Barrack Obama – You’re Fired!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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So he’s finally gone and done it.

He nearly did it before.

Then he thought about it, and then he didn’t do it.

But this time he has done it – for now anyway.

Love him or hate him there is one thing for sure – a Presidential campaign with Donald Trump fully committed is going to be a lot more entertaining than one with Sarah (what day of the week is it?) Palin, Jeb (not another one) Bush, or even Hillary (no, really I’m not lying) Clinton.

Donald Trump’s show of wealth for some may sometimes border on the vulgar, but he is the personification of the American success story. He’s made a fortune, and more than once.

But is Trump equipped to be President?

Or perhaps a more appropriate question, is Trump better equipped to be President that the other hopefuls?

Whatever way you phrase the question I think the answer has to be ‘Yes’ he is better equipped. Not that that says a lot when you look at the other contenders.

Trump has made his own way in life, done deals, hired and fired, negotiated hard, got value for his money, and done a lot of it in New York City which is not the easiest place to succeed in real estate.

Contrast that with some of the other would-be’s who have spent much of their lives as the political mouth pieces for whoever could pay them the most.

Trump is also an entertainer and a man full of charisma – you know when he has walked into a room.

He and his name are also well known, which is a very big plus in an election. It means that he can and will appeal to conservatives like himself (tough on foreign policy, pro-NRA, pro-business and jobs, etc), but also to undecided and independent voters in much the same way as Ronald Reagan was able to do.

He also has the money to fund his own campaign if he chooses to do so. It is a big plus both for him and for people thinking of voting for him. Trump will not have to end up in anyone’s pocket post-election and he can start his campaign right away rather than waste time accumulating vast war chests of cash.

He’ll also find that he will have to spend less than the others to get his message out there. He won’t have to pay millions to get on to TV because when the people want to hear what he has to say the media simply cannot ignore him.

Trump is also used to getting his own way and used to winning. His ego is huge and won’t allow him to approach the battle half-heartedly.

He’s also got an attractive wife, more reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy than some of the frumps we have had to put up with before and since. But I suppose that is a sexist remark these days and should be disregarded – although believe me it won’t be by the voters.

Trump’s detractors will be both vociferous and numerous. The GOP hopefuls , mostly a collection of Senators and Governors, will not like him stealing whatever little thunder they may think they have. The Democrats, especially Hillary will be cursing the fact that the GOP has someone who can cast a very big media shadow over them. And a lot of the pseudo-intellectuals who commentate on things political will poke fun at Trump, although it will be a tough job for them to find a better equipped candidate in either party.

All in all then a presidential election with Trump involved is a much better prospect than one without him.

That doesn’t mean he’ll be the next President.

It doesn’t even mean he will win the nomination.

But it does mean that we have more fun finding out who will do both those things.

Trump has about another two weeks to file his papers with the Federal Elections Commission to make his candidacy official. Let’s hope he really does run this time, he’s going to look pretty silly now if he doesn’t.

As I said earlier, more than anything else Trump is an entertainer.

I’m looking forward to being entertained.

Roll on 2016.

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The Conservatives Win The UK General Election!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Like the last election in the UK, this one was a close run thing – but nowhere near as close as the pollsters predicted. At least this time there is an outright winner, the Conservative Party, with David Cameron still as Prime Minister.

No hung Parliaments, no dodgy coalitions between parties that obviously did not really like each other, and no more general elections for another five years.

Stability is always good.

Indeed the Conservative victory is already being seen as a positive step for the UK economy, with both shares and the pound sterling rising in value.

But during the next five years, although a degree of stability has been achieved, the UK is still in for challenging times economically.

Like the Unites States, the UK has been living well beyond its means for far too long. Eventually these delusions end in harsh reality. America will find this out too, but not until after their election next year.

 

At the start of the campaigning there was an unexpected degree of sense in being shown the two main parties. Election messages were warning of the need to cut spending, that Britain was still living beyond its means, and that there would be ‘difficult’ choices ahead.

However, as the election campaign progressed and the pollsters warned how tight the result was likely to be, all the political parties regressed into doing what they do best, regardless of what country they are in. In their desperation to get votes they ignored reality once again, started hiding the truth from their voters, and promised more goodies that the country can’t afford.

You know the sort of thing, better education, better health service, more jobs, etc., and to pay for it all less taxes.

Huh?

Yes, elections are full of ‘spend more and collect less’ promises.

In the non-political world we call them lies, because that’s what they are.

The smaller parties never suffered from the same restraints. Even from the beginning of their campaigns small parties like the Scottish SNP promised massive spending. They knew they would never be in a position to have to follow through on these boasts, but their message got out and, as always happens, many voters fell for it. The Scottish National Party (SNP) had a landslide victory in Scotland, winning 56 of the 59 seats – and all they promised was extra £180 billion ($280 billion) more spending over the next five years.

The two main parties soon countered with their own promises – the Conservatives talking about things like 30 hours of free child care a week for parents of 3 & 4-year-olds, no tax for people earning the minimum wage, an extra £8 billion (US$12 billion) for the National Health Service, free access to a doctor seven days a week, and a freeze rail ticket price increases for five years.

 

On the face of it, the past five years have seen the UK economy growing, unemployment down below 6% and a booming housing market, particularly in the South East of the country. All part of the reason why the Conservatives have their victory.

But, returning to reality for a moment, Britain is now in the most debt it has been in, relative to its economy, since 1967. The financial crisis hit the UK hard. From 2009 to date, British government borrowing has been at a higher level than at any time since World War II.

The scariest part is that, whilst the governments all talked about “cuts” and “austerity”, not a penny of this money has been paid back.

And like American politicians, and others, they use deliberate deceit to cover their lack of progress. Well-worn phrases like “cutting the deficit” are designed to make people think that the government is paying back its debt, but in fact all that has been happening is that they have been borrowing a little less money this year than they did the year before.

If you are any good at math at all, you will know that in reality this means that the debt burden is increasing, not decreasing. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Britain would, in all probability, not even begin to pay back its debts until sometime after 2020 – and that was even before all these new election promised of spending more!

 

In addition to all that, one of the fundamental platforms that helped the Conservative Party to get elected was the promise of a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. The result of that will have its own impact economically too.

Personally if I were them I’d drop the EU like a hot poker. For more than forty years Britain has been paying more into Europe than they have got out, a situation that is likely to continue as rafts of the poorer European nations continue to join.

So the next five years are shaping up to be very interesting for both Britain and America.

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General Confusion And Major Disaster.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, today’s post is not about matters military, although the term ‘SNAFU’ would be rather appropriate.

This one is about the General Election in Britain in May 2015 that will decide who will run the country for the next five years and who will be Prime Minister. This is a crucial election for voters because there is no real front runner. One party is as bad as the other. So a few votes here and there could make a crucial difference. Sounds a bit like Florida!

It may even end up with another coalition government in Britain, although I don’t know if the Conservatives could stomach another five years of being tied to the Liberals – but what am I talking about, of course they could, if it meant clinging on to power.

The election might be even closer than it should be because millions of people may be unable to vote. The secretive Whitehall department of stupid bureaucrats responsible for – wait for the irony, “efficiency” – refused to heed warnings from its own pilot programs that showed it had major problems with data matching.

It is very similar to the way the nerds at Microsoft didn’t believe their testers when they told them Windows 8 was a pile of doo-doo.

The bureaucrats first of all created new legal requirements for voter registration requiring them to verify information that was previously taken on trust.

The only thing is, about five and a half million voters went missing from the Electoral Register. The tests they carried out told them this was likely to happen, but they didn’t listen. Bureaucrats never do until it is too late.

According to government sources, “The digital service allows anyone to register to vote online, from any device connected to the web. It’s incredibly quick and simple – it takes less than five minutes.”

They forgot to add the crucial line that – it doesn’t work.

The problems became apparent as soon as the web service went live. The Electoral Register was a lot shorter than it had been. Not only that but strange things also began to happen.

For example, a five-year-old boy in Crewe had been given the vote – but he couldn’t get off the Electoral Register, because he was not able to produce his National Insurance number, which of course he didn’t have – because he was only five. Duhh!!!

In another case a woman, who had been an eligible voter on the Electoral Roll for twenty years, failed to get on to the new one because her National Insurance number was in her maiden name which did not match with her married name which the system insisted she use now.

The whole thing has turned into a government-created mess. People are now filling in the registration form thinking that means they are registered to vote, but actually they haven’t. All they have managed to do is submit an application to register to vote.

It’s bit like filling in a form so that you are eligible to fill in a form. A bureaucrat’s dream!

So it’s looking like general confusion and major disaster for the election. Just more proof that government bureaucrats and computer systems just don’t belong together.

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Cottontails, Cats And Caribbean Islands Feature In Today’s Quiz.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hi and welcome to another fasab quiz.

Today’s selection features those things mentioned in the title plus a lot more to test your general knowledge.

As usual, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!

Enjoy and good luck.

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Q.  1:  What type of animal is a ‘cottontail’?

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Q.  2:  What is a group of cats called?

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Q.  3:  What do your platelets do?

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Q.  4:  Which is the only vertebrate capable of sustained flight?

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Q.  5:  Dulles International Airport serves which American city?

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Q.  6:  What is the chemical symbol for Potassium?

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Q.  7:  What is ‘Vermicide’ used to kill?

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Q.  8:  On which Caribbean island can you find the Blue Mountains?

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Q.  9:  What are the three forms of heat transference? (A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if you can correctly name all three.)

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Q. 10:  Steel is an alloy of which 2 substances?

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Q. 11:  And a related question, what is added to steel to make it ‘stainless’?

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Q. 12:  What term is given to the activity of researching one’s family tree?

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Q. 13:  In tenpin bowling, what is a ‘Turkey’?

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Q. 14:  What flavor is a traditional satay sauce?

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Q. 15:  Which famous motor car rally was first held in January 1911 and won by Henri Rougier?

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Q. 16:  What name is given to the art of pruning hedges and trees into shapes?

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Q. 17:  What was the name for the multi-stranded knotted rope used for flogging in days gone by?

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Q. 18:  Who holds the record for the highest scoring average per game in NBA basketball?

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Q. 19:  Which future President was defeated by John F Kennedy in the 1960 election?

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Q. 20:  Which singer sang the song ‘Hanky Panky’ form the ‘I’m Breathless’ album?

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ANSWERS

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Q.  1:  What type of animal is a ‘cottontail’?

A.  1:  It’s a Rabbit.

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Q.  2:  What is a group of cats called?

A.  2:  They are called a ‘Clowder’.

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Q.  3:  What do your platelets do?

A.  3:  They assist in blood clotting.

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Q.  4:  Which is the only vertebrate capable of sustained flight?

A.  4:  The Bat.

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Q.  5:  Dulles International Airport serves which American city?

A.  5:  Washington.

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Q.  6:  What is the chemical symbol for Potassium?

A.  6:  The chemical symbol for Potassium is ‘K’.

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Q.  7:  What is ‘Vermicide’ used to kill?

A.  7:  Vy ‘verms’ of course… sorry, the correct answer is ‘Worms’.

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Q.  8:  On which Caribbean island can you find the Blue Mountains?

A.  8:  Jamaica.

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Q.  9:  What are the three forms of heat transference? (A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if you can correctly name all three.)

A.  9:  There are three forms of heat transference a) conduction, b) convection, and c) radiation.

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Q. 10:  Steel is an alloy of which 2 substances?

A. 10:  Carbon and Iron.

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Q. 11:  And a related question, what is added to steel to make it ‘stainless’?

A. 11:  Chrome.

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Q. 12:  What term is given to the activity of researching one’s family tree?

A. 12:  Genealogy.

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Q. 13:  In tenpin bowling, what is a ‘Turkey’?

A. 13:  Three strikes.

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Q. 14:  What flavor is a traditional satay sauce?

A. 14:  Peanut.

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Q. 15:  Which famous motor car rally was first held in January 1911 and won by Henri Rougier?

A. 15:  The Monte Carlo rally.

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Q. 16:  What name is given to the art of pruning hedges and trees into shapes?

A. 16:  It is called ‘Tiopary’.

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Q. 17:  What was the name for the multi-stranded knotted rope used for flogging in days gone by?

A. 17:  It was the famous, or infamous, ‘Cat o’ Nine Tails’.

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Q. 18:  Who holds the record for the highest scoring average per game in NBA basketball?

A. 18:  Michael Jordan.

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Q. 19:  Which future President was defeated by John F Kennedy in the 1960 election?

A. 19:  Richard Nixon.

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Q. 20:  Which singer sang the song ‘Hanky Panky’ form the ‘I’m Breathless’ album?

A. 20:  Madonna.

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Term Talk

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

Don’t worry the title of this post doesn’t mean that you’re back at school again. This ‘term talk’ in the title refers to politics and politicians.

President Obama takes a lot of stick because of his headstrong insistence in implementing his Obamacare legislation. As I’ve said before, it’s a laudable goal, but the country can’t afford it. But on he goes anyway.

Love him or hate him, or neither, he’s limited to two terms of four years in office, then he has to go and make way for the next person who wants the job.

To begin with that’s a stupid system because the main thrust of the first Presidency about half way or so in office isn’t governing the country but instead trying to ensure election for a second term and wasting billions of dollars doing it.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the present system sucks. Nor do you have to be a professor of politics to suggest an alternative  –  for example a single term of five or six years, which still leaves plenty of time to settle into the job and implement whatever policies you have promised the electorate.

So that’s the first problem solved.

However, there is another term problem that infests American politics (and many other countries too).

What about the rest of the elected politicians?

Well, why not introduce the same system for them? Elected for a five or six year term after which they have to start to earn a living again?

Sounds good to me.

According to Wikipedia John Dingell has managed 58 years in the House and still going. John Conyers has been there for 49 years. Coincidentally both these politicians are Democrats and both represent Michigan, so another problem that these ‘lifers’ cause is that there is no incentive for new blood to enter politics when they have little or no chance of being selected for election.

Congressman John Dingell

I’m not picking on these guys in particular. They just happen to be the two longest serving examples. There were others of similar longevity but they had the good grace to eventually retire, or die after half a century or so. Amazingly more than one hundred members of Congress have been allowed to serve for at least 36 years.

When I say “serve” I am just using the normal expression for these jobs. Whether they realize it or not, career politicians are nothing more than parasites living a cozy life off the money provided by the rest of us through our taxes. When an elected representative is entrenched in his or her position for a very long period of time they are not serving their people, they are simply relying on their people to provide them with a good living, premier health care and generous pension benefits (assuming they retire eventually!).

“Ah,” I hear someone say. “But what about the ‘experience’ that these long serving members bring?”

“Oh,” I reply. “What about it? Have we not seen in recent years and months that whatever experience they bring is not worth a hell of a lot. Just look at the mess the country is in and tell me if fresh faces could do any worse.”

So the solution to the two worst political problems that face America are easily solved.

The next question is will they be solved?

And the answer to that is probably ‘NO’. And it is probably ‘NO’ because the people who have the power to change the law are the very people that that law would affect.

They say turkeys wouldn’t vote for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Asses and elephants probably wouldn’t vote for this idea either.

What a pity.

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It Was An American After All

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes there is a new papa and he is an American.

Except he is a South American, from Argentina in fact.

Close but no cigar fasab 🙂

His name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but now it is Francis I, and he was the surprise choice in one of the fastest conclaves in recent times.

He is a Jesuit and he is 76 years old and, no pun intended, he has one hell of a mess to try to clean up.

In fact the trouble never stops coming.

As the election was getting under way in Rome, an article published on Monday, in the Italian newspaper La Republica, noted that the Vatican paid an estimated $30 million in 2008 for around 20 apartments in the imposing palazzo at 2 Via Carducci.

The Palazzo at 2 Via Carducci in Rome, the $30 million apartment complex bought by the Vatican.

Not only will these apartments do very little to help the poor and needy in his flock as I guess very few of them could afford even to rent a $1.5 million apartment let alone buy one, but the complex it turns out is also home to Italy’s biggest gay sauna, the Europa Multiclub!

Europa Multiclub, which features a Turkish bath and Finnish sauna, bills itself as the number one sauna in Italy. Open all year, the club also offers weekly “bear parties”, which it advertises on its website with a video of a stripper donning clerical attire.

Europa Multiclub entrance adorned with phallic topiary display. (Does that sign say use rear entrance?)

And to top it all, the housing block accommodates 15 priests, including a 12-room apartment on the first floor of the building for 76-year-old Cardinal Ivan Dias, a socially conservative Cardinal who was the former archbishop of Bombay, who has called homosexuality a disease of the soul. Does anyone detect a hint of hypocrisy?

Red faces to go with those red robes I think.

Good luck Francis, you’re going to need it.

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Gandolfo, And Step On It!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, this post has nothing to do with The Lord Of The Rings, this is about Papal rings and the fact that the general public are, yet again, being fed a string of lies and deceit by the powers that be.

Don’t you hate it when people lie to you, and you know they are lying to you, and they continue to lie anyway?

Pope Benedict has resigned right enough, that part seems to be true, but not because of ill health or because he is senile or any of the other excuses offered to the public.

In fact since the shock resignation announcement the truth has seldom if ever raise it’s little head.

Until now.

Now we are finding out that Benedict’s resignation really has to do with a frantic power struggle within the Vatican, and about scandals related to money-laundering via the Vatican’s IOR bank, and a gay sex ring among the Cardinals.

Can a younger man do what Benedict couldn’t and sort out the obvious mess that exists? Only time will tell. But it makes for an interesting election and tough time ahead for whoever gets the white smoke.

In the meantime the Holy See it seems is all at sea. 

Pope Benedict’s retreat, Castel Gandolfo, about 15 miles southest of Rome in the Alban Hills.

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Presidential Election – As Seen In Taiwan

Hi folks, just a little additional blog post for today. I don’t do this very often, only when I come across something that isn’t really substantial enough for a full post, but which I nevertheless find amusing.

So here is a short video of hos they saw the recent US Presidential Election in Taiwan.

Pity it hadn’t really been like this.

Enjoy!

Okay, Enough Of The Presidential Nonsense – Time To Get Serious!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes, if the election didn’t make you groan, here’s your chance.

Its bad joke pun day!

Enjoy them if you can.  

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It wasn’t school John disliked it was just the principal of it.

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A toothless termite walked into a tavern and said, “Is the bar tender here?”

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An electrician is a bright spark who knows what’s watt.

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Women who wear $200.00 perfume obviously are known to have no common scents.

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Did you hear about the fire at the circus? The heat was in tents.

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A baker stopped making donuts after he got tired of the hole thing.

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Communism first took off in the insect kingdom when a wary wasp joined the cagey bee.

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In the winter my dog wears his coat,

but in the summer he wears his coat and pants.

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Did you hear about the raisin that wined about how he couldn’t achieve grapeness.

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Opening a new funeral parlor can be quite an undertaking.

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I tend to avoid funerals, I’m not really a mourning person.

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The grammarian was never late. In fact he was always very punctual.

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I dropped out of my communism class because of lousy Marx.

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I finished my trigonometry exam without a secant to lose.

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To many girls the word ‘marriage’ has a nice ring to it.

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Those who stare at the moon are optimists.

They only look at the bright side.

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Tennis players don’t marry because Love means Nothing to them.

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Can Napoleon return to his place of birth?

Of Corsican.

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A Question Of Lies And Gross Indecency, But Just Who Is Responsible?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The election is looming. Just about a month to go in fact.

Despite his numerous gaffs, after the first televised debate Romney has pulled slightly ahead in the polls and according to news reports, is “hardening his lead”, mainly on the back of a lackluster performance by Obama.

The VP debate last week didn’t produce a clear leader either – just created a frenzy among viewers to find out who was under the desk tickling Biden’s feet.

Last evening’s bout at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York didn’t produce a clear winner for me either, although some media polls put Obama ahead. His performance was certainly way better than in debate one, but you could easily have written the totally predictable moron media’s “Obama fights back” headlines without even watching it.

What this all means is that it’s still all to play for and far too close to call. In the end the committed supporters on each side will largely cancel each other out and the king-makers (or president-makers in this case) will be the 5 to 10 percent so far undecided.

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Does it really matter who wins? After all, when it’s all done and dusted, the same types of people will hold the same offices as before. They will do the same things as before. And the mess we are all in will be as big as before – or bigger. I hope you have noticed that there has been a distinct failure by BOTH candidates to address the economic crisis in any meaningful and specific terms.  

But there are two other questions we need to address.

First, there is an obscenity here that no one is talking very much about. Call it the elephant and the donkey in the room if you like. It is an obscenity that has been around for far too long, but today in our current dire economic circumstances, it has been elevated to the level of gross indecency.

What am I ranting on about this time?

 

Well, if you hadn’t guessed already, the obscenity I am referring to is the scandalous amount of money that BOTH presidential candidates are wasting trying to get themselves elected.

We all know Romney is a multi-millionaire, with equally rich chums or better, so it maybe isn’t such a surprise that he is able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign war chest.

What is more surprising is Obama. His war chest is actually bigger than Romney’s and, quite unbelievably, is about to hit and probably surpass the $1 billion mark. It may already have by the time you read this.

 

I know a billion dollars isn’t what it used to be in terms of purchasing power, but it can still buy a lot of stuff. If you are having any difficulty visualizing how much a billion dollars is, think of it this way. The median income in the United States is around $29,000, meaning half the wage earners  make less and half make more. If you make $29,000 a year, and don’t spend a single penny of it, it will still take you 34,482 years to save a billion dollars.

One Billion Dollars

 

Now you are probably having trouble visualizing what it would be like to wait 34,482 years – if you are, it’s over 400 lifetimes!

Put another way, their combined waste of money could provide almost 150,000 surgical procedures, or more than 500 million meals for the poor and homeless, either of them money a lot better spent.

homeless in winter

 

That anyone, Obama, Romney or A. N. Other can squander this amount of money for no return other than to aggrandize themselves with the title of President shows a deal of contempt for the ordinary people of the country, particularly those who are presently struggling to survive thanks to the financial mismanagement that these same politicians have presided over.

You can be sure that whoever gets into the big seat in the White House he will drown us in hypocrisy. We will get lectures about sacrifice and austerity measures, how deficits need to be cut, how taxes need to be raised, how you will have to tighten your belt for the sake of the country (whether you can still afford a belt or not) and so forth. Where was the belt tightening during the election campaign, boyz???

 

Of course, we are told that the bulk of the money in the politicians’ war chests is made up of the small $5, $10, $25 or $50 donated by ordinary folks. That may be true. But there are two types of dollars donated for election campaigns – ‘gifted’ dollars and ‘investment’ dollars. Most of the dollars donated by big corporations, super rich individuals and bankers fall into the latter category. Those people will be expecting, and will get, a return on that ‘investment’.

Thus the system – which is now so corrupt that rich executives ride roughshod over the law at will, and without fear of being punished no matter who is president – will remain largely as is.

This is a recipe for disaster. If history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that a nation, caught between a broken political system and a populist movement of those who feel increasingly disenfranchised and undervalued, will at some stage experience rebellion against that corruption.

If you think not, think again. In fact, think tea parties in Boston and how and why the United States came into being in the first place.

 

Of course the solution to this particular obscenity is quick and easy. Put a ceiling on the amount of money a politician can legally collect and spend on his campaign. That would create a level playing field for all. Rich or poor, large party or small party, would have an equal chance of marketing their wears.

The only problem is that it is the same politicians who will have to make that law, and last reports still say that turkeys are very reluctant to vote for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

So that gets us to the second question in the title of this post, namely “Who is responsible?” In fact it is a two-fold question.

Are the politicians responsible because they lie to the people and promise one thing before an election and do another afterwards?

Or are the people responsible because they know fine well that the politicians are lying to them and won’t deliver on their promises, but still go out and vote for them anyway?

Let’s phrase these two questions another way.

Are the politicians responsible because they know that if they did not lie, not enough people would vote for them?

Or are the people responsible because they don’t really want to hear the hard truth and would not vote for a politician who told it how it is?

 

Everyone has to answer that dilemma themselves. Personally I wouldn’t vote for someone I know is lying to me, no matter what party they belonged to.

 

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