MEDIA FLAP...MY ASS!! BE REALISTIC.....

What VP Joe Biden stated yesterday morning - makes sense. Common sense! Although his words were apparently not sanctioned by the White House - and Joe Gibbs immediately put out a "what he meant to say..." statement, is plain stupid. To me this is all a waste of breath and good sense.

Does common sense not dictate that we be more vigilant in our travel plans? We are all of fairly high intelligence ( don't argue - it's a fact), and we know that confined spaces are a breeding ground for germs and bacteria - so of course we would give second thoughts to such travel at this time.

Just a fleeting thought from me...I honestly believe the fear that is being spread, is attributable to the word PANDEMIC! In 1976 I do not recall that pandemic was used - my memories are that their was a flu epidemic. Sadly, most don't realize that 'pandemic' is essentially the same word, only on a global scale. It just defines this illness as being in multiple countries at the same time.

If more attention was paid to the "flu" we all endure yearly, and as much press was given to the daily count of hospital admissions - then people may really freak out. the flu this past winter (not bird flu and not swine flu), killed 36,000 people. Does anyone remember the daily count growing and media reports of fear? It's a matter of perspective.

The hand washing, sneezing and coughing rules should be applied as an everyday routine, not just when a virus has been reported.

To end here, I received this "text joke" yesterday:

"It was once said that a black man would be president 'when pigs fly.' Indeed 100 days into Obama's presidency...Swine flu!!"

{{{HAPPY BIRTHDAY Joe Biden}}}

How sweet - amid all the colossal decisions Barack Obama has facing him at the moment, yesterday he took time out to present Vice-President Elect Joe Biden with cupcakes, candles and gifts. Biden's 66th birthday is actually today - but I'm sure there may have been a surprise element to yesterday's celebration. There were twelve candles, and if it is anything like my house, that was probably all they could find. Rather than put a huge pillar candle in the middle, good choice Obama staff.







I would presume that the three big automakers spokesmen, all flew home yesterday, in their mega-million dollar private jets, whilst their tails were between their legs. I do not pretend to be an economist by any means, but considering the automakers have already been given $25 billion, I feel that they should do what the average Joe has to do - file bankruptcy. When these gentlemen were asked if they would raise their hands and agree to sell off these jets and fly commercial - no hands were raised. The gentleman from GM, I believe, does not even live in Detroit and uses the company jet to fly back and forth to his Seattle, Washington home several times a week - now there's some fiscal responsibility.

This is just my view, but it is not like we are at the brink of the precipice and without cars to purchase (if the banks would lend). Look around, car lots are full - I repeat FULL! Used cars have held their resale value for the past 4 years, and with the cost of new autos rising exorbitantly, people have been making genuinely good deals by purchasing used cars. I'm sorry for the impact this may have on the employees...but I am talking reorganizing. These employees will be able to draw unemployment benefits for 26 weeks - during this time, the needed re-tooling can be initiated in these plants to begin producing fuel efficient cars for the future. The CEO's can cut their pays by 50% (and I am being generous), to show America and the employees that an honest effort is being made to become competitive again.

The GM CEO speaking yesterday, stated that their profit margin from the Russian plants was great, and refused to state that any of those dollars could be brought back here and applied to the financial problems in the U.S.

In my mind...if these companies should file bankruptcy and have to reorganize and then cannot compete - too bad. It is not like there wouldn't be someone at some time come in and start up a new auto giant for the future. I hope we have seen the end of these gas guzzlers being produced for only the fat-cats who can afford them, or should I say who ONCE cold afford them.

The day of the "auto giant" monopoly, and the word "blue chip" have gone by the wayside. Nothing is forever it would appear and changes have to made as we march into the future.

Like I said, I am not an economist - but just a lame opinion to put out there.

***Here in the Ohio Valley, we were once the hub of Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel, which no longer exists, having been bought out by a Russian company. Coal mines were a major employer, again, they no longer exist as they once did. Jobs are hard to come by here, even to find a minimum wage job in the retail sector is very hard. But when the Steel mills were asking Washington for help - to keep the companies afloat - nada, nothing, nil! NAFTA became the rule of the day and American construction started using Chinese steel (below specs much of the time.) This is a sad commentary on our country and its priorities. We all need help Washington - you have fucked things up long enough. Maybe (and I say this with sincere hope), things may be put back in some sort of order, to help us move on and prosper, in the next 8 years.

Later......

While the votes are being cast & counted.....flashbacks here...

****I have been working for a couple of days on this blog...especially for today. My Steelers won last night - a good omen - and I have either pulled or torn a muscle in my shoulder/neck area and I'm in PAIN!!! So enjoy - Don't Forget to Vote!!!

If anyone could see the area around my computer (here on the kitchen table), there are enough pieces of paper that I could have a 30 foot tree in here!!! Since I am always watching either CNN or one of the C-Spans, or just any news show - whenever one of these candidates says something "startling" or plain STUPID, I write it down. I have also inserted some phrases and/or words that I hope to never hear again. So just a short trip down Memory Lane, of the past many months of campaigning, here are the quotes I have managed to put together:

JOHN MCCAIN

• "My friends!" (ad nauseum)


• "You will know their names, and I will make them famous!" (too many puking times)


• "We spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if it was a paternity issue or a criminal issue." (on wasteful Congressional spending)


• "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book. (Interview with Boston Globe)


• "Make it 100...that would be fine with me." (when asked if agreed with Bush to keep troops in Iraq for 50 years.)


• "Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course." (Meet the Press, 10-27-08 re: Palin)


• "I think she's most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president, tell you the truth." (to Don Imus 10-22-08)


• "My friends, we have them just where we want them." (on pres. campaign 10-13-08)


• "Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners. And the same clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." (Bethlehem, PA 10-8-08)


• "Sure, technically, I don't know." (60 Minutes, asked if US in a recession. 9-21-08)


• "Our economy, I think, is still - the fundamentals of our economy are strong." (Jacksonville, FL 9-15-08)


• "It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly be somewhat divorced from the day to day challenges people have." (Servicenation Forum in NYC. 9-11-08)


• "She's a partner and a soul-mate." (on Palin as VP choice. 8-31-08)


• "I think I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you." (asked how many homes he and Ciny Lou own. 8-20-08)


• "I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?" (asked by Rev. Rick Warren to define "rich." Lake Forest, CA 8-16-08)


• "My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." (on Russia invading Georgia. 8-14-08) **McC forgot about the Gulf War, 9/11 and Iraq!!!


• "I'm runnning for POTUS, because I want to help with family values. And I think that family values are important, when we have two parent families that are of parents that are the traditional family." ("This Week" interview. 7-27-08)


• "We have a lot of work to do. It's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border." (**Border does not exist! ABC news interview. 7-21-08)


• "I will veto every beer..er bill, um bill with earmarks!" (National Small Business summit, Washington, D.C. 6-10-08)


• "I think I'd just commit suicide." (on prospect of Dems taking control in Senate. 10-06)


• "I might have to rely on a vice president that I select for expertise on economic issues." (11-28-07)


• "He's for (air quotes) "health" for the mother. You know that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion postion, quote 'health.'" (Pres. debate Hofstra Univ. Long Island NY. 10-15-08)

SARAH PALIN

• "I don't know if you're going to use the word 'terrorist' there." (asked if people who bomb abortion clinics are terrorists by NBC. 10-23-08
• "I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrong-doing...or any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Pleased to be cleared of any of that." (after Troopergate report released 10-12-08)


• "They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan." (Fundraiser in San Francisco -off her meds apparently - 10-5-08)


• "All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." (to Katie Couric on what material does she read. 10-1-08)


• "Well, it certainly does because our - our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia - we have trade missions back and forth. We, we do - it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where - where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over our border. It is - from Alaska, that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to our state. (to Katie Couric 9-24-08)


• "But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy." (to Katie Couric 9-24-08)


• "That's exactly what we are going to do in a PALIN-MCCAIN administration." (Cedar Rapids, IA 9-18-08


• "I told Congress, thanks but no thanks, on that Bridge to Nowhere!" (multiple times)


• "Absolutely, yep, yep." (asked by People magazine if ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.)


• "You can't blink Charlie, you can't blink." (interview with Charlie Gibson)


• "Which Bush Doctrine do you mean Charlie?" (interview with Charlie Gibson)


• "Remember Sean, Troopergate target was a really mean guy." (to Sean Hannity)


• "I killed the Bridge to Nowhere." (to Sean Hannity)


• "Crush that gridlock!" (to Sean Hannity on energy.)


• "We're close and we're watching." (to Katie Couric on Putin)


• "It's obvious to me who the good guys are in this one, and who the bad guys are." (to Katie Couric, on Israel)


• "We're anything but boring!" (to Katie Couric on the McC/Palin ticket)


• "I'll try to find you some and bring 'em to ya." (to Katie Couric to cite an incidence of McCain and "regulation.")


• "If you want specifics with specific countries, go ahead and you can ask me, you can even play stump the candidate if you want to." (@ town hall rally)


• "Al-Quaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America...He's (Obama) worried that someone won't read them their rights."


• "As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me, what is it exactly that the VP does everyday?" (CNBC interview 7-31-08)

BARACK OBAMA

• "I'm here with the Girardo family in St. Louis." (speaking to Dem. convention while in Kansas City, MO 8-25-08)


• "Let me introduce you to the next president - the next vice president of the United Sates of America, Joe Biden." (Springfield, IL 8-23-08)


• "The old boy network? In the McCain campaign, , that's called a staff meeting." (9-17-08)


• "I don't want to be invited to the family hunting party." (when he found out that he and Cheney are 8th cousins.)


• "I've now been in 57 states - I think one left to go." (Beaverton, OR)


• "In case you missed it this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed." (on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people.)


• "Sen. McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job - nice job!' Where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign?...I'm not making this up. It's like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."


• "That's what he talked about yesterday, 'I want to drill here. I want to drill now.' I don't know where he was standing. I think he was in a building somewhere." (on McCain's energy plan)

JOE BIDEN

• "Look, John's last minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle-class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three letter word J-O-B-S, jobs."


• "A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States...Barack America!" (first campaign rally with Obama.)


• "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence - a noun, a verb and 9/11. (on Rudy 9iu11ani.)


• "I should start with an apology to Rudy 9iu11ani. I said every sentence Rudy utters has a noun, a verb and 9/11 in it. I was wrong. He called to tell me after Pat Robertson's endorsement, there's an 'Amen' in every sentence he says too."


• "I mean, you get the first mainstream African-American, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. I mean that's a storybook man."


• "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent...I'm not joking."


• "If your kitchen table is like mine, you sit there at night before you put the kids to bed and you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."

Wow, once I get them all written down here....looks like McCain and Palin were picked on a little....yes, I do have a bias here, but everytime they open their pie-holes, something bizarre comes out. Anyway, this was for shits and giggles only. I am totally sure I have missed some major gaffes - and if you want, feel free to add to the list. Or just add words we have totally had enough of - like FUNDAMENTALS!!! Over-usage drives me up a wall - some people (speechwriters) apparently do not have a thesaurus at their fingertips. (easily done online.)

Earmarks??? This may vary

by definition. This is one area that upsets me at times - depending on what the money requested is designated towards. Face it folks, earmarks are a much necessary evil. If we in "small towns" around the country had to come up with all the dollars necessary to upgrade our sewage treatment plants, major improvements to hospitals, and many huge projects we take for granted - they would never be done. It is the items "tacked" on for personal, stupid requests that need to be halted, i.e., the bridge to nowhere. But when appropriation time rolls around, that is when all the Senators receive requests from their constituents of their NEEDS. There is never a guarantee of approval, but if these monies were not requested for appropriation - every town would literally become a ghost town.

I suppose the alternative would be to increase property taxes, up any local income tax, add a wage tax...but we are TAXED to hell and back now. Realistically, these projects would still remain unfunded.

The "earmarks" of Obama which McCain is referring to can be found here. This is quite a list, but please, see what projects the requests are for. As a note, my understanding (and if anyone has the answer) is that hardly any of these earmarks were approved. But certainly 90% of the requested funds I find quite legitimate.

John McCain has been making the same comment repeatedly "in 24 years I have not had one single earmark." Excuse me, let's go back to 1992 first, John McCain had no qualms with this request. I have the links to more, but need to check them out first. Face it - it is a matter of definition as to what constitutes an earmark. Some Washington agencies state that an earmark is a project worth more than $52 million. So would that mean that a project under that figure would NOT be an earmark - guess so!

This is the semantics game underway. In the whole scheme of things, I want to see the bottom line on Health care plans, tax structure, employment. I have a feeling these facts will be coming soon from at least one camp - one has to wait and see.



My suggestion to Sarah Palin, QUIT REPEATING the same old things. I don't want to hear about that damn bridge, the Ebay plane sale (ha) and how you stood up to Big Oil. The facts are proving her wrong on so many fronts. October 2nd - she will debate Joe Biden - I plan on being glued to the TV for that one.

Oh well, must read more...must read more...must read more!!! I may be brain damaged by Nov. 4th at this rate.

Have a good one all!!! TTFN