Not Loving it

This new campaign from MC Donalds is the most absolute evil and insidious thing they have done.

They have shed all pretense and simply made the statement "We are no longer selling food, we are selling emotion."

The food is heinous and makes us all unhealthy. This is known. It's filled with chemicals, and even the salads are sprayed with MSG. And now, since they have failed at creating food we can eat, their new campaign plans on hitting us all where it hurts, with emotion, in an attempt to get us to come in.

And it will work,

Because they are connecting their food, their dining experience with the love emotion. The love we have for our children, our parents, our kin. The comercial expertly creates a mood in our hearts as we watch it which is al framed by the store's counters and indoor look -- which is the same throughout the country.

But they have been doing this for years.



Is it any surprise? And this was aimed at kids! Hey, don;t worry, your food will always be here for you.

Any way that the corporation can connect with out emotion is a win for them, because we are all emotional eaters. We eat at weddings and funerals and birthdays. We eat to celebrate, and this store can;t sell food anymore, so they are pushing a product that they can still sell with their powerful marketing presence: love.

So come on in! Buy some love! Because here is a corporation that cares. Right?

I hope he can see this...

...because I'm doing it as hard as I can."

I love this article. Asking when the middle finger became an offensive gesture? Really? I mean come on, the guy is British and so is M.I.A., but they know that the middle finger is obscene, or at least considered so by Americans. I mean, I am no obscenity scholar and yet somehow I know that the backward peace sign in a thrust means basically the same thing across the pond. The U.S. exports movies like no other, there is no conceivable way that you could not know that the middle finger is considered obscene unless you lived under a media rock.
So, we are left with M.I.A. in just another desperate cry for Superbowl Attention. It's sad really I don't think anyone watching the game really skipped a beat. It just like, "Oh, of course. Something offensive during the halftime show, why not. Just par for the course." And i have to wonder how complicit the network is in all this, and the kind of boost in ratings they will receive next year when people tune in to watch whatever is going to be the next horrible thing that happens during the show.
Really, we should be waiting for it to cross over into the game itself, or the announcer's booth, and certainly the commercials.

World Tax Codes...

The poor don't need your damn help.

I read this article recently about the UN's latest ideas on how to help the poor. I find it incredible and filled with the hubris of western nations. On the other hand it seems like a reactionary measure to the fact that the UN is actually powerless without the approval of the US government, and since some of their more humanitarian efforts are consistently blocked, this is the only other way left to them to provide some relief.

An example of what I am talking about. In Haiti, the US government Corps of engieneers built a damn across a major river to provide elctricity and irrigation for the weathly in Port au Prince and for the forigen owned agri-business and assembly plants located near by. Never mind the fact that it flooded good farmland that the poorest of that country relied on for daily living.

That's the kind of thing the UN will never be able to stop, but the only kinds of things that would bring any real relief to the worlds poor. the fact is that the worlds poor really dont need our help, they need the world to cease taking advantage of them in terms of resources, both human and ecological, and respect them and their way of life. But since that is never going to happen for the US, the UN is trying something new, something that the US might approve because it will make them look good and not really cost them anything.

I look forward to the day of reckoning. Cause it is coming, and the US is going to be begging at the door of the people it once persecuted without care.

Da Pres

The Presidents Song


Washington came first and he was perfect.
John Adams kept us out of war with France.
Jefferson made Louisiana Purchase.
In 1812 James Madison kicked the British in the pants.

James Monroe told Europe they could suck it.
John Quincy Adams looked just like his dad.
Andrew Jackson got rid of all the Indians.
Van Buren served one term, but he wasn't bad.

William Henry Harrison died early.
John Tyler annexed Texas from Mexico.
James K. Polk fought Mexico to keep it.
Taylor was a Mexican War hero.

Fillmore gave a boat to Commodore Perry.
Pierce appealed the Missouri Compromise.
Buchanan saw the Civil War's beginnings.
Lincoln saved the Union, then he died.

Andrew Johnson just survived impeachment.
General Grant enjoyed a drink or two.
Rutherford B. Hayes ended reconstruction.
Garfield was assassinated in 1882.

Arthur suspended Chinese immigration.
Cleveland made the railroad people squirm.
Harrison signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Grover Cleveland served another term.

McKinley kicked the Spanish out of Cuba.
Roosevelt was handy with a gun.
Taft was big and fat and had a mustache.
Wilson kicked some ass in World War I.

Harding said "Let's Laissez Fair with business."
Coolidge made the roaring 20s roar.
Hoover screwed the pooch in the great depression.
Roosevelt beat the Nazis in the war.

Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Eisenhower kept the Commies well in hand.
Kennedy was killed by a magic bullet.
Johnson murdered kids in Vietnam.

Nixon was a sweating, filthy liar.
Ford gave Nixon pardon for his crimes.
Carter lusted in his heart for peanuts.
Reagan won the Cold War, and lost his mind.

George Bush Sr. poked at Saddam Hussein.
Clinton gave an intern a cigar.
W's legacy's a work in progress.
That is all the President's so far.

In the year 2005 we're out of money.
Somewhere, surely, freedom's on the march.
I don't like to make political statements.

Breathe In

There was a time when you went outside to get “a breath of fresh air.” Yet, the city of Richmond has earned a reputation that makes that act an impossibility.

In a recent story broadcast by Charles Fishburne we got a taste of an Environment Virginia study that called the air quality of the city into question. Ms. Corrie (of Environment Virginia) stated that Richmond is the 17^th smoggiest metro area in the entire country. For a city of Richmond’s size that seems like a pretty terrible record to have. Anyone that lives here can tell you there are days it’s not safe to breathe outside.

On the other side of this issue we have VA Rep. Eric Cantor who is leading congress to study how the EPA is affecting prices, jobs and reliability of electric power. In other words how loosening those regulations would allegedly produce more jobs, drive prices down, and make electric power more reliable.

So I guess our choices are breathing or jobs?

Here are two things. First, why does the city of Richmond have to care how the EPA regulations fall? If there is a problem with the air quality in this city, then the city should be already taking steps to improve the smog situation and work at a solution. Not wait for the EPA regulations to force or allow them to do something. I’m fairly sure the Federal Government wouldn’t try to stop us from cleaning up the city.

Second, am I the only one that gets tired of the same old rag in congress where everything is a choice between the environment and jobs? It’s like a ghost story they tell us to insure that the right people continue making the most money possible. As long as congress keeps threatening job loss the voters seem like they are always going to back them up. But is it really possible to be this consistently cut and dry? Is there no way possible to breath clean air, fish in clear streams, and swim in clear beaches without being jobless and have no electricity? There have got to be better solutions out there.

In the wake of the economy’s record these past few years the threat of jobs and price hikes might have become a dog without teeth. How many of us have learned to live with much less? How many are surviving on one income when we believed it wasn’t possible? People already don’t have jobs, and are dealing with higher prices of gas and food. So how much more could that possibly change? Do we really have to still live in fear of the “Boogey Man” that our congressional leaders keep trotting out?

You know what my family and I have been doing? Going outside more. City parks are free, and a great place to entertain ourselves, meet friends and have picnics as inexpensive alternatives to going out to eat. In all honesty, being able to breath saves us money!

I challenge the people of this city to do two things. Seventh District Representative Eric Cantor needs to be told that we feel the EPA regulations are there for a reason, and to stop using the environment as a scapegoat that only serves to tell us Capitol Hill is fresh out of ideas. Secondly, the citizens of Richmond need to make our city accountable to us, and not to the EPA. There are hundreds of things the city could do to make the air quality breathable again. Just a few ideas: more intentional greenspaces to freshen the air in key areas, directing the flow of large truck traffic around residential areas, zoning the city to decrease the need for citizens to drive as much making work, play and shopping closely available.

This city was once envied because of its innovation in creating an electric trolley system. That spirit of ingenuity and forward thinking cannot be allowed to wane! Creating a new fleet of mass transit vehicles or even something as simple as walking and biking paths in already established neighborhoods could be a statement made not only to the citizens of this city but to the state and again the country.

Richmond is a great city, with the potential to be even greater. It has some incredible parks, which sadly are going to become vacant if we and our children get asthma from the air we live in. This is our city, and regardless of what the EPA does or doesn’t do, we need to act in a way that makes this city a place of health for ourselves and for every generation that comes after us.

Moron Means Selfish

Here's the thing about stupid people and natural disasters.

When people lives in hurricane infested Kansas, it used to be they built a storm cellar underground. Now they live in mobile homes. When those get utterly destroyed and people die, we can't talk about it. Cause people died. And we have to throw a sadness party.

When people choose to live on the coasts and participate in a broken system of poor housing construction and low preparedness, we are supposed to pray and then blame God if people die. Heaven forbid we ask the question, why are there people living there in the first place, or at the very least, are there not any other building conditions we could enforce to help people live better?
No, no, people want to have a house on the beach that looks just like a house in downtown Savanah, and apparently it is their right as an american to do so.

Great. It's our right as an american to be a moron. To act like and idiot. You know what it's not our right to do? Expect everyone else's help and kindness as payment for our selfish and idiotic actions.

I can't understand why it is so taboo to talk about. No one is willing to think creatively about any of it. It seems like we think we can have normal sewer systems, normal roads, and normal homes in these areas that are struck year after year after year and not one person is willing to step forward and say, "We can't do this anymore." I am not talking about some desalinization method for sewage water, or building on stilts, I am talking about something completely revolutionary. A change in which people wont be able to just plunk down a house on a piece of property and get the insurance company to fix it when it is inevitably destroyed. Something that wont have counties shelling out millions every year to fix eroded beaches.

It might be that we can't live on some beaches. It might be that we can't go to some beaches. It might be that coastal regions become off limits save for natural preserves and daily tourism. No overnight structures. Maybe camping. We have so little respect for the way the coastal system works, and year after year Hurricanes come and try to teach us a hard lesson that we pay out in tax dollars and human life. When do we get tired of it?


The system is broken. As it is now we have cities and infrastructure locked into these coastal areas with no easy way to extricate them. And maybe that's not the right answer. But we should at least be able to discuss that living there, and building there, and being there is not the wisest life choice in light of the events that are there. People in California accept that earthquakes are going to be in the future and plan accordingly. They build accordingly. How is it that we sill have trailer parks mere miles from the NC coast? Hotels that are built with sub-standard materials, and building codes that allow all kinds of person homes to go up. If people aren't smart enough to do something proactive (which is arguably their right) then we at least shouldn't feel like we are required to pity them and bail them out when the inevitable doom comes to their doors. At the very least can we not build mobile homes in places like Atlantic Beach, NC?

Doing Your Chores

I read something in an AFP article that I found startling.

The Us give 3 billion dollars to the Israeli government every year. That's not counting the 250 million that President Obama just approved.

Now, granted we perceive that Israel is a calming state in the otherwise -- which is debatable. I am no time traveler, I can't tell you what the middle east would look like now, but we do know the millions of Palestinians who were displaced as refugees, and the anger that the Israelis have continually sparked in the region. Yet aside from all that I realized that it told me jsut how distant from our country's spending.

So I looked it up.

Every year we spend a huge portion of our budget on defense ($663 billion). And we spend $25 billion on foreign aid to other countries. $3 billion of that goes just to Israel. That's 8% and change. Of course, we also pay Jordan an undisclosed amount (since 2007) just to leave Israel alone and not harbor its enemies. So really we should add that back in. In 2007 it was $561 million. So Israel is really up to $3.6 billion. I was rounding down before. The next highest recipient is Egypt with $1.75 billion. Together they make up 1/3 of all US "aide" to other countries. The largest cut of the money we give these countries is through the FMF fund which is strictly for military purposes. So, wait, didn't Egypt and Israel fight a war a while back? Yes they did. It's weird that we are giving them both money for weapons. Somehow, that seems counter productive to peace right?

A lot of this money we are throwing at people has to do with our fear of the spread of communism. Which seems like a huge threat now. One communist economy went into total collapse and the other is where everything we own is made (who continually poison themselves so we can have slick i-phone glass). That noted we can say we don't care about communists anymore. So why are we still dolling out this kind of money to these countries to buy weapons in a place where we are trying to get people to be peaceful.

I know what the answer is for those who are in the big stick camp. The only way to make people sit down and shut up is to have a bigger stick than they do. Except that tactic has never worked in the history of mankind. The guy with the stick eventually gets taken out by a bunch of other guys who get together and say, "You know that guy with the stick? We can take him."

I wanted to point out something else as well. We spend $19 billion on education every year. In terms of Percentage of our GDP we rank with Russia. Awesome. And guess who else? Egypt.

So wait, we spend tons of money on defense. Give more money to Egypt for their military weapons, and that frees them up to spend the same amount we do per student? That sounds like some kind of crazy. This kind of comparison might be unfair, but in any budget you can see a countries goals and ideals spelled out in its spending.

Ok so out ahead is Social Security. That's fair since technically that's OUR money the government has been setting aside for us all these years. How nice of them. Next is Defense. I might argue that. I mean, if in the category of "Foriegn Aid" we are handing out money for other countries to buy weapons... I mean. I dunno. Am I crazy? Is it really a good idea to be handing out guns to people?
 I get it, we are trying to make them as tronger nation and they are our allie, etc etc. But that is not working out so well. Castro wrote letters to FDR. Saddam Husein was an ally. We named Adolf Hilter as man of the year. Honestly, we aren't good at picking out our friends.
For real. We shouldn't be giving anyone guns with record. They just end up shooting at us. It would be bad enough if the aid we were giving was for food and education, but it's not! The biggest portion of it is designated for military. Sigh. It seems like the defense budget might not need to be so big if we weren't so busy fighting all the people to whom we've been handing out weapons.
Medicare and Medicaid eat up another 20%, more even than the defense budget. The next largest group at 4.6% is the INTEREST on the nation debt. Now, if you own a home you might think, wow, that sounds like a deal. Hook me up with that rate. But, remember, that's not the rate, that's the percent of the GDP that we pay to the interest payment every year. We spend more on that than we do on education, transportation and veterans. Recall also that as of 2010 almost 40% of the debt is help by foreign governments. Another reason it might not be a great idea to be giving these people weapons. When they come to collect they will be well armed. I'm not saying they would win, but it will certainly be worse. In 2011 the debt is $14 trillion dollars. Our 2009 GDP was $14.2 trillion. This looks bad. The debt is 90% of our current GDP, working backwards that makes our current GDP around $16 trillion. The only other time in History that it was higher was after WWII when it hit 120%. So, its not all bad news.

Everything else that the Government does is lumped into the last few percentiles. Agriculture, FDA, Energy Reg, Commerce, Treasury, the National Science Foundation, Health and Human services, Corps of engineers, Justice, and even Homeland security.

Basically everything that you think of "government" doing for a society is a marginal part of what our country actually does. Is it any wonder federal school systems are a mess? That bridges and damns fail? That our energy innovation is stale? That our space program stagnated years ago? That commerce regulation are outdated? That food is fraught with E. Coli? The only thing our government does is have guns, pay for people to be sick and out of work, and... oh. That's it. That's the top percentiles. Everything else (aside from our debt payment) is less than 4%. What the heck!?

The system, my friends, is broken. Yet, somehow in the midst of this, we still send billions over seas to provide weapons to foreign powers who we might just end up fighting someday.

The problem now is the Medicare/Medicaid/Unemployment/Welfare chunk of the pie. That's huge. Huge. And I don't see a way out of it through programs or more spending. The only way people get off the government ticket is through the two things that made the nation a pretty great country in the first place. Freedom and community. When people have the courage and the freedom to care for each other and themselves. They do. When it becomes necessary. The program rewards laziness right now. Especially welfare. I don't dismiss the need for the program, but there have got to be incentives that drive people into each other's arms. Not inside with the television. In fact, that could be rule one. If you are on welfare, you can't have a TV. What would people do!?

In the end, it seems like we as a country are in the habit of paying people for doing nothing. Weather it is here at home, or abroad, we delight in just handing over billions of dollars while no one does anything to compensate us for it. How long can we keep this up? We certainly live in interesting times.