Debbie Downer

Bumper Sticker

Chris sent this to me. Said he saw it in Austin Texas. With all the libs in Austin I expect this car to get keyed.

What If They Had A Strike ...

... and no one knew about it? Or even cared? My friend Cliff sent me this article That Claudia should get a kick out of.

Vestigial: Relating to a body part that has become small and lost its use because of evolutionary change.

For example, Canada Post.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a strike going on at the post office. It’s a nice, polite, post-modern rotating strike that, so far, has touched lightly on smaller cities such as Victoria and Hamilton, but the posties could hit the bricks across the board and most of us would only notice a slight reduction in the amount of junk mail cluttering our mailboxes.

Hey Claudia! Did you know that there was a postal strike going on?

Snail mail is one of those vestiges, like the appendix, that is hanging around (literally, in the case of the appendix) but has an increasingly obscure purpose.

Unless you’re one of those vestigial anachronisms who likes to pay bills by mail and fondle your paycheque for a few minutes before you sacrifice it to hungry creditors, you probably pay your bills on the Internet, get your pay via direct deposit and send emails to your relatives in Parry Sound.

Yep. When I worked for IBM and the started direct deposit I took advantage of it. I never could understand all the old farts who liked to get that paycheck in their hands and mail it off to the bank. That's two chances for the postal service to screw up. Or, they drove to the bank to deposit it. That meant they got the money later than direct deposit. They also said they didn't trust direct deposit. I used it for 28 years and never had a problem. My investment income? Direct deposit. My Social Security? Direct deposit.

I have friends who still write checks to pay bills even thought their bank offers free online bill pay. I hardly write any checks anymore except when I'm sending money off to my investment accounts.

Even snail mail Christmas cards are giving way to e-cards, which you can pick up on your laptop, iPad, Playbook, smartphone, desktop, etc. Of course, you can’t mount them on the mantle, but interior decorators everywhere agree that’s a good thing.

Here I part company. I very seldom open e-cards. They often contain viruses and malware. After my anti-virus program flagged a few of these, I decided not to take chances anymore. I send out snail mail Christmas and birthday cards. If you send me an e-card I prolly will not open it.

Snail mail has decreased by 17 per cent since 2006 says Canada Post, and frankly, it’s surprising the drop isn’t greater. Must be all those vital fast food coupons.

Here I'm doing my part to help out. I take all the self-addressed metered envelopes that come with all the credit card offers I receive (And with my credit rating, I get a lot of 'em.), seal 'em up, and send them back empty. Sometimes I might put some other type of junk mail inside. I'm just doing my part to help out the USPS.

So what is the union thinking? Why remind us that Canada Post employees, with no advanced educational requirements or experience, start at $24 an hour with three weeks holidays, retire with full pension at 55, and can bank sick days (what’s a sick day?), for being the workplace equivalent of the appendix?

$24 an hour? Wonder what that is in American dollars? I'm too lazy to look but I bet one of my readers will and put it in the comments. Bankable sick days? What is this? a gummint job? Well, yeah. That explains the great benefits.

The sick day banking thing is particularly interesting. You could argue that sick days are a humane mechanism, but why should you get to keep them when you’re not sick? And turn them in for cash? At taxpayer expense?

Because these are gummint workers. IBM had an interesting policy. If you were sick, you didn't go to work. You could be off two weeks but if you took that much time, you better have a note from your doctor. Amazingly, very few people abused this program. For a serious accident, like I had, you could be off 12 months in an 18 month period and you got full pay! I was off for 6 months after my accident. Went back part time for a month. I was taking physical therapy and learning how to walk with braces and crutches. After that, I went back full time. I had some problems after that, but by that time I was a sysprog and could work from home when I was unable to come to work.

The sad truth is if the post office had an appendectomy tomorrow, no one, except for those 50,000 people with nice jobs, would really suffer. It might takes a couple of weeks to learn how to send money by email, pay Canada Revenue online, and transfer your holiday greetings to Facebook, but there is nothing that posties do that can’t be duplicated online or by private companies.

If I'm gonna send sumpin' that has to be somewhere almost immediately or even has to be there, I send it via UPS or Fed Ex. I made the mistake last year of sending all the forms I had to fill out and all the medical forms from my doctor for the 2011 DAV Winter Sports Clinic via the USPS. Never got there. Fortunately, I had made copies of most of them and sent them to sweet Suzanne at the Augusta VA and she faxed them out to the Grand Junction VA. I'm not the only person this happened to. This year it's copy everything and send it via Fed Ex.

Apparently, postal Armageddon is not arriving fast enough for the union, so as they teeter on the brink of irrelevance, they have decided to go on strike, finish themselves off, and leave no forwarding address.

Sounds like the Mechanics Union at Eastern Airlines. They won their srike against Eastern. Unfortunately for them, Eastern promptly went out of business.

Incompetent management + unions = Bankruptcy.

Hmmmm. Where has this happened recently?

The only place in the US that union membership has grown is gummint unions.

Return to sender. Just sayin’

Don't be surprised if eventually Fed Ex. or UPS takes over from the USPS. They're more reliable than the USPS and their customer service people are friendlier and the lines are shorter than at the USPS.

Separated At Birth

Shamelessly stolen from Jammie Wearing Fool who also has some great tablooid headlines like Disgusted Dimocrats Letting Weiner Shrivel

I'm with Rush Limbaugh on this. Let this asshole be the face of the Dimocrat Party. Let's have an ethics investigation to keep this guy in the news for as long as possible. Jug Hussein Ears prolly agrees. This might keep the rotten economy out of the news for a while.

Obamaspeak

Got the following from Ron:

Back in the 70s I used ta laugh a lot at upper management and the really boneheaded things that desk jockeys came up with for real-world military people to perform. Part of the culture at my level was relegating their ignorance and silliness to the realms of sarcasm and satire, and one of the most effective tools for doing that was the old Falcon Codes, such as

Falcon 101 -- You gotta be shittin me!
Falcon 103 -- Beats the shit outta me!
Falcon 104 -- What the fuck, over!
and my personal favorite
Falcon 108 -- Fuck you very much!

Saved a lot of time, and shortened up conversations, especially useful at the ends of telephone conversations or meetings. I’ve seen code lists that go up into the thousands, and many of them differ greatly from one another, but most begin with the originals, which include the four examples above.

What I’m surprised by is that nobody has come up with a similar code structure for Obamaspeak. It’s time we constructed one instead of constantly trying to come up with novel ways to express the spinning stream of equivocation and gobbledygook coming out of the Oval Office these days. So I’ll lay out a few boilerplate standards and y’all can add to the list. Call it what you will, such as B. O. Speak or Ovomitalk or whatever. Bospeak will do to get it started:

Bospeak 101 -- I inherited this mess
Bospeak 102 -- It’s Bush’s fault
Bospeak 103 -- Let me be clear
Bospeak 104 -- That’s racist
Bospeak 105 -- Yes, we ARE keeping score
Bospeak 106 -- I’ll side with Islam
Bospeak 107 -- England can FO & D
Bospeak 108 -- America is a great nation. Help me change it.
Bospeak 109 -- Saluting the flag could be offensive to some people
Bospeak 110 -- I got bin Laden
Bospeak 111 -- America is just not that special amongst nations
Bospeak 112 -- Israel is a pain in the ass
Bospeak 113 -- Pay no attention to what Senator Obama told you. Listen to what I’M telling you.
Bospeak 114 -- Where’s my teleprompter?
Bospeak 115 -- Mao can’t be all that bad if Michelle likes him
Bospeak 116 -- I’ll think about it when we finish the front nine
Bospeak 117 -- The surest way out of recession is wealth redistribution
Bospeak 118 -- You know where you can put your conservative recommendations
Bospeak 119 -- Fox News lies
Bospeak 120 -- I’m really, really cool, you know
Bospeak 121 -- If we could just treat other nations like brothers, with dignity, we wouldn’t need a military
Bospeak 122 -- The Constitution is outdated and in need of revision
Bospeak 123 -- I need a vacation
Bospeak 124 -- You’ve apparently confused me with someone who knows what’s going on
Bospeak 125 -- Just out of curiosity, what the heck IS Palestine?
Bospeak 126 -- The problem with most people is that they’re not smart enough to understand me
Bospeak 127 -- Actually, Castro and Chavez have some pretty good ideas
Bospeak 128 -- The economy is getting better every day
Bospeak 129 -- Not bad for an uninformed non-citizen, Africa-centrist, socialistic rookie, huh?
Bospeak 130 -- Hay for my horses, whiskey for my czars, and tax hike for the wealthy

Back in the '70's when I worked for the Mattel Office Products Division of IBM we had some numbers like that. The only one I remember was 819 which was short for "Merry Fucking Christmas".

Obamoron

Fun with an Obungler voter.

Got it from Wade.

22!

Holy crap! I had 22 viruses on my main PC! No wonder it was so kludgey. It was the last one that was the killer. It took a clean code load to get rid of that one. So now, I'll be loading programs and restoring backed up data. Blodging may be light for a while.

Weiner Is A Wiener

So Weiner came clean. Is he resigning? Of course not. He's a Dimocrat. Dimocrats don't resign but they always call for Republicans to resign for similar offenses. But what do you expect from a party that lionized a drunk and a murderer like the Floater, yannow, the "Lion of the Senate"?

Chris Lee had to resign for sending pictures of his bare chest. Weiner showed his wiener but that's OK 'cause he's a Dimocrat. Just another corrupt Dimocrat politician that kept ex-Speaker Blinky from draining the swamp. Clogging up the drain is Charlie Rangel, Weiner, and the bloated corpse of Jack Murtha. Dimocrat politics as usual.

Economic Ignorance

Once again I go to the Vent section of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation to find someone who knows absolutely nohing about economics and recent American history. This guy prolly slept in American History at school. He prolly also voted for Jug Hussein Ears.

Want to bring the jobs back here to the U.S.? Increase import tariffs and end those ridiculous free trade agreements. High import costs will cause companies to flock back to the U.S. in order to avoid them. Free market at work.

I guess this booger eatin' moh-ron doesn't comprehend that his last sentence contradicts the previous portion of his vent. The free market means no tariffs.

So let's start a trade war. It worked so well back in the 30's with Smoot-Hawley. Never heard of Smoot-Hawley? Here, let me google it for you.

Taking the first link to the Wiki entry we get this:

The overall level tariffs under the Tariff were the second-highest in US history, exceeded by a small margin only by the Tariff of 1828[3] and the ensuing retaliatory tariffs by U.S. trading partners reduced American exports and imports by more than half.

Nothing gets you out of a recession faster than a good old fashioned trade war. History shows that import tariffs actually reduce economic output as they are counter productive. I'm shocked!

Do you want the jobs to come back to the U.S.? Get rid of all the anti-business legislation. Get rid of the unfunded mandates. Lower the corporate tax rate which is the second highest in the world. And get rid of a lot of regulations which are stifling businesses. Get rid of the unions except those in dangerous industries like coal mining. The UAW's time has passed. Auto workers in right to work states make good money and also have good benefits.

And vote Obungler out of office and have him take all of his merry band of socialist anti-private sector czars with him.

Obummer considers the private sector "the enemy" and then wonders why they're not creating jobs for him. Geez! We're in an anemic recovery which is threatening to turn into a double dip recession because of his incompetence and he wonders why he and his trusty TelePrompTer are not working the same magic that got him elected. Affirmative action only gets you hired (elected). It is no substitution for incompetence once you are hired (elected).

Many people have sent the following e-mail to me.

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Obozo loses his job.

Can't argue with that.

E. Coli Outbreak

This morning, I read in the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation that the E. Coli outbreak in Europe was caused by veggie sprouts.

HAMBURG, Germany — The terrifying E. coli outbreak in Europe appears to have been caused by vegetable sprouts grown on an organic farm in Germany, an agriculture official said Sunday as the toll climbed to at least 22 dead and more than 2,200 sickened.

Did you read that last paragraph closely? The E. Coli came from an organic farm. A freaking organic farm! Goddamn Luddites and their stupid bullshit organic farm nonsense. They prolly used human crap as fertilizer.

Jesus H. Christ! We make all of these advances in agriculture and we have some booger eatin' moh-rons who insist on using an inefficient method of farming. There's a reason that the US produces so much food and it ain't due to organic farming.

And the Euroweenies have a rag up their ass about genetic modification of food products. Another stupid bullshit policy!

As historians look back at this era, they're gonna wonder why we, in the US, decided to make fuel from food, while prohibiting drilling for oil. They will prolly also wonder why some people insisted on this stupid program of organic farms where they grow about 25% of what a modern farmer can produce. Why are liberals so suicidal? It doesn't bother me that they're suicidal. If they want to die it's fine by me. The problem is that they want to take the rest of us with them.

"First it's the 'evil' Spaniards, and then you hear, very surprised, that it is our neighbor," said Dietrich Benni, who lives near the German farm. "It's a bit scary all of this, especially that it is coming from an organic place."

He added: "No more organic food for me for now."

Me neither. I pass right by the organic produce when I go shopping.

Update: So now the German gummint sez it was not the bean sprouts. I still think organic farming is a waste of time and resources.

Monday Pun 6-6-2011

Multiple puns. Some old. Some new. Got them from Bill.

1. A bicycle can't stand alone. It is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a rotten apple.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. A chicken crossing the road … poultry in motion.

6. If a clock is hungry, does it go back four seconds?

7. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

8. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

9. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

10. A calendar's days are numbered.

11. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

12. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

13. The story of the short fortuneteller who escaped from prison … a small medium at large.

14. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

15. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

16. If you jump off a bridge in Paris, you are in Seine.

17. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

18. Santa's helpers are subordinate Clauses.

19. Acupuncture … a jab well done.

20. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

21. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

22. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

23. She was only a whiskey makers daughter, but he loved her still.

24. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

25. No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.

26. A dog gave birth to puppies in a public place, and was cited for littering.

27. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

28. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

29. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

30. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

31. A sign on the lawn outside the drug rehab center … 'Keep off the Grass'

32. A boy swallowed some coins, and was taken to a hospital. His mother telephoned to ask how he was. The nurse said, 'No change yet.'

33. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

Saturday Blonde Joke

From Bill and others. Monday Pun or Saturday Blonde Joke?

Blonde Phone Call

"Hi Mom, How are you?"

"Hi Sally, where are you? I thought you were with your father at the Ace Hardware"

"Yeah we were, but I got arrested, and they've let me make one phone call"

"What happened?"

"Oh, I punched this African-American woman in the head."

"What on earth, why did you do that?"

"Well it wasn't my fault. Dad told me to find a Black & Decker."

Saturday Boobage 6-4-2011

Yannow, I post some of these just to piss off Toejam.

AOTW 6-3-2011

Let's go with Antony Weiner. How would you like to grow up with a last name like Weiner. Bet he got beat up a lot. Anyway, he's really being a dick about all of this and I don't have a Wiener of the Week Award so he'll just have to settle for the prestigious AOTW Award.

Jon sent me the following:

The problem is that in his press conference, Weiner was less than frank.

The investigation is ... Was Weiner hacking his Weiner or was another perp hacking Weiners Weiner?

As Weiner said yesterday, there is nothing to this story, but upon further review, even given his rising polls, he now faces stiff competition in his re-erection efforts. He'll need a stroke of luck to beat off his competitors :( Sad indeed!

Weiner shouldn't take this so hard and erect a strong self-defense. Someone is simply trying to give him the shaft.

Keep your eyes open. I strongly suspect that for Mr. Weiner, things are about to take a turn for the wurst.

When's he up for re-erection anyway? I suggest he better pull out now!

Here ya go Weiner!

Have you seen his wife? She's the hottie who used to (or maybe still does) work for Thunder Rodent Thighs.