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September 14, 2005

Lawyers, guns, and money

the headline reads: In an ever increasing tightening of consumer demands around the country, the bare necessities have changed from food, clothing, and shelter to lawyers, guns, and money!

Need proof? Look at New Orleans! Were the looters stealing food? Hell no...they were getting guns and things they could turn into cash, like jewelry and clothes (hey, who doesn't need clothes after the storm? If you have some to sell...there you go).

Well, in looking at the new reports of consumer spending, besides thinking economists are a bit goofy, I find things quite interesting...in what they don't say as much as what they do...

From Yahoo News:
The August sales report showed US consumers were maintaining robust spending levels despite the large increase in petrol prices. Gasoline station sales increased 4.4 percent in the month.
Retail sales are up 7.9 percent in the past 12 months. Excluding autos, sales are up 9.4 percent and excluding gasoline, are up 6.0 percent.
"These results cast more cold water on the notion that if non-discretionary spending on energy swells, it must crimp discretionary spending. It hasn't," said Ken Mayland, chief economist for ClearView Economics.
"Consumer spending has continued to advance strongly" even as petrol prices have doubled over the past two years, he said.
A breakdown of the August figures showed that furniture sales went up 0.9 percent, sales at health and personal care stores rose 1.2 percent and sporting goods sales increase 0.5 percent. END

Of course sales at the pump were up...It was the summer...duhhh. Of course sales figures for other than cars are up...it was the summer, and the kids are also getting ready to go back to school. Not surprising is the drop in car sales...notice where it says gas prices doubled in the last two years. (you can thank our oil company president for that one). We have to drive SUV's right? I love those 12 miles per gallon! Now watch what the gas prices do to boat sales...

With all the credit cards the hurricane victims are running up, you'll see ore need for lawyers, guns, and money. With all the racial tension the dems are churning and burning...more lawyers, guns, and money. As we see more people who were left for dead or to drown as people said "feet don't fail me now" and saved their own asses, more need for lawyers, guns and money. As more people try to move back into the stormed-out areas and protect what little stuff they still have, the need rises. As more heads roll over who screwed this all up...more lawyers, guns and money. When the general wanted to keep the press away from the operations to recover the dead, in came the lawyers to mess with the guys with the guns, who came in to stop other guys with guns, who were looking for money and some flooded-out turf to control in order to make more money, then the politicians all start sniveling (who happen to all be lawyers or need them all the time). You see how this goes...

Furniture, health and personal care, and sporting goods? What does that sound like?

...baseball bats, condoms, and guns. No matter what you do, if you use one of those three, you'll need a lawyer, and they cost money. Lawyers, guns and money... If people would only use the guns on the lawyers...then people can keep their money...

McDonald's "Phys Ed" Program! Ha!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp. on Monday said it is sponsoring a physical education program that will appear in one-third of U.S. public elementary schools, the chain's latest move to combat critics who blame its burgers and fries for expanding kids' waistlines.

"McDonald's Passport to Play" will launch in 31,000 schools this fall, reaching an expected 7 million children in grades three through five, the company said.
The move is part of McDonald's so-called "Balanced Lifestyles" initiative, an aggressive effort to promote physical activity and nutrition and deflect harmful claims that its food is unhealthy and fattening.

"When you do the right thing and you are giving back to your community, you benefit as a brand," Bill Lamar, chief marketing officer for McDonald's USA, said in an interview.
The idea for the program came as McDonald's was looking for a way to promote its "Balanced Lifestyles" message to children and families through schools, Lamar added.

The world's largest fast-food chain - which is the target of a 2002 lawsuit brought by two teenagers who blamed their obesity on McDonald's Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets - in the last three years has made broad efforts to improve the image of its food, including packing its menu with items like salads and fresh fruit that are lower in fat and calories.

The company has also incorporated images of sports and other kinds of physical activities in its advertising and marketing, and Chief Executive Jim Skinner has listed such initiatives as one of his top priorities as CEO.

Sending that message directly to children is a smart way to begin to change the perception of its brand for the long term, said one expert, who likened the task of changing McDonald's unhealthy image to "turning around the Queen Mary."

Adults "are pretty well set in our ways in terms of our perception of the brand," said Robert Passikoff, president of New York-based brand consultancy Brand Keys Inc. "They can mold the sense, and perception and belief of the brand at a young age. It's a smart thing to do."
McDonald's, however, said the aim of the program was not to manipulate children.

"McDonald's has always been a family-oriented restaurant," Lamar said. "We do want children in our restaurants ... but we don't exploit children, we don't manipulate children."

Through "Passport to Play," kids will learn both playground games and activities from around the world as well as facts about the culture and countries the games come from.
Students will each receive a booklet, or "passport," bearing the Golden Arches logo in which they will check off each game they learn.

The McDonald's name, however, will not appear in any of the materials, according to Jay Jennison, director of business development for Kaleidoscope Education Support Group, which developed the program. "It can't be about that," Jennison said. "They want support from Corporate America but they don't want to be a marketing outlet for Corporate America."
McDonald's said it could consider expanding its sponsorship of school programs to older children or introducing a nutritional component to the current program in the future. END


This one is funny all by itself! Does anyone really still go to McDonald's? I thought it was "go to McDonald's for the fries but Burger King for the burgers?" Subway and Quiznos are better... Acidman's seafood pie sounds better still...

...and this is the American culture we give to other countries...

September 12, 2005

The first thing that pissed me off today was CNN!!!

Here we go again, a bunch of "male-chicken suction applicators" hiding behind that tired bullshit line about people having the right to know certain things in a free society. Check it out...

www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/07/news.update/index.htmlFederal government gives up effort to block coverage of recovery of bodies HOUSTON (CNN) -- The federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from covering the recovery of bodies in areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, following legal action by CNN. Joint Task Force-Katrina "has no plans to bar, impede, or prevent news media from their newsgathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts including access to the sites, photographing, or reporting," wrote Col. Christian E. deGraff in a memorandum submitted in court. "We are pleased by the decision," said CNN News Group President Jim Walton. "The free flow of information is vital for a free society."On Friday, a U.S. district judge in Houston granted a temporary restraining order to CNN against a "zero access" policy announced earlier Friday by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

Of course that "Richard Cranium" Walton is pleased! Now he can have families of the dead see their loved-one's face as they get pulled out of the water! Not only can they be devastated by their loss, but shocked by the graphic nature of their family members physical condition after being in the water so long. Nothing like going to court to get the rights to full-gore, eh Jim, you asshole! What LTG Honore' was doing was trying to respect the dead, care for the living, and make sure a little dignity and decorum was applied to this situation. We all know it could use some of that by now! No, not CNN...they want the damn Texas Chain Saw Massacre for all to see! Hey! Where was the court battle over the picture of JFK junior after he soaked for a couple days? Oh, decided to skip that one, huh? Tell you what Jim...if they catch any babies, maybe you can see if they can hold them up to the camera for you.. You need an ass kicking.

I can understand wanting to see old Hanoi Jane's' corpse, hey, she deserves it, but I don't think allowing respect for the dead and some common decency will hamper the free flow of information. I think it's just your twisted urge to see gore. Picture your family members getting yanked out of the water in such a state not even a gator would be attracted to them, with the associated odors and wretching from the people stuck with having to perform that grim task. Does that somehow arouse you? Stupid female parent fornicator...

You're a sick puppy, Jim...

Brainclogger

P.S. Notice the politically correct expletives?

September 11, 2005

All I know of blogging is this...

To tell you the truth, this is it. I just Googled "blogs" one day, found a site that gave them out for free, and did it. As I get more into it, I see lots of other blogs that are so much more interesting than mine. How do I get one of those? How do I get one I can "personalize, make my own, and have pop-up as fast as other blogs do...much faster than my own. How do I get one that links me to others, others to me, lets me put up pictures, movie cuts, quotes, animation, etc.? I want to be more imaginative than this. Anyone have any suggestions?

Bring out the MOAB!

Remember the MOAB? The "Mother of all Bombs," they thought up before the oh-so-sensational and not to mention melodramatic "Shock and Awe" campaign, which was apparently shocking and aweful enough for Donald Trump a.k.a. Mr. Comb-over to copyright the term?

Well, I want to see it! Wheel that fucker out here and blow one up! Do it within sight of the insurgents, maybe they'll crap their pants, yell some damn religious expression in farsi that probably means "feet don't fail me now," and scatter like the rat-bastards they are! That's what we need- a really big, earth-shaking, tooth chipping, defecation-inducing explosion that WE set off, not the other way around!!!

I figure it this way; if you have a dog, and he doesn't do something right, you roll up the newspaper (except the Washington Post, you know liberals aren't into the corporal punishment thing) and whack old Fido on the sniffer. If you have a bigger dog, I imagine the need for a bigger rolled-up paper. Well, in the "insurgents versus the good guys" scenario, they keep hitting us with the paper. Imagine if unexpectedly, old Spot reared-up on his hind-legs with a bigger newspaper of his own and split your shnoz in two, with that thing rolled so tight it hit like the louisville slugger I have in the back of my Mountaineer!!! It would surprise the shit out of you, right?

Well, imagine if after the insurgents blow-up a roadside bomb or something, they get hit with a MOAB! It's gotta work! Come on! Break'em out! They're around here somewhere, I'm sure!

BrainClogger

Do you see a trend?

I've notice my entries have become less and less light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and have become a bit darker and more serious. Oops! Sorry. I'll try to lighten up. I just have to unclog my brain.

BrainClogger

Where was God for that one?

When the airplanes full of innocent people were about to crash into the World Trade Center and that farm field in Pennsylvania, where was God? I can understand the Pentagon, as that was a military target.

When the Muslims in Darfur were raping women in order to "breed their kind out" where was God?

When warlords are killing the men, raping the women AND the children, then killing all of them in Somalia, where was God?


When Saddam was gassing thousands, where was God then?

When Hitler was killing the Jews, where was he?

When people were killing in his name, why didn't he come and say "whoa, don't blame me for that?"

When genocide was happening in the Balkans and entire civilizations were disappearing, where was God?

When God took a dear friend when he was only seventeen, or both my grandparents in their early sixties, or lets so many children around the world suffer and starve every day, where is God? When my cousin suffered for years and then died from Muscular Dystrophy, forcing his two brothers, two sisters, and parents to participate in all that, with his mother going and praying in church every day, where was he then? If he does exist, he has a pretty sick friggin sense of humor that I don't appreciate.

My mother's a devout Catholic and my Dad is a believer, and now my brother and his idiot wife disrespect them and treat them like dirt, although there's this thing about "honor thy father and mother." My Dad cries and my Mom tries to act like it doesn't bother her, in kind of a weird role reversal, but it bothers them both. Dad's lost weight and the doctor told Mom she had a silent heart attack. What's worse is, my brother's always been an asshole. Where are the repercussions if you don't honor them? Where's the wrath we hear of? Where's the justice?

We already know that if women swear to be faithful and loyal in front of a priest and their entire family in a church, then don't do it, not only do they not get punished, but get rewarded with custody of the kids. Yep, that Catholic education really paid off!

When God lets religions usurp his authority on earth, Catholic priests abuse young boys and the "church" to get away with covering it up and condoning it, where is he? Yes, by covering it up, they condone it.

Well, when he lets a kid who serves in this hell for a year (for a reason none of us are really sure), only to go back to Louisiana and have his mother tell him that his brother was killed by the hurricane...well, that's just cruel. Where's God for that one?

Faith you say? No. People who are believers try to make people who question God's existence feel badly. They try to make you feel as if you should have some sort of shame for not believing as they do, or that the mere act of questioning things is mortally wrong and they see you as lesser of a person. That arrogance is part of the whole God "thing." Arrogance is also a bad thing. If the meek shall inherit the earth, where are the meek? Certainly not in charge of anything, just look around. Faith can also equal foolishness...

Maybe I don't know enough about this whole God thing? Maybe I need to examine it more. All I know is, I was a church-going Catholic. Then, after seeing the church condone buggary, I stopped all that. Well, that, and after having priest after priest trying to talk me into separating myself from my money because it was my "duty and obligation." Sure it is. After taking a look around at all the evil crap that's done in the name of God, and the stuff that happens that really calls for divine intervention, my belief kind of stopped too...

Our president claims to be a God guy. I guess part of that is having little or no problem with sending young kids to die... Jessie Jackson claims to be a reverend, but somehow it doesn't stop him from banging strange women, imbezzling money, and showing his racist side by bad-mouthing the "white devil." How many of those other religious "leaders" are such great role models? Swaggart? Hey, who cried on TV about having sex with young girls? Pat Robertson? He's like Vito Corleone, looking to "whack out" Hugo Chavez! Does being religious mean I have to hang out with these people?

Faith you say?

No thanks....

It's easy to be a lefty when you're loaded...

What do all these leftist, subversive, mentally deluded, insecure and emotionally needy hollywood (small H is intentional) people have in common? What do the likes of Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Martin Sheen (the evil one), Sean Penn, Rosie O'Donnel, Kirsten Dunst, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Danny Glover, Micheal Moore, Barbara Streisand, Springsteen, Mellencamp, Bon Jovi (not his real name), and all the other loathsome liberals like them have in common? That's simple. Money. And little do they know, it's the worthless job they do that enables them to be liberals. But you can tell they don't feel all that good about it. After all, their job is meaningless to humanity.

Maybe they feel unfulfilled because deep down, in places that are suposed to matter, they're empty. Empty because pretending to be someone else for a living while they bring simulated sex and mayhem to the masses just isn't necessary. Maybe it's because inside, the money makes them feel like whores, or like zoo animals surrounded by people who lead equally sick livings getting pictures of them. You can tell they're insecure. What do you think the awards are all about. It's a bunch of falsely rich people with tremendous egos and frail emotional states getting together to validate each other. It's pathetic and sad, but what's worse, this is what our country is worried about. Being entertained is the most important pursuit of Americans, right after money. Forget about duty, respect, honor, love, or anything that means anything, those things are too hard to get. Just color your hair blonde like Brad Pitt, who said he did it because he craved attention...apparently he's also a broad underneath.

Ever been out with your drinking buddies where you got so ripped that you thought everything you said was the most important thing in the world? Ever see drunk people having a really passionate conversation about war and peace, love, marriage or whatever, but when you get closer, you realize their conversation is actually incoherent to anyone else but them? That's what the money does to celebrities. They get these weird ideas and philosophies that are fueled by money just like the drunks at the bar, and they only make sense to themselves!!! Why don't they realize that? Hey Celine...SHUT YOUR TRAP! No one cares what you think, and that goes for all the rest of those Hollywood idiots. I bet you that if you add up all the money they give, it would be less than the same amount of private citizens in their pay range. Oh, but I forget...these people make more than anyone else in our country, with a few exceptions. That speaks volumes about the state of our country, our values, and just how jacked up we really are.

...how much did all you celebrities donate to the hurricane relief effort? No, personal appearances don't count. Put up or shut up. Oh, and who volunteered for the USO besides Gary Senise (thanks Gary)?

If only Springsteen didn't jump on the liberal bandwagon. Does he know what that does to a guy from Jersey? Yep, I almost cried when I threw the CD collection away. Hey Bruce, how's that factory in your hometown, eh? I heard they asked you for some help...and you told them to pack it up their collective asses... Yep, you really ARE a liberal...