PAYOLA - 1960 or PAYOLA - 2015

1960

2015 - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/12/1363990/-Big-Oil-Gave-250-000-to-Each-Senator-who-Voted-for-Keystone-XL

It's been 55 years since the music/radio "Tin Pan Alley" payola scandal.  I can't remember when it was that I stopped listening to pop music, but I know that it was sometime in the 1950's.  I do remember "Payola" from the news, though.
Yesterday I was driving up the highway when I thought of it as a random invasion of my brain.  I was thinking of it as such small potatoes compared to the bribes that are paid to the members of congress, and yet they are not thrown in jail for accepting money to satisfy special interests.  The list seems to be endless.  Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banking, Big Mining, Big Comm, Big Insurance, Big Investing, Big Arms, Big Contractors, etc.
I said it before, I repeat, 
"The United States has the most highly sophisticated legal bribery system of government in the entire world."

"That's one helluva way to run a railroad," as the old saying goes.

ANOTHER EMAIL, THE KIND I LOVE, BUT NEVER "FORWARD"

Oh, I came to my work table about 45 minutes ago and opened my email.  There it was, one of my favorite types of email.  I was in just the right mood, so I figured I would have some fun.  It's allowed because after all, the author of the original remains unknown.  
So, do what I do with these things: put yourself in your mental clown suit, put on your red bubble nose, your big floppy shoes, your white gloves and your pointy hat and proceed.  You'll see the symbol of the blank flag a little later.

1. Obama:      Bye                   Relax, he’s gone anyway.

2. Put "GOD" back in America!!!   You think if He were not here that things would be as good as they are?

3. Borders:         Closed!      Good, no more Canadians, Japanese, Indians, Chinese, Italians, Somalis, Nigerians, South Africans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Venezuelans, Cubans, Norwegians, Filipinos…did I miss any?

4. Congress: On the same retirement & healthcare plans as everybody else.  I agree, Medicare for us all.  That way we would all be equally unhappy at the quality of the healthcare in this country.

5. Congress:      Obey its own laws NOW!  That’s one I agree with.  Oh wait - will we enjoy the stock market sweetheart loopholes too?

6. Language:       English only!  Are you ready to pick one?  Make God more important and make the national language Aramaic.

7. Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!  What does this mean?  Culture?  Constitution?  Bill of rights?  I think we ought to try AGRIculture.  Since this is a bucket list, many of us will be there pushing daisies anyway.

8. Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before & during Welfare! And before voting, and twice a year at random if you are a driver; and if you’re on unemployment; and if you’re on Medicare; and if you’re on social security and finally if you have to drive over 25 miles to work, random testing 4 times a year.                                                                      

 9. NO freebies to Non-Citizens! I agree.  All freebies that used to be rained down upon non-citizens should be distributed equally to all citizens for a once per month distribution.                         

10. Balance the budget.  Against what?  Nobody knows how much money we owe, nor how much money we have, nor how much money is being slid off to the side to foreign shelters, nor how much is being embezzled.        

 11. Stop giving away our money to foreign countries! Charge them for our help! We need it here.

Yeah, we need every penny we can out our hands on == % of GDP in foreign aid?  0.2 %

Campaign contributions and lobby money recipients (you know who they are)  = 0.5%

You’re right, Washington DC is a foreign country.

 12. Fix the TAX CODE!  I agree. Flat tax. NO deductions. No minimum allowance-you pay from the first penny.  ALL income, earned, non-earned, capital gains, EVERYTHING, no matter where it comes from on the globe, 15%.                     

And most of all.

13. "RESPECT OUR MILITARY AND OUR FLAG!!"We the people are coming!  Who cares?

We the people are here and we waste our money by buying politicians, trying to get them to do what we want and need, voting for idiots, liars, tax evaders and a host of other vermin.  So what is meant by “we are coming?”

Needless to say I didn't forward this fun-filled response of mine.  

LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH (Originally published in mid 2015)

I keep getting these moronic emails that keep yelling at people to learn to speak English.
To all you sweethearts out there who want to force anyone in the United States to speak English, there will have to be a law that allows you to apply that force.  So far, you're out of luck because the United States has no law defining an official national language.
Then, all of you bright luminaries surely don't think of the many variations of "standard" English that you have to choose from.  Which one(s) are you going to allow to exist here in the United States before you start arresting people for not speaking the legal form of English?
Think of it as an expression of our highly touted freedom. Yes, indeed.  We are free to do so many things.  We are free to move around at any time of day or night; free to stand on a street corner alone or in a group of five or fifteen; free to write nasty things about our government; free to say nasty things about the government in public; free to espouse the religion of our choice; free to marry the person with whom we are in love, even one who does not speak English for crying out loud!  Maybe worse yet, one who only knows how to speak Nigerian English.  Oh, pain and suffering! I've been living with a loving spouse who only knows Filipino English!  My children are irreparably damaged by the mental confusion caused by this horrible disability.  They may not even be truly American with this built-in speech warp!  
And what about me?  I was reprimanded the other day for a translation from French to English because it was rejected for being US English instead of UK English. That ignorance took $50 out of my wallet!  
So, all you freedom lovers out there, just what version of the English language are you going to legislate for our fair country?  Will my Scottish friend have to fear imprisonment for his total inability to speak US English?  What's going to happen to his freedom of expression?
So, dear linguists, enjoy the freedom that you have to write what you want about the language(s) we speak or don't speak in this country.  As for me I am going to speak whatever language it takes for me to get fed and/or find my way to the men's room.

Note:  The initial publication in Krusty Kurmuggin evoked a comment from my Scottish friend: "When I go to visit family in Scotland they repremand me for speakin US Emglish and using US slang terms.  Scottish English is the purest form of English."

INEPT BUFFOONS WHO CALLED THE WORLD ALARMIST

YEARS AGO THE "ALARMISTS" TOLD US TO PREPARE;
NOW OUR SOLUTION TO OUR SITUATION IS TO GROUND AIRPLANES
BECAUSE WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT!

This is Katrina all over again.  Ray Nagin lives!  Quick, circle the busses.  Shut down the escape routes so that people can't get in, or out.  Can't let escaping people go the wrong way on a freeway that is not being traveled now can we?  
I think of the government agents who were ignored  when they warned central HDQTRS that there was a danger that airplanes would be used to wreak havoc in our air. (Ooopss, those are alarmist conspiracy theories, right?)  Yep.  3,000 souls later the inept buffoons who should have taken the alarms seriously have to have some explanation.

So now that we have one misdiagnosed African dead and two of his nurses dying (maybe) we suddently realize that this is serious.  So, instead of analyzing the facts, studying the logic and the logistics, we find our elected buffoons running for the solution that is the easiest and the most visible, and the most stupid ... stop travel to and from West Africa.  Why?  Because in the United States, every problem can be solved by an easy mechanical fix.  Everything, from cancer to ebola.  From radiology to airplanes.  From the voting box to gerrymandering.  From religious persecutions to vicious and cruel dictatorships we propose the military solution.  Oh, yeah. Bomb 'em back to the middle ages.  It's simple.  Just ask Senator John McCain.

We don't need alarmists who tell us that the planet is going to burn up.  It'll never get to that point.  It's pure hogwash.  
So to keep the alarmists happy. We devise cap and trade.  That wonderful bait and switch policy that says that I'll buy your share of the clean air left over from your production by-product that goes into the atmosphere  so that I can keep pouring the same amount of my garbage dross into the atmosphere.  That'll fix it.  The sea level will never rise if we do this right.  (e.g. I pay you enough.)

Oh, we gotta get back to the airplane story.  

The brilliant dropout from the Rhodes scholar program, you know the one, the illustrious ex-candidate for president from Texas.  You know, the one who got to keep his job as governor of that illustrious state?  He's all in favor of grounding the airplanes.  What is he going to do when the ship carrying a potential ebola patient wants to drop anchor in Galveston?  That's gonna be a good one.  You going to put wings on that one so he can't unload on your soil?  Mexico turned him away.  Show some testosterone Rick.  Live up to your convictions.  Be tough.  Contribute to the solution of the problem with the tactic that you propose.  Oh, I nearly forgot, this is not an African, Rick, this is a real, warm blooded Texan.  I know.  Send them to the CDC in Atlanta. Do they have a deep water port there?
Naw, never mind, Rick, I know that as a true politician you're going to remind me that ships don't fly.  

Yes, my fellow citizens, we have some cultural traits that should prove to us that our exceptional arrogance about our summa cum laude exceptionalism is buffoonery at its best.

Me, the Crusty Kurmujjin

PS:  Anonymous, thanks for giving me the inspiration for this response to your comment.

TOTAL TRAVEL BAN ENACTED -- WESTERN AFRICAN PEOPLE FORBIDDEN FROM FLYING TO UNITED STATES

The leaders of Siera Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Senegal have instituted a complete and total shutdown of travel from their country to the United States.  
The ban was enacted because it was deemed too dangerous for the people of the region to take the chance of being exposed to ebola while in the United States.  The frightened Western Africans were driven to their decree by the extraordinary and exceptionally high percentage of transferal of the disease in the continental United States.
It is exceptionally remarkable that in the United States total ineptitude is rampant in the presence of the disease.  The statistics of death and contagion are exceedingly frightening in the light of recent events. One Western African ebola patient was initialy misdiagnosed when he first presented himself to the professional medical practitioners at a hospital emergency room intake area in the great state of Texas.  When he returned two days later, his condition had deteriorated so badly that it was but a matter of time before he succumbed to the onslaught of the merciless virus.
In the process of treating the poor victim, two of the nurses who worked to try to save him were infected in the process and are now fighting for their own lives.

The Western African nations in question where thousands of ebola patients are presently awaiting the quasi inevitable outcome of their condition despite the best efforts of their care givers are not only afraid to come to the United States but are being forbidden to do so because of the patent ineptitude of the medical community of the country.  There is a fear that the ratio of death and contamination displayed by the health care profession of the United States would contribute to the decimation of the Western African population.  The U.S. citizens already in Western Africa are being held there by the ban in a humanitarian effort to protect them from the dangers that they face at home.

This is a first rate case of American Exceptionalism on display.

ONLY WIMPS HIDE BEHIND DISCLAIMERS

The following is not necessarily the thoughts and opinions of the

person sending this, and is not endorsed or paid for by *Sender* !!

                                                                   Hehehehe !!

DISCLAIMER

It is none of  your business whether I am speaking my own

personal opinion or not, so I do not care whether or not you

feel resentment over the contents of this blog post or any other.

If you don't like it, contact me and call me out personally after 

announcing your full and true identity and OWN what comes out

of  your mouth, what is crafted by your pen or vomitted from your keyboard.

Yeah, I love disclaimers, both the noun that names the little paragraph above the garbage that follows it and the 

DISCLAIMOR who lacks the testosterone to own what is produced.  

If you don't want to own it, don't produce it.  Don't tell me that "I didn't write this.  An anonymous being from somewhere on the planet sent it to my email and so here it is for whatever it is worth."  Every time you do that, you diminish yourself, you know.  Not only that, you also diminish the receiver by showing that you think that the receiver isn't smart enough to know that by hiding behind something you think is good but might cause a negative reaction, that you are weak and not strong enough to defend your very own opinion.  

Let me tell you my personal experience, a true life story.

When I get these anonymous "forwards" full of innuendo, downright inaccuracies, lying judgments and very often open expressions of  near total ignorance caused by an absence of  basic grammar school knowledge, I answer them with factual corrections and the occasional personal insult of the "forwardor."  It works!  My email inbox has been quasi free of such stercus taurorum over the last few years.  A lot of the weight has been lost due to the fact that my "friends" and relatives, yes, relatives, have found out that I suffer invincibly ignorant Bozos with zero tolerance. In their fear of a resulting correction and call to a more balanced exchange of ideas and facts and their interaction, they back off because they are only interested in the acidic invective of discrimination, exclusivism, ignorant exceptionalism and not the sweet taste of truth.  Why has my email in-box lightened?  Because not one single brilliant author or brazen "forwardor" of crass material ever had the gumption to own the stated points of view and engage in a straightforward, intellectually honest exchange. They have all, 100% of them, decided to crawl back into their mole hole.

So, if you want to get me to respect you, own who you are. There are people whom I know but do not like and still have a decent relationship with.  Why?  Because I respect them and they respect me in the basic truth that we hold differing positions about certain facts based on our different acceptance of the truth, but that we are not afraid to live with it and pronounce it to one and all, no matter what.

That's why, when I die, don't cry at my funeral because you know that you will be happy that I have finally been put in a box for good -- with no disclaimer.

I LOVE MY DOG -- YOU ILLEGALS, GO HOME WHERE YOU BELONG

No, this is not an awkward moment.  You can start disliking me or downright hating me as of now without feeling bad about it.

I do not think that dogs should hold the pre-eminent social acceptance that they do in this country.  This has been filling my craw since the vicious attack on the immigrant people in Murrieta, California, a short 18 miles from where I live and work.  I know and you know that there were people reviling the people on the bus.  Those on the bus were no doubt holding and protecting children.  Among those yelling and screaming insults were some who have dogs for which they care more than they do for fellow human beings.  Especially children!  Yuk! 
In fact, if they had to buy children, they wouldn't do it.  After all, children are silly humans who grow up to be idiotic humans who jump on buses after walking 1,000 miles to come here to steal our jobs.  Especially the ones that we don't want to do anyway.  It's much more consoling and humanly fulfilling to pay $500.00 for a good dog that will die after 10 years and make you mourn for a year that he died so young.  
...Yeah, and by the way, the dog never learned how to talk, never learned how to open the door, never learned how to use the toilet bowl, sweep the floor, wash or wipe the dishes and a few other trivial things like that.  Oooppsss, I forgot that the dog never really learned how make the bed.  I never did meet a dog who could learn how to take all 25 possible points of a pinochle hand, or seven no trump in bridge.  

Actually, I like dogs.  I prefer them barbecued, sauced and glazed with fiery pepper with a nice heavy local red wine at about 19 - 22% by volume.  Have to have nice steamed rice and stir fried bitter melon mixed with squash flowers and banana hearts.  Onions raw, on the side.  Yep, that's the way I like my dog.

The world would be better off without all these useless dogs and cats.  I have written a lot about how to solve some of the world's hunger problems.  Here's one sample from '07

Final thought:  Some of you say that you are pro-life.  I hate that term because it doesn't mean anything other than the life in the womb.  If you're an immigrant on a bus, you don't get to live better and neither does your young child because you're out of the womb now so I can make you suffer all I want...So long as I stay happy.  Hell, it's my body and I'll do what I want with it.  Besides, I want to save my river of tears for when FIDO dies.

So, you all, hate me enough so that you won't feel the need to come to my funeral.  Cry for your dog, not for me.