Times are Tough, Even for Fairies!

According to a recent poll the average amount The Tooth Fairy leaves American children per tooth is $3.19…and that’s down 24 cents from last year! And that’s 2 years in a row now that the Tooth fairy has had to make cutbacks! Yow! You know that times are tough when even fairies are in a down market!

Which means that instead of collecting 74 bucks for their baby teeth, American kids born today can only expect 64 measly dollars between now and their adult teeth arriving. There goes the college fund!…If your planning on sending your kids to clown college that is.

Interestingly enough this poll is usually conducted by Delta Dental but recently Visa has also been conducting an annual survey to see how much money that fairy leaves under a child’s pillow for a lost baby tooth.

That can only mean one thing! Soon your children will be accepting plastic as a means of payment for those baby teeth! So get ready you cheapskate parents, um… I mean fairies. College is expensive you know. So at 20 primary teeth per baby, I figure about 8 thousand dollars a tooth oughta do it…

Putin on the Fritz

You can always tell when a dictator is about to go off the deep end…and President Putin of Russia seems to be headed in that direction because in response to economic sanctions against Russia over the illegal annexation of Crimea, which in themselves have caused great economic hardships for the Russian people, he had decided to fight fire with petulance by banning most fresh produce from countries imposing those economic sanctions over the past year… which of course, has made things even worse for Russian privation…not to mention their salads and cheese boards.

But now, President Putin has decreed that anyone caught breaking that ban will have their own produce seized and destroyed! And until this week, only importing produce from sanctioned countries was prohibited, not selling it. But the agriculture ministry now says even warehouses will be raided and produce seized. As a result Russian authorities are now destroying, bulldozing or burying hundreds of tons of foodstuffs they say violate the ban including huge piles of pork, tomatoes, peaches and cheese.

With the Western sanctions against Russia already fueling inflation and pushing more Russian citizens into poverty it seems as though their fearless leader has decided that what better way to fight poverty than with a good dose of hunger. Let them eat cake…as long as it’s Russian cake…I suppose.

But aren’t we the ones who are supposed to be eating the cake, or rather feeling the wrath of his sanctions against our sanctions? Instead It’s been reported that more than 288,000 people are petitioning Mr. Putin on-line to cancel his decree, while still others are calling for the food to at least be sent to starving people in Africa or perhaps fed to orphans…or hungry people…like Russians!… rather than seeing perfectly good and edible food being wasted and destroyed.

I say, if you’re going to be an evil dictator, you should at least come up with a sinister plan that while being both ruthless and diabolical could also be both practical and fun for the people at home, whom you love and dictate over. Like for instance…Tell your people that in order to show those evil American and European sanctioners what you think of their lousy foodstuffs they should eat as much of it as they can and then crap it right back out in defiance and solidarity and as a statement about just what you think of their agricultural expertise…and then demand more food to be imported just so you can eat it all and crap it out again! Shit! That should show those western devils!

But President Putin’s plan to destroy the imported food and make his own people go hungry, as a show of defiance to the sanctions that are making his people poor too?… Well, that’s just plain nuts!… And as far as Russian dictators go…makes him look like he’s one beet short of a soup nobody wanted to eat in the first place. Nyet?

So We Elect a Republican President…and all We Get Is This Lousy Wall?

Do you know that more than half of the funds raised by the Republican candidates for President of the United States so far has come from just 130 families? If we imagine those families to be families of 4 then 520 people or .00000173 of the American population is funding half of the Republican party.

Just about all of the Republican presidential candidates and certainly Donald trump, think that illegal immigration is the number one problem facing the United States today. So much so that probably only a wall will solve the problem and keep the Spanish horde that is draining our economy of its life blood, out…So imagine that a Republican president is elected in 2016. A wall is built. Illegal immigrants are deported…even children born in the USA…until finally the USA is illegal immigrant and bogeyman free.

Once that happens what’s in it for you? Will the Republican President and Congress together, then:

Fully fund The Affordable care Act for all US citizens? NO (they plan to repeal it)

Provide proper Medicare and Medicaid funding? NO (they plan to underfund both programs)

Support and Strengthen the Social Security Trust Fund? NO (they plan to raise retirement age and cut benefits)

Safeguard all US pension funds? NO (they look forward to the continued pilfering of such funds)

Protect, support and strengthen the rights of all US women? NO (they plan to limit a women’s right to choice)

Fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help feed our hungry citizens? NO (they plan to cut SNAP)

Raise the Minimum wage for all US citizens? NO (they plan to limit or do away with minimum wages)

Help for our college students and their ever increasing student loan debt? NO (they plan to cut financial assistance)

Strong Consumer Financial Protections? NO (they plan to role back restrictions on the big banks)

Seek peace in the Middle East? NO (they plan to repeal treaties and increase military spending)

Reform prison sentencing and our prison system of 2.2 million prisoners? NO (they plan on building more prisons)

Protect the environment and seek to reduce greenhouse gasses? NO (they see no need to reduce fossil fuel usage)

Raise taxes on the very wealthiest US citizens to help pay for the wall, the wars and the debt? NO (they plan to cut taxes on the wealthiest US citizens)

So what do we get? Besides another day older and…you know what? …And what is in it for us; the everyday, ordinary, hard working, American citizen? Confederate flags and down home religion? Safety and security in the knowledge that all of the poor, hungry, homeless, indebted or imprisoned souls in the United States are at least 100%, bonafide, certified, Grade A American Citizens?… And a nice big wall to keep us all safe and cozy inside?

And what will those 130 rich American family donors to the Republican party get do you suppose? Anything worth their while? Because make no mistake about it. Everything I’ve mentioned above is in the Republican platform, regardless of which one of their candidates gets elected! They make no bones about it and are not even pretending to make you believe otherwise.

So If the Republicans win and that wall goes up… Please don’t fool yourself.

Because if and when that day comes…It won’t matter which side of that wall you are on.

How to Succeed Without Really Trying?

 

The American Freshman Survey, has been asking college students to rate themselves compared to their peers since 1966.

And since that time there has been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being ‘above average’ in the areas of academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability, and self-confidence. In fact, Over 70% of all students now taking the survey view themselves as above average academically…Which of course, if you are an academic, you know is a mathematic impossibility!

Researchers now call this aberration “ambition inflation”. Which is an actual condition that students suffer from…good grief! It seems that their increased ambitions accompany increasingly unrealistic expectations….and incredible tuition fees I might add…causing parents to suffer from income deflation…and causing colleges and universities and banks to…well, rejoice!

But I digress because researchers have also found a disconnect between student’s opinions of themselves and their actual abilities. For example, while students are much more likely to call themselves gifted in writing, their test scores actually show that their writing abilities are far less than those of their 1960s counterparts. So all of our students’ recent poor test scores that have caused consternation throughout the free world (The USA) haven’t affected how our students feel about themselves. Parents…Isn’t that good news?

And get this…Also on the decline is the amount of time students spend studying, with little more than a third of students saying they study for six or more hours a week compared to almost half of all students claiming the same in the late 1980s. But even though students are studying less, the number that said they had a high drive to succeed rose sharply!

So how is that possible???

Well, a separate study has shown that there has also been a 30 per cent increase towards narcissism in students since 1979. And that our culture here in America before the millennium, used to encourage modesty and humility but now here in the 21st century tends to promote bragging about yourself, as the way to go. So while today’s students tend to feel good about themselves and like to brag about it, the end result has shown a corresponding increase in anxiety and depression in America’s students since those 1970s.

And why is that? Well, researchers say that when an unrealistic number of young people think that they are above average and going to achieve great things, and then a much more realistic number don’t, because, well, let’s face it…most people really are average. And when reality finally sets in, depression isn’t far behind…not to mention those hefty student loans with interest due!

So is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes! And the lesson is: Despite the idea that we can achieve anything if we believe we can, there’s very little evidence that it actually works in the real world. Educational Research still shows that when it comes to academic success nothing works like being humble and unpretentious while employing self-control and hard work!… Who knew?

But if you are a parent and you are worried that today’s kids are too darn full of themselves don’t despair because the American Freshman Survey also revealed that along with having an inflated sense of their own abilities and talents today’s students also describe themselves as being less individualistic, less co-operative, less understanding of others and finally, less spiritual than students in the past! Which in my mind makes this one of the most unsettling surveys to come along in a while, especially if you are a parent.

However if you are a College or University official then this survey all but predicts smooth sailing ahead for a future of expanding enrollments and overflowing coffers. Which is ironic because it has been the colleges and universities of our country that have decried the poor skills of incoming freshmen so vociferously that it has drastically changed the way in which we test, evaluate, and rate today’s students. Back in the old days colleges and universities would simply not have accepted poor performing students into their hallowed halls…but that was back before education was all about making money…

Now while inflated egos, narcissistic attitudes and ambition inflation coupled with mass enrollment, high interest student loans, and tuition inflation may lead to dashed dreams, crushing debt and a life living in your parents house…it just might also be an insidious, and one hell of… an excellent business strategy.

Lies and Donuts

This is what NJ governor Chris Christie had to say about himself at the most recent Republican debate.

CHRISTIE: “I’m the only person on this stage who’s actually filed applications under the Patriot Act, who has gone before the federal—the Foreign Intelligence Service [sic] court, who has prosecuted and investigated and jailed terrorists in this country after September 11th. I was appointed U.S. attorney by President Bush on September 10th, 2001, and the world changed enormously the next day, and that happened in my state.”

Unfortunately the governor can’t seem to remember his most recent past. (This has been happening to him quite a lot lately) It seems that when he isn’t telling someone to sit down and shut up or threatening to punch someone else in the face he’s just making stuff up…Because our most humongous governor wasn’t nominated for the U.S. attorney post until December of 2001 and didn’t start his job as U.S. Attorney until January 2002..which is not even close to being the day before 9/11.

One would think that being nominated by the President of the United States (albeit President Dubya) to such a prominent post would be an unforgettable moment in one’s life. Especially since it happened less than 15 years ago and especially when you have it written down in your OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY on your government website page here…

Governor Christie: Official bio…http://nj.gov/governor/admin/about/

Whenever the governor takes time off from campaigning for the presidency these days and shows up to do his job somewhere in New Jersey he receives long, loud and sustained boos from New Jersians of both political parties. When asked why, by political wonks, he says that it’s most likely because the people of New Jersey will all miss him so much and don’t want to see him leave…

Wow! Forgetful and stupid too! Yes, we’ll miss him… like a donut misses its hole.

P.s. Don’t vote for him unless  bullying, lies and and insincerity are all you need in a presidential candidate.

Killing People and Breaking Things

If you watched the Republican debate yesterday then you know that Mike Huckabee probably summed it up best when he said that “the point of the military is to kill people and break things”, because that was the one thing that all 10 candidates on the dais seemed to agree upon: The United States needs to spend more money on the military…Oh wait, there was another thing: The United States must break from the proposed treaty with Iran.

So If we are to take what they said as gospel then should one of the 10 Republicans be elected president, He will immediately dissolve the treaty with Iran, increase spending on the military and, I assume, eventually go to war with Iran. Because according to all of the Republican candidates you cannot trust the Iranian government, nor any Iranian because they are an evil and untrustworthy sort and that apparently includes all 55 million of them! Which should make for quite a very long war….and more veterans too! Which the Republicans all pledged to take better care of.

But not to worry because the Republican plan to pay for that war includes not raising taxes…not ever! Not one of the candidates plans on adding revenue to the budget because it is already too big and in too much debt. And Really, who wants more money when you are in debt? Not me. How about you?

So how will we pay for a larger military and a possible decades long war with Iran?…By cutting taxes of course! They almost all agree on that. Raise spending and cut income! Cut taxes and collect more money! But from where? Savings of course!

They also all seem to agree that Medicare and Medicaid must go! So should Social Security! And no more Health Care as in The Affordable Care Act! All of those programs are too expensive and broken to boot! We also need to cut welfare and food stamps and programs for the poor and downtrodden… and women especially. Those are all things that we have too much of already.

So with all of this money we are going to save by not helping our citizens make ends meet, what else do we need besides a larger Military? Anything? Yes! Say the Republicans. We need a wall to keep people, namely Spanish people, out!…or a fence will do…or perhaps the Rio Grande filled to the brim with battery acid? (My idea)…but in any event they all agree that something must be done to keep people out of America.

Except for babies! We need more babies, definitely. Because babies, no matter how many months, days or hours old, are people who have rights that need to be protected… just like corporations…but not like mothers…because my best guess is  that a mother is a person who has used up all of her rights by getting pregnant…while a man’s rights it seems are never diminished by impregnating others…just enhanced, I think.

Anyway, that’s the Republican plan in a nutshell:

More: Military, War, Veterans, Veteran care, Walls and Babies.

Less, fewer or no: Taxes, Hispanics, Social Programs, Health Care and Abortions.

So vote Republican! And look for a job in the Armed Forces, construction or a womb near you…but please, please, please, if you choose the womb, do not grow up to be gay, poor, sick, Spanish, a woman or old!

Hot Time in the Old town Tonight

It was 165 degrees in Iraq this week…well at least the heat index was…but that’s still pretty hot! But what can you expect when you live at the axis… of the Axis of Evil? I wonder if any of those uranium dipped bombs and ammunitions we’ve used on those devils over the last 12 years have contributed to the recent heat wave over Baghdad?

Funny how history works isn’t it? Once upon a time the Middle East was the site of the first human civilizations on the planet. The birthplace of the Bible! That was a pretty good thing wasn’t it? Then a few thousand years go by, cities and civilizations rise and fall. People migrate and move about. Sail across a great ocean and discover a new world!… Of course saying that a new world was discovered in the Americas is like taking a bunch of your friends on a vacation to France today and then saying you discovered France when you got there.

Then you go about killing millions of people to empty the place out, import millions more to build stuff for you, open the country up to mass immigrations from other-wheres, eventually declare yourself the greatest country ever, fly back to the original “Cradle of Civilization” declare that place evil and then bomb it into its own past because…

Anybody know why we did that? Was it religion? Oil? Business? Ridding the world of Evil doing?

Well, anyway, now, somehow, there are 55 million more evil people who live in the country next door, who also descend from those original, first civilizations and cities who need dealing with in today’s world. The President of our “new and better” civilization wants to make peace and sign a treaty but most good folks would rather do that which they feel needs doing…and that would be going to war with those 55 million “bad” people….(before they get bombs and use them…like we have or heaven forbid, dip their conventional weapons in the nasty stuff and use them then, like we do now).

But does anyone know why we need to go to war rather than attempt to make peace? Is it religion? Oil? Business? Ridding the world of Evil doing?… Attempting to make peace has an expiration date while war does not?

Who knows? But it sure is hot over there. Perhaps it’s just from the energy of having to live for 6,000 years or so in the same place and all the while having to do endless city building, begetting and civilizing?

In any event, I wonder how hot it’s going to be over here, in the new and improved world in say 6,000 years or so?…I do suppose we or someone else shall see…If we make it that far?

Funny how history works, isn’t it?