BREAKING: Barack Obama to Seek Re-Election

President Barack Obama formally announced today that he would be seeking re-election in November. Thus ends months, even years of speculation as to his intentions. He kicked off his official campaign in the battleground states of Ohio and Virginia, on the trail to visit all 57 of our great states.

Tide Detergent is the Street’s Gold Standard Currency

I tried to pay the guy who mows my lawn with five 100-ounce bottles of Era laundry detergent, and he looked at me like I had three heads or something.  “Era?” he gasped, “don’t you know only Tide in its trademarked orange bottle can be used in lieu of currency these days?”.  Oh, sorry,  my bad. I apologized and wrote him a check.

You can’t buy your drugs with Era, or generic laundry detergent, either.  Only Tide will do; it is a brand name that is respected by shoplifters and street currency purveyors nationwide.  A wave of Tide theft has swept over the country, though I find it hard to believe that it is easy to stroll out of a store with a cart full of bright orange 100-ounce bottles.  From coast to coast, retailers are under assault from thieves stealing, of all things, Tide detergent.  Laundry detergent is expensive (up to $20 for a large bottle), and “everybody needs it”, so it stands to reason that Tide detergent has emerged as a popular street currency.  Police and retailers are quick to point out that there aren’t serial numbers on bottles of detergent, so it is hard to track stolen items. I think it isn’t hard to track down a guy running through the parking lot with a cart full of detergent.

Maybe the folks stealing the detergent don’t realize that “currency” is generally a portable medium of exchange.  If you need a grocery cart full of plastic bottles to pay your bookie or drug dealer, you’ll be awfully conspicuous walking down the street with all that detergent and no laundry, won’t you?  Apparently, one 100-ounce bottle is equal to about five bucks, which is on average a 75% discount from the retail price of the detergent.  I guess if you stole the Tide, a deep discount like that is tolerable.  Who knew black market participants were so picky about their laundry detergent, and are so fastidious about their clothes?

These are tough times, so only steal the best – steal Tide – accepted by under-the-table service providers, drug dealers, bookies, and maybe even prostitutes everywhere.  Tide is the new American Express, without all the portability and convenience. I sense an ad campaign in there somewhere.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Found on Facebook today

Victims of Communism Day

Today is May 1st, and instead of “Occupying” something and whining that I don’t have a Porsche and free birth control and a pony, while attending a swank Ivy League school, or some other loathsome pursuit, I chose to read today’s Volokh Conspiracy.  Since 2007, they have been commemorating the victims of brutal Communist regimes worldwide, not just in Russia or China. Ilya Somin wrote, in 2007:

The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so.

And so I remember, hoping the fools “protesting”about everything they want but don’t have, using hollow communist slogans to feel smarter than everyone else under the guise of “fairness”, will someday soon get a clue.

Take Your Child to Work Day – China Edition

Brought to you by the geniuses at MotiFake – the ORIGINAL Demotivational Poster Community

Finance Wizards in the Senate Vote to Throw $11B to Post Office

The whiz-bang financial analysts of the United States Senate approved a measure that would give the Postal Service $11B (that’s Billion with a “B”), freeze most facilities closings that were planned to reduce costs, along with implementation of 5-day delivery. For the first time ever, I have to side with the Postmaster General on this issue:

“It is totally inappropriate in these economic times to keep unneeded facilities open. There is simply not enough mail in our system today,” the Postal Service’s board of governors said in a statement. “It is also inappropriate to delay the implementation of five-day delivery.”

This is coming from the guy who’s captain of the sinking ship, and throwing a life-preserver isn’t going to help this vessel - plugging holes and bailing is a better course. In fact, the Senate bill explicitly prohibits the USPS from making most of its cost-cutting measures for YEARS to come:

The Senate bill would halt the immediate closing of up to 252 mail-processing centers and 3,700 post offices, part of a postal cost-cutting plan to save some $6.5 billion a year. Donahoe previously said he would begin making cuts after May 15 if Congress didn’t act, warning that the agency could run out of money this fall.

The measure would save about half the mail processing centers the Postal Service wants to close, from 252 to 125, allowing more areas to maintain overnight first-class mail delivery for at least three more years. It also would bar any shutdowns before the November elections, protect rural post offices for at least a year, give affected communities new avenues to appeal closing decisions and forbid cuts to Saturday delivery for two years.

Got that?  The Senate wants to spend $11B this year to prevent the USPS from saving at least $6.5B every year, and start paring down its operation.  Since the Post Office is a creation of the Legislature, they require its authority to do anything, even save money.  Where the hell does this $11B come from, anyway?  The USPS reminds us on its website that

The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. We are required by law to cover our costs.

Unless Congress says so. I smell election-year hijinks and 500,000 solid Democratic votes.  There are a nice bunch of Postal employees in swing states  according to workforce size by state listings. California, New York, and Texas are the states with the largest postal workforce, but filling in behind is : #4 Florida: 32,000, #6 Pennsylvania 27,600, #7 Ohio: 22,300, : #10 North Carolina 15,200 ,and  #12: Virginia 15,300. Interesting. It remains to be seen what the House of Representatives does with this next.

UPDATE: Starbucks Drops the Bugs!!

After facing withering pressure from the vegetarian/vegan/kosher/halal/PETA/Bug-Loving segment of its client base, and reported here,  Starbucks has dropped the cochineal bug extract from its red-colored foods. Now a tomato-based extract will be used. Strawberry Frappuccinos will now cost $9.00 a pop. Hooray!

Lawmaking Priorities in the U.S. versus the Middle East

Here in the United States, we keep reading about the stupid things our elected representatives choose to spend time on. For example, this week we have proposals  for the following rules and legislation:

Not allowing children of farmers to work on, well, farms.

The wise people of Concord, MA voted to ban the sale of water in plastic bottles (one liter or less in size).  We’ll have to wait for the outcome of the Kitty Leash Law question until their Town Meeting.

Removing all references to the word “lunatic” in the U.S. Code (after making sure it won’t actually change a law or anything).  It seems it is found in “at least one place”.  And it is hurtful and insensitive.  The other words found in Title 1 Chapter one are apparently ok: “”the words ‘insane’ and ‘insane person’ and ‘lunatic’ shall include every idiot, lunatic, insane person, and person non compos mentis.” Much better! Thank you Reps. Conrad (D-N.D.) and Crapo (R-Idaho).

South Greensburg, PA now limits its residents to only two yard sales per year.  And you have to get a permit.  This is especially ominous now that warm weather has arrived!

Sounds silly, yes?  But it turns out that our brothers and sisters in the Middle East really take it to the next level:

In Egypt, Parliament has introduced a bill giving husbands the legal right to have intercourse with their dead wives for up to six hours after death.  It is called “farewell intercourse”.  How sweet. I am sure the man who would like to have sex with his dead wife was a real prince while she was alive!

In Saudi Arabia, schools and universities have been instructed not to admit gays and tomboys, unless the behavior is corrected. Why should they be any different?  Girls still cannot play sports in school, and women can’t drive.  It’s all part of the plan. Yawn.

What conclusions can we draw?  Well, our government is full of boneheads that spend time and resources on stupid-ass things (infuriating) that don’t warrant legislation or rule.  I call it “legislating stupidity”. Governments in other parts of the world are truly off their freaking rockers.  Consider ourselves lucky?

Women are Bitches – to Each Other

Democratic Adviser Hillary Rosen opened the angry-mommy floodgates this week by arguing that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life”, so she should not opine on economic matters.  She could have said that the Romneys have never dealt with financial hardship, so they cannot relate to Americans that are in dire financial straits, and that would have been a factual observation. But instead, she said what many liberals (to include liberal women) believe: that choosing to stay home and raise your children is an under-utilization of your skills and intelligence, and a cop-out to accepting real-world responsibility.  This was just another slap at traditional American family life, delivered by a person very close to the White House.  Ms. Rosen dug herself deeper when she “apologized” for coming off badly, but she kind of flubbed that, and I think she said exactly what she wanted to say.  Now the Democrats are running for cover to distance themselves.  But the message was delivered.  And received.

Ann Romney never had to get a job and just stayed home with her kids = Bad!

Sarah Palin was governor of a state and ran as Vice President and did not stay at home with her kids = Bad! Very, very bad!

Hillary Clinton famously commented that “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life” = You go, girl!

Today’s feminism is not about supporting women in their almost limitless choices in this day and age, or about ensuring equal opportunities for women, or supporting women’s rights worldwide (cue the crickets on the liberal response to women’s rights worldwide).  Today’s feminism is about women applying a different set of standards to other women, depending on which side of the aisle they sit on.  And the bottom line to all of this unprincipled posing, posturing, and judging is abortion.  It seems that the unfettered right to abortion is the modern woman’s Holy Grail, and it must not be threatened in any way.  Are we seriously so “evolved” that this is the single most important issue in our lives? What does that say about us as women, if the most important issue in our lives is the ability to end one?

We do not have to agree with each others’ choices, but we must respect and support them.  To be used by politicians to apply a double standard to different women makes Ms. Rosen and her ilk unprincipled whores, plain and simple.  And I respect their decision to be whores - tools of men in power, but I certainly do not agree with their choice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get out of my bubble bath, stop eating my bon-bons, and get to library duty at my kids’ elementary school.

“Albino Rhino” Beer Name Offensive

First let me  point out the humor at seeing a Canadian news story that includes the words ”beer” and “complaint” but has nothing to do with running out of said “beer”.  Anyway,  a patron of Earl’s Restaurant chain finds the name of one of their beers – Albino Rhino – a violation of her human rights. She says that the name

“demeans her and other albinos by deliberately evoking a sense of oddness about the condition”

The complainant is Nigerian-born, where albinos are targets of ritualistic murder or rape. Jeez – a quick google search suggests that there has never been a ritual murder or rape of an albino person in Canada. Here are some other beers that might elicit charges of human rights violations in Canada:

 Blind Pig IPA - oh, really funny – blind pigs? Aren’t we cruel enough to pigs already?

Rabbid Rabbit - Getting all those shots is not humorous. There’s no cure for rabies.

Fat Cat Red Ale – Obesity is a global epidemic. Not cool; it’s not even a light beer.

Scratchin’ Hippo – Lots of people have skin conditions. So hurtful.

 Cougar Bait Beer- well, this isn’t about actual cougars, you know, but ladies who fancy themselves “cougars” might be ticked off at any insinuation here.

Syphilitic Camel – just kidding, there is no such beer (but there should be); this is a shout out to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

Perhaps if someone brewed up a batch of “Thin-Skinned Ass” they would have reason to bawl about it, but until then, Albino Rhino and the others are  just kinds of  beer (which you don’t have to actually purchase and/or consume)!