terrorists

Nuts! No Nuts, No Clue, and Screw You Too

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good nuts

Naturally good nuts.  That’s good, because we wouldn’t want artificial nuts.

neuticles1

Unless you’re the owner of a neutered male dog, and you take his loss of sexual potency way too personally.  There are, believe it or not, artificial nuts for neutered dogs.

I’ve never owned a male dog.  I’m of the opinion that female dogs generally are smarter, live longer and have fewer overall health problems- even though spaying a female is a lot more expensive and involved than neutering a male.  I have encountered more than a few male dogs that would make me hesitate to consider a male dog,  but in fairness I’ve also encountered a few that I really liked.  I find it really hard to dislike any dog, with the exception of my cousins’ psycho Chihuahua, Andy- but Andy’s been dead for nearly 40 years.   If anything, poor Andy was an argument against incessant inbreeding.

GoodbyeTesticles

You didn’t need them anyway.

I  may end up with a male dog someday, but I wouldn’t consider having an intact male, even though neutering doesn’t guarantee placid behavior.  Uno, the one-brown, one-blue-eyed, twisted little Shih-Tsu, who used to belong to my mother-in-law, positively tormented poor Isabel (who was a five pound, spayed, elderly, black cat) by chasing her all over the house and attempting to hump her constantly.  He was neutered, but that didn’t seem to matter to Uno and his Red Rocket.  I was glad when we found that guy a good permanent home- away from Isabel.  He was a sweet dog, but humping the cat (aside from being counterproductive) is just plain creepy.

I’ve had three male cats, and they weren’t at all bothered about being nutless.  Other than reduced longevity, (and males are bigger) I really don’t see much difference between spayed female cats and neutered male cats.   I think the male cats I had were secretly relieved of being culled from the gene pool and therefore set free of the obligation to -well- screw like tomcats.

cats

Thought I was going to post a gratuitous pic of feline copulation, eh?

Since I’m on the subject of nuts, (for what reason I have no idea) I have to comment on the illustrious, nutless wonder who is squatting in the White House.  Normally, I can’t stand to listen to Obama speak, and if I feel I must find out what kind of garbage he’s spewing, I just read the transcript later. Unfortunately I was subjected to the Wanna-be-Imperial One’s press conference regarding the Ebola epidemic and his African summit while I was waiting on my car to get serviced at the Toyota dealership.  Hindsight being 20/20, I wish that I had remembered my headphones, or that I had decided to wait outside.

Since I sat through every infuriating minute of it, I thought I would offer the rational person’s Cliff’s Notes on this particular address:

Let’s send billions more dollars in “aid” to Africa that will not be (and never is) used to do anything to ameliorate squalor, disease and poverty, but will be squandered on funding terrorists, supporting regional warlords, and  empowering garden-variety thugs.  While we’re at it, we’re just going to open our borders to every terrorist, scumbag and non-English speaking, uneducated indigent who can manage to traipse on in.   Because terrorists need love too?  Then the Naked Emperor cries and whines and wonders out loud why American corporations are clamoring to incorporate in foreign countries to avoid the evil IRS and its labyrinthine and oppressive tax system. 

Oh, and we can’t send the Ebola medicine to Africa because it’s experimental…and they might die from it.  Even though they are almost certainly going to die from the Ebola, why should we try giving a drug that might help?  Someone might sue us or something.

Really?

I almost threw up all over the customer lounge.   Thankfully by that time, my tire rotation and car wash were done and the service advisor had come to retrieve me.  I just hope they torqued my lug nuts to 76 ft lbs. like the owner’s manual suggests.

no clue

On the way home I had a few insights on B.O.’s asinine rhetoric.

1. Why are we spending a red dime to support any terrorist harboring country? I don’t give a flying fart in a high wind what’s going on there.  It’s not our problem. In fact, as cruel as it sounds, perhaps some of these third world holes could use some thinning of the herd.  Especially when foreign aid never seems to get where it’s supposed to go, and the poverty and desolation persists no matter how many billions of dollars are thrown at it.

2. Why do veterans go without medical treatment, and American citizens are taxed so heavily they can’t afford their own healthcare (even though they work for a living) while our government pisses away our tax dollars to support terrorists and others who only want to kill us and send the world back to the Dark Ages?  Americans’ money could be better spent on our own infrastructure and military, and to secure our borders against the terrorists and thugs, but what do I know?

3. Why is this illegitimate president still squatting in our White House?

Deus Ex Machina, Alternative Forms of Entertainment, and What Customer Service?

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I have seen some very screwy dealership and car lot names in my life, but who came up with Blue Knob? Are they trying to attract ED and/or frostbite sufferers?  It just doesn’t invoke a feel-good message to me, and I’m a chick.

Maybe I’m just easily entertained.  One of the things that I used to like to do as a kid was to watch the train cars as they would go by.  One of the realities of my childhood, living in a town criss-crossed by several railroad lines, was that you had to wait on trains.  Today, on the rare occasion one does have to wait on a train, there’s not much to see besides endless coal cars and tankers full of chemicals or vegetable oil, but back in the day a lot of interesting things were shipped by rail. 

Cars are still shipped by rail, but today, because of vandals, the train cars are covered so you can’t see the cars inside.  One used to be able to clearly view the cars as they went by.  You could try to identify the models being transported which was always interesting, at least to me.  Heavy equipment was also shipped by rail, and that was interesting to watch too- excavators, road graters, bulldozers and so forth, tied down to flat cars, going to who knows where. 

If I didn’t have anything better to do and I lived in the vicinity, I would love to watch ships being unloaded, but the only port in Columbus is the airport. While it is interesting to watch the planes take off and land, the parking garage isn’t cheap, and I always worry that someone might think we are some kind of weird stalkers for just hanging out to watch the planes.  I keep thinking about the incident the last time we went to Niagara Falls (2004.)   Getting in to Canada was no problem (this is before passports were required) but getting back in to the States was not quite so easy.  As we were going back to the States from Niagara Falls (in Jerry’s 99 Tacoma with Ohio plates…) the border crossing official asked me where we had been, how long we had been in Canada, and to where we were heading back.  I gave her the applicable information and both of our drivers’ licenses.  Then she looked over at Jerry with a serious case of stink-eye, and said, “I need to hear you talk.” 

Fortunately the only language Jerry knows is English, complete with the Central Ohio Newscaster Accent.  Therefore it wasn’t really possible for him to be a wise-ass like I know Steve-o would be.  If  Steve-o were asked his national origin, he would probably make it a point to  cuss them out in German just to be arbitrary, but Jerry does not have that ability, thankfully.   He informs her that yes, his name really is Jerry, and he really is going back to beautiful Central Ohio.   Then she laughs a bit nervously, and tells us that she thought he may be of Middle Eastern descent, and that they were supposed to watch out for illegal immigrants from the Middle East trying to get into the States from Canada.  Steve-o, with his rather pale complexion and mousy brown hair, probably would not have been questioned.  Personally, I can understand the reasons behind racial profiling, even if I can tell the difference between someone from the Middle East and a Native American.  After 9/11, better safe than sorry.  If I were airport security, and I saw Jerry from a distance watching planes from the top of the parking garage, I would be pretty wary too.  How am I supposed to know he’s not a Middle Eastern terrorist, but a redneck whose family are mostly Cherokees from West Virginia, and who has lived in Central Ohio his whole life? 

I am still waiting on the Cougar Pool.  I know, I just ordered it Monday, but it’s starting to get hot around here.  The season of Stygian Heat is right around the corner, and I want to be floating about in the Cougar Pool, drinking iced tea and chilling in it soon.  Jerry is going to Lancaster tomorrow night, so I have my fingers crossed that I might be lucky enough to get it today or tomorrow so I can set it up Saturday. 

Last night I got my flowers and mulch for the front flower beds.  I got a flat each of petunias and impatiens, and they look quite lovely around the rose bushes.  I can’t say I was impressed with the experience of buying these items though.  Now I know why I avoid home improvement stores, which I will be polite enough not to name.  I found the flower flats I wanted, after wandering about a bit.  That wasn’t so bad, but when I went to check out, first of all there was only one lane open and about four people ahead of me in line.  Then that guy suddenly decides it’s time to go on break, so another guy comes up.  I had not been able to find the mulch, so when it was finally my turn to check out, I ask the guy.  He sells me (unbeknownst to me at the time) the absolutely most expensive black mulch they have, then tells me to pull around to the side of the building for another guy to load me up. 

What he forgets to tell me is there are about nine people ahead of me waiting for this one guy to load them up first.  I did not have time for that, and when I pulled around to the side I could see where the mulch was stacked, and how much it cost.   Sooooo, I find the item number on my receipt, get my happy hiney out of the car, and load up the two very expensive bags of mulch that I just paid for.  The saddest part about this is that nobody noticed.  I could have loaded up fourteen bags, if they would have fit in the trunk of my Yaris, and I still bet no one would have noticed.

I have no problem with a couple of forty pound bags of mulch, but come on, people.  I was honest about it.  I got two of the exact item number I ordered and paid for, and if I’d been asked for my receipt they would have been able to see that- but how many people have ripped them off?

There comes a point in time when businesses are going to experience an economic fact, which is the law of diminishing returns. One person can only do so much, and you are going to lose business if you try to spread one person too thin.  There is a point of balance where you have exactly the right number of people and resources to serve your customers and be profitable.  It’s my sneaking suspicion that too many businesses are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, and it’s affecting their bottom line. 

Apparently, the ghost in the machine is supposed to do it somehow.  Literally translated, deus ex machina, means “god in the machine,” and it refers to a literary mechanism in which the protagonist in a play is magically scooped up out of impossible circumstances to win the day.  Film makers still use it today in action flicks.  We all know in the world of the action flick, nothing is going to happen to the good guy that doesn’t work out in the end.  The problem is, in real life it’s not so simple.  The eleventh-hour save is not always a given, and not every old bitty is going to just go ahead and get her own mulch!

Conspiracy Theories, Dead Terrorists, and Men Who Wear Pants Pulled Up to the Waist

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I hope Osama is dead.  I don’t care who killed him, (though I must admit, as far as methods go, you can’t beat assassination by Navy SEALs, if that’s what really happened,)  or even if he choked to death on a hot dog (preferably a pork hot dog, if the true mode of death was asphyxiation by wiener.)  If he is indeed, dead, the world has been rid of someone almost as twisted and evil as Hitler.  Most people, excepting radical Muslims, regardless of their political preferences, are probably glad to hear this dude is taking the Dirt Nap- or in his case, Swimming With the Fishes.  I just have a lingering twinge of doubt in the back of my mind regarding: a.) did Obama have anything to do with the death of Osama?, and b.) whether or not Osama is really, truly dead. 

The timing of the Osama killing couldn’t be better for Obama.  It’s taken the attention away from the whole birth certificate fiasco (don’t know what to believe on that one either, but I seriously doubt Obama was born anywhere near Hawaii – or any other US state,) and from gasoline prices killing the economy- again. 

I smell price fixing, collusion, and just plain boldface lies- and at the center of it?  Obama.

Osama may have already been dead for years- or he may have dropped dead of some natural cause, and Obama’s been saving up the Osama Assassination Event to build up his street cred at a particularly strategic hour.  I can’t think of a better strategic hour than right now.  With the 2012 election coming up and his poll numbers in the crapper, he needs something to get the American people’s minds off of the very real possibility that not only do we have a sitting President who is ineligible to hold the office – and is crazy enough to run again,  he could also use something to distract Joe Sixpack from the fact that it’s going to cost him half the national debt to fill up his F-150.  The economy is going straight down the toilet while Obama and his pet contributors are on the take, and it appears that’s exactly how he planned it.  What better than a dead terrorist as a distraction- better yet, the Grand Pappy terrorist of them all?  It just smells very fishy- and way too expedient- to me.

The other thing I don’t get is why do we as Americans give a rat’s ass if Osama gets a proper Muslim burial?  Do terrorists assure that all the Christians they kill get appropriate Christian burial rites?  Do they have priests on the ready to give last rites to Catholics who die at terrorists’ hands?  And what about Jews?  Jews have their burial rules too, and I bet terrorists really don’t observe those either. I don’t think it was the US Navy’s responsibility to do anything other than make sure he’s dead and put the body put somewhere where it wouldn’t stink and draw flies. 

Burial at sea, while hygienic (granted-it won’t stink and draw flies six fathoms beneath the sea,) and a perfect way to maintain an unmarked grave, poses too many credibility questions.  How do we know they didn’t wrap up a couple of bags of cow manure in a white sheet and toss them over the edge and just say it was Osama?  I think they should have put him in the freezer and sent his carcass to a taxidermist so he could be mounted and displayed, so people could see for themselves that he’s really dead. 

Admittedly, today I’ve gone from my normal baseline pragmatism right into the heart of cynicism, but who can blame me?   I don’t trust Obama any further than I could throw him.  I don’t trust the media, who is in cahoots with him.  I also don’t trust the string-pullers who are price-gouging and profiteering and doing their damnedest to engineer another economic crisis.  All of these events don’t make me want to re-elect Obama.  They make me wish Congress would  have the stones to impeach him now, and run him and his cronies out on a rail. 

Anyway, I shouldn’t get too hung up on things I can’t change.  I have to deal with them, and while I still have the freedom to comment on them as I see them, I’m going to.  

Today I came across a man after my own heart.  I love this guy.  His commentary on the abysmal condition of  “customer service” in retail is a bit cheeky, but mostly true.   I know I’m getting old.  I bemoan the extinction of the Man Who Wears His Pants Pulled Up to the Waist with No Visible Underwear or Butt Crack. 

Pull up your damned pants!  Maybe I’m just old, but there’s no mystique or attraction to be found in some dude’s hairy, sweaty butt crack, or in getting a visual of his boxers or whitey-tighties.  I want to see dudes with their pants at the waist.