I just might sit this one out

Okay. New political season and a lot of new players. Usually I am so interested and involved that I drive all the people around me nuts with the details and the strategies and the articles and etc. This season not so much. I know why and its sad but true. So far I have not been able to take one candidate from either party seriously. I just can't drink that much Kool-aid and also, they just don't seem to get it. None of them.

If you are a conservative you know Obama is in the White House and the objective ought to be to throw his but out and elect a conservative Republican candidate that will work on the Republican agenda. To elect one that will work to lower taxes, to make government smaller and to advocate spending less money on smaller government programs. The number one objective is to beat Obama for the Presidency however, lets not forget that. Instead we are worried about gay marriage, abortion (again) and the spending limit. None of those issues will help the economy directly, but hey Its about LOOKING GOOD not being good, right ?

If you are a liberal, your primary objective is to keep Obama in the White House, to continue to push his liberal agenda and to keep control of at least one of the houses of Congress, preferably the Senate, as it is now. Your secondary objective is to make Republican's look like they are trying to weaken America and make them look selfish and self centered so the average American sees Republicans and thinks "Elitist". The idea is to make the Democrat seem like he has the interest of the average American in mind and to paint the Republican as a very short sighted,  pro big-business schmuck and the representative of the rich.

The thing that has me the most concerned is the Republicans don't seem to understand this. They don't seem to understand it and they are acting like it won't take anything special to beat Obama.

I mean maybe they do, but they sure are not acting like their number one issue is to remove Obama after one term. It seems to me that all they have done so far is to pander to the Tea Party crazies and fight amongst themselves and take nothing stands on nothing issues that do not matter in the first place. I don't know about you, but in my household, whether you are for or against Gay Marriage doesn't do a thing to help me pay the light bill. Being for or against some mythical standards (like birth control) does exactly NOTHING to help the average American. It does however make the politician look like they are taking a stand , when they really are not.

I can't take these idiots seriously. So far it seems like this race is The President (Obama) versus the bunch of no-names morons who are pitching new reality shows to the American Public. Most of them we haven't ever heard of and the ones we have are loony !! Give me a break ! They all look like red shirted security guards in a bad Star Trek episode.

One of these geniuses are going to beat a sitting President on the issues? I don't want to get into a point by point comparison of candidates (but you can if you look here http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/ ) but my point is this:

A) There is a ton of candidates , most of whom are unknown and
B) None of them really have the money or experience or organization it takes to unseat a sitting President.

The way I figure it the Republicans have decided to sacrifice this election , let Obama win again, then spend both terms opposing everything he does so when 2016 comes around they Democrats will be out of ideas and gas that they can not mount an effective campaign for the presidency for another 12 years. It looks like Muhammad Ali is writing their strategy and he came up with another version of the rope a dope. They are going to lay on the ropes and let the Democrats take all the blame for the next 6 years and then come back in 2016 and say "See, America, I told you how bad it would be. Now we are here to clean up, but don't expect too much, because it took them a long time to make it this bad.". You could almost call it the reverse Bush Strategy.

This seems true to me because they  have no coordinated response to Obama, have left an old gasbag like Mitch McConnell to do all the talking and that guy looks like he's lying every time he opens his mouth.

Also the candidates they have put forward so far are pretty disappointing. For the first time in forever I am thinking about skipping election day because who gives a crap when it won't matter because there will not be one decent candidate in the whole lot of them? Who are we supposed to vote for in this group of lightweights anyway ? It makes me understand it when my wife tells me I am boring to talk to about politics because of this. I get it when I see the eyes start to roll back into someones head when I start a conversation about Politics.

If you have to be a Washington Insider or a lobbyist to know the candidates, then something is very wrong with not only how we pick candidates but is also wrong with how perverted we have allowed the process to become.

Here is the list (along with the links I got from Wikipedia and others)
Google it or look it up here for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012
www.livefreeordiealliance.org/2012
www.politics1.com/p2012.htm

Democrat -
Barack Obama, incumbent President of the United States from Illinois
Randall Terry, pro-life activist from New York

Republican -
Michele Bachmann, U.S. Representative from Minnesota
Herman Cain, former Federal Reserve banker and businessman from Georgia
Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives from Georgia
Jon Huntsman, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to China and former Governor of Utah
Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico
Fred Karger, political consultant and gay rights activist from California
Andy Martin, perennial candidate from Illinois
Thaddeus McCotter, U.S. Representative from Michigan
Jimmy McMillan, perennial candidate from New York
Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court of Alabama
Ron Paul, U.S. Representative from Texas
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
Buddy Roemer, former Governor of Louisiana
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania
Jonathon Sharkey, perennial candidate from Florida

No kidding. Mitt friggin Romney is the best they could do ?  I am supposed to actually vote for Rick Santorum ? You cannot be seriouis. That guy is a certified lunatic. Michelle Bachman ?, that's the person who wants to take away a VA pension and along with it their health care, if they get  Soc Sec disability payments.

I look at that list and then think , people were actually pissed off that John McCain picked Sarah Palin ?

Its no wonder Obama won.

Shoot, before I would vote for any of these idiots, I would have voted for Palin.

I just can't believe any of these jackasses can stand up and compare themselves to Ronald Reagan .

Here is what it looks like to be well respected, well known and honored . Even if you don't agree with his politics, you can't seriously think the same way about the current crop of wanna be can you ?

What are we becoming ? Or maybe what have we became ?

I Look around see things in the course of a normal day that makes me think "What the Heck was that ?"  Things like :

• We now fight "wars" against groups and ideologies and ideas, not other countries.
• We have "Black Ops" going on in 70 or so countries around the world , fought by "special operators", who shoot and kill people on are behalf and are not called soldiers , at least not in the traditional sense of the word?
• You can protest at the funeral of a soldier who has died in combat, but you have to stand in a fenced in designated area to protest the President or at political functions.
• Things you "tweet", even stupid things, can get you arrested if other people do as you suggest.
• We will pay $1.69 for 12 ounces of water in a plastic bottle and yet will yell our heads off if have to pay $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline.
• It takes a billion dollars to get elected to the Presidency (give or take a few million dollars). The job only pays $400,000 a year. I'm supposed to tell my kid they can be president and somehow convince them that you should spend 200 times what the job pays, in order to get it? Is that Right ?
• A Senator can serve as little as one term (6 years) and has a lifetime pension and health care. The same things for the average citizen if they can even get it, usually takes 20 plus years of service, and can be wiped out by one bad business decision by one ignorant executive?
• Conservatives are getting excited about Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry. I'm just stunned. This the best we can do ? Really ? Seriously ? No joking ? Ahh man...
• Instead of Shows and movies that have plots and make a point , reality TV is what people want to watch ? Are you joking me ?
• California is considered the most liberal state, yet IOWA is the first one to allow gays to marry ? Huh?
• And speaking of gays marrying, these fruitcakes now are calling for Bert and Ernie to come out of the closet and get married? On a kids show? What ?
• Ashton Kucher will be the highest paid sitcom star once the new season of Two and 1/2 men starts showing. Ashton Kucher is a star ? The Highest paid Star? I hear the twilight zone music.
• There are people who actually think that MMA and UFC fighting takes skill and talent?  That think that watching people fall off of padded swinging turn styles into the water is entertainment ? That watching a fake competition about fake tribes on a fake set, in a fake jungle, has anything at all to do with Survival? Shows about crackheads and wino's and gang bangers and prostitutes being chased by the police and booked into jail actually have some sort of value ? People who have drug problems and are crazy are TV stars ?
• 

C'mon and Do the Obama-Pokey with me !

You put your Hope right in, you put your change right out
You wiggle at the flag and freedom and then you shake it all about
Do the Obama-Pokey and never have a doubt
Thats what its all about !!

You put your tax cut in, you put your tax cut out
Then they kill it and then they raise it and make you have a doubt
Do the Obama-Pokey and wallow in self doubt
Thats what its all about !!

You put your bail out in , you put your bail out out
The banks they get healthy and you have to go move out
Do the Obama-Pokey and then you go get the heck out !!
Thats what its all about !!

...and finally

You put your Marine Corps in, you take body bags back out
Fighting and dying in a rocky land that struggles with disease and drought
Do the Obama-Pokey and then you struggle to explain it and then blame it on the other side !!

Thats what its all about !!

Computers are not self sufficient (They should be !)

As my friends can attest, I am a nerd, a geek, a computer electronics maven. You couldn't exactly call me an early adopter though, because I never buy tech in version 1.0, but If they make it I've probably had one or considered it anyway. I have closets full of junk I have not thrown away yet to prove it. Ask my wife. We don't have linen closets, we have electronics closets.

The myth is that you can buy a computer and it just works (insert I'm a PC commercial with Intel sound here) and the facts are that I have never found that to be true. Never. As a matter of fact, I've never had anything that was truly maintenance free and never had a computer or any electronics at all that did not require some level of care to keep it operating. Remember when car batteries had those tops you could remove in order to refill the water? Then along came "maintenance free" batteries. Still had to replace them every 4 years or so huh?

So no repairs and no keeping them full, just plan them to be obsolete on a twice as frequent scale?

The thing that kills me though is that NO ONE considers reliability or repair cost or expected life when buying electronics, televisions or computers. Some of the most studious people I know research TV prices and components until they could sell them, but when they buy a printer, laptop or a desktop computer, the only thing they look at it price. The only thing in the AD is price. The only thing looked at with any diligence is price. I get these phone calls and the only thing I hear is "...And I only paid $XXX for it". Who cares, but, Good for you.

Here's what I mean.

Look at your brand of Laptop or your brand of desktop. Chances are, in the next year you may need to replace a power supply on your desktop or the screen on your laptop. Why? Because on desktops, heat is never exhausted as fast as it should be because it always increases noise level unless you use a more expensive solution (like water cooling) they usually do not have enough fans and almost no one ever takes the back or side off their computer and vacuums the dog hairs out of it.

And the laptop screen, Why ? Because we lug the thing around like a women's purse, forget what it is and stop putting them away in their padded cases and sooner or later fat Uncle Bill will set on it. That's why.

With every new generation of products there is also a planned obsolescence factor and a planned discard/replace factor to consider as well. Yeah the printer was only $18.The ink is $175 a cartridge and you cannot find it 3 years from now, but hey, IT WAS CHEAP !!

Now , go to your computer manufacturer's website and price a power supply for your computer. Chances are you are like everybody else and you have one of 2 or 3 major brands of desktop (Compaq/HP, Dell, Gateway) or one of the top 5 laptops (IBM-Lenovo, Toshiba, Compaq/HP, Dell, ACER). Here is what you will find. Take a stress pill and price a new screen, if you can even figure out which one your system uses.

Parts are expensive. Putting them in is confusing. Having them serviced costs about twice as much as the parts do. Oh, and parts for one model do not fit parts for another model, or brand. HP and IBM used to be famous for using single brand power supplies that would not fit any other machine.Now you start thinking. Since you only paid $XXX for your computer in the first place, should you spend $XXX to fix it ? After all its a toaster isn't it ? A better non brand specific power supply is probably 50 % of what IBM or HP charges for the mediocre system you have, but hey, IT WAS CHEAP !! Don't worry about your files, your software you will have to re-buy and re-install, just throw it away and keep going. Think e-machines at Wal-Mart. Cheap and plentiful too !!



The sad fact is this.

Every Tech company has the ability to add sensors and to standardize parts and to simplify their replacement. Everything could be a plug in module if they wanted it to be that way. That would not keep you coming back to the supply chain to buy a new product though would it ? Every product made could be engineered to be simple to maintain. You ever looked at the back of any TV , Radio or virtually any electronics where it says "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE? yeah, well right about there is where the door ought to be that allows you to open it and vacuum it out.

Ah well. I like getting paid.

Keep buying net books and tablets and touch screens.
Keep sitting on them. Keep ignoring the dog hairs.

It s a lucrative business.

Ahhh, the recession is almost over. (right?)

I begin this remark with an understanding that not everyone shares my point of view and really I am OK with that. Many times I don't have my opinion fully formed as I write these blog entries, and like many people I may not know all the facts or my opinion may be colored by my personal circumstances. If this describes you and you don't want to read this , well I understand. I would however like to know one thing though,

How the hell is everybody else doing it? How is everyone else surviving? I just am stupid I guess, because I don't get it.

You see , ever since the economy turned south in about early 2006 I've been trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing wrong.

We'll be driving down the interstate and get passed by a big old decked out motor home or a huge pickup truck pulling a boat and I think "Where in the hell do these people get the money?" Friends of mine go on vacations every 6 months or at least once a year. I haven't been able to take a vacation in about 7 or 8 years. Haven't been able to find the money or a job for that matter to get a new car since 2003. We came about 7 days from having my house repossessed. I lost my position in 2007 and have been basically underemployed ever since. I am extremely grateful for the job I have and thankful my Boss saw some value in keeping me around, but I have to know "What the Hell am I doing wrong?".

On top of that, health issues get in the way of doing physical things. My brain works just fine, my back sucks, so I can't even cut lawns for money. Couple that with the price of EVERYTHING going up and I wonder how we are supposed to hold out and how much longer until and before we just collapse in upon ourselves and start forming the soup lines. Gas is 4 times as expensive as it was in 1999, Milk and Bread are both double or so what they used to be. All my utility Bills are higher than they were 3 years ago. We basically do not have any savings anymore. Its been wiped out slowly but surely , one drip at a time until all that's left is the memory of money. I've combed through expenses over and over again eliminating , reducing, doing away with and cancelling everything we don't absolutely have to have to live and It feels like I am just about out of options. 

Jokingly I told my wife that we needed to buy a new refrigerator, just in case, so we would have a spare house, if worse comes to worse.

Now , its not that bad, but its dumb enough to piss me off, you know what I mean. ?

Then talking heads on TV, newspaper columnists and Internet reporting are all saying "Well its bad, but not that bad." , "Its getting better", "The end of the recession is in sight" and so forth and so on. I wonder in amazement where these guys are looking? I mean if you mean that the recession is almost over for the BANKERS and for the POLITICIANS , then I would have to agree.

The only thing I see at the end of this tunnel is an oncoming train.

Hell you can't use an ATM to check your balance without a fee being charged and just getting your own money out of one can be like getting charged 30 % interest to use your own money. Say you want to make a 30 $ ATM withdrawal. Your bank charges a fee if you use a "Foreign ATM", the "Foriegn ATM" charges a fee for not being a customer of their bank, and you have just paid $6 or more to get to your own money. When you say to your bank, "Why don't you guys have an ATM on my side of the county", they say the business isn't there to support it. Then I look at their balance sheets and see they made 38 MILLION dollars last year on fees and administrative services. Looks like they are doing just fine what with all that hard work they are doing printing receipts and cashiers checks and counting access charges and the like. Oh and don't get me started on "NSF charges". Lord knows it is real expensive to accidentally overpay 12 bucks. It has to be at least three times the value of the charge to make it worth 35 bucks a pop right ?

Personally I don't see how most of those greedy bastards sleep at night. I really don't. They are bleeding us dry like the mafia would and what they do is "legal". It shouldn't be, but heck, there isn't a Washington DC Politician, Attorney, Lobbyist, or Banker alive who understands what it is like to try and live on less than a quarter million dollars a year. They don't have a clue. It pisses me off that we are in such bad shape and they still don't get it. What has to happen to make them understand that we are dying out here, while they keep getting re-elected and keep collecting 30,000 dollars a speech?

There is over 10 % unemployment by the way Washington DC  and the states measure it. That is millions of folks out of work, and barely getting by. What they do not tell you is that this statistic is designed to be misleading. It really only represents those folks who are currently drawing an unemployment check or have filed for it. It doesn't include anyone who is underemployed, unemployed but not filed for unemployment, self employed business owners who lost work or businesses, people that used to work two jobs to make ends meet that cannot find a suitable second job and it doesn't include students who don't work or anyone who has exhausted their unemployment benefits and still can't find a job. It also does not include anyone discharged from the military medically even if they have no other income, every retired person and every homeless person in America even if they don't have any other income and anyone scratching to survive in the underground economy like illegal aliens, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped etc.

If I had to guess I would say we are actually closer to 20 % unemployed and its not getting any better.  There could potentially be 60 Million people without income and under the gun tonight in America. Does this sound like it is getting any better to you ?

Will someone please tell me how the news coming out of Washington DC about our debt limit and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell fighting with President Obama is helping us right now? If I don't have a gallon of milk, a job, a loaf or bread, or money for gas to get any of it how does what these morons are doing help me? And then , if it doesn't help me , somebody please tell me how it takes care of Senior Citizens, the disabled or injured or disabled military veterans ? In the past 3 to 5 years, what benefit have we gotten by having higher prices for gasoline, food, natural gas, health care, credit, and everything else. What good have we gotten from  a policy of billions of dollars spent on waging war overseas? What good have we gotten from sending hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries just to see our jobs and bonds and raw materials go there with them. What good has come of removing any of the price supports for farm products when the end result has been nothing more than higher prices?

So please, feel free, tell me, unload on me, make me feel stupid. "What the Hell are we doing wrong ?"

Getting Old SUCKS !!!

Yeah , yeah , yeah 50 is the new 40. Whatever. I wasn't all that thrilled with 40 !

Man I gotta tell ya, getting Old sucks !

Nobody really prepares you for whats coming and whats coming , well it just ain't pretty. Pretty much after you turn 50 you can just forget about and lose a whole lot of words you used to use describing yourself to others. Words like smooth, fast, fit, tight, agile, mobile uh, none of those words apply. You will never be tight or fast at anything, ever, again. You have wrinkles where just a couple of years ago you didn't even realise it was possible to have wrinkles, everything hurts all the time and all of those bad decisions you made back in the day come back and bite you on the butt.

Tackle football without pads in the park ? No problem ! Right !

Nobody tells you that sleeping becomes a secondary issue. You never get enough, it never happens when you need it and when you want to sleep. forget it. Either a kid needs you to be awake, the place you are trying to sleep in is keeping you awake, its too loud or too quiet or you just lay there watching the headlights on the highway wondering if you will ever sleep again. Did I piss off the sleep gods ?

The best thing is the tendency to notice new symptoms and marvel at how fast things you used to be able to do just...go away. Poof - You don't play baseball no more. Poof- No more football with the kids. Kazaam - climbing ladders all day long is out of the question. Hundreds of things you used to do without a second thought now are major decisions. Go bike riding ? Are you mental ? Lets go play some basketball - Seriously? I gotta go take a nap. Where did this funny mole come from ? Wow - When did my elbows start hurting ? Stupid stuff like that.

It makes you insane because the changes come with frightening quickness and your body forgot to tell you about it. You just wake up one day and you are done with something else.  Ha ha , very funny.

The worst part is how you feel on the inside versus how you look on the outside. How you look on the exterior determines how people treat you. How you feel on the inside determines how you think you should be treated. Hey ! Get that AARP mail crap outta here. WTF?

Here is a couple of examples - 

• A pretty good looking girl comes walking directly towards you and a doorway is in between you. Just as you think "I'll hold this door open for her", she grabs it and says "Here you go SIR I have the door, please go ahead." /deflation sound - ego disappears. 
• You are standing in a checkout line at a supermarket, the cashier greets you and says "Do you have one of our senior cards?" /ooooohhhhh let the cursing begin ! 
• You are at a table in a restaurant. The server walks up and says "Do you need a senior menu ? / aww man , I didn't wanna kill anybody today !

The problem is nobody let me in on the joke. I woke up today with no prior knowledge of all these changes going on every day and let me tell ya, it ain't friggin funny ! I had an easier time with the whole "PaPaw" thing. Its like being buried alive and nobody can hear you screaming from inside the coffin. Like going into surgery and they think you are asleep but you can hear and feel everything going on all around you. Inside I still feel like the same person. I have the memories of playing with my kids, but my grand kids will never know how far I could hit a baseball. Inside I still feel like me, but I bear an uncanny likeness to some old dude I've never met that sorta looks like me. I look in the mirror and think "Why am I looking in the mirror?, Oh yeah. who is this old dude staring back at me ?

I'm sure the best is yet to come. I probably haven't even scratched the surface yet on all the crap that goes on. I haven't talked at all about prostrates, doctor visits or sex.

Trust me when I say , whatever you can imagine is about what happens to some degree. None of it is good and Hugh Hefner is a friggin liar ! I don't care how much Viagra that idiot is taking every day, he is in no way the same man sexually that he was even 20 years ago, let alone half a lifetime removed. Heck I'll bet he takes Viagra in a management sense only to keep it stiff enough so it doesn't dribble on his shoes. He probably sits down to pee. 

Now I understand why all my older relatives sit around talking about aches and pains all the time.

It s all they have left.

Just Five minutes is all

Hey, I'm not Nancy Grace or any of the talking heads that have been screaming for the head of Casey Anthony for the past 3 years. I don't get paid a big salary to sit around and think of cute phrases that will be used on my blog banner to describe this woman. Hell I've never came close to meeting her or any of her family and have only spoken with 2 or 3 celebrities in my life (Magic Johnson, Sam Kinnison, Vince Neil, a couple others), so I ain't nobody famous and I don't have any kind of vested interest in a book deal or movie rights or anything else.

I am sorta pissed off at everybody involved about this Casey Anthony crap though.

I just have a couple of questions? What a bunch of pathetic dumb asses. How do you lose a case like this?

1. How the hell do you take a woman , in this society, charged with this kind of crime, to trial without enough evidence to put her under the jail, for the rest of her miserable life ? How stupid were they ?
2. They still don't know 3 years later why it happened and never got to the point where they know what happened to the baby.
3. I'm sorry, you went to trial without a cause or manner of death? Are you frickin kidding me ? How could they have failed to obtain a conviction for something substantial.
4. If she didn't do it (and she might not have done it WHO KNOWS ?)  Then I have a couple of questions. Who did it? How did it happen? How did the duct tape get on her mouth? Who put her in the grave? WHY AINT YOU LOSING YOUR MIND WITH GRIEF ? WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU?
5. Casey if you didn't do it, you cannot be retried for it You are forever free of charges related to her death. Tell us WHO KILLED YOUR BABY ? I could not just let it go and think that getting out of jail next week was the end of it.
6. If it was one of my kids and I didn't do it, I would have to know. WHY isnt she asking these questions? I would do life or take the needle for one of my kids. I just can't understand this loser.

See here is the thing.

I don't think they (every lawyer involved) were interested in knowing what happened. I think the lawyers were just interested in winning. Anymore, that's all they care about. File the most charges, get the most wins, get a bigger desk with a bigger job, bill more hours, buy a bigger house, enjoy life. That's the problem with attorneys. It is rarely about the truth anymore. Read one story about one trial without someone mentioning what it costs to conduct the trial. It just doesn't happen because that cost is also all about what an attorney is paid to bring or defend the action. How in the hell did anyone make the decision to bring her to triual on evidence this weak? I imagine the conversation was sorta like Boss- "Whelp, yeah the baby is gone, must have been the mother right?, Underling -Right. Boss - Well arrest her and charge her and we'll figure it out later. Underling - Duhh, Um Okay Boss. 



Put her in a locked room for 5 minutes with a couple of Marine Corps Drill Instructors or a couple of Navy Seals or a couple of Gangsters. We would know what happened to that baby. I'd beat her within an inch of her life to find out. No good lying piece of trash.

Me ? I couldn't care less what happens to her.I know that sounds cold hearted and cold blooded but as a father I cannot understand this , and do not want to.

It pisses me off. She is worthless and useless and the world be better off if she wasn't inhaling air.

The reason why is because of her actions.

Here is 5 reasons i think she knows what happened to her baby.

1. Did she yell and scream at the top of her lungs that her baby was missing, within minutes of discovering that she was?
2. Did you ever see her cry about her baby being gone? Ever? Especially in the first 30 days ? (Oh wait, thats right, she didn't let on the baby was missing for a month or so, I forgot)
3. Did she get a tattoo showing her love for her missing baby? ( or was it one that said "Glad that little paperweight is gone !")
4. Did anything she ever said about where the baby was make any sense at all to anyone? If she was innocent, then why make up the stories? Why change the details ? Why make up shit that had nothing to do with it ?
5. Does anything she said or did in the 3 years it took to get her through a trial look like the actions of someone that was totally innocent?

Thankx for reading my rant !


bigmike


Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

No More Fourth Ammendment to the Constitution -Say bye bye

This really pisses me off !!

Indiana Supreme Court Guts the 4th Amendment

What a bunch of (expletive deleted) nonsense, bull crap and hooey. According to this decision by the Indiana Supreme Court, there is no 4th Amendment protection prohibiting illegal search and seizure. It only applies after the fact, once they have already torn up your house, beat you down into submission, torn up your car, handcuffed your sorry butt and thrown you in jail, waited 2 years to see a lawyer (a public defender), and if you are lucky got some liberal law organization like the ACLU involved and interested enough to file the paperwork needed to fight it, then and only then do you have any possibility of having the past 2 years erased. Oops, our bad, you can go home now.

Since this will in no way affect any person who can actually afford a lawyer (read "the rich and famous"), you better believe beatings of the Homeless, the Jobless , the Low Income, the Blue class and the stupid will increase immediately.

OK, maybe I am being a tad dramatic, but the point is that this is stupid.

Next thing you know this will be the form you get in the mail after they broke down your front door , only to discover it was the wrong house.

Are they serious ? Have they read the Constitution ? I mean our countries copy ?

The Constitution language says (regarding the 4th Amendment) : ARTICLE [IV.] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
 
The Indiana Supreme Court today decided that : INDIANAPOLIS

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

First - Hogwash, Bull Spit and Balderdash, I say Balderdash..

Second - They didn't even need to make a ruling here, which I'm betting will be challenged and over turned anyway. The case in question gave them probable cause, they could have just declined to hear the appeal and nothing would have changed.

Third- This is what is meant by "Activist Judges", where they change settled frigging law from the bench. In affect, writing their own laws, overturning those they don't like.

This is settled law from the year 1215 and they think it should be overturned. I don't even CARE what the merits of the case were, this is settled law. You need either a warrant or probable cause. Now they are saying , nah you don't need a warrant. If we were wrong , sue us later. Have a nice day. Sorry bout your luck !!

What the Hell  ?


Thankx for reading my rant !

-bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

Gasoline Prices ? WTF?

Here is what I don't get.

In the 70's we had gas lines going down the street and around the block because Gas was supposedly in short supply, OPEC was going to cut off the flow of Gas into this country and the price was skyrocketing from 33 cents a gallon to 75 cents a gallon (or something like that , hell I don't exactly remember either). I was employed at a gas station as a pump attendant at the time and can remember coming to work and being amazed at how long the lines were and how long people waited, willingly or not, to put gas in their car. People were evil, E-V-I-L, concerning how long they waited, what the prices were and whether or not we are going to run out of gas. Gas stations made more money that summer, than ever before.

Also, at the same time, the industry and our gas station switched dramatically. Gone was the dingy interior of the station with its one vending machine, full of crap only the teenagers who worked there liked anyway. Gone were the 6 gas attendants plus the manager who would run to your car, turn on the pump, pump your gas, check your oil, wash your windows and in extreme cases, check your tire pressure for you. Gone were the pumps that has to be turned on and reset with the special key so more gas could be pumped. Gone were all the jobs they harassed us to get done every day, week and month like scrubbing the outside restrooms, painting the pump islands, buffing the office floor, hosing down the parking lot and cleaning the windows.

In its place, within 60 days of the gas lines of the 70's came the "Self-Service" station. 60 days ago I would talk to you at your car window. Now you could barely hear the muffled voice through the speaker of the Fat guy on the stool in the building, behind the locked door. Yesterday I would take your money, put it on my roll, put the rubber band back on it and put it back in my shirt pocket. Now you had to haul your butt outta your car, come up to the window and "Pay before you pumped." We were scared sh**less of the wrath of the buying public for a period of time.

Back then, to put it bluntly, PEOPLE WERE PISSED !!

Fast forward to today.

Since 2000, the price of gas has went from $1.35 to $4.00 (or more depending upon where you live) and no one has said a thing about it. It has risen over $1.00 a gallon in the past year and we haven't said jack!!

Here is the crappy BS full of horse turds explanation we always hear from the big oil compaies when somebody wakes up from their budweiser marijuana cocaine buzz long enough to realize we are paying too much for this product once again. "(...no they want an answer now, No it can't wait,Yes you have to say something to get them to go away....Ok here -) Oh, ahh, ummm, clearing throat, You see the uh, um, price of gas has been um, affected by pressure put on the available supply by an increase in the consumption of gas in China and because of the ummm (what's the word I am looking for ....OH wait I got it !) uncertainty of the continued availability of Gasoline from the middle East, as well as by production shortages caused by planned maintenence being performed at several refineries."

Are you buying these horse turds? Gimme a break. 

If it had anything to do with supply and demand, then the price you pay would be dependant upon the cost of obtaining it and making it. We haven't built a new refinery with any substantial capacity in this country in more than 25 years. The price goes up way too high, and then settles back into place .50-.75 cents above where it was before the rise began and you want us to believe it has anything to do with the cost of producing fuel and nothing to do with manufactured pricing and big oil greed? Gas is stockpiled in several places in the US in various sectors for as much as a year. Yet , magically, the price on the street at every station is just about the same everywhere you go. It is not Supply and Demand as they would have you believe. It is however , Gouge and Exploit. Mostly because we believe this stupid crap.

Take a look at this . Basic Information about Gasoline this site will talk all about how the government and the EPA sees the issue. It doesn't say a thing about why pricing goes up and then settles back down (always) above where it started.

The problem is that every one of their reasons for why the price is up is bogus. Every single one of them.
Take a look at this : No Tension ? Big Supply glut ? Ooopsie !!

What do you think?

Thankx for reading my rant !

-bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

Yay! The new TV season is being announced this week !!

By this time next week everybody will know whether or not their marginal network beloved show made it for another season or not. Shows will be added, cancelled and moved in record time. None of it will make any sense to average people. Most of us will not care one way or the other because the majority of the shows are crap to begin with and the planet will keep on revolving whether we like it or not.

Sigh. I should be sitting in the front room right now, like many of you, trying to figure out what to watch, if I didn't have a brain at all and couldn't entertain myself that is.

I have observations : (Check out http://TvByTheNumbers.zap2it.com/

Television production networks spend millions and millions of dollars every year trying to figure out how to have the best shows on television. None of them are ever successful for more than 4-5 years and then somebody figures out that some other type of show is better. Next thing you know, everybody is schlock-ing along making the next batch of TV goo for us to watch.

Its pathetic. First there was one good cop , forensic drama and then next thing you know there is 35 of them. What do ya think is going to happen to your content when you start boring me to death with something. You think that makes me want to watch more of it ?

The people who make decisions about TV shows really have no clue why those of us who were watching their crap aren't watching it any more. They are listening to all the wrong people for one. I'll bet none of them has went outside their comfort zones and asked real people questions in a dozen years or more. The reason why is they have been sold the lie about "Research" and statistics that have to do with demographics (age related analysis) and marketability, and sustainability. Problem is that has little to do with engaging content.

All these metrics tell you is that you figured out how to catch our attention for a few minutes in a virtual ocean of choices , and hardly any of your decision making has to do with content. How well you market a show has more to do with whether or not I'll give it a shot than the content does, as I have no idea what you are talking about before I watch it a few times. If I was able to "innately understand the characters" as I heard one of you idiots say this week, why bother marketing it? I can see it now "Hop on Pop - The TV Series".

The people who make TV shows have to bend to the will of dozens of other people in order to get a show on the air. It is a wonder anything ever gets made at all. (Network Exec - "Put a woman in it!! It has to sell product to women !! Flunky TV producer - "But sir Its a Gay prison drama!! ) Its one stupid decision, one cancellation and one more craze after another and real, thoughtful content or real funny content is never given a chance. If it doesn't sell to marketing folks who push their schlocky ads in the precious few minutes that there is in a show to tell the story line to begin with,then zip zam zowie am swoosh , its gone and to hell with it and good riddance. Until that is they start recycling the crap, over and over and over....

Marketing Folks , in turn have absolutely no clue what people like, they only know what we don't turn off. The whole entire TV industry is built around the concept of ratings, which is actually a system that measure the fact that "We didn't turn your crap off, we turned somebody Else's crap off." Is it any wonder we find other things to do ?

I'd just as soon hit my fingers with a hammer than watch some of the absolute crap you people put on and seriously think somebody will watch it. I'd much rather pay my best friend to tighten my testicles in a vice than to watch some of the tripe that you call "TV". "Medium", "V", "Outsourced" ? Seriously? This is the best you could come up with ? How about this. Whenever you have nothing but a snoozer loser to put on, first , send the producers back to the drawing board and tell them "This crap is not good enough". Then instead of subjecting us all to more of your choices made while on cocaine, put up a re-run of the best shows you ever made in the last ten years until they come up with something better.

We don't watch your crap because of a lot of reasons like maybe ; it is too narrowly focused (like on 8-13 year olds - like Hannah Montana), has too many themes going at once (a friendship/romance/action movie) or maybe, wait for it, because it was crap!

Really, there are hundreds of choices and you put a snoozer cheesy show up , nobody watches it and you think the answer is to spend less money, on worse shows, with lower budgets and this fixes the problem ? Jersey Shore is the frigging answer? Top Dog Chef of China next on the Food network. The food network ? Oooh, shows are too expensive to make , so if they are too expensive, we can't charge as much for marketing, which means the show has to cost less to make, which after all cheapens the show and its content, which means you are gonna stop watching it and you are gonna do it all over again with another batch of shows next year !!

You people are absolutely 100 % no kidding bat-shit crazy. Is Gary Busey is in charge of the TV Industry ?

I love the way they all sit around and moan about the loss of the attention span of the average viewer. Oh what a wad of baloney !! If only it were true.

See here is the problem. They all say they recognize that it is 1969 anymore and everybody all say they know that Wally and the Beav aren't plunked down in front of a 3 channel television anymore and that the landscape has changed dramatically. Then everything they do , regardless of what they say, is more of the same old hashed out tore up liquid logic from 1979.

Here are some truths they would be good to get in touch with :

1. We have more options now than we ever had before. When TV was a 3 channel deal, if we don't like what Dad was watching, playing outside on the step with a stick in the dirt was about the only option. How else do you explain playing cards clothes pinned to bicycle spokes ? or shooting each other in the eye with BB guns?



2. Now if your crappy show sucks, we can watch another TV in the house, probably a flat screen TV to boot. Or if we have a blue ray player or a DVD player (or even a CD or VCR) we can watch recorded content or make our own content and bore everybody else with it. Can you say YouTube? Or maybe if it is one of your kids they can yammer on the phone for hours or send text messages to 10 people at once. While they are driving. On their way to the library.



3. We also have phones that deliver content that is not as good as a TV, but the way TV has been going that ain't saying much.



4. Everybody has computers and i-Crap, and MP4G players and all the other cute little made up names for new gadgets. Oh and our phones, they are cameras, they play videos, they take pictures, they have Internet access, and when all else fails they have face book access as well. Angry Birds for cryin out loud, Angry Birds !!



5. Did I say Facebook? Ooh I'm selling cheesecake in my new shop and i need a baking pan can you get one for me. Jesus H. Christ on a crutch !!



6. We could watch out home theatre if we don't want to go to the movies (and apparently we don't like this activity anymore either), and there is all the various streaming content providers like Hula, Netflix, Flixter, etc. BTW-psssst If you didn't know, Sell your Blockbuster stock.



7. Normal options apply, we just can't go very far at $5 a gallon. So yeah, a road trip is in, but not more than 5 miles or so. The small percentage of us who don't spend all our leisure time stoned, drunk or naked have to do something to keep from going crazy trying to find something to watch in the wasteland of TV programming.


8. Did I say Porn ? There is more instant porn available today than ever before and its just getting bigger. Yes Mr. TV man you compete with porn. Get over it. If you didn't it wouldn't keep growing while all your stuff is dying. Well honey, there's nothing on TV, I'm going upstairs !!



9. Two Words. Massive Multi-player. go to google and look up MMORPG. - nuff said.



10. ....and saving the best for last - VIDEO GAMES of all kinds , but especially online game communities. Toasty !! Finish Him !! COD Black Ops ! Halo, friggin Halo !!

So keep your head in the sand and keep thinking if you just make one more reality show or one more schlocky cheezey gag me with a spoon sitcom that everything will get better. While you are doing that Netflix and Nintendo and Sony are getting rich watching you sit on your sorry asses.

Did I say that out loud ?

Thankx for reading my Rant

- BigMike

Response to the Statement From the Family of Osama bin Laden Published: May 10, 2011

In a statement published by the family of Osama Bin Laden on May 10^th, 2011, specifically by Omar Ossama Binladin and his brothers, they say they are not convinced that Osama Bin Laden (“OBL”) is dead. They are seeking conclusive evidence that OBL is dead by seeking to obtain pictures and videos made by the Special Ops soldiers after the raid of his compound.

 

Read the whole statement here : Bin Laden Family Statement or Google it here : http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=nw#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=statement+published+by+the+family+of+Osama+Bin+Laden&cp=53&qe=c3RhdGVtZW50IHB1Ymxpc2hlZCBieSB0aGUgZmFtaWx5IG9mIE9zYW1hIEJpbiBMYWRlbiA&qesig=v91RicWt-6kPmSgu2JA79w&pkc=AFgZ2tnJhtNbL5rJuAdR

 

They go on to assert several things, not specifically copied here, but such as:

·         He was an unarmed man

·         He should have been arrested and tried in a court of law.

·         They assert he was assassinated contrary to US Law.

·         That he had a right of the presumption of innocence, until proven guilty in a court of law.

·         And other such assertions.

 

They were also concerned that their family was denied rights due to a Muslim man, by burying his body at sea, saying, in effect that his family was denied due process under American Law, and they want the operation investigated under International Law. They go on to say they did not agree with the ways of their father but also did not agree with the way his death was handled either as well as several other more salient political points I’ll not cover here.

 

My Response to that statement (Call it “An American Response”):

 

·         First and Foremost. BITE ME, EAT ME AND BOO- FRIGGIN – HOO !!.

·         Second - Your “father” was a cold blooded scum sucking worthless murdering bastard who killed more than 3, 000 people on September 11, 2001 in attacks he masterminded in the USA. He got way better treatment than he deserved and received much better treatment at the hands of our soldiers and politicians than he would have received had you dropped him off in any regular American neighborhood for disposition. Trust me.

·         He provided his own proof of Guilt by taking credit for the attacks in video after video and in several audio tapes. Guilt and Innocence was not at stake here.

·         He is and was a mass murderer and deserved to be treated worse than he was treated when he was killed in the raid by the US Navy Seals.

·         He and his kind somehow find it to be natural and normal to kill innocent men, women and children in their zeal to follow their so called religion.

·         To date he is one of the largest killers of Muslims that the world has ever known, and he has killed more Muslims than any other group. They have killed Thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women and children all over the world in more Muslim countries than anywhere else.

·         Muslims do not support the wacko extremists and they don’t care what happened to this serial killer. We don’t care either.

·         They demand special treatment and demand accommodation for their so called religion; however they show no mercy and no allowance for any who do not believe as they do.

·         As to his specific burial treatment:

1.    He received better burial treatment than anyone who died in Pennsylvania did.

2.    He received better burial treatment than any of the 17 sailors who died on the USS Cole did.

3.    He certainly got more humane treatment and a better burial ceremony than he deserved and much better than the Thousands of men, women, children, Police officers and Fire Fighters did when the buildings fell on them in New York City received.

4.    He got better treatment than the people who were injured and killed in the two preceding attacks on the World Trade Center’s did in the 90’s

5.    I am certain the 200 people who died in the attacks of our embassies in Nairobi Kenya and the more than 5,000 people he injured would agree that he got better treatment than they did.

6.    I’ll bet if you could ask anyone who died in the Pentagon, whether the burial practice we observed for his death was gracious enough under international law and Muslim tradition, I’ll bet all of them would agree it was way better than the bath of flaming jet fuel and flying airliner parts that they got on that crisp fall morning.

7.    The world hasn’t really heard one peep from you people concerning this man or his methods or how they buried others as they carried out their atrocious attacks. Where were you when Sept 11 happened? What about when he killed more than 200 in Bali in October 2001 or more than 50 in Istanbul in November 2003 ?

 

 

There have been more than 15 documented attacks worldwide since September 11th, 2001 and we haven’t heard a single word from you people!  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks

 

Where have you people been while everybody else was bleeding and dying? Once it’s all over you come crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches and you expect us to give a rats ass what you think ? Be Serious for a second. Then go lay down and play Johnny go F**k yourself.

 

America doesn’t give a damn what you want.

 

We couldn’t care less what you demand.

 

He’s dead and that is a good thing.

 

Get over it.

 

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

 

Spreading the stupidity

Only in  America ......do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front. 

Only in  America .....do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Only in  America ......do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in  America ......do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Only in  America ..........do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in  America .....do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

YOU EVER WONDER –
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

Why can't women    put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'? 

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

 

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

 

 

Storms and such

Hey everybody.

I'm blogging this message to let you all know we are okay and everything in Calhoun is peachy. I feel guilty saying that. You see we had big storms, huge storms and we got... well, nothing.

Some wind, some rain, but ho hum.

For those of you who know me, you know I live in Calhoun GA. My town is about halfway between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga TN, and sits about 35 miles from one of the hardest hit areas in Georgia , Ringgold GA. All of the devastation that occurred as a result of the tornado's and severe thunderstorms on April 27,2011 is geographically all around me.

I could drive to every one of these areas including Tuscaloosa AL in a very few hours. I have friends or former co-workers that live in all these areas. The damage is beyond accurate description except to compare it to something else. When you see all the trees that are down, you think WOW, this looks like when Mt. St. Helen blew up and flattened the forest around it or maybe , I saw something that looked like this once when I saw an active logging camp in the forest. The damage is so severe it really doesn't have words of its own to describe it. I watch video with others and the room turns seriously quiet, no one can talk it is so absorbing. It is surreal. The only other time in my life I have ever saw anything that approaches this level of scary is Hurricane Katrina. I'll bet we have more damage and more totalled cars. I've never seen so many flying cars. I've been in every one the areas that have been shown on the videos and in the pictures.

I really don't recognize much of anything I see.

The damage in Ringgold looks more like a war zone than a vibrant industrial neighborhood. I've ate at most of the fast food restaurants in that area and none of them , not one of them, are serving food today, nor will they be for quite some time to come. Some will be fixed however the damage is so extensive that most will have to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

Pretty much if it was at exit 348 on I-75 in Georgia, it ain't in business today, and neither is much of the historic 173 year old town. Taco Bell ? -Destroyed, 3 Story Super 8 motel ? - Flattened, cratered, destroyed. Every other business for about the next 2 miles ? - Flattened, crushed, imploded and thrown into the next state. Get outta here takes on a whole new meaning. You know those 125 foot tall highway signs that businesses have ? I saw one broke in half, on broke at the base on top of the restaurant it was advertising and another was wrapped double backwards against itself. The McDonald's sign? Well it just wasn't there any more and neither is the BP gas station, well technically the cement slab is still there, but that's all.

A good friend of mine lives one mile from ground zero in Ringgold. His truck got hit by a tree, his wife's arm was hurt, the power is out, he lost his food, they don't have water, but everything else survived without much damage. His kids school got destroyed, but his kids are fine. One mile away from ground zero, a quarter mile from some of the less severe damage and nothing. School however is cancelled, For the rest of the year, In every school, For about the next two years while they rebuild them. FW

Another one of my friends lost a window. One window. In the same town as completely flattened commercial buildings. At the tail end of another long run of another tornado, another friend lost power and had a tree come down in their front yard. Power is out for half a day. Yay !! One of my other friends lives in Bradley County TN and her son's home, cars, garage was destroyed , but the family was spared. Thank goodness !

The interstate highway is at a crawl if you can get through at all right now. Debris, before you ask. Enormous Mountains of debris. Hundreds of thousands of tons of debris. "Guardrails ripped from the ground , wrapped around the bridge pillars like bow tie pasta". FW (my favorite cursing words) . Forget going to Chattanooga right now.

Hundreds of thousands of others were not so lucky. And trust me, we all know we were lucky and dodged a bullet Wednesday night. Atlanta should be thanking God that it turned right and left and didn't carve a path through downtown. Can you imagine the number of dead if this thing had went into the heart of Atlanta ?

In Tennessee, (she'd be embarrassed and pissed off if I mentioned her by name so I won't) where my best friends lives, folks died right down the street from her, maybe even literally next door. She lived through the Movie Twister and somehow even though there was gargantuan destruction all around her, she was spared, and her house was spared. Thank God for that. I saw the weather map, and where it was hitting , and I know she had to have been scared cause I was praying to god she would be okay. She said "I feel lucky, but don't know why I am alive."

Me ? Hell, I'm just glad you are alive to wonder that.

I saw the footage.

I still can't believe it.

How many people would even want to tell anybody they lived through (probably) an F-5 tornado ? It was definitely an F-4 and they are saying it may have been an F-5 by the time it hit her area. And then have to deal with the survivors guilt and the amazing amount of stress it has to create ? I'm glad for her, and was overjoyed to finally hear her voice. Oh and by the way, her son should get a medal for being able to get to her and get her out of that hell on earth. Way to MR !! Every son would do what he did I think, but he actually did it !

In terms of getting through this, well, like a lot of things time and money will heal a lot of it. Nothing will replace the loved ones who died, but after a time we will grow to accept it and move to pick up the pieces of our lives and go about making our fortunes in this world once again.

In terms of perspective however, we have lived through History and my friend who lived through the F-5 tornado can now tell people she survived one of the most destructive storms and one of the highest wind speeds ever recorded in North America. In 1974 Hurricane Carmen struck the USA and was rated a Category 4 storm according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale . The highest wind speeds were around 150 mph with gusts in the range of about 170-175 mph. The experts think this tornado has winds in excess of 190 mph.

We had hundreds of tornado's. F-1's through F-5's all in one day.

I've enclosed some links, YouTube links and a link to some pictures.
http://www.tornadoproject.com/fscale/fscale.htm

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150178317618469.330602.759223468

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdNVq5PPq5c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkhqFk_QA7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Se3es3l7o&sns=fb

Is it OK if we go back to normal now ?

- BigMike

Walking 45 Degrees to the earth- The Satelite view

Getting a lot of airtime in the news but not a lot of real thought or reporting is the current drama in the Middle East. We hear the talking heads giving us the latest on what country is convulsing to throw off their tyrant-leader of the moment but do not really hear a lot of what this momentous change in the middle east is going to do to the rest of the world. Oh sure, you hear all about how it may affect gas prices or our relationships with them in the short term but curiously you don't hear much at all about the long term picture. I listen every day and haven't really heard anyone discussing this in any substantial or meaningful way.

This is the age of the 12 second sound bite. If you can't read it, write it or say it in 12 seconds, it don't matter because no one will pay attention long enough to read it or hear it anyway. Long term news reporting , which analyzes the ongoing prospect of a news story, has been pretty much relegated to policy papers and magazines. More Journalists are writing books every day. Less and Less of them are actually covering news.

Here are some of the stories they are not telling at the moment that you won't really hear because nobody is asking the questions. What I cannot for the life of me figure out is why we aren't asking them and why this stuff doesn't make the cut ? We'll watch American Idol until we know everyone's names and we've run the phone bill up $250 dollars voting on Dancing with the Stars, but could care less and pay no attention to real reality ? Do you really think that a reality TV show is actual reality ? I wonder how long any woman would actually date and then marry a schmuck who made them wade though 12 other women while he makes up his mind which one he wants?

It boggles the mind.

9 million paragraphs about Charlie (Loser Tiger Blood) Sheen.

Not one about the future reality of what is happening right now?? No news stories about the causalities of war and 28 half hour long interviews to say why he (Sheen) should make more money.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Why the hell would I care who wins the money at the end of the TV show called Survivor? Real life gets in the way. Its called "Make your mortgage payment" and "Keep your Job". There's a reality show for you. Wake up. Here's some stuff I'd kinda like to know.

1. What kind of governments will replace the ones being thrown out by their citizens? For the most part the governing systems being abandoned are dictatorships and Oligarchies, and also for the most part individuals or families are being replaced as the heads of state.
2. What is in our best interests to have as heads of states in those countries?
3. Will any of these people be allies once it is all said and done?
4. What countries are vulnerable to this kind of chaos? Will we see this in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia or Syria ?
5. Will this fervor extend out of the middle east into countries like Myanmar or North Korea?
6. Are the countries going through these changes currently at war with anybody else? If so what are their military capabilities?
7. Is it going to be necessary to involve the military in any of those conflicts? If so in what role? Policeman ? Peacekeeper ? Combatant ? Buffer Force? Why hasn't this been discussed in the media ?
8. What elements of this chaos spreading through the middle east are going to translate into change in the areas where we would like to see it? Will this affect China ? or Iran ?
9. What happens if demonstrations break out in China for example (or others) and they respond by using the military to squash it, in the process killing thousands of people? Is there a legitimate response ? What should we do ?
10. What good does it do to employ sanctions against a country like Iran or North Korea? Why do we do it?
11. Now that is has been declared a part of free speech to demonstrate at a military funeral when a burying a loved one who dies in service to his country, How long before somebody snaps and starts shooting at these idiots ? I can see "Uncle LeRoy" with his pistols, gun rack and long rifle just lose it and shoot some of these idiots. How wrong can we really be ? I cannot believe I actually sided with Samuel Alito on something. What is this world coming to ? Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was the lone dissenter in a Supreme Court case last week that ruled the First Amendment protects hateful protests at military funerals. The case was brought by the family of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral was the target of protesters carrying signs with messages like“America is Doomed” and “God Hates Fags.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/weekinreview/06fightingwords.html)
12. The question is not "Will Jared Loughner get the death penalty?", the questions actually is "How long will it take us to Kill Jared Loughner, once his death penalty is affirmed?". Personally , I don't know. Only way to answer that would be to move the trial to Texas. Then the answer would be "Wednesday 6:30 pm, in the Express Lane."(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/05/earlyshow/saturday/main20039634.shtml)
13. Gasoline is now over $3.50 per Gallon. Why aren't we raising holy hell about it ?

This is just things that come to mind.

Can anybody shed some light on this at all ?

Man I am pissed.

-Thankx - BigMike

Observations from a forty five degree angle

Several things make me go whatever today and a few of them make me want to find the blathering idiots who propagate it and Gibbs-Smack them.

Like I care what happens or if this is read, but this is what I think.

Mostly is sorta like WTF dude?

• Charlie Sheen sets new world record for Twitter ? And somehow he gets paid for his nonsense? Listen I don't begrudge any body any money for anything they have done to earn it, but being paid because you have a twitter account ? Are you serious? Yet another reason I'll probably never have a twitter account is because I can't stand the shorthand they use and I could care less what happens to (Insert Name - Famous Person) let alone Charlie Sheen. His TV show has always been a microcosm of him and somehow they found his recent behavior offensive? These guys must be idiots. Have you ever listened to him talk - at all ? He speaks just like every other over privileged, pampered , actor/singer/rock star/model does who has enough money to treat other people stupidly and act as immature as they want to without facing the consequences for his actions. Give me a break. Those TV guys are just pissed off because he is yakking about them . Who gives a rats ass ? Oh and John Stamos in his part on the show ? Can you say "cancelled" ? I knew that you could. And by the way - He is not in Rehab at home. He is at home being coddled by his entourage. He will never be in Rehab unless and until he is sentenced to it in a prison somewhere. Get over yourself.

• A BYU athlete gets disciplined for having extra marital sex and then admitting it under the schools honor code? This is listed under a story about Charlie Sheen on a google list. I see the irony here, don't you? He is kicked off the basketball team, may not be able to remain in school and is under review because he admitted to sexual relations with his girlfriend. Sounds like he needed a big brother. One that can teach him to lie successfully. A good idea to have an honor code I guess, but I don't get the point of kicking him out of school or off the team. I wonder how it came up on conversation with school officials anyway....... "Say Brandon, you still a virgin, right?".

• One friggin permit has been issued for drilling in the Gulf. One. How long must the workers suffer? Spare me the environmental nonsense. One year from now the same methods they use right now will be used to drill the next set of wells. Virtually nothing will change until the last spill is litigated, so nobody will demonstrate culpability because of change. The workers will not work and the economy will continue to suffer though. What the hell is the point ? One friggin permit. One. I can't believe they think we are this stupid.

• Lou Dobbs is back on TV with a new FOX show (and I still don't care- MUTE BUTTON)

• A new IPAD came out tod.......(Boring )

• John Cryer got a new gig. (http://www.businessinsider.com/charlie-sheen-jon-cryer-cbs-ellen-degeneres-video-2011-3) This guy is the funny one. If you don't know he is the brother from Two and a half men.

• Chuck Lorre is an idiot !! ( http://www.popeater.com/2011/03/01/chuck-lorre-i-am-so-outta-here/ ) What ? Are we twelve and have any of these morons ever heard of a PR department. And Charlie is crazy ? WTF Dude? This is just another rich TV dude who has more money than he does sense. Oh and BTW - he's the exec producer of Two and a Half men I think.

See ya'll later - Bigmike