Thursday, June 30, 2011

Thomas Alva Edison is so yesterday

Congress has effectively banned the sale and use of the incandescent light bulb come January 2012. This was passed as part of an energy bill and signed into law by George W. Bush. The question arises with so much to worry about why did the Congress focus on that? This strongly points to a collusion between Government and Big Business. The government is in effect taking a product off the market that is not unsafe, that does not pose a risk to the public nor has been alleged to. The government is simply taking a long-standing and historical and popular product off the free market, deleting an option for YOU the consumer to buy something. Philips and GE make out the most and GE is known to be one of the biggest supporters of the Democrats. After January 2012 unless you are currently hoarding loads of Thomas Edison's invention you will be forced to go with the CFL or compact fluorescent lamp. I've issues with fluorescent lighting in general, I HATE it. It is infernal to work under for 8 hours a day and even while on vacation or during other leisure time some people I've known have said they felt perfectly normal driving in normal and natural daylight hours and then when they enter a mall let's say as I've done there is a definite and weird disorienting effect and it's as immediate as when you walk in the doors. There are many websites devoted to the negative health aspects of fluorescent lighting (http://www.emfblues.com/Fluorescent-Dangers-Fluorescent-Radiation-Fluorescent-Light-Dangerous-Health.html) and if I were the big government type I'd probably say it's the fluorescent lights that should be banned and not the incandescents. Maybe that's the whole point, to make us nuts:)

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Radical social change doesn't sell so well in the Heartland

Though he says he has no interest it's NY Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo's presidential prospects in 2016. New York is a kind of world unto itself, one big vast political Amusement Park. You might come out from an orgy where everyone thinks alike (Sexual Hero) but don't expect everyone to understand. What plays in New York doesn't always play in Peoria. I think Obama understands this which is why he's still "evolving." Gay marriage means bigger and more expansive government and for an excellent commentary go to http://weblogs.wpix.com/news/larrymendte/2011/06/gay_marriage.html. As for those GOP presidential wannabes I generally avoid the subject. You'll read this conservative blogger likes this one, that conservative blogger likes that one but we're all scattered. No one is emerging as THE ONE but that's what primaries and conventions are for. Knock yourself out in the meantime but I'll wait.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Gay marriage in the Empire State

New York State has legalized gay marriage. I knew this already but popped on my local newscast last night anyway to get the latest on the pharmacy murders, whatever fire in Brooklyn and what it's gonna do tomorrow but after about two minutes, no make that 30 seconds I channel-surfed back to Globetrekker. It wasn't my local pornographic violent news I've come to expect, it was the Gay News. It's like sometimes I'll be watching Ch. 25 here and they have some good stuff but some nights it's just the whole gay theme and you're like why can't they just have some good cooking show on instead? Social Liberalism as a Way to Placate the Annoying - maybe folks just wanted to pass the gay marriage just to move onto more pressing matters like the economy and jobs, you know we don't endorse what you do but shut up already, we'll give it to you is there anything else? Look people don't get along. I don't care if you're Man & Woman, Man & Man or Woman & Woman, have two people live alongside each other for years and years and they'll get on each other's nerves. Today Gay Marriage, tomorrow Gay Divorce. Obama's stance is still evolving because of the ickiness factor, perfectly understandable. There will always be that residual societal disgust that gays just need to accept and get over. My deliberately provocative title poses a conundrum, what to do when PETA and gay rights clash:)

You're killing me

How do people annoy you? For me listening to David Brooks on the Friday evening political roundup with Mark Shields on the Jim Lehrer Newshour falls into this category. Maybe it's a sign of age but lately for me it's everything but I have to remember not to top it off with analysis from Shields and Brooks:)

Friday, June 24, 2011

It's not the government's job to protect us from ourselves



The FDA under the leadership of Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg M.D. has issued an edict. No later than Sept. 2012 every cigarette pack sold in the United States and every cigarette ad will have to have at least one new and graphic warning/image out of a series of nine new and graphic warning/images that have been selected by the FDA (http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm260181.htm)


Backtracking a bit here Congress in 2009 passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act with broad bipartisan support and Obama signed that law. Note the broad bipartisan support part which gives the lie that there are actual deep-seated philosophical differences between the parties. We know the statistics by now, there are about 443,000 tobacco-related deaths per year in the US and the costs to the US economy is set at around $200 billion a year. Again it is not the job of the US government to protect us from ourselves. Assorted thoughts here: war is bad for soldiers too but we seem to have an endless supply of money for that. As for the graphic images we're STILL awaiting the bin Laden death photos and OF COURSE everyone seems to have a problem with graphic abortion imagery but somehow cigs are different. Obama has apparently made it some type of hallmark of his term to stamp out tobacco use now and forever although last I checked he was definitely a puffer but concurrently with this there is the rise of the medical marijuana movement which is quite well-respected and so why in hell is tobacco bad for you but pot is good? Anyway again and write this on the blackboard 500X kiddies IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT US FROM OURSELVES.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Do you want Obama picking the next Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court in a recent and narrow 5-4 decision (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/supreme-court-orders-california-to-free-40000-prisoners/) has ruled that the State of California must release about 40,000 prisoners in two years. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision. The usual liberal and ACLU-inspired drivel, prison overcrowding, lack of full medical attention, constitutional violations but it was really a cruel and unusual decision for the people of California. Point I'm getting to is new justices and Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan BOTH joined in the majority. Remember them? they were supposed to be centrists, not scary at all. Well the decision merits a blog unto itself but IF the GOP nominees were smart and that's a big if they'd run with this front and center. I'm expecting alot I know.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Sex before jobs

New York State under the liberal stewardship of Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo seems poised to become the sixth and largest state in the Union to legalize same-sex marriage. Some key Repubs in the State Senate have shifted position and so it's closer to becoming a reality but I hearken back to Michael Kinsley's position of not too long ago that maybe it would be a good deal for the government to not get involved in the marriage business on any level hetero or homo. So WHY do you need the government to recognize and validate your special relationships anyway? Is this the time to push for radical social change? Aren't jobs and the economy more important and who has time to worry about this stuff in this day and age? Last time I brought up the Kinsley Proposal folks seemed to miss the point but it's a good time to revisit it. Couple gay jokes: when Liberace died they scattered his ashes in San Francisco Bay and killed all the blowfish. Bunch of gay men in a pool and some white thing comes floating by and one guy goes "ok who farted?" Not too long ago I lamented the fact that we have another Cuomo in office and it won't be long before we revisit the Social Issues annoying as that is and I just think Kinsley's idea makes alot of sense. Just take this stuff off the table:)

Monday, June 20, 2011

The racist blog

THIS question will never be asked by either liberals or conservatives but shorn of all possible socially and politically required sensitivities it is a question that has been lurking in our political ids for quite some time. This is pure fictitious scenario so maybe we'll leave it to Piers Morgan but if I were to get a large group of black prisoners in a room for an interview or any large group of African-Americans together who have somehow run afoul of the Law in some way I would ask why do you people commit so much crime? Just askin', just curious. I'm not getting it, help me out here. WHY do you have to rob that Sunoco station at 2 in the morning and shoot the clerk? WHY do you have to join a gang and one of your stray bullets accidentally kills a young teenage girl on some boardwalk in Brooklyn? WHY do you have to break my car window when I'm asleep at night happily dreaming because I forgot to take my Benzi box in or left some loose change lying around the cupholders? I've said it before and I'll say it again, black crime fuels white racism but that still doesn't make the question any less relevant or invalid. Again I'm not getting it. What's the deal?:)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Weiner pulls out

Now the Democrats can go about the unfinished business of implementing liberalism for the American people. I liked it better when it was a distraction:)

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Pearl Harbor Bias

For purposes of the following discussion Asian means Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai and all the rest (folks don't know the difference) but the thesis of the thread is the existence of what I call the Pearl Harbor Bias. Anyways so I'm watching an episode from the second season of Masterchef a few nights ago. This is kinda the American Idol of amateur chefs from around the country who get to show judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich their culinary skills. So early on in the competition you have to present one of your signature dishes and so it's the young Asian guy's turn and even the judges agreed his crab dish was absolutely delectable, light and the purity of it all but only Joe thought he had potential and the other two simply eliminated him. Some picayune, nitpicking criticism that it wasn't a main dish or something. OK so in the wake of the tragic Japanese tsunami my parish never even took up a collection for the victims unless I missed something or even mentioned it in their prayer intentions at Mass. Now on the workfront we usually have some type of trendy collection box going especially when such an apocalyptic disaster occurs but with this thing straight out of the Bible absolutely NOTHING and I mean nothing. Yeah the usual cancer and Jerry's Kids stuff, pink ribbons and March of Dimes, oh that's K-Mart. Oh yeah some bakery manager who I haven't seen in quite some time came in yesterday and I said hi and she said "what happened to you, are you anorexic?" Always a plain-spoken bitch but mathematically at 195 lbs. and exercising regulary with the chest pull resister I bought at Modell's her theory doesn't work out and I said my doctor gave me my ideal weight range and I reached it, I mean take it up with him. I'm digressing but the point is a bunch of Japs can be swept out to sea and folks express more concern that I'm healthier now (funny how they don't seem to notice it when you're overweight). I've long ago come to the conclusion Society is irretrievably weird. Getting back to the Asian crab guy on Masterchef he was standing there all proud and sure of himself but then it was like he was relegated to culinary eternal damnation or something. Joe said the other two were making a mistake but it was like Gordon and Graham saw absolutely no potential in the guy and it was only his first signature dish and yet they'll pass in some black mama from Georgia or Mississippi who talked sweet and threw something together. You know they've had a bad run of it lately what with the tour bus full of Asian gamblers coming back from Mohegan Sun in Connecticut overturning when it reached the Bronx, one half-expects to turn on CNN only to find a jetliner full of Koreans flying into some erupting volcano somewhere but you'd think they could get a little respect in the culinary world:)

Monday, June 13, 2011

The guy has a first name you know

The weird part about the Anthony Weiner scandal is he didn't actually have sex with any of these women so it's like a kind of pseudo-scandal, it'd be like going to hell for masturbation and where in hell does Bill Clinton get off being mad at him? Now if you're name is Weiner and you do decide to engage in this type of behavior wouldn't you go with a legal name change first? You know there's a side street over by Cross County in Yonkers called "Hiscock Place" and it'd be like if Mr. Hiscock ran for office and got embroiled in some big gay sex scandal you might wanna dot your i's and cross your t's first is all I'm sayin'. The existential coldness of Anthony Weiner's situation, even his own party wants to throw him overboard. Maybe he didn't push abortion enough, dunno but Slick Willie got away with more, far more and it made him stronger. Been meaning to pose this: so who do conservatives hate more, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? You remember back in the day you couldn't live through 24 hours without hearing of Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or even Juanita Broaddrick, dead teenagers on the Arkansas train tracks and drug-running at the Mena Airport, Whitewater, Lewinsky, those 500 or was it 900 FBI files? Ken Starr, Chinagate, impeachment, last-minute pardons......we don't even talk about that anymore, that's like a Three's Company or Sanford and Son rerun but the void has been filled by one Barack Hussein Obama. I must caution the Republicans if they're buying tickets to board the big old PhallusShip into the next election. An overindulgence in Weiner minutiae is not gonna get you there but with Huma being pregnant and all this throws a curve into normal conservative thinking. Mr. Weiner doesn't even have a business or law degree to fall back on like some of the others, what's he gonna be a deli clerk? and you wouldn't want those economic pressures to lead to a bad decision here. BTW some rich guy is gonna scuba-dive for bin Laden's corpse in the North Arabian Sea next month and our corporate media is wasting no time in calling him an eccentric.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

FREE SPEECH - abortion, gay jokes, the works

Beth thought this important enough to discuss and I agree. The link: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/jilted-ex-boyfriend-puts-abortion-billboard-194142831.html
Since I subscribe to the principle that in the vast majority of cases free speech should win at the end of the day it didn't take me long to reach my conclusion. I read the article twice and it doesn't say if the ex's name was used on the billboard but it clearly falls under free speech even if he shouldn't have done it. Of course you could make the argument that since it's a specific guy on the ad people in the local area can easily put 2&2 together and deduce who the ex probably is but it's a very interesting case and I love this stuff. Now Tracy Morgan of 30 Rock has said some stuff, some antigay jokes down in some nightclub and well it didn't take long for the almost immediate pro-forma apology from Mr. Morgan (maybe in the future it can come right after the joke, saves time) but the thing about these cases is I absolutely HATE political correctness. Now I'm not antigay by any stretch but when the obligatory gay spokesman from some group issues the mandatory official statement that everyone's feelings got hurt you just wanna call him a faggot. You see the thing about humor is it's entirely subjective, it's in the eye of the beholder. There's no objective norm to humor in the first place and so some people in the club, the ones who weren't offended did find his comments hilarious but that doesn't prove exactly they hate gays. The best gay jokes I ever heard in my life came from liberals btw. Here's the other thing, how does censorship solve the Problem? Why not let Tracy Morgan make his jokes and the gay guy can call him a dick? Works for me and why if he's such a big star on 30 Rock is he doing standup in the first place?:)

Friday, June 10, 2011

Cougar spotted in Greenwich, CT



No it wasn't Ellen Barkin. Here's one of several links: http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/fairfield_cty/mountain-lion-spotted-in-greenwich
Now can I use the mountain lion to get up on my anti-government soapbox? Of course. Now people find this amazing that a mountain lion was spotted in the tony suburb of Greenwich CT but what I find amazing is the way people overtrust their own government. In fact the overtrusters for now (until I come up with a new term) are the exact polar opposite of all those conspiracy theorists and most of us seem divided along these lines so it's no wonder we talk past and over each other. The death of bin Laden is a classic example but in this case the government through their Department of Environmental Protection agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have recently declared the Eastern Mountain Lion to be completely extinct in the Northeast. So is it possible the government is telling us the truth here? well yes but it's still the government. The spin on this local story is that the puma had to either be a pet or belonged to a zoo and either escaped or was released. Of course since I brought up bin Laden could there be more cougar sightings around here in the near future if you catch my drift? (why not cover this angle too folks?) Told this story already but many many years ago I was fishing a trout stream, the one that cuts across Rte. 6 at Baldwin Place in upper Westchester County. Parked the car on the scenic Mahopac Avenue and went in and this stream if you follow it all the way which is difficult to do here because of all the woods eventually empties out into the Amawalk Reservoir around the quaintly sounding town of Granite Springs. Anyway I looked across to the opposite bank and seemed to me there was a mountain lion's face in the brush there on top of the bank just looking at me. Nothing happened but it made a strong enough impression on me that I still remember it after all these years. You know I won't swear on my dead cat's grave and it was a long long time ago but alot of sightings of this nature tend to get relegated by the local DEP as to, well just sightings but you know the cougar is extinct in these parts so had to be someone's pet or from a zoo. Maybe you swallowed a morning glory seed or was just tired or overspazzed from work ("Captain Jack will get you by for now and take you to that special island"). So always check your premises -- is the government telling the truth here?

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

The cosmic principle of assholery

The whole Weiner thing got me deeply pondering on my walk this morning. The shrink class and everyone else for that matter miss the point. Here's what I came up with: you can't quite explain it, the mathematics of it, the sheer physics of it but there is a principle we're completely at the mercy of in this cruel Lovecraftian universe and that is the cosmic principle of assholery (the term "asshattery" having been trademarked I went with the more common vernacular). It doesn't mean you're an asshole per se just that you're capable of doing things from time to time that shall we say a normal and rational person wouldn't normally and rationally do especially one so vaunted in the public eye as our friend Weiner. Now to those of you judgemental types who would say you've never done Anything in your whole life OH PLEASE!!!!!! If I went over your life with a fine tooth comb just most of us don't get it publicized point being assholery simply is. OK so today it's Weiner tomorrow it'll be somebody else and the sheer bliss of this overpowering and universally frightening principle, the icing on the existential cake is that once the person in question does the stupid thing the rest of us get to comment on it like some damn Greek Chorus or Shakespearian court jester until it's our turn. Now most people learn from their assholery (what the FUCK did I just do? I did that?!?). Weiner at that press conference looked like a dog that just crapped all over the fine Persian rug with the master coming home, oh the gate just clanked but what is totally inexcusable is when you encounter that rare soul who doesn't learn a damn thing about his or her a-holery and even celebrates it (see Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan kinda headed in this direction but there's still time). That ranks it to another level, it's over my head and too advanced at this juncture. Yes Weiner has no choice but to resign at this point but I just wanted to give you my Stephen Hawking about all this and may God Willing this be my last and final Weiner thread:)

Monday, June 06, 2011

Essential Truths

Most people don't read your blog. Letters-to-the-Editor are probably more widely read although the blog offers far more creative freedom of course so I prefer them (not really into cyberforums anymore either, always the moderators with their corrective measures). My sitemeter is like my weight, it keeps going down. Actually my weight's being maintained but my hits keep going down. Keeping this essential truth in mind why do we blog? For me it's a kind of hobby, something to relax to after work. There are those who say to increase your hitmeter you have to visit quite a few other blogs on a regular basis, you know you scratch my balls I'll scratch yours. Too much work to do on a consistent basis imo so I only visit those that interest me on any given day and I tend to visit the same ones. If it ain't fun don't do it. Essential Truths -- a kind of continuing series:)

AIDS - 30+ years later

Read a big writeup about AIDS in my Sunday paper yesterday, how despite initial pessimism they're making progress after all these years. Many of the harsher earlier drugs like AZT have been replaced by kindler, gentler and more efficient and less toxic medicines and there is definite hope on the horizon but I got to thinking back to what the Jamaican chef (a character who occasionally pops up in these blogpages) told me once. Now if you met the guy you'd say he's quite intelligent, articulate and not your broadbased wildeyed conspiracy theorist, you can rap with him and since I'm on the subject I've been meaning to pose the question for BB and the others is there at least one conspiracy theory that you believe in, that you subscribe to? (what is this overtrust of government anyway?) Anyway he opined to me one day that he thinks AIDS was invented by the U.S. Government as a form of genocide against black people. Now I don't subscribe to this but it should be apparent by now that the darker-hued folks do see alot of subjects quite differently but I will say the key here and something I cannot answer and that doesn't sit well is why should there be a new disease? We've had your basic classic diseases down through the centuries. Mentions of syphilus have been woven into some of Shakespeare's plays and breast tumors have been around since the time of Cleopatra but AIDS??? Was this invented by some weird masturbator in a CIA lab somewhere, some Mengeleian prodigy? a form of biological warfare as it was maybe initially designed that somehow found its way into the general population? So how would you respond to the Jamaican chef? The argument from intimidation won't work, the man wants anwers.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Abortion

......(continued)......

Politics is alot like cooking

Everyone thinks their way is the way.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Don't get involved with Anthony's Weiner

Already I'm beginning to read the conservative punditocracy microanalyzing what happened, that a risque picture was somehow sent to a young female college student out West from New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner's Twitter account. It's a mildly interesting scandal at the beginning of summer, something to sip on in the shade of your hammock and points to the fact of a rather bleak GOP presidential field if this is what we're spending time on. I like this stuff but only for the entertainment value, I don't want to bring the man down. He doesn't look the type and with a name like his you'd think he'd be extra-vigilant for potential scandals of this nature. Speaking of underwear doesn't Obama look like a male underwear model? You know you're in Sears or the Big K looking for some Hanes or Fruit of the Loom and there he is on that fresh cottony package in his briefs rather well-toned and grinning from ear to ear. I think I heard on the news that Weiner has something like 50,000 followers on Twitter so anything's bound to happen. I'm hearing he ain't acting right, ain't acting like an innocent man and why didn't he go to the cops over this? Anyway enjoy the scandal for what it's worth but if this is your way of pushing forward a public-policy agenda to counter Obama's it has that prurient look to it like finding an orange pubic hair in the drain of a public shower. I feel a little skeevy even talking about it. It's all fungusy so let's not spend too much time on it OK?

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

The Malls Have Eyes - The Coming Zombie Apocalypse



Well the new WHO report is out and turns out long-term cell phone use may be a potential risk factor for developing brain cancer. This would be devastating on a truly global scale (don't kid yourself, even the Bushmen in Africa probably now use cells). So was it all worth it because you were in the Mall one day walking around in your Dickie's and you had to call your friend Joe from the Barnes & Noble cafe? -- Speaking of health I'm a regular walker now on the South County Trail in Westchester County here in New York and you see the Jog/Walk quite a bit. Even the oldsters are doing it. They're not exactly running but they're not walking either but they're obviously going faster than you are at your leisurely stroll. They go long distances in this mode and they startle the robins and the chipmunks but they look like they're suffering. The Job (that's J-oh-b as in the Bible) Fitness Routine -- Obama, he's Hawaiian, he's Kenyan, he's Irish. He probably has a little 'Rican blood in him too and drove around in a souped up Mazda in his youth. Probably had a Polish aunt somewhere down the line as well. He's all things to all people and will probably be best remembered in History as that multiracial guy who finally killed bin Laden:)