Seriously, You Cannot Win...

Here I sit, preparing to leave the office when I think to myself, "Self, maybe you should do a quick scan of current 'Weird News' to see if there'll be anything to post about tomorrow when you're off from work?"

Why wait till tomorrow for something you can do while your kids are at home starving???

So I scanned a site.  I WENT there. 

And this is what I found when I arrived...

Environmental groups sue to block wind farm

But, I thought Wind Farms were...  GOOD?
Nah, wind farms USED to be good. 

Now, to environmentalists (who REALLY care) power-generating wind mills are 'SPINNING WINGS OF DEATH'...

From the article: 

Some conservationists have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the startup of Maryland's first industrial wind farm because it allegedly threatens federally protected Indiana bats.

The complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt seeks to stop Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group Inc. from beginning operation of its 28 turbines on Backbone Mountain in Garrett County unless the company first obtains an "incidental take permit" from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for any Indiana bats that might be hit or injured by the spinning blades.

...

A similar lawsuit brought in the same Greenbelt court last year forced developers of a West Virginia wind project to reduce the number of planned turbines after the judge ruled that Indiana bats hibernating in the area almost certainly would be harmed by the blades. The West Virginia developer also agreed not to operate the turbines at night or at times of year when the bats would be flying until it obtained federal permits.

...

They claim they wind turbines, with blades extending 415 feet high, will "almost certainly" injure or kill Indiana bats.

The small brownish-black mammals range across much of the eastern United States, but their population is so low and thinly spread that federal officials consider them at risk of extinction. Listening equipment Constellation set up while building the turbines this year detected calls of Indiana bats. The lawsuit contends there is a "robust population" of Indiana bats that hibernates in a cave 13 miles from the project site.


Strictly an observation on my part, but it would appear that Indiana Bats MAY be an endangered species - however, there's no shortage of Moon-Bats in the State of Maryland.  I wonder how these folks will get the electricity to power their $42,000 Chevrolet 'Volts' to cruise the alloted 20 miles from home to view these bat caves and get back again?

They certainly can't use OIL to generate the electricity (last time I looked, we're FLAT out of dinosaurs).

They can't use COAL (because it's 'dirty' and 'Mama says' that being 'dirty' is BAD.  And you'll never meet NICE people if you're 'dirty'.)

They can't use NUCLEAR because, well, just because.  Venture back to my post earlier this week about Chernobyl for additional 'Glow in the Dark' fun.

And NOW, they don't want us to use WIND POWER because we might end up 'Cuisinarting' these wonderful little bats.  (But I hear that they ARE delicious the way Paula Deen cooks 'em up with a little butter, flour, and salt!)

     Awwww, isn't he CUTE?!?!

I don't know folks.  Seems like the only POWER SOURCE left us as an option is HEAT POWER. 

[This would be the power we COULD capture from the amount of HOT AIR coming from Environmentalists given some new, highly-efficient, thermal technology]

These folks, apparently, will not be happy until we're all driving with Fred...

Yabba.  Dabba.  Doo...

Oh, look, a (purple) dinosaur!!!

I can't wait until 2012 - when the Mayan Calendar runs out. 

You thought this year is weird so far? 

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Raising the Roof, Or 'Lowering the Floor'?

I guess it's a matter of perspective...

Look up, look down, look out...

Hey everyone, did you hear about any of the following yesterday:

•THE wedding of the Royals?
•THE birth certificate?
•THE ‘came-this-close- but-not-close-enough’ shuttle launch?
•THE aftermath of the storms which decimated towns and killed hundreds of our neighbors?
•THE ‘Donald’?

If so, you’re like most Americans.
Unfortunately, if you’re like ‘most Americans’ you weren’t looking at, or hearing anything that matters to you, or your family – personally. If you wanted to find any real news, you had to look for it.

The “800 Pound Gorilla in the Room” News Item no one is talking about (again)?

The Debt Ceiling

I pulled out my trusty Gateway laptop and decided to look for the news which isn’t very popular today. But last week, last week, it was VERY popular. I even grabbed an image of last Saturday’s ‘Huffington Post’ Home Page LAST Saturday Morning for a post I never wrote.

This is that image from 7:15am, Saturday, April 23rd:

Articles pulled from the above screen shot of April 23, 2011:

Republicans Downplay Urgency of Raising Debt Ceiling,
Conservative Strategists Warn GOP Against Pushing Debt Debate Too Far…
Default Could Be Doomsday Scenario for Economy
(This last headline is my favorite as it contains all the best “Shock and Awe” scenarios of what would / could / should happen, if Evil Republicans don’t raise the debt ceiling)

According to the article referenced directly above, here are just a FEW of the things which will happen if we don’t ‘Raise the Roof’ on our Debt (luckily they didn’t mention the”Dogs and Cats living together” scenario as referenced in the film, “Ghostbusters”. This is about the only end of the world prediction they left out in the article…):

“Among the first directly affected would likely be money-market funds holding government securities, banks that buy bonds directly from the Federal Reserve and resell them to consumers, including pension and mutual funds; and the foreign investor community, which holds nearly half of all Treasury securities.

If the U.S. starts missing interest or principal payments, borrowers would demand higher and higher rates on new bonds, as they did with Greece, Portugal and other heavily indebted nations. Who wants to keep loaning money to a deadbeat nation that can’t pay its bills? [Moos Note: This actually IS a good question. I wonder why no one in DC is discussing the fact that under this Administration we ARE a deadbeat nation?]

At some point, the government would have to slash spending in other areas to make room for any further sales of Treasury bills and bonds. That could squeeze payments to federal contractors, and eventually even affect Social Security and other government benefit payments, as well as federal workers’ paychecks. [Moos Note: Ah, I knew we'd get to the part about making old people eat dog food sooner or later. We 'crazy free-market' folks can get incensed as well that private businesses working on contracts for the Feds will ALSO get stiffed. Nice touch, article-writer guy...]

…

The debt ceiling will be hit on or around May 16[Moos Note: This has since been pushed back to "Early July 2011" according to Ben Bernanke - what a difference a week makes in DC...], the Treasury Department says. Unlike the threatened government shutdown, the impact would start slowly, but then build mightily until the damage would be so dire that few political leaders or economists even want to contemplate it. The day of reckoning could likely be delayed at least until early July with creative bookkeeping. [Moos Note: Oh, I see that we HAVE gotten creative with the bookkeeping - good for US! We won't have to worry about the end of the world until "Bones" and "House" are both in re-runs over the summer months. I'll pay attention then, when it, apparently, will matter again...]

When the House first rejected the Bush administration’s $600-billion bank bailout in September 2008, the Dow Jones industrials went into a dizzying 778-point tailspin.A whiff of a possible similar stock market collapse came on Monday with a sharp selloff on Wall Street when the Standard & Poors lowered its outlook on U.S. debt to “negative” from “stable,” possibly a first step toward a possible downgrade of America’s coveted AAA credit rating. [Moos Note: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

“We haven’t downgraded it. We just said, if nothing happens, we may have to,” said S&P chief economist David Wyss. He said a government default remains uncharted territory, “which is one reason why it’s not a good idea to hit the debt ceiling.” [Moos Note: Yes, it's always better to spend MORE in DC - it's the 'responsible' thing to do...]

“There’s reason to worry,” said Wyss. “But my best guess is that we sort of muddle through this. Cuts will be made, they’ll be too little too late, but at least they will be enough to maintain a triple-A rating.” [Moos Note: So, S&P chief economist, David Wyss, you're saying NOT to worry about it after all? But what about the whole "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD THEME" as posted on the Huffington Post last week? What about that?]

To answer my own question I went to the 7:00am, April 30, 2011 home page of the Huffington Post.  Apparently EVERY Day is about the 'End of the World'...

This is what I found:

I guess the good news is that we’ve moved the needle from ‘Armageddon’ to ‘Catastrophe’.

Progess!

The real catastrophe for me, you, and all of us is if the Republicans, under the shaking, wavering hand of John Boehner, do NOT tie spending cut provisions to the issue of raising the nation’s debt ceiling. The Federal Government must have its financial ‘tubes tied’ so that it does not continue to spawn a dependency class in our nation.

I got into a debate with a friend who had put up a comment and article link about 'Evil Republicans' (you know the drill) I wrote back that I didn’t feel that it was the job of the Federal Government to trap Americans into a cycle of ‘subsistance’ living. One of his college friends shot back a note to me saying, “I vote, and I think everyone should be entitled to a subsistence living!”

 
Okay, let’s go to the Free Online Dictionary for a moment:

sub·sis·tence  
n. 1. The act or state of subsisting.
2. A means of subsisting, especially means barely sufficient to maintain life

This is NOT my vision of, or for, America. But perhaps I am not ‘educated’ enough to know.

What I do know is that I am leaving a country less able to provide for itself to my children than the one my parents left me. For this, I am ashamed, embarrassed, and emboldened enough to speak out.

Our nation will endure. But let me ask this - how much longer will we endure the petty politics, pointless rhetoric, and a profound lack of economically-sound leadership currently found in Washington, DC?

We ARE a nation divided. Roughly one half of America pays to carry the country for the other half’s freight. It’s time ALL of us to begin pulling together. We don’t need to raise the debt ceiling. We need to lower our expenses, pay our bills, and create jobs for those who are ready and able to work. More jobs, more tax collections, fewer ’Subsistence’ payouts as they relate to Unemployment Insurance, Welfare, WIC, you get it, right?

Where is the next great American leader? Come on, give…

The current guy with the Teleprompter?

No, not even close…

My prayers go out to those Americans who have lost so much this prior week. I pray for all Americans. We’ve each lost ‘much’ since we began to ‘Fundamentally Transform of America’. Contrary to popular belife, the transformation began PRIOR to President Obama’s election. It began when Harry met Nancy and the Democratic Party controlled Congress for the first time in decades.

It began when Republicans began acting like the “Other Guys” across the aisle. We now know why it took decades for the Democrats to get back into power. We forget the lessons we learned the last time the Progressive folks had the keys to our government.

Perhaps we’ll remember THIS time?

Note to self: Need to add this to my prayer list this evening…

Have a good weekend folks,

This is what Progressives think of Boehner?  Now that's funny...
Not based any way in fact, but funny, nonetheless

Moo

Al Qaeda Gets 'Frank'

"But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself."
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"If you have given up your heart for the Tower, Roland, you have already lost. A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast. To be a beast is perhaps bearable, although the man who has become one will surely pay hell's own price in the end, but if you should gain your object? What if you should, heartless, storm the Dark Tower and win it? What could you do except degenerate from beast to monster? To gain one's object as a beast would only be bitterly comic, like giving a magnifying glass to an elephant. But to gain one's object as a monster - To pay hell is one thing. But do you want to own it?"
- Stephen King, The Dark Tower Vol. II, The Drawing of The Three

Monsters.  They're not just in books (or those really bad SyFy Movies) any longer.

They are real.  They are here.  They will be with us always.

Last winter as TSA 'Body Scans' became BIG news, I had a thought born of a news broadcast.  It was not a comforting thought.  It was not a happy thought.  It was a thought about monsters and the men who create them.  I believe monsters don't create themselves, they're spawned of hate, science, and / or obsession.

As news folks reported endlessly about the technology being used to see your 'bits' under your clothing, I had my momentary crystallized thought of monstrous clarity.  It was the by-product of an off-hand question asked by some frustrated-ex-model-turned-reporter holding the microphone to the TSA agent as she asked the question, "So, what exactly CAN you see with these scanners?  Can you see internal organs or hip replacements, or anything similar to that?  How strong is this new X-Ray system?" 

The TSA agent's response,  "No, you cannot see anything within the body, or below the skin - only the surface of the body is visible."

Following the logic then, anything below the skin or within the body is 'hidden'...

Here there be monsters.
I turned off the television, sat back in my seat and crossed my arms.  I wasn't necessarily cold, but I had that, "A goose walked over my grave" feeling.  Yeah, the goose was loose and that little fella was dancin' ALL over my grave.  Unable to shake the feeling, I got up, walked to the back door, let the dogs out, pulled up a chair from the back patio and slouched bonelessly down as I pondered the thought which had just materialized within the twisted confines of my skull. 

It turns out that I was not the only one watching this broadcast.  Worse yet, someone else had the idea which had sprung into my mind from the interview.  The Daily News put my fears into print in December - confirming that I was not the only one watching, listening, and thinking.

Curse you Daily New, curse you...

From the article: 

WASHINGTON- Jihadis bent on concocting a "new kind of terrorism" are brainstorming how to surgically implant explosives to make undetectable Frankenbombers.

"What is your opinion about surgeries through which I can implant the bomb ...inside the operative's body?" an apparent mad surgeon recently asked an online forum used by Al Qaeda affiliates.

He called on bombmakers and doctors to cook up the perfect solution to murder "larger numbers of unbelievers and apostates."

"I am waiting for the interaction of the experienced brothers to connect the two sciences together and produce a new kind of terrorism, Allah willing," he wrote, according to a translation by terror experts at the SITE Intelligence Group.
...

Stitching a bomb into the abdominal cavity made of plastic or liquid explosives - such as semtex or PETN - was judged the best method.

"It must be planted near the surface of the body, because the human body absorbs shocks," advised one terrorist.

The goose is loose.

Okay, so here's the thing - TSA agents all across America are searching for guns, knives, explosives, etc. hidden underneath the clothing of passengers while Al Qaeda heads are looking for ways to put small scary packages INTO the passengers themselves.

This leaves us with two options:

OPTION 1:  Strip search all passengers prior to entering the plane, paying special attention to any LARGE recently-sutured areas of the body.  Typically a long fuse running out from someone's navel is a good indication that there 'may be' a problem with this passenger.  The TSA 'may' want to question them.

OPTION 2:  Take all passengers out to the ramp which 'normally' takes them into the cabin of the plane and push them one-at-a-time from the ramp onto the tarmac ten feet below.  If they EXPLODE - they were a safety risk.  If they slowly stand up again with nothing worse than a compound fracture of the femur, there's nothing much to fear other than perhaps, a really large lawsuit and 'bloody tarmac'.

Hold on, I just realized that there may be an OPTION 3 after all!  But this one is politically-incorrect so it has about the same chance of happening as I do of growing two inches taller by morning (this only happened once in my life, but I was MUCH younger). 

Shoot, what the heck, let's go for it, shall we?!?! 

"Hey Mike, what's OPTION 3?"

OPTION 3:  If someone looks like a Muslim-Extremist-Terrorist...  Tap them on the shoulder, pull them out of line and talk to them for a while 'away from other travelers' (preferably as you're standing on the OTHER side of the explosion-proof glass).

No, you don't need to tell me that I'm talking CRAZY as I already KNOW that I am.  Who would ever think that the 'stereotypical' terrorist would look like a 'stereotypical' terrorist?  The TSA had better keep 'patting down' those Nuns, old people, cancer survivors, and children whom we're pulling out of line today, because THEY could be the real threat to our country.

That's the thing about monsters - they could look like anyone:  You, me, a six year-old girl with a doll, or the elderly woman with a walker hobbling slowly towards the terminal gate...  ANYONE! 

Darn those shape-shifting terrorists -- darn them to HECK!!!

If I were a shape-shifting Terrorist, I'd disguise myself to look like a Muslim guy in my late twenties.  The TSA will wave me through immediately to avoid being accused of racial (and religious) 'profiling'. 

Profiling, I'm told, is insensitive to people who exhibit certain racial and / or religious beliefs.  We should NEVER EVER speak to them about whether they want to blow us up or not.  That would be MEAN.

America, in spite of all of its warts, is NOT a MEAN place - no matter what Michelle Obama says.If you'd like to read the entire article from the New York Daily News - click anywhere within this really long link. 

No geese were injured in the generation of today's post.

The goose?  He continues to dance. 

Niche Marketing

Being a 'sales guy' is fun (most days).  But my true love is Marketing.  Suprisingly enough, Sales is 'different' than Marketing.

Consider the following two definitions (you won't find these in any Earth-Based college text books - you'll see why in a moment):

SALES:  Sales consists of going out and having a two-way dialogue with a prospect / customer / stranger and going through the whole Need / Satisfaction Selling process.  Someone has a need - you dig around long enough to find the solution which will satisfy that need.  It's the classic 'Win/Win' scenario.

BAD ANALOGY:  Sales is like being in a submarine and 'Pinging' randomly - hoping to find an objective somewhere above, or under the sea near you in an effort to 'Target in on it'.  It's active (as in, 'Active Sonar Pinging' - heard that in a movie once).  You're not exactly sure what you're looking for...  Until you find it.  THEN, you take aim and fire. 


MARKETING:  Marketing is a broad-based 'Campaign' which is 'typically' a one-way conversation.  The Marketing guy / gal doesn't know the specific needs of the individual prospect, but hopes that by tossing out enough Benefits (a.k.a.:  'Cool Stuff'), they'll get someone to so something - perhaps buy something, take an action, or just maybe, pay to watch women in underwear hit each other.

BAD ANALOGY:  Marketing is knowing that there's a North Korean sub out there 'somewhere'.  You could look for it by 'Pinging' it from your ship, or sub.  But why bother?  Simply fly in, drop a nuke in the general area, turn the sea to steam and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you 'most likely got it'.  And if you didn't?  It wasn't there to begin with.  No problem - there are always MORE nukes to drop, right?

Yes, this is why I don't teach business courses (anywhere) on this planet.  I do, however conduct night school classes on Bovinia Seven, a small planet just outside of our Milky Way. 

But seriously, why brag?

So, getting (finally) to the topic of today's post...

        Let's talk football!!!
Yes, somewhere on THIS planet someone (I'm thinking it was probably a guy) decided that there was a need to begin marketing women in underwear, pads, and lip gloss - playing football.

I did not know this.

I thought football was reserved for large hairy men?  Kind of gives the whole 'Fantasy Football League' a whole new spin, doesn't it?

Sorry, my mind was wandering.

Apparently the Lingerie Football League (LFL) has been around for a while.  Having spent too much time 'off planet' teaching Marketing, I missed the entire LFL thing until last night when I tripped across a video about a 'girl fight' involving Miami Caliente players, and um, well, really, who cares?

The LFL has it's own WEBSITE, Ten Professional Lingerie Football Teams, Friday Night Football on MTV2, AND, I'm assuming, a complete clothing line of team-themed Underoos. 

Did I mention that Marketing is my true love?  Yeah, I guess I did earlier in the post, but you know, my mind tends to wander.  I don't know who, when, or where 'Lingerie Football' originated, but my 'virtual' hat is off to them.

Those guys / gals are geniuses.  Talk about a HUGE Market Demographic!  They'll attract men, women, Lesbians, yeah, pretty much the entire population of the U.S. can be a fan of LFL.

I'm just hoping that the league doesn't expand into the Northeast. 

INTRODUCING THE BINGHAMTON BOUNCERS!!!


On second thought, maybe not. 

There's not enough Marketing in the World...