Just out of morbid curiosity...

I occasionally tune in and listen to either O'Reilly or Hannity on the radio, I've tried Rush, he's an idiot. Call it knowing thine enemy, call it arming myself for the asshole apocalypse, call it masochism, I do not care what you call it. I gain a sense of self-satisfaction out of it, much like when I read Fark.com articles tagged with Florida or secretly make fun of people who find Larry the Cable Guy funny. It is a sense derived from the satisfaction you take from the misery or ignorance of others, a schadenfreude-like feeling that I just can not peel myself away from.

Why? I don't know, I think it may be a sign of mental illness, but the stories they weave like tapestry and callers they field are but a sampling of the ignoramuses that I have tended to run into for the last ten years.

In my pursuits of better pastures of bartending in the last three years, I have run into a lot of morons, on both sides of the political spectrum. From the over-privileged trust fund prince or princess, to the immature patchouli smelling wanna-be hippies just back from a week-long smoke out at Bonnaroo (let us not say that I do not enjoy Bonnaroo, or the music played there, I actually love the so-called neo-hippy music, I just hate posers) who tells me how evil the Bush administration is and yet does nothing but spend his/her parent's money on new Birkenstocks (real hippies would have made their own damn shoes!) and a dime bag.

I hate equally, trust me, ninety percent of the people you meet, anywhere, are asshats. I just happen to live here, so its what I write about. When I lived in Louisiana, I thought the people there were dumb too (Sorry for the brief caveat, but it needed to be said, I would not want to be accused of romanticising the land of my youth).

So, back to my occasional dirty pleasure, right-wing talk radio. I don't really have anything to report. They are so busy talking about undermining the President, for no reason other than to do it that I can discern, they are attacking someone that doesn't really matter, or, better yet, shilling either one of their books or the books of one of their own ideology. I will spare everyone the diatribe of my hatred for Ann Coulter, but this one is a doozy. They threw around half-truths and outright lies, then lambasted anyone who dared to cite a credible source to back up an argument. In other words, they pundit-ed. They functioned as the mouthpiece of cultural "frustration" which makes them millions of dollars while we are worried about unemployment. I really felt like their listeners (please include my usual sarcasm here), like they were speaking for me and were on my side in a way that the rest of the "liberal" media wasn't.

Yet, I found nothing so blatantly telling of the sheer moronitude of my fellow listeners as this:










I instantly felt dumber when I heard it...I feel dirtier still even re-posting it.

Save us, oh mighty Aykroyd, from the doldrums of horrible SNL!

Its frustrating...

I really wish I had more time to spend on writing here, every time I seem to get a spark of inspiration...someone has beat me to it. Bob Cesca is one funny guy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/president-obama-is-litera_b_166152.html

Well played Mr. Cesca, well played.

Follow up to my very tired ramblings of last evening...

My main problem (which I diverted from as I read more and got more agitated) was that the logic that some people seem to be using to discredit the bill. To claim that stimulating the economy is a less noble cause to borrow money for than one of the two wars that we are fighting at the moment is vacuous to me.

At best, we are fighting a war on two fronts (which never turns out well), and one, the much more expensive one, we created the problem on. Whereas, I do feel that military spending is fully warranted, when I see state funding and education funding cut out of one draft and military spending expanded in the same draft, that doesn't sound like stimulus to me. I have read the stimulus package and understood as much as I can without training in economics and agree with many on the front that it is not the plan that I would like to see. I think tax cuts for smaller businesses to stay afloat, but, unfortunately that is not the businesses that have been receiving tax breaks in the last 20 years. We've returned to a mindset very reminiscent of the early 20th century, where big business is our prime motivator and the worker is just a cog in the machine.

On a side note, do not mistake my post for wholehearted support for the Democrats in Congress. They have screwed the pooch on a necessary evil much worse than I thought possible. The aim of this was to lessen the load on middle class citizens and small business, while creating an energy independent economy for the future. The bureaucracy has stepped in and either compromised or flat out held up any semblance of that getting done so far.

For the record,I don't want the government to save us, I just want them held to the same standard at their job as all of the rest of us are. If I sucked at bartending this bad, I would have been forced to change professions by now! Instead, I'm working my way out...hopefully!

Don't We Have to Pay ALL of the Money Back?

I'm getting a little sick and tired of every time I turn on the television I see some Republican mouthpiece claiming that we are dooming a future generation...financially.

If its not John Sununu on the Daily Show tonight (link to follow later), its John McCain calling it "generational theft". Apparently, this strategy of calling it "theft" is the creation of House minority leader John Boehner, who wrote it on a new-ish site called AmericaSpeaksOn. The basic argument is that Democrats are trying to spending and borrow their way to prosperity, which is true in a technical sense but debatable and provocative politically. I believe the phrase was also used by Michelle Malkin, coined to describe the stimulus package (I've seen it on her Twitter if I remember right). Whomever it may be saying the phrase, it does contain truth value. Possibly unbeknownst to the millionaires of Congress, this is how credit works. You borrow money you don't have, on the promise to pay it, plus interest, back in the future.

Yet, if my memory serves me correctly (as it almost always does in trivial matters), they should know about credit all too well. After all, we are fighting not one, but two wars on credit as we speak. I guess Republicans are fiscal conservatives--unless they're in power. On last Thursday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart showed clips (skip to 5:16 in) from Boehner and other opponents of the stimulus justifying spending billions in Iraq.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) discussed his objections to President Obama’s stimulus package currently before the Senate. McConnell expressed his concerns over the long term cost of the plan, because “we are already looking at, before we even do this, at over a trillion dollar deficit for this year”:

Most of my members believe that we could pass a very robust stimulus for less than the amount currently before us. We have been throwing figures around like it was paper money. We are already looking at, before we even do this, at over a trillion dollar deficit for this year. We all agree that we need to do something, but I don’t think we should not just completely act like the amount is irrelevant.

McConnell is not alone in trotting out this argument. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has also railed against increasing the deficit to pay for measures that won’t act as effective economic stimulus, saying that the current stimulus plan is “arrogantly indifferent to economic reality.”

In order to criticize, you should present a solution. The only comprehensive alternative being offered by Senate conservatives is DeMint’s “American Option: A Jobs Plan That Works,” a series of permanent tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that the DeMint plan would cost over $3.1 trillion over ten years (more than three times the amount of President Obama’s plan) and be largely ineffective at creating jobs. The DeMint plan includes permanently cutting the corporate tax rate, totally eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, lowering income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, and eliminating scores of tax deductions that help students pay for college, sick families pay medical bills, and teachers purchase supplies for their classrooms. Permanent tax cuts are one of the least effective ways of stimulating the economy according to both Moody’s Economy.com and the Congressional Budget Office. Furthermore, slashing government revenues this permanently would leave deep structural deficits for generations to come. McConnell is fond of saying that a stimulus bill should be “timely, temporary, and targeted.” The plan Senate Republicans were backing, though, fulfills none of these criteria.

To revisit the title, what is the difference on the money we borrow? Is it worth more to rebuild another country or our own? Correct me if I'm wrong, but are these not members of the same party who continually deny climate change exists, fuel economy standards are necessary, and believe that our best energy solution is "Drill, Baby, Drill"? Since when is this party concerned about my generation, much less my children's?

So Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress, I respectfully request that you stop blowing smoke up our asses and do your jobs. The economy is partly your fault, therefore, the lion's share of the repair is your responsibility. I will do my part by continuing to go to work for as long as I am employed and able, also by continuing to shop for groceries in America. All I ask is that you don't insult my intelligence. Everyone in the Midwest is not on meth, everyone in the South is not a bible-thumping racist, not everyone in the city is a sodomizing liberal, not every African American can play basketball nor are they criminals, not every Latino is here to steal a job, not every Middle Easterner is a terrorist, not every Indian is a telemarketer nor do they all own convienece stores nor are they all doctors, not every Native American owns a casino, not every Asian American is good at math, and not every religious person is a Christian nor are all people believers. Stop lumping everyone together, unless you finally figure out how to do so by lumping us together as Americans, all for one and one for all, all in it together, succeed or fail.

My fellow citizens, feel free to forward this sentiment if you agree or debate me if you disagree, but keep in mind, we need to take our destiny back from these ridiculous people.

Studying...

Waking up at the seeming butt crack of dawn to study for a philosophy test is the bomb, dog! Deep thinking with eye boogers, what a combo!

The Coonass is Jealous of a Baby From Sierra Leone

I mean really? This kid is not even a year old and his life will never get better than this moment, sucks that he won't remember it. Don't worry kid, you'll always have video to watch later:



By the way, Salma...big fan. Um, may I cut in? Seriously, I'm not big on celebrity worship in any way at all, but that woman is hot sex on a platter!