Tag: Fail

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I was soooo excited to hear the SOTU Address

I could hardly wait to hear the pearls of wisdom from His Royal Majesty, The Imperial President Biden.

I wanted to see who would tear up their copy of the SOTU speech this year. I was hoping it would be a Republican and then we could see the dirty traitorous racist bastard roughed up and hauled away by The Nobel, Efficient, Capital Police.

I was hoping that we’d see angry “peasants” throwing themselves against the fence and razor wire surrounding the Capital. We might have seen The National Guard opening fire on them ensuring the majesty of our democracy.

The whole world would then see how strong our leaders were, as bulldozers scooped up the bodies and dumped them in a mass grave.

I was hoping for there to at least be some random arrests on the streets outside the Capital were the arrestees were detained without charge, denied their right to counsel, and imprisoned without due process.

After examples like that, the world would know that our leaders are fearless, behind guards, fences and walls, and they know how to control undesirable elements in our society.

Alas, it didn’t happen.

I suppose The Most Glorious Biden’s government is spread thin chasing down all the people who visited Washington DC during Jan 2021.

Happily, many of those racist, white supremacist, bastards, are rotting in prison. Perhaps there wasn’t enough room for more criminal scum?

Please pardon my venomous sarcasm!

I’ve always hated politics! I hate even more that I feel like I’ve been watching a 50 car pile up in slow motion for the past 20 years, and can’t look away.

By now, even the most ardent lover of Joe Biden must be having some buyer’s remorse. His polling numbers would seem to support that assertion.

Yeah, I’ve been aware of a creeping problem in politics for at least the past 20 years.

I voted my conscience, not my party for all of that time. I voted for the candidate, Local, Statewide, and National, that I thought would do the best job. Party be damned.

Ultimately, I thought that the individual candidate and their purported beliefs and history mattered more than their party affiliation. I naively believed that common sense and the inherent decency of the human being would prevail.

I was apparently wrong.

As an American, I understood that we would sometimes have hard times, and sometimes we’d be riding high. I didn’t have a problem tightening my belt for the betterment of my fellow Americans. It wasn’t easy, but it was a duty I shouldered right along with the rest of society because I saw that the government was taking action to correct the problem(s) and those corrections took time. After all, you can’t instantly turn an aircraft carrier, or a cruise ship. I still believed in the system.

However, unlike the frog in a slowly heating pot of water. I’m aware that we’re being boiled alive.

None of my core beliefs fit anymore.

I really wanted to believe The Biden Administration would address the raging issues facing Americans. I wanted to believe that they’d heard the people.

President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Washington as Vice President Kamala Harris and House speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., look on. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

Instead all we got from the SOTU address was what they thought we wanted to hear. Not an actual concrete plan to change course.

I’ll leave the fact checking to the political analysts, (Or Twitter).

A few things did pop out at me. Just a few days ago, there was an article, (I think from CNN) that said Biden admitted that sanctions against Russia wouldn’t help.

Now, in the SOTU, we’re being told that sanctions are hurting Russia? But we and the EU are still buying oil from Russia?

Part of Biden’s speech sounded like it came from the Republican platform. “Buy American”, “Open Schools”, “Build the economy from the bottom up”, “Immigration Reform”, “Rework the Tax System”, “ReFund the Police”. That last one was probably the most astounding.

Biden did mention that our divisiveness needed to end. He said we are all Americans and need to unify. I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. He followed up with more rhetoric about gun control.

He went on to conflate voter integrity laws with voter suppression. Again that was expected.

Most of the speech felt like pandering.

It felt like Biden was saying words but there was no intent behind them. Once again we heard about Beau Biden. It seems like every time Joe Biden speaks, he invokes Saint Beau.

For all his screwups, I feel kinda bad for Hunter. His Dad always speaks about Beau with a sense of deep loss, when Joe Biden speaks about Hunter it’s almost as an afterthought. Hunter must feel like, “Dad wishes I’d died and Beau lived,” perhaps that is why Hunter appears to be so self destructive.

At some point I tuned out. Biden’s SOTU address was exactly what I’d expected. A whole lot of rhetoric and hyperbole but not a lot of substance.

I’d hoped that he (or his handlers) would have addressed a few very specific points and then provided specific corrective actions.

Something like;

“Fuel prices are high and that’s hurting Americans across the board. High fuel prices affect people at the pumps and increase the cost of goods being moved to market, adding to inflation.

To address this:
First I’m releasing our strategic reserves. That won’t last forever but will buy us time.
Second I’m authorizing a ramp up of domestic oil production. Fuel prices won’t fall instantly but as our production goes up and we replenish the strategic oil reserves I expect the prices to start dropping.
Third We will reduce our oil purchases from Russia. This will move us toward energy independence and simultaneously apply more pressure to Russia to stop their war in Ukraine.

This is not a short term fix, I ask all America to be patient. I call upon those companies with workers who can work remotely to delay bringing workers back into the office. That will help offset fuel demand and possibly reduce carbon emissions during this transition. If we work together, we’ll come through just fine.”

A simple statement like that would have been commanding and shown leadership. It would have shown there was a plan and even if that plan didn’t work, Americans would have accepted it, and tried to make it work.

Similar statements on just a few key issues would have made all the difference to me, and my opinion of Biden’s leadership.

There was no need for Biden to make anything more than a passing statement about the Ukraine conflict. He could acknowledge it and move on. After all, this speech was about the state of our union not necessarily world events. That’s what speeches at the UN are for.

I’ve included a transcript of the speech from Yahoo News, here.

Re-reading the SOTU. I felt like the Biden Administration was going down a laundry list, not of issues, but of special interest groups.

One item I warmed up to was making the VA work toward linking Toxic exposure from burn pits to disease ravaging our troops after they return from war. This is a problem that the VA has swept under the rug for a very long time. It’s not right that our troops should return home only to be driven into poverty by medical bills because the VA denies the problem is related to our improper disposal of known toxic materials.

Generally, this SOTU left me cold and disheartened.

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And Airbnb is officially deleted from my phone…

Wednesday, Michelle Malkin and her Husband were banned from using Airbnb over a speech she gave in November.

Michelle Malkin is a conservative author and journalist.

Malkin explains, “The speech delved into the K-20 metastasis of anti-white curriculum, the corporate media’s whitewashing of black-on-Asian attacks, and the long campaign to censor nationalist dissidents who put America first.”

Malkin tweeted out:

I’ve been #bannedbyairbnb (along with my husband!) as retaliation for my free speech and #AmericaFirst journalism. It’s insane & un-American – and I could use your help fighting back. Stay tuned. https://t.co/JjZvLzRzSl #michellefightsairbnb@Airbnb pic.twitter.com/Ko6DH7IIaL

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February 2, 2022

Airbnb explained,

“This is consistent with action we’ve taken to ban people associated with this conference in past years. Removal means that your account will no longer be accessible, and you won’t be able to create another one. As we can see that your Airbnb travels are typically reserved via your husband’s account, we will also proceed in removing his account.”

So I ask, “WHAT THE FUCK?”

Is this where we’re going?

In an attempt to silence anyone with dissenting opinions, daring to exercise their first amendment rights, corporate America will take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of The Constitution?

Airbnb is not alone. PayPal, GoFundme, and others in the financial sector have done similar.

GoFundMe as of Wednesday Feb 2, 2022 has reportedly frozen 10 million dollars donated to support the Canadian Trucker Convoy. I ask again WTF? Who is GoFundMe to tell donors that they cannot donate money to a cause they believe in? Ohhhh, right… You are only allowed to donate to approved causes. Got it!

Here’s a thought… Fuck off! GoFundMe.

I cancelled my PayPal account years ago because they started picking and choosing which businesses they would send MY Money to. Uh excuse me. It’s my fucking money! You PayPal need to be reminded that without me putting cash into an account, YOU don’t earn transaction fees or interest.

That’s a lesson that all banking institutions need to be reminded of.

Airbnb is no different. I’d bet that since many of the properties are still owned by individuals they’re not going to take kindly to Airbnb telling them to whom they can and cannot rent their properties.

I’ll personally find a KOA Campground and sleep in a tent before I put any money in Airbnb.

Airbnb is an availability and transaction processor. The odds of the property owners actually knowing how many missed rental opportunities for their properties is low.

They’ll never see that someone was interested, because Airbnb is by default censoring their view and limiting their income in doing so.

Ms. Malkin rightfully asks, “will Airbnb also delete the accounts of my children? How many other families had Airbnb done this to?”

The conference that Malkin spoke at is associated with a group the Southern Poverty Law Center, and The Anti Defamation League, has designated as a hate group.

That’s interesting since SPLC often designates hate groups as racists and Ms Malkin is clearly of Asian descent.

Why would a minority speaker be asked to give a talk at a racist hate groups conference?

This to my eye, is nothing less than a blatant attempt at corporate control aimed squarely at silencing conservative voices and it should not stand.

Unfortunately, the only way to register our displeasure is with American dollars. That means that Airbnb will continue this behavior until they see their application deleted from phones and their revenue fall.

I wonder if they could sustain the monetary losses that Facebook has seen over the past 24 hours?

232 Billion dollars, “poof!” Zuckerberg personally lost 30 Billion in personal worth.

I believe that Airbnb owes Ms Malkin a personal apology, and they owe the American people an apology for attempting to infringe upon the First Amendment in violation of Constitutional law.

Corporations, need to be thumped on their noses with a baseball bat, and told “NO! BAD DOG!”

They need to be reminded that the freedoms guaranteed by The Constitution of the United States apply equally to everyone regardless of the persons political beliefs.

Further, corporations need to be reminded that they exist to perform a service or manufacture goods, nothing more. They are paid based on their performance not their political leanings.

Americans will pay for goods and services that offer value and those that do not, will end up in the burning dumpsters of history.

Airbnb, GoFundMe, and Facebook may well be the first services that should end up in that flaming dumpster.

Ms Malkins’ story isn’t being picked up by the main stream media. That’s unfortunate, because it should be. It would be, if Don Lemon had been treated in similar fashion.

Take a look at your phone, if you’ve got Airbnb loaded, delete it. Most of the time, someone with a rental in an area you want to visit, has the rental information on a local community web site as well.

Contact them directly and perhaps you’ll save a few bucks because if the owner of the property doesn’t have to pay the Airbnb transaction fee they may be willing to pass some savings on to you.

Stop using GoFundMe! This isn’t the first time they’ve failed to perform their function. They’re not providing the service they claim to provide. Cash out and leave them with no new revenue.

While Ms Malkin is a conservative, her political affiliation doesn’t matter. You may not agree with the Canadian Truckers and that’s okay just remember; Eventually, corporate entities will increase their control on everyone unless we as a people thump them on the nose.

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This employer vaccine thing is concerning…

Before you lose your mind…

Wait!

This kind of thing has always concerned me. I’ve worked for several companies that I LEFT because of health insurance or corporation biases.

There was one company that noticed I had a motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license during the onboarding process.

The HR person told me that I’d have to provide them with a bill of sale for my bike within 30 days. She then went on to tell me that riding my motorcycle onto company property was a fireable offense.

After saying this, she went on as if she expected me to just comply without any pushback. When I asked her what the hell? She was quite shocked that I didn’t understand. After a bit of prodding she explained that the group insurance policy forbade anyone being covered from riding a motorcycle.

She was even more shocked when I told her we were done and asked for the hiring paperwork that I’d already filled out so that I could shred it. Then she got mad. I remember her screeching, “We’re only trying to protect you!”

My retort was, “Yep, at the price of becoming an indentured servant whose rights are granted by my employer, instead of The United States Constitution. What’s next? Approval of my sexual practices? Will I have to bring in the bedsheets weekly to prove that I’m not having sex if I’m unmarried? Will I have to prove that I’m not masturbating as well?”

Hey, I was younger and more prone to hyperbole.

I remember walking out of that place so pissed off I literally had to sit in my car in a mall parking lot to calm down for the drive home. Then I realized, “I’m at a mall, screw it! I’m going shopping!”

Then there was another company where smoking was suddenly forbidden, dictated again by a change in their insurance policy. This was not just on company property but in your home. I’d quit smoking a couple of years before, but that day when I stopped for gas I bought a pack of smokes. Then I found a nice bar and ordered a double. I sat there drinking and smoking much too late. I quit the job the following Monday, I quit smoking again about a month later. I made sure that when I went in to quit I reeked of cigarette smoke.

Then there was a company who sent out a survey to each employee asking if they were SCUBA divers, or skydivers, pilots, mountain climbers, motorcyclists, dirt bike riders, or enjoyed hang gliding. Most employees thought they were doing one of those HR team building things where the company would build clubs of likeminded people to tout their work life balance. My antenna went up immediately after reading the list of activities. I didn’t send my survey back.

Two weeks later an HR representative was standing at my desk with a stack of surveys demanding that the employee named on the survey fill it out while they waited. The representative testily pointed out that lying on a company form was grounds for dismissal.

She had maybe 30 other surveys in her hand. I asked, “Why is it so important for you to know if an employee participates in this specific group of activities?”

She told me, “the reason was none of my business.”

I told her, “Then write that I do all of them, then you’ll have whatever reason you’re fishing for to do whatever you’re going to do.”

Ahh… The fun of open office plans with 4′ cubicle walls. Several of my colleagues had incomplete surveys to fill out too. They heard the exchange and marked all of the above as well.

I’d already interviewed for another position with a competitor, and been offered the job.

The little lady stomped off, and I finished my resignation letter effective immediately. My boss pointed out that 2 weeks was customary and I said, “I’m not going to allow a company to dictate my personal life.”

My boss sat back and said, “Oh, you’ve heard.” I said, “Nope, but I’ve been to this rodeo before and know how it ends. Out of courtesy, I’ll give you two weeks because you’ve been decent to me.”

The next week, HR announced that the company decided the activities listed on the survey were too dangerous and employees were not to participate in them because medical insurance would not cover “Dangerous Activities”. In the HR announcement, they said they’d be reaching out to employees with acceptable methods that employees could prove to the company they’d given up these “dangerous” hobbies.

Over the next two weeks, the company received the resignations of about 20 engineering employees. In the end, they were begging for people to stay. HR remained intractable and started trying to hire replacements. But the word was out in the engineering community. It turned out that American engineers like to have fun in their off time.

These are examples of employer overreach from my own life and personal experience.

I’ll grant you that COVID vaccination was a bit different when the vaccines were being touted as providing immunity. But now?

We’ve been told by the CDC, and Dr Fauci that the vaccines against COVID-19 are therapeutic not preventative. We’ve seen articles in the mainstream press saying that the vaccine will prevent hospitalization with COVID but that even vaccinated persons can still get COVID and spread it.

So NOW with this knowledge, is it reasonable for corporations or governments to demand their employees be vaccinated? Is it right for those corporations to insinuate themselves into the personal lives of their employees? Will the future hold that an employee with HIV or cancer, or heart disease be threatened with their job if they don’t take HIV meds, or choose not to have chemo, or refuse a pacemaker?

This comes to mind because T-Mobile can be added to the list of employers demanding that their corporate employees get vaccinated. The article is here.

Since I’m adamantly against a corporation dictating any aspect of my life except when I must be at work to do my job, I’m in a bit of a conundrum.

I don’t want to support companies that do this sort of thing. But after doing some research it turns out that T-Mobile provides the best plans and pricing for me given my family’s needs.

Generally speaking, I’ve been terminating my connections/subscriptions to companies whose policies I disagree with. Apple being a notable exception although I have been reducing the new dollars that I give them.

There’s a problem being entrenched in any corporate ecosystem. You try to get out and they keep pulling you back in… To paraphrase the movie line about the Mafia.

I miss the good ol’ days when companies were just about making profit and were publicly apolitical. I know we’ll never get back to simple transactional relationships with Corporate America.

That doesn’t mean I can’t miss the simplicity.

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Wow, Neil Young thought he was still a star…

I find it really amusing that Neil Young blew it so badly.

Let’s see, he’s been in the entertainment industry for decades. You’d think that in all that time he’d have learned something about that business model.

You know, a little thing like, “Cash talks, Bullshit walks”.

Anyone with half a brain would have seen which way Spotify was going to go.

Option A, fold to Young’s childish demands and loose a ton of money by cancelling a current star like Rogan.

Option B, cancel a has been rocker that a lot of younger folks have no clue about.

Clearly Young missed the lesson of “Follow the Money”.

Now, Neil Young is asking for other ancient has been rockers to join his little snit. Apparently some are, Peter Frampton and Joni Mitchell have sided with Young.

It took Spotify less than 24 hours to come to a decision and delete Neil Young’s catalog. I imagine that if it comes to it, Frampton and Mitchell’s, music will be gone in less time. Other “Artists” may find their catalogs removed in seconds, not hours.

That’s the funny part of computers. The first iteration of something is always the slowest, the second, third, or fourth iterations of a function go much quicker.

I’d have to check the history of rock but wasn’t there a reason that Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, just became Crosby, Stills & Nash?

I could see Spotify getting to the point that they just present a message to the Artist;

“You are about to delete your entire music catalog from Spotify. This represents XXXX Dollars per week of income to you. This action cannot be undone.

Continue? Y / N”

Then we’d see who really had conviction and valued the “Moral High Ground”. I might even respect those who pressed “Y”.

Apple has chosen to take this opportunity to “Make Hay while the sun shines,” by featuring Neil Young on Apple Music.

If Neil Young thinks this is anything but Apple blatantly attempting to woo new subscribers to their service, he better think again. Once again, this is only about the Benjamins. Apple will move on as soon as the media hype drops off. It’s not personal, it’s simply business.

I find myself questioning Apple more and more these days, but that is another story.

Thankfully I have no need of new Apple products and therefore don’t find myself with the dilemma of choosing to confront my growing concern that Apple has become “Evil” like Google did, versus wanting something Apple makes. I know it’s a cheap way out, but I really don’t want to deal with mixed platforms again, this way I can delay feeling like I have to decide.

It’s bad enough that I’m cancelling Amazon Prime, and Hulu. While neither of them are watched or listened to in this household enough to justify their costs. I’ll miss those odd moments when I want to watch something mindless like, Ancient Aliens, for the hell of it but don’t want to actually “Buy” it.

Kinda like how Spotify fed the aging boomers Neil Young’s music, allowing them to relive their glory days without having to pay for the shitty “B” sides.

(That’s a reference a lot of younger folks won’t get. You used to be able to tell which side of a vinyl LP had the best songs when you pulled it out of the sleeve. One side was worn and slightly gray while the other was pristine and shiny black. )

Honestly, I wish the entertainers would just stick to entertaining. I’m tired of having my political awareness triggered when I hear some favorite song. I hate hearing something and then getting sucked down the rabbit hole of, “That’s a song by X, they’ve been demanding Y be cancelled and saying if you disagree you’re part of the problem.” It’s at this point that I hit skip on the music player.

I just want to enjoy the music or the movie without having that internal political discussion.

A couple of examples;

Hocus Pocus – Bette Midler completely destroyed that old favorite movie for me. Why? Because now when I see her being an overbearing nasty witch on screen, I kinda think she wan’t acting. If that’s the case, she’s not a very nice person.

Cher – I grew up on her music. She had a special place in my heart. The Sonny & Cher show wasn’t missed often when I was growing up. But now… Every time she opens her mouth I’m appalled.

Jane Fonda – I was too young to understand why my Father and Step Father would change the channel if she was on TV. It didn’t matter to them if she was being an actress or an activist. Neither of them would allow her to be on the TV in their homes. It wasn’t until I was an adult with my own home and TV that I got to see her films.

Now, as an older adult, I get it, because I’ve begun to feel the same way about a lot of my icons.

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One of those strange coincidences

Last Thursday the other half went to the drug store and dutifully got their COVID booster shot.

The day started out normally. The other half was feeling fine and went to work as normal. After work the other half dropped by the drug store and got the booster. Within four hours of having the booster, the other half was trying to cough up a lung. This was far worse than when they’d gotten the first vaccination.

I was worried because their coughing was so intense and rattling. I tried my best to be supportive asking if there was anything I could get for them and offering to make dinner. You know, the usual stuff you do when someone you care about is feeling under the weather.

Then the next day, I was coughing and running a low grade fever. This was a, “what the heck moment for me,” I hadn’t been around anyone that was ill except the other half who’d left the house perfectly fine Thursday morning.

I haven’t left the house for about 4 weeks, For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been nursing a bum knee and between the snow and ice, haven’t wanted to take the chance that I’d slip and make the knee worse. It’s been all I could do to navigate the level areas inside the house with a cane. This pretty much means that whatever I caught, I got it from the other half.

As we headed into the weekend both of us sounded like a tuberculosis ward.

Saturday neither of us did much of anything but sleep. My fever was running about 102F and seemed to remain fairly constant.

Sunday was much of the same although my fever was dropping off to just a degree or two above normal.

Both of us did a lot of sleeping on Sunday too. The whole weekend got away from us.

That’s not that big a deal, we both needed some down time.

The timing is just strange. I haven’t been sick since April of 2020 mainly because I haven’t been interacting with anyone. I’m unemployed and there’s simply not much reason for me to leave the house.

I think this is just an odd coincidence that the other half got the booster and then was actually sick and that I got sick too.

In the back of your mind though, when is events are apparently so closely related, you have to wonder if there’s not something else going on.

Honestly, if this was Omicron I’m fine with it.

Today I woke up feeling pretty good. I’m still a little feverish but it’s minor. Oddly, the knee that had been so swollen it hurt to bend is miraculously 90% better. Right now I’m feeling just like I do on the tail end of any standard cold.

Another day & I’m going to be back to my normal self. I’m likely going to nap a bit today between doing chores. Laundry for example works great with short naps.

The other half is doing much better today as well. Although anything respiratory takes a long time to clear for them. Which is why they decided to get the vaccination in the first place.

Being somewhat conspiracy “Curious” I can see a situation where if I was a full on conspiracy believer I’d conflate the onset of illness after a booster as proof that the vaccines are bad.

If you believed in an evil cabal of pharmaceutical companies, world governments, and the whole depopulate the planet thing… Something coincidental like this could feed right into your paranoia.

I choose to believe that it was just odd timing and bad luck.

If it wasn’t just odd timing and bad luck… Then the evil cabal took their shot at me and missed. I’m on the mend, and have survived. It’s gonna take a lot more than that to kill off this old buzzard!

Hope you all have a great week.