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Thought I'd put together a synopsis of some new laws we should really pay attention to.
Alabama has made human trafficking a crime. I guess their unemployment rate will go up now!
Indiana is requiring everyone to show ID when buying alcohol. Gramps will have a fit.
10 year olds can no longer get their genitals pierced in Minnesota.
In Mississippi, you now have to go to the doctor to get a prescription for Sudafed.
You can't buy bongs at Walmart in Florida anymore.
You can't text while driving in Georgia. I can't do that anyway. I can't see the screen without my reading glasses and I can't drive with my reading glasses.
The French are going on strike to protest the push to raise their retirement age from 60 to 62. What a bunch of cheese-eating whiners! The government says it will save $30 billion by doing this and that it will keep their pension fund from going bankrupt. I don't see how anyone could retire at 60 or even 62. What the hell are you going to do all day? Assuming that you can afford to continue paying bills after retiring, there is only so much golf or fishing you can do. Will you wind up being one of the people wandering around Walmart for hours? I could see wanting retirement at 60 if you spent your last 40-45 years digging ditches 6 days a week. I would want to retire, too! I suspect that a fair amount of us can't retire at all. If you were lucky enough to have a government pension or your employer didn't go belly up and screw you on a private plan, you might be ok. Finding retirement money in this Great Recession is tough. My retirement plan is to work until I can't and hope and pray that I can afford to live on Social Security, if it still exists.
The media has been full of stories lately about BP chairman Tony Hayward's trip to a yacht race and Obama playing golf instead of being on the job. It seems that the media and everyone who leaves comments on these stories think that they should be "monitoring the situation" 24 hours a day. I guess they can't take a day off! Not to defend BP completely, but trying to cap the largest oil spill in history is a huge challenge. No response plans in place ever considered this big of a spill. The fact that the well is 1 mile underwater doesn't help. What are Hayward and Obama supposed to do? They are CEOs. Their responsibility is to oversee others who hire the required people to get the job done. They are not rig workers or engineers. They don't have a clue about the technical aspects of solving the problem. That's why they are bosses, not workers. There is a saying that if you don't know how to do it, hire someone who does. My personal opinion is that, in order to properly run a company (or country), you must work up through the ranks. You should pretty much know what every job position involves and how it is done. Only then do you have a legitimate opinion. I don't know if the people sitting around in Louisiana because they can't fish or drill or go to strip clubs have the same opinion as the media, who is apparently getting their material from gossips in DC. Their plight isn't much different than the millions who have lost their jobs in this Great Recession, except that they have a potential share of $20 billion dollars.
The decision made by Obama to stop all drilling and permitting of offshore wells because of the oil spill is also a stupid, knee-jerk reaction to the situation. Not only does that decision put even more people out of work, it makes the oil market speculators nervous, which in turn makes gas prices move all over the place. Obviously, this and other actions by government officials, is a reaction to public outcry, not factual evidence. To use this disaster to push alternative energy is not the best use of our government. Half of our government (not verified) has a stake in good performance of oil companies so it isn't in their best interests to kick oil to the curb. Any energy alternative is more expensive, which is not a good thing in our current economic state.
I recently read where Meg Whitman (ex-CEO of Ebay) spent $71 million on her campaign for the Republican nomination for governor of California. There is talk of limiting what candidates can spend of their own money to get elected. I say Amen to that! It has gotten to the point that any political position above city councilman requires a fat bank account or friends with fat bank accounts. Gray Davis was earning about $158,000 per year but Arnie has been giving his back (being rich helps!). Why pay $71 million for a chance to be governor? Why would friends pay big bucks for someone to be senator? Back room deals! People aren't just pissing away the money. There are strings attached. Those strings are the reason we have such a screwed up economy. Those strings are why getting Congress to pass any legitimate or intelligent legislation is impossible. We, as a nation, should stop the rich people from running our country. Being rich doesn't make you smarter. There are a lot of people who could do a better job than those in office if they only had the chance to compete. The mainstream media crams rich people down our throats (actually in our eyes and ears, I guess). Look at Donald Trump. Why is that smug asshole on TV? If he acted like that in a Walmart parking lot, someone would kick his ass. The rich politicians get on TV and say how concerned they are that we are hungry or don't have a job. They don't give a shit. It doesn't change their 4 o'clock tee time. It doesn't change their plans for a vacation in the Bahamas. They might moan about losing money in the markets, but they didn't lose so much that they can't pay the power bill!
A 15 year old boy was killed by a Border Patrol officer. US Customs was arresting illegals trying to cross into El Paso and locals on the Mexican side were throwing rocks at them. Kinda dumb, dontcha think? You are sitting there, hanging out by the dried-up Rio Grande, and decide to throw rocks at guys with guns? Of course, on the Mexican side, everybody is blaming the big, bad USA. I guess we are supposed to just let them wander in at their leisure. I'll bet at least half of Mexico is actually run by drug cartels and gangs. They have had corruption for decades. The family of this kid is making out like he is a perfect angel and never gets in trouble but what was he doing there? Now, he may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but after the news I've seen about the El Paso border area, there is no way I would be hanging around there. The Mexican government is bitching about the amount of force the Border Patrol uses and is turning a molehill into a mountain when compared to the impact of years of illegals sneaking into the US. Illegal aliens are the reason we have to press 1 any time we call a business. They dilute pay scales. Framing contractors who were charging anywhere from $4 to $8 per square foot are competing with illegals doing the work for $2 per square foot. Hospitals and medical clinics are being crushed by indigent care costs and US citizens who need the care can't get it because illegal aliens are using up the budget. I don't have a problem with immigrants. This country was created by immigrants. The illegal aliens just need to go through proper channels to get here.
What is a well qualified buyer? I see these car ads on TV that spout all this bull about 0% financing and huge discounts to "well qualified buyers". How damn arrogant can they get? For the rest of us peasants, car ads are just a nuisance anyway. I don't know anyone who, after watching a car commercial, rushed out and bought a car. I think the people who need the low interest and discounts are the ones who don't have a bunch of cash sitting around. The only people I know who took advantage of 0% are people who could have bought it outright.
The ads are also misleading. They show a car with all of the leather and "must have" gadgets speeding down the street while they tell us that prices start at $21,000. You have to quickly read the fine print to see that the actual car you are watching is $38,999.
We have local mobile home ads that do the old bait and switch. I saw one last night that claimed they could sell someone a 28 x 80 doublewide for $34,999. They don't tell you that they are already figuring in the $8000 tax credit. They also don't tell you that the one they are panning through during the commercial is not the $34,999 one. One other thing to consider is that the mobile home price works out to about $19 per square foot. Current new construction on a reasonable quality house is in the $100 per square foot range. You have to wonder how good the deal really is.
What the hell is going on in China? I have read numerous stories lately about some nutjob slicing and/or stabbing people to death. Most seem to be school kids on campus. Usually the attacker is male. I know, in a country of 1.4 billion people, 7 or 8 attacks like these are probably within a normal range of occurrence but what triggers it? Video games? Kung Pow chicken? Guess what? It is illegal for civilians to own guns in China! All they have left is axes and machetes. That would be a downside for those in the U.S. who think we should ban guns. Everyone would resort to switchblades and samurai swords. Experienced knife-throwers would be the new snipers. 7-11 robberies would be interesting since a ball bat swung by the clerk could be very effective against a knife. Party revelers would probably be less inclined to throw their knives and hatchets in the air, since they would return to earth a lot closer to them than the bullets they were firing before the gun ban.
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