Category: BullShit

Posted on

For the too stupid to believe catergory

PlaneFail

This one tickled me.

A guy in England found it was cheaper to change his name, and have a new passport issued than to have a name changed on a plane ticket.

Here’s the link

The short version is that the Father of the guy’s girlfriend purchased the ticket. He grabbed what he thought was the young guys name from the young man’s facebook page. The only problem is that the kids facebook page had the name “Adam West” as a joke.

SOOOOO the name on the plane ticket ended up as Adam West. Unfortunately, the young man’s name is actually Adam Armstrong.

PlaneTicket

You’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal to change a name on a piece of paper, but apparently I costs 200 pounds to press a few keys on a keyboard. 

I’ve been pressing keys on a keyboard ALL WRONG!

Airlines the world over are apparently populated with absolute assholes. From NAZI-esq flight attendants to moronic Bureaucrats who delight in applying the “Rules” no matter how obviously the application of the rules is inappropriate.

TSACheckpoint

I could understand charges IF you were trying to change the name on the ticket within a week of your trip.

But clearly if the  young man could legally change his name, and get a new passport prior to the trip there was enough time for the airline to change the name on the ticket, do a complete background check, issue a security clearance, and just let the kid get on the damn plane.

From my perspective this just adds to the reasons that airlines are fighting for profitability.

Posted on

I’m so over the Jenner /Kardashian media Circus!

BruceJenner

I’m also very easily bored!

I’m over it! I don’t care, and I’m sick and tired of seeing and hearing about His transition to Her new life. It’s his / her business and I don’t need to know about it, or for that matter want to know about it. Intellectually, I’m glad she is finding happiness and peace in her new life.

In my gut… well that’s another story.

Intellectually, I know Transgendered folks suffer because they feel like they’re in the wrong body. I know that sex reassignment is a radical and oftentimes last resort for these folks to find peace and happiness in their lives. I have compassion for them and am glad that medical science can give them relief and a shot at happiness.

The ones that confuse the hell out of me are the folks who go through all the surgery and then end up being in a same sex relationship. That really causes my brain to just blue screen.

CaitlanJenner

Most of the folks who transition from one gender to the other do it quietly, methodically, and with a great deal of psychological support.  

They’re very serious about what they’re doing and their choices are made in the privacy of their own lives.

The Jenner media circus has created a situation where I’m unable to avoid very distressing visualizations of surgical procedures.

Yeah, you really can’t un-see something.  Unfortunately, I once looked up how the procedure is done.  

As a result when the Jenner media circus comes on the TV or pops up in a news Item I’m turning the TV off or closing my web browser.

The trouble is, IT’S EVERYWHERE! 

In my gut…

I’m totally creeped out!! I can’t not visualize it, I can’t un-see it. (There is a slightly positive side… I’m losing weight, because about the time my appetite returns the next news cycle hits.)

Please Jenner, You’ve successfully harnessed the Kardashian publicity machine, you’re on the cover of Vanity Fair, you’ve signed entertainment deals, kindly exit stage left. It’s past time for you to leave the spotlight.

If anything good has come from this circus it’s that you may have given me an appreciation of what PTSD may be like.

I wonder if I could get paid for my emotional distress?

Everyone else sues at the drop of a hat why shouldn’t I?

Posted on

Sometimes I think about stuff that I probably shouldn’t

Creditcards

Lately I’ve noticed that the APRs and most especially the Penalty APRs on credit cards have been rising. 

The next time you get a statement from your credit card issuer take a good hard look at the fees and the penalties.

What caught my attention was that many of those penalty APRs are damn close to 30%

Creditscore Propaganda

The credit reporting agencies and the banks consistently tell us that closing credit card accounts is bad for our credit rating.

I think losing your job and being late on a credit card is a lot worse for your overall quality of life (screw the credit rating) because at 30% penalties you’re quickly thrown into bankruptcy. Even a relative low 10,000 combined balance on various cards could screw you six ways from Sunday.

Punishment

Think about it, that’s 3000 a month the banks are going to increase your debt by, every month, because you’re being punished by a shitty economy.

The way the text reads, the banks can increase the interest on the entire balance to 30% regardless of whether you return to making payments on time or not.

$3000 is a house payment in some places. For other folks, that’s their entire monthly take home pay.

It makes me think that I don’t want that kind of exposure. Even though I pay the bills, and have been paying the bills like clockwork, I’m uncomfortable with that kind of exposure should I fall on harder times than I’ve already fallen on.

BUT the banks and credit agencies keep scaring us about damaging our credit scores. So we keep on using credit cards and our balances keep creeping up and we all know in the back of our minds that it’s an addiction.

I find myself wondering if the damage done to my credit rating by closing accounts would be worse than missing a payment.

Addiction

Then you look at the way the banks calculate your credit worthiness and you realize it really is a scam designed to feed an addiction.

Banks and credit reporting agencies say you have a better credit score if you’re using less than 30% of your available credit. 

You can do this by having a single card where you don’t use more than 25% to 30% of the available credit, or you can have multiple cards where you use less than 30% of the combined available credit.

This incentivizes you to get more cards with higher limits, increasing your exposure to major problems if you lose your job.

Most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck and are less than one month from late payments on a variety of debt. Even if they’re eligible for unemployment benefits, they still won’t be able to pay for necessities much less credit card bills.

So in less than 2 months, someone can fall from the middle class to homelessness and have debt accruing that will in many cases destroy them even when they’re lucky enough to get a job again.

What about the case where you have NO credit cards, a house, and money in the bank?  Guess what? You any not have a credit rating, or if you do, it’s a poor one. 

wad o cash

You’ve opted out of the addiction cycle therefore you must be punished with a shitty credit rating.

It’s even possible that you could have a couple hundred thousand in liquid assets BUT you might not be able to get a cable TV account, because you don’t pass credit muster.

This, in my humble opinion, is a seriously screwed up way of living.

I’m planning to un-addict myself as soon as possible. I realize that switching to a cash economy will also mean that the government will be taking a closer interest in my banking.

After all If I’m using cash… It follows that I must be a criminal doesn’t it?

Last act of defiance

I was thinking about the way I used to live before I had credit cards and bills and all the rest of it. I’ve realized that I’m over the credit economy. I really prefer spending real cash, knowing where I stand, and not worrying about credit scores and all that crap.  

I guess I’ve reached the point where I’m willing to opt out of continuously being terrorized by an arbitrary numerical rating of what is essentially measuring my honorability and honesty.

I find it doubly ironic we’re all held hostage to these numbers, especially when you consider that the housing bubble and financial implosion of 2008 was caused by people with stellar credit ratings, who were inherently dishonest as hell.

I guess I’m feeling like the mouse flipping off the eagle (or cat) in a last act of defiance.

Posted on

What ever happened to EQUAL?

Boston University FINALLY got around to condemning a Professors Racist Misandric tweets.

donaldsterling

I’m about to talk about that which dare not be spoken of.

NO! Not kinky sex, hell I’ll talk about that!

In this context I’m speaking about Racism & Sexism.

Close your eyes and think “RACIST” What do you visualize? Now repeat the exercise and think “SEXIST”, do yo see the same person?

We’ve all been trained to think of racism and sexism in terms of the racist is ALWAYS WHITE and a Sexist Bastard is ALWAYS a MALE and usually White.

But there has been a growing sexist / racist element in our society which is not always white, and which is almost never male that gets a pass to say things I haven’t’ heard since the ‘60s.

davidduke

Consider this phrase:

Why is black America so reluctant to identify black college males as a problem population?

You read that and think, “OMG that’s SOOO Racist! The man that said that should be punished!” And you’d be right according to the unwritten rules of our society today.

You’d expect a comment like that from Rush Limbaugh, or Donald Sterling, or David Duke.

What was actually said:

“why is white america so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?”

tweet1

It’s just as racist.

The “Man” that said this is actually a Sociology and African American Studies Professor named Saida Grundy, who happens to be a black woman.

While Donald Sterling was forced to sell his interest in his basketball franchise, publicly humiliated, and denied his freedom of speech and opinion, this professor enjoys protection of her free speech rights. Frankly I don’t see the difference between the two people.

Boston University is asserting that her first amendment right to free speech while disagreeable, is protected.

Fundamentally I agree. Freedom of speech applies equally to all of us.  So does the public shaming, the loss of career, and all the punishment commonplace in our society today.

We’ll force a millionaire owner to divest himself of a franchise because he used the “N” word (Exercising his right to free speech), but we’ll give this professor a pass to say something equally offensive? Does anyone else see a problem with this?

We’ll force a TV personality like Paula Dean loose pretty much everything because she said the “N” word 25 years ago.

NicoleHe Tweet

But we’ll tolerate an Asian lady in a well known financial organization tweeting that she hates white people.

In her case there was no penalty. Even when other twitter followers demanded a response from Kickstarter there was no apology, & no consequences for this sweet racist.

A person of color is not automatically immune to being a racist anymore than a woman is immune to being a sexist.  Our society continues to choose to look the other way when a non-white person or woman behaves or speaks in a racist or sexist way.

Plain and simple if it’s wrong for one group, it’s wrong for all groups, regardless of the groups protected status or historical injustices committed against them.

We must all be treated with respect, dignity and equality or none of us will ever know equality. That means calling out a woman if she’s sexist. And calling out a person of color, if they’re racist.

It’s well past time for equality to be applied equally.

Posted on

This is why many conservative gay folks…

sandyrios

… are still in the conservative closet. Yeah they’re out about their sexuality, but not about their philosophy, or politics.

All I can say after reading and listening to what this woman said is, “ARE YOU F&$KING KIDDING ME?”

Sandy Rios of Sandy Rios In The Morning said ON AIR that she’s wondering if the sexuality of the Amtrak Engineer in Tuesday’s train derailment was a factor in the accident.

PennsylvaniaTrainCrash

She goes to great lengths and is obviously choosing her words carefully to say she’s not inferring the accident happened because Bostian is gay…

Then goes on to infer exactly that! (Yeah and some of your best friends are gay too!)

Here’s a link to the article in the Huffington Post

LAfreewaybailout

This is the same as me saying, “I’m not inferring that because her last name is hispanic that she’s likely to leave the scene of an auto accident but well sometimes being hispanic is a factor in hit & run accidents… I was once in an accident where a hispanic lady left the scene. I mean she just abandoned her car and a friend picked her up before the cops came.“

True story, The lady did abandon her car on the freeway, left behind one hell of a mess for the CHP to clean up. 

For years gays have been accused of having larger amounts of disposable income than their straight counterparts. Additionally, they’re supposed to be more into taking care of themselves, they’re supposed to drive nicer cars, have nicer homes and apartments, they’re typically well educated, well insured, and well just awesome in every way.

Were you describing a straight person with all those same traits, you’d say they’re responsible & reliable.

gayborhood

Yet when you preface those same traits with “They’re gay…” somehow these traits lose their blush and now all that responsibility & training counts for nothing with conservative assholes like Rios.

I’m a mostly conservative asshole, and I know a lot of really conservative gay men. We’re not obvious about our conservative beliefs for two reasons.

1) Lots of gays are totally Democratic, progressive liberal dip shits.

2) People like this ‘gash in a sundress’, (Thank you Pam from TrueBlood, that is a great line!)

Pam

When you say you’re a conservative gay person you’re treated badly, and people identify you with Perry, Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, or crazed bible thumpers from Westboro Baptist Church.  Obviously, none of my conservative gay friends are anything like these examples, and by the way we don’t hate ourselves either.

Generally we’re thinkers who tend to prefer common sense practicality over “theory”. We don’t tend to buy into social engineering and are more about people deciding what’s best for themselves. We realize we don’t have to agree on every point with someone else and can hold discussions with folks who have different opinions without resorting to name calling. After we’ve had even “spirited” discussions, we can still be friends, have a beer and even sex, and feel great about life and how lucky we are.

WestboroBaptistchurch

Thank goodness this lady isn’t mainstream.

Next, people like Rios would be claiming that gays shouldn’t operate heavy machinery, drive cars, or fly planes, for fear of a gay person “getting the Vapors” and losing control.

[After all it only takes one despondent faggot, and planes get crashed into the ground.

Oh wait the German pilot was straight… oh wait the Islamic terrorists that crashed into Pennsylvania were straight, and it was a gay man that was one of the leaders of the rebellion against the terrorists on flight 93.]

Flight93memorial

The same line of reasoning was, ironically enough, used to deny women the vote and briefly the ability to drive in this country.

That line of “Less than” reasoning is STILL used in some countries in the Middle East to deny women’s rights.

So Ms. Rios, YA might want to think for just a moment about all the privileges and rights you have, which would have been denied simply because you’re a woman and therefore “Less Capable”.

Then for just a moment think about the fact that you’re suggesting a “Less Than Capable” status because someone is gay. Then after that…

selfiedriving

Do us ALL a favor and shut your pie hole!

Allow me to spell this out using small words so you can understand the meaning.

Gay people are just like everyone else.

Give gay people ALL the rights of being a US citizen and you’ll see just how normal, and dare I say it, “Average” they are.

Oh and by the way, we’re better drivers than you straights…

We do have nicer cars and therefore have to be better drivers, just to avoid accidents with distracted soccer moms like you!