Saturday, July 31, 2010

More Signs o' The Times...

Regarding The Economy. I wrote last month about local businesses shutting their doors. I was out on the main drag yesterday afternoon and noticed something that made me scratch my head.

First,the good news: three new businesses opened (or are about to) on pretty much the same block.

The Disturbing News: all three are "salons" of some sort -- a hairdresser, a"Day Spa", and something that I think is offering what may have been called"New Age" therapies at one time, but which probably now go by the all-encompassing term "bullshit".

Now, what makes this disturbing is that along the eight or nine blocks on the Main Drag, there are already 2 Day Spas, at least a dozen beauty parlors/nail salons, and just a few blocks off the drag, an entire building devoted to acupuncture, chiropractors, reflexologists, masseuses, and all manner of Crystal and Rattlesnake-shaking charlatans.

What to think of this?

Well, on the one hand, it probably indicates that in a "down" economy, we can still count upon one thing: people will pamper themselves even more when times are bad. The Feel-Good-and-Personal-Selfishness-Trade must be raking in big bucks if someone can open up a Salon offering Seishido (whatever the fuck that is) in a revamped storefront, right across the street from a place that offers basically the same, and which has a plastic surgeon and a dermatologist on site to hand out Botox by appointment in a luxurious environment that might have made Nero jealous.

People are defaulting on their mortgages, but somehow, there's always money for a peel, a fake tan or a mani-and-a-pedi.

And all of that on a street that is absolutely lousy with salons, spas and haircutters.

The second thing it indicates is that you probably have to be either Korean or a Queer to get a business loan these days, because that's who's building and running these establishments. How do I know? All the nail salons are full of Korean girls giving manicures, and as I passed the hairdressers that's under construction, the Owner was on his cell phone complaining that the workmen were making a mess...and he was Korean (yes,I can tell my Orientals apart, thank you), and every word spoken into that phone was a steady stream of sibilant esses that gave one the impression that, somewhere, there must be steam leak.

The nine-inch hips, white-snakeskin shoes with three-inch lifts, neon-pink Guinea Tee, and bandanna tied around his neck made it obvious -- just in case you couldn't figure it out on your own.

Korean and Queer....I rest my case.

But on a serious note, while it's wonderful to see new businesses opening in what's supposed to be such a terrible business environment, why is it that none of them seems dedicated to providing an actual product or service that's useful, and not predicated upon vanity?

"Jewish Money"

I would not have believed it, had I not read it. A democratic (small "d"intentional) Congressional Candidate calls his opponent out for taking campaign contributions from Jews. Are you serious? The party that worries that Hispanics might be racially-profiled apparently has no problem with open and obvious Anti-Semetism.

Against one of their own, too. Micheal Grimm is, nominally, a democrat challenging McMahon in a primary race.

Mike McMahon is a slimeball, and I'm ashamed that he's my Congressman (but I didn't vote for the POS). By comparison, his predecessor, Vito Fosella -- he of the DWI and Baby Momma --was a class fucking act. Had Vito managed to keep his pants zipped, and to call a fucking cab, he'd still be in office.

Now, one of the more amazing aspects of this Congressional race is that McMahon's opponents seem to be invisible. One of them, Micheal Grimm, is little more than a name on a sign in this neighborhood; he's never on television, you hardly ever see him or his name in the newspaper.

The other challenger, Micheal Allegretti, once flooded the airwaves with a commercial in which he never mentions his party affiliation. I have not seen that commercial, or anything Allegretti-related, for several months now. That tells me that these guys shot their bolts, Grimm never getting started, and Allegretti spending all his money running introduction-ads-with-no-information in fucking January-through-March ... and nothing since. I wrote about him, too, here and here.

The Staten Island GOP apparatus is so dysfunctional that it should probably be taken out and shot. It's dominated by cronyism, and if someone named "Molinari" isn't running for office, it's at a complete loss. The local Tea Party seems to be full of people I would eagerly cross the street to avoid -- what one might call the One-percenters, Buchannanites, or The Pantybunched Wing -- who have all the virtues of a broken clock; they might still be right twice a day only, but the rest of the time they're fucking useless and collecting dust. It's not that they're wrong on many issues, so much as it is them being such unattractive people; they whine, incessantly, and when they write articles, make blog posts,or a few dozen of them show up for a protest, you get the impression that someone with a 3rd-grade reading level is attempting to channel his inner Tom Paine. Listening to these people, one gets the distinct impression that they remember 1787 -- because they might have fucking been there. For the most part, these are the same people who remember when this island had dairy farms, and they had to walk to school through waist-high-snow, in bare feet, uphill, both ways, everything cost a nickle, the word "prostate"was never uttered in polite company, a lady never let her ankles show under her hoopskirt, and you could put a lawn jockey out in front of the house without having your racial beliefs, or taste, challenged or even questioned.

They tend to divide history into two distinct epochs; Before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and After-The-Bridge, when the Midwestern Music-Man Schtick of Staten Island was finally destroyed by the legions of "Guineas Crossing the Gangplank", as we say in these parts. The Staten Island Tea Party is probably a bigger waste of time for this very reason than watching yet another Obama-Potemkin "Recovery Summer" Speech at a government-funded factory that got stimulus funds to hire a buttload of workers to NOT produce any salable product (see: Chevy Volt, electric car batteries that don't actually exist, platinum-plated solar panels, etc). But I digress....

I guess what I'm getting to is that McMahon will probably win by default, and the double-standard will be forgotten in the aftermath of his victory -- a flagrant Anti-Semitic statement was made against American citizens exercising their rights to support the candidate of their choice, while McMahon and his party simultaneously court the illegal alien "vote" that is a sign of a coming Amnesty-by-another-name, and try to frighten them into the democratic fold with visions of Concentration Camps full of landscapers named "Manuel".

And there's nary a republican nor a real Tea Party to challenge him, and not a single voice in his own party was raised to rebuke him, or his campaign. A sad state of affairs, all around.

If blatant, but carefully-crafted, anti-Semitism from the Party of Diversity wasn't enough, we get the aptly-named Anthony Weiner putting on a five-star douchebag performance on the House floor. Weiner is little more than a second-rate machine politico with a voice and personality that could curdle motor oil...used motor oil. He's simply a Chuck Schumer-wanna-be who can't even match the sense of immediate revulsion one acquires as soon as Schumer's oily visage pollutes the television screen. Instead, Weiner engenders the slightly embarrassed and disgusted feeling one might associate with an enema. In keeping with the whole "Weiner" meme, he is what we used to refer to in Brooklyn as a Dildo -- a great big phony dick.

That virtuoso display of complete and utter bullshit had nothing to do with the health of the First Responders. Quite frankly, given the recent propensity of the local newspapers to run stories about firemen declared disabled by 9/11 lung problems who somehow manage to win Triathlons a decade later, and attach themselves to new lawsuits as a second job, the plight of some of those First Responders is beginning to look a bit contrived and exaggerated; many of them are now retired, and collecting huge pensions and lump sums from lawsuits and government payout plans. Here's another $7.5 billion that's going to people who are living quite well, thank you, and the few (relatively few) who are suffering serious long-term health problems probably have diamond-encrusted bedpans by now.

Here I am, having lost six years of my life to the after-effects of 9/11, and I've never seen -- nor been eligible for -- a solitary dime of any of this money,whether from the legal settlements, or the government handouts, because I wasn't a) a city worker who already had a gold-plated benefits package, and b) I was stupid enough to pay for my own medical insurance...instead of having that money extorted from the taxpayer, and c) One block north of the "cut-off point" when the towers actually fell. Am I glad that NYC has the finest Police and Firefighters in the world, and that they were available on 9/11? You bet your ass, I am. But you know what? In this day-in-age when the public unions are bankrupting governments all across the country with their pension and benefits packages, when is enough enough?

I used to think these guys deserved every penny they got. Now, after regularly seeing a shitload of them lining up at the local City Health Department offices for"9/11 testing" (yes, I'm still doing that, too), driving up in their restored vintage Mustangs, Custom Vans, Corvettes and Escalades, and talking about their (2nd this summer) weekend in Atlantic City or Vegas, the new "on-the-side" roofing business, the seven rounds of golf they shot this week, and the new 50" flatscreen in the bathroom -- next to the hot tub -- I'm not so sure some of them aren't scamming us.

(And yes,those are the subjects of the conversation these guys have while they're waiting for chest x-rays, a blood test, and a pile of paperwork for Workman's Comp).

Weiner's tirade was simply an opportunity to do what Republicans did to democrats for eight years, and wave the bloody shirt of 9/11 in their faces for a change. The fact that he's an asshole just took it to another level that makes you want to shit....but only after you've first beaten the snot out of Weiner. It's disingenuous, because Weiner doesn't really give a shit about sick firemen and cops; he's only thinking of running for Mayor after he's gets tossed out of Congress.

Anyways, now the entire country gets to see the genetic mistakes we've sent to Congress from this State, and it's enough to make you want to move to New Jersey, even if the taxes ARE higher.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Now It's a Tax on Garbage?

The City of San Francisco, always a bastion of intelligence, rational thought and good government (NOT!), has decided to impose a tax on fast food as a means to wage an increasingly-expensive battle with litter.

Yeah, right. I'm buying that one.

I would think it safe to assume that what San Francisco's upper-crust has an issue with is NOT so much what's in it's trash; after all, I'm certain they're finding empty crack vials, used condoms, dirty hypodermic needles, and worse, in their trash bins.

The irony here is that City Government, at some level, is probably responsible for the worst kind of trash which finds it's way into The System, what with giving those hypos away free-of-charge to hardcore addicts, and the schools handing out condoms like candy -- all, of course, to prevent the spread of AIDS -- but no one would dare suggest that there be a tax levied on condoms or Homosexuals, or that we stop handing out drug paraphernalia to those determined to kill themselves.

We live in an upside-down world where encouraging people to engage in risky behavior that will probably kill them (by providing them with the means, the excuses, and the political mojo to make it happen) just so we can start taking extremely stupid and expensive measures to save them from themselves, somehow makes good financial sense to the Solons of the City By The Bay. To suggest that the City do otherwise and, say, discourage drug use -- so that the city doesn't spendmoney on free needles, and would have more cash tokeep the streets clean -- is somehow considered "Anti-Gay". No, the sainted Elders of San Fran would rather tax legitimate commerce, and under a false pretense, to boot, especially if they can pass the tax increase off as being good for society; in this case, they'll be supposedly getting litter off the streets, but in reality they'll be continuing the ongoing assault against society's slugs consuming whatever the fuck they feel like and then sticking the Taxpayer with the medical bills.

The Food Nazis in America will tell you that Wendy's is bad for you. That McDonald's will kill your children. That The Colonel is selling you a poison that will slowly rot your asshole from the inside out, but only after it stuffs you full of fats, salt, and concentrated sugars that, in the rather weird calculus of the American Libtard, are infinitely more dangerous than gay sex or intravenous drug use. No wonder they don't mind if Iran has nukes; Devil Dogs and Wing Dings constitute a greater threat to Civil Society.

Quite frankly, if someone dies of an overdose, that's his problem. Ask me if I give a shit. Same for the Anally-Injected-Death-Sentence; you put your pecker someplace it wasn't meant to go, and you take your chances, andpretty much deserve what you get. Somehow, the consequences incurred by the Stupid and Irresponsible became Everyone Else's -- and by that we mean The Taxpayer's -- Problem.

And now it's Everyone' Else's Problem because some poor shithead (read: "Minority") who can't stop at just one Krispy Kreme, and who practically lives on a diet that consists of KFC, pork rinds, Malt Liquor, and the Four Basic Food Groups of MSG, Salt, Sugar and Caffeine, might fucking drop dead as his swollen heart bursts from the strain of moving his 450-pound ass through the streets of San Francisco. Oh, they say it's to keep the streets clean, but no; the tax is really intended to make Pizza Hut too expensive for the average Welfare Recipient to afford to eat three meals a day.

What a fucking racket: they get paid to stay poor, stupid and exploitable, and then the very people who exploit them make sure they can't even eat what they please with their stolen taxpayer money. And yet, the Exploited just can't wait to vote for more of the same. The New Plantation is alive and well.

It's time for a little Social Darwinism to take hold in America before more self-appointed hall monitors, like the San Fran City Council, suddenly decide they have a vested interest (and can make a buck) in limiting your number of bathroom trips, dictating how many hours a day you can sleep, how much water you will get on a daily basis, or how many times you're allowed to yawn before all that excess carbon dioxide you're expelling makes you a weapon of mass destruction.

I want people to die as a consequence of their own stupidity; that's how Nature is supposed to work! Those that make the right choices thrive and prosper, and those who don't are dropped from the herd. If we actually had a society where consequences were geared to actions, and which was free of government interference on every subject, we'd all be a lot healthier, freer, and richer. The world would be a whole lot better if cans of pesticides didn't have little red labels warning"Do Not Spray In Mouth", or if oscillating fans didn't have safety cages on them, because the truly lazy and retarded amongst us would be pushing up the daisies -- and the government that preys on their stupidity, to the detriment of the rest of us, would be gone.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Stuff I Didn't Talk About Because I was Away...

A lot has happened, and here I was to NOT write anything about it. So, here's a synopsis of what I missed, and what I might have said:

1. The Arizona Immigration Thingy
So let me get this straight: the Federal Government sued the State of Arizona in order to make the following points:

a) The Executive Branch has reserved the power and right to decide NOT to enforce laws passed by the Legislative Branch ,and deemed Constitutional by the Judicial Branch, if it finds doing so to be politically troublesome.

b) That the Executive Branch, having made a decision upon which laws are to be followed and which can be chucked for political purposes, can declare that since it won't uphold the laws it is Constitutionally-required to enforce, that no one else can assume that responsibility in it's stead.

Good going!

Once again the Administration, it's naked partisanship and political tin ear evident because it has taken yet another unnecessary action that two-thirds of the country disagrees with, has finally laid to rest some of the myths about the political left that have been repeated for at least a century; These people are not evil little conspirators, playing at romantic revolutionary. They are not sublimely intellectual souls who simply see the world differently in subtler shades of grey than we mortals. They certainly aren't champions of the Common Man, fighting for his rights and freedoms, rising to the defense of personal liberties.

They're just a bunch of fucking retards. Smart people (defined as: having just enough sense not to shave your own ass with a cheese grater, and a bottle of Witch Hazel) simply don't do things like this. The amazing thing is that they're all lawyers, the President has even taught Constitutional Law, but apparently none of them has bothered to read the document in question, and if they have, they this ability to misunderstand the English Language to such an extent that I'm surprised they haven't "discovered" the right to stand in your front yard, completely nude, with three daschunds and a light bulb jammed up your ass, making Kitten Kebabs whilst saluting the swastika.

For all the Harvard, Yale and Princeton graduates in the Administration, none of them seems to be able to find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. The next time someone tells you the Ivy League schools are the best, you should point out to them that the Obamatards and the MBA's who ran Freddie, Fannie, Lehman Brothers, and AIG, were mostly Ivy Leaguers. That should shut them up.

2. Charlie Rangel
Good lord, Charlie: just give it up. You're caught dead to rights and still you insist that you "welcome the investigation" which will, you assume, "clear your name" as if you can actually brazen this out. The days when you could make the most asinine excuses -- "I didn't inhale", "I didn't have sex with that woman..." -- and get away with it, are long gone, Congressman. You especially can't get away with unpaid taxes in this day-in-age when half the Obama Administration didn't pay their taxes, either, and the general public is about to be taxed within an inch of their lives to pay for shit that none of them ever wanted, but you so eagerly voted for.

You're 80 years old, and frankly, the only reason to tune into these hearings is to see whether or not you have a coronary under questioning, or break a hip on your way in. Otherwise, this exercise is academic: you're guilty, you'll lie a lot and try to play games with the evidence against you, and then play the race card (...you magnificent bastard! I read your book!). The only half-way plausible explanation I've heard to date about why you're going through with this came from Juan Williams, and he basically said "because you're batshit crazy". Juan seems to think that it's quite possible that, having been in Washington for 40 years, you are so steeped in graft and corruption that it's literally become your normal way of life. The very air you breathe, your food and drink, and that you may not even be aware that what you're doing is wrong.

Even more reason to toss you out on your fat ass, Chuck. Nancy is NOT going to find a way to keep you around: she wants to be re-elected, you know.

3. Senator John Kerry has a $7 Million Yacht...
...which he had custom-built in New Zealand, and moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, allegedly to avoid paying luxury taxes on it.

Nothing like a) making sure you Buy American, b) making sure you put some folks in Massachusetts (where I'm told they DO make some pretty spiffy luxury yachts) to work, and c) leading by example in a time of financial crisis, where the American people are bring asked to sacrifice and give Uncle Sam just a Little Bit More (Little Bit More defined as: the Lion's Share of the 50% of your income we don't already tax) to pay for all the"Change you Can Believe In"...and you don't even make a show of sharing that sacrifice. In fact, you tried to find a way to circumvent the law. I don't know who's worse: Rangel or Kerry.

And I'll bet this Asshole still lays awake at night trying to figure out just how it was that he lost to Geroge W. Bush, generally considered a blithering idiot. Here's a short list of reasons why, Senator:

a) You're a douchebag, who's only real talent is for marrying wealthy widows

b) Two words: John Edwards

c) After obtaining four draft deferments, and then volunteering for duty with a service that was not likely to see ground combat, and THEN volunteering for duty that required another 18 months just to complete training, you spent, like, five whole days in Vietnam faking diary entries, having yourself followed around by a camera crew, collecting self-inflicted gunshot wounds and writing your own commendations, just so you could start every sentence with "When I was in Vietnam..." for the next 50 years.

d) You're wife made Ted Kennedy look sober....you made him look like Cincinnattus by comparison.

Frankly, we're incredibly fortunate to have been spared the unmitigated disaster that would have been a Kerry Administration, if your personal history, choice of friends, and obvious character flaws are anything to judge by, Senator.

4. Vis-a-Vis Journolist...
Newsflash: when 400 or so egghead, douchebag, metrosexuals with access to a chatroom and a wild hair up their collective ass get together, this is what they do: complain about normal people and plot their demise, and conspire to achieve World Domination, or at least to get the Gay Discount from Netflix on Movie Night.

They'll never succeed, by the way, because they're all slackers who just like to think they're really smarter than everyone else. It's why they picked Journalism -- a dying profession -- as their career choice, after all.

I'm actually surprised that half of the exchanges published to date didn't begin with "Hey, so-and-so, what conditioner are you using this week" or "does anyone have any helpful tips on how to remove a small rodent from my bunghole without the embarrassing emergency room visit?"

It's clear these "professional" journalists behaved like a bunch of fucking 16 year-olds, which is not surprising, because the e-mails reveal that they all fucking think and write like a bunch of fucking 16 year-olds!

I understand that part of the conservative (small "c"intentional) deconstruction of the Obama Administration depends on showing that a) the press is crooked, and slants news stories in a way that tends to put conservatives in a bad light, and b) the press was in bed with the Obama Campaign, so that they can make the case that c) John McCain lost to an untested, unvetted Communist because the Press Didn't Do it's Homework and Failed The 'Merican People, because this narrative is easier for "The Base" (btw, doesn't Al'Qaeda mean "The Base", too?) to swallow than the truth;

The 'Merican people were desperate enough in November of 2008 to have elected a hobo with stinging halitosis, if one was on offer. Most people who have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot already know the Press is biased, but that's not why they chose Obama -- they chose him because they were Sick of War, because of the images and bitterness of Hurricane Katrina, because the country was in dire financial straits, because Republicans spent money like drunken sailors and defended homosexual airport Lotharios and child molesters (allegedly) making a mockery of it's "Family Values" and "Fiscally Responsible" brand labels. And the best the Republican Party could do to respond to these issues was to stand a 70+ year old Cold Warrior -- who's only claim to fame besides being a POW and getting tortured in a war that we lost -- was that he was also the man who led the biggest assault of free speech in American history (Campaign Finance Reform), has flip-flopped on immigration so often it's hard to know just which side of the fence (literally!) he's on from day-to-day, who selected a running mate so ill-prepared she couldn't even outthink Katie-goddamned-Couric --no freaking Einstein, there. Not to mention that "I'm-suspending-my-campaign-so-that-I-can-vote-against-a-bailout- I-still-wound-up-voting-for-two-days-later-anyway" stunt a week before the actual vote.

They Public didn't need the Press to help them fuck this one up; John McCain and the Republican Party made it easy for them to make a bad choice. In this light, Journolist isn't so much a tool of evil Leftards as much as it is a coffee clatch for perpetually-menstrual douchebags who could otherwise be safely ignored, and who's only power is that which you give them.

5. Alex Rodriguez and Home Run Number 600...
As I write this, I don't know whether he's hit it or not, and I really don't give a shit; Baseball's most sacred record has been tainted by cheaters and drug addicts, and now every milestone homer means absolute jack shit.

Babe Ruth is rolling over in his grave, and Hank Aaron must weep with the pain every goddamned day.

But this is NewYork City, and Alex Rodriguez is a New York Yankee. Yankee fans, incidentally, happen to be the biggest tools in this Solar System. They are insufferable, and they are remarkably fair-weather; today's walk-off home-run hero is tomorrow's trade bait because he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout the next day...and every one of them will tell you they KNEW the bum was no good five years before he made the team.

They are a breed of severely brain-damaged mouthbreathers who haven't discovered that:

a) they play in a league where pitchers don't hit. Real baseball leagues make pitchers hit.

b) they play in a stadium in which the right field fence is within spitting distance of home plate, turning every left-handed pop-up hitter into Ruth, Mantle and Maris,and turning legitimate lefty hitters into absolute gods.

The only reason the New York Yankees are making a big deal out of Alex Rodriguez and 600 is that they hope to replay the game,. and the moment, for the next 100 years on the YES Network,which is pretty much all Yankees 24/7/365.

Alex Rodriguez CHEATED. He is NOT to be celebrated.

6. BP...again...
Okay, so you finally plugged the fucking hole, and then we find out you're getting terrorists freed for"humanitarian reasons" which somehow result in BP getting major drilling contracts in Libya. Sit by the phone long enough, and Usama Bin Laden just might surrender to BP so he can spend a few years in a cushy English prison, then get released for an ingrown toenail.

Here's the solution: the Obamatards have pretty much already signed BP's death warrant, having extorted $20 billion and threatening lawsuits from now until St. Swiven's Day, so let's finish the job, shall we? Nuke Libya.

If Megrahi (the terrorist in question) only had "three months to live" according to the doctor who accepted the bribe that got him out of prison, then let's help him keep to that schedule, and while we're at it, we can make sure that BP doesn't profit, the corrupt Scottish and English government individuals/organizations that helped see this happen don't get to profit, and Moammar Khadaffy gets to see his Prophet ASAP.

Remember when Khadaffy actually went to George Bush on bended knee, begging for forgiveness and demanding the West dismantle his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, and offering his oil contracts to American companies, with no requests to release convicted terrorists in return?

On Hiatus...

I was very busy for the last week and a half, and thus, had little-to-no time to blog.

So sue me.

Anyways, it was all a very worthwhile investment of my time, and as a thing or two begins to pan out in future, I just might share the juicy secrets of what I was doing, and where I was doing it.

But not yet!

In any case, I'm now back to torment you and spew bullshit across the Internet. Enjoy!