The Cantina

I got home from work tonight and checked my mail as I usually do. I got an “Important Notice” from my credit card company, Capital One. I got one from American Express last week too but I just threw it out because I have a zero balance on that card and I rarely use it. Anyway, I get this notice and open it. Click on the picture to read it. It’s amazing.

It goes on to say that I don’t have to accept these terms. I can close my account and pay off my balance with my existing terms, which is exactly what I’d do if I owed them any real money. Fact is, I’ve been paying it off over the last few months because I saw this coming a mile away from the banks. You see, the only way they can recover the bad debt that they lent to losers and people who over extended themselves is by begging the government and hosing their good loyal customers who pay on time every month. So for their bad lending decisions and the idiots who over extended themselves and have stuck them with the bill, this is what the good guys get.

I only owe about $400 more dollars on that account and I’ll pay that this week. I’d close the account but that would be too easy. I intend to use that card about once a month for small purchases. Like, maybe a pack of cigarettes. That’ll make the monthy interest payment so low that it’ll actually cost them more to process the transaction and send me a bill that what they will make on the interest.

What will it really cost them? Pennies???? Sure, but it’ll be my little way of “sticking it to the man”.

By the way, my interest rates before this letter were 6.47% on purchases and 19.80% on cash, so they are basically more than doubling my rate.

A word to the wise. Pay down your debt if you can, and keep a close eye on the percentages on your statements.

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Hate is a strong word. That’s why I used it. When I was younger I never really payed much attention to politics. I was blissfully ignorant of what was going on in Washington and even in my own state as far as politics go. Now that I’m getting older, I’m paying more attention to it, and it really torques my screws. Especially the proposals of the democratic party and what they believe in.

Tonight’s source of my anguish is the SCHIP tax. For those of you who don’t know, SHICP stands for State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the tax I’m talking about is the tax increase that they are going to put on tobacco products to fund it.

Now, I agree that the health care program needs help and it needs funding. I do NOT believe that people that use tobacco products should carry the burden squarely on their shoulders to fund every one’s children’s health care. Alone. This is a fine example of the democratic party’s skewed view of a fair and free country and distributing wealth and responsibility.

I never had children. I never wanted children. Yet, I find myself supporting other people’s children through taxes that I pay. I pay their school taxes. I pay for a lot of children’s programs for people who irresponsibly have children that they can’t pay for. I understand the dilemma. How can you tax people who are already getting a free ride and free medical care from the government?

Here’s my alternative. If you can’t make the irresponsible parents cover the cost of their children’s health care, and you absolutely must put that burden on other Americans, who supposedly create higher health care costs by their lifestyle, pass the burden off this way.

Tax Popeye’s Chicken. Tax KFC. That’ll get a bunch of your government dollars back. Tax MacDonald’s and Tax Burger King. Tax the fat asses that are the statistics of the world’s largest obesity problem in the world. Surely you are aware of the health care costs that are the result of that. Yes, that would tax nearly all Americans, or…a large percent anyway (pun intended). Hell, you’d still get a bunch of my tax dollars. I luvs me a Big Mac now and again.

What you are about to do will drive the tobacco industry into the same situation that the auto industry is in, but for no fault of their own. It will be the democrat’s fault. People will not be able to afford those products anymore or they will boycott those products. Sales will go down and jobs will be lost. Shops and companies will close and more people will be out of work.

The tax that they plan to impose on people making less that $250,000 a year which during the campaign they said they wouldn’t do, will be along the lines as follows.

and this is the grand daddy…

Incredible.

There will be no tax increase on deep fried chicken, colt 45, Big Macs, or french fries.

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My friend Kimmer turned me on to an article yesterday in the Washington Times about an Arizona rancher who’s ranch is on the Mexican border. In a nutshell, the rancher is being sued by 16 Mexicans who were trying to cross the border illegally, across his land. He held them at gun point with his dog by his side while he called the border patrol to come and arrest the illegals. In fact, he had done this so many times in the past eleven years that he has helped the border patrol arrest 12,000 illegals trying to gain access to this country by using his land as a gateway.

Now, the latest group of 16 Mexicans that he caught are suing him. You can read the whole story here.

I’ve thought deeply on this story since I read it. Just who do these people think they are? We stole this country fair and square. Our forefathers came over boat by boat and ship by ship to this land. They slaughtered scores of native Americans by introducing them to the business end of the firearms that they brought with them. They desecrated those heathen savages in every way possible, many times raping their women and killing their children until there was nothing left of them and leaving them nothing. Not even their pride. We stole this land fair and square right?

Our fore fathers brought slaves over from Africa. Ship by ship and boat by boat, cleared farm land, planted food and cotton with the aforementioned slave labor. They built this country on that stolen land and made it in to what it is today and that is something we can all be proud of right?

I am a proud American but sometimes, I really don’t feel so proud.

You can tell that I have mixed feelings about this. As a young man I thought I had seen poverty in America. I thought I knew what poverty was. I’d seen homeless people before. Not a lot, but I’d seen them. I didn’t know shit.

I went to Puerta Vallarta in about 1998 on a vacation. While I was there, I left the resort to go into town and check out some of the local shops and what not. I strayed a little farther past the outskirts of town than most Americans travel and that is where I saw true poverty. I saw true fear, hunger and despair in the eyes of innocent children. I saw an old woman in her 70s holding a baby in one hand and a tin cup begging for coins in the other while her daughter and grand daughter were trying to hawk up some business in the whorehouse a few doors down the street. These people’s best days don’t even come close to our worst. I sympathize and empathize with them. I’ve seen how they live and I can understand their desperation. I understand why they are willing to risk their lives to cross our border to make a few dollars an hour picking beans and chilies on our farms. I hold no animosity toward these people at all. They are just people, who are a lot worse off than we are, trying to survive.

Having said all that, do I feel that they deserve a free ticket to the US? I don’t know. I don’t know that I even deserve to be here. I don’t know that you deserve to be here either. If I steal your car like our great great grandparents stole this land, do I deserve to keep it just because I have a bigger gun? Is posession really nine tenths of the law?

These are tuff economic times, not only in this country, but world wide. Does anyone really think that a laid off GM worker is going to pick lima beans for three or four dollars an hour? Who’s jobs are they really taking or are they actually doing work that Americans are to fat and spoiled to do?

I have no answers on this. I feel sorry for the rancher whose land and belongings are being ravaged and vandalized by these people. I feel sorry for the Mexicans because I’ve seen the horror they are trying to escape. I feel sorry for the Americans who feel they deserve the luxury of $5 cups of Starbucks coffee just because their forefathers sodomized the native American culture. I feel sorry. I feel sorry that I’m somehow part of it and I don’t have the answers. I am sorry.

Filed Under: General, Politics 31 Comments »

They say a picture paints a thousand words. This one could quite possibly paint a few thousand. One thing is for sure. Something is going to get painted. I like the photographer in the backgound there “getting the shot”.

It definitely reminds us that we do indeed have a democrat in the whitehouse again, but at least Bill Clinton had the common decency to get his head in the oval office and not right out on the whitehouse lawn.

I saw this photo and I thought “what a great opportunity for a photo caption contest”. Please feel free to join in by using the “add comment” link. Okay then, I’ll start with a few of my own.

• President Barack Obama demonstrates that he’s all about stimulus.
• Obama and a few of his closest secret service friends enjoy one of the many perks of the presidency

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God I love it when I’m right. Read it here. Now why not do the right thing and show the American people and the world that you mean business and prosecute him?

(I tried to embed the video but CNN’s video site keeps timing out). Just go there and check it out for yourself!

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What do Al Capone, Leona Helmsley, Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle all have in common? That’s right. They are all tax evaders. Now the more important question. What do Al Capone, Leona Helmsly, Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle NOT have in common? That’s right! Al Capone and Leona Helmsley are considered by the United States government to be criminals. Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle are considered by the Obama administration to be honorable men of character and respected men of his cabinet.

Doesn’t that just chafe your ass? If it doesn’t, it should.

Someone please tell me how that happens? Obama is just lumbering through the democratic field looking for cabinet members and flushed out not one, but two tax evaders. These are supposed to be people of utmost integrity according to his application process and criteria. I wonder how many more would be caught if a genuine investigation were launched.

These two crooks should be charged with tax evasion. The fact that they have now recently paid those evaded taxes after they were recommended and offered high level positions in the new Obama administration is irrelevant. That’s like robbing a bank and then when the cops find out that you did it, you return the money to the bank and plead no harm no foul. It’s ok. I really didn’t mean to rob that bank. It must have been an oversight.

I don’t think so. Not in my book.

Hey Obama. You say you want to restore confidence in America? Why don’t you start by prosecuting these two criminals and show a little integrity and character yourself. You talk about how wall street execs should be ashamed. You should be ashamed by backing these two losers. It makes me sick to watch you downplay their crimes on national tv. It didn’t take long too get a glimpse into this future. You spent two years talking the talk. This is a much different “walk” than I was expecting for sure.

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Here’s a question that I thought I’d never ask. What do you get when you cross a children’s video full of puppets and an innocent looking little girl with a gangsta rapper like Lil Jon?

Answer: Quite possibly one of the funniest videos on youtube.

A few words came to mind right away after viewing it. Disturbing, depraved, bizarre, hilarious, genius…. I’ve watched it several times now and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. One thing is for certain. It took a lot of creativity and talent to put this video together with the quality that it is. It makes me wonder who would have even thought to do this. Anyway, this is what you get when two extremes collide.

Love it or hate it? You decide. Just watch it. You may even find yourself going…..

WHAT!!!!!

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Man that’s the best advice I’ve ever heard. I used to live like that. I honestly did, and I wish I still did. I wonder what happened.

From the time I was 18 till I was about 30 it was all about the moment. Living in the moment. Screw tomorrow. Tomorrow may never come. White water kayaking, ultralight airplanes, living spur of the moment, and doing a hundred miles an hour on the wrong side of the road.

There’s nothing better than a warm summer night full of stars, a good running harley, a few good friends and some neon. I lived a good part of my life like that. Not caring what would happen tomorrow or if there was a tomorrow. I sit here now and I wonder what happend to that feeling. What happend to that lifestyle and what happened to that dream.

I’m responsible now. That’s what it is. I have a career instead of a job. I own a house. I want my parents to be proud of me. I wonder why they weren’t proud of me while I was living my dream. While I was living every moment and while I was sucking the life out of life, instead of life sucking the life out of me.

I long for those days and I remember them well. I have so many great memories that I forget many of them until someone reminds me of them. If I live long enough, I’ll go back to that mindset and I’ll re-kindle that dream. I’ll dream like I’ll live forever and live like I’ll die tomorrow.

The picture is me and my friend Dave Conrad doing about 80 miles an hour on the Kangamangus Highway in New Hamsphire during bike week sometime in the 90’s. We were having fun. Dave is up front. That’s me in the background.

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Okay, so Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed while delivering the oath to Obama yesterday. And Obama flubbed back. Is there really any question as to whether or not he’s really our president? I don’t think so. You can read the whole story here. It bothers me though that he took a mulligan on his first day in office. He asked for a “do-over” and did it today.

He’ll find out very soon that there are very few “do-overs” as president. For instance. When the CIA and secretary of defense tell you that an enemy country has weapons of mass destruction and you better act on it now or suffer the consequences, and you act on it only to find out they were wrong, you find out very quickly that there are no “do-overs”. There are no mulligans as president of the United States of America. There is no “on the job training”.

Settle in Obama and do it right. We’re counting on you. We have no choice but to count on you now. The people have spoken and they want ice cream.

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Tomorrow is the big day for Obama’s $173 million dollar party. Nice to have a $173,000,000 party especially in these trying times I would guess, but that’s not what the focus of this post is about. This post is about poo.

No one knows for sure how many people are really going to show up, but everyone thinks it will be between 1million and 2 million dedicated democrats.

You have to be a dedicated democrat to attend a party where, if it’s only one million, you will have the square footage of a sheet of unfolded newspaper to stand on. If there are two million, you will have the space of the front page of a newspaper to stand on. I’m talking about being packed in like sardines folks.

Now some more perspective. All those people are going to have to pee and poo. That is going to require porta potties. According to the people who rent them, you should have 1250 porta potties for every 100,000 people for a 10 hour event.

So let’s do the math. For one million people, there will have to be 12,510 porta potties. For two million people, there should be 25,020 porta potties. After viewing countless media events involving Nancy Pelossi, Barney Frank, Ed Rendell and any Kennedy that’s ever served any office in my lifetime, I personally feel that most democrats are full of poo so those numbers should probably be expanded exponentially, but we’ll go with the hard numbers for now.

Here’s a pleasant fact from wikipedia on porta potties.

“A major disadvantage of portable toilets is that the odor that builds up within the enclosure can quickly reach an unbearable level, especially in tropical climates, where users’ behavior (as well as aiming capabilities) can quickly soil a newly disinfected unit. This is probably due to the fact that the ventilation units are too weak to oust foul-smelling air fast enough, and have a open air duct (without compromising privacy) to allow fresh air in. Consequently, use is akin to a self-imprisonment with one’s excrement – especially if one has a habit of taking a long time to defecate.”

Granted, it’s not going to be a tropical climate tomorrow but it’s not going to be a stroll in a flower garden either, I assure you.

I’m no expert, but I’d estimate that a porta pottie holds roughly 50 gallons of human waste. I’d venture to say that those units will be full and foul by the end of the day tomorrow, so what you will have is 625,500 gallons of democratic poo at the end of the day tomorrow, which is probably comparable to the amount of shit we’ve been fed throughout the campaign.

Keep in mind, that’s assuming that only one million democrats show up. If two million show up, double it. That’s 1,251,000 gallons of poo for one democratic Obamapalooza. Where will they put all that poo? I’m hoping they keep it in DC.

Me? I’ll be going to work like the rest of the hard working republican people who actually keep the economy going, and I’ll be upwind for sure.

Filed Under: Edgy, Politics 1 Comment »