The One-Night-Stand that Wasn't

In usual Johnny-come-lately fashion, I'm only just reading the Gawker hit piece on Christine O'Donnell. To me it starts off as a "Dear Penthouse" letter but ends up falling completely flat, literally and figuratively. In an efforts to hurt or insult O'Donnell, this man (can we even call him a man?), decides to describe a one-night-stand that actually didn't happen. Can you say LAME? My goodness, where do I even begin?

1. If you didn't have sex, it's NOT a one-night-stand.
2. You're trying to smear O'Donnell but it really makes you look bad. Very bad. You constantly commented on how much she had ahd to drink yet you also say that you had around the same amount. Who's to say that you were performing well under par yourself?
3. You have LESS respect for her for being a "born again virgin". Is that saying that you would have kept your mouth shut had she actually put out, or would you have put out just as salacious a piece if she had? And if nothing sexual happened, then how would there be any "nitty gritty" to get down to?
4. She's not a "cougar" if she didn't mess with you on the basis of how much younger you were than her. She probably wasn't even fully aware of the age difference. Get over yourself.
5. You make it a point to call attention to the fact that she hadn't "landscaped". I'm sorry, buddy, but not every woman feels compelled to have her nether regions resemble that of an adolescent girl. Again, that calls attention to what kind of mindset you most probably have.
6. You appear to be so disgusted with her that she didn't give in to your advances while under the influence that you decide not to call her after. Quite immature and caddish, don't you think?
7. Is it really any of your business whether or not O'Donnell and your roommate had sex when they were dating? Let me answer this for you, NO.
8. Are you so ridiculously immature that somewhere in your mind you would think that because she did not put out for you and because you care little to nothing for her that she should not deserve to win the primary?

I could honestly lose my breath picking apart this joke but I think this about sums it up.

Is there a such thing as an "Honest Crook"?

This is the email I received from political director John Youngdahl from SEIU today:

Hello,

Congressman Tom Perriello is a hero who needs your help.

He was a strong advocate for health care reform, even when others wavered. He tirelessly fights for working people, supporting measures to save jobs.

And that's why corporate front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who advocate outsourcing of American jobs and refuse to disclose where their money comes from, are targeting him and spending huge amounts on television for his opponent, Robert Hurt.

We can't allow these corporate front groups to buy this election.

Tom Perriello needs small voluntary contributions of $10, $20, or $50 to combat the influx of anonymous corporate cash flooding the airwaves: http://action.seiu.org/defendtom

The same corporate sham organizations that supports the outsourcing of American jobs also support candidates like Hurt who oppose unemployment benefits for Virginians looking for work.

As Thomasine Wilson, a a home care worker with SEIU in this district, said: "Times are tough. Dollars aren't stretching as far as they used to. I know so many in my hometown who are unemployed. Robert Hurt voted against helping those who are trying to find work."

Right now Tom Perriello is crisscrossing the state, meeting every voter he can. Every moment he spends fundraising to match these corporate groups is a moment he's not talking to the people who will decide this election.

Making a voluntary contribution not only allows him to spread his message across the state, it also frees up his time to talk to more voters in-person. Contribute now: http://action.seiu.org/defendtom

Thanks,
Jon Youngdahl, SEIU Political Director

Mr. Youndahl is kindly asking for SEIU supporters to donate to Tom Perriello's campaign. When I saw this, I was reminded of something I saw of Tom Perriello's a while back. Something like this:

Now, would anyone in their right mind donate to him? Or should we just give him credit for being an "honest crook"?

A Piece of the Pie

On the drive home today I had a conversation with my husband on the Domino's Pizza we had eaten last night. We were talking about how the quality of Domino's had improved by leaps and bounds. I admit that I have become a convert myself after years of being emphatically opposed to eating Domino's because the pizza had been so horrid. I'd harbored the belief that Domino's was pizza only good for high school fundraisers, because that's about the only time I'd seen it around. My pizza of choice when I was younger was Pizza Hut and more recently Papa John's and Vocelli's.

My husband and I also discussed how Domino's not only improved the taste of their pizza but had lowered the prices, offered better deals, and had committed themselves to quality to the point where you could actually photograph your pizza and send it in with either positive or negative comments. This led on to a conversation about the free market system.

We heard from the likes of Pelosi about "choice and competition", which was a downright joke coming from her mouth. To get a good idea about how simple the benefits of a free market system are, it doesn't take a 2,500 page bill to be passed in order to "see what's in it". The free market can be summed up in something as simple as showing how a pizza brand that was producing a less than desirable product was getting raked over the coals by other competitors and how in an effort to stay viable decided to make a better product. Domino's managed to do this while increasing their sales AND lowering their prices WITHOUT adversely affecting the majority of consumers. They, like so many other business know, that providing a better product that consumers actually wanted was key. And despite lowering their prices, the exponential increase in sales more than makes up for it. Domino's did all this without having to force anyone to buy their product. How simple is that?

Cuba coming to rely on PRIVATE sector to fuel its economy.

Here is a story that should set the lefty Communist Cuba lovers on edge. Cuba has decided that in order to generate revenue to help the struggling nation that they will in fact, you ready?, TAX business owners in the PRIVATE sector! That's right, people who will be working and earning money for personal gain will be the very ones who will keep the island afloat. Read here.

The Cuban government can call it whatever they like, but by doing this, they have completely acknowledged the fact that their system as it has been for the past 50 years HAS NOT worked. You CANNOT stifle entrepreneurship and have the majority of your workers working for the government. So, the remedy to this will be to tax the private business owners, most of whom I'm sure have been terminated from the public sector between 25 and 50% of their income to keep the country going. I can only imagine what that's going to turn into! Give enough people the ability to make it on their own and they WON'T suffer this for long! Once they have the taste of freedom that comes with being able to work and accrue their own personal wealth, they won't be so willing to hand it over. Let's just see how this all pans out!

Independent Women

Radical feminism has served just as much to poison our society’s thinking as anything else. It sickens and saddens me to no end to see young girls who boast about how they can’t or won’t cook and clean and who are basically good at nothing but trying to look cute and spreading their legs. They bear this misconceived notion that in order to be “independent” women they must eschew all convention and free themselves from the so-called chains of domestication. That seems to include proper child rearing too. Yet, these are the very same women and girls that religiously consult magazines like Cosmopolitan for tips on how to please a man or keep one. These kinds of articles are right next to articles about how to starve themselves, how to party all night, then how to apply makeup in the right way to hide how much they partied the night before.

If these magazines ever do mention or acknowledge women who are actually married with families, it’s usually in a negative light, about how much the woman wants to go back to being single or how it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and that it’s a life sentence that must be served wherein she’s hoping to be paroled or let off for good behavior. Or, it’s the other side, where the married women with the children is so incredibly fabulous and manages to jet here and there, yet you never quite hear what she does with her kids while she’s busy running all over the place or where her husband is for that matter. If he matters, that is. There never seems to be any happy medium. A regular, REAL woman, who is married with children, and is quite content with the life path she’s chosen, who actually works in CONCERT with her husband to raise their children and handle their household. No, marriage is never all it is cracked up to be. It is never what you imagined it would be, even if you’re highly analytical and maybe even anal retentive enough to crunch numbers to come up with statistics on what marital life will hold. And I feel I must add, married celebrities and the like who have been married maybe like all of nine months or have just popped out a baby and feel some sort of societal obligation to dispense any kind of domestic advice DO NOT count.

I have had many a conversation with my mother and brothers about the state of womankind these days. My brothers openly lament that they are having an extremely difficult time finding a “quality” woman out there. It seems that so many are so damaged, and to make matters worse, have so few qualities to redeem them. They shake their heads at the girls who swear in their minds that they are too cute yet whose hygiene is questionable, who can’t even boil water for an egg, or don’t keep their homes clean. These are not gross exaggerations, these are actual things we discussed. My brothers and I are Southern. They, as well as I, know how to cook, clean, and take care of things in and around the home. I highly doubt my brothers would ever really be happy with a girl who couldn’t do at least what they are able to do if not more.

Another thing about which they lamented was about how uneducated so many young women are. Despite being college students or graduates, they come away knowing next to nothing and are still incapable of having intelligent and in-depth conversations, something we had grown up having with my mother. My brothers, especially my younger, come off as womanizers, but they admit that it’s becoming exhausting and at times depressing to go through so many women yet not find the right one for them. My brothers want good women, they really do, but they are very frustrated that so many out there complain that they get no respect all the while not respecting themselves. What do they expect?

Don’t get me wrong, my brothers are not saying that they want women as pure as the driven snow or completely free of baggage. In my opinion, baggage is actually a sign that you have lived and experienced life and met obstacles that you’ve overcome which helped form you as a person. I’ve always said, it matters not that you have baggage, but it’s all in how you carry it. Now, would you rather have it all in ripping plastic bags carried sloppily on your back, only to ask others to hold some of it for you? Or would you rather work it out to where it fits neatly in a personalized Louis Vuitton or Samsonite with swivel wheels and a handle so you can pick up and keep going?

Ladies, young women, I really hope you alter your way of thinking. Not bothering to learn how to properly cook, clean, and tend to other various domesticities does NOT make you more independent or any more woman. If anything, you are denying a part of yourself that makes you genuinely woman, that makes you more attractive to men. Do you not realize the POWER you have by being able to cook, clean, keep a good home, AND having a good job? There is POWER is being able to be intelligent, creative, loving and being able to make things beautiful and comfortable.

Being independent does not mean giving up traditional roles and assuming the roles of a man thus eliminating the need for one at all save for physical companionship. Being independent is more about being able to do everything for yourself yet also having the ability to let others in your life to share in your gifts and for you to partake of theirs. Like it or not, ladies, we do in fact need men in our lives, and for more than just sex. The sooner we accept and embrace that, the better off we’ll all be.

Kids Getting Shafted by Disney and Nickelodeon

Disney and Nickelodeon are pretty much notorious for shortchanging their actors. But looking at the numbers when held up against the amount that Angus T. Jones, the young star of Three and a Half Men, is getting paid, this is almost criminal! Read here:

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/two-and-a-half-men-kid-signs-300000perepisode-deal--1624

I know some people will complain that these kids get paid such ridiculous amounts, but hey, it is what it is.

I was just reading yesterday about how the voice of Dora the Explorer was getting paid only $1,500 per episode, and was NOT compensated for the hundreds of thousands of hours it took to correct. Read here:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39572576/ns/today-entertainment/

Mind you, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how much money the Dora the Explorer franchise has made over the years. To think how much Nickelodeon has cheated this actor is really nothing short of criminal.

Really, Miley Cyrus getting paid that little for Hannah Montana? Makes no sense! And Miranda Cosgrove getting paid more than Selena Gomez or the Sprouse Twins? Highway robbery! What I really think happened is that Disney and Nickelodeon have made a business of getting over on children eager to be in show business and parents who are just as frantic that they're willing to sign any contract that comes along lest they miss their golden opportunity. Either way, it's dishonorable that these companies are doing.

A Trip to the Bank

A few weeks ago I went to open an account for my new business. While I was waiting I decided to peruse a copy of Northern Virginia magazine. In it was an interview with incumbent Representative Jim Moran. It droned on and on about his background, political activity, and his daughter’s past struggle with cancer, and how hard he worked (really?). I set the magazine down, incensed, and entered the branch manager’s, I’ll call him Sam, office.

Sam noticed that I was clearly heated and asked me if anything the matter. I explained to him the article and he said “I take it you don’t particularly care for him.” With clenched fists and teeth I shook my head vigorously. I began to explain the reasons why I could not stand Moran, right down to his voting history, his belligerence towards constituents, the recorded incident involving Jason Mattera where when Mattera asked his opinion on billions of stimulus dollars going towards “phantom” districts Moran looked like he was ready to fight.

Sam began to explain how he had a lot of customers who were also less than pleased with Moran’s performance and how he was beginning to see more “Retire Jim Moran” stickers popping up, to which I replied that I had one as well. We also began to talk about how crucial the upcoming election was. I began to explain how as a new small business owner, I was really concerned about the economy and what that would mean for any aspirations of expansion. I told Sam that I was concerned for more than just myself, that I was concerned about everyone else out there who wanted to take the risk to open their own business and become financially independent. I explained to him how conflicted I was over being employed by the government with which I so vehemently disagreed yet needed to tolerate because I had a family to support. I hated not knowing what the new financial regulations would do to my business’ financial standing. Sam nodded in agreement.

Sam began to try to explain to me the concerns he had as a bank manager. He told me that just by looking around the branch I could see that they were down to bare bones as far as staffing went because they simply could not afford to hire more people. Sam told me that the bank did in fact have billions of dollars they were sitting on but that it they were reluctant to spend it because they didn’t know how things would go. I told him I completely agreed and understood his reservations. I do think that he was quite relieved to know that I did not seek to vilify him because of this. I told him I totally understood that the reason why they were not spending money on hiring new people is because they needed that money to stay afloat for as long as possible and because they didn’t know what the future held.

Sam explained that pretty much the main reason why they were not expanding or taking any risks was because the financial regulation bill passed was so ambiguous that banks didn’t know where they stood. He said there were lawyers and accountants who couldn’t even decipher the regulations. He said that if they had clearly defined rules then they would know what parameters they could work, but that such was not the case. Sam explained to me that with impending Obamacare and the financial regulation rules, it just did not appear to be cost effective to hire new personnel AND pay through the nose for benefits. I told him I couldn’t agree more. I told him that even though my business only consisted of myself at the time that I could not help but think that if my business became truly successful (God willing), that I would be faced with the same conundrum. Either way my business would suffer. Either I would have to hire new people and pay through the nose myself for benefits for them, or I would have to keep the operation limited to myself and maybe my husband, yet not be able to meet the demands of a growing customer base due to limited manpower.

We then began to speak about how the public regarded banks. I told Sam that I found it most unfortunate that more people did not understand what led to the problems we were having and how banks were not as culpable and evil as they thought. I told him that it didn’t take much thinking to figure out that any bank in their right mind would not WILLINGLY loan money to a person they viewed to be high risk and were certain would be unable to repay it. We began to discuss how there were reports that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be forcing banks to absorb some of the debts. He looked as though he could have consumed a half a bottle of Pepto on the spot.

We spoke about other things while we were waiting, like how the political tides seemed to be shifting, how Obama was not living up to campaign promises and how people were really beginning to notice, and how we were before a great precipice where all the things we never could have imagined happening to this country were gearing up to come to fruition if they had not already. However, the financial discussion was predominant. I only wish more people understood what was really going on behind the scenes.

This is just a little something out of my head and on the page. Thanks for reading.