Thanks to our brave politicians, led by our brave President, the US Government has avoided haing its bonds downgraded from AAA status to D-. Instead, Standard and Poor’s has downgraded us to AA+ (no word yet on what this means for our AAA baseball team). If only the mean old Democrats and their Socialist President had given John Boehner that other 2% he wanted, this never would have happened. But, hey, let’s face it, we’d have all loved to get AA+s in school (especially in that class that told us why we’re supposed to give a shit what a bond rating agency thinks), so this isn’t so bad after all. In fact, I predict that all it really means is that the riff-raff that considers itself to be 85% of Americans will have to pay more for, well, everything, and the moneychangers will make even more money, which of course will trickle down upon us all (except for Sean Hannity, who, not surprisingly, isn’t having any sex; or at least not any sex that could lead to reproduction, if you catch my drift).
It’s not all good news, though, as S&P also announced that they are putting the US on double secret probation, and may downgrade our credit even further in the future. Quick! To the Suprecongressmobile! I’m fairly sure we need to take some serious measures to avoid this – namely, cut taxes on rich people, revoke child labor laws, officially declare Global Warming a hoax, frack the fuck out of everything between Canada and Mexico, drill baby drill, raise the Medicare and Social Security age to 70, and start killing old people with a net worth below $100 million when they hit 65.
Of course, there should be a grandfather clause. Grandfathers go first.
I think we could also save some money by getting everybody to agree to only have virtual, electronic wars – like in that episode of Star Trek, before Kirk along and screwed it all up (he really wasn’t much for that whole “Prime Directive” thing). Then we just run wars by computer simulation, and if you get a simulated missile dropped on your house, you have 24 hours to report to the disintegration booth (which could double as granny and grampy drop-off sites – unless we want to use big Soylent Green meat grinders instead).
We’re kinda halfway there already, what with the drone warfare and all. Except the simulation part is one-sided (a video game on our end, real death and destruction on the other). That works, of course, but it’s not as cost-effective as total simulation. So let’s get to work on that.
Oh well, it was warm enough (or I was lazy enough) to skip putting the pool cover on last night, so I guess I better go check for skimmer critters.
Now, get out there and be productive, citizens! Oh wait, it’s the weekend, which means you can take time out from working to go and buy crap you don’t need (I recommend an iPhone, because if you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone, plus every iPhone purchased helps pay to run Steve Jobs’ stasis chamber).
As governor of Texas, Rick Perry has pursued a controversial agenda that would gut Texas’ vaunted public university system in favor of something that more closely resembles a business.
As the Washington Post reported on Thursday, professors have been ranked according to how profitable they were to the university. Previous reports suggested Perry wanted to treat students as “customers” and tie teacher bonuses to anonymous student evaluations.
One reason that might explain his hostility toward the system: He didn’t do very well in it. A source in Texas passed The Huffington Post Perry’s transcripts from his years at Texas A&M University. The future politician did not distinguish himself much in the classroom. While he later became a student leader, he had to get out of academic probation to do so. He rarely earned anything above a C in his courses — earning a C in U.S. History, a D in Shakespeare, and a D in the principles of economics. Perry got a C in gym.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/rick-perry-college-transcript_n_919357.html?ir=Education
New York should drop a $27 million contract with Wireless Generation, a Rupert Murdoch-owned student data tracking company, in light of News Corporation’s alleged wrongdoings, teachers’ union leaders wrote in a Thursday evening letter to state officials.
[…]
“It is especially troubling that Wireless Generation will be tasked with creating a centralized student database for personal information even as its parent company, News Corporation, stands accused of engaging in illegal news gathering tactics, including the hacking of private voicemail accounts,” the letter reads.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/murdoch-wireless-generation-contract-teachers-union_n_919325.html
:joe:
:billcat:
Thanks so much for all the Birthday wishes yesterday, dear Seditionist Best Buddies! :love: :love:
Vern, the Hitler Birthday party reminded me a lot of some of my family’s “parties” when I was a child — my father had a very bad temper at times back then and was pretty scary sometimes with his misdirected anger. In retrospect and after learning more about what he actually did and what actually happened to him in WWII, I realize that the anger was PTSD, but there was no name for it then and everyone just believed he was a nasty SOB and avoided him as best they could back then.
The Hitler thing was really funny because of the “oops” factor and the control-freakery of “the boss” .
My son and I went to Lily Dale :reaper: for my birthday to attend a seminar on 9 Dimensions of Consciousness and the time acceleration of the end of the Mayan Calendar which is playing out now. A new cycle will begin when the old one ends and corporate personhood and greed wither and die along with the greedy Banksters that own the politicians and Supreme Court and make the rules for now. Too much to get into here.
I :love: Lily Dale :love: — those Spiritualist folks know what’s going on in this crazy world and know how to look at the Bigger Picture of it without the distortion of the Lens of Dogma. It is also fun to be around them.
Anyway, it was a nice way to spend a birthday and I wish PJ could have been with us but someone had to be here for the :pup: :pup: and to feed the :cat: :cat: when they showed up and to make a hole in the bedroom wall for the baby air conditioner from the other house.
Thank you all again for the wonderful :cake: wishes. I will, from now on. along with many of you, remain in Jack Benny mode and every birthday will continue to be “Happy 39th!”
:fu: Linear Time!!!
OKat — Congratulations to you and Mr. FK on Happy 13!!
PJ & I also had our Happy 13 anniversary on 7/11, so it’s a Happy 13 year for partnerships among the Seditionistas.
Oh! Forgot to mention, we also attended our very first (and Lily Dale’s very first) :tinfoil: MUFON :tinfoil: meeting today at the Lily Dale Fire House — THAT was REALLY interesting!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/JellyBellyBeans.jpg