Random Thoughts on Various Subjects

1. LAUNCH OF THE iPAD

I don't care to be an early adopter. I will wait when the quality goes up, and the price goes down.

2. OBAMA AND OIL

Obama opens up on offshore drilling. Why?

3. MY APRIL FOOL'S JOKE

Nobody got it when I declared that I was accepting Obama as my personal savior. No one laughed either. People must really hate that motherfucker.

4. A COMMENT I LEFT ON FIVECENTNICKEL.COM

We wouldn't pay a single dollar to buy a 20-year-old set of encyclopedias, but we shell out thousands for education that will be just as obsolete in a shorter time span. Most of the stuff I know I learned on my own in the years after college in the Good Will Hunting style of autodidactic schooling. I have to keep learning just to keep up.

A college degree is what economists call "framing." Framing is how Marcel Duchamp was able to turn a urinal into a work of art. Simiarly, you take a moron and put "Harvard" on a resume, and you suddenly have a great employee and future leader for your company.

A Lexus is a Toyota with a leather interior. They both achieve the same purpose. What people are buying with a degree is the same thing they are buying with a Lexus--STATUS.



5. A DILBERT CARTOON



People ask me why I don't go white collar, and this Dilbert cartoon explains it better than anything I have yet read or written. The fact is that anytime a company uses the word "opportunity" this is a lie especially when used with "career" as in "career opportunity." This is their way of getting you to work for nothing.

Entry level managers work 70 hour weeks for less money than their own employees in hopes that they will be promoted to a better paying job in middle management. For 90% of these people, this is never going to happen for the same reason that Miss Colorado has only a 1 in 52 chance of winning Miss America or less than 2%. It is called a "pageant." The same scenario exists in academia with adjunct professors hoping to get tenure or actors in Hollywood hoping for a big break and on and on. In short, it doesn't pay to be a sucker.

The better way to go is to work the 70 hours as a wage earner and bank the extra you don't need. This is a more certain path to success and far less stressful.



6. MBA MOWS GRASS

I shared this link on Facebook with no commentary. Here's the commentary.

I don't feel bad for a guy that used to earn $100K with his MBA as a middle manager at Lowe's. Why? Because people used to curse that fucker and his idiocy and were happy when his expendable ass was expended. Now, he cuts grass for $45k a year. That is good money. It isn't money you can brag about.

This guy has a lot of options. He can expand his lawn mowing business. He can cut back on his lifestyle. The fucker has an MBA, so he should be able to solve these problems. Right? Am I missing something here? This guy is supposed to know BUSINESS. Yet, he wants to land another gig doing nothing for top dollar. We are supposed to feel his pain. Fuck that.

I already shared a story about another MBA bagging groceries at Publix. I think this shit is funny. These people are not suffering anything except a loss of status. They have been demeaned into doing the type of work that I and blue collar people across this country do every fucking day.

Lowe's is still in business and doing well. This guy got fired for the same reason he got hired. Pure dumb luck. He flipped tails twice in a row and got fired. Basically, if you have two consecutive bad quarters in management, you get fired. This is why they will do some really awful stupid clusterfuck shit that looks good in the short term but makes no sense in the long term. They have to flip heads or find another job. But in a weak economy, this can't be done. Yes, he is being unfairly punished, but you have to remember that he was unfairly rewarded as well.



7. OBAMA AND ISRAEL

Sooner or later, like a broken clock being right twice a day, Obama was going to do something I liked. Not kissing Israel's ass is something I like.

The reason for all the crap over the last decade--9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the ballooning national debt--is the result of US foreign policy towards Israel. Basically, we got their back, and we pay for it dearly. The correct policy toward the Middle East is neutrality and an end to foreign aid especially military aid. Let Israel take care of itself. For holding this opinion, you will be labelled "anti-semitic."

Israel has an immense influence in Washington. For Obama to challenge this influence is heroic. Critics will argue that the US needs to be a friend to Israel, but Israel is what South Africa was under apartheid. It is a racist state. They treat Arabs and Palestinians as inferiors. They demolish homes, steal property, jail the innocent, and even kill people for essentially not being Jewish. Their cover for these atrocities is to throw the Holocaust in the faces of all their critics. But would we acquit a black rapist who cried out, "Remember Dr. King!?" Hell no.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Jews being killed in WWII was horrible. Arabs and Palestinians suffering under Israeli occupation is also horrible. It needs to stop. Obama is calling out these Israeli hypocrites.

8. FOR SOMEONE SPECIAL



I am always thinking about you.

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