Election Day

I have to say this. Folks we are being sold a false bill of goods. I am not only going to talk about it I will prove it. In 1976 Jimmy Carter ran for President preaching, literally, about the economy, and energy conservation. By the time he left office, he did little to help either, is consistently ranked by the few people smarter than me as one of the worst Presidents we ever had, and made us the laughing stock of the world by letting non-world power, Iran, hold our hostages for over a year. In 1992, one year after George Bush part 1 successfully liberating an innocent country from a ruthless dictator, Bill Clinton won the Presidency by speaking of the economy and health care or lack of. I specifically remember him holding up an insurance card saying by the end of next year he would put one of these in every American's hands. That was 16 years ago and less people have health care now than then. Bill Clinton left office after being impeached for lying to a federal grand jury. Yes, that's right, he was impeached. There have been 2 presidents impeached out of the 43 we have had. The other being Andrew Johnson, if you thought it was Nixon, it was not. He resigned for being stupid, basically, or at least doing a stupid thing.

Now enter the Obama era. Barack is running on economy, health care, and energy conservation. All good stuff, and things we need to work on. He says we need change, no kidding, we know that. He has just done a better job selling change and he should win. I think the only reason he wouldn't win is because America is full of racists and they will back out of supporting him at the last second. Look if you want someone to lie to you go somewhere else or watch a political ad.

Is John McCain the answer? That depends on the question. Let's look at the facts. Obama and McCain have both served in the Senate while their party was in control of the Senate. Did either fix the problems they are talking about now, then? No, it's been screwed up since shortly after the first generation of Presidents went through office, somewhere probably around James Polk. Now for all of you that just loved President Polk, don't write me, I don't care. I'm just saying it's been screwed up along time. You see, our country was fought for by Washington, Jefferson, Adams against the British because they wanted something better. Somewhere though we lost their vision on what America should be. Now we are, as we usually are, stuck with 2 people we don't like and will pick one Tuesday.

So if no candidate is the answer to our problems what should we do. I think the answer is much simpler than we believe. Let's look at what we know. We know that while Carter was President our hostages were held by a much smaller country, in every sense, for over a year. While Clinton was in office, terrorists attended flight school in the United States and planned an attack, the only one ever by a foreign entity, against the Untied States on our soil since Pearl Harbor.

When Reagan was President Iran sent our hostages home hours after he took office. When George H.W. Bush was President, Kuwait was liberated in a 2 day military air and ground assault. When George W. Bush was President he vowed he would take the fight to the terrorist, not let them come to us again. And they have not.

It is at this point you have to ask yourself these questions.

Will either candidate fix health care?

Will either fix the economy?

Will either fix the energy crisis?

Well, did Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush part 1, Clinton, Bush part 2. The answer is obviously No. Will McCain or Obama? If they would as President they already would have as Senators.

Look folks, stuff costs more cause stuff just cost more. And guess what, next year, no matter who we elect, it will cost more. Stuff cost more every year, it's called inflation, look it up.

But which one do you feel safer with? Which one do you feel safer sending your children to school with? Going to any public place with?

I think the answer is clear. John McCain fought for what this country believed like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, and he would again.

I'd rather punch a bully in the mouth, than get smacked in the back of the head when I'm not looking.

I'm Ralph Hall Jr. and I approved this message.

Tax Dollars

I am convinced our government is one of the most complex organizations in the world, and was designed to be a well-oiled machine. The problem is the system is implemented by people who screw it up. These Government Workers (GW) are told by their computers what to do and if they would do what the computer says everything would be fine. But for some reason they find it hard to take simple instructions and louse it up for everyone.

Now I am not bashing GW alone, people are in general seem to be on a steady downward slope of intelligence. So don’t write me because your brother-in-law is some whiz at the Sheriff’s department because I don’t care and it isn’t relevant to this.

A little “true story” example of our Government: My wife, Tonya, and I go to the courthouse, actually the department of motor vehicles (DMV) to renew our vehicle tags and drivers licenses’. I had no problem, Tonya went to do hers and they would not renew it because the DMV’s computer said Department of Social Security (DSS) would not allow them to renew her. I asked if we could call the DSS and they said yes but it won’t do you any good because their computers are down. Since these are the same computers that tell these GW what to do, no one there could help us. The folks at the DMV offered Tonya a 90-day license and say if we don’t clear this up with the DSS they would revoke Tonya’s license. OK, well we would have to deal with that another day when the people at the DSS had computers to tell them what to do.

So, we went over to the Sheriff’s office to get an out-of-state vehicle inspection done on a car we bought from a guy in St. Louis (extremely long story we are not touching on right now). Amazingly enough that went over without a hitch. We stroll over to County Clerks Office (CCO), with all our happy little papers and wait, I’m sure you’ve been there. Our turn comes and we excitedly approach the very un-personable lady(now I’m not saying they’re all mean. Don’t write me because your cousin Charlene works at the Splitfork Co. DMV and was voted sweetest worker of the year 3 times in a row, I don’t care, I’m just saying this lady was not friendly) and say, we would like to renew the tags on our vehicles, change our addresses, and register the car the Sheriff’s office just inspected. Oh and by the way, my beautiful wife wants the KY Horse License Plate (KHLP). Well now the lady is mad because this is more work than she had planned on doing so she has a little attitude. She asks for our notarized copy stating how much we paid for the out-of-state car. I provide her that, but ohh, it’s not on the right piece of paper. Evidently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has there own special form you must fill out and have notarized, otherwise you must pay sales tax on the estimated value of the car according to their computer. I ask the GW, what’s the difference in the amount of money I have to pay? She says something like $25, would you like to come back and do this when you get the right form? Hmm, I thought, let me see, do I want to find a guy in St. Louis, mail him a document and ask him to get it notarized, mail it back to me and then come back up here, or do I want to pay $25. I said I’ll take door number 2, here’s the $25. What’s next? She then asks for my license plate, so I can exchange it for the KHLP, I said I don’t have it, she said without it she could not give me the KHLP. I said why. Well she didn’t know why, but I am assuming that’s what her computer told her to say so I decided not to argue.

I drive back home, because remember I was in the car that needed to get inspected, not the one that got the KHLP, to get the plate and returned. I wait in line and was fortunate enough to get the same lady and she says how can I help you? I thought, what am I wearing a costume, I was just here. I hand the lady my papers and tell her I would like to KHLP. She says OK, and goes to the secret room where they keep the KHLP and comes back and says we’re out of them. I guess the computer doesn’t keep track of how many they actually have, so no one could have possibly known they were out. She apologized and said this should never happen. I thought, well no sh*t (remember I said “I thought” I didn’t say it, the CCO is close to jail so you don’t do anything stupid there). Not only do they not have it, but we cannot even get one when they do because once you renew you can’t change plates until the next renewal. So I settle for just the tag and get to go back home and put my old license plate back on my car.

Now we still have that matter of Tonya’s driver’s license to clear up. She goes to the DSS and they tell her she has the wrong name on her license and she needs to bring in her marriage license to prove her name. Tonya tells me this and I say ok, let’s get the license and take it up there. She asks me where it is and I say I thought you put it up, but she thought I did. No problem, we’ll just go to the CCO, they can look it up on their computer and get a copy for a few bucks and put this all behind us. Off to the CCO we go and the computer has no record of us getting married and that must be right because it’s a computer and if it were wrong then everything these people ever would have done would also be wrong. I said we did, because we had a real preacher and everything, Tonya said yes and we took pictures too. Well the computer says you did not.

Meanwhile another little government agency known as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sends us a letter. The IRS computer says, since we are not legally married we cannot file as a married couple and claim three children. They say to clear all this up, send us a copy of your taxes for the last 2 years, all supporting documentation, birth certificates of all kids, divorce decrees, and oh yeah a copy of your marriage license. Well, son-of-a-gun, if I had a marriage license, none of this would have happened.

Tonya remembers making a copy of it though and giving it to her employer for insurance purposes and they make us a copy and we stroll down to the marriage license place and show it to them. Well, they look up the number on the certificate in their computer and wouldn’t you know it, we were married, but the dummy that input our information into the CCO computer had inserted our middle names where our first name was supposed to be. Well this presents a problem, because no one ever asked us anything but our first and last names. So the CCO apologizes, actually they said “we would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Now if you say you would like to apologize, does that really mean “I apologize”, or does it mean “I would like to apologize but I’m not”. And not just that, but did you catch the end where they said “this may have caused you” not “we may have caused you”. So we mail the IRS our stuff along with a letter and Tonya makes a trip to the DSS and they get her name right in the computer.

About two months later we get a letter from the IRS(actually every time the IRS sent us a letter they came in pairs, one for Tonya and one for me I guess, since they both had the same names on them I don’t know. We got two letters on four different occasions from the IRS, the first pair for the audit, the second saying they received our papers, the third saying we are still working on it, and the fourth closing the case). The letter stated “Thank you for your assistance with this and we have closed your case,” and get this, “we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Ladies and Gentlemen, This is what your taxes pay for.

Shepherdsville 2008

Folks once again it’s time for the Olympics. First of all I don’t think it’s a good idea that McDonalds is one of our biggest sponsors. That’s like Paris Hilton promoting virginity. The gold medal stand is not built out of Big Macs.

I’m sure if you’ve watched these games you’ll notice the favoritism shown to the host country, believe it or not that’s a good thing since that’s always the way it is and the US hosts the games more than any other country. But what if the Olympic committee got together and said let’s set the sight for the 2008 games in Shepherdsville. Now if you’ve been paying attention you remember that there is only one Shepherdsville, and it’s in Kentucky. Now I’m basically from Shepherdsville and if I want to make fun of it I can and will.

So the Mayor and the City Council get together and come up with a plan. First thang we gotta do is cancel all dat swimming stuff cause the pool ain’t bigga enuff. So sorry Michael Phelps, you won’t be needed here. They figure they can still do most of the diving stuff down at Wilson Creek by attaching a diving board to the bridge, if we get good rain in the Sprang.

Now canceling the swimming events is going to leave a big hole in the competition. So ladies and gentleman, here is the Top Ten Substitutive Olympic games if they’re held in Shepherdsville.

10. Tobaccor spitting contest

9. Fat man sweating competition

8. Loudest car stereo contest

7. Demolition Derby

6. Greased Pig Catching

5. Mud Bog

4. Tractor Pull

3. Corn on the Cob eating contest

2. Burping the alphabet

1. How many people can you fit in the back of a pickup truck. This will definitely be won by a group of Mexicans. The only problem is we won’t know what country they represent.

GO USA

Say What

I remember the first time I heard it. Just Do It. I thought do what? Well the answer is obvious isn’t it? Do IT. Why am I doing it though, just to do it, I don’t think so. Now, I am one of Michael Jordan’s biggest fans. I was smart enough to realize he is the best basketball player in history, present and future. By the way, this is an undisputable fact, and if you think otherwise you are wrong. I liked Mike and I watched Mike, every chance I got. I saw the Nike commercials a lot (by the way “a lot” is 2 words, gosh that makes me mad when people screw this up). But this Just Do It. That’s dumb. That could apply to anything. He buy these shoes and when you rob a bank you can run faster and get away, Just Do It. Well I Just Didn’t Get It.



Nike has pounded this into our brain for about 15-20 years, sorry that’s as close as I can find without doing a research paper to get the birth of this. We all went along with it too (by the way, ”along” is 1 word, this doesn’t bother me at all because I never thought about it until now).

But Nike isn’t the only company with some motto that makes no sense. Now motto and slogan are almost the same thing and I am calling it a motto so get over it. We are full of these, chocked full of these dare I say. I walked by a UPS truck today, you know the whole “What can brown do for you” (WCBDFY) people. Now, WCBDFY is actually not that bad. But the truck didn’t say that, it said “Synchronizing the World of Commerce”. I need a thesaurus to understand this. That has been UPS’ motto for 5 years(I did look this up). No kidding 5 years, and I never once heard this and I bet you didn’t either. Because 5 years ago, when they dreamed this up, all I ever heard on a UPS commercial was, come on you remember? “Dale we want you to drive the truck”. They drove that down our throats with Dale Jarrett trying to get him to drive the truck in a NASCAR race, by the way it stopped being funny around commercial #2. The whole time it turns out their motto is “Synchronizing the World of Commerce”. That is better than “Complicating box moving to save our company as much money as possible so we can match the prices of the United States Postal Service.” I mean that is actually the extended definition of what the motto is.

So I got to thinking, who writes this crap, I actually said that after I read the UPS truck. I thought about other mottos. From the complex to simple, most of them make no sense or just dress up what they really do. I listed below what the mottos are of some of the things we see a lot (2 words) and what I think they actually intended.

Let’s start with government:

Los Angeles Police Department – Protect and Serve, or beat you into submission.

New York Police department – Faithful Until Death, more than likely yours.

Ba’ath Party – Yes the Ba’ath party has a motto, these are the same people who’s most famous member was Saddam Hussein - Unity, Freedom , Socialism, which translated to English means, kill your whole family.

Automobiles:

Toyota – Moving forward, unless your backing out of your driveway in a Corolla.

Ford – Quality is Job 1! or We’re broke as hell

Chevrolet – Like a Rock - makes no sense, why am I driving or would I want to drive a rock

Chrysler – Engineered Beautifully, but runs like crap, looks good broke down on the side of the road though.

I have to throw in a side bar here, I actually saw a Porsche broke down on the side of the road the other day. I didn’t recognize what it was, because I never saw one with the hood up, until I read Porsche on the back of it. Kinda like an ex-girlfriend I had. I never realized she had a drinking problem until she came home sober once.

Computers:

Dell – Easy as Dell, huh, no one, absolutely no one besides Bill Gates really knows how computers work, so nothing is easy. Example, what would we do if we turn on our computer and it doesn’t work? We take it to Best Buy and they tell us it’s outdated and we buy a new one, see they don’t know how they work either. That’s also the real reason we don’t turn them off.

Apple – Think Different, or, this computer may be better, but no one buys them, you just see them in the movies (pay attention, you will).

GateWay – Learn More/Live Better, makes a little sense, but I am smarter than George W. and he is making a fortune and I ain’t. But no one wants to kill me, at least as far as I know. I guess things have a way of evening out.

Cell phone providers:

Verizon – Can you here me? Good! - You’re joking right, you never see this guy on an elevator do you.

Sprint – Where customers come first. What a novel idea

T-Mobile – Get more, see Sprint

Retail:

Walmart – Save Money, Live Better – They should have stopped with Save Money

JC Penny’s – Every Day Matters – I have absolutely no idea what this means, someone hired their brother-in-law and put him in charge of marketing.

Macy’s – The Magic of Macy’s – Guess what folks, magic costs more.

Food:

With a name like Smuckers it has to be good. Well if it tasted like crap you could call it whatever you want and no one would buy it.

Miracle Whip - A sandwich just isn’t a sandwich without it, oh yeah, Peanut Butter and Jelly is.

Tony’s Pizza – Take Home Some Good Italian – Beats Tony Soprano showing up at your house.

Now these are just a small sample of the stupidity in the world, trust me it’s all around you just look at the people you work with. I assure you the people at Ritz Cracker are no more intelligent, their product is just on TV.

Press 1

I don't know where to start with this whole press 1 for English nonsense. Call me old fashioned but I can guarantee John Wayne wouldn't have stood for it. I realize we are a melting pot, at least that's what they taught me in elementary school. But we have an official language and it's English, so we need to melt into English speaking people. Now before you call me a racist, let's get something staight. I have no problem with other races. Really, I don't know why we have races. The Bible says “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.” It doesn't matter to God or me if you are green, orange or purple; we have no problem with it. It also doesn't bother me when I am in Walmart and you are talking in your different language, I think it's rude, but it doesn't bother me. It does bother me when you sneak into the country and cost Americans money. What makes me mad is when I, an American who speaks the official language, pay taxes, abides by the laws governing this country (at least most of them), has to press 1 for English. But even when I do press 1 for English, the person I get barely speaks English. I had one the other day giving me a confirmation code and I actually thought she said "Z as in Debbie". Now before we go any further, let’s look at the fact we have an official language. Webster’s dictionary defines official as:

Official - prescribed or recognized as authorized e.g. an official language

Did you notice that? It even uses language as a further explanation of the word official. Now before we go further again, as you can see I don’t just make this crap up, I do research, although I am probably smart enough just to make it up, I want it to be factual. So now for example, we’re watching the Olympics ( I know you’re thinking how did he make the quantum leap to the Olympics, just be patient and read). Some 14 year old girl who has lived in the gym her whole life has just scored a perfect ten on the vault in true Mary Lou Retton form. They go to commercial and there’s a tire company and at the end they say, Goodyear, the official tire of the Olympics. Now what if Firestone said, we are a tire too and although we aren’t going to give you any sponsor dollars we want equality because that is only fair. Goodyear would sue them. See it’s official for a reason.

I believe we have 2 choices at this junture. Either we need to just cash in and start speaking Spanish, or someone in authority needs to do something. Getting back to Walmart, the one cool thing they have is the "self checkout". This enables you to get all your stuff and not have to talk to anyone. This is what I prefer, I'm not a social butterfly. I don't need meaningless casual conversation. You could say I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy. When you get to that register it gives you 2 choices, English and Spanish. I refuse to push the English button and just start checking out, this does work by the way. If, however, something changes, and I am forced to push a button, I will choose Spanish, then I will act confused and mumble the few Spanish words I know to the attendant, getting progressively angrier as the time goes by when they are unable to help me because even though they offer this service, most of them cannot speak any more Spanish than me. I can see it now I will just start yelling pollo, pollo, pollo, which means chicken. It should be quite a scene man.

Now our area grocer has circumvented this by giving you 2 choices that say "Press here to begin” and something in Spanish that's probably the same thing. This is a trick to get you to think you are not pressing 1 for English. This makes me madder, because they think they are fooling me. Well they're not; I'm wise to you Kroger. These are the same people that charge you $4 for a 2 liter if you don't have a Kroger Card, forcing you to carry that in your wallet. That's another story for another day though.

There is another thing I have noticed; most Mexican people around here are nice and very non-confrontational. I'm not buying this crap either. This is because they are probably illegal and do not want to have a brush with the law and take the chance on getting deported. I guess it's deported, even though they actually wouldn't go to a port. But think about it, when this guy gets back to San Felipe, he has to tell his friends he got kicked out of Kentucky. Now that's embarrassing. Until we get control on our border there is no fix for this problem.

Now I am not just all gloom and doom, I have a solution for getting our border secured and in the process end the war in Iraq, or at least make it where we no longer care as much. We have about 10 million illegals, most of which we can't understand. Out of those let's say 5 million are 18 and older, and are men, women whatever, we don’t care. The local police start rounding up everyone over 18 that cannot prove citizenship, put all of them on military planes to Iraq, everytime we get 10 illegals in Iraq we bring one of our boys home and put him on border patrol. We have 150,000 soldiers in Iraq and that would be more than enough to secure our southern border. Problem solved. This would also give us a good surge of troops. Just think if instead of 150,000, we have 5 million. The good thing about that is they would probably cross the border to Iran and we could take care of that for no additional charge. I think if illegals thought they would be shipped off to war they might stay in Mexico. Finally, there are over 40 countries that have sent troops to Iraq, but Mexico is not on that list. Check for yourself, Click here . Well John Wayne and I think it's time they participate.

More Plane stuff

I’m not done with the whole airplane thing. I actually wrote this while I flew the other day, a short trip Milwaukee-Louisville. Now there’s probably a line of jokes for that itself, but I don’t want to explore that right now.

First of all a quick note about the wheels, they put these up too fast. I’m not totally sure we are done with them, what if we have to land again real fast, they could be helpful. They should stay down until we are at least 2 or 3 thousand feet high. I mean what’s the hurry

Next, I noticed the flight attendant( by the way they are not stewardesses anymore for some reason) was reading the safety information about the plane off a card. By the way again, I chuckled when she brought up the aisle lights. Now the lady that is reading the safety stuff off the card is the same lady that closed the door on the plane. First of all, that’s a man’s job. Not to be chauvinistic, but wouldn’t you feel better about the whole door thing if a man closed it. Well I would and that’s my opinion. I’d also feel better about it if the lady, that was conveying the safety information actually knew it and wasn’t reading it. So let me get this straight, if there is an emergency she would get out her cheat sheet and instruct everyone what to do, because with the exception of me, for material purposes only, and one anal person on the plane no one else even listened.

More on the door, the flight was delayed for 15 minutes to replace the seal on it, pretty sure that was done by a man also. But when we get on the plane the pilot said the delay would not make us late. He said we had a tailwind that would help us make up the time. Just so I’m clear on this, the wind was blowing from Milwaukee towards Louisville and that enabled us to make up 15 minutes on a 1 hour flight. Why didn’t he just say he put the pedal to the metal. How dumb has America gotten? And if he could just makeup this time why don’t they just fly as fast as they can everywhere? Probably because layovers would be longer, huh.

Now comes the drink service, why can’t I have the whole can of coke? They ask you afterwards if you want another one. I say no I want the rest of the one I already had. Well scratch that, she just gave me the whole can, now I’m confused. They also serve chocolate chip cookies on this plane, not pretzels. Now that’s a much sweeter deal, literally. Get this not only did she offer me the can but she asked me if I wanted 2 cookies. She likes me I think, not that way, but when I got on the plane I commented about how there were more people on the plane than there were coming. I said “More people leave this place than come here.” I didn’t think much of it, but it struck her funny bone and she laughed like someone was holding her down and tickling her. OK the plane descending and I’m just rambling.

Aisle Lights

I went to the airport to drop off the family because I am such a control freak I had to make sure they got off ok and it got me to thinking about planes. I find it interesting that before takeoff in an airplane they go over these rules and safety regulations of the plane. I guess that’s better than saying if the plane crashes we all die though. One part I find extremely useless is the part about the aisle lights. They tell you “In the event of an emergency the aisle lights will come on and guide you out of the plane.” Well isn’t that helpful? Let’s set the stage here and see just how effective the aisle lights would be in an emergency. You’re flying let’s say 500 miles an hour, 30,000 feet above the ground, no let’s make it Hawaii, so it’s the ocean. Now according to google, 30,000 feet is approximately 5.7 miles, rounded off, or according to Triple A is equal to the distance the average American lives from Walmart (no joke, there everywhere). You are about 1 hour into a 5 hour flight from Los Angeles to Maui. Now if you passed 3rd grade math you know you are about 500 miles from the shore, cause we’re going 500 miles an hour. See learning can be fun. It’s about now the wing falls off the plane. Whereas you had two wings, you now have one. You begin a downward spiral 500 miles an hour and you are going to fall the distance of your house to Walmart. Now according to google you have somewhere in the neighborhood of 41 seconds until impact into the Pacific Ocean. Thank God the Aisle lights are on, you just might be able to see well enough to kiss you butt goodbye.

It's Time

I have decided to share my wisdom with more than the select few that are on my email list. This forum will mainly be about me and my interests, but mainly me. I will discuss in painful detail the things I like and dislike. First we need to establish a set of ground rules. I will not update this everyday. I will try for once a week, but I am not holding fast to a strict regiment here. Some weeks for example might be two, some zero. It really just depends on how many idiots I run into that particular week. Don't expect me to solve all your life's problems here, I am only one man. Albeit a highly skilled, successful, charming, handsome, superbly intelligent man, but still only 1. These are all things I know about myself and have learned to deal with, now you must. Don't write requesting stats or pics or any of that other cutesy net talk some of you have developed as a first language, I'm not interested. I will accept your questions, and give them my undivided attention unless there is something better going on or on TV. But understand this is mainly about me, so if you build your questions to topics I like or just questions about me, your chances of being answered are likely to increase.