24
Aug
Libya’s a fun thing to watch. Even as the rebels stormed the Qaddafi compound, Qaddafi himself was still sending out the message to attack the devils and traitors. This all reminded me of the last days of Saddam Hussein. More importantly, it reminded me of something else:
This is Tom Vilsack:
This guy is exactly what’s wrong with the federal government today. He is the Agriculture Secretary. He is in charge of the food stamp programs. That includes WIC too. Now, he saw this data:
That is the number of people on food stamps. It has basically increased every single month since Tom Vilsack has been the Agriculture Secretary. This is his take on that data:
“The reason why these number have gone up is that we’ve done a pretty good job of working with states that had done a poor job in the past in getting the word out about this program,” he told MSNBC. “We’re now working with them to make sure that people who are eligible get the benefits.”
My take’s a little different:
See that spike right at the beginning of Obama/Vilsack’s term? That’s about 25% or so. I’m going to bet everyone of those people wound up on Vilsack’s tab.
Only in DC can someone look at a sharp increase of people living in poverty and not only call it a success, but actually try to credit for it.
However, I don’t think most people are going to give Vilsack credit for the horrid shape of the current economy.
16
Aug
Gene Simmons, you know the guy:
He just tweeted me this:
Seems kinda sure about that.
Osama Bin Laden lived in peace and completely unfettered there for a decade. Our helicopter that got shot down going after Bin Laden was given access to the Chinese. They have terrorists a few hours from Islamabad. They sometimes like us, they sometimes don’t. And, they have nukes.
We are currently on target to give them $1.2 billion in aide this fiscal year.
I think we should start balancing our budget by cutting off Pakistan until they agree to our terms.
15
Aug
Took the boy to see Glee in 3D yesterday. The filming was amazing. The clarity was unreal. When people obstructed the screen in the movie, it really looked like they were there in the theater so much that it actually annoyed me a few time.
However, this movie review is here instead of Moonagewebdream for a reason that has nothing to do with how well the movie was filmed. It has a very important message.
Everyone is special.
No matter what your “problem” is, you’re special.
But then it took a quizzical turn:
The “special” kid hopped up and danced. That really bugged me on a whole bunch of levels. Although the character sold himself that he was “special” because he wore glasses, there’s really nothing special about being a “four eyes”. I’ve been one most all of my life. No one’s ever taunted me about wearing glasses. I’ve also been about half deaf most of my life. That HAS been a source of ridicule and bad attitudes. However, unlike faking being in a wheelchair or choosing to wear glasses instead of contacts, deafness isn’t something you can choose to turn on or off. If you want to look cool, you don’t hear anything. You want to hear stuff, you wear hearing aids. It’s not an option. Thinking for one second kids are running about faking deafness just for attention would really, really, piss me off. Everyone in a wheelchair dreams of just jumping up and dancing, but they can’t. That scene has to hurt.
Secondly, it sends out the message that in order to be “special”, there HAS to be something wrong with you. Nothing is more wrong than that. ”Special” to me has nothing to do with your body, it has everything with attitude. In this movie people were special because they were short, handicapped, or gay. I say that because even the “normal” girl had problems:
She was so sure her boobs were so fabulous that 3D couldn’t really handle them. And of course, there’s the Barbra Streisand wannabe. There was some performers that were probably fubar as well but seemed normal, but they didn’t expand on them very much. For the sake of this post’s argument, we’d assume they were fubar in some way because they are in this movie. Arrogance seems to be “special” in this movie too, so we can assume that’s it.
I think the message was supposed to be that “special” people are “normal” too, but that’s not the way they package it. They dwelt on two kids that were gay, one who was short, and one who I suppose had mental issues. But, the way comes across is that they think in order to be “special” there has to be something unique about them. That’s not a good message. Kids have a hard enough time finding their role in society without needing more pressure to be “special”. They need to be encouraged to just be themselves. Not everyone will be a gay rock star. Not everyone should feel they need to be a gay rock star in order to be “special”.
I would have worried a lot more the impact this movie was having on my kid, who is hearing-impaired not by choice and wears hearing aids that any other kid can see, if it weren’t for one very obvious issue with the movie:
The movie is very, very, boring. 30 minutes into the movie he crashed. Hard. Whatever message might have been intended for the G rated movie on this kid was lost.
I’m glad about that too.
The intent of Glee is admirable. It’s just piss-poorly thought out. Although I have no experience watching the tv show, the movie, without having any reference, is very boring. No thumbs. I know Moonlet will not be asking to see it again.
I’m sure if you’re a Glee fan the movie is much more enjoyable.
Now, the big question:
11
Aug
This is the Italian imported Pagani Huarya:
This car features 700 horsepower It will go from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds. In other words, it will hit 60 faster than you can read this sentence. It will go so fast, so suddenly, and so hard, that it has air brakes to help slow the thing down. It will cruise at 220 mph. It is so expensive that a good year for Pagani will be if they sell 20. They had hoped to sell five in the US.
That won’t happen. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has banned the Huarya in the United States because, get this, inadequate air bags. The logic being that, well, there is no logic. Air bags I’m sure are pretty much completely ineffective at 220 miles per hour. Haven’t researched that personally, call it a hunch.
Now, this is where it gets fun for me and why I love living in the land of the free.
There is a possible loophole for Pagani that I alone have discovered.
Proposed policy 49 CFR Part 595, among other things, states:
The ADA argued that it is no more feasible for modifiers to comply with the advanced air bag requirements than the “existing air bag requirements,” which are currently exempted. Petitioners argued that maintaining compliance with the advanced air bag requirements would require modifiers to reinstall, modify, or design complex components of the air bag system….
Basically, what it was arguing, was that since previous manufacturers did not have to meet the air bag standards, the Petitioners were put in an unfair disadvantage by having to do so.
All Pagani has to do in the United States is argue they are a mobility device for handicapped persons and merit the same standards as Lamborghini and Tesla. There ya go. Problem solved.
Or, most likely, sue the NHTSA for discriminating in favor of Lamborghini and Tesla. I would love to sit in on the meeting when Pagani and the NHTSA argue over the safety merits of air bags in a car that’s going 150 miles an hour faster than any speed limit in the US.
Love an inopportune headline. The message is obvious. Due to the inferred agreement between the House and Senate, the debt ceiling has been raised, ending the speculation that the United States might default on its loans.
Only problem is, the rally didn’t last, so the headline looks kinda stupid. And, it was from the onset for several reasons.
First of all, markets don’t react according to what MIGHT happen, they react to what they know WILL happen. They KNEW the US would not default on the loans even though a lot of media, and the President, were saying it would. So, this agreement doesn’t remove a peril the markets KNEW was never real. What it was looking for was the solution to the debt ceiling crisis, not the crisis itself. What it got was a mixed bag. Debt ceiling is increased, good for the markets. It has budget cuts built in, bad for the markets. It has triggers to cut the military, bad for the markets. It has triggers built to cut Medicare. Bad for the markets.
And, as of this post, it does NOT have an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Bad for the markets. Bottom line, there is nothing good about this situation other than the fear mongering by the Democrats, social service industries, and the gold market, should be eliminated and money should in general go into the markets a little more than they were. Only those that bet financially that Obama and Harry Reid were telling the truth would have pulled theirs out up to this point.
