Opening Day

Baseball season brings high hopes and low expectations. It is not easy being a Cubs fan.

Weekend Funny

I miss Johnny

If I was a reporter

...I would ask why only 5 million people have signed up for ObamaCare, when there are 40 million. 30 million, 16 million uninsured in the country? I would investigate why it is that of the 5 million who have obeyed the law and signed up at the exchanges by March 31, it is estimated that 4 million enrollees are people who lost their coverage due to ObamaCare. I would ask why only 1/16, at most, of the uninsured are now covered?

I would ask why the American taxpayer is on the hook for a $1.5 trillion dollar boondoggle to insure 5 million people? I would question the Democrats who designed this monstrosity how they can claim it is in any way affordable when the Affordable Care Act costs $300,000 to insure each sign-up?

If I was a reporter  I would tell my readers/viewers the truth: President Obama has gutted, pushed out, and changed the rules of the ACA far more than the leaders of the Republican Party desired and all in the name of helping fellow Democrats hide from the disaster that is my eponymous law until after the next election. 

Friday Music -- I gotta have one of those hats edition

I'm late getting to the old blog this morning. What say we hippy it up on this rainy and chill Friday morning?

I need one of those hats. Not want, need.

Please no

The idea of Clinton vs. Bush for President in 2016 scares me to no end.  I think America has had enough of both families to last a lifetime.

Since you are tired of my insane political rantings

Some days I think I fell through the looking glass into a bizzaro world. I think I am a modern Rip Van Winkle where America has turned exactly 67 degrees off course. Companies are in front of the Supreme Court arguing about the benefits they pay their employees. Russia invades neighboring countries and our President announces he is going to cut two of the most effective weapon systems we have, with no replacement alternative in the pipeline. The First Lady takes a vacation to China and refuses to allow the press to accompany her and the media is OK with that. We celebrate sustained unemployment levels of 7% or more as a "recovery". Gas prices have tripled, and the administration is refusing to allow new pipelines to be built.

The enemies of Israel proclaim they will never agree that Israel is a legitimate Jewish State, yet our Secretary of State argues it is Israel that is holding up the peace process.

Schools subject the kids to lunch inspection, and in some cases ban sack lunches from home. School kids are suspended for shaving their head in support of fellow students fighting cancer, and little boys are punished for being little boys and biting a pop tart into the shape of a gun. Imaginary bows shooting imaginary arrows are handled as if the miscreant had actually shot a fellow student. parents sue soccer leagues because their kid who is sadly confined in a wheelchair cannot compete with the active two-legged players.

I have been told about the dangers of mercury my whole life and through the vote of politicians I now have to replace perfectly functioning light bulbs in my house with mercury-filled bulbs that cost ten times more in the name of preventing Global Warming despite the fact that there has not been any warming for 17 years. The models are so inaccurate they cannot even predict the weather going back in time.

I think common sense has disappeared, a victim of political correctness and pure ignorance. I am so tired of tilting at windmills. I stand alone shaking my fist at hurricane-force winds of change I do not understand.

OMG Women are going to die -- fear mongering among the ignorant masses

The great slut women's rights advocate Sandra Fluck has spoken.  According to her near-hysterical rantings if Hobby Lobby wins their fight with ObamaCare, women will die, and women's rights will be set back to -- well 2008 standards.  You remember those horrid and evil days when companies determined what benefits they wanted to offer their employees?  Yes, women's rights will be set back 6 whole years.  Can she really be this clueless? As I said yesterday, win or lose, the Hobby Lobby decision will in no way impact a woman's access to birth control.

I will type that last sentence real slow so some of you progressives and Democrats can keep up:

Win or lose, the Hobby Lobby decision will in no way impact a woman's access to birth control.

Just because Hobby Lobby does not want to pay for it...

The owners of the retail chain Hobby Lobby have a religious and moral objection to paying for contraception and specifically pills that cause abortion. The rules of ObamaCare force the company to cover these products. The issue is now before the Supreme Court.

Earlier today radio news reports played audio of hysterical protesters outside the court claiming Hobby Lobby is endangering the protester's health. Get a grip, protest babes. Unless you work for Hobby Lobby,  their policies do not affect you at all. Second, the lawsuit does not deny anyone access to said products, it merely states that the company should not be forced to pay for them. Even if you work at Hobby Lobby, you can have all of the sex you desire, protected and unprotected, you can take the morning after pill, you can have an abortion. The costs will not be covered under your company-provided benefits.

 These bosses don’t agree with birth control, so they want to take away their employees’ birth-control coverage. That’s just plain offensive,” declares NARAL. “Women and families should determine what medications they need. Your birth control is not your boss’s business!” The group is also intending to bring the signatures of thousands that it has gathered online to show support for the birth control mandate. source

Indeed "[y]our birth control is not your bosses business". I think Hobby Lobby would agree.

No one is denied anything. Women will have the same rights to acquire and use contraception regardless of whether Hobby Lobby wins or loses. Yes, young lady, your body remains yours -- do with it what you will. You gotta pay to play, if you work at Hobby Lobby. No one is telling you that you can't, just the company will not pay for it. If you cannot grasp the difference you are either stupid, or willfully ignorant.

yawn

I stayed up late last night.  We were catching up some recorded shows on the DVR and it was 12:30 before I climbed into bed. For some reason I was awake at 5:30 this morning.  I tossed and turned until just before 6:00 and decided to get up.  I munched on some Cap'n Crunch and swilled some coffee while I watched the sun send the first orange rays across my backyard.

There is no light snow cover on the ground this morning as predicted by the weather watchers. There is that.

I had to reload a significant number of apps to my iPhone this morning. I deleted a bunch of stuff in order to free up enough memory to download the latest software update. I suppose I really need to eliminate some of the music, that is what is using most of the storage space. I don't want to. I like my copious music selections. Mick and the boys really did tell it like it is -- You can't always get what you want.

This post is a true double yawner -- one for me and my lack of sleep, one for you after reading this boring post.

I have questions

If the real concern over the HHS contraception mandate is protecting women's health and preventing unwanted pregnancies, why isn't the focus on abstinence? It is free and is 100% effective.

Weekend Funny

"I have no valid complaint against hustlers, no rational bitch, but the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes."  Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diaries

I never intended this to be a habit

Can you believe I have been publishing my shitty posts here for nine years?

I offer a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all of you who take the time to read and comment here, now and over the years.

#Ban descriptions

I thought the whole "Ban Bossy" thing was a one day news story.  Apparently it is a full-fledged movement among a segment of the population. Upon further reading it seems people are offended by the label "Bossy".  Seriously, don't we have some real issues to tackle in this nation?  Unemployment, taxes, the role of government, health care, terrorism, energy, education are all more important than a benign label. Are we at the point where a person is unable to describe another in any way?

On occasion my boss is well, Bossy. My wife and daughter are sometimes bossy. I am often bossy. I am also stubborn, opinionated and crass. Call the language police! If we are unable to describe a person by looks or by action the next generation of novels is going to be pretty boring.

He/she was a person. He/she contrasted sharply with the other person. He/she did or did not do some things that may be offensive to someone, somewhere. The End.

When did the Right To Not Be Offended enter into the Rights of Man?

Friday Music

Since yesterday was my birthday ( thanks for all of the gifts you cheap bastids) I am playing my favorite song today.



Oh wait, I guess I choose the music every Friday. Why am I doing all of the work around here?

What happens when you elect a guy president whose entire management experience was running a lemonade stand in his front yard in 1971?

In just two sentences the entire Obamacare debacle is articulated:

So Obamacare has resulted in higher costs, limited plans, restricted doctor options, a reduction of about 2.5 million full-time equivalent jobs and has failed to get the uninsured to actually sign up. If Obamacare isn’t a disaster, what does a disaster look like? source

52 times

If you have a steady hand you can balance an egg on its end at the equinox (12:57 pm EDT).  I bet you did not know that.

Blogpost jeopardy

Smooth Jif peanut butter and sugar-free apricot preserves on white Wonder bread, stale pretzels and a diet root beer.

Zippy title that draws your attention and makes you want to read more

I have a pounding headache this morning. Its epicenter is behind my right eye with pain waves spreading through my skull.  I think the root of my pain might be allergies signalling impending spring, the low pressure front that moved in overnight, or perhaps the general mendacity that permeates the Obama administration.

My current headache and usual morning snotfest brings to mind an important question that has bothered me for some time. Why is it necessary to have a special box to hide the tissues? Since the Kleenex and Puffs pop out of the slot in the top, everyone knows there are tissues hiding inside that decorative container. What is the point?

It is in the genes

In the early morning light yesterday morning I saw a hulking form come over the privacy fence in the back yard. It was a very large cat and it slunk along the fence line, behind the trees and sniffed under the evergreens. The big cat must have weighed more than 20 pounds. It climbed the fence and jumped away when I turned on the porch light. Later in the morning after the sun was fully up, I heard the cat growling under the spruce. Now I could see it was a big tom, tiger striped and it was after something, probably the bunny that lives under the tree.

I opened the patio door and the cat moved back unhurriedly along the fence and turning once more to glare in my direction, climbed the 6 feet of fence and leaped into the neighbor's back yard. A few moments later it scaled their fence and headed north.

He was back hunting in the early morning today. I have not seen the brute before this week. During the long weeks of snow cover this year, there were a plethora of rabbit tracks in the backyard, but no feline paw prints to be seen. I am not sure if this cat is new to the neighborhood, or has been shut up for the winter months, released to the wilds to hunt in the yet to arrive springtime warmth.

Happy St. Gertrude's Day

My calendar proclaims today is St.Patrick/s Day, or as my very Irish roommate used to call it, Amateur Night at the local bar. I suppose any gent who gets rid of snakes is worth celebrating. But for a variety of circumstances my own name might have been Patrick. My birth name is a long boring story (OK, I never really listened when my Mom went on about naming me something else).  I was not born on St. Joseph's day either. Since my family is heathen protestant from way back, the Saint's days did not figure into our names at birth. Too bad, some of the Saints who share my birthday are St. Benignus, St. Cuthbert, St. Tetricus, and St. Nicetus. If I ever have another kid, I am naming him Benignus. Maybe I should change the name of this blog to Breakfast with Benignus, or The Benignus Blog. or maybe The Cuthbert Chronicles. Dang, I finally come up with a catchy blog title nine years too late.

You know who really gets screwed over on March 17? St. Ambrose, that is who. And St. Gertrude. According to Catholic.org, "Gertrude was a mystic, gifted with visions. She befriended the Irish saints Foillian and Ultan. Gertrude is a patroness of travelers and gardeners". Gertrude was Irish, why aren't you swilling green beer in her honor today?  Today is St. Gertrude's day. Celebrate it.

At the moment I am not wearing green, though  I may put on a green T-Shirt later, or not, depending on my mood. I am wearing a faded and worn Cubs T-Shirt and jeans. I suspect that notion fails to rev the old motor of even one of my female readers, leave aside the fact I have not yet showered and my clothes probably smell faintly like the fried chicken I made for supper last night.

Logically illogical

Would any sane person argue that the Federal Income Tax is popular because almost every one fills out their 1040? Is obeying the speed limit proof we do not want to drive fast? Absurd right?

Then why would any sane person tout ObamaCare enrollment numbers as proof the program is a success? After all, failure to enroll results in a financial penalty and ultimately, if you refuse to pay your taxes, you go to prison. Liberals; you gotta love their logic. By their reasoning  I must love turds, since I tale a shit every day.

The willow is whipping the siding

Here we are on a windy, cold Sunday morning. The coffee is hot, classic rock is playing in the background. I have not posted anything for a while and I sit here staring at the cursor. The steady strobe of that little flashing SOB mocks me.

I left home last Sunday morning to do a trade show. If you have ever worked a trade show you know convention halls invoke some weird time warp where clocks only run at a fraction of the speed of normal time. You think you have stood there smiling for two hours only to look at the clock and see that a slow twenty minutes has passed.

I returned home Wednesday night, just in time to kiss the wife, eat some dinner, and sleep. I got up Thursday morning, answered some emails, packed and jumped on a jet plane for North Carolina. I stumbled back home to battle rush hour traffic (welcome to the North Side, Joe) around dinner time Friday.  From Sunday morning until Friday evening I spent about 15 hours at home. Not quite half of those were spent sleeping.

Tell me again how you wish you had my job. I am bitching, but I do generally like my work. This was an unusual week for me to be on the road so much. A decade ago this was a typical week. I had little kids at home then. That really sucked. Now it is the wife and she is used to me spending the nights in a hotel. After I spend the whole of this week in the office, she will be subtly asking if I have somewhere to go. After all, those hotel and airline points are about to get her a very nice anniversary trip in a few months.

I hope your week was good. I think I am going to go watch Rocky. You do not need an IMDB link to Rocky do you?

Friday Music

)

Seeing the live bands in Nashville reminded me of my youth when local bands could make a living playing in bars and dances. This band was a staple in my hometown and in Central Indiana back in the 1970's. Unfortunately, fame eluded them. Listen anyway, you just might like it.

Here is a bonus clip.

)

He's Alive

Tick Tock, like the March Hare I am in a hurry. More traveling to do yet this week. So far I have spent about 15 hours at home since early Sunday morning.

I will say this, if you have never spent time in downtown Nashville, TN you are missing out.  It is a fun town. Nashville is clean and when I was there seemed a very nice and safe place. Broadway and its branch streets is lined with bars and honky tonks and restaurants, most playing live music (not all of it country).

As far as news, or politics, or anything else...well you are going to have to wait.

Here is a canned post for a Tuesday Morning

Yes, a canned post containing Canned Heat. A nice symmetry there, or what? Especially since the song embodies the very reason I am providing you with canned, rather than fresh content. Circles within circles within circles...

You can't see my face, but trust me when I tell you I am half-frowning today

I probably should post something. Inattention to the old blog will lose my last three readers. I have spent the weekend doing stuff around the house.  I painted the master bath. That leaves the laundry room as the last yet-to-be-painted room. I thought the bath was the last room, but the wife informed me I was wrong. So was my response to the need to paint an f-ing laundry room. I also hung three new light fixtures. Two went well, one was a real bitch.

This week is going to be busy work-wise.  Posting my be light to nonexistent. I am pretty sure you will survive the trauma of stopping here and finding nothing new to get you through the day. But then I may post multiple times every day. One never knows. I would bet on few scribblings were I a betting man. But then I would be betting on whether or not I completed a certain task or tasks, and since I control my own actions it would be a sure win should I bet. I don't think the bookies would go for that. I am not a gambling man anyway.

Have a great day.

Friday Music

It is supposed to get to more spring-like temperatures around here, so I offer up a 'Spring" song for your entertainment.

Here is Dino's version:



That Cole Porter could spin a tune. Which version do you dig?

I'm confused

If, as Harry Reid maintains, the stories of dropped insurance coverage and increased costs to individuals because of ObamaCare are all lies, why does the administration keep moving out the implementation dates? If ObamaCare is not hurting anyone, why do we need to keep pushing out the law until after key elections?

Funny, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were roundly criticized by Obama and Sebelius for suggesting the implementation dates should be delayed. "No way, no how" was the Democrat response to the Republican filibuster.  Now, Obama has changed the law via fiat and we do not hear a chirpity chirp from hypocritical, Democrats.

Five Million

From 1929 to 1933 more than 5 million Ukrainians died at the hands of their Russian masters. Stalin was determined to bring the independent farmers and the mostly rural population of the Ukraine to heel. Stalin "modernized" the Ukraine with the point of a bayonet, execution, starvation, and the Gulag. At the height of the enforced "famine" nearly 30,000 Ukrainians died every day. More than five million deaths, all in the name of progressive policies.

Think about that for a moment. Five million deaths. Line up the current population; men, women, children -- of Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland, and New Orleans and kill every one over a four year period.  That is what Stalin did to the Ukraine. The Democrats in charge of the White House and Congress turned their head and pretended it was not happening.  In fact,  FDR recognized Stalin and the Soviet Union as a legitimate government.

Russia has invaded the Crimea area of Ukraine. I am pretty sure President Obama firmly believes that Fox News, Israel, and George Bush are to blame. The Commander-in-Chief is still probably looking at the various "lead from behind" options. I do not think there is truth to the rumor the Obama's had Chicken Kiev for dinner this week.

Hotel points, frequent flyer miles and adventures in traveling

There was a time when I traveled a lot. I woke in a hotel room 3-4 mornings each week and found myself in a flying metal tube 100 plus times each year. I visited most of the USA and got to see much of the world on the company's dime. I also was on the road as my kids grew up.  That I regret more than anything. But in fairness to myself, I rarely missed an important event, concert, play, or big game. But I missed out on every day life.

Now I travel much less. I spend about one night a week in a hotel and fly about once a month. There are road warriors out there who put me to shame, but I think it is fair to say I have spent more time in strange beds than your average bear. Note to reader: I originally had a metaphor about hookers and strange beds here but I could not make it work).

In my travels I never fail to be amazed at the capacity for human beings to be rude, selfish assholes. Yesterday morning I encountered what I call the early morning douchebag. This guy or gal makes their appearance about fifty percent of the time I am in a hotel. They exit their room and decide to stop and have a conversation on their phone or with a colleague right outside my door -- usually at 6:30 or so in the morning. Everyone in the hall gets to hear their brilliance. While I usually stay in decent, but not top tier hotels (think Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden, Courtyard, etc.), the doors are not usually soundproofed against assholery.

I will not further waste your time ranting about the asshats who occupy every table in the airport food court at dinnertime, typing on their laptop or watching movies on their iPad, while some of us wander in vain looking for a place to actually put down our tray of airport barbecue and eat. This happens to me regularly at the Charlotte airport. I also am exposed to the people who find it necessary to have a long and loud phone conversation in the boarding lounge. I have heard about medical conditions, finances, personal details to make anyone blush, and the minutiae of business deals. Don't those folks know everyone can hear them on the phone? Sometimes these jerks even use speakerphone! Once, at the Philadelphia airport, a guy was going over the details of his impending bankruptcy while on speakerphone with his attorney!

There are the people who cannot grasp the idea of a carry-on bag, like the guy who put his bag under the seat of the woman across the aisle (he "did not want it to take up his foot room", he explained to the attendant). I once watched a woman wheel a cart up to the Jetway door piled with luggage. This is back when you were allowed two bags and a purse, etc. She had a baby in a stroller with her.  When the gate agent questioned the pile of luggage the rude passenger explained, "I have two bags for me, two bags for her (pointing at the baby) and a purse for each of us.  The purse (purses?) were the size of small duffel bags. Boarding was halted for almost ten minutes as the woman argued. A supervisor was called and we all waited while the bitch made multiple trips to store her luggage on the plane. The lesson here is that if you fly first class you really can get away with almost anything.

After twenty years on the road, my stories are almost endless. I probably should have named this blog adventures in traveling. Then this piece o'crap blog would have had a purpose beyond self aggrandizement and  navel gazing. 

This Is what happens when you elect a Democrat

This time the Russians waited until after they hosted the Olympics to invade a neighbor.  I guess Hillary meant it when she gave Putin a reset button.  He took it as tacit approval to reset his nation back to the glory days of the USSR.

Too bad the wimp in the White House is not as tough on the truly bad guys in the world as he is on Fox News. Obama's weak response to continued belligerence from Iran, his failure to respond to attacks on the Embassy in Benghazi, and the vanishing line in Syria are clear proof the Russians are convinced Obama is a mere bag of wind.

Elections do have consequences.

Panic!

The SnowTeam/ScareTeam was in high dungeon this weekend in the face of a large winter storm that, as of Saturday morning, was going to dump up to 11 inches of nasty winter snow on my backyard. The forecast was only off by about 80% as we got perhaps two inches of snow. The soggy leaves and detritus of fall are still poking through the snow as I look out across my patio. How can the models be so wrong so often? These same "experts" want us to believe their dire prognostications of climate change fifty and a hundred years from now?  They can't get it right within a 12 hour window.

I am working from my kitchen table this morning. Our mattress is on the floor in my office, since the bedroom furniture is huddled in the middle of the master bedroom, waiting to be pushed and shoved back into their rightful stations along the newly painted walls. The wife is occupying said mattress and I thought it the polite thing to move downstairs to work for an hour or so until she gets up. I am a prince of an individual.

Anticipation

There is but one room in the house we have not painted. That situation will be remedied today. I understand I am going to paint the master bedroom this weekend. Men will do anything if they think there might be some nookie at the end.

Man I hate painting.