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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Happy New Year And Thirteen Questions To Start Off 2013

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Well, we made it. We have successfully traveled through time and here we are in 2013. Yippeee and all that.

So a very Happy New Year to one and all.

And to get us off to an easy start here are thirteen simple questions, well questions anyhow, to ease us into 2013.

Enjoy.

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If any word should be spelled the way it sounds it should be “phonetic”, so why isn’t it?

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And why is “abbreviation” such a long word?

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Can fat people go skinny-dipping?

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How do they get a deer to cross at that yellow road sign?

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Why is experience always what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted?

 

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If a funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their lights off?

 

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Whose cruel idea was it for the word “lisp” to have an “s” in it?

 

What hair color do they put on the drivers licenses of bald men?

 

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If the person who plays the piano is called a pianist, why is the person who drives a racecar not called a racist?

 

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Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink what ever comes out”?

 

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When you put ‘THE’ and ‘IRS’ together, it forms ‘THEIRS’. Coincidence? I think not?

 

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Why are rubber duckies yellow when most real duckies aren’t?

 

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Why do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front?

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CLASSIFIED: For Your Eyes Only, Part Two!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time today for another selection of those classified ads we all love to read. Pick your favorite or just enjoy them all. No doubt a lot of hard work was put into getting them so perfect for publication, which just goes to show that it takes a little bfain power as well as effort to get the desired result.

Enjoy!

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Donkey Hokey

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, I’m not tilting at windmills, not just yet anyhow. And despite the play on words in the title, nor am I referring to Cervantes character Don Quixote. This post actually does concern a donkey, though. In fact animals in general.

It is a little known fact that donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. And at the end of August I read about a small town Texas mayor who was killed in an attack by his own donkey. He was Bill Bohlke and he was Mayor of Hollywood Park in Atascosa County, Texas.

That unfortunate event set me thinking of a number of things.

First I asked myself how the heck you pronounced his surname.

Then I wondered if Mayor Bohlke was a Republican or Democrat and how macabre it would have been if the donkey had done away with his elephant man rival.

And then I thought about the amazing and different ways people find to leave the mortal coil. I bet, like most of us, the last thing Mayor Bohlke thought was that some day he would meet his end from an attack from a randy donkey!

And then I marveled at how so many people, for no logical reason, have a romantic fantasy notion that animals are not inherently dangerous. They are.

And this is true for people who work with them every day and should know better.

For example, when I was growing up I would spend time at my uncle’s farm. He had a herd of one hundred or more dairy cows and every evening when I was there my cousin and myself would be sent out to the fields to bring the cows in for milking.

We had a couple of great little collie dogs to help us, not that much help was needed because the cows had a routine and once they heard us calling for them they made their way to the field gate and up the lane to the milking parlor, glad no doubt that they were about to be relieved of their burden once more.

With them came the bull. A huge brute of an animal and unbelievably strong. But he was docile enough, walked up with his herd of ‘wives’ and while they made their way into the queue for the milking machines he would usually lie down in the hayshed and munch on some of the hay.

As innocent (dumb) kids we would sometimes sit down beside him, even using him as a prop to lean against. He didn’t seem to mind a bit, we thought he was glad of the company perhaps.

Then one day as the herd was being ushered back out to the fields Mr Bull totally out of the blue decided he would like to kill my uncle.

Luckily us kids had our chore done in bringing the herd in to get milked. When the time came to take them back out again we were engaged on other vital business, I can’t remember exactly what but I’m sure it involved football, playing cowboys and Indians, fending off some galactic foe who was attacking earth that day, or some such vital stuff. But we could hear the commotion in the distance.

Furious about something, only he knew what, the bull roared angrily and ran towards my uncle who had been leading the way. With his head lowered he hit my uncle between his lower back and his knees and threw him up into the air like a rag doll – and my uncle was a BIG man. Very fortunately the bull tossed him into the air with such force that he went clean over the raised fence and hedge on the right hand side of the lane and ended up in one of the fields. 

The crazy bull then tried to go after him but couldn’t get up the steep embankment on which the fence had been constructed. Another cousin, quite a bit older than us, saw the attack. He was in a tractor and he immediately had the presence of mind to use that to take the bull’s attention away from my uncle. The distraction seemed to work, because as suddenly as it had started it was over and things were back to normal.

But my uncle had learned a valuable lesson. Animals can be dangerous.

So had I, even though I wasn’t there at the time, but from then on I haven’t been a fan of bulls – not in Chicago or Wall Street either come to think of it.

Unfortunately Mayor Bohlke wasn’t so lucky with his donkey.

I wonder if it happened something like this???

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Some More Witty Sayings, Inspired By George Carlin

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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There was a lot of love for the short series of quotes from George Carlin. I was pleased that he is remembered well and still giving amusement to people, despite no longer being with us.

Today I have a selection of other witty sayings, not attributed to anyone in particular, but in the same spirit as last week’s post.

I hope you enjoy these too.

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Dickson’s Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

 

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

 

Sex is like air; it’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

 

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

 

One good turn gets most of the blankets.

 

There are two kinds of pedestrians — the quick and the dead.

 

Life is sexually transmitted.

 

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

 

If quitters never win, and winners never quit, then who is the fool who said “Quit while you’re ahead”?

 

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI. (One for the nerds and geeks to LTAO.) 

 

Willie was a Chemist, But Willie is no more, What Willie thought was H2O Was H2SO4.

 

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

 

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

 

It’s not hard to meet expenses, they’re everywhere.

 

Jury — Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer.

 

Never lick a gift horse in the mouth.

 

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

 

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

 

Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves. After marriage, the ‘Y’ becomes silent.

 

If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.

 

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