Im Just Saying

I have nothing more to add.

From AP
WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital always draws its share of protesters, picketing for causes ranging from health care reform to immigration policy.

But spelling bee protesters? They’re out here, too.

Four peaceful protesters, some dressed in full-length black and yellow bee costumes, represented the American Literacy Council and the London-based Spelling Society and stood outside the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. Their message was short: Simplify the way we spell words.

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

“Our alphabet has 425-plus ways of putting words together in illogical ways,” Mahoney said.

The protesting cohort distributed pins to willing passers-by with their logo, “Enuf is enuf. Enough is too much.”

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for “fruit” to be spelled as “froot,” “slow” should be “slo,” and “heifer” — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be “hefer.”

Meanwhile, inside the hotel’s Independence Ballroom, 273 spellers celebrated the complexity of the language in all its glory, correctly spelling words like zaibatsu, vibrissae and biauriculate.

While the protesters could make headway with cell phone texters who routinely swap “u” for “you” and “gr8″ for “great,” their message may be a harder sell for the Scripps crowd.

Mahoney had trouble gaining traction with at least one bee attendee. New Mexico resident Matthew Evans, 15, a former speller whose sister is participating in the bee this year, reasoned with her that if English spellings were changed, spelling bees would cease to exist.

“If a dictionary lists ‘enough’ as ‘enuf,’ the spelling bee goes by the dictionary, therefore all the spelling words are easier to spell, so the spelling bee is gone,” Evans said.

“Well,” Mahoney replied, “they could pick their own dictionary.”

___

Online: http://www.americanliteracy.com

http://www.spellingsociety.org

I’m at my end with people. We have a new Supreme Court nominee, one that has no judicial history, and she is being lambasted by the fringe right as a socialist (disregarding the fact that her Harvard Law Thesis was on the failure of socialism in early 20th-century New York). They say they don’t want some one pushing agendas, and since she’s not exactly an attractive woman, she must be a bull-dyke and will legalize gay marriage and force all of us to be fags…or something like that. The point is since they can’t attack her for her record, they had to find something else.

They say that gay rights, abortion, bailouts, and social safety nets aren’t in the Constitution so the Supreme Court has no business hearing cases on them and our representatives have no business legislating them. They say they want the Supreme Court ruling only as the CONSTITUTION dictates. Well now that’s a problem, and here’s why. Here’s a short list of things our supposedly brilliant founding fathers left OUT of the constitution.

1) The right to free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of and from religion.
2) The right to own a gun
3) Protection from housing military
4) The right against unreasonable search and seizure
5) The right of due process, legal representation, and against self incrimination

There are more, but you should have figured out that these are the first five AMENDMENTS to the Constitution, one half of the first ten which made up the Bill of Rights. Do you know what the tenth amendment is? It’s that favorite of the fringe right that rights not granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution are granted to the states. The Constitution as it was written did not include that provision.

See the founding fathers actually were quite brilliant. They foresaw that they were incapable of creating a perfect document for all eternity and so not only left it open, but in fact built in the processes to change it (Article V). They wrote it in such a way as to be interpreted in the standard of the time it is being applied. They specifically intended us NOT to take it literally as it was written in 1777. They wanted “activist judges” and activist legislators to apply the Constitution to the time and for the greatest benefit of America and its citizens.

Did you know the right to a jury in a civil trial is granted for all disputes greater than twenty dollars? The family went to Frugals yesterday and four cheeseburgers, four fries, two wild berry milkshakes, one vanilla milkshake and a root beer came to $22.04. Assuming sales tax is included in the $20 cut-off, I could conceivably go to a jury trial if there was a dispute over my meal. In fact we all agreed it wasn’t very good so maybe there should be. Also, in honor of Mothers Day, your mother wasn’t allowed to vote or own property and Michael Jordan was three-fifths of a human being. Much less eye-roll inducing, if your bank was robbed or went belly up, you were S O L and your money was gone.

Still think we want Strict Constitutionalists?

“Everything” is too long a list to work with.
No one knows everything about anything.
No one knows something about everything.
Everyone knows something about some things.
Anyone could be the world’s foremost expert on something.
Anyone who thinks that just because they didn’t already know a thing, it must not be true or important, is an idiot.

I’ve been reading a lot of forums lately. So much so that I’ve been completely demotivated to discuss much of anything here. The vitriol and disconnect the average internet peruser shows is disturbing. It doesn’t matter what the topic of conversation is, it always breaks down to Obama being a socialist bankrupting the country versus Obama being a guy trying to fix the mess the last guy created. The anti-obamaites seem to think the pro- or even just meh-obamaites are kool-aide drinking sheep that are following their savoir over a cliff. Has it always been like this? Has the division of the country always been this harsh? Or has the rise of the internet just given it voice? Or is it just that the fringes now have a forum to scream at all of us and create the impression that it’s really this bad?

I voted for Obama. I was actually a Joe Biden supporter after hearing him on The Daily Show. I didn’t agree with everything he had to say but he struck me as calm and logical, which is all I really want from my President. I was on the fence about Obama, I didn’t think he could win in November and I would be damned if Sarah Palin was the Vice President of the United States. I’ll be damned if she is Vice President of Micronesia as far as that goes. But after his acceptance speech, and his selection of Biden, I got on board the Obama-wagon. Now there’s this ground swell that “the majority of the country” doesn’t want Obama and he’s being shown the door. If that were truly the case, how would he have gotten elected in the first place? There were no hanging chads this time, Obama won both the popular vote and the electoral college. It’s funny to me that they say the Left aren’t thinking for themselves and just doing whatever Obama says; Liberals are notorious for not being on the same page. Liberals have too many variances in their beliefs and are often splintered into smaller groups. That’s why so many deals had to be made on Health Care. The Right’s ability to close ranks and get on message has been their greatest strength since 1994. So who’s really drinking the kool-aide?

I haven’t agreed with everything Obama has said and done. I was against the bailouts; I don’t believe Health Care should have been his first at-bat; I want him to take a firmer stance on his campaign promises and get out in front of the story when they are missing self-imposed deadlines (Quantanamo, Iraq, etc); and if he truly wants to be bipartisan, he can’t let the Democrats in Congress lead the charge. Does this make him a bad President? No. If you have to agree with everything your President does, you’re not looking for a President, you’re looking for a cult leader. So again, who’s really following their savior?

But the Bush-bashers aren’t any better. I was very critical of Bush and his policies, but there are people that honestly believe Bush orchestarted 9/11, Iraq, and everything else that went wrong from 2000 to 2008. Frankly I don’t think Bush is smart enought to pull that off. People were convinced he was going to bankrupt and destroy the country. What happened? Some stuff. Some bad stuff, sure, but hardly the end of civilization. Now it’s the other fringes side to make the same claims.

You know what else? Washington couldn’t keep a blow-job a secret, do you honestly think they can keep an honest to god conspiracy secret? That’s how I know Washington is on the level, there are too many people happy to destroy the other guy to keep things quiet.

Back to the point at hand, what the hell is going on with our citizenry? Are we going batshit insane? I was thinking back and I know this kind of back and forth stretches back to the Gore v. Bush election, but I don’t remember it being like this in ’96. But the Republican Party were convinced Clinton was a one-term mistake and the country would come to them as they had in ’94. But it was that entitled attitude, and some mistaken battles with the Populist Clinton, that cost them. They didn’t see that, unfortunately, and started an all out war on “THEM.” And that’s when it started.

Of course Bob Dole was a statesman open to a reasoned exchange of ideas. If he ran today he would probably be eviscerated by his own party, or he’d have to betray his own beliefs and run to the Right the way John McCain did in 2008. McCain was also an reasoned statesman, until the Party destroyed him in ’00. He spent the next eight years becoming baby-bush and praying his final run at the High-office would be successful. Unfortunately he couldn’t forsee the swing the country would take and it was too late to correct. If he had stuck to his principles, he would have been a strong Moderate Republican candidate, or more likely the first third-party candidate with an actual shot.

I started this post without a clear point to make and it’s natural flow of ideas have led me to this conclusion. You want to talk about sheep? Obama will not be the death-nell of this country any more than Bush was. There were just mile markers on a roadtrip that started when Newt Gingrich founded his Church and recruited his parishioners and they started evangilising on Fox and Drudge and Rush. There’s talk that he’ll run in 2012. I don’t think he stands a chance but the Politic is a fickle bitch, so who can say.

Which brings me to a new conclusion. The internet shmucks keep quoting We The People. Well, if We The People keep encouraging the never ending election cycle, WE THE PEOPLE will be the harbringers of our own destruction.

By NATASHA METZLER
Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) – Mike Huckabee, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, says the effort to allow gays and lesbians to marry is comparable to legalizing incest, polygamy and drug use.Huckabee also told college journalists last week that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt. “Children are not puppies,” he said. 

Huckabee visited The College of New Jersey in Ewing, N.J., last Wednesday to speak to the Student Government Association. He also was interviewed by a campus news magazine, The Perspective, which published an article on Friday. 

Huckabee told the interviewer that not every group’s interests deserve to be accommodated, if their lifestyle is outside of what he called “the ideal.” 

“That would be like saying, well there’s there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?” he said, according to a transcript of the interview. 

The 2008 presidential hopeful and former Arkansas governor also said that deciding which lifestyles should be accommodated and which ones should not creates a slippery slope. 

“Why do you get to choose that two men are OK but one man and three women aren’t OK?” he asked. 

 Huckabee added that his goal isn’t to tell others how to live, but that the burden of proving that a gay marriage can be successful rests with the activists in favor of changing the law. ”I don’t have to prove that marriage is a man and a woman in a relationship for life,” he said. “They have to prove that two men can have an equally definable relationship called marriage, and somehow that that can mean the same thing.”Since the magazine published the interview, Huckabee’s remarks have attracted considerable attention on the Web. 

In a statement Tuesday, Huckabee said that while he believes what people do in their private lives is their business, “I do not believe we should change the traditional definition of marriage.” He also said he thought the college magazine was sensationalizing his “well-known and hardly unusual views of same-sex marriage.” 

In response to a 1992 questionnaire from The Associated Press, Huckabee, then a Senate candidate in Arkansas, spelled out his opposition to homosexuality, saying it was crucial that the country not “legitimize immorality.” 

“I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle,” he wrote, in response to a question about gays in the military. 

He also advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, saying it was necessary to confine “carriers of this plague.” 

As governor, Huckabee supported an Arkansas policy that prevented same-sex couples from serving as foster parents. On gay marriage, he said in an interview, “Marriage has historically never meant anything other than a man and a woman. It has never meant two men, two women, a man and his pet, or a man and a whole herd of pets.” 

My thoughts, well Huckabee has a well documented history of, shall we say poor, decisions.  But Garfunkel and Oates said it best:

Forgive me, folks. I have to take a moment to talk about a recurring situation at the office. As you may know, I am a professional bill collector. I have been for over eight years, and though my reputation may indicate otherwise, most of the time my calls are calm and straight forward. All I care about is getting paid, and whatever reasonable negotiation needs to take place to reach that end, I’m open to. Settlement? Sure. Payments? Ok. I don’t need to beat you up to feel good about myself so I don’t expend the energy trying.

Every so often I send out a series of letters that offer to reduce the amount of the debt by up to 50%. When these letters go out, I immediately start receiving calls from people wanting to discuss it. That’s great, that’s what I want. But I also don’t want to waste my time. I only want calls from people who want to actually find a solution. What I’m finding is a lot of calls similar to the one I just received:

A debtor owing us over $40 thousand dollars called in off the settlement letter. “What’s the balance on this right now?” he asked. “How much is interest? When was the last payment made? Am I still getting late fees?” I answer his questions. “I got this letter about a possible settlement. I want to talk about that.” Sure, I say. Here’s what I can do. Keep in mind I’m not settling at pennies on the dollar here, so a balance like this is still going to have a high settlement. “Any settlement offer would have to be paid in short order, do you think you would be able to put a large sum together quickly?” I ask, as always.

“Well I’m not working right now and don’t have any money so it will probably be a long time before I can do anything.”

What?

Then why the hell are you calling? You ran me through a dozen irrelevant questions, asked about a settlement, negotiated back and forth on amounts, and then you reveal you can’t do it no matter how good the offer is? Were you just bored or something? Is your time worth nothing to you? You would have been better served spending that time sending out resumes.

To put it in perspective;
If you’re in the market for a Hyundai, would you go down to the Jaguar lot and negotiate a price?
If you’re eating off the Dollar Menu, do you sit down at Spago’s and thumb through the menu and ask about the specials?
Do you make your waiter go through the wine presentation while you’re too busy trying to impress your Asian hooker and make him wait forever because you’re too god damned important to pay attention, only to waive him off because you didn’t want wine?  (I’m talking to you, you old bald asshole at the Golden Nugget!)
Do you call the phone company just to pass the time?

If you said yes to any of these statements….Well, you existence is just too sad for me to hate on.  Good luck, I guess.

Sustainablebusiness.com

The British Crown Estate announced the winning bids for the world’s first commercial wave and tidal leasing round, for ten sites in Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney waters.

The 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity proposed by the wave and tidal energy developers for 2020–600 megawatts (MW) each from wave and tidal–is enough electricity to meet the needs of up to three quarters of a million homes.

The developers have signed development agreements with The Crown Estate, which owns the UK seabed out to the 12 nautical mile territorial limit and over 55% of the foreshore.

Do you know what this means???

Im Just Saying: The Podcast
Episode 23

Download the show here.
This week we rant for a bit about the sorry state of terrestrial radio and the demise of on-air personalities. Then, in honor of the demise of In The Kitchen: w/ Tom and Thierry, we do Delicious/Not Delicious with The Small Batch Bourbon Collection. We start sober, we don’t end that way.

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Questions? Comments? Complaints? Be a part of The Truth: Email me at Michael@imjustsayingpodcast.com

Some day I’m going to open my own bar.  Most of the details are already worked out, just need the capital and the gumption.  In the meantime, here are the rules of the club.  Competing club owners are welcome to steal these without recourse, in the interest of bettering humanity.

Bar Rules
1) We don’t care who you are.  There is no list, there is no VIP, you get the same treatment everyone else gets.

2) Running a tab requires a credit card.  Tabs will be closed out periodically so that you don’t “accidentally” go over your limit.

3) My waitstaff is here to serve you, however they do so at my leisure.  If you are being an asshole, they have not only my permission but my insistence to tell you to fuck off.  Which brings us to

4) No cocksuckers allowed.  If you’re a piece of shit, a douchebag, or otherwise someone I don’t care to party with, you’re not welcome in my bar.  Yes it’s a business for profit, but it’s also a business for fun.  I didn’t start a business just so I could hate going to work at my own place.

5) Complaining loudly and to the right people will not get you free shit.  If we screwed up, we’ll do our best to reasonably make it right but we will not give you everything just to make you happy.  And if you threaten to never come back again, you just made our life very easy: Now we don’t have to comp anything.

6) If one of my guys asks you to leave, that’s the end of the conversation. You’ll be asked once. Told once. Then removed. We don’t employ asshole bouncers, but we also don’t fuck around.

7) If any of my people decides you’ve had too much (or even just had enough, or for that matter things you’re an asshole and says ‘no more’), that’s the end of the conversation.

8) If you get drunk, do something stupid, and are asked to leave, no hard feelings. It happens to all of us at some point. As long as you’re repentant, you’re welcome back next week.

9) We just want everyone to have a good time, anyone impeding that will be removed.

10) Don’t say you’re friends with the owner. My friends would never act like that. And if you were friends with the owner, you’d want to support his business instead of trying to take advantage of the friendship.

Dress Code
1) Dress for the season. If you’re wearing a wife-beater in December or a ski parka in July, you’re an asshole looking for trouble and will not be admitted.

2) No Affliction, Tapout, Ed Hardy, et al will be allowed. No self respecting person wears these labels. This isn’t about elitism, it’s about douchers taking claim to these labels as their official uniform. If you’re not a douche, don’t dress like one. This will be amended to include whatever douche-wear is applicable.

3) Hats are worn forwards or backwards. You look stupid any other way. Also tags, stickers, and labels must be removed for the same reason.

4) I don’t care if you’re fat, but cover that shit up. Male or female.

5) Conversely, just because you’re in shape doesn’t mean I want to know what you look like naked.

Drink Rules
1) Our prices are what they are. They’re as low as they can be and still be profitable.

2) Our bartenders are outstanding and they pour fairly. We free pour here so it’s more likely your drink is too strong, not too weak. I want you happy and coming back so why would I short pour you?

3) Try something new and don’t like it? We’ll make you a new drink, but let us know before you finish it off, eh?

4) If you’re here to get “fucked up,” get the fuck out. This isn’t college.

5) Finally, drinking isn’t about how messed up you can get and how stupid you can act. Drinking is an art form and should be treated as such. I’m not going to criticize your drink of choice but whatever it is should be savored and enjoyed responsibly.

Pretty simple, straight forward. What do you think? Did I miss any? let me know in the comments.

I’m Just Saying has to come down on the side of the ladies this time. Well, some of the ladies anyway. I’m assuming some other ladies invented this ridiculous product and then some other ladies got together and marketed to yet even more ladies that it was a good idea. But no, we side with the ladies who heard the story, saw the news reports, and did a collective WTF?

We agree, what the fuck is Vajazzling? What rhetard thought it was a good idea? For the uninitiated, Vajazzling is the process of gluing rhinestones to the landmass between the bellybutton and the lady bits in a predesigned pattern for some assumedly pleasing aesthetic. Seriously, the product is essentially the same as the rhinestone heart patterns sold at mall kiosks for tweeners to put on their cell phones and “individualize” through mass market products. The only real difference is that now it’s done in a spa for $50-100 instead of selling mid-mall for ten bucks.

Seriously, there is nothing pleasing about this idea. As a card carrying member of the male gender, I can assure this is nothing we’ve ever considered, nor something we find particularly appealing. It’s kind of disturbing, actually. Firstly, how much more high maintenance can you get? Secondly, given it’s obvious intention (to accentuate the “gine”), my immediate thought is to potential injury. I don’t need a Repeated Stress Injury on my manly bits thanks to your desire for flashy lady bits. And what if the lights are on? A man could get blinded and miss and break something. Just not a good idea, no matter how you slice it.

Ladies, we really don’t need you to go through all of that trouble. We just want a little effort to look nice for us, a warm smile, and a sunny disposition. We’re pretty easy to please, and pasting fake diamonds below your waistline is not on the Top 100 things we’d like you to do. So let’s just drop this crazy idea, shall we?