Now in this day and age when you have so many people out of work there are those out there who still believe, no matter how many of us quote numbers to them – that the unemployed are a bunch of lazy, shiftless, worthless deadbeats who just want to sit around all day watching Soap Network, eating Cheetos and cash unemployment checks for the rest of our lives.

I don’t know how many times I have to say it – but the numbers tell the story of how hard it is out here right now.

There are even newer adjusted numbers for unemployment which accurately reflect the state of our economy and just how hard it is to get a job right now. The official Unemployment rate is now 9.7%. Now it actually fell but that is because more people stopped looking for work – they didn’t go back to work. If you adjust those figures to include those of us who are not only Unemployed but also to include the Underutilized among us, then the figure is closer to 21%. That includes:

1) Those people who are out of work, collecting unemployment and actively looking for a job.
2) Those people who are out of work, collecting unemployment and not actively looking for a job.
3) Those people out of work, not collecting unemployment because their benefits have run out and actively looking for a job.
4) Those people out of work, not collecting unemployment because their benefits have run out and given up looking for a job out of frustration.
5) Those people working a part-time job when they want and need to be working full-time.

I know that a lot of people become frustrated after a few months, or even a couple of years without success. Well, try looking for a “real job” for over seven years. That’s right – SEVEN YEARS!!!!!That is how long I have been trying to get someone to see my worth and hire me so that I can keep a roof over my family’s head and keep them warm, fed and healthy.

Yet there are still those of you out there who continue to insist that the jobs are actually out there, we all just have to swallow our pride and go out and get them and “quit whining”.

Oh really? Well, let’s take a look at the evidence, shall we?

Some of you may have noticed that on the right side of the front page of this site there is a little icon of a fish on top of a newspaper. Below that there is a number, that number shows the number of jobs that can be found in my local fishwrap (or newspaper if you prefer) on that particular day. I have been calling it “The Fishwrap Watch”. I have been tracking the number of jobs that appear in The Idaho Statesman since January 21, 2009, the day after President Obama was sworn in. At first I would just take note of how many jobs the paper said that there were on the front page of the classifieds. I soon found out that it was not accurate and that the actual number of jobs in the paper were much less. So I started manually counting the jobs on a daily basis around mid-February 2009.

What I have found is alarming in that the number of jobs that are available are few and far between. One day there could be 8 jobs in the fishwrap, the next day there could be 4. In tracking these numbers I have found that not only are Sunday’s good days to look in the fishwrap since all of the employers put ads in the Sunday paper, but Wednesday is also a good day to look as the ads take a jump on that day.

In today’s fishwrap there were 4 jobs listed, as compared to the 25 that were advertised as being in the paper on this same date last year. However the paper claims that there are 11 new jobs “in print and online”, which brings me to another problem. A lot of people do their job searching online these days at sites like CareerBuilder, Monster and Hot Jobs – but what if you are below the poverty line in this country? What if you are one of those Americans who not only can’t afford the Internet access to look for a job online, but you can’t even afford the computer? What if you’re one of those people who has to rely on the fishwrap to see what jobs are out there because that is your resource?

And yeah, I can hear some of you working it right now: “well if that’s the case then they should get off of their lazy, fat, welfare-ridden ass and just walk to their local library and use the computers there!!!” First of all, not everyone who is poor and unemployed is on welfare, okay? I should know because Wifey and I don’t qualify for welfare or Food Stamps because we have no children. However, once we arrive in NoCal we will be caretakers for an ill Senior Citizen so that might change. Second, how can you expect those people who might live in rural areas that might be 10, 20, 30 or even 50 miles away from the nearest library to get in their vehicles and drive there to burn gas that they can’t afford to replace, assuming that they even have a vehicle? And third, just how many library’s are still open these days after local busy-bodies protest the content on the shelves and the libraries have to close after being deemed “wasteful-spending” by local Conservative Tea-Baggers?

It is still not easy to find a job these days, and the listings in the fishwraps prove it. But let’s compare with fishwraps from the past and compare them to today…

In cleaning out our house to pack I came across some old classified sections that I just tossed aside when I was job hunting in 2005. I was curious as to how many jobs were listed so I went ahead and counted them. In the Sunday, January 30, 2005 edition of the classifieds for The Idaho Statesman there were 391 jobs listed on that day. And in the next Sunday’s paper, February 6, there were 506 jobs listed!!!

That was back before the Stock Market crashed people!!! Back before the economy went into the tank and the Baby Boomers started turning against their children and grandchildren. But let’s go back even further – back to 1984. Yeah, that’s right, because I found another paper (well, several actually) from that era. I chose to count the job listings in the Friday, August 17, 1984 edition of the Long Beach Press-Telegram (don’t ask) and I found that there were 745 jobs listed on that day – on a Friday!!!Now granted, this was during the Reagan “boom years” when it was a job-seekers market, and Long Beach was becoming a Metropolitan area adjacent to Los Angeles – but 745 jobs on a Friday?!?!? Can you imagine what the Sunday paper looked like back then?!?!?

There are some people who just don’t get that these are not the “good ‘ol days” where you could just walk into a business, apply for a job and get it – that doesn’t happen anymore. There is too much competition now for the few jobs that are out there. So it’s not that we are not trying, it is that we are trying to climb a 20 foot brick wall with our fingernails – and we have Human Resources up top throwing stones at us to try to knock us off the wall.

We are all hoping for the day when we can finally take a sledge hammer to that wall and rejoin the world again. I know I am.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Okay, having said that, I need to make an announcement – this is going to be my last blog post for quite some time. No, I am not quitting or giving up on writing, it is getting down to the point where I will have to pack up my computer and move to NoCal. Moving day is February 10th and we arrive in NoCal on the 12th and after that it is going to take us a while before we can get everything organized and unpacked and get Internet access again.

So this is not goodbye, this is just so long for now as I am going to be hitting the pause button on this site.

But make no mistake, I will be back – and when I do come back I may have a very interesting story to tell.

Until next time…

“I”m working on a story about the underemployed in Southern CA. If you could post this or otherwise help with leads I could really use it!

Here goes:
UNDERemployed? Grossly OVERqualified?

Are you settling for a job you never imagined you’d accept before the Recession? Or did you have to start your own business just to make a living? Share your experience in confidence for a PBS story about the professional dilemmas facing the
underemployed. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY. Contact: csmith@kcet.org 

And now, on with today’s post…

I have been shaking my head for the last 36 hours after the announcement that President Obama was going to announce a spending freeze tonight during his State of the Union address. However I haven’t been shaking my head in disbelief at the announcement itself – I have been shaking my head over the conniption fit that the left is having over this piece of news.

For the past two nights I have been watching Rachel Maddow decry the news about the spending freeze on her show. I have been watching her say over and over again what a bad idea this is, and how it gives the Republican Party a Political Victory. She has backed up her opinion by bringing on economists who also think that the freeze is a bad idea, and she has cited opinions from the Washington Post as well as other media outlets about how this could prove to be a disaster.

Look, I love Rachel Maddow, I think she has a first-class mind, I think she is one of the best things to happen to television in a long time, and if I were still single and if she were oriented in that particular direction I would marry her in a New York minute. That being said I believe that Rachel is wrong about this. I think that she, and other progressives who are rendering their garments over this are putting the cart before the horse and getting waaaaaaaaaay ahead of themselves here.

I believe that everyone on the left needs to slow down, sit down, take a breath and wait for the speech tonight. I do not believe that President Obama is going to – as he said in the debate – take a hatchet to the budget. I believe that we need to wait for the details of what is going to be frozen to come out in the speech tonight – and then react to it!

I remember some time ago, I don’t remember if it was during the election or just after, President Obama said that it was his intention to go through the budget “line item by line item” and cut out all of the wasteful spending that wasn’t doing anybody any good. He was going to stop spending money where it wasn’t helping people, and start spending money where it would help put people back to work and keep them in their homes.

Memo to the left: THAT IS WHAT HE IS DOING NOW!!!!! HE’S KEEPING HIS PROMISE DOFUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The president is doing exactly what he pledged that he would do – so why are you giving him a hard time about it?!?!?!?

As far as I’m concerned i am going to wait and hear the entire speech tonight before I react to the freeze because the devil is in the details, and we should be hearing some of those details tonight. I think that we are going to hear that some of what is being frozen will make perfect sense and that all of the people tearing their hair out about this are going to feel pretty silly afterwards – some of whom work for MSNBC.

However I also believe that after the speech that Republicans are still not going to be happy, and that they will still oppose the President no matter what he chooses to cut. I also think that some Republicans will be up in arms afterwards because they are going to find that some of the things that are being cut or frozen out are some of their pet projects, and then they will find that there will not be as much “bacon” on their political plates as there was before.

When that happens then we’ve got ourselves a ballgame, because Conservatives, Tea-Baggers and Republicans have all been shouting “wasteful spending this” and “wasteful spending that”. If they all start whining about the spending freezes that the President proposes tonight then they are going to look worse then hypocrites – they are going to look like a bunch of idiots. They’re going to look like “The Gang that couldn’t Shoot Straight.” They’re going to look like monkeys at the zoo that try to throw their own crap at the visitors, only to have it bounce back at them because there is a Plexiglas partition between them and the patrons. If they come out against the spending freeze they are only going to make themselves look bad, and the American people will see them for the anti-government, pro-anarchy, anti-job ambulance chasers that they really are. The more I hear them talk the more I am convinced that the people on the right do not want what is best for you and me – they only want what is best for themselves.

Last night on her show Rachel Maddow said that everything that the President has done for the economy to this point was the equivalent of taking the ball down to the one-yard-line in football. But instead of taking the ball over the goal line for the Touchdown, the president has decided to punt – from his opponents one-yard-line – and hand the Republicans the ball.

Personally I think the President is pulling a misdirection play – or a “trick play” out of his playbook. And trust me, we here in Boise know all about “trick plays.” Wifey said this to me earlier: she said that it sounds like President Obama purposely leaked the news of a spending freeze to put the Right off guard. Then when he speaks tonight he’s going to whup them upside the head with a spending freeze that they are not going to like, but yet cannot speak out against for fear of looking stupid. Meanwhile the Left will sheepishly hang their heads in embarrassment over their gross over-reaction while saying “oh, that’s what he meant.”

So I liken the president’s strategy not to punting on the opponents one-yard-line, but to a trick play designed to gain a huge chunk of yardage, if not score. Remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl when Boise State took on Oklahoma? Remember the end of regulation? Well if I were to use football plays as metaphor for what actions the President is taking like Rachel has, then I would say that the stimulus package was like this:

The Stimulus was just like that trick play which scored a touchdown for the nation at the 11th hour.

Now with the spending freeze that he’s proposing, it’s as if he has diverted every-one’s attention to the right, but the real play is happening on the left. So the spending freeze looks something like this:

So, if the Stimulus Package was like “Circus”, then the Spending Freeze is going to be like “Statue Left”.

So can everybody just calm down until the end of the speech, please?!?

Until next time…

Yeah I know I haven’t written in a while, but here’s an update as to why:

Wifey and I are furiously trying to pack up our house so that we can get out of here before we get thrown out. We have a moving date of February 10th – that is when the truck gets here. We have an auction date of February 3rd – that is when Wells Fargo wants to sell our house at auction and get $.10 on the dollar for what we owe them. We have been trying to get a loan modification for months now, but since we have no income, Wells Fargo says that we do not qualify for that. “Get a job and we’ll see what we can do.” Yeah, right.

Anyway we finally talked to somebody on the phone who told us that we would qualify for what is known as a “moratorium” on our payments. In other words, all billing would be suspended on our mortgage for anywhere from 30-90 days to allow us time to “fix the situation”. In other words this would give us some additional time to sell the house before we lose it all. So we applied for this “moratorium” back in December – it is now mid-January and we still haven’t been approved yet after being told that approval in our case would “be a foregone conclusion”. Wifey found out yesterday that we were still in the queue for getting our application looked at!!!

It’s no big surprise that Wells Fargo is dragging their feet on this, they do this to millions of us across the country – and they are not the only ones. Didn’t we give these guys several $billion in bailout money to prevent this sort of thing from happening to us? And now that they are “back on their own feet” they refuse to help those of us who helped them out?!?

In any case we have been told to call them back Tuesday for yet another update on our application. We are hopping that we get it because we need the extra time to sell this place and pay off our mortgage. We got a bit of good news in that it appears that Wells Fargo is going to walk away from our equity loan. We had two loans out on the house – the home mortgage was the primary, and we had an equity loan which was the secondary. The equity loan was scheduled to auction off our house on February 2nd – the day before primary was to auction it off. However our real estate agent did some checking with the trustee’s office and found that the action for the equity sale had been cancelled – and it had not been re-scheduled.

Wells Fargo Equity knows that they are not going to get a lot of money out of an auction – if they get anything at all. See, the primary mortgage would have to get paid first, and only then after they got paid would equity get their money – if there was anything left. So it looks like they have decided to cut bait and walk away from us at this point. I don’t know if this means that they will try to come after us for their money later, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

So anyway, there you are. That’s a quick update for those of you reading my story so far. To say that we are under stress here is something of an understatement, but I am still trying to be hopeful that everything is going to work out and that we will be able to survive this – somehow. I know that once we get to California there will be a different kind of stress in that we will be assisting with the care of my father-in-law along with trying to find a job in an area that has the 14th-worst unemployment rate in the country (Boise is 136th), but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Oh and, take a look at the interactive map that I found up top. Someone made a video that shows just how bad the unemployment situation has gotten in the last few years. The darker the color, the worse the situation. I would like to invite all of the know-it-alls and tea-baggers out there who call us “lazy, shiftless, no-good, good-for-nothing, fat-assed deadbeat bums” to take a look at that video. After watching that video I would like you to tell us all again just how “easy” it is to get a job in this country. Tell us again how we need to “hit the bricks” and “take a job shoveling shit in the sewers and not complain”. Tell us again how much we really don’t want to work.

Go ahead – I dare you. That way I can tell you to take your head out of your ass.

AGAIN!!!!!!

Until next time…

The winning Touchdown - Deja Blue all over again!!!

OK, first of all I have to apologize for being down for the past few days. But as you can see, I’m back up and running and ready to blog for a new year. So, here’s what happened…

My blog host just so happens to be located in the United Kingdom, and at present they are experiencing the worst cold snap in the last 30 years. I know for a fact that cold can effect just how effectively information can travel over the Internet, and in some cases it can cause servers to crash and sites to go down. That was apparently what happened to me as I have been unable to access this place for a few days now. When I first found out that I was down I sort of panicked as I thought that I would have to start everything all over again. But the I thought that that wouldn’t be so bad as it was a new year, which could mean everything could be new again.

Well I didn’t quite have to go that far as I am now back up, and I have backed up my database to my computer so if this ever happens again I can pick up where I left off. I was even contemplating a move to GoDaddy.com as a host, but since I am back up that doesn’t have to happen. Besides, right now I wouldn’t be able to afford to make that kind of a switch, monetarily speaking. In any case, I’m back to doing what I love to do.

So to that end…

How many of you caught the Fiesta Bowl on Monday?

I can guarantee you that every flat screen here in Boise was tuned into their local FOX affiliate on Monday night watching the Broncos take on the TCU Horned Frogs, and pretty much shut them down for a 17-10 win. Needless to say everyone here in Boise is ecstatic about the result, and I can imagine how bummed everyone in Fort Worth is about it. The game was actually what I expected and hoped for. I was hoping that no matter who won, that both teams would put on a good show for everyone. The last thing we would need would have been a blowout one way or the other, because that would have invited a lot of criticism for some of the “experts” who insist that neither team belongs in the BCS because of their “soft schedule” or because they play in the wrong conference.

The game was actually a great defensive effort by both teams. Sure there were times when their high-powered offenses sputtered and coughed, but that was only a testament to how good their defenses were playing – particularly Boise State, whose defensive unit had been hearing about their lackluster effort in last year’s Poinsettia Bowl for over a year now. To say that the Bronco D was playing with a chip on it’s shoulder is something of an understatement. They completely shut down the Horned Frogs offense for most of the game and frustrated them to the point that they began to commit stupid penalties as a result. However TCU got their act together and kept their heads in the game, and nearly tied it with a few seconds left, so give TCU their due – they played a hell of a game.

Not that you would have known that from some of the critics…

How do I say this nicely? Boise’s 17-10 victory against TCU was as exciting as watching someone watch paint dry. The game didn’t lay an egg; it laid an omelet. – Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com

How do I say this nicely? Hey Wojciechowski, what game were you watching Monday night? Did you even open your eyes, or did you nap through the entire game? Because that’s the only explanation I can come up with for how you could make such a stupid comment like that! Did you even watch the game on Monday, or did you catch the highlights on ESPNNews and get a critique of the game from Mark May?

They probably loved it back in Idaho, but there’s a gnawing feeling that the TV ratings are going to show that America wasn’t impressed with this first-ever BCS meeting of non-automatic qualifiers. – Texas Columnist Gil Lebreton

You can relax Gil, because the numbers are better than anyone expected. The game on Monday night drew the second-highest TV rating of any BCS game featuring a team from a non-BCS conference. The game drew an 8.2 rating, that’s 13.8 million viewers. Now true it was the eighth-lowest rating in the 50-game history of the BCS, but it was still a higher rated game then last year’s Sugar Bowl when Utah walloped Alabama and drew a 7.8 rating. The lowest rated BCS game was the 2009 Orange Bowl between Cincinnati and West Virginia, and that drew a 5.4 rating. The BSU-TCU match-up outdrew the past three Orange Bowls and the 2008 Fiesta Bowl (Oklahoma-West Virginia). Now BSU was part of the highest-rated BCS game involving a non-BCS team when they beat Oklahoma back in 2007, back then they drew an 8.4. So it’s safe to say that some people in America are, and were impressed with the Broncos.

Now, as to the “soft schedule” crap that keeps being flung about…

That is exactly what it is – crap!!!

Back in the 70’s and early 80’s powerhouse schools like Nebraska, Oklahoma and Alabama used to have “soft schedules” where they had Division I-AA schools along with Division II and III schools on their schedule, and nobody blinked an eye. Fast forward to 2010 and all of a sudden it’s a federal offense when schools begin ducking Boise State because they are afraid to play them even in their own house.

Schools like Michigan, for example.

Boise State tried to get a game with Michigan on their schedule for 2011, even going so far as to offer to play the Wolverines in “The Big House”, and Michigan turned them down!!! So how is it that BCS-honks like Mark May can justify saying that Boise State never plays anybody when the teams that guys like May says they should be playing are ducking them? When you try to get a program like Michigan on your schedule and they turn you down, and then you turn around and criticize that school for never playing anyone of consequence it makes you look like a moron who doesn’t know what he is talking about. At least that is how Mark May looks to everyone in Boise right now.

For all of you out there who say that the Broncos never play anyone powerful like the schools you attend or root for, I say this: put up or shut up. Agree to play the Broncos at your place, or even better – have the balls to come to Boise and play them on the Blue Turf. Don’t come up with some lame excuse like “we wouldn’t lower ourselves” or “it’s not worth it to make the trip” because then you just look like a pussy! If you are so much better than us then sack up and prove it on the field – until then, you’re all talk.

And now, onto “Cowbell Girl”…

Just how stupid do some of you feel right now about the lame-ass comments you have been making about her? Just how dumb do you feel after discovering that she had such a serious expression on her face because she was so concentrated on what she was doing because she was nearly blind? How moronic do you feel right now knowing that you were picking on someone who is disabled?

Seriously, how stupid do you feel right now?

You should be feeling like a total putz, and if you’re not – what the fuck is wrong with you?!?!?

If you Google “Cowbell Girl” you get 327,000 hits, and the second one you find is the YouTube video which I will not lower myself to link to here. Apparently even though it is now known that she is nearly blind, people are still trying to have some fun at her expense.

Like I said – what the fuck is wrong withyou that you have to get pleasure out of picking on someone with a disability?!?!? What’s next, are you going to push a kid in a wheelchair out into traffic so you can watch a life-size version of “Frogger”?

The longer this goes on, the dumber you all look. Do yourselves a favor – back away from the keyboards before you embarrass yourselves even more. Trust me, the only damage you will be doing from now on will be to yourselves, because no one thinks that making fun of someone who is disabled is funny.

Now about the game tonight…

Yeah I’ll be watching while Wifey and I are packing, and I will be wondering yet again why we don’t have an 8 or 16-team playoff to determine a National Champion in College Football. Yeah I know the University presidents all say that it would exploit the student athlete – but that is what is going on right now. Student athletes are being exploited by colleges and universities now, so what would be the difference?

And to all of you protecting your oh-so precious Bowl System – did you see all of those empty seats at your games?!? Back in the day everyone knew that there were only four bowl games that really mattered – The Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls that were played on January 1st. Now we have a grand total of 34 Bowl Games, and that includes the BCS so-called-Championship Game!!! Seriously folks, do we really need that many Bowl Games from December 19th to January 7th?!? Wouldn’t everyone be better served and wouldn’t the parties involved make more money with a 16-team playoff?

And yeah, I hear you purists working it right now – “But what about the sanctity of the Bowl system? What about the tradition of going to a Bowl Game?” What, you think that a 6-6 team going to the Not One Of The Big Boys But We’re Sponsored By AIG Bowl is something to brag about?!? Seriously, what the hell are you guys protecting?!? 34 games that most people are not going to watch until we get closer to New Year’s anyway, let alone buy a ticket for!!!

We would do a whole lot better if we simply installed a 16-team playoff and cut out at least half of those Bowl Games so that going to a Bowl would have some meaning again, because right now it doesn’t. Any team with a pulse can go to a Bowl Game these days, and when that happens it cheapens the whole process!!! You want to protect the Bowl system? Then drop some of them. Here I’ll make you a list…

Let’s get rid of the Bowl Games that don’t have much of a tradition to begin with, in other words, the newest of the new which means that the St. Petersburg Bowl, the EagleBank Bowl, the International Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl, and the Papajohns.com Bowl are out. Let’s also kick out any bowl game that is played in the same stadium as an older, more established game. So that eliminates the Poinsettia Bowl and the New Orleans Bowl. Let’s also cut out any Bowl Game that can’t find an actual Football Stadium to play in. Sorry Emerald Bowl, but playing in a Baseball Park doesn’t make you an actual Bowl Game. Next let’s kick out (with some exceptions) any Bowl Game that doesn’t pay out at least $1 million, so say good bye to the Little Ceasers Pizza Bowl, the GMAC Bowl, the Texas Bowl, and the Armed Forces Bowl. We’ll hang onto the Humanitarian Bowl here in Boise just to see the Blue Turf, and we’ll keep the Hawaii Bowl because…well…its Hawaii.

Texas doesn’t need that many Bowl Games so we’re going to eliminate the Alamo Bowl. Tennessee has a game with a lot more tradition than the Music City Bowl, so that one’s out too. So that leaves us with 15 Bowl Games, which means we have to eliminate 2 more to get down to the magic number of 17. Let’s eliminate the Meinekie Car Care Bowl and the Insight Bowl because neither one of them pays as much as the Champs Sports Bowl or the Citrus Bowl. Yeah I know both of those are in Florida and keeping them would give Florida a grand total of 5 Bowl Games. But you know what? The weather is perfect there for Bowl Games and all of those schools can take day trips to Disney World as another Bowl perk.

So that leaves us with the Hawaii Bowl, Humanitarian Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Champs Sports Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Outback Bowl, Independence Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl (please can someone change their name back to the Peach Bowl for the love of God?!?), Liberty Bowl, Capital One Bowl (they may want to change back to the Florida Citrus Bowl until the economy rebounds and people stop hating banks), Gator Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sun Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, plus the 16-team playoff that would make everyone a shitload of money. You’ve brought the honor and respect back into the Bowl system, plus you’ve given the country a true National Championship when it is all said and done.

What is wrong with that? 

Until we get that kind of a system in we will never have a true National Champion in College Football, and the only way that Boise State will meet the winner of Texas/Alabama will be if I play those teams in Madden.

Come to think of it…I can. I’ll tell you the results later.

Until next time…

Maybe it just needs a little love...

It’s not really feeling like Christmas around BigDaddy’s house this year. Oh sure there’s the fact that we are trying to sell our house before Wells Fargo can take it so that we can move to NoCal to be with my ailing Father-in-Law. And there’s also the fact that Wifey and I can’t really afford to get much for each other this year other than stocking stuffers and maybe a few IOU’s for gifts.

But the worst part is – we can’t even decorate!!!

Usually I’ve got the lights put out in front of the house during Thanksgiving weekend and we spend the next couple of weeks decorating the house and getting in the holiday spirit. Not so this year. This year we’ve had to keep everything boxed up and the house undecorated so that the house is always ready to be shown to a buyer. Take a look at that Charlie Brown tree, that is the only Christmas Decoration we have allowed ourselves this year. No Gingerbread House that lights up, no Christmas Tree collection, no Wise Guys (aka Wise Men), no nothing. We’re not even playing Christmas music. All we’ve allowed ourselves is a couple of Christmas Specials on TV and maybe one batch of cookies and that’s it – so far.

I’m hoping that a mood will strike us sometime before Thursday and we are able to make something else out of this holiday besides a feeling that this is our last Christmas here. Well the fact that I really hurt my back packing over the weekend and that I have been immobile for the past couple of days hasn’t helped.

This has truly been a year like no other.

We saw what was considered unthinkable 80 years ago come to fruition on a cold January day.

We saw a hero rise and not take a fall.

We said goodbye to some people that we loved.

And we saw a lot of posturing, a lot of screaming, a lot of finger pointing, a lot of nasty names being thrown about, and a lot of threats uttered before cooler heads had to intervene…and no I’m not talking about “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

Every year around this time when I was writing for PCFootball.net I would sum up the year that was right before Christmas (and for those of you who want your holiday’s a little more “politically correct” I’ll address your concerns momentarily) and post my thoughts on the year gone by. So like my 9/11 column I would like to continue this tradition here as well. so without further adieu, I give you the 2009 version of…

The Good, The Bad, and the Downright Idiotic

Good – The Arizona Cardinals make it to their first Super Bowl.

Bad– They lose a heartbreaker to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Good– Drew Brees, Peyton Manning.

Bad– Brian Kelly abandoning his Cincinnati Bearcats for Notre Dame before playing Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Way to show some loyalty there coach. I don’t blame your players for being pissed.

Good– Matt Kenseth wins a rain-soaked Daytona 500 and the Auto Club 500 the next week to kick off the Sprint Cup season.

Bad– His season goes in the tank soon after along with the rest of the Roush Fenway stable.

Holy Shit!– Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman getting airborne at both Talladega races.

Good – Jimmie Johnson winning his 4^thconsecutive Sprint Cup Championship thereby cementing Hendrick Motorsports as a sports Dynasty.

Bad – Can anybody beat the #48 team?

Good– Danica Patrick announces that she will be running a part-time Nationwide Series schedule for JR Motorsports in 2010.

Idiotic – The critics who have never been behind the wheel of a race car saying she’s got no business being in racing. Why don’t get behind the wheel and beat her yourselves you posers?

Really Idiotic– Jeremy Mayfield. Chrystal Meth? Really?!?

Good– Bill France Sr., Bill France Jr., Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Junior Johnson – Hall of Famers.

Wait till next year– David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarbrough, Bobby Allison, Fireball Roberts.

Champions– New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Pittsburgh Penguins.

Good– Bosie State and TCU make it into the BCS Bowls!!!

Chicken – The BCS for not wanting TCU to beat Florida or Boise State to beat Iowa or Penn State, so they put them against each other in the Fiesta Bowl. Thanks guys, that’s the best argument you could have made for those of us who want a playoff!!!

Idiotic– Micheal Phelps. Look, I love the guy, I love that he’s such a badass in the pool, but seriously dude – step away from the bong!!!

Good – History is made on January 20^th as Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44^th president of the United States.

Bad – The sore loser Conservatives who keep saying that he’s not really the President because he wasn’t even born in this country.

Idiotic – The respondents of the poll taken in North Carolina that said they didn’t even believe that Hawaii was a state!!!

Stop whining– Norm Coleman (R) conceding, un-conceding and then claiming that Al Franken (D) stole the Minnesota Senatorial election from him after Franken pulled ahead in the recount. What goes around after Bush v Gore comes around, huh?

Dumb ass– Ann Coulter accusing ACORN of voter registration fraud when she herself was guilty of actual voter fraud!!! (She voted in Connecticut, she lives in New York)

Good – The stimulus package passes and is signed into law. Hey we all know it might just be a band-aid, but it is better than doing nothing and letting whole families be destroyed.

Bad – Businesses not hiring people back even though they may have been helped by the stimulus.

Idiotic – Republican Governors not wanting to take the stimulus money on ‘principle’. Yeah right, it’s politics boys. It doesn’t make you right, it makes you look anti-job.

Really Idiotic – Ken Blackwell opposing the Stimulus whilst he was running for the Chairmanship of the RNC on the grounds that it would help Democrats in the mid-terms – never mind that it had the potential to create 3,000,000 jobs.

Good – President Obama’s Address to Congress about the economy. It wasn’t a State of the Union, but pretty darn close.

GAH– Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana touting the failure of the Republican Government’s response during Hurricane Katrina as a reason we should not trust Democrats to get us out of economic trouble.

Huh? – Larry Flint of Hustler and Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild try going to Congress for a $5 Billion bailout of the porn industry. Hey, if it can benefit the whores at AIG…

Speaking of Whores – Jetting off to a California spa, buying a company jet, re-decorating the office of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch. Need I say more?

Good– Claire McCaskil (D-MO) standing up on the floor of the Senate and proposing the CEO Payact of 2009 which would have limited the salaries of CEO’s of bailout companies to $400,000 per year.

Bad– They didn’t answer my application to be a “Capologist.”

Idiotic – Rick Santelli’s rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange calling those of us who were unemployed and having trouble making ends meet not to mention pay our mortgage – losers!!!

Good – The Census starts hiring people to begin preparations for counting to begin in 2010.

Bad – After telling thousands of people that they were assured of jobs Census representatives called applicants back to inform them that they were not needed after all since they had enough people to work the Census.

Idiotic – The Census called me back a couple of weeks ago wanting to talk to me about my application that I submitted months ago. Yeah, right, like I’m going to let my hopes get built up again!

Good – GM saves itself as well as the Chevy, Buick, GMC and Cadillac lines.

Farewell – Saturn (sniff).

Bad – We also lose Pontiac (rest in peace) and Hummer (rest in pieces).

Really bad – All the jobs lost at the plants and dealerships that have to close.

Idiotic- Jim DeMint(R-SC), Lindsey Graham(R-SC), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Bob Corker (R-TN) for opposing the bailout of Detroit on the orders of BMW, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, Hyundai and Nissan who “happen” to have plants in their states. What – you thought we wouldn’t notice?!?!?

Wha happa? – The Religious Right wondering why the number of people who consider themselves to be religious declined during the Bush Administration.

Coming to their senses – The Religious Right for realizing that the Republican Party had been playing them for fools for the last 30 years.

Good – MSNBC, CNN and Headline News for showing the sparse crowds at the “Tea party” rallies on April 15^th.

Bad– The “let them eat cake” attitudes of the Tea Partiers towards the Unemployed and their families who would be helped by the Stimulus Package they were protesting.

Idiotic – FOX News for organizing the whole “anti-job” debacle.

Idiotic – Gov. Rick Perry of Texas suggesting that Texas might secede from the Union. Governor as long as you take the Dallas Cowboys with you, you can take Texas anywhere you want – don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way to being conquered by Mexico.

Good – The attempts at Health Care Reform.

Bad – The HMO “Death Panels” trying to kill Health Care Reform and many of us in the process.

Idiotic– The sheeple being sent to Town Hall meetings in August to act like schoolyard bullies trying to say and do anything they can to kill Health Care Reform and their children and grandchildren in the process.

Tragic – The amount of people taking advantage of the Free Health Care Clinics in New Orleans, Little Rock and Kansas City because they didn’t have Health Insurance, and thus access to Health Care. A huge majority of those people have jobs, some work three or four jobs, and they still can’t afford to go see a doctor. And this is the world that Conservative Republicans want us to live in?

Merry Christmas– The vote on the floor of the Senate that avoids the possibility of Republicans in Congress Fillibustering the Health Care Bill.

Let’s hope it’s a gift that can keep on giving– The possibility that the Health Care Reform bill can be improved once it gets to Conference. And I mean real improvement so that ordinary people like you and me will not have to choose between paying premiums and buying groceries. So that when we need insurance to be there it doesn’t take a powder and reach into our pockets anymore. So that the HMO-run “death panels” are outlawed and we can get quality health care for once. The improvements would have to include some form of “public option” which would ensure that people who are out of work will not have to forego medical care just because we cannot afford to pay a bill.

Terrorism – The Murder of Dr. George Tiller in the lobby of his church.

Only a matter of time– The killing of an anti-Abortion protestor outside of a school where he was harassing students.

Good – Scott Roeder’s “Necessity defense” was thrown out by a Kansas judge. Sorry pal, but you’ll just have to defend yourself like the rest of the terrorists do.

Good– Roger Penske agrees to buy Saturn and keep it going.

Bad– The deal falls through when Penske can’t get a foreign manufacturer to agree to produce the cars.

“Hiking the ‘Ol Appalachian Trail” – Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Tiger Woods.

Good– President Obama’s speech to Congress on Health Care. There was a lot in that speech that gave hope to Wifey and myself as the reform he proposed would help both of us stay alive.

Bad – Republicans in Congress trying to kill reform and by extension, the people who really need reform.

Idiotic – Joe “YOU LIE” Wilson. THIS IS THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NOT THE HOUSE OF COMMONS YOU MORON!!!!!

Really Idiotic – The “concerned mom” who showed up at a Town Hall meeting last August to protest Health Care Reform claiming that she was not affiliated with any political party. Turns out she was that county’s vice-chair for the GOP until 2008. What, did you think we wouldn’t check these things sweetheart?!?

So far beyond Idiotic– “I think health care is a privilege. I wouldn’t call it a right.” – Sen. Jim DeMint.

Had to happen – At a Town Hall meeting an anti-health reformer started a fight with a pro-health reformer and had his finger bitten off as a result. Good thing the guy who was anti-health care reform had Medicare, huh? Now, what’s that you say about “socialized medicine”?

Idiotic – The idea that Health Care Reform would bring about the creation of “death panels” when they already exist – they’re called HMO’s!!!

Racist – All of the anti-Obama protests of Sept 12^th. Come on, let’s face it, they had nothing to do with taxes or the stimulus or bailouts or big government, they had everything to do with a Black Man as President. I think it was better when the Klansmen wore hoods, at least we didn’t have to see their ugly mugs with Tea bags hanging from their hats.

Hilarious – Billionaires for Wealthcare.

Someone I would vote for in 2016– Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla). You know, the man who gave us the Republican Health Care plan as 1) Don’t get sick, and 2) if you do get sick, then 3) DIE QUICKLY. Hmmmm, President Grayson – has a nice ring to it, huh?

Brilliant – Keith Olbermann’s hour-long “Special Comment” on how and why health care reform is important broadcast on October 7, 2009. If you haven’t seen it – you should. You should still be able to find it on MSNBC.com or on YouTube.

Good – President Obama gets the Nobel Peace prize.

Whoops – President Obama announces a plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Idiotic– The Conservative Right decrying the President’s troop increase. I guess if a Democrat takes military action then its an unwarranted abuse of power, but if a Republican starts a war that was provoked by a terrorist attack and leaves that war unfinished so that he can start an unprovoked war somewhere else so that his buddies working for private contractors can become war profiteers as a thank you for helping him steal two national elections, well – that’s ok then!!!

Bad – Chicago loses out to Rio for the 2016 Olympics.

Idiotic – Conservatives cheering the loss of thousands of jobs because Chicago didn’t get the Olympics. See, I told you they don’t want us to go back to work!!!

Scary – An episode of CSI: Miami where a company was taking life insurance policies out on their employees and then killing them so that they could collect.

Really Scary – Michael Moore illustrating real-life companies taking out life insurance policies on their employees, also known as “dead peasant insurance” in his movie Capitalism: A Love Story. How long would it be before we hear stories of “assassination squads” going after those employees so that the companies could collect?

I really want this guy to run for President in 2016– Rep. Alan Grayson got on the floor of the House of Representatives and showed us what a Democrat with balls of titanium looks like. The transcript of his speech can be found at Political Irony.

Good – “The California Marriage protection Act” seeks to protect marriages in the state of California by making it illegal to get a divorce. No, I’m not kidding, it’s a brilliant response to Prop 8 which outlawed gay marriage. I guess if supporters of Prop 8 really wanted to protect marriage then they should have gone all the way, huh?

Bad – Too bad it’s only a satirical movement that’s trying to make a point.

Oops– The RNC says that the Health Care Reform bill will pay for abortions while forgetting that the policy they offered their employees through Cigna paid for abortions. After their faces turned lobster red they reversed this policy. Yeah, too little, too late guys.

Idiotic– Former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino: “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Let’s see he was sworn in on January 20, 2001 and the planes hit on September 11^th, and September comes after January so that means that…..WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!! Dana, it’s people like you that give blondes a bad name!!!

So Idiotic that it bears repeating– Tea-Baggers splitting the ticket in the New York 23^rd so badly by putting forth a candidate who not only didn’t know the issues but didn’t even live in the district he was running for thus making him ineligible to hold the seat, give the election to the Democrat making sure that the district would be represented by a Democrat in Congress for the first time since the Civil War. How’s that “party cleansing” working out for ya?

Idiotic– Because their exploits are too numerous for this space I will simply list the names of: Rush “Boss Hogg” Limbaugh, Bill O’Rieley, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), Former Miss California Carrie Prejean and Former Gov. and now Facebook celebrity Sarah Palin (R-AK).

In Memoriam– Ricardo Montalban (Fantasy Island, Star Trek II), Andrew Wyeth (Painter), Wendy Richard (Are You Being Served?, EastEnders), Ron Silver (The West Wing), Natasha Richardson, Nick Adenhart (of the L.A. Angels) and his friends Henry Pearson and Courtney Stewart (killed by a drunk driver), Marie Olbermann, Marilyn Chambers, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, Bea Arthur, Jade Goody, Dom DeLuise, David Carradine (Kung Fu), Ed McMahon, Colby Curtain, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Karl Malden, Steve McNair, Walter Cronkite, John Hughes (Director – Pretty in Pink, Ferris Behuler), Les Paul, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Patrick Swayze, Timothy Joseph “Big Russ” Russert (Father of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert), Captain Lou Albano, Cullen Bryant (RB, L.A. Rams), Chris Henry (WR, Cincinnati Bengals), Roy Disney, Brittany Murphy (Clueless, 8 Mile, Just Married, Happy Feet).

Idiotic– On the same day that we lose Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, some idiot decides that it would be funny to pile on the pain and start an internet rumor that actor Jeff Goldblum had also died. Whoever the doucebag was they tried to convince all of us that Goldblum fell of a 60-foot cliff while he was on location in New Zeland. This was just a re-hash of the same hoax that tried to convince people that it had happened to Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise before this. There was nothing to it, Jeff Goldblum was alive and well filming Law & Order: Criminal Intent in New York City at the time.

Folk Hero– Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 who, after having both engines taken out by a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia, brought his plane safely down in the Hudson River with all 155 people onboard safe and sound. Gentlemen, that is how we do that.

Good – Susan Boyle.

Icky– Amy Winehouse.

Idiotic– Kanye West upstaging Taylor Swift at the MTV VMA’s. Yeah dude, we know you’ve got a thing for Beyonce – let – it-go!!!!!

Good TV– Ace of Cakes, Bones, Burn Notice, Chuck, CSI, CSI: Miami, Dirty Jobs, Doctor Who, Eureka, House, In Plain Sight, Law & Order: SVU, Mythbusters, Psych, Torchwood: Children of Earth, White Collar, Dinner Impossible, How Clean is your House (BBC America), Storm Chasers, The Smoking Gun Presents: The World’s Dumbest…, Sanctuary, Warehouse 13.

TV that will be missed – Monk, Pushing Daisies, Life, Trading Spaces, The Shield, Boston Legal, ER.

Who Cares?– Jon & Kate, Nadya Suleman (Octomom), The Khardashians.

Idiotic TV – Whoever it was at FOX who came up with the idea to make a reality TV show about company layoffs.

Good – People out there still haven’t given up hope that they will someday be able to support their families again by having a job.

Bad – Jobs are still being lost because of greed at the top.

Idiotic – The idea that a bad credit score means that you would be a bad employee. Not taking hard times into account is simply stupid.

Still Idiotic– Bozeman, Montana requiring the usernames and passwords for social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter of job applicants. After a lot of negative publicity about the practice, it was discontinued.

Good – I finally had a company express some interest in me. DirecTV called me in in response to my application and had me go through some testing.

Bad – A couple of days after the test they e-mailed me and said that I wouldn’t be brought in for an interview.

Idiotic – I later found out through a couple of sources that the reason DirecTV rejected me was because my Credit Score was not good enough.

Insulting to every unemployed job seeker out there – The Ladders “Little Creatures” Commercial. Yeah, they only work with “the big talent”. Well most of that “big talent” got us into this economic mess so bite me!!!

Good– We are trying to move to a new area where we are hoping that my employment chances will improve.

Bad – Yeah well, it turns out that we are moving from an area that has the 136^th worst unemployment rate in the country (Boise-Nampa, ID) to the area that has the 14^thworst rate in the country (Redding, CA). I still haven’t figured out how to tell Wifey.

And finally…

Too Funny – The Republican Party launched their own URL-shortening device which when launched would display the original page with a GOP toolbar across the top and bottom of the page that wouldn’t go away. To make it even worse the new feature had an animated Michael Steele walking around the bottom of the page and talking as if he were showing off the page. So, what do you think happened when Liberals and Moderates got a hold of this? They pointed the device to as many porn sites as they could, that’s what!!! Well the GOP finally got wise to this, took the service down and cleaned it up.

But wait, there’s more – The GOP brought the service back up with a warning: “If you use GOP.am for spamming, illegal purposes or to promote lude content, your GOP.AM URL will be disabled.”

I think they meant “lewd” instead of “lude”.

It might help if you used Spell-check next time guys.

So that’s it for this year. It was chock full of lunacy, eye-rolling stupidity and just pain-’ol-craziness, but what year-end look isn’t full of that?

So to all of my readers out there I would just like to say…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

And for those of you who prefer your holidays a little more “Politically Correct”…

May you all have a Merry, Safe, Jolly and…

Happy ChristmaHanuKwanzukka!!!

Until next year…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Keith made his case for why the current Health Care Reform Bill as it stands now should be changed, killed or vetoed by the President. As someone who is not only underutilized but uninsured and as the spouse of someone who is uninsurable let me just say this:

I agree with him 100%.

It is an infuriating state of affairs that a group of people, who have counted themselves as Christians for the past three decades, have decided to turn away from those Christian ideals of charity and loving one’s neighbor to those of greed, selfishness and hate. It is even more infuriating when these same “Sunday Morning Christians” as I call them since they only act like Christians for one hour a week every Sunday Morning while they are at services, choose to deny basic human dignity to a vast majority of the population by denying them access to health care, and the ability to pay for it by seeking to deny them jobs. After all, hasn’t the Tea Party movement not only been about our President, but also about disenfranchising those of us who are out of work and preventing us from returning to the workforce by protesting the Stimulus and making sure it would not create jobs?

It seems to me that all of the shouting from the Tea Party movement about Health Care reform is less about them being able to keep their coverage, and more about denying coverage for the rest of us. To me it seems as if our Parents and Grandparent do not want us to have access to a doctor, much less a job. Yet when we struggle to find a job or a physical ailment they label us as “deadbeats”, “freeloaders”, “worthless”, pantywaists”, “pussies”, “wimps”, and any other derogatory term they can think of. Then when we argue with them about it they come back with the ‘ol “I’m just trying to help you” line. No, they are not trying to help us, they are trying to hurt us as much as they can because it gives then an almost orgasmic pleasure to do so.

Now that is not to say that every senior citizen is like this. I know for a fact that they are not. Some of them are going through hard times along with the rest of us and they know better. It’s just that there are a few of them out there who have bought into the HMO propiganda that Generation X and Generation Y is out to kill the Baby Boomers and they have reacted by trying to kill us first. They are giving the rest of the Baby Boomers, and the HMO’s a bad name.

Well, let’s face it, the HMO’s had a bad name already, and if they are able to kill reform or put together what amounts to a bailout of the HMO’s, then they are going to be seen as the devil incarnate right alongside Wal-Mart in some circles. Some of the Baby Boomers are seeing firsthand just what kind of damage not having Health Insurance can do to the people that they care about. My father-in-law is going to be a witness to what daily life without a job, without health insurance, and without prospects or hope is like when we finally move to NoCal. He is not only going to get to see my struggles to get a job, but he is also going to have to see his daughter struggle with her asthma, Trigeminal neuralgia and her pituitary tumor on a daily basis – all without having health insurance. He is going to see firsthand what it is like to worry about how to afford the medication she needs to stay alive. He is going to be an eyewitness to the hard choice we will have to make if one of us gets sick or hurt up there. He is going to have to live with the fact that if something does happen to us there may be nothing we can do about it.

And then when he shakes his head and can’t understand why we just don’t go to the Emergency Room, he will have to live with us looking him in the eye as we tell him “because we can’t pay the bill.”

That is a future that may of us are facing now as it seems as if Health Care reform might fail – again. I am hoping for an 11th-hour reprieve and that Congressional Democrats will say “bi-partisanship be damned” and just do what they have to do, do the right thing and pass real reform. Because the alternative, what we have now, is not going to be able to sustain itself for very much longer. I truly believe that if nothing changes and if the HMO’s keep driving up their rates that they will price themselves right out of business. I truly believe that sooner or later they will collapse like the banks did – and we should not bail them out!!!

To that end I am announcing here and now that I will be joining Keith Olbermann in his boycott of the HMO ponzi scheme – and that is exactly what it is at this point. If the reform bill is passed, in its present form, then I to will not buy any health insurance, and I urge all of you to do the same. I know, I know, there will be a fine to pay if we do not buy their worthless insurance that will be cancelled when we need it the most. However, in may situations paying the yearly fine would be a cost-saving measure. In our case Wifey is Asthmatic, Over weight, has two bad knees, a tumor behind her sinuses and a painful nerve condition in her face. I have stress-induced high-blood pressure and an elevated cholesterol level that requires medication to control, yet hasn’t been for the past few months because of cost. With those conditions, the cost for insuring Wifey and myself would be in excess of $10,000.00 per year. If we do not buy insurance the fine for us would be $1,500.00 per year.

Do the math! It would be cheaper to pay the fine then it would be to toss our money down into the HMO money pit! If that still isn’t good enough and they want to throw us in jail, then I have a feeling we will be in good company. However I think that the last thing they are going to want to do is to round up everyone who is uninsured and “send them to the camps.”

And yes, I used that reference deliberately.

If this bill does pass and gets signed into law, then civil disobedience is the only option we may have to fight this injustice. It may hurt a lot of people and it will not be easy. A lot of us may get hurt or die before this is over – some of us at the hands of law enforcement, or a Tea-Bagging Baby Boomer who wants to “make an example” out of us. However in the end, it would be worse to buy their overpriced insurance, get sick, go to a hospital, begin treatment only to be told “sorry, you’re insurance has been cancelled. You”re going to have to leave” and get tossed out on the street in a weakened state, waiting to die.

I would rather take my chances on my own then subject myself or my family to that kind of cruelty.

I would ask all of you to look at your own situation and decide for yourselves as to weather or not you should buy into this scam.

And while you are at it, let the HMO’s know exactly how you feel about them trying to cheat you out of your hard-earned money (for those of you lucky enough to have a job) and your good health. Let them know how angry you are – and that you are not alone. I am not saying that you should go to their corporate offices and harrass their staff (at least not alone – it’s better with a picket line or a demonstration of some kind like the Tea-Baggers are so good at). I’m not saying that you should bomb the building  – that’s not what I want to have happen (although I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen eventually). Write them, call them, complain to them, tell them that you won’t be buying their overpriced, undervalued piece of shit insurance – just don’t threaten violence or engage in any violent acts. Let’s leave the violence to the Tea-Baggers, they enjoy seeing blood spilled anyway.

After all, they are the ones with “Socialized Health Care”, if they get hurt in this fight, they can afford it.

So Rush, is this the "failure" that you wanted?

Every time I go read comments on Newsvine I get pissed off. It pisses me off when an article breeds discussion and the topic is hijacked by somebody with an agenda of their own.

Take for example an article that appeared on MSN.com’s homepage today. It was a re-print of a New York Times article on a recent poll that was taken that reveals the depth and trauma of joblessness. The article illustrated what most of us have been going through during this period of economic hardship: having to borrow money from friends or family, not going to the doctor when necessary because we can’t pay the bill, going to food banks or getting food stamps just to eat, etc.

Now usually when I click over to read the comments made on articles such as this on Newsvine I find that there are one or two pertenaint comments to start out with. But sooner or later there will be someone who will want to blame everything on President Obama saying that he’s a Socialist and that we are all Liberals who deserve the screwing that we get. After that, the circus is on and the clowns start pouring out of the Mini-Cooper.

I know that I shouldn’t let it bother me and that I should be “bigger than them” when it comes to this kind of discourse, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. After hearing so much venom being spewed out of the mouths of the talking heads on FOX and seeing it come from the fingers of those Conservatives too ugly to be on TV, there comes a point where I just can’t hold it in anymore. I have to give in to that smack-talking side of my personality and spew some vitriol of my own as a release for fear that if I don’t I may choke to death on my own venom sack that has become blocked up for lack of use.

To that end, I left this comment on page 6 of the “discussion”, I apologize ahead of time to my readers who consider themselves to be “Liberal” or “Conservative” as I take shots at both of you at a point in the rant. Keep in mind, this is my frustration talking, and as some of you know and can attest to in your own lives, it is well-founded:

Everytime I come to read the comments on Newsvine it astounds me how many of you totally miss the point of the articles written. I keep hoping beyond hope that some of you will set aside your partisan and ideological blinders and not take an opportunity to point the finger of blame and dance on the graves of peoples’ future.

I know, that is waaaaaaay too much to ask for…

A little background – I was laid off from my last “real job” in December of 2002, the day after my 36th birthday. In that time I have applied to 1,082 different businesses trying to get work and have gone on 52 interviews. Yet I still have Conservatives calling me “lazy”, “deadbeat”, they tell me that I want the Government to take care of me and that I don’t really want to work. I would think that 1,082 attempts to support my family in the last 2,565 days would say otherwise. And for the record, my Unemployment benefits ran out in September of 2003, so I am getting nothing from my Government and they are not taking care of me. However there was a glimmer of hope a few years ago, because that was when I got myself a job…such as it was.

It was an outside sales job that was commission-based. Now sales is a tough enough gig, but when you are trying to sell a high-end product in a Red State that was starting to see the effects of a sinking economy before the rest of the country and you are trying to sell to people who may or may not have a job the next day – it was almost impossible to get in the door much less make a sales pitch. At the time there were a lot of companies and industries laying people off and as a result, there wasn’t much money to spend even back then. Since the job was commission-based I would only get paid when I made a sale. As a result i have had to deal with several people telling me that it wasn’t a “real job” since I wouldn’t get paid for the job I did. To them a “real job” is one where you go to work every day and then get paid for it no matter what. Because the economy went downhill, after a couple of years the job went with it and I have been trying to get work ever since.

Fortunately for us at the time my wife had an eBay business that enabled us to pay the bills and the mortgage. However that all changed when the national economy went in the tank in the summer of 2008. Her business dropped off dramatically, and we fought as hard as we could to keep the business afloat. It finally got to the point where it was costing us more money than we were bringing in to operate, so we lost the business after a few months of fighting. No income = unable to pay mortgage and buy food. During this entire time I had been sending out my resume for any job I was qualified for to no avail. I would apply to jobs and in some cases I would get a rejection e-mail, but mostly I would hear nothing but crickets. Wal-Mart and McDonalds have rejected me for being “overqualified”, J.R. Simplot rejected me for being “underqualified”, and DirecTV rejected me because my credit score wasn’t good enough for me to be their employee – but it was good enough to be their customer. WTF?!?!?!?!?

At this point our house is in foreclosure, we are getting 20 calls a day from debt collectors, we are trying to sell our house and move to Northern California to be with family before the bank takes it away from us, and we are trying to forestall the auction date so that we can buy more time so a sale can happen. On top of that we have to pack up what we can take and sell off the rest just to keep the heat on in freezing temperatures. Because of the stress we are under we are sick and tired (literally) all the time. I have injured my back and my wife has severely sprained her right arm and right leg. Because we have no income and no insurance we cannot go to a Doctor and get treatment because we cannot afford to pay the bill that will come our way. During this Holiday season of giving we cannot afford to buy presents for anyone – not even each other – and since we are trying to sell the house we cannot even decorate for Christmas. The only acknowledgement of the season is a Charlie Brown tree that we bought a couple of years ago. To say that things are bleak at our place right now is an understatement…

…that is what makes some of your posts and your attitudes so infuriating to someone like me…

The article in question was about how traumatic joblessness has been to those of us who – through no fault of our own – have been turned out, written off, and marginalized as absolutely worthless by the business community. AND ALL SOME OF YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT ARE YOUR OWN PARTISAN AND POLITIAL BELIEFS?!?!?!? ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS BLAMING “THE OTHER GUY” AND SCORING CHEAP DEBATE POINTS?!?!?!?!? YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SAYS TO PEOPLE IN MY POSITION?!?!? IT SAYS “SCREW YOU LOSER, YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE, LET ALONE EARN A LIVING!!!!!”

I AM SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING MONEY-GRUBBING, BIBLE-THUMPING, BOOK-BURNING, DICK CHEANEY-WORSHIPPING, FOX NEWS-WATCHING, TAX-AND-SPEND-AND-WELCH-ON-THE-DEBT CONSERVATIVE FREAKS TRY TO BLAME EVERYTHING ON PRESIDENT OBAMA, CLAIM HE’S A SOCIALIST, CLAIM HE WASN’T BORN IN THIS COUNTRY (AS IF HAWAII WASN’T EVEN A STATE) AND NOT OFFER UP ONE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS WE HAVE LET ALONE A JOB TO SOMEONE WHO REALLY NEEDS ONE!!!!!!! YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME WANT TO YAK!!!!! YOU BELIEVE THAT A JOB FOR SOMEONE IN MY POSITION IS THE EQUIVALENT TO A HOMELESS PERSON COMING UP TO YOU ON THE STREET AND BEGGING YOU FOR YOUR SPARE CHANGE. WHEN PEOPLE LIKE YOU SAY YOU WANT PRESIDENT OBAMA TO FAIL, YOU MEAN THAT YOU DON’T WANT PEOPLE LIKE ME TO GO BACK TO WORK AND SUPPORT OUR FAMILIES!!!! YOU WANT MORE JOB LOSS, MORE FORECLOSURES, AND MORE PEOPLE GOING HUNGRY AND BEING WRITTEN OFF WHILE YOU STAY WARM, DRY, FED, AND SATISFIED THAT “GOD HAS BLESSED” YOU BY MAKING YOU RICH.

AND DON’T THINK I’M LETTING YOU WHEAT-GRASS EATING, TYE-DYE WEARING, HUMMER-LOT BURNING, ALL-TALK-AND-NO-REAL-ACTION-ON HEALTH-CARE-REFORM-BECAUSE-YOU-DON’T-HAVE-A-SPINE LIBERAL FREAKS OFF THE HOOK EITHER!!!!!!! YOU ARE JUST AS MUCH TO BLAME FOR THIS MESS AS YOUR CONSERVATIVE COUNTERPARTS ARE!!!!!!!! YEAH YOU CAN COME UP WITH SOME REASONABLE SOLUTIONS, BUT WHERE ARE YOUR GUTS TO STAND UP AND SHOPUT DOWN THOSE CONSERVATIVE NOISE-MAKERS WHO ONLY WANT FOR THEMSELVES AND NOTHING FOR THE REST OF US, HUH?!?!?!? DO WE COMMON SENSE MODERATES HAVE TO TAKE ALL OF YOUR ACTION FOR YOU?!?!?!?!?

THIS IS WHY I AM AN INDEPENDANT – IT’S BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE ARE SO WRAPPED UP IN BEATING THE OTHER GUY THAT NOTHING EVER GETS DONE AND PEOPLE LIKE ME GET SCREWED!!!!! I HAVE BEEN A REPUBLICAN AND A DEMOCRAT AT VARIOUS TIMES OF MY LIFE ONLY TO LEAVE BOTH PARTIES BECAUSE I DID NOT LIKE WHAT I FOUND THERE. I HATED THE FACT THAT THE GOP HAD BEEN HIJACKED BY THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT, AND I HATED THAT DEMOCRATS DIDN’T HAVE A SPINE – SO A POX UPON BOTH OF YOUR HOUSES!!!!!!

PEOPLE OUT HERE ARE HURTING – YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE HURTING – AND ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS MAKING NOISE!!!!!!!

YOU MIGHT WANT TO TRY PULLING YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND TAKING A LOOK AROUND YOU SO THAT YOU CAN SEE WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON!!!!!!!

NOT ONLY WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SEE BETTER, BUT YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY THE FRESH AIR BETTER THEN WHAT YOU ARE SMELLING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!

 Now I don’t expect to have my comments received very well over on that board as most of the people there seem to have their own agenda and don’t care for any contrarian viewpoint, let alone someone calling them out on it. I expect to hear Conservatives over there to tell me that I should “stop whining” and Liberals tell me that they eat sprouts and that they drink Wheat-grass.

I know that most of Conservatives and Liberals are not like the people who post on Newsvine. Really, I know that. I do believe that the people who post on Newsvine give Conservatives and Liberals a bad reputation. Like I said in my post it is frustrating to me to hear all of this squabbling going on about what’s wrong, who’s to blame for it and what should be done about it without any action being taken and the situation only gets worse. That is how I see this past year. I’ve seen Conservatives in Congress and in the media pouting like little children, throwing a year-long tantrum because a Black Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office. I have seen them take to the streets wearing tea-bags on their person trying to kill any attempt to put people back to work and get the rest of us access to a doctor when we need it. I have seen Liberals in Congress and the media talk about what needs to be done and attempt to do it, only to allow themselves to be bullied by those same tea-bag wearing yayhoos into doing nothing.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of it.

Literally, I am sick and tired all the time now like I said in my Newsvine post, and so is Wifey. Right now because of my back and her arm and leg we are not able to get any packing done, we’ve got about half of the house packed up and there is still more to do, however the walking-wounded are having a difficult time right now trying to hold themselves up much less carry the stretcher-cases. So in between bouts of packing we have to rest up and lick our wounds until we feel strong enough to do it again, which is why we seem to pack in spurts these days. It has gotten to the point where I come into the office and surf the net or practice some Mountain driving in the snow on rFactor rather then spend the day laying in bed with Wifey. Sometimes it gets very difficult having to watch her sway from side-to-side moaning in pain knowing that there is nothing that I can do about it. Talk about a feeling of helplessness – there is nothing like watching someone you love have to live in some form of pain knowing that there is nothing that you can do to help them. I know that eventually her sprains will heal but it is just difficult to deal with sometimes.

Now would someone in Congress or on FOX like to come live my life for a few days and tell me that we don’t need health-care reform in this country?

Actually, we need more than just health-care reform – we need political-discourse reform.

Badly.

And as for doing something to help people in my situation – it is good to see that there are people like those who run the Idaho Food bank helping those of us in need during this time of year. It is also good to see people like Keith Olberman not just talk about getting those of us in need some much-needed health-care, but actually taking some steps to provide it. The free health-care clinics that have taken place in New Orleans, Little Rock and Kansas City have been Godsends to those people there in need. How anybody, weather they be Conservative, Liberal or Moderate, not see that as a sign that our health-care system is broken is beyond me. I just can’t understand how someone can look at these free-clinics and say that they are a waste of time because they cannot possibly be sustained beyond the initial event. That is not the point – the point is that in the richest country in the world, this is what we have been reduced to – people begging for their lives.

I remember an episode of “The West Wing”, season 2 I believe, the episode entitled “In this White House” there was a fictional President of an African Nation being ravaged by AIDS, who had come to America to negotiate with American Pharmaceutical companies to bring AIDS drugs to his country. At one point, before he receives news that he has been overthrown by a coup, President Mumbala of Equitorial Kundu remarks “it is a terrible thing to beg for one’s life.”

Yes, it is a very terrible thing. If only some people out there would stop and realize that that is what we are all doing to some degree - begging for our lives and the lives of those we love.

Oh, by the way, I’m working on putting together a special year-end post that re-caps some of the events of the past year. Back when I was writing my column for PCFootball.net I would look back at the year that was at this time every year. It was a tradition that I would like to bring here much like my annual 9/11 column.

So get ready to see the 2009 edition of “The Good, the Bad, and the Downright idiotic” before Christmas. I usually cover sports and news events, but I might also cover some politics this year as well.

So get ready folks, this one’s gonna be a doozy…..

Just pass the test girl, that's all we ask...

It’s official, Danica Patrick is coming to NASCAR…sort of.

When I say “sort of” it’s not a full-time ride like some of us were guessing was going to happen a few months ago. However, a part-time Nationwide series ride makes a lot more sense then it does to simply jump into a 3,300 lb. Sprint Cup car. Getting her feet wet in the Nationwide Series, or even the Camping World Truck Series, makes better sense than it does to go the same route that has led to struggles for Sam Hornish Jr., Patrick Carpentier and (dare I say it) Dario Franchitti. This way Danica can learn the ins and outs of racing a stock car as opposed to the open-wheel Indy Car that she’s used to. This way she’s not being thrown into the deep end of the pool where she will have to swim immediately or else drown in a torrent of critics scornfully debunking her as a driver and causing damage to her and to NASCAR in the long run.

Now the first big test will not be the Camping World 300 at Daytona, it will not even be the Lucas Oil Slick Mast 200 at Daytona, but it will be the  three-day ARCA Series open test December 18, 19 and 20 at Daytona. That will be crucial for any future NASCAR plans that she and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have for her. Both NASCAR and ARCA have a long-standing policy that Daytona drivers have to have drafting experience on a Superspeedway before they can run a race at Daytona. There is also a posibility of a private test at Daytona for her, but she would still have to have some experience drafting in a pack of cars, and the public ARCA test would be the only opportunity for that.

Now as a fan of not only NASCAR but also as someone who grew up watching A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al and Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford and Danny Sullivan mix it up at Indy, I sincerely hope that not only Danica Patrick passes the initial test at Daytona, but that she does very well in the ARCA race and the subsequent Nationwide race – if not actually win one of those races. I think that Danica having success in NASCAR would be of benefit to not only her, but to the sport as a whole and to the economy in general.

Yeah, I know I can hear you working it right now: “the economy, uh BigDaddy – she’s a race car driver, it’s not like she’s the Chairman of the Fed. How in the world could she effect the economy?” Well, follow along with me people. Let’s say – for the sake of argument – that she not only does well at the ARCA/ReMax test, but she blows everybody’s socks off, impressing almost everybody there save for the few detractors who will grouse that she has no business being inside a race car. Then she moves onto Speedweeks and she impresses even more people with a top 5 finish in both the Lucas Oil Slick Mast 200 and the Camping World 300 – possibly even winning one of those races (hey, it’s restrictor-plate racing, it could happen).

Even though she would not run a full-time schedule she could make enough noise and do well enough to warrant a re-think of this split-series plan and come to NASCAR full-time by 2011, and we could see her racing a Sprint Cup car as late as 2012. Then we would be off to the races (as it were) as Danicamania would be in full force as she would then be poised to take over the #5 GoDaddy.com ride from a retiring Mark Martin at Hendrick Motorsports. Imagine that line-up of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick driving for Rick Hendrick. Talk about your dynasty – Hendrick Motorsports would be cemented as not only in the same class with Junior Johnson Racing and Petty Enterprises in NASCAR history, but would be mentioned in the same breath as the New York Yankees, Montreal Canadians, Boston Celtics, Pittsburgh Steelers and UCLA Bruins Basketball.

Now that would be good for NASCAR because if Danica is successful, then a lot more people are not only going to be coming to the tracks on race-day to watch her run, more merchandise is going to be sold and NASCAR as an organization will benefit. Then again, so will the other teams like RCR, Stewart-Hass, Joe Gibbs Racing, Roush, Earnhardt-Ganassi, Micheal Waltrip and the Wood Brothers among others because their fans will get behind their drivers even more to counter the Hendrick juggernaut. That translates into more sales all around, that translates into more money for the teams involved which could also then translate into – say it with me people – jobs!!!!!

There is a distinct possibility that all of the extra added attention that will be turned upon both Danica Patrick and NASCAR that it could not only create more jobs at NASCAR, but also create more jobs for all of the teams involved as well as the 31 tracks NASCAR visits during the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series’. Now Ladies and Gentlemen – that is what I call a stimulus package!!!

Now make no mistake about it, this may not be easy and there are detractors of this move. Thomas Popeof the Fayetteville Observer has said that if she ”can’t put a whippin’ on the best in IndyCar, where there are half as many competitors, why should we believe her NASCAR future will be any different?” The blogosphere is rampant with comments ranging from “she’s nothing more than a pretty face”, “she doesn’t belong in a race car”, and even a few “I hope Kyle Busch puts her in the wall and then puts her over his knee.” You really have to wonder about some of these people on some of these boards.

I take the negative comments about her with a grain of salt and I don’t get too worked up about it because I know that most if not all of these critics of her have never gotten behind the wheel of a race car – any race car – and fired up the engine. Then again, other than loading rFactor on my computer and taking a spin with the Epsilon Euskadi prototype or the VHR Stockcar mod, neither have I.

By the way Junior, if you’re looking to try another “experiment” sometime in the near future and you want to see if playing a racing video game can make a novice into an actual race car driver – I’m available. (Hey, I’m still looking for a job here, and you don’t know if you never ask.)

To that end I put more stock in what the people in and around NASCAR say about this rather than some in the blogosphere. People like Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds have chimed in on this, and since they have driven cars and run race teams, they have a better idea of what they are talking about.

Am I hoping she succeeds? Hell yes I am!!! In the long run it’s going to be good for both her and NASCAR if she can get some top-10’s, top-5s and even some wins under her belt before she goes into Cup cars. The only loser I can see coming out of this would be the IRL because they would have to adjust to life AD (After Danica) and find another personality to be the face of that organization. Helio Castroneves is the closest they could come since he had such a compelling story last year (tax troubles, the trial, being acquitted of tax evasion, the comeback and winning the Indy 500.) The question is, can the IRL get off of a second-rate network like VERSUS and get to a network that would give them more exposure? Because that would help them tremendously if they were to get onto a network like Speed or even ESPN2.

Bottom line is that this is going to be a very exciting time for racing fans in general. I for one am looking forward to seeing how Danica Patrick performs in a stock car as I have always suspected that she would be more suited to driving a stock car rather than an Indy Car. And as for all of you detractors out there who keep saying she doesn’t belong do me a favor – shut up until you run a race yourself. Because if you haven’t run even a Midget or a Go-Kart race, then you have no idea what you’re talking about.

To that end we’ve re-applied for their “Hardship Program” and we need to talk to them tomorrow to see if we are under review. If we are that should push the date back and buy us some more time. Plus we’ve been advised by our agent to actually tell someone that we are thinking of selling out so that we may “pay them what we owe them – in full” to give them even more incentive to extending the date. In the meantime we are trying to pack up what we consider to be non-essential for our survival and sanity and keep praying for a wealthy buyerwho would be willing to pay us what our house was worth before the real estate crash ($215k) rather than what we have it listed for now ($157,993) for 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and 1,900 sq. ft.

In the meantime I look around me and have to shake my head at the things I read and hear pertaining to the world of employment and the politics that sometimes get intertwined with it. So I have a few random thoughts that I would just like to quickly put out since there are so many subjects and so little time. Some have to do with jobs or job hunting, others are current events…

Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, YOU SAY IT'S YA BIRTHDAY!!!

- I turned 43 years old last Thursday (December 3rd) and it wasn’t a bad birthday. I did a little work packing the house but mostly it was a day to just be…well, you know – just be. I thawed some steaks and fired up the grill (in 30 degree whether) and finally got Wifeyto watch “Dale” with me. Hey, she gave me the choice of whatever I wanted to watch since it was my birthday, while getting me to promise to return the favor for her in March. In the end she enjoyed it more than she thought. Now if I can only get her to watch the Daytona 500 with me in February I’ll be all set…

- Speaking of Daytona in February, the rumor mill is running hot and heavy over the possibility that Danica Patrick is going to test at Daytona in December for the ARCA/ReMax race there for JR Motorsports in preparation for a possible Nationwide entry. Now she hasn’t submitted any application paperwork or a fee for entering the testing, but that doesn’t mean anything. Here’s a blurb from the Orlando Sentinel that I found over at Jayski.com:

Shouldn't you sign the contract first?

Several sources have made a big deal about the fact that Danica hasn’t filed an entry for ARCA testing at Daytona International Speedway December 18, 19 and 20, intimating that since she hasn’t registered for the test, she won’t test, and if she won’t test she can’t run the Daytona ARCA race in February, and if she doesn’t run the ARCA race, NASCAR won’t approve her to run the NASCAR Nationwide race a few days later. Don Radebaugh, longtime ARCA public relations director, says that Danica doesn’t have to file any sort of advance notice for the test. She can enter “the same day. There is no deadline.” As for what car she would drive, there are already at least seven cars entered with “TBA” under the driver’s name. Another source suggests Patrick will participate in a “secret” Daytona test before the end of the year. At the moment, Daytona has no such test on the books. If she tests at Daytona, it will likely be with ARCA. Can she race the ARCA race in February, without testing? “We do not take a position on that matter until we have an official entry,” Radebaugh says. Certainly Danica has experience on big speedways, but not in stock cars. Both NASCAR and ARCA have long made it clear that Daytona drivers need to have drafting experience on a superspeedway in stock cars before they can race. So even if Danica did have a private test, she would need to learn drafting in a pack of cars, and the ARCA test will be the only opportunity for that.

Somehow I think that Danica is going to enter the ARCA/ReMax event and then the Nationwide event and be at Daytona for the 24 Hour race as well as Speedweeks. The IRL season doesn’t start until mid-March, so we may be seeing her in a stock car this year. That and I think the “oops” picture that was posted for a few minutes on her website featuring her in a green GoDaddy firesuit with a Chevy and a Nationwide logo on it was a bit of a clue…

So what if they got it right for once? I still want a playoff!!!

- Boise State and TCU are going bowling – TOGETHER!!! Well for once the BCS got it right and did the right thing by putting TCU, Boise State andCincinnati in BCS bowls, and they even matched up TCU and Boise State to play in the Fiesta Bowl in a re-match of the Poinsettia Bowl played last year. This is going to be a good one folks, so you may want to cancel any plans you might have for the night of January 4th and tune in this game because it looks as if it is going to be a doozy.

Now I know a lot of you in Fort Worth are kind of disappointed that you are going to Glendale, Arizona instead of Pasadena, California to play Alabama in the Championship Game. Just think of this as another step towards forcing the rest of the nation to recognize the fact that the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Pac-10, Big-12 and the SEC do not have a monopoly on quality football. There is plenty of good football to be found in the Mountain West and the WAC, and the so-called “big boys” are just going to have to give the rest of us our due. The winner of the Fiesta Bowl is going to be the #2 team in the country when it is all said and done – so no matter who wins it is going to be a victory for the little guys.

However I still say that a 16-team playoff that incorporates the Bowl Games, Conference Champions and the BCS would not only work, but would be to College Football what “March Madness” is to College Basketball – a ca$h cow for the NCAA. And I can hear some of you College Presidents working it now: “we must consider the damage it would do to the student athlete.” What about the damage you are already doing to the student athlete by forcing them to live in poverty while they make shit-loads of money for your University and inflate your own bank accounts? As soon as you really start to tend to the welfare of the student athlete by seeing that they are able to feed themselves instead of forcing them to search their couches for change so that they can go to the local 7-11 for their weekly ration of Ramen noodles, then you be climb atop your pedestal and preach. Until then, shut your piehole already!!!

- I read in my local fishwrap about an employment situation that just blew my mind. Here’s what I read in a section called “News of the Weird”:

I have one word for you people - BUTTERBALL!!!!!!!!!!!

In April, Richard Huether, the manager of the HoneyBakedHam outlet in Cary, N.C., was shot in the stomach during a robbery of the store and hospitalized, with medical bills paid through worker compensation and his employee health benefits. In September when his worker compensation expired (and though still at least three months away from returning to work) HoneyBaked fired him (forcing him to begin paying 100 percent of his insurance premiums and making subsequent insurance prohibatively expensive because of his new “pre-existing condition”). However, HoneyBaked human resources executive Maggie DeCan told WRAL-TV that the firing was for Huether’s own good, in that it would clear the way for him to recieve Social Security disability payments.

So let me get this straight – dude gets shot during a robbery on your property, gets hospitalized, gets laid up and rather than do the right thing by keeping his job open for him you take away his access to health care by firing him, making it impossible for him to afford health care on his own and making him damaged goods to any employer who he might apply to in the future because he has not fully recovered from his injuries, and ensuring that he will never be able to see a doctor ever again because he will never be able to afford it, have I got that right so far?!?

Yeah, I’ll be having turkey this Christmas, how about you people?!?

What will you be wishing for?

I know, I know, I haven’t written anything in a couple of weeks, and I haven’t got much time to write something now so I’ll be brief as to why.

As most of you know Wifey and I are selling the house in Boise, Idaho and moving into her Dad’s double-wide trailer in Whitmore, California. Well the past few weeks has seen us have time for little more than packing – let alone Tweeting or updating a blog. I haven’t had much relaxing time as of late and I usually try to use what spare time I have to do that by driving a car in rFactor – yes it’s a computer game, no I’m not addicted. I am however trying to use the game to train myself how to drive the icy mountain roads we will be running into soon, so my foray into racing prototypes might have to wait.

During all of this activity I did something that I have been paying for and can do nothing about. Somehow in the middle of all of this packing – I hurt my back. It’s my lower back actually, I’m not sure how I did it, I’m not sure when I did it, all I know is that for the past week and a half I have been in constant discomfort after three days of not being able to easily move to the bathroom let alone lift heavy boxes. Being flat on my back alternating between heat and ice made me thankful that the Health Care Reform bill is moving forward – slowly, but it’s moving forward. For a while there the only comfortable position was lying down, and sitting in a desk chair at a computer was a 7 on a scale of 1-10. Now it’s down to a dull 2 so I can at last get this Holiday message out.

Being an Underutilized Worker doesn’t really lend itself to being thankful for much – or so you would think. But in the past few days I have been thinking about what I do have to be thankful for…

• Wifey, no she’s not looking over my shoulder I am truly thankful that she has been in my life for nearly 20 years – come January, 15 as my Wife. I can’t imagine having to go through this crisis – let alone life without her, and I hope that I never will.
• Even though our crib is on the market we do have a place to land once we sell. It breaks our heart that we have to leave not only the house, but the city and state that we have fallen in love with, at least we have a place to go that feels somewhat like Boise. And we will be with family, so bonus.
• Even though our situation is bad it is not as bad as some people out there who have no place to go, along with no job, no credit, no money and no food. It makes me thankful that there are people and organizations out there that offer assistance to those of us in need – with no strings attached.
• After watching the ads on TV and seeing ads in the local fishwrap I am truly grateful that I am no longer working in retail. Out here there are stores that are going to be open all day on Thanksgiving Day. They’re saying “screw Black Friday, let’s get a head-start on the Christmas season by forcing everybody to give up their holiday and make them work for regular pay. None of this ‘time-and-a-half’ crap.” It’s making me wonder how many of those same stores are going to be open on Christmas Day. One can only hope that the Ghosts of Christmas’ Past, Present and Future will visit the CEO’s of those companies before December 24th.
• I am also thankful for this blog and all of you for allowing me to come into your lives and letting me vent about politics and current events that effects how or if we search for jobs so that we can support our families. I think the last year has been made a lot easier just for the simple fact that I have been able to let some of this out. So I am truly thankful for Karol, Gillardia, and everyone else who reads my words. It has been made easier knowing that I am not alone.

So from Wifey and myself I would like to wish all of you – Carnavore, Vegitarian and Vegan alike, no matter if you dine on Turkey, Turducken, Sprouts, orTofu – a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Be safe…