Let’s just hope that the legislature sees it as an open issue, too.

Silly Mr. Leeeeee who wrote that rant claims there’s no person at the North Pole named “Santa Clause.”

Just like there’s no guy in the White House named “George W. Bushe.”

Seriously… If you’re going to rant about something, at least spell it right.

And… did you have to be so darned mean?

(Thanks, Laura!)

I pondered this for many moons. And last night, I finally understood why there aren’t any conservatives ranting about McCain this or Obama that:

It’s because we’re conservative.

Duh.

Where are the right-wing loudmouths? You wanna’ talk about the definition of oxymoron…

In general (with exceptions, of course), it’s because we’re naturally disinclined to share our opinion. We keep our values and opinions close to the chest because we’re (get this, now) conservative. And that’s why Tom Cruise and Madonna and their ilk suck up the headlines. It’s because there’s no competition!

Not that they’d get any headlines even if there were…

I just hope all these silent majority show up at the polls this November.

Stop selling!

Don’t you idiots know that the best way to drive a market into the ground is to sell, sell, sell?! That increasing supply lowers prices?!

What the heck do you expect to do with the proceeds of your sales? Invest in worthless bonds? Or put your money away in a bank so that inflation can destroy it for you?

Good God, people! Look at the bargains out there and buy, buy, buy!!

Nobrain and Numbnuts were on and, since they were wearing Link TV T-shirts, I assume they are somehow associated with LinkTV. They were being interviewed by Talkingheadinasuit who was throwing them softballs.

Nobrain declared that “You could be in the military and learn stuff, like throwing grenades and shooting things, but that’s not a job with real-world skills.” Numbnuts then said something about a group of kids who had “started a document, a manifesto,” and I had to change channels. (Red Dawn on MGM, if you must know. How fitting.)

I wish I could have told them that I went to school to learn how to be an electrical engineer, that I did learn how to be an electrical engineer. That the United States Air Force paid me to do so. That the USAF then hired me to work for them. That I did nothing in the USAF that didn’t help me in my current job as an electrical engineer. That in my training, I learned exactly nothing about grenades, though I did learn how to shoot a 0.38 special (how’s that for firepower?!). And that my job when I graduated was, strangely enough, a job in the “real world.” My boss just happened to be the USAF.

What Nobrain doesn’t realize, of course, is that there’s a lot more to being in the military than shooting guns and throwing grenades. Somebody has to lead, nay, manage these gunslingers and grenade-hurlers, for one. And then there are a bunch of people who have to support those people on the front line, and those jobs require specific, skilled knowledge with real-world applicability. Furthermore, these support personnel require leaders, er, managers, too, who have also done those real-world jobs in the very-real military.

I maintain that if these military jobs aren’t real-world jobs, providing real-world experience (and from which you can retire with real-world retirement benefits), then there is no way in hell that Nobrain and Numbnuts could convince me that a community organizing, lawyering lecturer can possibly have the right stuff, the experience, to be the leader of the free world.

So McCain’s not your cup of tea? At least he has done something. And, for those of you who don’t think the military is the “real world,” remember that people in the military are fighting, bleeding, and providing deterrence in their “pretend” world to protect your very-real butts.

The subject article doesn’t come out and say it, so I will:

If you want money to go towards a good cause, just give the money to the good cause and skip the middleman.

You’re just getting the same product at a higher price, and someone else decides how much money goes towards the cause.

And takes your tax deduction.

Investment: In finance, the purchase of a financial product or other item of value with an expectation of favorable future returns. In general terms, investment means the use [of] money in the hope of making more money.

And here’s another definition for you, this time from The Free Dictionary:

gam·ble (gmbl) n. 2. An act or undertaking of uncertain outcome; a risk: I took a gamble that stock prices would rise.

I abridged the definition, and, no, I did not make up that example! And since gamblers count on making more than they lose, I can’t really tell much difference between the two definitions.

To recap:

If you consider yourself an investor and you have money tied up in the stock market, you’re a fool, because expectations don’t generally influence reality.

If you have money tied up in the stock market and you consider yourself to be a gambler, you’re on the right track.

So when your shares in Wachovia took a nosedive today, as mine did (what was worth five figures last month is now worth only a few hundred bucks), consider yourself unlucky today, and better luck next time!

Three letters and one punctuation mark summarize my opinion:

WTF?