As further evidence of their complete stupidity, heads of the big three auto manufacturers recently flew to Washington to plead their case.  Of course, all three of them flew in their private, executive jets.  Here is an actual quoted transcript from the hearing, courtesy of CNN.com:

“There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they’re going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses,” Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.

“It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious.”

He added, “couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, asked the three CEOs to “raise their hand if they flew here commercial. Let the record show, no hands went up. Second, I’m going to ask you to raise your hand if you are planning to sell your jet in place now and fly back commercial. Let the record show, no hands went up.”

Well now, isn’t that just peachy?  Three dumbasses saunter up in their Armani suits and ties, wearing their Gucci loafers, checking their Rolex watches to make sure they arrive near to on time, having just stepped off their private jets and checked into nice, swanky hotel suites, to approach the government and whine about making cutbacks to their respective companies.

Meanwhile, the GM plant near my hometown in Dayton, Ohio, and all of the support companies that rely on that plant, are shutting down next month — just in time for Christmas, I might add.  This means that blue collar workers with five kids, a mortgage, car payments, kid’s college payments, and tons of bills can’t even afford to eat anymore.  That’s not to mention all of the other cutbacks that will happen in the next few months as the executives “try to curtail spending” in an effort to keep delivering shitty American cars to a public that doesn’t want them anyway.

God bless America.

“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”

One would think that Mr. Fanti would be an educated person.  If he’s at a school board meeting, one would also assume he’s a parent.  In my opinion, he is qualified to be neither.  The sad thing is, Mr. Fanti was allowed to speak past his allotted time, and he ended his swan dive into stupidity with cheers from the audience.  Mr. Fanti must be proud that everyone else is apparently as stupid as he is.

Now the school board of Brunswick county, which, by the way, struggles with low test scores, poor graduation rates, and a history of inappropriate conduct, is trying to pass a measure instituting the teaching of Creationism within its schools.  They claim that it is unfair to teach Evolution as fact, because it’s a “theory” that can’t be proved.  Huh?

the·o·ry

Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural the·o·ries
Etymology:
Late Latin theoria, from Greek the?ria, from the?rein
Date:
1592
1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another

Evidently, the school board of Brunswick county, North Carolina needs to find a dictionary and learn the meaning of the word “theory.”

Here’s the article if you want to read it for yourself.

I’m not going to go into the whole Creationism vs. Evolution debate here.  Chances are, you’ve made up your mind (as you should) about this yourself, and nothing I say will (or should) change it, but I do want to bottom line it.

Evolution is science.  Period, end of discussion.  There should be no argument about what Evolution is, what Evolution does, and the fact that Evolution is real.  There is NO ARGUMENT.  This needs to be taught to our kids so that they can grow up to be sensible, educated and intelligent beings who exist on this planet in this age.  A theory is NOT a guess, is is a scientifically-proved fact, understood to the best of our knowledge, but subject to change if proved different.

Creationism is religion.  Religion is NOT science, and should NOT be taught as such to our children in Science class.  Creationism should be taught to our children in Religious Studies class, or Church.  Not only that, but know that there are lots of different creation stories.  Our children should have the opportunity to learn them all.  This is called “knowledge”, and this “knowledge” is hopefully what keeps our children from becoming brain-dead cretins like the school board of Brunswick county, North Carolina.

And if that wasn’t definite enough, the Constitution of the United States of America says that there is a Separation of Church and State, which in this case, in simplified terms, means that it is ILLEGAL to teach religion to our kids in a public institution.  PERIOD.

Why does this argument persist?

I like grape popsicles.  I like orange ones too, and I’ll eat the red ones if the rest are gone, but dammit… I like the grape ones the best.  Here’s the issue:  When you buy a box of popsicles — let’s say there are 12 — you will get two grape ones and two orange ones, and the rest are all red!  Why?  I want an entire box of grape popsicles, but they don’t make those.  They make whole boxes of red, but not grape.  It annoys me.

If you own a convertible, and you like to drive around with the top down, roll the windows down too.  There aren’t many things that look as faggishly stupid as a beautiful, shiny Mercedes convertible cruising around town with the top down and the windows up.  Seriously, what’s the deal?  What, you don’t want to mess up your hair?  Roll the windows down so you don’t look like a retard.  If you insist on keeping the windows up, then put the top up too.

If you have a blog, bless you.  Do me a favor though, and try very hard to spell the words correctly, and use proper grammar.  I know that not everyone is an English major, but computers are pretty good at spell checking, and grammar is something that you learned all throughout school, so it should be pretty easy.  Grammar is important, far more important than say, Algebra, because grammar is something that is actually useful in life.  People will judge how smart you are based on how you write, so try and do your best to impress those for which you labor.  Remember, there is no such word as alot.  None whatsoever.  Sentences don’t end with prepositions, and punctuation is just as important as content.  I know most people try at least, but I’m aiming this rant squarely at those that don’t.  People that are indifferent.  “It’s the internet!  No one cares!” They exclaim.  Wrong dumbass, we do care.  Your skill with the language is a sign of your intelligence.

Movies are widescreen.  They are shot that way because life is widescreen.  People that buy movies in the “full screen” format are stupid.  They shouldn’t even sell movies that way.  “I don’t like the little black bars!” people say.  My advice?  Don’t watch the little black bars.  Try watching the movie instead.  It’s more entertaining.

Since they are switching things around, I figured it was time to get my money.  My plan is to go to my bank and have the 401K switched over to an IRA or some other kind of interest-bearing account.  There isn’t too much money there, less than thirty thousand, but it’s a good start.  Since I don’t work for Best Buy anymore, that money isn’t doing me any good just sitting there with no income flowing into it, so today I set about getting access to the account to start the process.  To my amazement and my fury, I can’t get to it.

Best Buy has a benefits website that is a portal to all things money and benefit related.  This website used to be great, because it was a one-stop-shop to all my information.  I say it used to be great, because I used to be an employee.   You see, this website requires an active employee number and password to access.  Two things which I no longer have. 

Unfortunately, the website used within the company is the same website used outside the company.  My 401K information is safely locked away in a website I can no longer access. 

At the bottom of the log in page, there is a little section that says "for former Best Buy employees."  OK, I’ll just click that and all will be right with the world.  WRONG!  Guess what that link does?  It takes you to a LOG IN PAGE THAT REQUIRES AN EMPLOYEE NUMBER AND PASSWORD!  AHHHRGH!  You can even see for yourself.  Go to http://www.mybbyrewards.com and scroll to the bottom, where it says "If you are a former Best Buy employee."  Click it and tell me if that’s not the most asinine thing you’ve ever seen?

Luckily, the wonderful color brochure I received also includes a  number for helpful customer assistance via telephone.  I cheerfully dialed this number, making my way through various unrelated menus and attempting to follow the instructions of someone speaking a completely unintelligible Indian accent, when I finally came upon a menu containing the information I need.  I pressed the number, and waited for the computer voice to give me further instructions.  Much to my chagrin, but not my surprise, accessing my information via telephone requires an ACTIVE EMPLOYEE NUMBER AND PASSWORD.

I’m thinking there must be some sort of legal recourse here.  They can’t just hold my account hostage like this simply because I’m no longer employed there.  I want my money.  Furthermore, I’d like a level of service that isn’t completely idiotic and impossible.  Is that so much to ask?

I’m off to try and find an actual human being to scream at now.  They better not even ask for an employee number.