Well….a pretty fun day yesterday with drinks with T and lots of great conversation and laughs….but the weather is still depressing the heck out of me…when is it going to stop raining? I do have things to do today so that is a plus and I need to get the Wings gear on since the second round of the playoffs start tonight….I’ll update the sports stuff later in a separate post….man…still can’t get the brain working very well and I’m not sure what the problem is….need to go out for supplies today and get some more groceries…I should get some chips and dip for the game tonight…it has been a tradition when we get together to watch but I don’t really need the salt or calories so I probably won’t…okay…it’s not working right now so I’ll stop before I get too much more embarrassed…more later…
April 28th part two…
Well….I haven’t done a part two in quite a while and this one has a purpose….I just haven’t been able to think much today with the stories coming out of the deep south…so I watched a movie this aft and it was one of the worst ones I’ve seen in quite a while..”Due Date” with Robert Downey….not funny and they never let you like either of the main characters; almost shut it off more than once and that never happens, or rarely…..I have been feeling crappy all day and I think it may be that I’ve gone a bit too far in trying to cut down on the calories…only about a thousand yesterday and burned about 600 of those on the bike…always feel sluggish when I do that so I’m trying to make up for that today but not having much luck….but, you really don’t care about that, do you? I am looking forward to hanging out with T tonight and that will make 3 days in row out….kinda looking forward to Friday night and staying home to watch the game….okay, that’s enough for now….
Some thoughts on the tragedy…
Well…just wanted to get out a short one about the tragedy that unfolded yesterday in the states of the south….where over 200 people were killed and entire towns destroyed by the tornado outbreak there. Just wanted to send some good thoughts their way and hope that this country does it’s best to help them…..I can’t imagine what it must be like to have everything you’ve worked your entire life for gone in an instant…there is a picture of the devastation on MSNBC.com that broke my heart…in it, there is a man standing by himself in the corner, looking out at what I expect are the remains of his home….
April 28th
Well…had some fun last night out with G and a really weird thing happened…T was at Great Lakes, too and the two of them met for the first time….can’t wait to have drinks with T tonight to see what she thinks….and I made some cash finally so I can actually buy food this week…feel pretty crappy today since we stayed at GL longer than expected and Stevie Y’s team beat the Pens in the 7th game of their series which I did have to stay up and watch with a couple of cocktails…not much to do today…I am going to get some food and supplies then back here to take it easy….need to nurse the wounds and rest up for later…more later….oh, one last thing..I was right about the birthers…every thing I said they would say they did….crazy idiots…
What’s “the Donald” going to talk about now?
Well…just a shorty to comment on the morning’s knife to the heart of the birther movement. If you haven’t yet heard, Obama released the long-form birth certificate that these idiots, including Donald Trump, have been clamoring for for over two years and that he hopes will end this moronic obsession with where he was born. Yeah….I know, the truth never matters to these people and now they will just move on to knowing that this new one is a fake…I’ll predict a few of the new attacks: Why did it take so long? the typeface wasn’t invented when he was born….that it looks like there are erasures, etc., etc., etc….you can’t reason with irrational people. But, it is going to be fun to watch them tie themselves into knots when their primary argument goes up in smoke…
Thanks, Manny…
Well…if you’ve been here before, you’ve heard me take issue with the idiotic rantings of the Detroit News’ Manny Lopez, and I have to say thanks again for his column in today’s paper…it’s not the only thing I want to talk about but it gets me started and, hopefully, gets the outrage meter moving up. Today, Manny goes on to take issue with Bob King’s comments (Bob is the president of the UAW) that the new financial manager law is an attack on democracy by allowing elected officials to be removed if their organization, be it a city, town, county, or school district runs into financial distress. What would you call subverting the election process by appointed overseers, Manny? What’s next? Removing a congressman or senator if he votes for financially unsound practices? That would put all of your repub buddies at risk for voting for tax cuts when it results in bankrupting the country, doesn’t it? It’s just another instance where the repubs and their lapdog writers scream socialism whenever the dems do anything that will benefit the middle class but then see nothing wrong with tearing at the core of our democracy when they lie to get voted into office. Who would have voted for our gov Snyder if he would have revealed his plans for the giveaway to business and the rich paid for by taxes on you and me? Liars all….
Okay…that is the only topic for this one….I will try to get another one out later but I do feel pretty crappy and want to make salmon for lunch….I have been better lately at getting these out before you come back from lunch….I’m better than Keith at it…oh, that is one thing I did want to talk about and forgot…Keith Olbermann is coming back with “Countdown” on the 20th of June…same time, different channel…..welcome back, Keith….
April 27th
Well…it was a long day yesterday and I do feel pretty crappy today…..nope, really crappy today…..stayed up late watching “Hud” with Paul Newman and had some cocktails…this, after being out with Tom and I won the night in a championship game after tying it up….so that’s the reason for feeling so crappy…I think there is a component of the lousy weather in there, too…I think I’m going to turn into a duck if it doesn’t stop raining….but it’s not going to so quack….I do need to get this place cleaned up for the furnace guys today but I have no motivation…what’s the opposite of motivation? Not much to do today…I do need to go to the bank and then buy stamps and send the electric bill but that’s about it….going to get moving now…more later….I think my hair hurts….
I was right about oil and gas prices…
Well…it’s red letter day here at “Overqualified & Unemployed” when I have been proven right by no less than the crooks at Goldman Sachs…should I feel good or bad about this? In today’s Free Press, there was a long article where it reported that the commodities people at this large trading house did a study of oil and gas prices and found that 27 dollars of the 110 dollar price of oil is directly attributable to speculators that are trading in the oil futures market…that is over 25% of the cost of a barrel of oil…and the traders have a neat little scam running on all of us….that when the traders bet that the price will go up in the future…it always goes up….you heard me right, these guys have so distorted the normal rules of supply and demand that they no longer have any bearing on the price of oil. I’m sure that with just a few phone calls amongst the big traders, they alternate daily who is going to be the one to bid the price up and who is going to just sit and rake in the profits. Now, who among you out there are for more deregulation of the economy? This crap started when the Bush administration pushed for rules that allowed traders to never take possession of the commodity they are trading…allowing oil and gas to be commoditized and made just another financial instrument like sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps….where there is no risk for the traders and guaranteeing that all of the benefits fall to the traders while the rest of our country pays for it….geez….but what to do about it? Normally, I just bitch about this stuff but this time I’m going to offer suggestions….let’s make these guys that are paper trading actually take possession of the commodity they are trading and put up, in real dollars, the total amount of the transactions. This will push the risk back on the traders that are distorting the market and make them less likely to continue to rake in billions in profits off you and me….
April 26th
Well…another night at home last night since G went home and fell asleep…something I think she needed so I’m okay with that…and it saved some cash so that’s not all bad. I was quite bored with a no cocktail night and I didn’t sleep much but that’s just how it goes these days….I did get some resumes out yesterday but I think I have to broaden my search and get ready to move out of state…but that’s okay, too…I have one more start over in me and I probably should get to it. How do you get achilles tendon problems when you don’t run? I could barely walk yesterday with the pain in my right foot…it is better today but still is tender and stiff…and don’t have a clue how the heck I hurt it….I hope it doesn’t develop into the same pain I had in my elbow last year that lasted most of the summer….not much to do today…pool with Tom and more cleaning but that’s about it….more later….
A couple of musings…
Well…if you don’t live in Michigan, you’ve probably not heard of the huge controversy we have going on in the East side of the state concerning the new US/Canada bridge that has been proposed to alleviate the congestion at the privately held Ambassador Bridge that connects Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Today’s article in the Detroit Free Press sheds a lot of light on why the Mattouns, the owners of the bridge, are spending so much money on trying to prevent another span being built…a big part being that they own the fuel sales rights on the bridge plazas and have a sweetheart deal where they don’t pay taxes on any of those sales…yep, they make a profit of almost 60 cents per gallon on each and every gallon of gas or diesel sold there, along with the money from tolls. A license to print money that they will fight to the death to protect…no matter what is good for the people of Michigan or the country….just another instance of the rich not giving a damn about anything but their money and power….who allows important border crossings to be privately owned anyway? This is one of only two in the US and needs to be run for the benefit of the country….not just one family.
The other thing that I wanted to talk about today is a neat article by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post this morning where he notes that people are starting to tire of the false choices that the repubs have been presenting to the country that are increasingly framed in the “either/or” and not the “both/and” that the country wants to hear…and the earlier presents a pessimistic view of the countries future that is not how you run a democracy. E. J. goes on to assert that this type of political rhetoric is one of the big reasons why we can’t find compromises anymore….I ask the question: why can’t we have a social safety net and lower deficits? Why can’t we cut government spending and still have the services that the majority of the country expects from government? I think it’s because politicians have gotten lazy and dogmatic and I agree with E.J. again that this type of false choice has substituted for thought and is the real reason that we can’t seem to solve any of the countries problems…geez…