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Again, the Sacramento politicians use “The Children” as Pawns

No on Prop 30 California 2012

Here we are again.

Proposition 30 in California is nothing  short of yet another tax hike designed to close a budget shortfall caused by the incredible mis-spending in Sacramento.

One of the talking points of this proposition is 

Preventing Deep School Cuts,

However, the very first line on their web site says “After Years of cuts, California’s Schools, Universities, and local public safety services are at the breaking point.”

So which is it?

Are they saying that they’ve been cutting from the schools to fund other programs for years and have depleted the funds and NOW they need to raise taxes to cover the shortfall that they created?

Is it just me or does this make no damn sense?

The Sacramento Politicians want to raise the sales tax and… wait for it… Impose more taxes on the rich.

You know the rich… those evil bastards!

The ones who have been taking money from the schools (not), the wealthy who’ve not been paying their share of taxes.

Those successful motherfuckers who’ve made all that money and who are making donations to charities or starting charities that support research or the arts, or the environment.

The bastards that are building new larger buildings for their filthy money making companies. So that they can employ yet MORE filthy workers and keep the construction businesses busy.

YEAH! Those rancid thundercunt FUCKS!!!

When you think about it that way… raising taxes on just the wealthy starts to seem a little stupid.

I’m not saying that all business people or wealthy people are saints… in fact a lot of them are cut throat bastards. BUT you really have to remember that without them we’re all pushing tacos at the local taco stand for 1.98 an hour.

I’ve said it before, the wealthy have the means to bail out.

They can leave this state and this country any time they want to.

What will Sacramento do if the wealthy leave California and take their businesses with them?

How long would it be before someone puts a proposition together to authorize a sign saying “Will the last educated person please shutdown San Onofre before you leave?”

And this isn’t even the worst of it…

The politicians are going to THE CHILDREN Again. Essentially, they’re attempting to hold every single child in the state hostage to force the people of California to vote to raise taxes instead of responsibly spending the money California currently receives in revenue.

If you’re interested… Head on over to CalTax.org. This is a watchdog organization that researches how California spends it’s tax payers money. On that site is an interesting report that details the waste between 2000 and 2010. This is very interesting reading. It’s doubtful that anything in California’s spending pattern has changed.

Instead of raising taxes and threatening the school system… Why doesn’t Sacramento clean up their spending before going back to the taxpayer?

The document is linked in PDF here.

201003_CalTaxResearchBulletin_Decade of Waste.pdf

After reading this… If you still think that these politicians really need more of our money you go right ahead and vote for Prop 30.

The rest of us will be voting no… 

After all how many times can Sacramento expect us to fall for those scare tactics? Especially when in the past we have fallen for it and found out well after the fact that the money allocated to the schools got cut anyway…

Tell Sacramento to KISS OUR COLLECTIVE ASS and vote a resounding NO to every single measure that seeks to raise taxes!

Force Sacramento to actually be responsible for their spending.

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Texas Voter ID Poo Pooed by the Supreme Court

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I’m not sure that I get this.

Texas, wants to reduce voter fraud so they reduce the valid forms of ID down to 5.

No longer can you bring a utility bill to prove you’re authorized to vote. It looks like Texas wanted the ID to be something with a photo. Something like a Drivers License, State Issued ID card, Passport, you know something that was state issued and verifiable.

Instead the Court found that requiring a tangible form of ID was too arduous and unfairly targeted certain segments of the population, in particular the poor who could not afford to obtain ID. What?????

$26 to obtain ID in California. Of course California has a reduced fee ID for $7. Are you fucking kidding me?

Why not make every ID cost $7 and then you wouldn’t be discriminating against the middle class? Oh RIGHT… The middle class gets to pay full pop for everything and they also get to pay via taxes for the reduced fee folks too.

Assuming that California is one of the most expensive states to get an ID then how the hell is it possible for “The Poor” in Texas to NOT be able to afford proper ID which everyone is supposed to produce upon request. 

I’m confused as hell. 

Why is it “Racist” or somehow economic discrimination to ask for a piece of identity documentation? Does this mean that I’m no longer required to carry ID? can I shred my passport? Can I call someone racist if they ask me for one of those documents?

How about this…

On those lovely little forms that new employers make you fill out where you have to produce 2 forms of ID or your passport to prove that you’re eligible to work in the US… can I now legitimately refuse to produce any of these forms of ID on the grounds that it’s clearly discriminatory? I somehow doubt it.

I thought that voting was a privilege reserved for citizens. If that’s still true then providing documentation about identity is  simply the price for admission to the voting place.  For goodness sake you have to show a ticket to get into a theater. Why is something as important as voting treated with less respect?

Moreover, why didn’t the Supreme Court see it this way?

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Why I hate Microsoft

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It’s not that their products are bad per se. Some of them are darn nice. I like their Office suite…

It’s that virtually everyone has Windows, and being a computer guy everyone expects me to be about to work with whatever Microsofts Flavor du Jour is.

It’s not uncommon to run across Windows XP, Vista, and Win 7 in the same office. Every one of these has a quirk or two and all of them are susceptible to various viruses.

Many folks turn off auto updating, the firewall,  and too many folks run without anti-virus protection.

There are those who think they’re running with their Virus protection turned on, but in fact at some point in the distant past they were compromised and the Anti-Virus is nothing but a dummy shell whose functions have all been subverted by a trojan or some kind of malware.

Then you have Microsoft who in it’s effort to hide? the problem will just show a meaningless dialog box that is all but useless except for an error code. 

Even I have to go look up the error codes and I’ve been doing this stuff for years.

I know I’m in deep when Auto Update, Firewall, and Windows Defender ALL fail to work. Something bad happened to the system I’m working on and that badness probably can’t be fixed by Microsofts happy crappy tools.

It would be so nice if Microsoft, instead of telling you something completely useless like “The application you’re trying to download is included in Windows version XYZ and doesn’t need to be downloaded”. Would do something like give you that message, and how to use the application. Then say something like If you still need to download ZYX application click here.

Then that link takes you to a page that explains if you’re seeing failures in the following programs, click here for an installer that will re-install all of them for you.

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The assumption being that the computer you’re working on has been compromised by some kind of malware.

 But no, Microsoft has you play ring around the KB articles until your head is spinning and you’re tired and you just want to get out of the office you’re in and move on with your day.

What do I find on Google?

A simple explanation of the cause of the problem and instructions, all written on one page with links to a repository where the damaged files can be easily obtained.

Come on… Microsoft wrote the software and should have figured out what the problem was. Why is it that some amateur on a forum can put a simple concise document out on the net that makes sense and the creators of the software can’t?

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Armstrong to be stripped of Titles?

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Lance Armstrong to be stripped of  titles retroactively?

Is it me? or is this complete and utter Bullshit?

Even if he was doping back in the day you couldn’t catch him. So he WON… The race and he beat your tests. So make better tests.

If you make better tests and you still didn’t catch him. Guess what? He WON again on both counts.

And with the exception of a couple of possibly false positives Mr. Armstrong consistently won the Tour de France, doing so even after a battle with cancer.

Mr Armstrong has always denied using performance enhancing drugs. I honestly don’t think he was getting away with anything. I think he’s just that good and trains that hard.

Sadly Mr. Armstrongs name has become synonymous with performance enhancing drugs or doping. 

I, as the average “Joe” on the street am sick of hearing about it.

Honestly, it’s always sounded like the French were being whiney assed bitches who somehow thought that the Tour de France was supposed to be won by a Frenchman, and when it wasn’t they cried foul.

I guess it really hurts their national pride such as it is, that they kept getting their asses kicked by an American!

What does this tell any other competitors?

“Be good but throw the occasional event so that you’re not TOO GOOD.” Mediocrity is preferred… After all you don’t  hurt someones feelings now do you?

I’m glad Mr Armstrong chose to say FUCK IT! After all it was obvious that he wasn’t going to be left alone no matter what. In a no win scenario you might as well not play. This is especially true when you have a decades long Witch Hunt leveled against you.

Michael Phelps 005

Then you look at Michael Phelps… there was controversy about whether the IOC was going to pull his medals because he did a photo shoot that was going to be part of his endorsement contracts after his retirement.

Apparently the photos were taken before he retired but they weren’t published until after he retired. 

There’s no break of the rules here. 

But since Phelps was too good someone went looking for something to spank him with.

This is one of the concerns I personally have.

People have always sought to tear down those that they perceived as privileged, wealthy, good looking, stars, or top athletes. This is nothing new.

But now, there are so many ways to tear someone apart. If it’s not naughty pictures, (See Prince Harry) it’s via the rule of law, or simply questioning ones sexual habits. Hell even ones beliefs or religious affiliations can be enough to trail blood in the water.

Once the trickle of metaphorical blood appears in the news (or tabloids, they’re interchangeable these days) the rest of the world attacks like ravenous sharks in a feeding frenzy.

I have to ask why?

These people are human, just like the rest of us. They’ll make poor choices and mistakes just like all the rest of us. Why then are we so quick to rip them apart and not give them the benefit of the doubt?

When did we become so unforgiving and judgmental?

Lance… Great Job! Thanks for representing the US so well

Michael… Fanfuckingtastic! You deserve every single bit of success and I hope your retirement is everything you planned for.

Harry… Dude… I hope you can get back to Vegas or Monaco soon, get naked, party hardy and live your life. Next time… just make sure there are no cell phones or cameras. Have your security confiscate them at the door. (BTW Nice Bum!)

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Paraprosdokian Of the Week

A Friend sent me a list of these. I thought it would be fun to share them

Paraprosdokians are phrases or sentences that lead us down the garden path to an unexpected ending.

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.