Distractions

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that he didn't exist. But I'm starting to wonder how great a trick it really was. I mean, come on, the collective nation's attention can be diverted in any direction for an almost unlimited amount of time. The current distraction is the feel good story about the Chilean miners finally getting rescued which is great and all but we're focused on a handful of people we'll never meet and while we're looking there, there's more shit going down behind our backs.

We've got some more elections just around the corner and we're looking at the Tea Party idiots and their masters, the Republicans, scoring seats in the House and Senate. Let's be clear, if you are a Tea Party candidate then you are either a willful fraud or a complete and utter fucking moron. Sorry but there's no middle ground. Tea Party members are entitlists while decrying government bailouts, they are against big government while they scoot around in their Rascals purchased at no cost to them through Medicare, they are hypocrites whipped up into a lather by shadowy billionaires using them like the moronic pawns they are.

And then there are the chickenhawks like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the like who exist for no other reason than to repeat lies often enough so that simpletons just accept it as truth but really they accept it because they want to believe the bullshit these jackholes spew, they want to believe that they are the promised people, that they are the blessed ones, that they alone are the inheritors of the earth when, in reality, they are just being used by rich douchebags.

Here's a simple basic fact:
If you earn less than $100,000 a year and you vote Republican then you are voting against your own best interests. The Republican party does not care about you in any way. They care about the richest Americans, the ones that make more money in a day then you or I will make in our entire lifetimes. They care about big business because big business has deep pockets and they are all too happy to give some of their money to the bought and paid for "elected" reps to make them a thousand times more by hook or crook (usually by crook).

If you earn less than $100k and you vote Republican then you are voting to support a party that hates gay people, hates minorities (which will be interesting when white folks become a minority in America), hates non-Christians, hates government handouts that go to other people, a party that has, rather effectively, dug in its heels and simply stopped the running the government. This is a party that's blocked the standard nomination of people to offices for no other reason than they can.

The Republican game plan is to mangle the works up so badly as to make the current Democratically "controlled" government fail. They want it to fail so they can swoop in and say "Look, they coudn't do anything even when they had all the power, elect us and we'll make the world a better place".

Obfuscate, smear, fear, inject doubt, appeal to patriotism, talk about people who aren't like you, talk about people taking handouts (despite the fact that most Tea Partiers are taking handouts) and always, always, always have a bad guy you can point to and call the enemy. These are the tools of the fools who are party of the Tea Party "movement" which is less of a movement and much, much more of a calculated power grab by a bunch of insanely rich people who want to get even richer while Americans starve, lose their houses and suffer. These rich assholes want MORE money that they don't need.

And Republican leaders are fighting tooth and nail for those Bush tax cuts that do nothing (literally NOTHING) but put money in the pockets of people who absolutely do not need it.

Voting Republican these days means, to me, that you're an asshole giving more power to assholes who want to give more money to people who don't need it while the rest of the country flounders the aftermath of a recession created by a whole bunch of incredibly greedy assholes on Wall Street and in mortgage lending banks.

They get richer while the majority of the nation gets poorer, dumber, fatter and deader alot faster.

But hey, if you do vote Republican and you've got a rational reason for it, let me know. I'm interested in hearing how and why people with reasonable intelligence can be tricked into voting against their own interests time and again.

You Might Be an Asshole....

In an effort to make the world a better place to exist for all of us, here are some signs that you might be an asshole. If you fit any of these scenarios then don't despair because knowing you're an asshole is the first step to making a change to not being an asshole.

If you routinely flip people off in traffic then you might be an asshole.
If you tag along with the car in front of you at a four way stop sign (i.e. don't wait your turn like everyone else) then you might be an asshole.
If I can hear your shitty music from a hundred feet away inside my house at midnight then you might be an asshole.
If you drive like you're racing in a Grand Prix then you might be an asshole.
If you cut me off getting on to the highway only to go five miles an hour under the speed limit then you might be an asshole.
If you drive a white pick up truck then you might be an asshole (trust me on this, not all but a very, very high percentage of people driving white pick up trucks drive like complete fucktards, Lujza's husband excepted).
If you stand in front of the Red Box DVD rental for twenty minutes, just flipping back and forth, while someone is waiting behind you to just return a movie then you might be an asshole. Or you may just be oblivious to the existence of other people in the universe.
If you regularly go to the Express Check Out lane with obviously more than the 8 or 10 or 15 item limit then you are an asshole.
If you wait to start writing your check to pay for your groceries until after they've all been tallied up and there's a long line of people behind you then you might be an asshole.
If you park in a handicapped zone "for just a minute" when you are not handicapped then you might be an asshole.
Update:
You might be an asshole if you make an incredibly stupid and dangerous merge and then wave at the people you nearly just killed.

That's all I've got for now, do you have any litmus tests for assholes to apply to their behavior in an effort to inform them to their character shortcomings so that they can try to improve and become better citizens of the universe? Let me hear them in the comments.

Another Installment in the Saga of Art the Asshole

I had a neighbor, we'll call him Art, because it isn't his real name. He had two sons, a daughter, a wife and a big old Rottie when we first bought our house next door. When he had to move out of his house, his wife had left him and his daughter had sued him for child support because she had to leave home because he was such an asshole to her.

Nice, eh?

Also, his middle child thought it would be a good idea to jump someone with two of his pals a few weeks before his high school graduation. Never did see what became of his arrest for assault.

And the oldest in the family, let's call him Slimer because he is a smarmy slimy fucking prick with a grin to your face and nothing but insults and threats behind your back.

The wife left him after Art came home to catch her astride a cop in their bed, so I can understand some anger and betrayal issues but Art's assholery goes far, far beyond the call of bitterness. He is, at his core, an asshole.

So, he and his two wonderful boys had to move in with his sister because he couldn't afford child support and his mortgage. Which is understandable but doesn't really give him a license to be such a cock to the rest of the world and, duh, is part of the reason his wife went elsewhere.

The house sat empty for a month or two until he rented it to a pair of Philippino near-retirees who'd just liquidated their house to prepare to retire to the Philippines. They took a house they had lived in with their four kids for a couple of decades and packed much of it up, sold and gave away alot and just threw a bunch more. But they still ended up with a rather stuff house and an overstuffed garage that you literally have to hold the stuff up to close the door on.

It took them a couple of months to get moved in and settled. And then Art the Asshole approaches them with an offer to sell the houes to them. They, obviously, do not want to buy a house as they are two to three years away from going away forever. So Art the Asshole puts the house on the market and basically wants to sell the house out from under them, even though they had an agreement to stay for two years when they first moved in.

I hope the neighbors living there now sue the hell out of Art the Asshole even though it wouldn't teach him anything except to be more of an asshole.