The Anticipation is Killing Me...

I hate waiting. I am the most impatient man, I think, the world has ever known. Particularly when it comes to having to wait in order to rid myself of a nuisance.

Why is it that time flies when we're having fun, but absolutely crawls when it comes to getting rid of  bad presidents?

This agonizing wait is reminiscent of those days of early childhood, when Christmas couldn't come soon enough, and when an afternoon was sometimes spent in anticipation of a visit from the Ice Cream truck. The bells and tinny music would be audible for miles before the truck actually arrived, and you wondered if the truck would ever get here so that you could buy your Bomb Pop and a Yoo-Hoo

This is What Recovery Looks Like...

Obama Demonstrates Reverse Midas Touch, and Turns Everything into Shit.

Boy, I'm sure these folks are happy to be a knock-on recipient of that durned Stimulus Bill! This gives new meaning to the term "Trickle Down Economics", huh?

Memo To The Obamas...

It is usually customary to do some work before one (or is it The One?) takes a Vacation....Again.

The First Family is about to take another vacation -- be fair: they've only had about three or four this summer, you understand -- but this is a quick 27-hour one, in Florida, and part of a program of "mini-vacations" that are, apparently, the precursor to the Obama family -- finally -- taking the training wheels off and going for the gusto...with a vacation in Martha's Vineyard...for another 10 days.

All the proof you ever needed that Barack Obama was never prepared to be President is all the time he spends NOT being President. Every day, with every new vacation, celeb-filled date night or golf outing , he simply reinforces the negative stereotype that black men avoid work like the plague, but show no shame in picking up the paycheck...or enjoying the perks.

Yeah, I said it; come after me you fucking obnoxious race-baiting hate-mailers! Let the anonymous threats fly, you pansies!

Air Force One has probably spewed more carbon into the atmospshere in the last 18 months than all Presidential conveyances in American history combined. One wonders why the Greenie Meanines aren't all over his (half-)black ass about this utter disregard for Mother Gaia?

Let Them Eat Beets!

Have you ever been to Spain? I have. Lovely country. Ever been to Marbella? Supposed to be one of the most fantastic beaches in all of the Mediterranean. Personally, I prefer Barcelona, but that's just me.

Have you ever been to Marbella, Spain, taken an entourage that required 60 hotel rooms and Secret Service protection, a government airplane, all for your seventh or eighth vacation in less than six months, at the height of the summer season, and had the tab picked up by a combination of the American taxpayer and sycophantic douchebags who think they're buying political favors?

No? Never happened to you before in your life, you say?

That's probably because you're not Michelle Antoinette...err...Obama.

To be fair, she's not the first First Lady to take advantage of one of the perks of the office, and being able to spend other people's money mindlessly and with no sense of shame -- that's a disease that everyone in Washington has these days. Hillary Clinton did the World Tour bullshit when she was First Lady. She toured Africa (where they told her that all that stuff about it"taking a village" to raise a child was just a bit of quaint bullshit they just told the tourists),and India, where the red spot she put on her forehead for the photo ops wasn't just for show: it was an indication of her politics.

While the First Family gallivants around Martha's Vineyard and Spain, while the President plays more golf than Tiger Woods (and these days, apparently better than Tiger. All that practice is paying off!). When Il Doofay isn't taking staged-before-a-paid-off-audience victory laps for things he hasn't done, or driving a Chevy Volt a whole five feet -- a microcosm of the Obama Presidency if ever there was one; a car no one wants, at a price no one can afford, with a power source produced in a foreign country, made solely for the benefit of Coastal elites who want and need a visible sign of their devotion to the tenets of a bullshit-disguised-as-science-insanity -- his wife is pretty much doing the same.

It is a fascinating development, I think, that in the last few weeks, that we're seeing Michelle Obama an awful lot. It tells you that the Chosen One is probably taking an awful lot of heat for his lackluster performance, and that SOMEONE had to be trotted out to draw attention away from the so-called "Recovery Summer" disaster, and Joe Biden just wasn't cutting it anymore (probably because everyone already knows he's a lying sack of dogsqueeze, and so pay him no mind).

So, Obama does what he always does when he needs something to deflect attention from his own shortcomings and failures: he throws someone under the bus. This time, it's his wife, and she's probably willing to make this sacrifice -- after all, it's not as if she's actually proud to be an American or anything,and so doesn't seethings in quite the same way as the rest of us do. In her mind, all this vacationing and opulence is probably just her form of reparations.

All of a sudden, Michelle emerges from the fake vegetable garden to "advocate" -- to the tune of $4 billion dollars -- for healthier food in public schools (excuse me, but why aren't parents feeding their own damned kids? Oh, right...only the non-Taxpaying ones aren't), or to show her own obviously-expanding waistline while calling for the American people to eat healthier, or extolling the virtues of beets to CBS news, who apparently couldn't find anything else to cover that day.

Why not send the Mrs. --fresh off yet another round of vacations -- to Europe, send enough people to fill a five-star hotel with her, give the whole trip a semi-diplomatic shine, and start an argument about who's paying for it, just so people will stop talking about those annoying and niggling (OMG! Oh no you didn't) details that haunt Obama's every waking hour; you know, things like Unemployment Numbers, Illegal Immigration, Health Care plans that can't be paid for, and just the general lack of competence that simply oozes out of the walls of the Oval Office.

The need for such manufactured scandal is even more critical when you own both Houses of Congress, can't get anything passed by Congrescritters worried about keeping their jobs, and have to pretend that it's "obstructionist Republicans" that are keeping your agenda in check. That may work with minority voters who are too stupid to count, and your loyal fellow-travelers who can't be bothered to for political reasons, but it doesn't fly with everyone else anymore. The old tricks and rhetoric are all worn out; they're too familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt. You need to do something that gets people thinking about something other than what a nimrod you are as President.

And that's where this White House is oh-so-predictable, and oh-so-easy-to-read; when things go badly, start a minor scandal -- and then try to sell it as your opposition trying to "distract" The People from the"vital business" of the government...like the current plans to figure out how to put 12million Illegal Aliens on the voter rolls while making look as if you're NOT putting 12 million Illegal Aliens on the voter rolls, and advancing socialism as "saving the economy". Bill Clinton did this pretty much all the time Until it caught up with him, of course).

The difference was that Clinton's Arkansas Mafia was a large operation, with plenty of Friends of Bill available to fall on swords. Obama doesn't have that luxury. He had Reverend Wright, his White Grandmother and Van Jones, and now, the only one left to commit (figurative) suicide on his behalf before the American People is Michelle. Barack Obama ran out of Kamikazes right quick, didn't he?

And as long as she's going to make that sacrifice, she might as well do it in a Five-Star Spanish resort, complete with a Royal Visit, right?

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.

Recovery Summer, Part II...

Sec. of State Hitlery says the U.S. should emulate Brazil, and raise taxes on everything and everyone, but especially -- "the rich"-- to astronomical levels, because, well....Brazil did it, and they're "growing like crazy!"

Of course, she fails to notice that Brazil is mostly a shithole, except for the places where the really smart set goes. That's the thing about these "amazing" economic miracles (Brazil, China, Indonesia, India); there's lots of glitter and lights, but it somehow manages to escape the VIP's attention that the rest of the country lives in cardboard boxes, eats grubs and lives up to it's waist in shit. Brazil is "growing like crazy" because most of the country is so fucking poor and underdeveloped, that in most areas, the installation of a pay phone or a vending machine represents 1,000% economic growth. In other words -- there was no place to go but UP. The numbers don't tell the entire story; even with this wildfire growth, maybe half the people in Sao Paulo alone will probably go to bed hungry tonight -- still.

The same argument is made about wildcat Chinese economic growth, but again, the story is the same: 7/8 of China still lives in the same grinding conditions of poverty that would be all-to-familiar to the truly poor, starving and dying-of-malaria all over the planet. The Big Cities may be showing the signs of new commerce; McDonald's, a Citibank branch, The Gap, skyscrapers-going-up-to-house-mostly-foreign-companies, but the vast hinterland hasn't advanced an inch in 50, or even, 100 years.

Now, mind you, the Hildebeest is supposed to be The Smartest Woman in the World, but it's statements like this that make you want to saw the top of her head off just see if there's anything between those ears. Or, maybe she was just playing politics, and making the disingenuous case for those who can't think without help that if you look at Brazil and see rising tax rates on "the Rich", and a booming economy, it validates everything Barack Oshithead is doing...so long as you avoid asking the obvious questions.

Here's what Her Heinous' case runs up against;

* While the Unemployment rate is "Officially" 9.7%....unofficially, it's closer to 17%.

* The Vice President of the United States can feel totally unashamed -- and curiously unconcerned about his personal safety -- and admit that 8,000,000 lost jobs are "never coming back".

* The President of the United States promises to "create or save" 3,000,000 jobs..and loses an additional 5,000,000 million in just under two years. He's nearly-nationalized the banks/brokerage houses, berates and threatens them with new taxes and regulations on a daily basis, forces them to re-write millions of mortgages for bad credit risks, castigates them in every speech making them out to be the biggest evil since The Huns....and then wants to know why no one is lending money and there's a Credit Crisis. That's AFTER he's already taken $787 billion out of the credit markets with a"Stimulus" which hasn't worked, "Reformed" the financial markets in Hitlerian fashion, and is talking about making Energy unaffordable with a Cap-and-Trade bill. All of that's even before we get to the VAT taxes necessary to pay for "Healthcare reform"...which now turns out to be more expensive than anyone ever imagined, and can't ever be paid for.

* The National Debt stands at nearly $13 trillion dollars -- before interest. This is almost equal to all American economic output for one calendar year. With interest payments, we're looking at debt in the hundreds of trillions if Obama gets his way on a long list of democratic "priorities".

The point is this: at this rate, there won't be ANYONE left to tax, let alone The Rich.

The Smartest Woman in the World is a lying dipshit who should get her fat, lying ass back in the kitchen. If there's anyone who should be wrapped in a burqua and beaten daily, it's Hillary Clinton, for sure. Especially when she makes asinine remarks about taxing other people (because I have every confidence that multi-millionaire Clintons will somehow mysteriously manage to skate on most of the taxes they advocate for others. It's funny how that happens, isn't it?).

I can promise you that while she stands before cameras and says this shit in order to seem "a team player", the woman is sharpening her knife(and fangs) as we speak. Barack Obama, you is about to get Arkancided come 2012...assuming you don't find yourself lying in state before then.

Recovery Summer?

I really hate to rain on anyone's parade (well...not really. I actually enjoy pissing on other people's parades, just to see them freak), but this "Recovery Summer Tour 2010" nonsense is a load of unadulterated bovine scatological matter.

You can tell because, well...they sent Joe Biden out to bang the drum for it, and he winds up telling the truth in that Biden-esque way that could be the basis of a hit sitcom on NBC. We're somehow supposed to believe the Enlightened Economic Policies of Barack Obama (you know, the ones the Euros just pissed all over at the 'G20 Summit'?) are about to unleash a cornucopia of unrivalled economic prosperity on the American People; the train's a-comin'. We can see the headlight. We can hear the rattle of the tracks. Just you wait. Any day now. Any day now...

So, here's Joe telling us that the Obamatards "saved the banking system" and"stabilized the economy" with a Stimulus Bill in which 96% of the funds allocated (borrowed) haven't been spent, and the Nationalization-in-all-but-name of the biggest banks, insurance firms, and auto manufacturers, and then...it happened.

It always happens with Joe. There are four things you can count on in life; death, taxes, Charles Schumer eventually killing a family of four in his mad rush to nasally drone in front of a television camera, and the premise that, if you follow Joe Biden around long enough with any sort of recording device, you will, eventually, get the whole truth despite Joe's best efforts to continue The Lie. In fact, follow him around long enough and you'll get a litany of truths.

The first truth was contained in the words"...those jobs are never coming back", in reference to the 8 million jobs lost since the beginning of this financial crisis. This was an administration that said it would have to have a $787 billion "stimulus" (which has been mostly geared, thus far, towards fattening the bank accounts of narrow democratic party constituencies ahead of the 2010 and 2012 elections) if it was "to keep unemployment at 8%". Well, it got that "Stimulus" (the first bill that no one read, or was that TARP? It's all become a blur)...

...And the Unemployment rate is closer to 10%, (closer to 17% real unemployment) and the Obamatards are comfortable with the fact that many of them are gone forever, while maintaining the fantasy that there's another batch of jobs just around the corner. You just have to believe in that Hopenchangin' magic, and poof! a Green job, or temporary Census Worker will just drop into your lap. Just you wait and see!

Well, there ain't no 8 million "Green Jobs" coming because Green Energy is a load of bullshit. Like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, The Flying Dutchman, and the Perpetual Motion Machine, the Green Energy Economy is largely a myth. More conventional industries are now under assault, or in the government's crosshairs; Big Oil garnered the wrong sort of attention when BP poisoned the Gulf of Mexico. Wall Street is about to be slapped with a new round of regulations-which-are-really-taxes that will probably hasten the destruction of many of the weaker-but-salvageable firms. Obamacare (the second bill that no one read) will nationalize, unionize and cost-control the medical profession back into the Middle Ages of bloodletting and leaches.

All of those industries are about to get socked to pay for penile implants for illegal immigrants, paying the UAW to continue voting democrat, saving a variety of obscure wildlife that stands in the way of progress and prosperity, and funding every stupid-ass-pie-in-the-sky-hippie-program that can spring from the fevered imaginations of Obama, Pelosi and Reid, unless they are either stripped of power, or assassinated (and no, that was NOT a request, just hyperbole. If you're thinking about killing anyone, please make it someone truly important...like Lady Gaga or Simon Cowell).

The second truth was revealed, in of all places, a custard shop in Wisconsin.

Joe stopped in for a tasty frozen treat, and got into a bit of banter with the shop manager, who decided that the opportunity to make a political statement while Joe was trying to make his own (after all, the Vice President rubbing elbows with the Peasants in front of cameras is supposed to be all about the Administration, not the People. Showing him up is considerd Bad Form, you know). When asked "How much do I owe you?" for the frozen treats, the manager intimated that if perhaps the Vice President could convince the Administration to lower taxes, the bill would be paid in full, Joe went into full menstrual fury mode.

As far as snits are concerned, this was a good one. Joe reminded me of an old girlfriend who always acquired the most disturbing personality traits whenever she was menstruating. There was the constipated visage; that intense look that could curdle milk, and perhaps separate oil and water, if it didn't set the oil aflame first. Then came the tightening, like a rope being wound around a windlass, complete with that Noise -- the one that sounds like straining and cracking wood that is produced as fingers are balled into a fist and the knuckles strain the flesh of the hand. Finally, there was the eye-rolling-looking-down-my-nose-at-you-contempt, the utter disdain for all living things, especially those who had decided that RIGHT FUCKING NOW was a good time to challenge a coiled rattlesnake. Yep, Joe looked exactly like Denise whenever Aunt Flo came to visit.

"Why do you have to be a wise-ass?" asked the Vice President. Or words to that effect. And therein was the nugget of truth; Joe Biden doesn't have to take guff and back-talk from the Peasants. How dare one of these people question the authority and actions of their Betters? How is it that such a lower life form can imagine that he knows more about economic and taxation matters than a President who spent nearly a whole year in the Senate? It is not Our (meaning we peasants) job to question, suggest, or to even remind Joe that he actually works for us, and that criticism comes with the job. No, Our job is to meekly knuckle under, and follow the dictates of a class of snobs which does everything ass-backwards, and turns everything it touches into a pile of gold-plated turds -- when it does anything at all -- and to shut up about it.

Take your ass rape like a man, Custard Shop Manager! Get with the program.

With apologies to the late General Stillwell, "Vinegar and Water" Joe (Biden) gave you all the proof you ever needed that we are being"led" (mostly astray) by a group of complete retards with extremely thin skin, and no tolerance for debate. They call themselves "liberals", but there's very little of the liberal about them. And they show it everytime you try to question their authority and actions: they run you out of Town Hall meetings (notice there don't seem to be any of those, anymore?), they criticize you for being a plodding clod if you watch or read anything they don't approve of, they call you a Nazi if you decide to join a Tea Party or hold a view that runs contrary to their requirements, and then they call you a wise-ass if you manage to get a bit of your own back at their expense.