sold like commodiites? Was policy effected in any way? (Well yes to that one, but only after and because he was weakened by the scandal and reacted to the attacks.)
And now we have these things. We have petty revenge that has damaged our national security. We have lies and deceit that affect policy AND all of us. And today we find out that Mr. Jack Abromoff was setting up a deal in 2003 to take $9 million from the president of Gambon to have a meeting with Bush. No transactions have been found but documents listing a $9 million transaction have. No indirect channels have been connected. But there WAS a meeting less than a year later with Bush which the administration called nothing more than routine. Hmmm...
And to rip off from another person, I quote Jon Stewart here as he watched Dick Cheney at the 2000 Republican convention saying that one the first minute of the first hour he will restore honor and integrity to The White House. To which Mr. Steward replied, "Yes, for that one minute they restored honor" and it was all downhill from there.

Happy Voting!

Living in Chappaqua, NY I'm privy to some pretty interesting recorded phone calls. In one day I received two calls from my congresswoman Nita Lowie, one from Chuck Schumer, 2 from Hillary Clinton, 2 from Eliot Spitzer, 1 from Rudy Guilliani, 1 from some woman who had been raped and was endorsing a country clerk, and 1 from Bill Clinton who said he wanted to talk to me not as a president but as a neighbor, awwwwww. Other days I have received push polls, recorded messages warning me of push polls, and various other local officials all with some much need script reading classes.
And in spite of picking up the freaking phone every freaking 5 minutes I'm still going to vote. There are too many bond issues, too many local officials, and too many local issues out there for us to forget about just because a president isn't on the ballot.

See you at the polls!

Men in Brown

I'm a pretty rational guy. After all the fun is had and the kidding put aside, there aren't that many real conspiracies out there. But I'd like to chalk one up to the list tonight. Yesterday I was going down the West Side Highway (Joe DiMaggio Drive), when, on the uptown lanes came a few cop cars. Not that much out of the ordinary. Then I saw a few UPS trucks. Then a few more cops on motorcycles, then more trucks. The line of UPS trucks stretched for miles! I got off a quick shot on my cell phone camera but other than that I have no more proof of the alien invasion we just won, or the giant death ray underneath the UN building that was dismantled, or enough food to feed an entire secret army stationed in the Hudson River, or?... or?... OR?!!!! Whatever it is, we just won, are preparing for, or are hiding something right out of next summer's blockbuster sci-fi movie. Good luck getting to sleep tonight ladies and gentlemen.

Naughty boys get detention

Instead of cleaning house like Bush should and briging in some fresh blood, he's ordering everyone to attend an ethics seminar in the White House. They can chose any one of the three held next week at their convenience. But "attendence is mandatory." We've all gotten one of these in high school or at work when someone did a naughty thing so we all had to watch a sexual discrimination video or listen to the assistant principal in the auditorium walk back and forth and get all high and mighty as we sat there doodling, happy to not be in class. Now if only we can make sure that whoever took that photo of Bush asking for a bathroom break on a note pad at the UN can be at these meetings, I think we'll see some really high quality "office art."

Even his distractions are underfunded!

Now that there's the Katrina debacle, Frist and Delay in trouble, Harriet Miers down the tubes, and PlameGate Bush has found his distraction in the avian flu epidemic. Today he proposed $7.2 billion. He wants to spend $1.2 billion stockpiling flu vaccines. What the hell is the point of stockpiling flu vaccines that have no impact on the bird flu? The only good thing was spending a few billion on finding a better way to manufacture the flu vaccine which is still done today by infecting one bird egg at a time which takes months to make. Of course it's way too little money to get anything done and years and years too late because it will take that long for any progress to be made on that front. The fact is, when the avian epidemic hits it will take a few weeks to make a vaccine and months to create any significant amount of it and years to get to everyone who will need it which will be all 6.3 billion of us. And since he says this is going to be mostly a local run effort because it will be the local officials and hospitals that will have to micromanage everything he's designated a few hundred million for all 50 states to prepare. That's enough to buy everyone a shot of freakin' Nyquil! And because this is going to be a global epidemic that will start in Asia, he's sending a couple hundred million their way too. Woopdeefreakindo!
Nice try Bushy but luckily Harry Reid, in his first balsy move ever, brought the subject back to Iraq by calling shenanigans on the intelligence committee for not following through on its investigation on whether or not Bush hyped up any pre-war intelligence. In July of last year they said they would be done soon. It took Reid's calling for a closed session to get the republican controlled Senate to promise to have phase 2 done by Nov. 16th. Republicans are calling this a stunt. I call it some fucking balls! Where have you been Dems? Finally!