Today the trees are bending under 25 mph wind gusts. The road sand is tapping like hail against the window and I’m certain the car will be jostled from side to side. It's reminiscent of Gaza with its rocket attacks and the retaliatory bombing.
The Israelis and Palestinians are fighting (again or still, I suggest reading a history on the area) over the same thing they always fight over, sovereignty, over a hatred which neither side remembers how it started and neither side wishes to end. Now people, Israeli and Palestinian, are dying.
This isn't war:Neither is this:
War isn't tanks and artillery. This is war:
It is sad that this will probably be the last post for 2008. This year is ending in the midst of a downward spiral with wars, the economy, genocide in Africa, and Dancing With the Stars still on the air. Obama has preached hope, I wonder how long hope can holdout before the middle and working classes are pressed into despair.
10. Joe The Plumber - Joe whose real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, was used by the McCain campaign as a symbol of middle America's worry about President-Elect Obama's tax policy. Joe was found to not be a licensed plumber, but just an ass who wasn't working class. He apparently has written a memoir that will surely help heat houses here in New England.
(you could get a tan standing next to that melon)
9. Joe Satriani- Joe is a late addition to the list. He is suing Coldplay for copyright infringement claiming the song "Viva La Vida" copied parts of one of his. Joe, does anyone that isn't a guitar student or 15 and pimply faced really know your songs?
8. Trader Joe's - Joe, you continuously have the cheapest most flatulent beans in the area. I am right now saluting you in the unique way that only your beans could be a part of.
7. Joe Sixpack -Joe's name was used more times during the presidential election than Iraq and economy, you know the important things. Supposedly the Sixpack brand is a metaphor for the middle and working classes. (spoiler alert) Joe, is like Santa Claus - not real).
6. Joe Torre - Joe told the Yankees where to go after being unappreciated for getting a team in turmoil to the playoffs. He went to the Dodgers and subsequently brought an otherwise lackluster team to the playoffs.
5. Joe Biden - Joe, your the Vice- President elect and not such a horrible white guy. You managed to keep your mouth from vomiting up the crazy things your brain wants to say and helped get Obama elected. Also your not from Alaska, but you do look like what I always imagined former Secretary of State Seward looked like.
($5 Foot Long)
4. Joey Lawrence - for not putting out anything that I know of this year- whoa! you suck. Hmm. How come every Joe that sucks is bald?
(Yuck!)
3. Joe Leiberman - Joe had a big year. He flirted with the Republicans and even spoke at their convention. When Obama won, he came crawling back to the Democrats for forgiveness and got it along with the red imprint of every Democratic Caucus members hand on ass.
2. Cup-A-Joe - Joe without you constantly by my side, I could never do these inane posts, function alertly, or continue to be regular.
According to liscence plate manufacturers, the state of Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 lakes . The states official motto is L'Etoile du Nord” or “The Star of North.” A few famous people who grew up in the state include Bob Dylan, Prince, F.Scott Fitzgerald, and of course this former Minnesotan governor:
(Jesse "The Body" Ventura)
However, more importantly the state has yet to figure out if Republican Senator Norm Coleman will retain his seat or if Democratic challenger and former comedian Al Franken will become a congressional freshman.
The problem as it stands is disputed ballots. Each side has of course hired a team of lawyers the size of which the rest of us will only see at a law school graduation or in line at a cocaine house.
As it stands Dirk Johnson of The New York Times reports Mr. Franken in the lead by a narrow margin, which means it can still go eather way. If it comes down to a few votes, I wonder which side will be laughing at the votes that were made for God, Al Frankenstein, Mickey Mouse, and several for Chuck Norris.
In the meantime, here's some of both candidates best work.
The company execs at Burger King must have been on a food high from the consumption of too many Whoppers when they ok'd their new fragrance. I say new, but apparently if you walk into any Burger KIng you would smell that fragrance or if you sat next to a Burger King worker on the bus.
Yes, the fragrance smells like flame-broiled meat.
(being a non-mammal eater, I never thought I would have a picture of hamburgers on this blog)
The Whopper sandwich is America's favorite burger. Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.
With a $3.95 price tag, the fragrance actually smells like a veiled attempt at a PR scheme. The news of the fragrance is all over the blogosphere and on the news just because of its absurdity. Look at the ad in all its uncomfortable consumer sexism.
Perhaps the marketing campaign will work and people will buy it just because it's hokey. I can't fathom why there is any other reason to purchase such a scent. Even if you wanted to smell like broiled-meat wouldn't it still be easier to rub steak sauce on yourself and stand next to a fire - I bet the scent will last longer.
On Friday, Dec. 19, workers at 30 North American automobile plants will punch out for an extended period of time.
The New York Times, Nick Bunkley reports Chrysler is shutting down all its plants for at least a month due to the dwindling money in its reserves and no sign of a government bailout.
Is this a political move by Chrysler to force the government to concede a bailout package in order to save union jobs and wages? These jobs are made up pf men and women from the working class, the so-called blue-collar workers who have often been said to be the backbone of this country, yet they constantly get used for political or monetary gain and usually end up with their heads flushed in the toilet. These workers are the ones that will suffer first and severely, long before the Caucasian CEO's. Unless, the CEO's had their money tied up with Bernard L. Madoff who is now under house arrest with an ankle bracelet in his $7 million home (now that's American justice).I think in this picture Mr. Madoff, a former chair of the NASDAQ is gesturing how much he cares about screwing his investors who have pretty much lost their money to his ponzi (pyramid) scheme.
It is always rare for a corporation to admit and/or correct its failures.
In a statement Wednesday, Chrysler said tighter credit markets are keeping would-be buyers away from its showrooms. The company said its dealers are unable to close sales for buyers due to a lack of financing, and estimate that 20 to 25 percent of their volume has been lost due to the credit situation. Sales in November slid 47.1 percent.
What Chrysler won’t say is their crisis (along with GM and Ford) also has to do with the choices they made in car design and efficiency. They messed up and now like scared spoiled children they have come back like prodigal sons and rainy day relatives looking for a handout.
"Corruption is not a party liability—if you can ignore your accusers long enough, or play martyr.” -Frank Richardson Kent, political pundit of the Baltimore Sun.
Christopher Wills of the AP reports, the Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, has asked the state Supreme Court to declare Governor Rod Blagojevich unfit. The governor has been accused of trying to sell President-elect Obama’s senate seat for cash or political favors. although no audio of the FBI’s wire has been released, you can read the criminal complaint at the Smoking Gun website with full expletives for you kids out there that like your politics to use the F-word as every part of speech.
The governor who is more worried about his moonlighting gig as Plastic Man, has been praying to God with a bunch of ministers and you know those people aren't corrupt, just ask Martin Luther or read his 95 Theses.
But, eh, I guess we can just blame corruption on these people:
Governor Blagojevich has said he is innocent of the charges and will be soon vindicated. Illinois and Chicago especially, have had a long history with corruption. For example, William Hale Thompson in 1927, was reelected mayor because of Al Capone's support. According to Wikipedia (I know, but the quote is good), after Thompson's defeat in 1931 by Democrat Anton Cermak, the Chicago Tribune wrote (The Tribune may not be writing much of anything soon):
For Chicago Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy.... He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism [sic], unchecked graft, and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character.
In an AP article by Deanna Bellandi and Christopher Wills in The Star Tribune of Minneapolis states Governor Blagojevich's approval rating at 8%. 8%? President Bush's approval rating is 25%. Vice-President Cheney has an 18% approval rating, and even this guy has an approval rating of 10% (this is not comedy!):
Yet, this is politics. Blogojevich just happened to get caught like a scalper at a REO Speedwagon reunion concert.
Lead singer Kevin Cronin's hair reminds me of a friends in High School.
You'd think that since Illinois is known for the Cubs always blowing it and political corruption that the politicians there would be honest and not wear blue caps with a red letter "C" embroidered on it.
H.M. These initials were all that was public of a man who wouldn’t remember your name. An operation to rid him of his acute form of epilepsy left him without his hippocampi, amygdoid nuclei, and the adjacent cortical regions.
In his obituary in The New York Times, Benedict Carey writes:
"In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories. He became one of the most renowned and studied neurological subjects. Scientists studied his brain and learned more about it than ever before."
A December 6, article in the San Diego Union-Tribune by Scott LaFee says, “H.M. was the object of hundreds of studies, some of which fundamentally changed science's understanding of brain structure, memory function and neurological disease.”
H.M. whose real name is Henry Gustav Molaison, died on November 30, at a Connecticut Nursing Home likely not remembering the past 55 years. Yet, neuroscience will never forget Mr. Molaison’s help in its advancement.
I do wonder what the legal implications of his study were and the legality of studying his brain after his death at The Brain Observatory at the Unniversity of California San Diego. To continue to study a man who was relatively emotionless, could not remember the stranger in the mirror and who more than likely had to be told everyday of the study is questionable.
Neither is this:
