Obama focusing strongly on jobs... again... this time for real? Dunno...

JANUARY 2011: “The White House Has Quickly Pivoted To Jobs After The President’s State Of The Union.” “Turning to domestic politics, the White House has quickly pivoted to jobs after the president’s State of the Union — even if it’s being overshadowed by the situation in Egypt.” (Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg, “First Thoughts: Balancing Act,” NBC News’ First Read,1/31/11)

APRIL 2011:  “Obama’s Day: Turning Back To Jobs … President Obama Returns Today To What He Calls His Top Priority: Jobs.”“Though his presidential hours have been crowded by Libya, Japan and other foreign policy challenges, President Obama returns today to what he calls his top priority: jobs.” (David Jackson, “Obama’s Day: Turning Back To Jobs,” USA Today, 4/1/11)

AUGUST 2011: “OBAMA AND SENATE DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS” “OBAMA AND SENATE DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS: Senate Democrats hope they now have ‘checked the box’ on debt reduction and can move to an agenda focused on job creation and economic growth, through a combination of spending and tax cuts.” (Mike Allen, “DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS: Transportation, Infrastructure, Tax Breaks On Fall Agenda,” Politico’s ”Playbook”, 8/2/11)

AUGUST 2011: The Huffington Post Headline: “Obama’s Jobs Pivot” (Joe Peyronnin, “Obama’s Jobs Pivot,” The Huffington Post, 8/2/11)

AUGUST 2011: National Public Radio Headline: “Obama, Democrats ‘Pivot’ To Jobs But May Be Hamstrung” (Frank James, “Obama, Democrats ‘Pivot’ To Jobs But May Be Hamstrung,” National Public Radio, 8/3/11)

AUGUST 2011: Yahoo! News Headline: “Obama ‘Pivots’ To Jobs – But What Can He Do?” (Zachary Roth, “Obama ‘Pivots’ To Jobs – But What Can He Do?,” Yahoo! News’ The Lookout, 8/5/11)

SEPTEMBER 2011: Politico Headline: “President Obama Pivots To Jobs – And Dares GOP To Follow” (Glenn Thrush, “President Obama PivotsTo Jobs – And Dares GOP To Follow,” Politico, 9/8/11)

JUNE 2012: The Wall Street Journal Headline: “Obama To Revisit Economic Debate” (Carol E. Lee and Laura Meckler, “Obama To Revisit Economic Debate,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/11/12)

JULY 2012: MSNBC: “The Jobs Pivot: With The Economy Struggling, How Does President Obama Make The Case To Be Reelected?” (MSNBC’s “NewsNation,” 7/6/12)

FEBRUARY 2013: National Journal Headline: “Stung By Media’s Focus On Liberal Agenda, Obama Pivots Back To Economy” (Ron Fournier, “Stung By Media’s Focus On Liberal Agenda, Obama Pivots Back To Economy,” National Journal, 2/8/13)

Carlos Danger

Anthony Wiener is his worst enemy. I have zero sympathy for him as he is just another pervert seeking public office, again...

Why racism?

I am not a Glenn Beck fan.  I have never watched any of his shows.  I do like The Blaze news website which is one of his many ventures.  However, this video echo's soundly in my mind.  Why racism?

Failure is acceptable for Obamacare.

This affordable healthcare law is having quite the time in the news.  It is confusing, it ends personal privacy, it is expensive.  It has expanded the IRS, which is a government agency that has been doing bad things for a long time.  The employer mandate has been shifted off a year, yet the personal mandate has not.  The exchanges are a mess, the rates are going up.  It is apparent it will not work as planned.

We see the Right being "I told you so"  and the left saying "It just needs a few tweaks"

What I think is that this is going to fail-over into true single payer socialized medicine.

On a Personal note

I lost my job back in November 2012.  Despite countless resumes and online applications I was not able to secure employment quick enough to continue our mortgage on our underwater home. Our house is in short-sale (foreclosure).

At the same time my Mother-in-Law is needing more assistance with day-to-day activities. While my sister-in-law has moved into a job with tremendous opportunity that limits her availability.  Also, the labor participation rate is much higher in the area.

So we are moving up to Canada.

The Same Sex Marriage dialog we have been wanting.

I came across this back and forth about SSM.  I present the links in order.  This is ongoing.  Hopefully I will remember to re-post.


SSM for or Against part 1:

SSM for or Against part 2:

SSM for or Against part 3:

SSM for or Against part 4:

Today's Problems

I suppose if you ask ten people what the major problems that trouble the USA, you would get 10 different answers.

If you ask people "Is Government the problem?"  you will have 10 who agree.

I hate dealing with Customer Service. (updated with good news)

UPDATE *scroll down

Direct TV just cost me $55.00 because their equipment is faulty.  Not to mention two days of no telephone at the house.  Frustration....

My Phone service went out, every jack in the house.   This is problematic because I do not have a cell phone.  So no 911 no getting important calls, no making calls.  Oddly enough, our internet was still running fine.  It is DSL and comes through the same phone lines.

I tried various trouble shooting things,  with no luck.  I then called Century Link to file a service repair ticket. If the problem is on their side of the box, it costs nothing.  If it is on my side of the box $85.00.  

The tech found that the DirectTV box was shorting out the phone lines.  He further said this was common and I should contact Direct TV for reimbursement of the money.  His name is Jay, his Tech number is 488.  His boss is Ryan 541-440-3110.

When Jay unplugged the DirectTV box the phone service was restored.  Which really makes the culprit clear.

So, I contact Direct TV.  The automatic crap sees I am bundled with Century Link for the discount and transfers me.  Despite my screaming NO!  I get Charlie from customer service, who proceeds to tell me that it is Century Links problem, not theirs and the Direct TV boxes NEVER have this issue and they will not be able to provide any compensation.

I ask to escalate this up to a supervisor and Charlie decides to give me a one time credit of $30.00.  Not being happy with the $55.00 I will be paying out of pocket, I ask to speak to a supervisor.

For the next eight minutes 38 seconds I am waiting.  Listening to the sounds of the call center.  At that time Charlie goes to transfer me to a "Supervisor" and I am on hold for another 2 minutes 15 seconds.  Charlie tells me someone cut in line and it will be even longer.

Charlie then wants to make a deal and provide me a 10 dollar a month credit for the next 12 months.  At this point I am more interested in disconnecting my Direct TV then being hooked into another 12 months with faulty equipment.  So I tell Charlie to issue the $30.00.  

Oh, this is not over.

UPDATE:
I got a hold of various e-mail addresses for Direct TV Corporate.  I just got a call and they are issuing me the balance!  WOOT!

Gif from a friend.

Way too many years ago a talented artist friend of mine did a series of drawings. I was the subject.

Bob Vandewalle took a photo of me from a toga party and the AD&D Monster manual drawing of a Doppelganger and did a metamorphosis series of five hand drawn pictures.

Yesterday I found the pictures, after a good 30+ years.  I scanned each in and handed them over to my multi-media savvy artist of a Daughter.  She made them into an animated GIF and viola!  Something I always wanted!

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_23451739/coverage-may-be-unaffordable-low-wage-workers

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_23451739/coverage-may-be-unaffordable-low-wage-workers

Obamacare? We were just leaving … - Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

Obamacare? We were just leaving … - Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

To Recap.

Benghazi exposed that this administration will lie about the death of four Americans in order to get reelected.    The administration lied about it to the public, lied about it to Congress.

The IRS Tea Party scandal exposed that the regime openly, willingly, laughingly suppressed its opposition.  They denied tax-exempt status to organizations assembled by their political enemies.

The AP Fox News Department of Justice probe showed that the top Obama administration figures were willing to use the FBI to go after the press, especially the opposition press, Fox News.   This administration has named its enemies and has encouraged people to disregard it.

The NSA phone record monitoring.  This showed that Eric Holder, and Obama, ordered the data mining against Americans on a scale never even imagined before and without warrants from the FISA court.

We are being placated by the Administration saying: "Don't worry about it.  Standard operating procedure. Government does this and we should be glad the government does this."

David Petraeus comes to mind and the outing of his affair.  Somebody knew about it, and somebody outed him.  And it happened for political reasons. Meta-data?

Then we have the existence of secret e-mail accounts.  This shows that the administration has political appointees who are engaging in activity that is absent oversight.

Because secret e-mail accounts are not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, and they prevent any official record of activity.

Even the worst Right-Wing paranoid fears could not have proven more wickedly accurate.  Will we survive this Administration?

Boycotting to censor.

The Albert Einstein Institution defines an economic boycott as, "The withdrawal or withholding of economic cooperation in the form of buying, selling, or handling of goods or services, often accompanied by efforts to induce others to do likewise. It may be practiced on local, regional, national, or international levels."

Rush Limbaugh, was the focus of a boycott after he outed Sandra Fluke as a slut.  To recap, she insisted that the government subsidise her birth control for sexual escapades.  Rush apologized, which incited more vitriol from the left.  Sandra Fluke did not accept the apology and neither did the mainstream media party.

Instead a boycott of Rush's advertisers and the stations he appeared on was organized.  This did cause some fiscal issues for Limbaugh, but nothing he couldn't weather.  Some of the stations were hit very hard, as the boycott wrongly targeted block advertisements.  Overall the boycott did not have the desired effect of shutting down his pulpit.  In fact the rebound that took place shows that businesses are more interested in number of people they can reach than ideology.  In fact one of the former advertising companies took quite a hit in sales.  Another company is reported to been denied advertising by Rush because of their participation in the boycott.

I think it was a tempest in a teapot, and a peek into the intolerance the progressives show to opinions that deviate from their ideological narrative.  I am just glad to see bullying failed.

I should have never switched to Verizon. #NSA twitter.com/SirPatStew/sta…
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) June 7, 2013

Deceit or Editing? Censorship rears its head.

I was surprised to see a bastion of Liberal news and Obama support actually come out with a condemnation article. Although, the scandal cascade has produced some alarming revelations.

When I went back to review the NYT editorial today, I was perplexed.  It did not read the same.  Sure enough for some reason a red pen came out and toned down the harshness.  Or censored?


NewsDiffs tracked the changes.  The Daily Caller picked up on the changes as well and wrote about it as well.

I can see editing for verification, spelling, punctuation and brevity.  Content?  Not so much.

Obamacare is pretty funny... Until you realize how real it is.

IPCC dead wrong. Will this matter to the zealots?

I have actually been waiting for this to hit the interwebs.
Link:  IPCC's Global Warming Hypothesis Fails Ultimate Test - No Tropical 'Hotspot' After 17 Years of Immense CO2 Emissions

Link:  Sorry Global Warming Alarmists, The Earth Is Cooling.

Once upon a time I seized upon the Global Warming and touted the dogma to friends and family.  I was likewise worried about the population and world resources.  A funny thing happened.  Mt. Pinatubo erupted and belched up more "greenhouse" gasses then peoples produced.  Yet, the environment adapted.

I found out the Ozone hole had not been created, but discovered and assumed to been created.

There was this book, the Ultimate Resource, "As a particular resource becomes more scarce, its price rises; this rise of price creates an incentive for people to discover more of the resource, ration it and, eventually, develop substitutes."

I decided to learn more about Malthusians, and slowly began to get a more positive outlook for the planet.

As far as science goes the attempt to silence research and debate fell flat.  Emails were leaked, showing how money driven the whole debacle has become.

I hopefully see a time when we will actually be looking at measurements and data and critical hypothesis.  Al Gore might just have to get a real job...

What if the Obama Administration shows how corrupt it is and no one cares?

With quite some glee the I-told-you-so crowd, has been re-broadcasting the troubling IRS, DOJ, Benghazi scandals.  With little or no change in how the electorate perceives him.  We are gobsmacked by this.

So why the disconnect?  Simple the ongoing hysteria from the right for the last five years.

From a marine holding an umbrella to every mis-speak or mis-action. The birther nonsense, "you didn't build that" etc.

As an American and practicing Catholic I have any number of concerns about this administration. To whit:

• Its absolute and total love affair with abortion, up to and including support for murdering children who have already been born.  In this, it expresses the sole non-negotiable core value of the Dem leadership.
• Its obvious and deep hostility to the Catholic Church, expressed in the HHS Mandate, which aims to tell Catholics “Stay out of our bedrooms” while simultaneously frogmarching us in and forcing us to pay for what is done there.  I’m happy to stay out of everybody’ bedroom.  But don’t then stick a .45 in my ribs and make me buy your contraceptives for you.  Buy your own contraceptives.
• Its utterly arrogant claim to be able to secretly and unilaterally decree the murder of anybody on planet earth it decides is an enemy of the state, including American citizens.
• Its utterly arrogant claim to be able to secretly and unilaterally decree the indefinite detainment of anybody on planet earth it decides is an enemy of the state, including American citizens.
• It is utterly arrogant for the IRS, on Obama’s watch, to be intimidating political enemies with demands that they not protest at abortion clinics and with inquiries into the content of their prayers.
• It is utterly arrogant for the Obama administration DOJ to be leaking information to smear whistleblowers.
• It is utterly arrogant for the Obama Administration to spy on and intimidate the press.

There are other things, but these things alone are sufficient, I believe, for anybody who cares about American liberty and about the Catholic faith to be adamantly opposed to this Administration.

Nix v. Hedden

In 1893 It was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that affirmed the lower court ruling that the tomato should be classified as a vegetable rather than a fruit.

So by law the Tomato is a Vegetable.  Genetic evidence has shown that the tomato is a fruit.  Thankfully, you will not be incarcerated for treating a tomato one way or the other.  Neither, will you be considered a less than understanding person as well.

Just because the law of the land makes the Tomato a vegetable does not actually make it one.


Hmmmm, I wonder what else that applies too...

Our stupid government by the people.

It makes no difference if your Democrat or Republican.  You are going to spend money, inefficiently and decry the other side for doing the same.

Government is too big and slow and needs to be small.  The Federal government is a huge problem and getting bigger every year.  Our elected officials are so corrupted they do not discern between a reduction in the rate of increase and a cut in spending.

Yet, we vote the same jokers in and our liberal media decry when groups like the Tea-Party want to limit government.

Lets take a simple idea to reduce our spending in the US.  Get rid of paper dollars and put coins into play.  This is pretty simple to do and with some great fiscal benefit.   Boom save 5.6 Billion dollars!

Better still, lets get rid of the Penny. Consider that the U.S. spent almost $120 million to produce less than $50 million of circulating currency.  So let's make that coin go away, like our military did overseas and we the people did for the half-penny.

These two things would be quick and easy to do with long term benefits.

Will this happen?  Probably not... Why?  For the same reason we elect idiots.