Saturday, December 23, 2006, 05:35 PM - Random Thoughts
Too nice to be a Bush Conservative
I actually have a friend who is a complete and utter “true believer” when it comes to George W. Bush. He really doesn’t think Bush has done one single thing wrong throughout his “presidency”. It’s a shame, too, since my friend is a really nice guy who otherwise seems educated and reasonable.
I do try to get him to understand that our president is a stupid, lazy, arrogant ass. But he has somehow been programmed by the Far Right.
Here’s a sample of what it’s like:
(me): “You know, the Republican party lost because of how badly the Iraq war is going.”
(him): “But we’re WINNING in Iraq. And the Iraqi people are GLAD we are there.”
(me): “But what about how Bush lied in order to get us into war?”
(him): “Just because they never found WMD’s doesn’t mean they were never there.”
(me): “What about how only 17% of the Iraqis want us there, and how this war has cost the lives of over 600,000 civilians in Iraq?”
(him): “Those are just media lies from folks who hate America.”
(me): “What about how Bush has been illegally tapping into phone conversations and email? And what about how Homeland security illegally tracks all citizens’ credit card purchases?”
(him): “Bush has executive privilege, so that’s okay.”
(me): “So, what do you think about global warning?”
(him): “It’s a media hoax by people who hate America.”
(me): “What about hybrid technology”
(him): “It’s just a fad.”
(me): “What about conservation?”
(him): “The world will never run out of oil.”
(me): “What about overpopulation?”
(him): “The world can easily handle 100 Billion.”
Yeah, it gets pretty frustrating. He pretty much sees it in the same way except he can’t turn me into a Right Wing believer. Oh well, what can you do?
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( 3 / 1203 )Friday, December 22, 2006, 12:25 PM
It took a while, but I finally uploaded the vacation pictures and videos from the cruise Doug and I took this month. To see them, just go to:
http://www.gaianar.com
And click the "Bits & Pieces" link, located in the lefthand navigation column. Then click "Cruise 2006".
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( 3 / 1105 )Friday, December 22, 2006, 08:44 AM
The company party was pretty fun yesterday. The only downside was that one of the dishes apparently was either spoiled or contaminated. Half of the staff called out sick, and a third of the ones who did show up have stomach problems.
I am fine, however. Since I'm allergic to shellfish, I didn't eat any of the langostino pasta. I just had fried chicken and macaroni salad. And I still jogged 3.4 miles yesterday.
The talismanic figure known as "Mr Pretrial" even called out sick. It was his first sick day used in 20 years. They guy literally has thousands of hours of unused sick leave.
Well, aside from crippling the staff, the party was pretty fun!
Oh... And I'm not the one who made the pasta!
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( 3.1 / 1125 )Tuesday, December 19, 2006, 04:33 PM
My partner's boss is an idiot. She's trying to force Doug into getting counseling because he wrote about being depressed. Well, his dad died about 8 years ago, and Doug misses his father around the holidays. What a shock. What normal, functional human being DOESN'T miss deceased loved ones around key holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving? Doug's boss isn't even making a ruckus out of some misguided compassion. She just likes giving her staff a hard time whenever possible.
So Doug had to delete his blog so that its contents couldn't be held against him.
His boss is a jerk.
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( 3.1 / 1086 )Sunday, December 17, 2006, 03:55 PM
More Christmas Parodies!
What Christmas holiday is complete without more bloodthirsty parodies? These are just a few short ones to round out the season...
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The Golem Song
[To the tune of "The Dradel Song"]
Golem! Golem! Golem!
I made you out of clay.
And when I'm finished sculpting,
The neighbors you will slay!
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Silent, Deadly Night
Silent Night
Deadly Night
All is stark
Kids have fright
There's yon Santa Claus
Weilding an axe
Because the parents
Have been way to lax
He'll chop the kiddies to pieces
Yes, chop all the kid to pieces...
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Up on the Rooftop
Up on the rooftop
Clickity click!
Down comes pissed off old Saint Nick
He's not bringing the kiddies any fun
Instead he's packing a great big gun!
He'll shoot the christmas tree full of holes
Before he picks off some innocent souls!
Ho ho ho!
Both barrels to blow!
Ho ho ho!
Who's gonna know?
Up through the chimney
Lickity split
A night full of mayhem
By good Saint Nick!
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( 3 / 1021 )Tuesday, December 12, 2006, 03:26 PM - Cool Stuff
Rudolph the Cyborg Reindeer
Rudolph the Cyborg Reindeer
Had a red prosthetic eye
And when it shot out lasers
The children would all run and cry
All of the other reindeer
Used to stay the hell out of his way
They didn't want to be bisected
When Rudolph came around to slay!
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say,
"Rhudolph with your eye so bright,
Won't you be my laser sight?"
Then how the children feared him
As Santa launched a shooting spree.
Rhudolph the Cyborg Reindeer
You'll go down in infamy!
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( 3 / 1161 )Sunday, December 10, 2006, 09:51 PM
Burglar Claus
Better watch out
Better not cry
Bar all your windows
I'm telling you why:
Burglar Claus is coming to town!
He's making a list
Checking it twice
He's stealing all the things
That fetch a good price
Burglar Claus is coming to town
He sees you when your leaving
Or when you're not awake
He'll scour through your jewelry box
'Cause he can tell what's real or fake!
Oh... You'd better not pout
Better not cry
You're insurance is going up
I'm telling you why:
Burglar Claus is coming to town!
Burglar Claus is coming to town!
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( 3 / 1008 )Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 06:33 PM - Random Thoughts
To put Bush's mishandling of the Iraq war in context, let's imagine how he'd do as a tour bus driver instead of as a president.There's a bus with 100 people on it. Two of them are millionaires, while the rest are middle class or working class. All of the passengers have paid the bus fare in order to ride the bus, and Bush's salary comes out of that bus fare.
At some point, there's a fork in the road. Bush gets out his map, but he's just not quite smart enough to read the map in order to determing the right direction. Without telling the passengers this, he simply guesses and then turns hard to the RIGHT.
Before long, the road gets bumpy. Someone pushes a huge boulder down the side of the mountain and it hits the bus really hard -- killing one of the passengers. Bush could have swerved out of the way, but he was asleep at the wheel. He spends the next half hour saying that anyone who accused him of being asleep at the wheel is lying and traitorous.
Meanwhile, the road continues to degrade. Some of the passengers start grumbling and a few of them ask Bush if he took the correct turn at the fork. Bush replies, "I've made up my mind. We're going to STAY THE COURSE!"
Then an hour later, huge potholes appear in the road. Bush radios ahead and asks maintenance crews to fix the problem. Unfortunately, he sends almost EVERY repairman to the WRONG ROAD. It turns out that there isn't even anything wrong with the other road. But because of bad instructions, the repairmen destroy the other road while allowing the current one to keep degrading.The people who live alongside the other road start killing the repairmen out of anger.Bush, however, says that he won't recall the repairmen either. He says, "I've made up my mind. We're going to STAY THE COURSE!"
At this point, Bush decides to give a big refund to the millionaire passengers, but makes the middle class passengers pay out of their pockets for the refund. Bush says this will somehow make the view better.
Three hours later, the bus starts careening down a really steep hill. The brakes start making noise as the pads begin to overheat. The passengers are now getting really upset. They start murmuring about wanting to CHANGE DRIVERS. Bush recruits one of the passengers to kill some of the other passengers who are making too much protest. Then he briefly stops the bus to let in 20 OUTSIDERS who haven't paid their fare to ride the bus for FREE. Now the bus is cramped and overloaded. The brakes are now about to fail as the bus heads down an incredibly steep incline.
At the base of the mountain, a sign reads "Bridge Out" and "5000' drop". The passengers scream for Bush to change directions, but Bush simply says, "I've made up my mind, and I'm going to STAY THE COURSE!"
As the bus careens into the mile-deep abyss, Bush jumps out of the bus into his daddy's SUV. the rest of the passengers plummet to their doom.
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( 3 / 1218 )Sunday, November 26, 2006, 10:59 AM - Random Thoughts
If I called the shots, things would be a whole lot better in this country almost overnight. Here are my ideas:
Convert the Middle East wars into a psychological warfare campaign. Basically, our CIA operatives could infiltrate the opposing Muslim factions and stir up enough hate for the Muslims to kill each other in mass quantities. Muslims Killing Muslims is NOT a tragedy.
Use “theatre” nukes when pulling out of Iraq. Unlike strategic nukes, theatre nukes only destroy small pieces of land. This allows the Military to cauterize certain trouble spots without contaminating the entire country.
Redeploy our military for border patrol. While this would be bad for Wal-Mart, we could be rid of illegal aliens very quickly. The Military could be given the authority to shoot intruders on site.
Employ the Charter of Workers’ Rights. That piece of legislation would end outsourcing and poverty overnight.
Revoke tax-free status for “Social Disease” religions. Some religions only inspire hate, fear, and violence. Those religions should NOT have tax-free status. Islam, Mormonism, and the Assemblies of God are examples of social diseases because they only inspire their follows to act violently and to hate others. Members of these religions should also be overseen by social workers (at their expense) when raising children in order to prevent the children from being brainwashed.
Impose yearly fees for gas-guzzlers. Depending on the price of the vehicle, any SUV that gets under 25 MPG should have a yearly fee of $1,000 to $5,000 for ownership. The fees would be used to develop advanced hybrid and electric vehicle technology. People who insist on owning SUVs would have to have red license that bears the caption “this driver supports terrorism”. Moreover, there should be a 14-day “cooling off” period between applying for a SUV and actually signing the papers for ownership. All SUVs would hare to be registered with the FBI as “Weapons of Environmental Destruction”.
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( 3 / 1188 )Sunday, November 26, 2006, 10:58 AM - Random Thoughts
Proposal for a Workers’ Bill of Rights
Preface
Our country was founded on the premise that all human beings have the right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Until the 1990s, this universal dream was one in which all Americans could follow. In what historians will undoubtedly call the Age of Corporate Feudalism, the major corporations and their allies in the Republican Party began embarking on a curious path of legislation and tax incentives that have created a work environment in which the working class experiences a spiralling degradation of income and benefits while the executives of major corporations become exponentially wealthy.
This document outlines suggestions for correcting this pattern of corporate exploitation while there is still time to remedy the problems caused by the Republican-Corporate alliance. To do nothing will invite a new era of feudalism in which a handful of individuals will ultimately control close to 100% of the available wealth while the working class will be relegated to poverty and serfdom.
Articles of Workers’ Rights
I. Fair Wage Ratios
Currently, the executives of major corporations pay themselves exorbitant salaries and bonuses while cutting their employees’ pay and benefits. In a fair compensation system, no employer shall be able to set up corporations for the sole purpose of robbing the employees and customers. To this end, there shall be limits on executive compensation. The highest paid employee shall not be permitted to be paid more than 1,000 times more than the lowest paid employee. If the executives desire more money for themselves, they merely have to give their employees a raise first. It is the employees, not the executives, who earn money for the corporation.
II. Limitations on Corporate Size
The advent of Wal-Mart and other “Big Box” stores has brought the leading edge of modern feudalism to America. These mega-stores drive down wages, stifle competition, depress innovation, and eradicate local cultural. “Big Box” stores cause smaller, local business to go bankrupt. These mega-stores then rehire the people whose businesses have been destroyed – at pennies on the dollar. This is how Wal-Mart and their ilk “create” jobs. To protect workers from predatory capitalism, no business shall have more than 100,000 employees. Companies already above this limit shall be broken into regional companies of 100,000 employees or less. Mega-corporations deemed to have destroyed local culture shall be assigned a monetary penalty, with the proceeds going toward community revitalization.
III. Penalties for “Off-Shoring”
Currently, the executive-class fattens their own accounts by sending high-paying American jobs to Third World countries like India and Costa Rica. The Americans whose jobs are replaced often end up with a steep decline in income while the executives earn multi-million-dollar bonuses. For America to remain competitive in computer science, manufacturing, and technology, the practice of off-shoring must stop. To that end, American employees whose jobs are off-shored shall be paid a full-year severance pay. The corporation in question must pay a $250,000 fine, per employee, adjusted for inflation.
IV. Limits on Corporate Bribes
To prevent future “corporate wars” like the Iraq war (in which America started a war with a Third World country, followed by a corporation favoured by the Administration being awarded an exclusive contract to rebuild said Third World Nation), there shall be legislative restrictions on corporate executives who later become politicians. No elected politician may vote either for or against any bill, act, charter, amendment, or edict that pertains to any corporation that he/she has ever served as an executive. Moreover, said politician may not accept campaign donations from the corporation that he/she once served.
V. Limits on Predatory Profit-Taking
Given the current climate in which executives plunder their customers for the enrichment of themselves alone, there shall be limits on profits by corporations that act as either a monopoly (i.e. the cable television industry) or collectively (i.e. the oil industry). In these cases, the corporation(s) in question shall be limited to 200% profit. Any additional profit must be either reallocated into higher payroll for non-executive employees (i.e. workers), or into community revitalization programmes.
VI. Special Taxes for Very Rich
Contrary to reasonable logic, taxing the poor is not a good way to raise revenue for the government. And yet, the Bush Administration created a huge tax cut for the very wealthy while at the same time giving the middle-class and poor only a single, one-time, $300 tax refund. Because this tax break for the wealthy came at the expense of Federal-State fund-matching programmes, many states had to raise taxes to compensate. It was the poor and middle-class that paid the brunt of these tax increases. Thus, the President effectively commanded the poor to give huge sums of money to the rich. This predicament must be reversed. To accomplish that end, any American earning more than $1 million per year must pay 70% tax on the excess income. At income above $10 million per year, the tax rate shall be 90%. By levying the tax burden on those most equipped to pay, the taxes on the middle-class and poor shall be then reduced. No American citizen who makes under $25,000 shall pay a penny in tax. (These figures shall be adjusted yearly for inflation).
VII. Tariffs for Predatory Third World Nations
Part of how the executive-class has enriched themselves at the cost of American Workers is by running factories in Third World nations that essentially practice slavery. Wal-Mart and other “Big Box” stores import their wares almost exclusively form China and other nations that have appalling human rights violations. To level the playing field for local manufacturers, the tariffs on good imported form Third World countries shall be 250% of the value of the product. These fees shall be used to revitalize Social Security.
By enacting these seven articles, the trend towards American Corporate Feudalism may yet be abated.
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