'Money for Nothin'...Detroit's pain is America's gain

The ruling yesterday by federal judge Steven Rhodes to allow the Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings of the City of Detroit is a God send for our country.  A virtual God send.

What Judge Rhodes' decision yesterday basically said was that out of control public union pensions are not allowed to be municipal suicide pacts.  He said that the Detroit public pensions were simply another creditor in line for a diminished piece of the remaining fiscal pie of a failed economic entity, the City of Detroit.  Their claims that their pensions are sacrosanct, and accordingly off the table have been scrapped.

Thank God.

'Oh, Fredd, you evil rotten sumbitch,' you say.  'How heartless can you be, watching these poor retches thrown out into the cold streets of Detroit, unable to put food on their tables, unable to feed their dogs, unable to pay their mortgages now that their meager pensions have been placed in jeopardy.  What an evil piece of garbage you are, Fredd.'

Say what you want about me, but the facts are the facts.  The fact is that liberalism has finally been thwarted, at least initially in the Eastern District of the State of Michigan.  Appeals will be filed by armies of liberal lawyers armed to the teeth with briefcases full of objections, requests for stays, injunctions, and all manner of lawyerly gobbledegook.

Liberalism is the reason why Detroit is in the dire straights it finds itself right now.  That fact is not even arguable.  Large greedy, unaccountable public and private unions (namely the UAW, Teamsters, IBEW, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SIEU, NEA, and the list can go on infinitum) have coerced unenforceable life time contracts with Detroit that now finds itself in so deep, it can no longer afford to keep the street lights burning, police cars patrolling, garbage trucks collecting, fire fighters fighting fires, paramedics paramedicking (ok, so I made up a word or two, sue me).

The point is that these gargantuan rotten unions are in for a shock: the goose that laid golden eggs for them to suck on in perpetuity has died.  Much like a host that succumbs to a malignant parasite, Detroit has raised the white flag: no more free money and golden pensions for unions.  There is no more money.  You can't get blood from a turnip.  Or a stone.  Or a bankrupt entity.  The checks have stopped coming.

Deal with it.

The pensioners are going to take a hair cut of perhaps 50%, or so goes the speculation. They signed a deal with the devil and some knew it, some didn't, but it was a deal with the devil regardless.  A promise for a life ever after in the land of high cotton, simply by showing up for a union job for maybe 20 years.

And the end to laying sideways in the land of high cotton for these betrayed union rank and file employess and now pensioners simply must happen.  There just isn't the money to pay these pensions that were forced onto the city by parasitic union bosses.  But just exactly why Detroit entered into these bargains in the first place must be discussed.  A contract is a binding document, right?  Sacrosanct, right?  Wrong - if in upholding the contract is physically impossible.

Henry Ford put Detroit on the map.  He jacked up the salaries of his workers up to $5.00/day, so that they too could afford to buy Henry Ford's product - the good ol' Ford Model T, produced enmasse from 1908 through 1927.  Henry Ford was a man of principle, and of character.  When he gave his workers the unheard of salaries they enjoyed, he also required them to live lives of structure, honor and integrity.  He himself was a man of virtue, self denial and character, and he thought that his community should share his values.  He would mandate that drunkenness be sanctioned, certainly on the job but also in the home.  Drunken employees would be given warnings, and if their excesses continued, they would be terminated.

This worked for quite awhile, until the socialists, Marxists and their union movement finally gained a stronghold into Henry Ford's company.  Detroit was a thriving, vibrant city until the unions moved in, and started extracting their devil's due: money for nothing.  Once they got their foot in the door, they demanded an end to Henry Ford's prissy ways, and if the union members wanted to wallow in drunkenness, nobody, and especially not Henry Ford, was to judge.

This exemption from frugality, thrift, honor, sobriety and general integrity continued to erode society in Detroit, from Detroit's zenith as a major thriving metropolitan center for business in the 1950's to today, December 5th, 2013: a city in liberal ruin.  A virtual smoking crater of a city, where once a great society dwelled.  Destroyed by the liberal atomic bomb of socialism.

Much like the lyrics to Dire Straights' huge hit in 1985, 'Money for nothing,'  the front man of the band Mark Knopfler and the Police's lead man, Sting, wrote this song after Knopfler overhead a conversation outside a store front window of an appliance store between two working stiffs.  As both stiffs watched a music video of a rock star, one stiff complained that getting up on stage, playing a guitar was 'money for nothing.'  He suggested 'that ain't workin,' he's bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee.' ' Money for nothin' and your chicks for free.'

Of course, that's not how gaining popularity as a rock star works, not even close.  A lot of these rockers put in their time, pay their dues, play gigs at the Moose Lodge, weddings and dive bars, often for little or nothing year in and year out, before they start moving up the food chain.  Just like every other job.  You put in your time, pay your dues, and basically show up for work, and eventually good things happen.  The way America should be.  And used to be.

But not in Detroit, not after the communist unions took over the city. The sole purpose of any union, name your favorite one, is to reduce economic efficiency.  Less work for more pay.  By definition, unions suck efficiency out of their hosts, and provide absolutely nothing in return.  By law.  Look at each and every collective bargaining session: the unions want more restrictions in work rules, less hours, more benefits, more guarantees of lifetime pensions, and in exchange they will not strike.  What kind of a deal is that?  For a city like Detroit to cave on an endless series of collective bargaining sessions over the decades has finally gotten the chickens to come home to roost: ain't no more money in the cash register, Richard Trumpka (boss of the AFL-CIO).

Detroit is but the largest example of union parasites killing their host cities.  Stockton, CA, was up until yesterday the largest example, but now these suicide pacts are coming to an end in a major city.

Thank God.  Finally, somebody has noticed that union greed has killed their host organization.  More cities are going to reach this point, but Americans are not going to hold up these deals with the devil: those days have now come.....and gone.

Again, Thank God.

Incompetence on parade

We are watching Barack Obama doing his best to manage our health care system, and our health insurance industry.

What we are actually watching is the most incompetent, inexperienced, in over his head, out of his league manager of our national affairs ever in this nation's history. Barack Obama was widely known to have the absolute thinnest, most pathetic, skinniest resume of anyone ever seeking the presidency, but the voting public overlooked all of this when it came time to pull the lever (twice), because he spoke very well, and could pronounce the word 'nuclear' ('noo-klee-er,' and not 'noo-kyoo-lar'). Quite the accomplishment, if you ask me (but ask him to pronounce the word 'corps', and see what you get). .

Turns out the guy can't manage his way out of a wet paper bag, and why should anyone be surprised? This incompetent, arrogant foolish moron has never managed anything in his entire life, not even a lemonade stand. He has held absolutely no executive positions in his existence on this planet. How can we expect a community organizer (read: rabblerouser) to get our nations' health care system and insurance industry running like a well oiled machine? Because we overlooked this obvious inexperience when we elected this guy (twice), and we are now paying the piper.

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He has expected to have things go well only on the basis that he wants them to go well, and tells everyone as much. He has never had to actually make decisions as to how best to solve problems, bring assets to bear and determine which assets to put more here and less there, etc. You know, things that even a simple lemonade stand owner understands. And yet these basic economic principles elude Obama's understanding completely.

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'Obama's Lemonade Stand' would have been set up roughly like this: shake down some successful lemonade stands down the street for his supplies, such as lemon juice, sugar, ice cubes and water. If they don't provide it, he will get the community to march on them for reasons of social injustice, corporate greed, etc. Then he will set his prices according to a progressive agenda: poor people get it free. Rich people will pay $1,000.00 per glass. It's only fair, everyone knows that. Once word gets out among the poor people that there's free lemonade afoot, Obama's stand will be flooded with 'patrons.' Exactly like the over representation of Medicaid signups for Obamacare, the 'takers' out of the system. Word also gets out among the rich folk that Obama is gouging them by charging $1,000 for one lousy glass of lemonade, and they avoid the stand, much akin to the 'makers,' the ones who have to fund all of this free medical care are avoiding signing up for Obamacare.  The analogy is scary correct.  And I continue....

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Now Obama has lots (and LOTS) of demand for lemonade, and yet no revenue to show for his efforts. He needs more supplies, but the nearby lemonade stands have been bled dry by Obama's incessant shake downs, and have closed their doors. To make up for this lack of revenue, ever more shake downs of increasingly distant but successful lemonade stands for his growing demand of lemonade is arranged. In the long run, as long as there are more successful stands to shake down to keep supplies flowing, things will work out just fine at 'Obama's Lemonade Stand' : that is, until there are no more successful lemonade stands anywhere to shake down. But he has never arrived at that point yet in his sophomoric experience, and accordingly thinks he can run America in much the same way.

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Right in front of America's eyes, Obama's abysmal lack of experience in managing anything has come to the surface when his problem solving rhetoric was clear for everyone to see: solving the Gulf oil spill a while back by decree - 'plug the damn hole.' There you have it. Done deal, right?

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Wrong.

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When the solution by decree doesn't work (which it won't, duh), Plan B consists of sending a few battalions of attorneys, armed to the teeth with briefcases, to figure out whom to sue. Why should we expect anything else out of this guy? We shouldn't. And as we all know, and especially Obama's mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows, 'America's chickens have come home to roost.' We elected a boob (twice) who doesn't know how to do anything except cause chaos, and we are getting what we elected: a guy who couldn't even run a lemonade stand and who is now in charge of our health care system and the insurance industry.

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Perhaps a lesson has been learned here. I certainly hope that the low information crowd is starting to get it, now.  Now that THEY are feeling the pain caused by this incompetent, arrogant boob who thinks he knows everything, but knows nothing.

Maybe THIS will wake up those low information voters....

We have been governed by socialists and marxists for over seven years now (to include the last two years of George W. Bush's last term, remember Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over congress in 2006) owing to the clout of what are now famously referred to as the 'low information voter.'  At least two of the three pedestals of power (the White House, the Senate and the House) have been in liberal hands now since '06 and the liberal majorities have wrought terrible damage during these days.

Low info folks voted in droves for liberals such as Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to lead their party, because Barry, Harry and Nancy filled their tiny brains with lies, fantasies and garbage about a heaven on earth that was forthcoming, provided they and their ilk are elected.

Starting now, the health care debacle that is out in the open for the first time for everyone to see, even these low info types, things are getting crappy for the average American who has never paid any attention to politics, but rather simply voted for Democrats.  Currently insured people who hate politics, and only want to know how often Snooki puked last night, or who gets hacked on Survivor or Dancing With The Stars, now are getting letters from insurance companies telling them their policies are cancelled.

We'll see how things go in 2014.  If these dummy low info types have any clue whatsoever as to why their pocketbooks are lighter, I think that the pendulum has starting to swing back into the correct path for the U.S.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, no matter how stupid, can possibly blame Republicans for the disaster that Obama Care, and more accurately President Barrack Hussein Obama, has foisted on our society.  Hopefully this realization will reflect favorably for the grown ups at the ballot box in 2014.

I've got news for you: 'THEY' are full of it....

You’ve heard them all.  Your father spewed them constantly, every opportunity he got.  Your mother had lots of these gems, too.  Yes, you’ve heard them all.  Over and over.

And 'they' are profoundly wrong. No, I'm not talking about your mom and dad, although I'm sure they are not always right all the time:  I'm talking about those infallible yet intangible sources from whom your mom and dad among many others quote: the elusive nebulous yet ubiquitous 'THEY.'  You know what 'they' say...'  Yes, 'THEM.' Those guys.  ' THEY' ARE WRONG.  All the time.

They all usually start with, ‘you know what THEY say, …’ and then the idiocy is repeated by whomever.  ‘You know what they say, a penny saved is a penny earned.’  Or some other such nonsense.  The reality is that stupid saying is simply outdated, and needs revision.  If you go out of your way to save a measly penny, you will have wasted more time and money in your endeavors to pick that penny up, think about how best to save it, and then take action on putting it into a secure position than that scrawny penny will ever be worth. 

But I pick nits on that example.  My point is that all of these insipid ‘truisms’ don’t make any sense whatsoever if put into practice.

The worst of these offensive sayings is this one: ‘you know what they say, one should NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING.’ 

How stupid is that, anyway?  Pretty darn stupid, if you stop and think about it.  Everybody makes countless assumptions on a daily, hourly and secondly basis.  If you never assumed anything, you would be paralyzed from taking any action whatsoever.  We all assume that the sun will come up again in the east, and set in the west.  If you don’t assume that, then you will wake up waiting to see if indeed the sun will come up in the east.  Oh, there it is, whew, for a second there I thought it might not rise today. Or, perhaps you would spend your time craning your neck in all directions to see where the sun will rise, maybe the north, maybe the northwest, who knows?  Never assume anything, right?  Wrong. 

You have to assume that you will not get hit by a meteorite, or falling space debris.  If you don’t make that assumption, your life will be consumed by this remote possibility and you will spend every waking hour staring into the heavens to see if something lethal is hurtling your way. 

If you are to be a functional human being, you have to assume that your home will not be overrun by a rampaging hoard of invading Cubans.  You have to assume that the chances of that are slim at best.  But if you are to believe what THEY say (' never assume anything'),  then be prepared to stand your post in perpetuity watching the horizon for the invading Cubans.

I could go on ad infinitum with assumptions that are made by everybody every second of the day, but I won’t.  Just know that from this point on, the assumptions you make will not doom you to the horrible consequences that THEY say you will suffer if you dare to make assumptions. 

And this one drives me crazy: ‘THEY say that you should NEVER draw conclusions until all the facts are at hand.’  AARRGGH!!  What garbage that one is. 

That oldie but goodie is the basis for every scoundrel under the sun to muddy the waters as to their malfeasance, skullduggery and evil ways.  All the facts will NEVER be at hand, regardless of the situation.  If one simply refuses to come to a reasonable conclusion as to any observation until they have absolutely every fact on the occurrence, they will dither until the cows come home as to forming an opinion as to what they just saw, and what to make of it. 

Every reasonable, rational person draws conclusions on a multitude of events that occur in spite of the irrefutable fact that there are missing facts not considered.  Take the recent events in Syria: 3,000 people experienced what was in all likelihood a Sarin gas attack, and the conclusion most every civilized nation made is that the rotten, no-chin son of a bitch Basher al Assad and his God awful regime was responsible for it.  There were plenty of tidbits of information that points to the Assad regime as responsible, but all of the facts on this event are not at hand, far from it.  Nobody saw the regime launch any chemical missiles, no film or video proves that they did it, and these are facts that will probably never be at hand.  And yet we all know that this scumbag dictator indeed gave the thumbs up to launch these weapons despite the lack of hard, proven facts.

But if you listen to THEM, you can’t draw this conclusion, because all the facts are clearly not at hand.  See what I mean?  All of the facts on anything will never be at hand.  If you wait for all the facts to be on hand, you will wait forever before drawing any conclusion on anything.

And THEY say all kinds of idiocy, such as “judge not, lest ye be judged.”  This one is just a collorary of the stupid axiom above, in that we make judgments all the time based on your collective experience and morals we hold dear in our lives.  To let things slide from judgment simply because you don’t want to be judged yourself, all sorts of evil can flourish.

Just take it as a bit of good advice: don’t listen to what THEY say.  THEY are full of it.

Talks with the Taliban? Here's how that will go....

The Obama administration has a lot of faith in their main man coming through with his 'gift,' you know, blathering on endlessly, saying really nothing, and walking away thinking he got something done.

But these negotiations with the Taliban are something that Obama may have a problem with, since their ideology is one of steadfast inflexible demands that infidels yield or suffer the wrath of Allah.  Here's how these talks will go:

Taliban Mohammed:  'We demand that the West yield to Sharia immediately.  To deny the Word of Allah is blasphemy, and will be dealt with severely.  We insist on beheading as the penalty.

Obama: 'Well, my good friend Mohammed, those are pretty tough terms.  Is there any wiggle room in your demands for human rights, women's rights, gay rights, you know, that kind of stuff?'

Taliban Mohammed:  'My good friend, President Obama.  So sorry, we are not really at liberty to negotiate the words of The Prophet and those of Allah.  We insist on beheading infidels who do not submit to Islam and the ways of Sharia.'

Obama: 'Well, how about we agree that rather than beheadings of all infidels who do not submit to Islam, we simply cut off one of their hands.  Can we agree to that?

Taliban Mohammed: 'Gee, I don't know.  I'll take it back to my people and see what they say.  But I can't really guarantee you anything, Mr. Obama, as they are pretty set in their ways, and beheadings are traditionally the way we deal with you infidels.'

Obama: 'Great, great!  See, we can make some headway if we just sit down and talk to each other...'

Joke of the week: Who wins this poker hand?

At the poker table one day, we find four players all with what appear to be winning poker hands in 5-card draw:

Player #1: The smartest man in the world, sitting President Barack Hussein Obama, who has a royal flush, ace through 10 all in spades.

Player #2: The smartest woman in the world, former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, also holds a royal flush, hers in hearts.

Player #3: The smartest economist in the world, former Sec. of Treasury Timothy Geithner, has a royal flush in diamonds.

Player #4: Ralph Wozniak, assistant bricklayer and part-time H&R Block tax consultant, Ralph has a royal flush in clubs.

All players bet everything they have, and push all of their money into the pot. 

Who wins? 

Why, Ralph Wozniak, of course, when he laid down his winning royal flush on the table.  The other three are simply made up characters by the Main Stream Media, and have no idea what they are doing in reality and accordingly all folded their hands because they are all clueless as to real values in life.

Joke of the Week: 'In the land of the Midgets...'

Once upon a time, in the land of the Midgets, there lived three midgets, Winken, Blinken and Nod.

One fine day, Winken, Blinken and Nod were strolling down the main street in the Land of the Midgets and noticed a new office building with a sign that stated 'Guiness Book of World Records, Land of the Midget Branch'.  Curious, they went inside and began a conversation with the clerk at the window.

After introductions, the clerk, well versed in all things regarding world records, was asked by Winken if indeed he himself, Winken the Midget, was still listed in his latest volume of the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest hands.  The clerk thumbed through the pages and verified that indeed Winken was listed as the world record holder as having the worlds' smallest hands.

'Woo hoo,' shrieked Winken.  And high fives were given to each Blinken and Nod.  After the celebration among the midgets had somewhat subsided, Blinken stepped up and asked the clerk if he was still the world record holder as having the world's smallest feet.  The clerk dutifully searched the volume of Guinness Book of World Records and subsequently Blinken was informed that he was still listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest feet.

'Woo hoo,' cried Blinken, and a round of high fives began anew.  After a few moments, Nod stepped up and quietly whispered to the clerk to check and see if he was still the world record holder as having the smallest brain.  Since this was something Nod was not particularly proud of, he tried to hush the conversation as much as possible.  Agreeing to Nod's wishes, the clerk checked the book to see if Nod was listed as the record holder with the world's tiniest brain.  After several minutes, the clerk whispered into Nod's ear his findings, and Nod seemed subdued at the information.

All three midgets left the office, and Winken and Blinken were persistent in finding out what the clerk has whispered to a now despondent Nod.  'Tell us, Nod, did your name get listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest brain? Please tell us, Nod, pretty please.' 

After a moment, Nod indignantly blurted out 'who the hell is Barack Hussein Obama?'

Public worship declining due to bad clerical policy

For a few decades now, attendance at public worship masses, services and assemblies has been on a steady decline.  Fewer and fewer pilgrims are planted in the Catholic Church pews, and accordingly fewer and fewer dollars are being placed in the collection plate.

The clerical community is puzzled by this phenomenon, and is at a loss as to how to get those wayward sheep back into the flock. 

Of course they are puzzled and confused: the clergy and their policies are the reasons that less and less people attend public worship services.

Front and center, of course, is the issue of sexual abuses by untold multitudes of Catholic priests on young boys.  The Church has never really issued an official widespread apology, per se, to the victims of these evil priests, and no real reparations to the victims have been considered by the Church. 

The Catholic church has serious issues in recruiting and training priests, and has not come up with any viable process to eliminate pedophiles from its ranks.  None whatsoever.  One of the requirements of the priesthood is that the applicant must fore go all sexual activity, and for young men that is asking the world.  Who but the most dedicated, pious and righteous among us can keep that kind of oath?  Well, not enough, as reality has proven. 

For the Church to expect that the true believers should overlook this little matter, ignore the fact that there are still predatory clergy within its ranks is one of the major reasons that their Sunday masses are shrinking year by year.  In reality, the Church and its upper management has actually gone to great lengths to cover up this horrible activity, and to paper over any pain or suffering that its own policies have wrought on their flock. 

Nobody trusts them anymore.  Well, almost nobody.  In days gone by, Fathers, Priests and Vicars all held considerable esteem within the worshipping community, and their integrity was beyond question.  Now, all of that trust has gone up in smoke with this pedophile scandal, and the Church has essentially done nothing about it.

Now as I write this, the Catholic College of Cardinals is convening to select the next Pope.  The last Pope, Benedict XVI, did virtually nothing to reform the Church over this scandal.  Now there are two camps within the College: those who want to continue with business as usual, much as Pope Benedict did, and those who want to reform the policies in place that allowed these priests do do their evil within their sacred domain and trust.

Hopefully the second faction prevails, but with the Catholic Church, change comes very, VERY slowly. 

Obama uses tactics of past and present tyrants

Perhaps you have heard that Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security released thousands of imprisoned illegal aliens into the population, reportedly as a result of lack of funds to continue their detention because of the sequestration budget cuts.

Of course Madam Secretary distances herself from this action, suggesting that a bureaucratic snafu was to blame.  Fat chance. 'Big Sis' was acting on her boss' orders.  In the not so distant past,  Josef Stalin's purges were so widespread, the average Soviet citizen watched as their friends and families were rounded up and marched off into the Siberian gulags, and these loyal Soviet citizens were heard to say 'this is not right, if only Mr. Stalin was aware of what is going on, he would put a stop to this.'  Josef Stalin ORDERED these purges, but the citizens still loved him as the big cuddly bear of a leader they all adored. 

This move of releasing plagues and pestilences into a wayward population was previously done by legions of past and present tyrants, despots and potentates to cow their populations into behaving in a manner acceptable to the regime in power, or to otherwise weaken and dilute the power of perceived or real enemies of the state.  Cuba's Fidel Castro offered thousands of violent prisoners a choice: stay in prison, or accept Visas to the U.S., and you can guess which choice all of them made.  Accordingly Castro succeeded in polluting our population with violent criminals.

Lately, Obama has been quoted constantly as being against sequestration, claiming it would severely damage our economy and put thousands out of work and grind our economy into ruin.  Although none of this is true, he continues to spout these lies.  All of these 'cuts' are simply reductions in the rate of growth: the Obama regime will still spend more money this year than last year.  There are no cuts. 

Regardless, this sequestration that Obama currently loathes was HIS idea in the first place, concocted last year to avoid sensitive discussion of cuts (that aren't even cuts, for crying out loud) that might irritate his liberal voting base right before an election, voters who live off of the government and want to hear nothing about no stinking cuts.  And this lie is so obvious, it is not even worth denying.  But Obama denies it anyway, a tactic used by virtually all past and present dictators but most famously by Adolph Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels.  This tactic is better known as 'The Big Lie.'  It basically works because the lie is repeated loudly, often and constantly, leading the population no other conclusion than the current lie must be true.  Otherwise, nobody would lie so blatantly and continue to drone on and on otherwise. 

Of course, there is his statement that Obama made lately that essentially means that if Congress doesn't take action on initiatives Obama feels are important to furthering his liberal agenda, Obama will act independent of Congress and initiate programs via fiat, which would fly in the face of the Constitution, a document Obama finds as detestable.  Every dictator and tyrant known throughout history has used that one. 

Obama has no need to invent a new play book to wield dictatorial power over Americans.  These tactics have been in the 'Dictator's Play Book' for thousands of years.  Obama has simply dusted off a page or two of this dastardly play book and implemented them, since they have worked every time they have been tried since the dawn of mankind.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it is Obama's way of looking at things. And we can expect many more pages of this playbook to be called by the current despotic regime of Barack Hussein Obama.  Many, many more. 

What happened to all the 'manly' men?

Question: What is more sad and pathetic than the sight of an able bodied average American guy standing next to his car on the side of the road with a flat tire, cell phone to his ear calling AAA to come rescue him?

The answer: nothing.
 

What happened to us formerly red blooded, All-American guys over the last few decades? Have we guys all become helpless weenies? A nation chock full of what Arnold Schwartzenegger would call 'girly men?' Maybe so. I drew this cartoon above a few years ago after reading an article from Popular Mechanics, whose editors compiled a list of the basic skills that they deemed every American guy should possess, and it appears below.

Read it and weep:

1. Patch a radiator hose
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
6. Back up a trailer
7. Build a campfire
8. Fix a dead outlet
9. Navigate with a map and compass
10. Use a torque wrench
11. Sharpen a knife
12. Perform CPR
13. Fillet a fish
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data \
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
20. Change oil and filter
21. Hook up an HDTV
22. Bleed brakes
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
25. Install a wireless router system.

When I read this list, I agreed that most of these are all skills that fathers used to teach their sons in days gone by, and I scored a perfect 100%. But I am an old guy, with perhaps tired old notions of self reliance, determination and a willingness to get your hands dirty from time to time. In that bygone era, dads used to take their 10-year old boys out in the back yard and show them how to build a tree house. That right of passage taught young boys many skills to include using hand tools, planning, organization, safety and pride in workmanship.

Sadly, those days are gone thanks to several factors such as advances in technology, and the slow and steady urbanization of the country. Most folks don't have backyards with substantial trees able to support any kind of tree house anymore unless they are out in the country. And even if they do, they have busy body home owners associations keeping their eyes peeled for these unsightly tree houses, those images of Americana now lost to our modern sensibilities. Rather than make excuses for why guys are turning into helpless losers, I suggest that this trend need not continue.

Take a long, hard look at this list, guys. If there are a few things here that you don't have a clue as to how to proceed, man up. Find out how, and go do it. If you can't start a campfire, then you have no business calling yourself a guy anymore. Just turn in your man card, and we will scratch you off of the man list, and don't bother coming to the man meetings anymore. And one final thing: change your name to Shirley. Or Pam.

(re posted from a few years ago due to popular demand)

'Ugly people need not apply.' A reprint of reality

In Utopia, people would be judged not by the 'arrangement of their skin, but by the content of their character.' (apologies to Martin Luther King for butchering his phrase in his 'I have a Dream' speech).

I just thought I would wander off the conservative reservation for a bit, and point out that the pretty people in this world get a leg up in almost every endeavor, while the less than pretty folk get the shaft when trying to compete for a share of life's goodies against these good looking hunks and babes.

Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton are rich and famous for one thing only: their looks.  They are as dumb as a bag of hammers (my apologies to all of those bags of hammers out there, you are WAY smarter than either of them), they both dropped out of third grade, and treat everyone around them like a bags of dirt. But none of that matters.  They are lookers, and as such are entitled to fame and riches. Life is like that, you know, whether you think it should be that way or not.

There has actually been legislation passed prohibiting discrimination in hiring by race, sex, age, color, creed, religion and sexual orientation. You will note, however, that general appearance does not make the list.  In the real world, the ugly among us should not even bother to apply, and maybe even do us all a favor and just drop dead.

After all, let's get real, shall we?

All of the above politically incorrect rant makes an irrefutable point: we all prefer watching pretty people read the news on TV, rather than a wart covered, wrinkly obese slob, right? It's not even arguable. Please point out a homely news person on Fox.  Go ahead, let me know the name of that ugly reporter.  I'm waiting............ (insert crickets chirping here).

We all discriminate against fat, zit faced, ugly old people. We do it every day. Virtually all of us (and Roger Ailes, CEO of the Fox Network in particular).

But is it right? Is this the way things SHOULD be?

In Fredd's Dreamland Utopia (where most liberals always hang out), we would ideally be judged by our credentials, attitude, love of life, respect for others, tolerance, people skills, gumption and verve, period. Looks? Not applicable.

But then, reality rears its ugly head and will always remind us all with its' cold bucket of water that we don't dwell in Dreamland Utopia. Let's get real. The Uglo-American segment of society can just forget about getting ahead in life based on their credentials, etc.

And they can certainly forget about sitting behind the newsdesk, for the ugly need not apply. Indeed, they should do us all a favor and drop dead. Or, if they choose to keep on living for reasons unknown to us all, at least they should wear paper bags over their heads.

But life is like this, and we all know it. But it still ain't right....

Best Television Shows airing these days

Back in the day, cable TV had almost nothing worth watching.  If you wanted true entertainment in the 1950's through 1980's, you tuned into the three major networks: NBC, ABC and CBS.  From 'I Love Lucy', 'My Favorite Martian,' or 'The Addams Family,' quite a few shows were on that were quality shows that the entire family could watch without dad reaching over to cover his 9 year old daughter's eyes and ears as is the case today with almost every prime time major network show.

Fox is a Johnny-come-lately nework that essentially has always been edgy, and not very family friendly from it's early days in the 1980's, and the other three big networks have gravitated towards Fox's example: edgy, raw and raunchy: 'Two and a Half Men,' Modern Family' and '2 Broke Girls' are simply sewage that are unwatchable by anyone, despite their Nielsen ratings.

Anymore, (with the exception of football, a topic for another time) there is virtually nothing on network TV worth watching except one show airing Fridays on ABC: 'Shark Tank.'  This great exception to the garbage on all networks anymore is highly entertaining, as well as informative and motivating.  The premise consists of a panel of rich guys (and one token rich girl) listening to a never ending stream of poor guys pitching their ideas to the rich guys hoping that one of them will invest in their business.  It really portrays what it takes to make it in America, and what doesn't make sense as well when the rich guys send bad ideas packing.  Well worth watching.

In what has become a complete reversal from the good ol' days, network programming is for the most part a barren viewing wasteland, and the only programming worth watching is now available on cable:

American Pickers.  The basics of this History Channel show on the surface consist of two guys picking through people's garages and barns, essentially digging through garbage looking for antiques.  But deeper into this premise is a great deal of Americana, the history of popular culture and what was 'in' back in the day.  Whether the guys find an original 'Mr. Potato Head' game in its original box, or a 1937 Indian Chieftan motorcycle, the producers spend time explaining these items' importance to the culture at the time.  This show is not just two guys digging through other people's crap, it is a journey back into the pop culture of a day gone by.  Excellent viewing.

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  Now going into it's 6th year on The Food Network, Guy Fieri cruises around in his most excellently restored 1968 Camaro in search of outstanding food of all corners of the U.S.  Although this great show is primarily a cooking show and as such has a predominantly female viewing audience, guys will also get a great deal out of this show as well, as Guy Fieri is the consummate entertainer, and is as quick on his feet with the joke as anyone in the business.  A lot of fun to watch, and the producers have selected restaurants from almost every state in the union, a little geography lesson can be had on every show.  Great entertainment.

Wheeler Dealers.  Basic theme: two Brits, a short fat Brit and a tall skinny Brit find classic automobiles such as Jaguars, Ferraris and even Dodge Challengers, and fix them up and sell them for big bucks.  Mostly a guy show, anyone who is even mildly interested in cars and mechanics will love this show airing on The Velocity Channel, as these two guys can make the restoration of a bug-eyed Sprite (which Brits call a 'Frog-eyed Sprite') a riveting viewing experience.  An American viewer simply need convert Brit to Yank to understand that a 'spanner' is just a wrench, a 'bonnet' is not something women wear on their heads but rather the Brit word for car hood.  Once you get the hang of it, Wheeler Dealers is a real class act.

Cash Cab.  A comedian (Ben Bailey) cruises around New York in a cab wired with TV cameras, asking trivia questions to actual cab patrons.  The more questions they answer correctly before arriving at their actual destination, the more money they win.  If they bungle three questions before they arrive, Ben boots them out onto the mean streets of New York with nothing to show but a cab ride.  Past contestants have proven to be quite knowledgeable in trivia, and others demonstrate such an ignorance of the culture around them that one wonders how they manage to feed themselves.  Great stuff, I tell you. 

For Carnival, the chickens have come home to roost

As a guy who has taken a cruise or two in his day, dumb ol' Fredd would like to weigh in on Carnival's woes: something like this was bound to happen, it was just a matter of time.

Carnival Cruise Line operates on the low end of the cruise scale in terms of amenities, luxury and cost.  Carnival has long been widely regarded as the 'K-Mart' of cruise lines.

And Carnival did quite well in that niche - up until about a year ago, when the chickens started coming home to roost, if I may borrow a line from Dr. Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

My family and I have taken five cruises to the Caribbean: two on Carnival (Carnival Victory and the Carnival Ecstasy), two on Princess Cruise Lines (Grand Princess and Ruby Princess), and one cruise last year on Royal Caribbean's Allure of The Seas.

I base my opinion here on what my own eyes have soaked in during my voyages, and the tales of my fellow passengers as to their experiences with various cruises they have all taken in the past.  Without exception, Carnival rated at the bottom of the ladder in each category: amenities, luxury of experience and cost.

Both Princess and Royal Caribbean have meticulously maintained vessels, professionally trained and tenured staff, and above average general cruising experiences. 

Carnival, well, where to begin. 

Before all of their woes made front pages this week, Carnival has had problems in the recent past, to include the capsized Costa Concordia (owned by Carnival), and an engine room fire crippled a Carnival vessel several years ago, stranding passengers much the same as happened to the Carnival Triumph last week.

Carnival is the least expensive cruise available.  The prices are perhaps 15% or more below any other Caribbean line.  They are universally known as the 'party cruise,' since their rates attract the lower income party crowd during Spring Break, and other times when college students crowd the decks, screaming drunkenly into the wee hours of the morning and beyond. 

In order that Carnival offer the cut rate cruises, something has to give: the management at Carnival scrimps on maintenance much more than other lines.  They go longer between refurbishments of each vessel, and the turnaround between each voyage doesn't include a complete coverage of the punch list that develops each voyage from normal wear and tear from passenger use (and abuse).

On both of our Carnival cruises, our staterooms had a minor maintenance issue which we had to report as our cruise was underway.  A maintenance crew member showed up each time, and both times we were informed that the repair could not be effected until after we were back in the U.S. port.  While these problems were minor (trim coming off the walls, and bathroom locking hardware falling apart), we did not notice anything amiss in our staterooms on other cruise line vessels.  Only Carnival.

As K-Mart suffered market loss through their chosen strategy in the retail industry (low cost, low margin), so goes Carnival's brand name in the long run in the cruise line industry.  It is becoming clearer that a lack of maintenance is the culprit behind the crippled Carnival Triumph's problems.  Unless Carnival take drastic steps to change its image, and perhaps jack up its rates enough to handle additional needed maintenance, we may see the line go under, if not in the short run, for sure in the long run.

Portlandia - most liberals believe it exists, or at least it should

Portlandia.  The place where young people go to retire.  Where everyone sleeps in until 11:00 AM, and everyone is in a band.

Portlandia is where you can go into a record store and sell your band's latest CD.  It's a place where you don't have to work very hard, if at all.  And if you do work, it's only a part time gig where you have plenty of time for rehearsal with your band, and it still covers the rent for the studio apartment you share with three other Clown School classmates (who are also in their own bands).  To get around in Portlandia, you don't need a stinking, gas guzzling, planet wrecking car.  Nope, you are doing your part in saving the planet because you can bike everywhere, and there are 600,000 linear miles of bike paths within Portlandia, give or take a mile or two.

I know some real people who live in Portlandia.  They are as liberal as the day is long, and they love this concept.  They are a fabulously wealthy couple, the guy being a retired titan of industry, the gal still runs her own business which caters exclusively to her fabulously wealthy friends.

And these two, while grudgingly acknowledging that Portlandia is a parody of the town they live in, secretly believe that this is the way things should be.

Everybody SHOULD be in a band, right?.  Everybody SHOULD be able to sleep in until 11.  And if you want to go to clown school, who is to say you are wasting your time?  Huh?

The sad reality is that most liberals throughout the country truly believe in their heart of hearts that Portlandia should be a reality, and that it is possible to create a society that enables everyone to do whatever they want to do without constraint.  To be whatever you want to be, regardless of the consequences.

There is absolutely no thought, however, given to exactly how this Portlandian lifestyle will be sustained.  No consideration as to who will pay to keep the lights on in the garage so that everyone can practice their bass solo for the next gig (which will be every night). 

The saddest thing about Portlandia is that there is a very large metropolitan area (Portland, Oregon) whose residents for the most part think that the rest of the country (in Red States) have completely lost their minds and are mostly stupid, or are in denial that Portlandia is the Utopia to which we as a nation need to aspire and achieve this Nirvana on earth.  To them, conservatives are either mad or imbeciles when they pooh pooh the notion that Portlandia is a concept that is mostly based on a fairy tale.

It's a good thing that most of the rest of the country outside of Oregon doesn't subscribe to this moronic TV series, now going incredibly into its third season. 

Well, gotta sign off, now.  I'm working on a new bass riff for my band, 'Brain Dead.' 

Don't let THIS crisis go to waste, Rahm: 42 murders in Chicago so far

This is a perfect crisis for Rahm Emanuel, who tells us we should never let a crisis go to waste.  He says that in a crisis, you could do things that you otherwise couldn't do.

Or you could do things that you otherwise WOULDN'T do, in Rahm's case.  So far this year, 42 murders have taken place in Rahm's city (Chicago, Illinois), and most law enforcement officials will tell you that normally the murderers stay indoors during the winter months, and 42 murders in January spells impending disaster once the weather turns nice in the Windy City. 

Rahm Emanuel's knee jerk reaction was to his credit a good one: take 200 pencil pushing desk bound cops, give them guns and push them out onto the mean streets of Chicago.  Rather than HIRE more cops, since Chicago is one of the brokest, poorest, cash strapped cities in the country and can't afford to pay for more cops.  They already spent millions and millions on social programs, beautification programs, and the ever present misallocation and flat out corruption and theft.  There's no money left for additional police, since the liberal Chicago machine Democrats already blew it on liberal programs or just stole it for themselves. 

But Rahm Emanuel is onto something that everybody knows works: put more guns into the hands of good guys to thwart the bad guys.  As was recently put out by Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, God's truth is this: "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun."  No truer words were ever spoken.   This works every time it's tried, everywhere it's tried, throughout time eternal.  And Rahm made this decision within hours of 15 year old Hadiya Pendleton getting shot in the back and killed by a gang thug to put an immediate 200 more guns into good guy hands to combat this crisis. 

What this crisis can do for Rahm is force him to do the right thing: lift the handgun ban in Chicago, and allow the good guys in his city, you know, the residents who live there, to put guns into use against these wanton, brazen murderers who fear nothing currently.  They don't fear the police, since there are not enough of them.  They certainly don't fear the residents, who have been disarmed for decades now.

But Rahm is hardwired to resist such a good idea, since he (stupidly) believes that only the government can be the good guys.  Putting guns into the hands of ordinary citizens is just not something Rahm Emanuel can even comprehend.  Citizens are NOT good guys, in Rahm Emanuel's way of thinking.  Only GOVERNMENT employees can have guns.  Only GOVERNMENT employees can be good guys.

The murder rate in Chicago is out of control.  The gangs rule the south and west side of Rahm's town, and the only way to solve this crisis is to put a whole lot of guns into a whole lot of good guy hands.  And Rahm doesn't have a penny to spare to buy more good guys.  He already has a few million good guys from whom he (and his liberal ilk) have TAKEN all of their guns. 

Rahm Emanuel needs to change his way of thinking, and that is not likely to occur.  I am just wondering who the 'eff-ing retard' is in this town, anyway, to use Rahm's own words. 

Liberal hypocrisy on Parade

Just turn on the TV and you can see and hear it with your own eyes and ears: when a liberal speaks, inconsistency and hypocrisy flows from their lips.  In other words, they want the rest of us to follow idiotic rules that liberals concoct to keep us all in line, yet they exempt themselves from these rules.  The truth behind their hypocrisy is simple: liberals are many times pragmatic about what works and what doesn't.  Their gun control measures have utterly failed in the past to prevent gun violence, and so they take up arms to prevent this from happening to themselves.  And then these very same hypocrites continue to push for removing guns from the hands of the rest of us of the Great Unwashed - yet these liberal hypocrites keep THEIR guns, and remain armed to the teeth.

Take Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who has been a pit bull in the rush to grab everyone's guns lately, presumably to end gun violence.  Yet she confesses to having a concealed carry permit to pack heat, since the sincere need for her protection is different from you and me, you see.  She is more important, and therefore exempt from her own rules she would foist on us all.

Hypocrite.

Ditto with uber-liberal pinko Rosie O'Donnell, who rants and raves about guns being in the hands of everyday citizens, and yet her own personal body guard is armed to the teeth in his efforts to protect this brazen hypocrite.  None of the rest of us deserve protection, oh no.  We of the Great Unwashed are too unimportant to warrant protection.  Rosie O'Donnell, on the other hand, needs armed protection so that she can continue to rant and rave unfettered about all of those guns in the hands of the rest of us. 

Unbelievable.  Such inconsistency from our 'betters.'

Of course, posting armed personnel in public schools in order to protect Joe Q. Sixpack's kids creates shrieks of horror from liberals, to include our most liberal president ever, Barack Obama.  And yet the president's kids (in private schools, of course, he would NEVER stoop to sending his kids to public schools, public schools are only for those within the Great Unwashed, you know), his precious kids are under armed guard twenty four hours a day. 

As for OUR kids, he demands that they spend their educational hours in GUN FREE ZONES.

I think we are starting to see a pattern here: what's good for all of US, as determined by our 'betters,' is unacceptable to impose on those better folk themselves.

Damn liberal hypocrites.  A pox on all of 'em.

How do I know if I'm conservative?

Some folk out there are confused.  They just don't know where they stand politically: are they Red Staters (conservative), or Blue Staters (liberals)?  Well, allow me to clear the air.  If you fit the following criteria, you most certainly can determine where you fit in on the political spectrum:

1.  If your front porch collapses and more than two dogs die, you just might be a Red Stater.

2.  If the size of your residence is determined by 'wides' (single wide, double wide, or if you are extremely wealthy, TRIPLE WIDE), you just might be a Red Stater.

3.  If the highest compliment that can be paid to a local gal is 'say, nice tooth!', then you are probably a Red Stater. 

4.  If, in order to cross the border into your state, you must by law have at least three teeth pulled (preferrably one of the front ones), then you most likely live in a Red State.

5.  If you have at least three non-operational vehicles up on blocks, in addition to two or more non-functional kitchen or laundry room appliances in your front lawn, it is possible that you live in a Red State.

6.  If your working television set is sitting on top of your non-working television set, it's very likely that you are a conservative living in a Red State.

7.  If you attend family reunions to meet girls, then you most definitely reside in a Red State.

8.  If you have no idea how to load, fire or clean a double barrel shotgun, you are most definitely not a resident of a Red State.

9.  If you think that receiving food stamps is a God Given Right, then you are very likely not living in a Red State.

10.  If you voted for Obama (twice), you most definitely do not live in a Red State, although you most certainly do not even know what a Red State is. 

(acknowledgements to Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy for their valuable input).

Manti Te'o: all this fuss to cover his being gay

We keep hearing how strange and stranger this story gets regarding Manti Te'o's non-existent girl friend who was the love of his life.  It's not strange at all if we consider the possibility that answers almost every weird question: he fabricated a girl friend to cover up the fact that he is gay.

Manti Te'o has a lot to lose if he's outed as a homosexual.  Nobody in the NFL is gay, at least not that we know of.  Should the facts come to light, there goes the huge bucks that being a top draft pick would bag.

And what about his family gushing over the ghost girl friend, telling everybody they met her?  They would know about Manti's sexual orientation, and are aware that they need to play ball in this masquerade in order to cash in on his football career themselves. 

So far, all of this checks out in filling in the holes in this story.

He's a good looking guy, got everything going for him, but no girl friend in sight.  What's up with that?  Did you notice how many hot chicks that Johnny Football has been seen with since his Heismann?  And how about A.J. McCarron's latest squeeze, Miss Alabama? Colin Klein? Married. But zilch girls with Manti.  Zip, nada in the babe department.

It's quite likely that Notre Dame is in on the gay Manti Te'o story as well and sat on the news also, as it would not help their program to have this come out, much akin to the Penn State mess.  No, they can't have that, bad for recruiting, etc., and are sticking with Manti's story about being 'catfished,' bamboozled, duped and fooled.

This is the most likely story here: Manti Te'o is gay, and will soon be expected to start wearing some arm candy, and  so we come up with a far away, unreachable 'girl friend,' and everything is solved.  Then the girl croaks, and Manti pines away for years over the loss of his soul mate. See how this works out?

The only problem with this theory is that since it's a conspiracy, eventually somebody rats out the scheme for the money, and that would likely entail the male love interest in Manti's life.  So far, silence from the boyfriend. 

But it's only a matter of time before we meet Manti Te'o's true love interest. 

Why Liberals think Conservatives are Evil

Just ask any card carrying, dues paying liberal what they think of conservatives.  The pejorative expletives and vitriolic venom that will inexorably spew from the liberal's maw in response to such an inquiry should give you a hint that they just don't like conservatives very much. 

But why would this be?  It's simple, really: conservatives' views, if implemented via legislation, will significantly cramp a liberal's lifestyle. 

And when a liberal's lifestyle is cramped, they consider whoever is doing the cramping to be flat out evil.  Why else would somebody purposely cramp a liberal's activities?  Nothing else explains this except the 'evil' theory.

Liberals truly believe that they should be allowed to do anything that feels good, regardless of the consequences.  Liberals believe that all drugs should be legal, and if they really push hard, free.  Liberals believe that anybody should be able to marry any thing, regardless of whether it be animal, vegetable or mineral, since why would anyone be against true love?  If a liberal wants to marry a turnip, who is to stand in the way of their heart's desire?

Only evil sorts would want to inhibit this, obviously.  And conservatives fit that bill.  Just pure evil, these rotten jerks, standing in the way of true love.  Speaking of true love, hard core liberals also believe that adults should be able to have sex with children, if it is in a truly loving relationship.  NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) is getting a bad rap owing to its opposition from conservatives, there they go again standing in the way of true love.  How evil can you get, these liberals ask.

Of course, there's also the widely known fact that conservatives are just plain mean spirited and cruel when talking about wealth redistribution.  These evil conservative jerks oppose having their money taken away from them via confiscatory taxation and given to those less fortunate.  Can you believe how evil that is?  Pure evil, the liberals say.

Just ask any average, any run of the mill liberal how evil conservatives are.  And you don't need to hunt down a dyed-in-the-wool hard core liberal who brings three bean salad to all the liberal picnics to get this line of reasoning.  Any old liberal who falls off a log truly thinks that conservatives are pure evil, the veritable spawn of Satan.

Conservatives are a bucket of cold water on their desires, a wet blanket on their wishes to be free.  Those damn, rotten evil conservatives.

Television shows that will rot your brain

The following programs, if you watch them regularly, will be guaranteed to turn you into what are now called 'low information voters.'  Or, the more technical term: a moron.  If you actually enjoy watching the following garbage that passes for modern television programming, it will literally transform your brain into rotten goo.

Without further ado, allow me to list the most damaging programs ever concocted by Hollywood guaranteed to turn anyone's brain into pus, and accordingly an Obama voter:


"Here Comes Honey Boo Boo".  A reality series that launched in the summer of 2012, this crap when airing opposite the Republican National Convention was the most watched program of the evening among viewers aged 18 - 49.  Portraying the lower socio-economic layer in U.S. culture, this program basically covers white trash and idiots living in the rural South (Georgia), as the program follows the exploits of a portly trailer trash mother who touts her pudgy little moron daughter as a beauty pageant contestant.  The goal of the show is to achieve ratings by making the viewers feel superior to the retards on the show, and the producers go to great lengths to point out the low IQ of all involved.  Prolonged exposure to this show will eventually lead to a total devastation of the cerebral cortex and complete loss of brain cells. Or, in other words, create a die hard Obama voter.


"The Bachelor/Bachelorette." This God awful dreck has been airing annually for over 10 years now,  and is completely devoid of any substance or reality, although it is considered a 'reality' show.  Premise: a good looking single gal chooses a fiance' from ten or so handsome, single guys ('The Bachelorette' premise, vice versa for the Bachelor).  Nothing whatsoever filmed on this show are actual real live conversations between the participants, and so far no 'couple' created by this bung hole of a show has ever resulted in a marriage of any substance.  Mostly a chick show, sobbing women viewers, handkerchiefs firmly in hand and/or nose are mostly at risk after repeated exposure to become mentally impaired, and accordingly descend into  the despair typical of the pathetic Obama voter.

 "American Idol." Also entering its 11th year, this horrible series consists of snobby, arrogant celebrities judging the singing talent of unknown contestants, and viewers are mesmerized by the insults and degradation heaped upon obvious plants of no-talent singers, while obsequiously gushing over the more talented contestants.  How anyone with an IQ of room temperature or higher can stomach a single moment of this show is beyond my comprehension.  This unmitigated pile of puke programming will without a doubt turn any viewer's brain into stinking, fetid goo after only a few minutes.  Prolonged viewing will damage the brain of any voter and will most certainly benefit Obama in his bid for a third term (he will ignore the 22nd Amendment much like he ignores the rest of the Constitution).


"Survivor." How any reasonably intelligent person can watch even a second of this perennial filth boggles the imagination.  Even so, the producer Mark Burnett uses  fabricated and phony conflict and treachery among the participants to spice up this stupid show and create as hostile an environment among the cretins participating in what the brain damaged audience loves to see: back stabbing, lying, cheating, stealing and manipulating.  It's hard to believe that this show was based on Johann David Wyss' classic novel published in 1812 titled "Swiss Family Robinson." Guaranteed to damage the brain beyond all capacity, and thus skewing towards Obama's vote tallies to perhaps 6 terms in office if not more. 

Hurricane Sandy 'victims' nothing more than bold gamblers who lost

Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), love him or hate him, is really pushing hard to ensure that incredulously uninsured 'victims' of Hurricane Sandy who lost their homes to the surge of tidal waters are made whole at no cost to themselves.  But who else should pay for this destruction?

Not the 'victims,' who chose to build on known flood planes. Without a dime of insurance. No, no, they should not have to pay one red cent, according to Gov. Christie.  Nope, it's the REST OF US who need to keep these people in the lap of luxury on the beaches of New Jersey in the form of massive federal disaster relief.

It galls me that all of these 'victims,' who are really not victims at all but rather bold gamblers and moochers, demand that we as a nation buck up and help them when times are tough, and the known risks came home to roost in their known flood planes upon which they built luxury waterfront condos and mansions.  It wasn't just an ancient human memory that a massive surge destroyed these lands back in antiquity.  A major storm destroyed the very same area that these bold gamblers chose to settle in 1944!!  That was not a very long time ago at all, folks. 

These 'victims,' or bold gamblers as I prefer to call them, now want money from the federal government (and that would consist of everybody else except the bold gambler) to pay to rebuild their condos, mansions and docks, and restore their opulent motor yachts on this luxurious waterfront property....YET AGAIN.  And they want to enjoy this private waterfront property at no cost to themselves until the next storm comes along. And in the interim, we the American public will be denied access to the private property that our tax dollars rebuilt.  NO TRESPASSING signs will be everywhere on these bold gambler's and moocher's freshly rebuilt private waterfront property.

The next storm that decimates this known flood plane is not an 'if:'  it WILL come and destroy this place again, and it's not even arguable.

And WHEN, not IF, we succumb to the sob stories that these bold gamblers put out there, and cough up to rebuild their opulent digs on these known flood planes, these bold gamblers and their heirs in the future will YET AGAIN extend their hands out to the rest of us when their yachts and mansions are swept out to the angry Atlantic ocean in a future storm surge.

Governor Christie, God love you as a God fearing conservative.  But this SOCIALIST plea to the federal government to bail out these bold gamblers is not becoming of a conservative.  Let these folks insure their properties like everybody else who lives in perilous conditions.  Such as dumb ol' Fredd, who lives in the northern climes of 'Tornado Alley.'  The likelihood of dumb ol' Fredd getting wiped out or killed by a tornado is low, but it is not zero percent probability.  Accordingly, dumb ol' Fredd pays annually for 'TORNADO INSURANCE.'

Let these bold gamblers and moochers pay their own way to enjoy their waterfront digs.  Stop trying to squeeze the rest of us, Gov. Christie. 

2012's Top Ten Most Frustrating Episodes in America

I would describe 2012, a year that shall live in infamy, as one of profound frustration at best.  Nothing went our way, in regards to improving the average U.S. citizen's general lot in life.  The economy floundered, our military gained no victories, our future is less secured, and our culture degraded and cheapened.

Without further ado, allow me to list the United State's Top Ten Most Frustrating Moments of 2012:

1.  The re-election of President Barack Obama.  In elections past, his record over the last four years would have sealed a landslide defeat.  But not this time around, no siree Bob.  Unemployment hovering at historically disastrous levels, loss of our AAA credit rating, the entrenching of a bound for failure universal health care policy, a resurgent al Qaeda terrorist movement throughout the world, and a demonstrably massive surge towards socialism, all owing to Obama's Marxist leanings, liberal socialist philosophy and hatred for the principles of the founding of our country.  This moment was a God awful loss for freedom in America going forward. 

2.  Democrats retain control of the U.S. Senate.  Yes, a disaster for the U.S.  This bunch under the leadership of Harry Reid (D-Nv) has not passed a budget in over three years, in order to hide the fact that they are spending money like insane lunatic drunken sailors.  This bunch of slugs pigeon hole all bills submitted to the Senate by the GOP and disregard the legislation passed by the Republican controlled House simply because they can.  What a disaster for us.

3.  Four Americans killed in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  During a 7 hour seige on a U.S. compound, which was clearly imminent and published, four Americans including the Libyan ambassador were murdered while the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense assets stood idly by, and ordered reinforcements to stand down, allowing these men to die.  Absolutely shameful.  And to this day, nobody has been held accountable for the list of mistakes made as long as my arm. 

4.  Republican Party remains in the hands of moderate leaders who despise conservative values.  John Boehner (R-Oh) remains the Speaker of the House, and has lately removed any and all Tea Party affiliates from legislative committees if they scored poorly on his 'Moderation' report card.  This guy is simply a Democrat who can't bring himself to admit that he hates conservative policies because they put a crimp into his moderate lifestyle.  And yet we re-affirm his leadership time and again, despite the fact that he has been a failure in conservative promotion ever since he was majority whip back in Denny Hastert's 'Mark Foley' congress in 2005 and 2006.

5.  A record 47,710,324 Americans are on food stamps, as of September 2012.  Disgraceful.  Back in the day, anyone on public assistance (welfare) was looked down on, scorned, and even shunned.  But not now, no way Jose.  We have made it so easy to take money from our neighbors in the form of food stamps that we just issue debit cards with food stamp balances on them, instead of the colored food stamp certificates in days gone by that some would be ashamed to submit to a grocer for payment.  Gone are those days, we now have approximately one in six Americans on food stamps and they think nothing of it.  We have to borrow forty cents of every dollar the U.S. government spends on these programs, and one in six of Americans have no problem with this .  A scandal of epic proportions, this lack of shame by 15% of all Americans.  Our culture in this country has gone to the dogs.

6.  Americans mourn the death of Whitney Houston for a week or more.  I'm sad for her family, but having said this, Miss Houston was one of the most irresponsible public figures we have seen come down the pike in the U.S.  Rampant drug use, disrespect for any and all American institutions with her public profanity and shameless behavior for perhaps a quarter of a century.  And we put this disgraceful woman's death in the same perspective as the passing of Mother Theresa.  How far we have fallen, folks.  Ditto with Michael Jackson's passing a few years ago, but we are focusing on 2012.

7.  Chief Justice John Roberts affirms The Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare). Roberts ruled on the contorted logic that the basis of the law's confiscatory monetary support is indeed a tax, not a mandated fee.  This, despite the Obama administration attorney's arguing before the SCOTUS that is was in no way a tax.  What a slug in the gut.  A stomp in the face of Americans, and this ruling from arguably a rock ribbed conservative.  This ruling will be engraved in shame on John Robert's tombstone, as the enabler of Socialist America.  America passed over into socialism with this ruling, a ruling that will have lasting and immeasurably damaging consequences. 

8.  Democrats use a madman's rampage in Newtown CT as an excuse to push for gun control.  Despite the Second Amendment to the Constitution, liberals are frothing at the mouth to grab private citizen's guns and leave an American population defenseless and unarmed against criminals who will always be armed to the teeth.  No gun law has ever worked, ever ever.  Duh!!  Does any reasonable person think that if we eliminate guns from law abiding citizens, that criminals will give up their guns?  Not a chance, this is why they are called criminals.
 
9. Hot off the presses - the U.S. didn't fall off the Fiscal Cliff. No, we deferred going off of this Cliff for another two months, and passed a bill loaded with pork, new spending and not a dime of spending cuts. Good thing we have a countervailing effect owing to retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives, right? We just kicked the can down the road, yet again.

10.  Rap music is still popular in 2012.   For the life of me, I will never understand (nor do I want to understand) why this no-talent garbage has lasted for so long in popular culture.  Lyrics by gangsters who 'sing' of 'ho's and b*tches, killing police, killing Caucasians and their babies and all other manner of vile and disgusting topics rule the music charts.  Yet these rap 'artists' make millions of dollars every year, and their God awful recordings are as popular as ever.  This genre of music should have died 20 years ago, but didn't.  Too bad.