President Obama Speech to The United Nations

I'm sure other people will be posting about the President's address to the United Nations on Wednesday, September 23rd. Some will love the address, some will hate the address, or possibly, some will not completely understand the address.

I fall into this latter category. I'm not a fan of President Obama by any stretch, but I did want him to take this opportunity to present a fresh, bold face to the world in a room with other leaders from all over the world. I wanted him to champion America, and America's greatness. I wanted him to be cocky about America as he is when he speaks about his own greatness. I wanted him, simply, to do his job and sell America to the world as a great place to be in, live in, and invest in.

He, in a private-sector environment, would be considered the 'CEO of America'! Judging from the following excerpts pulled from Wednesday's speech, I guess the question is:

Would you buy stock in this company (America) given the following sales presentation by CEO Obama?

You can access the full speech text by clicking HERE

"I have been in office for just nine months -- though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me. Rather, they are rooted, I believe, in a discontent with a status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences, and outpaced by our problems."

Translation: I'm the new guy and I'm tired. I know you didn't like the previous CEO, but that's not my fault. We have problems, but that's not my fault either. You should have no expectations of me... I just got here.


"To confront climate change, we have invested $80 billion in clean energy. We have substantially increased our fuel-efficiency standards. We have provided new incentives for conservation, launched an energy partnership across the Americas, and moved from a bystander to a leader in international climate negotiations."

Translation: We have spent money, lots of shareholder money, to save thousands of polar bears currently drowning in Alaska. We are also committed to building really small cars which we hope people will want to buy. If they do not want to buy these smaller, less attractive vehicles, we will give them your money to subsidize their purchases from car companies which we now own. And we want YOU to do the same!


"To overcome an economic crisis that touches every corner of the world, we worked with the G20 nations to forge a coordinated international response of over $2 trillion in stimulus to bring the global economy back from the brink."

Translation: We have spent money, lots of money to invest in other companies (countries) which were financially unstable and may have quite possibly gone bankrupt if we didn't give them... your money.


"This is what we have already done. But this is just a beginning. Some of our actions have yielded progress. Some have laid the groundwork for progress in the future. But make no mistake: This cannot solely be America's endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone. We have sought -- in word and deed -- a new era of engagement with the world. And now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Translation: We need your money because we're expanding our enterprise world-wide! You too can be part of our new world order!


"And sadly, but not surprisingly, this body has often become a forum for sowing discord instead of forging common ground; a venue for playing politics and exploiting grievances rather than solving problems. After all, it is easy to walk up to this podium and point figures -- point fingers and stoke divisions. Nothing is easier than blaming others for our troubles, and absolving ourselves of responsibility for our choices and our actions. Anybody can do that. Responsibility and leadership in the 21st century demand more. "

Translation: Did I mention that I was the NEW guy and NONE of this is my fault?


"We will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with ratification of the Test Ban Treaty, and work with others to bring the treaty into force so that nuclear testing is permanently prohibited. We will complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts and reduces the role of nuclear weapons. And we will call upon countries to begin negotiations in January on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons."

Translation: No longer will we compete with other companies' (countries') products or services, we want to peacefully co-exist with them. We want to make sure that we have no competitive advantage over them whatsoever! Enforcing copyright, patent, and trademark protections are counter-productive to the homoginization of our multiple companies into one, world-wide conglomerate! (Did I say New World Order earlier? Oh yes, I see that I did) 

(a.k.a.: "When nukes are outlawed, only outlaws will have nukes")


"The danger posed by climate change cannot be denied. Our responsibility to meet it must not be deferred. If we continue down our current course, every member of this Assembly will see irreversible changes within their borders. Our efforts to end conflicts will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources. Development will be devastated by drought and famine. Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear."

Translation: You're all going to die... Come with me if you want to live! (Think Terminator II here)


"We will move forward with investments to transform our energy economy, while providing incentives to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. We will press ahead with deep cuts in emissions to reach the goals that we set for 2020, and eventually 2050. We will continue to promote renewable energy and efficiency, and share new technologies with countries around the world. And we will seize every opportunity for progress to address this threat in a cooperative effort with the entire world. "

Translation: We will spend our shareholder's money to develop, and give away technology which you people are either not smart enough, or not politically-correct enough, to build yourselves. We will build a new world order and, no, that's not quite right... Come with me if you want to live!


"And those wealthy nations that did so much damage to the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change have already wrought and help them travel a path of clean development simply will not work."

Translation: You people who chose to live in homes, in cities, in suburbs, who chose to work to get your slice of the American dream, buy cars, and burden society with your selfishness -- you will pay for your lack of vision. You shareholders of America must reach out to the poorest nations on Earth. You must reach out not to give them a hand-up; you must pay for these poorest companies on Earth to plant trees in deserts, clean streets of animal waste, make sure they never have the choices we have foolishly made ourselves. We must prepare to welcome them into the new global government! They won't have cars, but at least they won't be stepping in goat pooh as they walk to work in one of our company-owned work centers. We will provide all of their needs and in return, they will provide for us...


WARNING: As always, please don't drive while reading this entry. President Obama's words have been know to cause bouts of euphoria, frustration, lightheadedness, or sometimes even rage (depending on which lower case letter follows your name (i.e.: '-D', '-R', or 'I')).

Racist I Am

There, I said it out loud at my desk AND am typing it here... "I AM a racist". Is everyone happy now? No, I didn't think so...

Before you jump on the band-wagon and point your bony finger at me, let me ask you this: Are YOU a racist too?

I guess your answer would have to depend upon your definition of the word 'Racist'. According to the Urban Online Dictionary, a RACIST:

"If you're a white man, this is what you are. It doesn't even matter if your wife is black and you have an adopted child from India, or how many black friends you have, somehow you're going to end up being a racist according to how the media portrays the white man as "racist whities".


All of this is funny because the white man is the one that is stereotyped as being racist, which is hypocrisy at its best. It's racist to assume that white men are racists.


If you don't get offended by racial insults, then you're apparently racist too, but an actual racist would get offended by it..."

You can read more by clicking here -- Urban Dictionary

So, using the definition above, I must be defined as a 'racist' because I happen to be (through no fault of my own) a 'White Guy'. Okay, I said that out loud too, at least I'm consistent...

This week I was informed by James Earl Carter that I oppose President Obama's policies because (through no fault of his own) President Obama was born 'non-White' (might that make him 'non-Black' as well? I don't know. "It's above my pay grade...").
Being a purist, you can't actually say that President Obama is 'Black' because, in reality, his Father was Black and his Mother was White. Therefore, using Ex-President Jimmy Carter's logic, if President Obama WERE 100% Black (from a statistical perspective) I would oppose him TWICE as much as I currently do. Personally I can't even conceive of this, but I'll just let it hang there...

So what did President Carter say during his second bout of verbal diarrhea on Wednesday?

"When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds," the Democrat who served from 1977-1981 told students at Emory University.

"I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American."

Unfortunately President Carter got it wrong. I SAW the sign he referenced in his speech to Emory University. I was watching CNN as I wolfed down a couple of burgers at Mickey D's. The sign, as displayed by the CNN reporter, actually read:

"Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy"

Okay, the sign WAS mean-spirited, but it was certainly NOT a call to bury, maim, wound, in-capacitate, or otherwise 'do away with' the President of the United States. How could President Carter get it so wrong? Was it by accident? Or, was the misstatement of the sign by design?

A few months ago, I would have said it was a verbal slip-up, but there seems to be a constant pattern of behavior exhibitted from our Democratic leadership in Washington, DC.

Never wanting to be up-staged by a former President, Nancy Pelosi was quick to pull the spotlight back to herself to add a few personal thoughts (and shed a few tears) regarding America in 2009:

"I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco," Pelosi told reporters, her voice catching in her throat at her weekly press briefing.

Pelosi, though she didn't elaborate on the reference, was alluding to the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist immortalized in a recent movie starring Sean Penn.

Former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White was convicted in the case. He committed suicide in 1985. Pelosi was chairwoman of the Democratic Party for northern California and friendly with Milk and Moscone.

Pelosi said Thursday that while she values free speech, a careful line must be tread between the First Amendment Right and regard for public safety.

If my only sources for news were CNN, MSNBC, NBC, or The Huffington Post, I'd be hunkered down in my house with the blinds drawn.

Think about this: A former President of the United States AND the current Speaker of the House telling Americans that the people who oppose President Obama's plans for health care, deficit spending, and the expansion of government into privately-owned businesses are 'dangerous'. If I read 'just a bit' into Nancy Pelosi's quote above regarding the First Amendment, perhaps we may just have to modify it a bit. You know, for the good of 'Public Safety'...

It's funny (in a tragic and sad way), but I don't remember reading about any TEA Party participants during the march on Washington biting anyone's finger off...

I don't remember reading about anyone getting into a scuffle with law enforcement or being 'beligerent' during the march...

The current administration has a unique perspective on crisis management (we 'Racists' are apparently, the crisis):

They look at 'We the People' as an obstacle in their plan(s) to 're-build' America.

Good. Count me in.

So far they 'get it'. In 2010 they'll get it much more clearly.

In case you're wondering, I opposed President Bush on many of his economic decisions also.

Bottom line is, I guess: I'm still a Racist, because at last glance, I remain a 'White Guy'.

If this should change I'll let you know.

The Origin of Labor Day

Hey? What are YOU doing here? Shouldn't you be at work or something? Oh, that's right, today is Labor Day!

Today is the National Holiday President Grover Cleveland set aside to celebrate Unionized American Workers, Labor Unions, and Political (Union) Cronies!
But let me ask you this: Do you know WHY you're home from work today? Do you know the reason for Labor Day, and why it's celebrated in September?

Did you ever think about those questions? Hmm, did ya, did ya???

(If, however, you are at work today, or this evening, please accept my sincere apologies. My wife is a Nurse, and since she has a 'real job' (defined here as 'Saving Lives, Administering care to the sick, to the well, to the dying, Counseling Families, and giving sponge baths to 'large, and sometimes stinky people') she often works Labor Day, Fourth of July, Christmas, Ground Hog Day, Thanksgiving, Arbor Day and other major national holidays.)

As for the rest of us? Oh yes, Labor Day is a day of 'leisure'. It is a day in which Americans celebrate "stickin' it to the man" one last time by NOT showing up for work during the waning moments of summer.

So let's take a moment to do an EXCLUSIVE Moos Room Investigation of:

"THE ORIGIN OF LABOR DAY"!

(Feel free to add your own 'Echo' as you read the prior CAPs section (above) in your mind)

And what better place to start than the Department of Labor?! After all, it's a Department with 'Labor' in its title, right?

Okay, we're going in...



Q.: Who was the 'Founder of Labor Day'?

A.: Great question, please ask another!
SERIOUSLY! FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WEBSITE: "More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."

But Peter McGuire's place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic."

Moos Translation: Unions adopted the Labor Day 'concept' to prove that they were united, they could get together to drink beer, to eat chicken, and to get disorderly WHENEVER they wanted to and there was 'nothing' that their employer could do about it.

In 1883, a union member was quoted as saying, "BRRRRAAAAPPPP... Oh yeah, AND we're gonna work on getting FREE health care so we don't have to pay for nothin', even if it takes more than 100 years! Nana nana boo boo!" (Sorry, I made that part up - but you know one of them was thinking it...)

Q.: Can you tell me about the First Labor Day?
A.: I could, but then I'd have to kill you.
OKAY, YOU ASKED: "The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Moos Translation: "Hey, how come THOSE guys got off for the day and WE didn't? We're in a UNION too, darn it, and we want a day off! We WANT a day off, we WANT a day OOOOFFFFFFFFF!

Oh, and one more thing, we want FREE health care for us, I mean, errr, for all Americans! Yeah, for ALL American Union members! Nana nana boo boo!" (Hmm, I see a 'Nana nana boo boo' pattern beginning to emerge here...)

Q.: When did 'Labor Day' become a national holiday?

A.: On June 28th, 1894
WHAT, NO WISECRACK? Come on people, it's a 'date'! 'Dates' are not funny things.

Unless, of course, it's about night I first met my wife in a bar, but that is Waaaayyy out of line for a post on Labor Day. Plus, as everyone KNOWS, it's been a LABOR OF LOVE ever since. "Nana nana..." Oh, you get the idea.


Q.: Hey, how come so many other countries celebrate their 'International Worker's Day' in May (a.k.a.: May Day), and we're stuck with the first Monday of September?

A.: President Grover Cleveland didn't want blood in the streets of major U.S. cities while he was in office...

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? According to Wikipedia: "In countries other than the United States and Canada, resident working classes sought to make May Day an official holiday and their efforts largely succeeded. For this reason, in most of the world today, May Day is marked by massive street rallies led by workers, their trade unions, anarchists and various communist and socialist parties."

Now THAT does sound like a party!!!

CONTINUING FROM WIKIPEDIA: "The first Labor Day celebration was held on September 5, 1882, and was organized by the Knights of Labor. The Knights began holding it every year and called for it to be a national holiday, but this was opposed by other labor unions who wanted it held on May Day (as it is everywhere else in the world).

After the Haymarket Square riot in May, 1886, President Cleveland feared that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the riots.

Thus he moved in 1887 to support the Labor Day that the Knights supported."

Moos Translation: To quote Jim Morrison and the Doors, President Cleveland was trying to avoid the following (which he feared would arise if US Labor Unions celebrated the May 1st date):






"Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven


Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice


Blood in my love in the terrible summer


Bloody red sun of fantastic L.A.






Blood screams the pain as they chop off her fingers


Blood will be born in the birth of a nation


Blood is the rose of mysterious union






There's blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles


Blood in the streets, it's up to my knee


Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago


Blood on the rise, it's following me"


As an aside, this year's Official DOL Labor Day 2009 Poster (PDF) file can be found by clicking HERE.  I mention it because I'm sure you'll want to print out a copy and stick it up on your wall today! (Got darts?)

In conclusion:

If you have a good day today, hug a Teamster!

If you have a bad day today, keep it to yourself!

If you are a Union Member, THANKS for the day off Comrade Worker!

If you are a Non-Unionized Employee, thanks for doing your job every day and not whining about it!

If you work in a mixed work environment (in a Management AND Craft (a.k.a.: Union shop)) like I used too, well, you have my sympathies! Don't get a grievance filed on you! Smile ,and just say 'thanks' to the Shop Steward!

If you are Jim Morrison, I'm sorry that you're not with us any more, although those lyrics dude, what was up with those lyrics?