Well…I just had to comment on the new Mercedes commercial that tries to sell their cars by pointing out that they will keep you safe in an emergency….but then they go one to have the people say that they fell asleep, wasn’t paying attention and other ridiculous anecdotes. All of this put a question in my head….”do only stupid people buy Mercedes?” Since when it is a selling point that your customers are so stupid or inept that they need the car to think for them? I find it disturbing that the skill and responsibility level of the American driver has sunk so low that they can’t even stay in their lane or keep from running up the back of a truck that stops in front of them….in all my years of driving, I’ve never found the need to have my car pay attention for me, or wake me up, or stay in the right lane for me….geez….
Category Archives: Misc
Not sure what’s going on….
Well…it’s been a struggle lately to find anything to write about….I wonder if it’s that a lot of the columnists that I disagree with are on vacation…I may have to start taking notes during the day so I remember anything that might get me started…I did see a turtle on the trail today which is really unusual; probably the first one I’ve seen in more than three years….I could go on about the Casey Anthony verdict but I just don’t care about it….the prosecutors didn’t prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and that is how the legal system works…what I don’t understand is why everyone is so upset about it….why do people invest so much in things that have nothing to do with them? I do really like the crop of candidates that the repubs are putting forward for 2012…they all have so many flaws that it should be easy to beat them in the election….I am a little concerned what the dems are giving away in the debt talks….they still don’t get it that the repubs don’t want to do anything to help the middle class and will not compromise even if the country is going to go down the tubes….they and their rich buddies will survive even if they crash the economy so they just don’t give a damn…okay…..that’s about enough for now….the US women’s team is playing in the world cup this aft so I need to take a nap before that…I will try to come back and be a little more cogent but it just not that kind of a day…
Some thoughts on the 4th…
Well…when I was out on the bike I had some thoughts about the fourth of July and what it means to this country and what it has meant to the world for the last 230+ years. I won’t make this into a political rant, though..even though those on the right have been wrapping themselves in their misinterpretation Declaration for years now; trying to use it as a weapon to destroy the very government that this wonderful document set out to found. Okay, so that was a little bit of a slam…but when I read that these folks say that the single reason for the Declaration was to stop taxation as evidenced by the Boston Tea Party, they are just dead wrong….the founders had no problem with taxation or a central government…if they did, why did they write the Constitution that formed it?
That’s the last of the political part here….just wanted to add one last thing…that even with all of our faults and mistakes…this is still the best country that has ever existed on the face of the earth….and I hope it is forever….Happy Independence Day!
I predicted this one….
Well…there are a couple of things that I want to talk about today…the first is a neat little study that was done that compared the increase in productivity with the increase in wages since the 1980′s….where the projection of wage increases, if they had kept up with the increase in worker productivity, would have resulted in the median wage for the American worker being almost 100 percent higher than it is…what this says is that even though the American worker is working harder and longer, the fruits of this work increase has gone entirely to the top whose wages HAVE increased by 100% in that same time frame.
The second part of this nasty little secret is the sluggish performance of the American economy and my prediction that if the war on the American worker continued by slashing wages and benefits, and moving jobs overseas, there would be no one left to buy the 40 thousand dollar SUV’s and it would result in a feedback loop that would result in an economy that would never recover; but would remain stagnant over time since the majority of the economy is consumer spending. Exactly what is happening now; no one in the middle class is willing to spend anything since they don’t have any extra money anymore…it’s all in the hands of the rich and powerful who don’t purchase enough to keep the factories moving…and I am going to say this to the short sighted CEO’s out there who are lining their pockets at the expense of the entire American economy….I hope you feel good about yourselves…you’ve managed to destroy an economy that was the envy of the world…hope you can’t sleep at night…geez…
Some funny stuff…
Well…I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but Georgia has recently passed on of the toughest anti-immigrant laws in the country that basically allows them to stop and arrest anyone that looks hispanic…that may be a little bit of hyperbole…I do that sometimes, as you know, and the wonderful rule of unintended consequences kicked in to bite them in the ass. What has happened is that all of the illegals that the farmers exploited to get their harvests in have fled the state, leaving them with no one to do the low paid, backbreaking work that Americans won’t do, leaving this years harvest rotting in the fields and costing the farming business there millions. I am just laughing my ass off since this completely dispels the tired old repub notion that the illegals are taking the jobs of American citizens….and shows these neanderthals what pandering the the fringe of their party without thinking about the consequences will do….now…I don’t support the idea of people being rewarded for breaking the law and coming here illegally, but couldn’t we do something like a documented guest worker program that would allow people to come and do those jobs? Just a thought….
Nothing really important….
Well…did a lot of searching today and couldn’t find anything important to write about so I thought I’d just put down some observations that I find to funny…not funny ha ha, but funny a little weird. Out on the trail today, I saw a weird thing that I’ve seen a couple of times the I really do have to share….why do people who are walking on the trail; to get exercise and lose weight I suppose, carry chips and other bad foods with them to eat? Then there are the pop bottles…so these people want to gain weight by walking? Just can’t understand it…
I’ve notice another weird thing since I’ve shaved off the beard….more women are smiling at me like I exist again…with the entirely gray beard, I was pretty invisible and no one noticed me at all…just an observation, or wishful thinking maybe…who knows? Hmmm…what else? Not much right now….I did have a nice lunch with T….
Canadians rioting?
Well….I had to talk a little about this…I’m sure you’ve heard about the riots that happened in Vancouver after the Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup, and it is something I never thought I’d see…Canadians? rioting? Those are just two things I never thought I’d see in the same sentence….here in the US, yes, because we are passionate people that can be wild at times and go overboard in both joy and sorrow. But the Canadians always seemed to be on Prozac….not too high, not too low, but moderation in everything, eh? When we lost the cup in 7 to Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, everyone just went home and said we’ll get them next year….are the Canadians becoming us? Hope not…the world needs more Canadians in it, not more Americans….that didn’t sound right…this is still the best country in the world but I love the way we can look to the north when we go overboard and see the calmer, gentler example that the Canadians normally set.
Obesity here in the US…
Well…watched an interesting documentary yesterday about the obesity epidemic here in the US and, while I’m sympathetic with those of us who daily struggle with our weight, I think I fall on the side of the personal responsibility folks who counter attack when the blame is placed on the fast food industry. I was thinking about this the other day when I realized that I have not had fast food in over a year and it is a conscious decision to not eat that kind of stuff….I do understand the people who say that they don’t have time to cook healthy, and I had that same problem when I was working long hours. Then there is the cost….when you can get fast food for a few dollars for a meal, some people just can’t afford to eat healthy foods. I can admit that I have battled my weight my entire life and there was a time a few years ago that I weighed 210 pounds on this 5 foot 10 inch frame….but, through hard work and the weird ability to keep track of all the calories I consume every day, I’ve hit around 170 now and I’m shooting for 160 as my final weight. I guess I’m lucky that I can resist the urge to eat when I need to and I have the time to get in a couple of hours to exercise every day. One of the funny things about this is that I have three sons that have gone through exactly the same thing over the last couple of years, each of them going from over 250 lbs to about 160….and they did it the way that many obese people say just doesn’t work….eating better and less along with ramping up their activity….
So, what’s the answer…I don’t know but I do know what worked for me and my family…less than 2,000 cals a day and lots of exercise….okay, this one was supposed to have a point but I wandered around for a while and it never came…so you can consider this one a throwaway…and I do owe you one that makes a point later…but I’m not sure what that will be yet…
Let’s stop the health care lies…
Well….as you know, the healthcare debate is one that hits really close to home for me since I haven’t been able to afford health insurance for the last nine years and, under any plan that the repubs have presented, I’ll never be able to afford it until I turn 65 and qualify for Medicare. One of the things that just bugs the hell out of me are all of the righties attacking the health care reform bill with the lies that it has already resulted in higher costs and people losing their insurance…when you hear these things being said, just remember that most of the law has not even taken effect yet….so any higher costs or loss of coverage is because the insurance companies have decided to make those changes, not that they have been forced to by the law. Where are the repub voices that decry the insurance companies taking advantage of these lies to further gouge the people? They will never be heard exactly because the insurance companies own the repubs and have purchased their vote to both defeat the current law and to help them get their hands on Medicare to further control the healthcare market.
So, can we at least try to make the repubs tell the truth for once and do what is best for the country instead of just themselves and their owners? Geez….
I’ve been trying…
Well…it’s been a busy morning with having to take the bike apart to fix the flat…but that’s not an excuse, I’ve been trying to come up with some topics but just haven’t been able to put anything together and it’s starting to frustrate me a bit….of course I could go after Manny again for his idiocy or after Nolan for his naked partisanship but even when they write the outrageous crap they did today I can’t muster up a response…and I don’t want to write crap (you might think it is but you wouldn’t be here if it was that bad) so I think I’ll watch “the Daily Show” and come back in a while to see if that helps….