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If you're here you have a lot of catching up to do. I hope that you will enjoy browsing through the depths of my warped mind. I embarked on this journey May 28, 2000 and will keep as much archive as possible here, the rest I have moved to my personal archives and are available if you ask me nicely. Bill Health Care Reform Did Obama think that if he got the Republican leaders in the same room with his Democrat lapdogs and let the proceedings be televised live that they were going to roll over and cave into his concept of health care reform? You know what I surmised after watching several hours of the summit… the only thing the federal government is really good at is wasting our time and money. Neither side wants to listen to what the opposite side has to say… they are all navigating their term in office with blinders on. Case in point was the way President Obama kept interrupting John McCain’s turn at the microphone and his little comment that the campaign is over. Excuse me Mr. President… spewing campaign rhetoric is the norm for both sides of the isle and you’re as guilty of the practice as anyone in the room! Both sides talk a lot about curbing waste and abuse within the current Medicaid system… but nobody wants to do anything about it. We hear the sob story from this individual or that families tragic situation… with a population of 300 million its easy to find someone’s story that backs up your position, but it doesn’t get us any closer to a compromise solution to the problems at hand. The other theme that kept cropping up was how the evil insurance industry was flawed because of greed… for them its all about the bottom line. Uh Duh… they are a for profit company… it’s their purpose in life to make a profit for their shareholders. If the federal government regulates the industry to the point where its impossible for them to make money then what reason do they have to continue operating. What does that leave us all with??? A government run health insurance industry with a monopoly and the ability to put a gun to your head and force you to buy their product. You have to ask yourself does that sound like a viable alternative? Congressional hearings into the problems with Toyota are underway in Washington DC, but are they warranted or is this just an opportunity for the US government to trash the major competitor of two government subsidized automakers? The auto industry has faced massive recalls in the past and I don’t remember anyone getting their panties in a wad over how fast anyone got to the source of the problem or how quickly they presented a solution. Yesterday Rhonda Smith testified before the committee. She recounted her hair rising 6-mile, high-speed episode while driving her Lexus down an interstate in October 2008. She said the car became possessed and accelerated to 100mph and all attempts at braking were futile. She said that finally 'by the grace of God' the car began to slow down… If I were on the panel my comment to her would have been… are you some kind of moron? The whole incident would have been over in 10 seconds if you had the brains to put the car in neutral and shut off the ignition. I guess she should thank God for saving her ass because she didn't have a clue how to do it herself. I’ll bet if someone could look back at past statistics you’d find that during the time before fly-by-wire accelerator systems there were a significantly higher chance of your mechanical throttle linkage sticking on you than anything we’re seeing today. Both my wife and I drive Toyotas on the recall list and neither one of us are the least bit worried about our safety. Congress is obviously conducting a witch hunt. The more things change the more they stay the same… The new Credit Card rules went into effect yesterday. The banks make $120 billion a year on credit card fees and the new rules are geared toward severely curtailing many of those practices. Will the banks just roll over and allow all that money to slip through their fingertips? My guess is no. Actually it’s hell no! They will find a way to separate the credit card user from their cash and you can bet we won’t like it. Also yesterday President Obama announced his newest plan for health care reform, which apparently is a lot of the same ideas rebranded to hopefully make them more palatable for the conservatives to swallow. He’s now proposing to bring a fix to the inevitable Medicaid financial crunch by subjecting investment and rental income to the Medicaid tax, which is actually something new… another brand new tax. But since the bottom 50% of wage earners don’t have any investment or rental income to worry about they’ll jump up and down with glee that Uncle Sam is once again going to stick it to the rich… The more things change the more they stay the same! Women’s groups all over the globe are fuming over an advertisement for BMW Platinum Selection used car program. As you can see, the ad is a head and shoulder shot of an absolutely stunningly beautiful woman. There is no hint of any clothing, but at the same time you don’t see any part of her breast either. The simple caption says, “You know you’re not the first.” So why are all these women’s groups upset? Most likely they are all envious that they don’t look that good… even though in today’s world you don’t know how much the actual picture was touched up using Photoshop. Of course what has all the noise being made by these women’s groups really done? It’s managed to bring this picture to the attention of ten’s of millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t know it existed. BMW gets a ton of free publicity and the women’s groups look like the fool… 
Apparently Obama doesn’t have enough on his plate to worry about… his administration is now taking on the problem of childhood obesity. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined changes that include a push to eliminate cookies, cakes, pastries and salty food from school vending machines and cafeteria lines He said "Food served in vending machines and the a la carte line shouldn't undermine our efforts to enhance the health of the school environment." Vilsack went on to say, "We must have the capacity to set standards for all the foods served and sold in schools." Which means more regulation from big brother. Obama also wants to increase the number of children enrolled in school lunch programs and increase funding to schools that offer breakfast to its students. Of course what is missing from all these brilliant ideas is a way to pay for them. Maybe the president can form a new federal department whose sole purpose is to police the schools and fine parents every time they get caught feeding their child a Twinkie. I’m all for providing and educating our children on the benefits of eating a healthy diet… however I don’t believe it’s part of Obama’s job description to monitor what every child has to eat. Super Bowl XLIV is now in the history books and I don’t think I’m the only one who is in shock that the New Orleans Saints didn’t chock on their first trip to the big dance. This year I think it was the advertisers who chocked… the crop of ads that I saw were horrible. If you’re spending 2.5 to 3 million dollars for a 30 second spot you would think that you’d spend more than a couple of bucks on the concept and production. For instance… Career Builder dot com ran an ad where everyone in the office was running around in their underwear because it was casual Friday. If you ask me that was really tasteless garbage, but someone at Career Builders felt it was worthy of spending millions of dollars to bring it to the general public??? Some of them were just plain boring… like all of the Doritos ads, which apparently are contest winners from a crop of amateur productions. Doritos could do better… maybe drop one of the ads and pay someone to come up with some decent ideas. Although if the quality of the other ads being shown is an example of the kind of work coming out of our advertising agencies they may be wasting their money there too. My personal favorite and pretty much the only one I thought was worthy of the Super Bowl hype was the e-Trade ad about the milk addict rival girlfriend. I must say the actual game had it’s high points… although since becoming a fan of Arena Football I find it hard to watch the outdoor game because it’s like watching a tennis match… three downs and punt, three downs and punt and commentators that constantly talk about the battle of field position instead of discussing touchdown plays. I think the last Super Bowl that had any meaning for me was Super Bowl XXV when the NY Giants were playing for the title. Toyota is taking its well-deserved hits as they muddle through fixing a variety of problems that have cropped up with their cars and trucks. Do I think the media is making too much of the issue? Yes! Do I think they are unfairly targeting Toyota because it’s a foreign owned corporation? Yes! Maybe it’s because I drive a Toyota, my wife drives a Toyota (both of which are included in the latest accelerator petal recall), both my son’s drive Toyota vehicles. So when the media attacks my favorite brand of automobile I get personally offended. Especially when I find out that over two weeks ago, on Jan 18th, Dodge announced a recall to replace a clip on some models brake petal that was installed wrong or not installed at all which allows the linkage to work loose and render the brake petal useless. Are we hearing anything on the news about a potential failure of the brake system in certain Dodge cars and trucks? I haven’t heard of it… in fact the only reason I know about it now is I heard an independent auto repair shop owner mention it while a local reporter was quizzing him on the accelerator petal fix announced by Toyota. You would think the reporter would have gone back to his office and googled the Dodge recall so that he could get that information out to the general public, however I don’t see them doing anything with the information. I’m at a loss as to why the Toyota issues have been portrayed as deadly problems by the media and this issue with Dodge gets ignored. I’m not afraid to be driving my Toyota… do I pay more attention to what my accelerator petal is doing? I’d have to say yeah, but it isn’t something I’m overly concerned with. Austan Goolsbee was the guest on Monday night’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Goolsbee is Obama’s chief economic advisor and possibly the main architect of the latest budget to come out of Washington. If this guy is the best Obama can scrape together to advise him on how to turn the economy around we’re in deep shit! Goolsbee came across like a moron who wouldn’t know how to fix a leaking toilet let alone the fiscal problems of the whole nation. If its not apparent to you that the Obama administration has bitten off more than they can chew then you’re not paying attention… take the other day when Obama paid a visit to last weekends Republican retreat so he could try to brow beat some sense into those pesky conservatives. I know Obama was shooting from the hip by going toe to toe with his objectors without the use of his tele-prompter, but it looked like he was getting a little frazzled when attempting to answer some of the tough questions that were asked of him. Unfortunately the Republicans failed to use the opportunity to point out all of their ideas on how to reform the Health Care system. Ideas that don’t involve a take over by the Federal Government. I didn’t hear the whole broadcast, but my guess is the Republicans blew their chances to make it on the record with the solutions that have, to date fallen on deaf ears. President Obama is expected to unveil his first budget next week and apparently it’s going to contain provisions to scrap NASA’s Aries moon rocket. Without the Space Shuttles or the Aries project the East coast of Florida is going to turn into a ghost town in a hurry. For someone who talked big about creating jobs he sure is putting a damper on a whole lot of futures on the Space Coast. Sen. Bill Nelson is understandably upset... Obama just threw him under a bus... a bus that will run him right out of office, we can only hope Obama will be on that bus right along with him. I just finished reading the transcript of President Obama’s State of the Union address and I couldn’t be more discouraged… I didn’t watch the speech live, but apparently he spent 71 minutes to tell us… well nothing we didn’t hear over and over while he was campaigning for the job. I guess that isn’t completely accurate…
he did lay the groundwork for spreading the blame on any failures to all of Obama spent a lot of his time spewing made
up numbers that make him look good… while the reality of our situation is
crushing small businesses all along On a lighter note… I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall later in the evening while Obama was giving his teleprompter a sever tongue lashing for repeating two whole paragraphs back to back which must have made Obama look like a clown. That might have made the pain of listening to him speak worth wasting my time for. The media has latched onto this controversy over Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad in which he’s expected to promote the pro-life stance of the right-wing charity Focus on the Family. I say expected because nobody has seen the ad and for all we know it hasn’t even been shot yet. The problem I have, which nobody else seems to find troublesome, is the wasteful use of over $5 million to run a couple of 30 second television ads by an organization that is begging the public to make much needed donations to help the people of Haiti recover from their devastating earthquake. Focus on the Family should be hanging their head in shame over the blatant misuse of donated funds… but instead they are probably laughing all the way to the bank with the flood of new money that this publicity stunt is bringing in… Which brings me to my thoughts on what I think is really going on here… Focus on the Family pushes the buttons of a couple of left wing women’s groups to get them to make some noise about an upcoming high profile ad campaign with the express purpose of getting the media to run wild with the hullabaloo so that Focus on the Family gets two weeks of free exposure. President Obama will give his State of the Union address tomorrow night and it looks like he might actually be coming to the conclusion that he can’t just cram his liberal agenda down the throats of the American people. In 2008 the ignorant electorate voted for change… its been just over a year and I think those who voted for Obama are finally realizing the change he had in mind was converting this country into a socialist society. After a dozen meetings with his top fiscal advisers Obama is going to propose increasing the child care tax credit. He thinks giving a small percentage of middle class America an extra thousand bucks a year is going to stimulate job creation… is he really that out of touch with reality? Obama keeps trying to tell us that we’re over the hump and economic recovery is well under way… I don’t think main street is buying it because they aren’t seeing anything that resembles an economic recovery. What looms in the future is more regulation and taxes that will do nothing but stifle job creation, which is the corner stone of any upturn in the economic picture. The only jobs Obama knows how to create are all government jobs and in order to sustain job growth in government there has to be an increasing tax base to pay for it… if your killing private sector job growth then sooner rather than later those paying taxes will have to pay a bigger share of their wages. Liberals are going nuts over the latest ruling by the Supreme Court that gives corporations the right to free speech when it comes to politically bias projects. Somehow I don’t think the decision means that corporations can now funnel unlimited campaign contributions into political races. I think what we have here is a situation whereas the old rule called a movie that slanted politically either side of center or a privately funded politically motivated advertising campaign was considered to be campaign contributions and subject to the campaign finance laws… just because those items are now protected as free speech I don’t believe we’re going to see any more of that type of political garbage than we’ve seen in the past. The reality is liberals have under the old rules felt they held the advantage when it came to political campaigning and now they are afraid that the pendulum is about to swing in the other direction and they don’t know how to react so they cry fowl and do a lot of whining. Come November 3rd we’ll all be wondering what all the fuss was about. "Hope for Haiti" aired last night on practically every network on the dial... I didn't watch it, but I can imagine that the producers worked very hard at bringing the most pathetic images into the living room of main-stream America with the express purpose of pulling in a shit load of cash. I heard a report that there were over 1,500 charities vying for the hundreds of millions of private donations expected to be made by the bleeding heart American citizens, which brings me to the real gripe of the day... Charities that use the majority of their donated cash to line their own pocket. There is nothing in any federal law that dictates that a 'non-profit' organization has to spend more than a very small percentage of donated funds on actual charitable programs... and most of them take full advantage of that fact. Now I'm not saying we as a society shouldn't make charitable contributions. There are a few organizations out there that use those funds responsibly. However you never know and the chances are pretty good that when you give money for what looks like a good cause ends up filling some shady characters bank account. The late night problems for NBC seem to have worked themselves out. Conan O’Brian will walk away with a pile of cash in his pocket while Jay Leno will go back to hosting the Tonight Show at 11:30. Apparently the only dilemma left for NBC is what to air during the 10 o’clock hour. This is where the situation becomes absurd because I’m as sure as the sun will rise in the East tomorrow morning that NBC has a stack of truly lame reality tv show ideas laying on the presidents desk to pick from. I had high hopes that Jay Leno’s variety/comedy show at 10 o’clock would spawn a resurgent of television worth watching… Unfortunately for the viewing public it didn’t happen overnight and NBC decided to trash the whole concept.
If you find the need for more of this kind of reading material you can obtain a copy of my archive file that goes back to the beginning, the birth of bills-soapbox.com Just go to the feedback page above and send me your e-mail address along with your request. Thank you, Bill |
