Something To Be Proud Of
During the lengthy time between my posts, I have found some things in our country to be proud of and I thought I’d share them with you.
I should start off by saying that I have been adamantly against any sort of taxpayer bailout of the big 3 American auto makers. That being said, Ford made me very proud today. Instead of seeking aid from the government (and by extension, Joe Taxpayer), they have made some tough cuts in their expenses and tapped into available credit lines in order to dig in for the rough times in 2009. I applaud Ford for going against the grain and NOT taking our money to keep themselves afloat. It is not the responsibility of the government or the taxpayer to keep poorly managed companies above water. Ford has taken the stance that they are going to take the consequences that come with the sub-par management decisions they’ve made in the past. I will be keeping my eye on Ford to see if they can turn the ship around or if they end up flushing our money down the toilet like Chrysler and GM.
The other item I’ve found that makes me proud comes from our new President. For the most part, Obama’s politics don’t align with mine. But today, I’ve found an issue on which he and I see eye to eye. Obama issued a critique today of what can only be described as outlandish bonuses for CEO’s on Wall Street in these dire financial times. And I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with him on this. It is despicable that these Wall Street fat cats needed taxpayer money to keep their companies from ceasing to exist only a few months ago and now they are raking in billions of dollars in bonuses. The most disgusting piece of it all is that these Gordon Gecko’s of the world are getting billions of dollars in bonuses after RUINING THE COMPANIES THEY LEAD!!!! If you were to perform your job at such a level that it completely ruined your department/unit/whatever, you’d be fired. These douche bags are getting rich by running companies into the ground then having you and I pay to fix their mistakes. UNACCEPTABLE.
I really hope that Obama finds a way to combat problems like these in the future. There is no doubt in my mind that 2009 will bring more taxpayer funded bailouts of companies and there need to be measures in place to prevent these CEO’s from receiving a billion dollar pat on the back for a job poorly done.
Wanna show congress how dumb they are?
This weekend will provide you with a fantastic opportunity to lay a good bone-crushing hit on all this pork-smelling stimulus garbage that congress is kicking around these days. On Sunday, buy soda, buy pizza, buy wings…heck, buy a new 60″ LCD hdtv! Watch the superbowl and then go out and buy stuff from the companies with the best commercials! Let’s see if we can put an uptick on the economy before we’re beaten over the head with a mindless spending package that will NOT stimulate anything.
Oh, and just for legal reasons:
Hellfire and Brainstorm does not in any way advocate expenditures that will exacerbate any current financial stress you may be suffering. If you got it, spend it! If you don’t, find a friend having a party and volunteer to bring napkins!!! Of course, this will not stop these idiots, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to have a little fun while they’re burning down our whole country…
Loony toons… every last one of ‘em.
Filed under: Economy, Education, Foreign Policy, Politics, Taxes, Uncategorized, Waste
A couple of subject are under my microscope today. Each of them is appaling in it’s own right. First, we have Gov. Blagojevich in Illinois. Is there anyone on the planet that actually believes this guy to be innocent? Now in all fairness, I must give this man his due process.
Evidence toward his guilt: Audio recordings of the man saying that he is trying to profit off of the appointment and may actually appoint himself if nobody wants to pay him what he thinks the senate seat is worth.
Evidence of his innocence: He says that he hasn’t done anything wrong and that ‘they’ are out to get him in order to make it easier for the democrats in Illinois to raise taxes.
Verdict: Guilty as the day is long.
Now, what makes this amusing is that he is making the rounds today on all the lefty morning shows protesting his innocence and demanding that this is some sort of unfair ‘witch hunt’. Then he says that he is being denied due process and makes the case that his being “railroaded” legally speaking is dangerous to all the rest of us because if the government can deny him his due process then they can do it to us. As far as answering to the tapes:
“I can’t address what is on those tapes”.
Does anyone hear a tinge of “I don’t recall senator” in there? In order to believe this guy you have to:
a) Disregard audio recordings of the man describing his intent to commit a crime and conspiring with someone else to do so.
b) Believe that he has a witness (any witness) that will be able to put any of that ‘back in context’ so that we can all understand what he really meant by “this think is f*ing golden, you don’t just give it away for nothing”.
c) Intentionally ignore the fact that he immediately shifts focus to this being a personal vendetta against him when he is directly questioned about any of it.
Blago has to be clinically insane. Egomania and an ability to disregard the obvious truth on this scale is a sickness. I think he honestly believes that he has done nothing wrong. Either that, or he is working hard on a basis for a book deal later. When the democrats are throwing their own under the bus, there’s a good chance that they are pruning ‘obviously diseased’ branches off the vine. I say ‘obviously diseased’ because the whole liberal vine is infected with ignorance and arrogance on a lethal scale. Kinda like a tapeworm. Yeah, that’s a good analogy.
On to more lunacy!
Nancy Pelosi is at it again, opening her skeletal maw to spew forth stupidity on a grand scale. Now we are being informed by her highness that government provided contraceptives will stimulate the economy. Uh, well I suppose if we were all prostitutes that might be true. The long and the short of this is that she is trying to cut costs on wards of the state by making less of them. Good plan. While your at it, why don’t we just put all of our seasoned citizens on old rusted out freighters that have no more use in the fleet, run them out in the deep water and sink em! That would mean less Medicaid payments, less Medicare part ‘B’ costs, less stress on the medical industry, less frustration for the younger drivers in florida… the list goes on and on…
This type of idiocy is beyond words. Almost. I actually wonder why Nancy is trying to cut down on her voting base. Poor, stupid, dependedent people vote for democrats. It’s a fact. The more dependent people there are, the better off the democrats are in terms of keeping power in DC. So this seems a little counter intuitive. I suppose that we have to consider the long-term effects of this program. First, just because you hand ‘em out doesn’t mean that they’ll be used. Second, if you give something to the dependent class and get them used to it, then you can use it as a threat in future elections. “If you vote for them, they’ll take away your *insert entitlement here*. Heck, they’ve been doing that for years with the old folks and medicare (Which is probably why the frieghter thing I mentioned is a no-go). None of what they have listed in the stimulus bill will to the first thing to lift the economy. In fact, most of it will damage it further. We’re talking about state and county-level projects that ought not be funded on that level by government, much less by FEDERAL government. Art Programs? Money for schools to teach Native American language classes? How the heck does that help? How about a tax cut, you idiots? Here, check this out:
If congress sends ME the money, then I use it to buy things. If they send me enough money for long enough (or let me keep my own money in the first place) then I am more likely to buy things like cars, televisions, movie tickets, dinner out… you get the picture. All of those things are (guess what) part of the American economy!!!! Giving money to local governments to build their pet projects does little to nothing for anyone but the contractor who gets the job. But then again, he’s being taxed through the floor so that it can be built. What I would LOVE to see is a local county or state government apply for a big chunk of the money (but not disproportionately large) and allocate it for a big fat tax cut to the taxpayers of that municipality. Could you imagine the positive repercussions if, say, the State of Georgia did that? Suddenly, there would be a flash of monetary input for the market and the lending institutions as people pay down debt. Either way, that helps my personal economy. If we all do better, then so will the economy. If the engine requires gas, why don’t they give us all a little gas and let us get the engine started again? Well, that makes a little sense, so I guess that won’t be happening. Perhaps I could get a billion or so in the meantimeto do a study on why my cat is snoring right now. Loudly, in fact. Yeah, a billion should cover it. I mean, some of that has to buy earplugs for me and the dog… and buying earplugs stimulates the economy, right?
Is that a prayer or a pot-induced ramblefest?
The Reverend Joseph Lowery (one of our race-related fixtures here in the ATL) decided to take the opportunity to turn the inaugural prayer today into a bigoted, mocking joke.
‘Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around… when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen’…
Ok. let’s look at this line by line and examine it closely. First, what happened to all this ‘We are all one people”, kumbaya love that our president spent the previous few minutes establishing??! black? brown? yellow? I thought we were all Americans… Sounds to me like the good reverend is stuck in the same gear he’s been in since MLK was a man struggling for a cause and not just a holiday.
When was the last time that a black man or woman was asked to sit at the back of a bus? Can you imagine the hellfire and hatred that would descend on anyone even ACCUSED of asking that in this day and age?? Hey Lowery, open your eyes for a second (mid prayer) and notice that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS A BLACK MAN. He’s the one standing next to you. Tall guy, reasonably good looking, surrounded by men in dark glasses with guns. Ok, now carry on praying….
I can only assume that the ‘brown can stick around’ line is a reference to hispanics. Isn’t ‘brown-town’ a bigoted slur? Does ANYONE that wants to be taken seriously call hispanics of any background ‘browns’? No, they do not. and the ‘stick around’ bit? Again, I have to guess, but it sounds like he’s referencing illegal immigrants.
Sure they can stick around… when they get the appropriate legal documentation. Just like any other color illegal immigrant.
The whole ‘when yellow can be mellow’ thing is lost on me. What the heck does that mean? Is he indicating that asians as a rule aren’t ‘mellow’? Better question: why the heck is that even important? This ‘prayer’ is becoming a jive-talking joke. If I was asian, this rhyming load of garbage would leave me anything but mellow… and still we decend further into the race-dividing madness…
‘when the Red Man can get ahead, man‘… no, he didn’t. Did he? Red Man? He’s GOT to be kidding right? Obama’s being punked for sure. Lowery sounds like a stoner! Hmmm… maybe that explains the ‘mellow’ part… Pardon me, but this is the United States of America. Anyone who is willing to put in the work can ‘get ahead, man’. Again, excuse me Reverend. I hate to interrupt, but take another look to the man who is now the President. His dad wasn’t part of his life, his grandmother raised him, and he didn’t have a silver spoon in his mouth when he was born. That doesn’t even take into account the fact that calling Native Americans ‘red-men’ is just degrading… How many times have tribes protested the Washington Redskins for their name alone? Oh, by the way, there is a monument of one of these ‘red men’ currently being carved in a mountainside in south Dakota that is bigger than any monument for a single ‘white guy’ on this continent. It’s been in the works since the 40′s. That may not be ‘getting ahead’ but it sure isn’t a bad start… More power to ‘em.
Did Lowery write this prayer for LBJ’s inauguration? It certainly sounds like he dusted off something that was originally penned in the ’60′s. And now for the clincher: ‘and when white will embrace what is right‘ WHAT!!!!!!!????
This is the point when I hit apoplectic RAGE. How dare you accuse me of ‘not embracing what is right’, you bigoted, shriveled-up race pimp! This is absolutely outrageous! In this day and age, when millions of “white” Americans voted for a black man for president, this doddering old fool of a pulpit stool still wants the nation to believe that white folks have yet to embrace what is right?? (For the sake of argument we are assuming that ‘embracing what is right’ means treating black people as total equals). This man is a smear on the legacy of MLK. To endure the blatant, blinding hatred that he did; to live to see a black man as PRESIDENT and to still cling to his segregation-induced disdain of white people… how sad. This was a day that was to be celebrated throughout America as ‘the day that racism died’… and this old man can’t get past his own bitterness. I take personal offense at his implication that I, as a white man, have yet to embrace what is right. Who does he think he is to judge me? I will go further to say that the good reverend ought to look to the plank in his own eye.
Well, all that to find out that… drum roll please… it WAS penned in the ’60′s! A good portion of the -ahem- ‘prayer’ was taken from an old protest chant…
So, this man Lowery, who was ostensibly brought up on the dais (let’s face it folks-only because MLK was assassinated) to represent the history of racism that is now conquered, puts forth an old protest chant as a relevant prayer. Sick. A solemn occasion to give thanks to God Almighty for blessing this nation with a 44th peaceful exchange of power and this idiot plays the race card…AGAIN. There was no prayer. God was never even addressed in all honesty. If I was Barack, I would publicly shun this man. He obviously will never get past what happened in the past. He will never allow himself to believe that a white man or woman can look at him and not want to reach for the nearest fire hose. Lowery needs to shut up for eternity. He has earned the absolute derision of this nation.
‘…all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. ’…
We MUST save Chicago!
It’s going to feel like 40 below in Chicago this week and they are set to experience the coldest temperatures in a decade. Stupid global warming. I sure wish it wasn’t so dang hot all the time….
This has brought me to an epiphany. I personally have solved the sudden global cooling crisis all by myself. SUV farms. Yes folks, that’s right. Acres and Acres of SUV’s parked on permeable paved surfaces. These farms will be strategically located in areas that are predicted to suffer catastrophic cold this winter and perhaps in winters to come. Long about Thanksgiving, armies of presently unemployed persons would go to ‘the fields’ to fuel up all these climate control machines with the requisite fossil fuels to prepare for winter. When the cold air starts blasting in from up north, the farms could be started up. This would (according to popular opinion) have the effect of instantaneously warming the atmosphere in that area to abnormally high temperatures for the season; battling the cold and saving the potentially doomed citizens from an Icy death.
What could be better than that you ask? How about fixing the economy at the same time???Where are all of these new SUV’s going to come from? From Detroit! That’s right, not only will these farms save us from the planet’s worst cold snaps, but building, maintaining and occasionally replacing them all would put thousands of union Autoworkers back on the job! Praise BE!! You see what a little ingenuity can do???!
28th Amendment – The Right to Cable Television
I read this the other day and I’m just now getting around to posting it.
I tried to come up with something creative and witty to get my point across, but it’s late and this makes me more furious as I think about it. So I’ll be short and brutal in getting to my point.
Here’s the gist of the article for those too lazy to read it: Obama wants to delay to transition from digital cable because the majority of Americans who use analog TVs to receive broadcasting are unprepared for the digital switch.
Folks, this required transition was mandated by Congress in 2005. That’s 4 years to get your ass in gear. If 4 years wasn’t enough time – tough. Turn off the TV and go buy a converter box right now.
And that’s not even the part that pisses me off. The fact that Obama or any politician wants to help people receive TV broadcasting by delaying the switch to digital and passing out government (read: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) funded vouchers is bullshit.
Take a look at the Bill of Rights. While you’re at it, take a look at all 27 amendments of the Constitution.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Show me the one that guarantees you and I the right to cable television. You can’t because it’s not there.
So why are we wasting taxpayer money on converter box vouchers so people can watch TV? Why is the Congress now going to waste our time (and it is OUR TIME since we voted them into office as our voice in government) discussing a potential delay in the digital switch?
The answer is simple. Americans see television broadcasting as a right and not a luxury. The Government knows this and will use that fact to further our reliance upon them. No need for us to make sure that my TV will work after the switch – government will take of me.
Welcome to the death of individualism.
Who’s gonna fix all this?
So our illustrious (soon to be) President decided to unleash the socialist hounds this last week with his ideas on fixing the economy. He said (and I quote)
“…But at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.”
Um… No. That is a lie and he knows it. In fact, I am willing to wager that he is perfectly aware that the exact opposite is true. The best fix to this both long and short term is to roll back taxes on businesses and individuals significantly and let the market roar back to its former strength. The US economy has done amazing things before when allowed to run its course in an unfettered manner. Look at what happened when Reagan took office after the Carter era… tax cuts across the board and the nation saw a decade of massive capital growth and success… not to mention crushing the oppressive communist regime of Russia at the same time. You may say you hate capitalism, but even the Ruskies wanted a McDonalds close by.
Having government ‘control’ the manner in which this economy recovers is the absolute last thing that we need. Why put a governor on the engine of capitalism unless you want to be the one to decide which areas will succeed and which will not? A dangerous proposition at best… Remember the axiom: There is nothing that the government does that private business (or the free market) can’t do better. Find me an example of where government has been a boon to the citizenry of this nation OVER the private market in any sector and I’ll eat my keyboard. I have deli mustard… not that I’ll need it.
Sure, these times are rough. I ought to know, I got canned because of the housing market. These are also the times when the American people are at their best. Our nation is a continuous story of men and women overcoming adversity and trials to cobble together the strongest nation on the planet. A small example you ask? Paula Deen. A single woman with a major clinical personality disorder and two kids to feed started a sack lunch business. Now she has a wildly successful restaurant in Savannah, multiple TV shows, two successful children that learned hard work and sacrifice first hand and a legion of adoring fans that would pay to watch her melt a stick of butter. THAT, my friends, is why the free market is amazing. One part ingenuity, one part determination and the freedom under which innovation thrives… A recipe for a rising tide of plenty. One of my favorite quotes comes from a book that I read last year and that I will gladly extend as your first reading assignment from my corner of the H&B universe. That book is John Adams by David McCullough. You will learn more about the founding of this nation from the pages of that book than any class you take and all of the high school courses you’ve ever heard of. The quote is as follows:
“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
That quote is taken from a letter between Abigail Adams (The second First Lady) and her son John Quincy. Now, take out the last three words, replace them with “innovator and success story” and apply it to your life. It is the rough times in life that test the mettle of the man (or woman). Got a passion? Make it work for you. Use your God-given talent and ability to make something out of what you have or go find someone that wants what you have and is willing to pay you for it! Remember, necessity is the mother of invention. If it is necessary that you feed your family, you will invent a way to make ends meet. Take a part time job and learn something new in the meantime. Expand your worth to the world and you will find it a more welcoming place. Don’t rely on a Union boss to fix your problems. They WANT you to need them. Don’t rely on Barack or McCain or any other person in government… they are dependent upon you needing them for their own power. Be an individual, grow a backbone and go drag home a paycheck. In other words, be an AMERICAN. Live up to the great station that is yours and that you are called to by your birthright.
Um, can Elmo count that high?
Filed under: Finance, Foreign Policy, Politics, Uncategorized, Waste
Many of you will remember the days when you actually waited impatiently for the end of Sesame Street to hear the phrase: “Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letter ‘A’ and the number ’12′ (or whatever the generously inclined alphanumeric benefactors were for that day). Well, I want to know if they are going to have an episode that is brought to you by the number 3,000,000,000,000…
Given that congress stands ready to burden the children of today with a ‘bailout’ tax bill that carries the same number, I would suggest that “The Count” get himself a packet of no-doz and a pot of coffee. It’s gonna take a hell of a long time to count that high…
One! One Woefully Wasted dollar! Ah AH AH… Two! Two Terminally Taxed Toddlers! Ah AH AH!
Who on earth REALLY thinks that this is a good idea? I mean seriously… do these idiots go home and tell their kids that if the piggy bank doesn’t have enough that they can raid the “Monopoly” box for the rest?
AUGGGGGGHHHH!!!! I could spit nails. In fact, I might. Just to see if it helps.
Happy New Year!
The confetti has fallen, the champagne (and those who had too much of it) are being mopped off the sidewalk and Dick Clark can rest up for the next 12 months… Time for a year in review? Nah. Everyone does that. Besides, we haven’t been around long enough to really bother. Perhaps next year…
How about a sneak peek at the year to come? I like that better. No, I am NOT using a crystal ball, and if you want to find out what’s going to happen to Brangelina go get a tabloid rag. We here at H&B couldn’t care less…as long as we can still watch Tomb Raider with no sound.
This year will bring an end to the “white gentleman’s club” that is the presidency of the United States. As a US citizen, I wish P.E.B.O. (President Elect Barack Obama) a healthy and safe presidency. I sincerely hope that his recent exposure to reality in the form of Presidential-Level Security briefings has cleared his mind on how to best address the threats that our country faces. God willing, the inauguration will go off without a hitch and the mantle of power will be passed again from party to party without violence or bloodshed. This country is greater than our enemies for that reason, even if you think there aren’t any others. Even those who must try to make some moral equivalency between the US and our enemies MUST agree on that point.
There is a school of thought that PEBO will take a centrist tack in his Presidency… I don’t necessarily agree with that, although I don’t think he’ll get on The Pelosi Express straight to socialist hell. Barack is (without a doubt) a socialist. He wants to redistribute wealth, he thinks that the rich should pay more (they already pay a HUGE majority of the taxes). I think we can look forward to major steps toward socialized medicine, a thought that makes me shudder. Some of you may not understand this because you are fairly healthy individuals that go to the doctor when you feel like you’re about to die… well, let me clear this up for you with a current example of the government’s ability to manage health-related issues. My daughter presently receives medicaid due to a genetic disability. She also suffers from moderate gastric reflux, and is therefore on a regimen of daily antacids. Unfortunately, the medicine that she takes is a compound that must be mixed in the pharmacy. Not a problem for Dean and the crew at our local Publix, but NOW they have to fill out an extra pile of paperwork to get government approval (every time) for something that my daughter has been taking every day for almost three years. Ah, government. Right now I am at the beach (without the aforementioned medication) because they couldn’t get approval in time for us to leave. We called it in almost a week before we left. Consequently, we are trying something OTC while we wait. That’s right, we had to wing it because the government didn’t come through on a BASIC approval. This is antacid folks. Think heart surgery…
I think we can also look forward to a concerted effort to seize our retirement savings in the form of 401K’s. It will undoubtedly be cloaked in some kind of “Robin Hood – it’s for the poor” rhetoric, and the press will duly report that the evil rich have been depriving the poor of their ‘fair share’ of the savings and the socialist revolution will go on…
I think we can look forward to the longest continuous barrage of racism accusations in the history of politics. Please note that there will not actually be anything said in opposition to the incoming administration by the republican opposition that actually IS based in a belief that black people are somehow genetically or socially inferior. Every politician knows that saying something like that would be political suicide. Because of that, you can actually (and unfortunately) expect a very conciliatory and sheepish opposition in the next four years.
We will NOT be leaving Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon, no matter what Code Pink says or does. This will be the biggest episode of “not dancing with the one that brung you” that politics has seen in a while. The wackos that bought all the anti war rhetoric will be sorely disappointed. I expect that Barack will hear about it, but he won’t suffer too much for it because people will be too focused on the economy.
The economy will not be back anytime soon, much to my chagrin… and Barack won’t be doing much to help that. Sure, there will be a whole new round of infrastructure projects to make jobs, but making jobs won’t lift the economy. Not only that, but I can imagine that whatever he wants to do in this arena will sail by without the first glance at the budget, lest anyone should suffer the aforementioned racially-tinged lambasting. Anyone want to bet on how many of these jobs go to union workshops?
So the future is not quite as bright as it could have been, but we still live in the United States. If you don’t like the idea of a recession, in the words of a very wise man, “don’t participate”. Make your own way. Take another job, find a new and innovative way to support yourself and your family. Make this year as bright and prosperous as you can. If you and I both do our level best to better ourselves, the economy will be better for it.
All the best for you and yours in 2009!