Lincoln Logs, An Ape named Travis, a 5000 DOW, and mendacity.
Fellow American’s- What a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black. Home of the brave, land of the free; welcome to Freedonia, it’s Duck Soup. "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you’ll duck soup for the rest of your life." Groucho Marx.
Minister of Finance: Something must be done! War would mean a prohibitive increase in our taxes.
Chicolini: Hey, I got an uncle lives in Taxes.
Minister of Finance: No, I’m talking about taxes - money, dollars.
Chicolini: Dollars! There’s-a where my uncle lives! Dollars, Taxes!
Duck Soup, "a familiar American phrase that means anything simple or easy, or alternately, a gullible sucker or pushover"
The film Duck Soup opens with the flag of Freedonia (emblazoned with an "F") flying over the small village. The government of a "mythical kingdom" - the Balkan state of Freedonia, is suffering an emergency. It has gone bankrupt through mismanagement and is on the verge of revolution www.filmsite.org
Trend lines, hummed to the tune Feelin Good. Breeze drifting on by, You know how I feel , It’s a new a dawn, And a new day ..... AP 2/27/09 "A nofrill airline’s plans to install coin-operated restrooms aboard its planes sparks indignation — and jokes."
Dragon fly out in the sun, You know what I mean, Butterflies all having fun, Sleep in peace when day is done, That’s what I mean, World is a new world and a bold world for me. America the beautiful, mom’s apple pie, see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet, fat cats, trans fats, and Citigroup. Wall Street, packaged mortgage instruments, housing bubbles, sure bets credit card debt, no payments or interest till 2012, "Big Daddy," and taxpayer asset relief programs, a.k.a. "TARP." State governments, reckonings, federal bailouts ..."In one of the nation’s biggest controversies of its kind, 11 Georgia educators were caught holding advanced degrees from Saint Regis ".....U.S. authorities said Regis grants degrees based almost totally on "life experience.".... shopping malls, anchor stores, vacancies, Woolworth’s , Main Street, ghost towns, revolutions, and evolutions. Darwin, 200 year anniversaries, and a 200 lb. chimpanzee named Travis, "Travis the chimpanzee, a veteran of TV commercials, was the constant companion of a lonely Connecticut widow who fed him steak, lobster and ice cream," Made in China, Lincoln Logs, $21.99 at Walmart
Massachusets, Taxachusets, the textile industry, shoe manufacturers, the steel industry, the rust belt, and the Garden State. ."New Jersey is a state in crisis, but it goes far beyond the financial realm. The list of indicted and convicted public officials and tales of flagrant abuse, waste and mismanagement......", graveyards and last chances, " Ford Motor Co. closed its Edison, NJ, assembly plant last month, removing 900 jobs and a $70 million payroll from the area. According to the company, about 350 workers will retire and another 150 will transfer to jobs at Ford plants elsewhere in the country. The rest of the workers will be laid off, but will be paid their full salaries and benefits through 2007 under the union’s contract with Ford," ... " until it s hut down Ford’s Mahwah factory was the largest assembly plant in North America." Tone deaf, truffles, and farm animals, "The latest chapter in this book is the revelation that scores of N.J. school superintendents and district administrators have received taxpayer-funded pay increases after "purchasing" worthless online graduate degrees from fraudulent universities." The airline industry, TWA, Pan AM, cable, Nielsen ratings, GE, and the network Big Three. The DuMont Television Network..."also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont[a] was the world’s first commercial television network....... was hindered by the prohibitive cost of broadcasting..., and the Federal Communications Commission...."
Lockheed, McDonald Douglas, Boeing. "Boeing executives, bewildered at losing a multibillion-dollar contract for a fleet of refueling tanker aircraft to Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co...." .. shakeouts, the Rocky Mountain News, the New York Times- the paper of record, foreign investors, 14% interest and the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Commerce nominee Senator Jedd Gregg, earmarks, real estate profits, and inside information.
Packards, Rebels, Grand Torino’s , your father’s Oldsmobile and "widetracks", "...GM to Offically Kill Saturn, Most of Pontiac...", "Eendless Summer", baby boomers, the Beach Boys, The Daytonas, little GTO’s and Chevrolet 409’s .... "Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389" Californians, exodus, 10.1% unemployment and an 8.5% sales tax,..."Vallejo’s unions contend that the city is solvent enough to meet its obligations. But last Friday a court disagreed, holding that the city is eligible for bankruptcy protection" ... Deck chairs, the Titanic, bad luck, and blues great Albert King....... "VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – A rocket carrying a NASA satellite crashed near Antarctica after a failed launch early Tuesday, ending a $280 million mission to track global warming from space," the ship of state, tsunami’s, civil service pensions, "New York City’s Retired Librarians Are Getting Some of the State’s Biggest Pensions , After she retired as senior vice president for human resources from the NYPL in April 2008, Priscilla Southon earned the distinction of having the seventh highest pension in the state. Her pension comes to $188,846 a year."..."Pension Liabilities to Hit Local, State Governments, Warren Buffett Says in Letter"
Bernie Madoff , whistle blowers, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and oversight. "The US Census Bureau faces cost overruns up to $2 billion on an IT initiative replacing paper-based data collection methods with specialized handheld devices for the upcoming 2010 census." Zenith, RCA, Emerson and DuMont televisions, ....finger pointing, and the hundreds of economic and societal intangibles that go into the soup.
Car buying habits Push Poll
1. When I buy a car I like to choose from 50 manufacturers, like the way I buy chocolates.
2. I’m not a snob at all, I lust for that German engineering and road handling, true or false. "The Pontiac G8 GXP is a terrific, all-around sport sedan that runs with high-priced Germans. Its strong value message isn’t a qualifier either, just a bonus. Mention BMW’s seminal sport sedan and a Pontiac in the same breath? In this instance, without hesitation 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP - First Test - Motor Trend."
3. Who are these diehards that bring home one bad Detroit investment after another. Haven’t they heard? I prudently own a silver Toyota Camry.
4. The transmission went in my Lexus, fluky, I’m ready to try an Acura next.
Well, I left Kentucky back in ‘49
An’ went to Detroit workin’ on a ‘sembly line
The first year they had me puttin’ wheels on cadillacs
Every day I’d watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I’d hang my head and cry
’Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
5. The Acura is getting long in the tooth; now let’s sample a Korean car.
6. This new 2009 Nissan runs better then my 6 year old Chevy. It must be a superior car.
7. The car magazine writers stand on their heads and are excruciatingly fair.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I’d sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin’ caught meant gettin’ fired
But I figured I’d have it all by the time I retired
I’d have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
[CHORUS]
I’d get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime
You’ll know it’s me when I come through your town
I’m gonna ride around in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
’Cause I’ll have the only one there is a round.
8. If One of the Big Three had tried suicide and stood up to the UAW 40 years ago, we’d have one less car company to bail out now, true or false.
9. I’m an Atlantic City firefighter ( the diarist lives near A.C.), the "brothers" in Vallejo, California make even more then we do (average salary $171,000). My reps. gotta shoot for one last, nice pay increase before the well runs dry. A lot of the guys in the "house" love our Tundra pick-ups, Texas built.
10. Those UAW s.o.b’s get $70 an hour, and I only bill my clients $400. I like the new Audi A-8 I saw in that brochure in the men’s toilet. Hmmm, the guy’s in the firm might be impressed?
11. I make $17 an hour at Home Depot; I go out of my way to not buy Detroit.
12. We‘re the UAW and it’s one minute to midnight. We’ll just sit tight.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn’t miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an’ bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy’s mobile home
13. The billionaire T-Boone Pickens can predict the price of oil next month, and I’ve got some commodity futures I’d like to sell you.
14. I’m a baby boomer. When I was twenty it was so cool to drive a VW Bug, when I was 30 I drove a Civic, when I was 40 we had three foreign cars at the same time, when I was 50 I convinced my parents about the merits of a foreign car and the demerits of that staid Grand Marquis. Now I’m 60, and I just lost my job. I don’t need the Mercedes G-class or the boat.
15. I’m a gangsta’, bitch!, we saved Cadillac.
16. Wow what a gorgeous car? What’s a Malibu? (It's a Chevrolet!)
Now, up to now my plan went all right
’Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that’s when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a ‘53
And the motor turned out to be a ‘73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin’ just like a song
Now the headlight’ was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of ‘em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that’s when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin’ for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn’t laugh
’Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
[CHORUS]
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn’t cost me a dime
You’ll know it’s me when I come through your town
I’m gonna ride around in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
’Cause I’ll have the only one there is around.
[Spoken] Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it’s cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it? Johny Cash, "One Piece at a Time"
17 (and last year when things were still looking pretty good) "Frank Vassallo IV of Wilmington, Delaware, just bought license plate number 6 for $675k at auction, and admittedly was prepared to spend up to a million. His family already owns Delaware plates 9."
18. 3/1/09 Headlines. "Two prominent publications have now published comparisons pitting the Fusion Hybrid against its Toyota competition, and the Ford has won both."
Am I pissing into the wind? Aren't we all? Shelf life for an excellent diary: couple of hours, a dog of a diary; 5 minutes- or less.