It's Official - Joe Biden Is An Idiot

Normally I take the typing & typos that Yahoo passes off as journalism with a few thousand grains of salt, but this one has video.

Yahoo! asked Vice President Joe Biden Thursday to give some good advice for the unemployed. He provided a list of recent improvements to the economy, while expressing sympathy for those struggling to get by without a regular income.

"So the message is 'hang in there?'" Yahoo!'s Anna Robertson asked.

"The message is hang in there," he repeated.

Ya hear that ya whiny, hungry, can't pay the rent, can't clothe the kids American slacker bitches?
Just hang in there.
If you're having problems putting that nugget of wisdom into practice, just imagine you're a "chad" on a Florida ballot. While you're at it, think positive. That always does wonders for my bank account.

"Things are coming back," Biden said, after noting that the unemployment rate is now dropping "minimally," businesses are investing, banks are lending, and companies are gaining confidence.

"But, again, it's not sufficient that the economy gets back to where it was before. The jobs in the 21st century--the good-paying jobs in the 21st century --are also going to lie in entire new industries, which we have to innovate our way into creating."

Hmmmm...Joe tells folk to "hang in there," then he tells them they'll be
"hanging" around until we "innovate our way into creating...entire new industries."

Gee, if I'm not mistaken, that kind of "hanging" might not end up the way ol' Joe is envisioning it.



Then again, maybe Joe has some insights into captured alien technology that allows one to grow entire industries by just adding water. I know, I'm being "negative." After all, that strategy seemed to work for these guys:

Yahoo! also asked the Vice President how we, as Americans, can turn around the economy and he responded with something even conceded might sound a little "silly."

"One of the ways to impact, as strange as it sounds, on the federal debt, on economic growth, on the cost of maintaining health care in America is: Don't smoke, eat healthy, do not consume junk foods," he said.

"I know that sounds silly, but it's very practical in terms of your own health and well-being, but also on the impact, on the cost of maintaining the health care system in the United States."

In other words, no dollar burgers for you, ya hungry slackers. Off to Whole Foods with your soon to be revoked credit cards ya shiftless lay-abouts. Hell, maybe you can trade one of the kids for a little brie & some organic tofu.

I don't know about you but I'm always enervated & positron-ed whenever I realize that the man who is a heartbeat away from the nukes is a complete fucking idiot.

For some odd reason Yahoo didn't transcribe the bit where "a Yahoo reader," who has never been able to make more than $10 even with a college degree, asks Joe if it's really wise to continue to point kids towards college even though the rewards are so meager.
Joe's response is "priceless."

"The answer is absolutely yes. If she thinks she has trouble finding a job with a college education, try it as we move on with a just a high school education or less."

There you have it folks, the new America will be a place where even the shit jobs will require a college degree.

It's really worth watching the video for this exchange alone. I particularly enjoyed how Joe's puppeteer gave Joe a little goose in his hindquarters as he was read the question.

Personally I think Joe is over emphasizing that education shit. Look at him, he made it to VP without the benefit of a cerebral cortex.

Here, Vice President Biden gives his best estimate as to how far up his own ass

he's been able to shove his head. With a hearty "I'll never surrender, I'll never give up,"
Mr. Biden vows to fulfill his lifelong dream of being able to kiss his own uvula from the rear.

Flotsam & Jetsons

I'm entering new areas of pretentious bloggy twaddledom tonight.
But it's as cold as Pat Robertson's heart & I'm bored & completely unable to sleep even after 2 shifts on 3 hours sleep...

On Saturday night this newbie kid, all of 19, spent an hour detailing his extensive gaming experiences with Halo & such. After about 10 minutes I really wanted to hit him with something hard, like a chair leg or an ax handle...but I'm polite & civilized & too old for jail. Then I found myself further entrapped as he followed this exercise in Munch-ian Scream inducing horror with a detailed explanation about why he's perfectly suited to fire some god awful hunk of body shredding military hardware because of his "extensive joy stick experience" as a gamer.

His two phrases of exuberant joy were "perfectly righteous" & "priceless." From this, I've gathered that he's a surfer with a Mastercard. But I could be wrong.

I couldn't help thinking that the NYT pundit was right. Media & language don't "program" thought.

Nope.

Not at all.

It's crazy to even think it.




Sunday was my "get paid to watch TV day," which pretty much sums up my attitude to TV viewing;namely, you'd have to pay me to watch this shit.

Oodles of football interspersed with an endless parade of car ads & phone ads & beer ads. I learned that the right car + the right phone + the right beer = one frabjous day.

Right in the middle of all this happy consumerism sat this hunk of video gold;

My Marriage Matters V.2 from Ryan Hill on Vimeo.

The man pictured in the video is Ryan Hill, an attorney for Can-Am Legal Services. I highly recommend a journey to their website. As you look at it, try to picture yourselves hiring the 3 amigos of law based on that home page.

As you can see, Mr. Hill is seething with outrage. Or he's constipated. I can never tell the difference.

As you can also see, Mr. Hill's outrage started seething when ashleymadison.com started marketing extra-marital affairs like Cheerios.



Don't get me wrong, I'm all for outrage when it's genuine, but my sphincter tends to pucker when I see manufactured outrage dressed up in grass root skirts. After making a mental note to visit Mr. Hill's pro-marriage website, I drifted back into my normal workday coma.

Tonight, I played Google roulette and found a site called Above The Law, which had some interesting things to say about pro-marriage Ryan & his moral outrage.

So what kind of attorney is Ryan Hill? A divorce attorney.

Mr. Hill is not only a divorce attorney, he's a divorce attorney who happens to share an email address with Ashley Madison.

In other words, Mr. Hill's anti-Ashley site is, in reality, a web portal leading directly to Ashley Madison's website. And his grassroots ad is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to get Ashley Madison's website onto TV stations that refused to carry her ad.

I know, I know, an utterly pointless con floated by inept con men.

But their ineptness is the only reason they were exposed. I doubt real propagandists are as ham handed about their manipulations. I'm sure there are scads of manipulating fingers all over every bit of media we ingest, sculpting our opinions to suit them.

In fact, that NYT article I quoted previously can be debunked so easily, one wonders why it was published at all.

Well, unless they were attempting to use language to control thought.

But we all know that can't be true, right?

You Can Never Start Christmas Shopping Too Early

Okay, okay, I'm not much of a blogger. I admit, it was fun for a while, but the idea that every one of my mental farts has to be recorded for all eternity has gotten very fucking old.

Here's the actual truth.

I don't have a fucking clue.

Keep that in mind as we progress because I'll prove it.

Having said that, I must also say that I'm not very timely. For example, we're now in the middle of January and I'm just getting around to posting a few suggestions for your Christmas gift giving obligations.

Sorry.

Maybe you can keep these in mind for next year. I think they would be ideal for any child.

First up, we have a board game called "Missionary Conquest.

Conquer the world---for Christ! This challenging board game tests not only your navigational skills as you travel around the world on mission trips, but also your ability to finance these expeditions by making wise investments. ''Temptation'' and ''Blessing'' squares add to the fun and keep the action going. Everyone can play because no Bible knowledge is required!

Gosh, doesn't that sound like the bees knees? Conquest, Christ, and Capitalism all wrapped in one neat little board game. Of course, once you dip in these waters, you'll feel compelled to purchase the soon-to-be-released second offering in their "Missionary" series, "The Missionary Position."

Conquer the Demon of Lust---for Christ! This challenging board game tests not only your ability to swallow bullshit, but also your ability convince the woman in your life to swallow bullshit at the expense of her own orgasm. Everyone can play because all you need is genitalia.

Next up, I give you, what I think is, the ideal aid in keeping your kid on the path of righteousness and out of Safeway parking lots. Its the perfect answer to any kid who thinks that Jesus was just a pussy with all that pantywaist "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemy" twaddle.

Join Michael and the Guardian Force as they engage Morg and his minions in an epic celestial battle between good and evil! Awesome adventure awaits your young spiritual warriors in this game of strategy as they race across the board and block their opponent's attempts to unleash devastating destruction on humankind. Fast-paced fun for two players, ages 7 and up.

Nothing banishes those "Jesus was a lefty flamer" blues quite like a few hours spent portraying a buff comic book angel.

Really.

My next offering allows you to reinsert your child into the everyday world while still maintaining the proper levels of blood lust necessary for a true disciple of "The Prince of Peace."

The action-packed contest between good and evil continues in this exciting family board game inspired by the hit movie! Correct answers during the pre-rapture section earn redemption tokens, which are of great value once post-rapture play begins. Players then band together in the Tribulation Force to defeat Carpathia---or face elimination. For two to six players, ages 10 and up.

Wow! Pre-Rapture quizzes & post-Rapture play...what more could a kid possibly need?

Finally, we have "America:The Game."

Celebrate the American experience and your spiritual heritage with this action quiz game! Be the first to advance your three pioneers from the eastern seaboard to the west coast---but you must strategically plan your route as you answer questions about the history of America from 1492 to the 1950s. Includes game board, 512 question cards, 64 hazard/blessing cards, 18 pawns, a die, and instructions. Two to six players.

Now how cool is that? Your child will get to experience the construction of America without all the messy slaughter & slavery & greed & psychosis that went into building the real deal.


Now that I've gotten Xmas out of the way, it's time to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that I haven't got a fucking clue.

Originally, I was going to play with one of the Tuscon shooter's claims about language & how it can be used to alter & create reality. Although, Loughner's Internet mentor, David Wynn Miller, and his gibberish & jargon laden arguments seem designed to debunk such ideas by associating them with the credulous & gullible.

While I'm completely unclear about how the addition of a semi-colon will remove one from taxation, those board games above demonstrate, quite succinctly, how easy it is turn a phrase like "love your enemy" into its complete opposite.

This bit of verbal magick is done so often on television that it has become ubiquitous to the medium. Viewers are constantly bombarded with imagery equating spiritual & emotional fulfillment with material acquisition. Materials worth acquiring at any price.



These tactics have been so successful, Americans didn't, for a moment, question why "a lifestyle," a nice Madison Avenue illusion, was worth going to war over.
In fact, Madison Avenue owes its entire existence to its adeptness at controlling thought by manipulating language, symbol & image.

But then I read The New York Times & saw my error.

Even before the Jared L. Loughner acted weirdly and darkly in so many ways that singling out any one aspect may defy sense. Nonetheless, for bizarreness, his rants about grammar stand out.

As Mr. Loughner has tried to explain it in Web postings, English grammar is not merely usage that enjoys common acceptance. Rather, it is nothing less than a government conspiracy to control people’s minds. Perhaps more bizarre, even potentially troubling, is that he is not the only one out there clinging to this belief. Some grammarians say they hear it more often than you may think.

“It is completely off the wall,” said Patricia T. O’Conner, the author of several books on grammar, including “Woe Is I.”

“But I’m not actually that surprised,” said Ms. O’Conner, who also writes a blog, grammarphobia.com, with her husband, Stewart Kellerman. “I get mail once in a while from people who believe that it’s wrong to try to reinforce good English because it’s some kind of mind-control plot, and English teachers are at the bottom of this. For anyone to say that subject and verb should agree, for example, is an infringement of your freedoms, and you have a God-given right to speak and use whichever words you want, which of course you do.

“But they see it as some sort of plot to standardize people’s minds and make everyone robotically the same.”

One person identified with this notion is a Milwaukee man named David Wynn Miller, who prefers to render his name as :David-Wynn: Miller and who says that people must free themselves of a government he deems tyrannical. But Mr. Miller has distanced himself from Mr. Loughner and rejected suggestions that his own online writings over the years may have inspired the rampage in Tucson.

Y'see, any idea that language can manipulate & enslave is just a "bizarre rant" that would be "completely off the wall."

Gee, I'm glad the NYT cleared that up for me. Now I can save myself the inevitable embarrassment that goes hand in hand with all delusions that allude to government plots to manipulate perception by manipulating language & symbols & imagery.