Greetings to one and all from Jive City, USA. It's another beeeeeeeautiful day today, which means that I'm sitting down to blab on for a few minutes of your free time. Hopefully you'll make it that far. Topics to be discussed: Giant flying insects, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reinvented, a quick fix for gas prices, a devastating turn of events, the A-Town musical, dusty shoes, and a stroll down memory lane... On we go!
There I was driving to work, right? So I'm listening to a radio show and they were talking about bee stings. Kind of a lame topic, if you ask me. This lady calls in with a story about her sister or somebody who found a wasp nest in the dryer tunnel of her house. Apparently it got so bit that she had to call pest control. That didn't quite work, so she called in a beekeeper. Wouldn't that be pretty much the equivalent of calling in the Pied Piper instead of an exterminator? Killing them with kindness is what they call that, I believe... How adorable. And I think the lady was being serious, too. I thought it was funny.
Barack Obama is at it again. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert, politically speaking, and I know that most of you could crush me in a debate, but I do know a few things. For example, Senator Obama loves cameras. I have only seen him behind a pulpit or giving a speech a few times, but every time I see him, he's looking dapper - strutting up and down the stage of some rally with his sleeves half-way rolled up and his shirt collar loose. I have no idea what his policies are (I'm not going to lie), but I know that he wants "Change," which I guess is a good thing. But um... what's he going to do, exactly? I know that he has little to no experience and is a first-term senator from Illinois. And I also know that a 10-year-old can outbowl him. He sure looks popular, though! I bet he was a "cool kid" in high school. Obama is way cooler than McCain. That's why I think he'll win. All those liberal, Democratic college kids will come out of hibernation because they saw "Barry" with a football. The good news is, even though he's Osama's homeboy, if we ever had to play against terrorists in basketball, I think we'd be in pretty good shape. Obama is money in the bank from behind the three point line.
While we're talking about politics or whatever, I want to complain about the economy. My family is probably sick of hearing about this, but I'm serious - if gas prices were lower, we'd get out of this slump. If I were a gas station - which I'm not - but if I was, I would keep my prices lower than competitors by, oh, say 10 or 15 cents. I guarantee you that if they did this, they would get more business. More people would fill up more frequently and that would more than make up for the lower prices. Plus, if we were saving five or ten bucks at the pump, imagine how much other stuff we could buy! We would spend that money elsewhere, thus boosting the respective profit of other companies as well. It would be an all-around good deal for everybody. But unfortunately, just like my calendar of unorthodox sports, it's a nice thought, but will probably go about as far as I can throw it... which... I can't...So how many of you are taking my advice and watching the Mole? Probably none of you, right? Well last night all of you slackers missed one of the most shocking twists in recent reality television history. That's all I can say. My sister Amy is still in post-traumatic shock. This is quality TV, people.
**QUESTION TIME!!**
Q. "Okay, for serious, you are hilarious, Aaron... Have you thought about writing a book or something?"
- Suzy Petersen
A. Yes, actually, I have thought about writing a book. However, I fear it would be too much like a movie of my life - I would be the only one in the theater, but I'd be laughing my head off. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone would buy my autobiography. Maybe a more popular option would be to write music about my life. It could be like a musical similar to the highly acclaimed "My Favorite Twenty-Four Months," which I had previously produced. I can see it now... A heavy metal song would kick it off - "Two Broken Bones (Falling Off Swings)." Another sound could potentially be a stirring violin/vocal duet entitled, "Why is This Kid So Quiet?" That would be followed by its punk rock sequel, "The High School Senior Won't Shut Up." Finally, my personal favorite would take me way badck to my childhood - the country-western ballad, "I Lost a Tooth by Biting a Fork at Chuck-o-rama." I sincerely hope that the album doesn't flop as bad as my calendar did last week.
Q. "Dear Aaron,
Q1. With the price of gas, what's to become of my victorious 3-Suburbans-in-a-row streak?
Q2. If Brett Favre is really a big enough idiot to make an NFL comeback, do we really care - I mean is it REALLY newsworthy?Q3. As a single young man, do you really feel comfortable distributing a newsletter containing the phrase 'closet nestlers'?"
Just asking the questions that need to be asked.
- Mark Goulding
A. Dear Mark,
A1. Honestly, I'm hoping to see a streak of three Razor scooters. Not only would that save on gas, but I think it would be stylish, as well. Bring back the '90s!
A2. Let's just cross our fingers and pray that he's not a bigger idiot than we already knew he was.
A3. I'm assuming that you're referring to my Mr. Rogers parody from last Issue. And, come on, it's not like I had much of a dating life to begin with...
Q. "Dear Aaron,
Rumor has it that you were at the dentist yesterday. We were just wondering - What do you think could make unpleasant trips to the dentist more exciting?"
- Just Curious,
The Junior Mounties
A. Strangely, I was just pondering this myself as I sat in the chair yesterday... (SALUTE!) I like the lead vest they put on for X-Rays. I think it feels nice. So maybe they could just leave that on the whole time. I was also thinking about randomly electric shocks instead of X-Rays. It would be like roulette. And the other promotion I would recommend would be that for a limited time the 500th patient without a cavity would get to work on the dentist's teeth. That'd get 'em to brush their teeth, all right!
Sometimes I wish I could go back. Back to the days of "The District." For those of you unfamiliar with "The District," I shall explain. Before my mission, I sent out 34 glorious Issues of the "El Presidente Bandito (E.P.B.) Newsletter," in which I chronicled my pre-sabbatical excursions. Most notably documented were the adventures that Austin and I had while employed by the Jordan School District grounds crew. There were always terrible things to make fun of at that job! But at the same time, I kind of enjoyed my time there. Tons of funny crap happened there every day, which provided tons of material for the Newsletter. Craig T. Nelson was catapulted to cyberstardom as he co-starred in our based-on-a-true-story TV show, "The District." Craig T., Austin, and I struggled for our financial wellbeing by mowing, trimming, and leaf blowing our hearts out week after week, eventually culminating in the shocking series finale that included Austin being abandoned by Mexicans in Midvale and subsequenly quitting, Craig T. being struck by lightning, and me getting my fingers chopped off. Those were intense, thrilling, and hilarious days. And now, even today, every time I smell freshly-cut grass, I wish I could go back...
Really quickly before I get too terribly emotional, let's give our our weekly Shoutout, the Shoutout of the Week! This time it goes to Ryan Goulding, long-time Subscriber and frequent participant. Ryan, I suggest you find a way to watch the Mole. I do believe you would be entertained by it. Lots of suspicious activity...
Well that's about it for this week. You may submit material such as Questions, comments, or suggestions, but keep in mind that if your suggestions are lame, I will probably disregard them. (So much for that...)
Until next Time,
Move It! Sell It! And Leave the Door Open!
Aaron
12 comments:
Sure, I'll bite.
When a hive of honey bees grows too large for it's physical hive, it will divide in two and "Swarm". Basically, a second queen will be made and a bunch of workers and drones will follow it to a nearby tree branch, or the awning of a building. Then they send out "scouts" to find a place to make a new hive and once found, they will all move in. Now, this is not always convinient to the owner of the building hte hive is swarming on, so if in mid-swarm, you can often call a beekeeper who will more then happily come get some free bees. They will drop an empty hive and make it look appealing to the swarm, and then take them home, thus increasing his honey output. If you call a beekeeper about hornets or wasps, he'll tell you to pound salt. The solution to them is definitely poison.
On another note, Barack Obama's supporters don't know his policies either... that's why they support him. He does seem to incite the population. He is quite inspiring when you hear him speak. If I ignore the words I almost fall for it. Then I realize all he says is rederict, doesn't have a clue as to real solutions, doesn't understand the populous, and... well.. has bad policies. Now, let's all hope for change together.
By the way, I don't like McCain much either. This election depresses me.
As for your gas price idea, it assumes that individual gas stations have a significant markup on their gasoline, which they really don't. Sure, if they lower their prices they will get more business, but if they're taking a loss, that's not really a good thing, is it? The problems we are facing are not due to gas stations and (this will shock you) oil companies. It is due to a weak US dollar and high crude oil prices. Drilling domestically would solve both issues. Or we could go with Obama's "magical new technology" energy policy. I think I'm going to go hope for change.. cause that's all we'll have left in our pockets...
Another fun little tidbit of information:
Did you know that oil companies are actually taking a LOSS off of gasoline costs? We'll it's true. They are subsidizing the cost of consumer gasoline by upping the price of jet fuel because the airline industries are more able to absorb the increase of fuel costs. So, all the while we've been blaming windfall profits for high fuel costs (a crock), they've been doing us a favor. Aren't we a nice people?
Also, just wait for the airlines to fail.. THEN we'll have high gas prices.
How do you know so much stuff, Ammon? You truly amaze me... I smell "Two-Minute Instant Message..."
Haha.. I just pay attention is all, try to learn all I can about a situation so I can make my own decision on what to believe. I still feel inadequate most of the time. I need to read more.
Also, my dad was a beekeeper as I was growing up.
And I'll 2 min instant message you any time you want.
Chris Manning is reported to have said "lo siguiente," as they say in Spanish:
"Hi, Aaron. I've never replied to your emails before, but you've raised my ire. I am one of those liberal college students that has been brought out of hibernation by Senator Obama. The changes that he wants will help out middle class families by decreasing the tax cuts to upper class citizens and increasing them for the likes of you and me. He wants everyone in America to have access to affordable, efficient, preventative healthcare, which under our current, broken system seems almost laughable. He wants to make sure that our military is focusing more on the real threat, (Afghanistan, where Al-Queda operatives were trained) than on the created threat (Iraq, where Al-Queda didn't even exist until our Executive Branch said it did). And I think most importantly, he and other rising politicians want to raise the involvement of Americans (especially young Americans) in the political process, a fine goal in my opinion, be it ever so humble.
For the last time: Barack Hussein Obama is not Osama's homeboy. He is not a Muslim. He lived in Indonesia as a child, where his mother wanted him to be exposed to all facets of Indonesian culture, which included learning from the Koran once a week. But his beliefs are very much Christian. He attended Trinity (Something) Church in Chicago for twenty years. That is where he was married and where his children were baptised. These rumors that he is Islamic are an example of the "old politics," and trying to sway public opinion using fear and prejudice, which is much more effective than it ought to be.
And about your idea for using normal competition-based economics to lower gas prices: it would never work, and not because gas stations are greedy or anything of the sort, it is because their profit margins is sometimes less than a penny per gallon. When you factor credit card fees into the mix, most gas stations have a very slim margin to work with. That is why some have begun offering a lower price if you pay with cash, or a gas card.
I just thought I'd set you straight on those issues."
I already have a rebuttal flowing through my brain to Chris' comments. Alas, I am at work so I'll have to post it later....
Okay, here goes:
"The changes that he wants will help out middle class families by decreasing the tax cuts to upper class citizens and increasing them for the likes of you and me."
Okay, tax the rich and give to the poor. Seems like a great idea, I mean, Robin Hood did it, right? Well, unfortunately, our economy (capitalist) needs rich people to run. Why is that you ask? Well, let's talk about the wealthiest 1% of Americans. They make over $170,000 per year. They pay 40% of all income tax gathered by the federal government. Well, the intuitive thing to say is: well, good. They don't need all of that money anyway. Share the wealth. Well, here's why that isn't true. 2 out of every 3 three of those people are small business owners. Small businesses create jobs. Jobs are important to employees because it allows them to earn money. Getting the picture? By increasing taxes on the rich, you would be forcing companies to lay off employees that they could no longer afford. This HURTS the middle class. You just have to delve into the facts a little bit and it all starts to make sense.
Of course, if you are a communist, you don't care because you hate capitalism anyway. You just want to redistribute the wealth equally among everyone and we can all sing kumbaya. Obama seems to be one of these people. There are keywords to look for to find a socialist/Marxist. For example: it has been proven that raising the "corporate gains tax" actually decreases revenue to the government. It is a universally accepted fact. Even Hillary Clinton, when asked, said she would not raise the tax. Barack Obama, however, said he WOULD raise the tax. Out of 'Fairness'... There's the keyword. Trying to make things fair for everyone is a sure sign of a Marxist.
Other interesting tax statistics, and I'll quote conservative hate monger Glenn Beck: ""The Real Story" is that, believe it or not, according to the U.S. Treasury, the wealthiest 1 percent paid almost 40 percent of all the income taxes in 2005. That, by the way, is up 10 percent from everybody`s favorite, Bill Clinton. The wealthiest 5 percent paid almost 60 percent of the total tax bill in 2005. And the richest 10 percent paid over 70 percent. Every single one of those numbers is a record.
And if you want to take it in the other direction, the bottom 50 percent, half of this country, paid just 3 percent of the bill. That, by the way, is also a record. It`s an all-time low. Gosh, it just doesn`t seem like those Bush tax cuts are screwing the poor and serving cake to the rich, does it, like everybody claims?
I`m sorry to play Mr. Logical here and ask the question that everybody wants to ask, but, you know, they`re afraid to: If lower taxes mean more revenue -- a concept that it seems only true capitalists and conservatives, not Republicans, but conservatives and unbiased treasury data seem to understand -- what happens when you raise taxes and add billions of new spending at the same time? Doesn`t sound like a good idea."
Next Point:
"He wants everyone in America to have access to affordable, efficient, preventative healthcare, which under our current, broken system seems almost laughable."
You won't get an argument from me about whether or not the health care system is broken or not. It surely is. But universal health care is not the answer. I won't go into why at this time, but I refer you to 'http://freemarketcure.com/' so you can see what they have to say.
I will, however, say what *I* think is wrong with health care. I need to research it some more, but things seem solid in my head so far. The problem is Lawyers. Ambulance chasers. John Edwards and the likes. They sue doctors, often for stupid reasons, and take huge cuts from the settlements or court awarded damages. This causes doctors to spend out the ear in malpractice insurance so his life isn't over if a lawyer gets a bit twitchy at him. I live with a doctor (OB/GYN... ironically, the kind of doctor Edwards liked to hunt), you know one of those rich people in the top 1% (side note, he employs a few people in his office, and has to rent out clinic space). well, more than half of his income is taxed, and about half of what's left is paid out to malpractice insurance in case some kid gets diagnosed with ADHD and the parents decide to sue him for it. Why is the healthcare system broken? Too much money is going to to malpractice insurance, and too much money is going to Lawyers. I say the money should go to HEALTH CARE. That would lower costs. A lot.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Next point:
"He wants to make sure that our military is focusing more on the real threat, (Afghanistan, where Al-Queda operatives were trained) than on the created threat (Iraq, where Al-Queda didn't even exist until our Executive Branch said it did)."
Why did we go to Iraq again? We thought they had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Well, that turned out to be untrue. Sucks, eh? We thought they were there, other countries thought they were there, all the intelligence said it was there. How could we be so wrong? Because they wanted us to think that, so they fed us the information.
More correctly, they wanted Iran to think that. Suits us to be so self centered as to think it was only US they were worried about.
Iran (Persians) hates Iraq (mostly Arabs). And they were knocking on the door for a long time. Well, Saddam Hussein was afraid of Iran, so he inflated his arsenal to scare them off (or rather keep them at bay).
Well, then we came along and popped his bubble. And now Iraq is weak and, pretty much defenseless. Ripe for the picking, as it were. When we withdraw troops, I GUARANTEE Iran will invade. They already have had a few battles, and they opened a can on the Iraqi army that we are so proud of setting up.
I don't like us being there. Too many soldiers have died, we have been there too long, the reason for going in the first place was fictitious (Bush didn't lie, Hussein did), and it is a money pit. Some have called this an 'immoral' war. Well, how much more immoral would it be to destroy a country's defenses and abandon them to be taken over by their main enemy? That is why we should stay. Iran is the real threat here. This is a proxy war with them (most insurgents are funded and trained in Iran).
Point 4:
"And I think most importantly, he and other rising politicians want to raise the involvement of Americans (especially young Americans) in the political process, a fine goal in my opinion, be it ever so humble."
Worked on me. However what worked was seeing how dangerous the man was. Not to exclude McCain who is the slow train to Hell.
Point 5:
"For the last time: Barack Hussein Obama is not Osama's homeboy. He is not a Muslim."
I couldn't agree more. I hate when people claim this, and set them straight immediately. I deal in fact. The only way to win an argument is to be an honest broker. Spinning falsehoods only muddies your reputation.
Point 6:
"But his beliefs are very much Christian. He attended Trinity (Something) Church in Chicago for twenty years. That is where he was married and where his children were baptised."
I have a hard time considering Rev. Wright's church as Christian. It is based in Black Liberation Theology which was communism sneaking it's way into Christianity. I'm sick of typing, so I'll let someone smarter than I do the talking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cA0GEV1ibY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQuzyvHOl30
I don't disagree with anything he said about Gas. If you read/watched all this, you win a cookie.
Holy crap.
Sorry for taking over your blog...
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