<---I do not even WANT TO KNOW what this clown is thinking.
--The Clever Cynic
Just Thinking and Clowns
<----Something tells me that I do NOT want to be around when that clown decides to use that magic wand.
--The Clever Cynic
Ok Forget That Last Post...I Just THOUGHT I Knew How Distorted Our Society Had Become
Ok, OK.......I stand corrected. FORGET THAT LAST POST. I just THOUGHT that I had finally figured out how distorted our culture has become. Then, I learned that The Sims (yes from the games by that name) will become a MOVIE....sigh. There you go...it can't get more distorted than THAT. I can just imagine the plot................SIGH...so I stand corrected.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.com
Just What We Need...a Fight Club for Geeks and...What You Can't Learn in School
I was over looking through news at MSN and saw a headline about a fight club for geeks. (if you want to check out the actual article and view the video...knock yourself out ...pardon the pun... but don't say I didn't warn you, it contains violence and a bunch of geeks fighting...neither is a pretty sight IMO: http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=A793D761-EF1A-424E-BDAE-D1B46A3EE437,DC49683F-E26A-49C6-93B7-7F31892274D0&amp;amp;t=c150&f=06/64&p=hotvideo_m_edpicks&fg=>1=9951) (yeah, I know that is an asinine URL but hey I didn't create it...I just posted it.)
Ok, so I go and check out the video against my better judgment...sigh. Well...that was the first mistake. The second mistake was sitting though the ad that they made me watch FIRST...sigh. It features some pukey kid informing his mom that he needs 60 cupcakes for, I assume, school the next day. First of all....at this point any SANE parent would be already writing the note to excuse the child's absence from school the next day. ;) Further, the child would learn a far more valuable lesson than he ever would by actually GOING to school that day with a bunch of stale cupcakes in a bag:..."If someone ropes you into some monumental task that you have to pass on to your family.......BLOW IT OFF." (They just can't teach valuable life lessons like that in a setting of formal education) ;). Some things you just have to learn AT HOME. (don't get me started on homeschooling though...I am saving that rant for another post.);) To take it one step further...go ahead and bake the cupcakes and teach the kid to sell them on E-bay.;)
Well....I waded through the ad (obviously with my mind churning) and made it to the first feature. The Geek Fighting Club. Immediately, my mind starts crying FOUL. First of all... no real geek makes it that far along in life without getting beat up so much that they learn some fighting skills....these guys had NONE. From there, it just went from bad to worse. So to save you the agony of actually watching this steaming pile...geeks can not fight. Even worse the commenter actually APOLOGIZED for calling these self-proclaimed geeks GEEKS...sigh. In a nutshell it just shows how distorted our society has become.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.com
About Chasing Money With Sunken Treasure
I noticed tonight (I have this bad habit of noticing stuff...sigh) that one of the most searched terms was sunken treasure. I assume this is in the wake of the greatest treasure find of all time. ($500,000,000 or so depending upon the price of gold) According to this article...http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/richest-sunken-treasure-found-in-atlantic/96263.htm..."A real life sunken treasure is discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, something you usually only see in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean." I guess that has everyone off hunting for treasure.
Actually, there are worse things you can do I suppose. I am positive that there are many more treasures to be found...so if you are setting off to search...good luck. Actually if I had been thinking, I would have hinted some treasure could be found at a spot where I want to plant a tree........sigh.....guess it is too late for that...no one would believe it now.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.com
The Value of YOUR Money--The True Cost of Inflation
Everyone likes money. It buys us what we need to live, grants us those little luxuries that make life more enjoyable and provides a measure of security against times of strive.
Sadly, with each passing day, our money buys less and less. Two articles caught my eye tonight as I scanned the news. The first was about the falling purchasing power of the US dollar for overseas travel: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18475171/ It is not surprising that our currency is flagging against the other major currencies. Our staggering debt and huge trade and budget deficits combined with a lackluster economy are a sure ticket for disaster. We tend not to notice that prices creep up slowly as we go about our day-to-day lives...there is always inflation and we are used to rising prices. The staggering reality comes when we have an opportunity to see how our currency really stacks up in the rest of the world.
The second article, "Men in their 30s lag behind fathers in pay" (although incorrectly capitalized) is also an eye-opener. Men of this generation in real terms earn LESS than their fathers a generation ago. America is slipping in more ways than one.
CEOs and others at the top earn salaries way beyond the scope of their productivity. Show me ANYONE that is so talented that they are worth more than $1,000,000 per year. (someone makeing $1,000,000 per year gets $500 per HOUR...I would like to see them produce $500 worth of goods or services every hour...that would take SOME SKILL) When you have such a huge divergence in salaries and a declining economic growth rate...someone has to pay.
Our nation also spends well beyond its means. This can't continue indefinitely. Gains in productivity through technology and improved mechanization can't continue indefinitely. The tractor was better than the horse....but a better tractor is only marginally better than the previous tractor. We can't continue to pile up debt that we assume will be paid by robust productivity and surging economic growth in what has become a global marketplace.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.com
On the War in Iraq...Again
I read an article in Yahoo news tonight about the failure of the supply line for our troops. According to the article, "Of more than 100 requests from deployed Marine units between February 2006 and February 2007, less than 10 percent have been fulfilled, the document says. It blamed the bureaucracy and a "riskaverse" approach by acquisition officials." (I would cite the address but their URL is ridiculous...but you can Google it if you like).
This is APPALLING.
This is a nation that can supply porn to 200,000 houses a day (and probably FAR more than that) and can't manage to get supplies and equipment to our troops in COMBAT? I can order a pizza delivery and expect more efficiency than our troops are getting in the field. This is WAR...LIFE and DEATH... come on America get with it.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.com
On Funding the War in Iraq
Congress passed a bill today to fund the war in Iraq. I am all for paying our soldiers...(in fact I would like to thank all of the men and women who fight to keep our country free....THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart) but it is time to BRING THEM HOME and pay them HERE. How many American lives can be lost (even one life lost is TOO MUCH...IMO). How much money can we spend to establish a government in a country that ATTACKED US and hated us?...(and probably still does)
According to The Brookings Institution, in 2003, "Over the past several months, news organizations and experts have regularly cited Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures claiming that the territory of Iraq contains over 112 billion barrels (bbl) of proven reserves—oil that has been definitively discovered and is expected to be economically producible. In addition, since Iraq is the least explored of the oil-rich countries, there have been numerous claims of huge undiscovered reserves there as well—oil thought to exist, and expected to become economically recoverable—to the tune of hundreds of billions of barrels." (to review the entire article...http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/luft20030512.htm
It sounds to me like this is not a country that we need to spend 125 BILLION to secure their government. We asked other nations to forgive loans made to their old government. Obviously, this country holds a huge wealth in natural resources. At the very least the money we spend there, establishing a sound government, should be considered a LOAN to be repaid in full. The United States has a HUGE DEFICIT.....and someday we are going to have to pay. Why sell OUR children's future to help one of the most resource-rich nations on earth?
We still have people in areas ravaged by hurricane Katrina without homes. The area of New Orleans is a WASTELAND. People die from lack of healthcare, lack of medication and poor nutrition in this country EVERYDAY. Many people live in POVERTY. Our infrastructure is CRUMBLING. The cost of repairing out nation's cities will be astronomical. Why are we spending BILLIONS to rebuild a country that attacked us? Sure I believe in compassion for the defeated but we have so many issues at home that literally beg for attention. I am not sure that such a huge sum is justified.
The Democrats managed to work a raise in minimum wage into the bill...I guess to help the poor pay for the huge price of gasoline and increased taxes to fund the war reconstruction. Don't get me wrong I am all in favor of a boost in the minimum wage...it is long overdue. I figure the government is assuming that our nation's children will be working for minimum wage now that they have bankrupted our economy and are planning ahead.
--The Clever Cynic, http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/
E-mail: the_clever_cynic@yahoo.
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