Suck On This | Leaf Blowers Are Nuisance Polluters

Because the State of California has more drivers than any other state in the country (at last count the official tally of registered vehicles was approximately 31,799, 398) the legislature forces almost everyone to obtain a passing biennial smog certification.

Given the number of drivers, reduction of automotive emissions should strike anyone who enjoys breathing as simple common sense. But astonishingly enough, the State has no interest in ridding our environment of one of the biggest polluters on the planet. I’m talking about the noisy, smelly, gasoline-powered, dirt/dust/debris redistribution appliances known as leaf blowers.

Instead of banning these botherations outright, the State Legislature leaves it up to the individual muncipalities to decide. I suppose I could understand this hands-off approach from any other legislature, but you see, the State of California sticks its regulatory nose into pretty much every facet of life from professional services like legal advice to Mom-‘N-Pop owned business such as food catering.  In either case, you’ll need a license to set up shop, and every year thereafter, you will need to otherwise jump through hoops and pay the annual license fee.

But wait a sec -you may say:

The State has an abiding interest in protecting consumers from con artists and food poisoning.  It’s only right that these professions are regulated.

Oh well allow me to retort:

If the State has such an abiding interest, then why are the worst stinking polluters still in operation in much of the State?

Doesn’t the legislature have an identical abiding interest in keeping the air safe for consumers to breathe?  Clearly, this fact was recognized long ago otherwise motorists would not have to obtain and pass a smog check every other year in order to register their vehicles.

Since most of us reside in large, metropolitan areas, you can gain a clear understanding as to how much pollution you’re breathing in if you consider that leaf blowers are used by nearly every city, commercial & residential property all day, every day.

Think of all the times you have been relaxing (or trying to) on a lazy afternoon enjoying the (somewhat) quietude and one of these stinky/noisy polluters rambles by coating your vehicle, patio and lungs with poisonous dust that is best left on the ground.  It’s bad enough you have to hear car alarms going off, but leaf blowers serve absolutely no constructive purpose whatsoever and yet we are forced to accept that the deadly vapor being spewed into our air is a service.

The sad fact is that as long as the State Legislature leaves it up to local government, there is no escaping from leaf blowers no matter where you go. And in the meantime, we continue to have our respiratory systems assaulted at every turn.

Fact

With a muzzle velocity of 150mph, gasoline-powered leaf blowers blow herbicides, pesticides, and fecal contaminants up from the ground into the air causing respiratory distress for asthmatics & allergy sufferers, and, otherwise increase the threat to everyone else including children, seniors and those with a compromised immune system.

Fact

A gasoline-powered leaf blower generates as much tailpipe emissions in one hour as an automobile does over 100 miles. The difference is that a car emits all that pollution over a big stretch of road, while a leaf blower deposits it all in one back or front yard. A two-stroke commercial blower generates 277 lbs. of volatile organic compounds, 825 lbs. of carbon monoxide and 3.3 lbs.of particulates per year.

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Fact

A gas-powered leaf blower creates up to 70 decibels of nerve-racking noise at 50 feet, disturbing children’s naps, school classrooms, and home offices. This noise pollution is disturbing to people who work at home, or work at night and sleep during the day. Noise pollution from blowers also scares our local wildlife, especially birds. Cal OSHA allows only 20 minutes of aggregate daily exposure to a noise level over 100 decibels, while most gardeners run their blowers at 109 for most of the day. Clearly, most gardeners use leaf blowers far in excess of the level Cal OSHA recommends as safe to the operator.

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The Landscaping/Gardening Industry Chimes In

The standard refrain from gardeners is that they would have to increase their rates if they couldn’t use their blowers. Yet there’s no evidence of that happening in Los Angeles, or any other cities that have banned blowers. In none of the cities which have already banned blowers is there any evidence of resulting tax increases, or of financial hardship to gardeners.

Summary

While it is true that manufacturers have introduced leaf blowers that operate at noise levels between 65 & 70 decibels (as opposed to older models that operate at 70 db and higher) along with reduced emissions to comply with new federal EPA standards,  the fact remains that leaf blowers are a nuisance polluter simply because they kick up contaminants/toxins from the street into our lungs.

There is no guarantee that environmentally-friendly leaf blowers are even being used by industry in the first place. There is just no way to enforce it.  Secondly, older non-environmental models retail for around $450.00 vs. the new models coming in at $750.00. Which model do you think the small landscaping business owner employing illegal labor is more likely to purchase?

But even so, using a newer, more expensive model is like saying that since my vehicle has passed a smog check every other year for the past decade to meet stringent California reduced emission standards that this therefore makes it safe to inhale the fumes. You wouldn’t want to suck on the tailpipe while the motor is running, but that is essentially what we are doing each time a leaf blower is used.

Leaf blowers should be banned at the State government level period.  There is no compelling reason -financial, economic, or otherwise- why they should even be for sale.  In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find anything gas-powered that hits the gross polluter trifecta as thoroughly.

Leaf blowers are noisy, smelly, and dangerous to our health on so many levels that it boggles the mind how an allegedly emissions conscious state like California can continue to ignore the problem at the same time it forces motorists to have their vehicles smog checked.

All leaf blowers do is generate pollution and blow particulate matter from point A to point B.  Blowing it up from the ground does not remove it.  It does, however, cause it to be inhaled.  If removing dirt/leaves/debris is the goal, then these chuckleheads with the industrial strength hairdryers should be given a push broom and a dust pan.

The only reason I have personally seen for leaf blower usage in Southern California is so that unskilled laborers (almost always illegal immigrants) can have a job with a commercial landscaping company. It’s high time for both leaf blowers and illegal laborers to go.

©2011 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™ with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Below referenced is a four minute video showing fugitive dust created by blower use. Voiceover by Peter Graves recites facts cited by Orange County Grand Jury Report, as well as the findings of leaf blower studies.

References

Take action

California Environmental Protection Agency AIR RESOURCES BOARD: The Potential Health & Environmental Impacts of Leaf Blowers

Un-Resolutions for the New Year

Since most of us start out with ideal intentions, only for our perseverance to fizzle out like the financial stability of a crack whore, I decided to create a list of realistic resolutions that have a significantly greater chance of being adhered to than the usual bullshit goals we make then promptly blow off.

5.  Get More Sleep

Right. Like the trade deficit, the work-balance equation is vastly askew. Americans are the most overworked developed nation on the planet.  It’s very simple.  If you would like to keep your job, then you must obey your corporate master.

Piss on your health.

Piss on your family time.

Just keep working you worthless, grabbastic, piece of amphibian shit, or you won’t have your piddly income much longer. The spice must flow. And if you want to keep buying all that Chinese crap you tell yourself that you need, get cracking. The American Dream (what’s left of it) is the new slavery.

4. Pay Off Credit Cards

Let’s face facts here, Imelda. Wages have stagnated in a Big Way™.  Most of us working slobs haven’t had a meaningful raise in the past 30+ friggen years. And yet Americans continue to obey their televisions encouraging them to consume ever increasing amounts of shit from China. If you ever pulled your head out of your ass long enough to investigate the reality of the trade deficit, your head would explode.

You aren’t gonna pay off your credit cards any more diligently than you’re gonna lose that wideload ass of yours because Americans have been brainwashed from the cradle to think less and to just charge it! As a result, we are incapable of living within our means. Do yourself a favor and don’t even try to kid yourself that you’re going to tighten your belt. Unless you lose your job, you won’t do it.

3.  Get Organized

Let’s call a spade a spade here, shall we?  Organization is for people who are too lazy to look for their shit.  ‘Nuf said. Moving on…

2.  Lose Weight

Alright, Baby Huey – you & I both know that you’re going to start out with rice cakes and water, and, this brilliant strategy will last for about 30 hours before your stomach lets you know in no uncertain terms that the diet doesn’t have a snowball’s hope in hell of any kind of sustainability.

Before you know it, you’ll have your head in the fridge at midnight stuffing your pie hole with whatever nasty, high fructose corn syrup laden shit you can find, which won’t be difficult since most everything in our food supply contains HFCS these days. So you may as well just get it over with and admit to yourself (and to the rest of us pie-in-the-sky fools) right here right now that the only weight you’re going to lose is the thousands of brain cells you’re going to kill off on New Year’s Eve by drinking enough Jägermeister to kill a moose.

///

1.  Exercise More

OK, look.  It’s kind of cute that you tell yourself  you want to exercise more -as IF you’ve been  on any kind of regularly scheduled routine all along- but the reality of the situation is that you’re a fat bastard.  And you’re always gonna BE a fat bastard. But it’s alright because the wider our asses get, the wider our automobiles & beds become. (California King, anyone?)  Hey, we’re Americans! We consume.  It’s what we do.

So quit telling yourself that you’re going to spend more time at the gym on the ass-blaster or be more dedicated to performing P90X because you know it has all the likelihood of that fucktarded boss of yours stroking out and you getting his job.  FaGET about it!  Ain’t gonna happen, tubbie. Have another serving of super sized fries with your 40 gallon drum of diet soda and STFU about it already.

©2010 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™ with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

So You Want An Oil Change

One humid, summer day back in the late 90s, I took my vehicle to a department store  automotive center for a standard oil & filter change.  I had taken the car there numerous times before, and, was confident in their ability to do the job correctly.  (Famous last words.)

I dropped the car off and then killed time walking around the store while the work was performed.  Approximately, an hour or so later, the car was ready. I paid the bill, the tech (and I use the term loosely) handed me the key and off I went.

The car started right up just as it always had.  I put it in drive and got about 50 FT before the motor made a horrible, coughing, death rattle sound and then just died right in front of the store, white smoke billowing out from under the hood.

Confused, I ran back to the automotive department and told the tech who had handed me the keys that the car just died.  He stared at me blankly for a moment and then went back to enlist some help in pushing the car back into the garage.

As I stood at the front desk quietly fuming, I watched three techs peering intently under the raised hood, mumbling incoherently amongst themselves.  Several minutes later, the three of them came back to the front desk to explain what had just happened.  What ensued was like a lost Three Stooges episode.

Moe:  (scratching his ear)Um…there isn’t any oil in the motor.

Me:  What?! (eyes rolling up into head)

Larry:  Uhhhh, there isn’t any oil in the motor.

Me:  Let me get this straight…I brought the car in for an oil CHANGE, you drained it (voice gaining decibels) but you didn’t put any BACK IN??? AND you gave me back the keys????  What the FUUUUUUUUUUUCCK!

There had been at least 6 people sitting in the waiting area waiting for their vehicles while this was occurring. After hearing my voice, they all stood up and walked towards the desk to watch the show.

Curly:  Uhhhhh….yeah. (Stammering & flustered)  I mean, no!  Ummmm…I drained the oil, but I thought that HE (pointing to Larry) put the oil back in!

Larry:  Me?? But YOU were the one who drained it!  I thought YOU put the oil back in.  It’s HIS fault (pointing at Moe) for giving you back your keys!

Moe:  Me?? But YOU guys were doing the job! I was just standing here! How should I know what you’re doing back there! I’m just the front counter guy!

Me:  (breathing out slowly speaking quietly) OK…Get whoever is in charge of this department out here NOW.

Turns out, the guy in charge was the guy who gave me the keys.

Me:  Here’s what you’re going to do to fix this fuckup:

1. ) You’re going to replace the motor.  FREE of charge on parts AND labor.

Moe:  (interrupting) We can’t do that.

Me: (ignoring Moe)

2. ) While my car is in the shop, you will pay for a rental car for me to use for however   long I am without my vehicle.

Larry:  But. You can just use the fourteen footer out back here.

Me:  (ignoring Larry)  Here’s what’s going to happen if you don’t: After I sue your employer, I will personally ensure that none of you ever work as automotive technicians EVER again in this state. By the time I finish with you, you’ll be lucky to get a job cleaning the head at Mickey Ds.

Curly:  Uhhhh….but. I don’t know if you can do that.

Suffice it to say, the store paid the dealership for a motor, the labor to install it, and, the cost of a numerous rental vehicles for the 3 months it took them to generate payment to fix the mess.

I got a brand, spanking new motor put into a car that had 80k miles on it at the time. And I’ve never gone back to that particular automotive department since.  Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

©2010 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™ with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Policy of Truth

A relationship has the ability to be either a blessing or a curse, it all depends on the quality of character of the parties involved.  No reasonable person enters into a relationship with the intention of hurting the other person, and yet it still happens anyway.  Why is that?  What can be done to prevent misunderstandings and hard feelings? The simple fact of the matter is that regardless of how hard you may work to avoid it, someone will always end up with bruised feelings.

I have always been under the impression (and a firm believer in) that a healthy relationship lives or dies as to whether the lines of communication are always open.  After all, love is built on trust, but in order for there to be trust, honesty must exist first.  But when it comes to telling the truth, honesty can sometimes be an elusive, mythical creature.  Or a four letter word depending on who you ask.

Not everyone is (or wants to be) honest.  This does not necessarily make them a bad person per se, but still -in my opinion- if your integrity is precarious, then this is not exactly a ringing endorsement of your emotional fitness to deserve the love, trust & fidelity of another human being.

While some may have convinced themselves that they are on the up-and-up, the reality is closer to say that their idea of honesty is only applicable as long as it doesn’t open up any inconvenient doors that will need to be qualified or explained. This is largely due to the fact that some people are deathly allergic to the self-examination process that spawns honesty.  They aren’t honest with themselves, so how could they possibly be straight-up with another person?

I suppose this is a fine way to be provided that you don’t give a shit as to the quality of your relationship or feel the need to trust the person who is supposedly in love with you.  But it is breathtakingly staggering to me the mental gymnastics that some will perform in order to avoid having to come clean.

I am flabbergasted and flummoxed all at the same time because no matter how simplistic the truth may seem to the one doing the asking, to the person wanting to avoid having to tell it, every question represents an exceedingly unpleasant experience.  Some would say,  it is a kind of badgering.  But how many times have you ever -either presently or past tense- tried to have a sit-down with someone that you thought you knew intimately, with the intention of getting to the “heart” of a particular matter, only to be shot down and put off with excuse after excuse?

How many times did you hear that you just weren’t being sufficiently understanding or even listening? Well, as the old adage goes, the best defense is a good offense, so I call foul on being accused of being an asshole for not understanding or listening to the bullshit excuses some people spin and have every expectation that it turn into gold.

Some will say that love is blind, but this particular quaint saying is what I like to refer to as happy horseshit.  That whole “blind” routine may be cute for about the first ten years, but if you want any kind of substantive relationship, then you’re going to have to take off the blinders at some point and man up to the fact that your beloved darling may not be quite what s/he promised.

Put simply, a little truth-in-advertising would go a long way towards having all the information needed to render the verdict as to whether maintaining the relationship is a “yea” or “nay.”  And while you would like to give the other party the benefit of the doubt, sometimes this is not always possible, prudent or even healthy.  Sometimes the survival (and lasting quality) of a relationship hangs in the balance on a simple admission of truth.

©2010 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™ with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Success Victim

Ever use Twitter?  I didn’t see a use for it until fairly recently.  Check out Prattle here if you haven’t already.  Bottom line, it gives my blog that much more exposure on the web, and, exposure is good.  But within the past month, there have been all sorts of outages, delayed tweets and other assorted problems that never seem to be resolved.

Beginning last week, I’ve been attempting to create an account for another blog, and the site just sits there in two different browsers refusing to advance to the next page.  In Firefox, there aren’t any error messages per se, the page simply refuses to budge after “create account” is clicked.  In MSIE, the word “error” is visible in the taskbar.

This problem is currently not addressed anywhere in the FAQ, or the blog, and, even if you attempt to directly contact Support (and I use that term loosely since most support departments are about as useful as tits on a bull), using the on-site form you can’t even send a message because that particular page also does not work.  Essentially, it is the same issue – after you click “send,” the page just sits there.

Arent’cha glad you probably don’t use Twitter?

Senior Moment with Firefox

If you have FF remember passwords, then never check the box for saved passwords under settings to clear when the browser closes.  You will lose your fscking mind wondering WHY the fscking passwords don’t load when you restart the browser.  Eventually, it will occur to you to check the Mozilla Forum, where you will determine that it’s not the Mozilla developers being the dumbass, it’s you.

CareerBuilder Can Blow Me

Just when I thought job hunting advice could not possibly become anymore ridiculous comical nonsensical bizarrely, astonishingly, breathtakingly, frelling STUPID,  CareerBuilder published an article today entitled, Is To Whom It May Concern the Kiss of Death?

LMAO.  I have to seriously wonder what kind of weed Rachel Zupek now Farrell was smoking when she wrote the piece because clearly, it wasn’t quality stuff or else she would know what any stoner, or, for that matter, what anyone who has ever had to look for a job already does.

Hey Rachel?  Listen babe,  maybe you  previously worked in an HR Department (this would explain your cluelessness); or maybe you are simply a freshly minted college grad, and, Uncle Richie knew the hiring manager at the company and, that’s how you got your first job EVAH.  But I have to tell you that dispensing the kind of idiotic guidance you did today with your bitchin’, 1980 Way Back Advice Generator Device to job seekers facing double digit national unemployment numbers was like showing up to an Obama rally dressed in your best Klan linen.  You were lucky all you received was a civilized lambasting. What you deserved was to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

If you are surprised by the thorough thrashing that was administered by the majority of comments to your article, then you really ought to rethink the whole career advice giving gig; it’s not your thing.  At all.  Seriously.  Pull your head out of your ass.  You’re embarrassing Uncle Richie.

No HR Department and/or hiring manager gives a good shit about what the salutation in a cover letter is or is not these days because for every single job that is even available, there is a herd of applicants lined up around a city block waiting for it.

An applicant can address the cover letter to Dear Ass Muncher, and, the company would never notice it because that isn’t what gets the eyeball time or even the interview.  If you had any real world job hunting experience whatsoever, (and after this particular column, I have to believe that you do not) you would know that generating an interview is approximately 50% luck with a fair smattering of equal parts buzzwords, salary history and who the applicant blows knows at the company.   If you don’t have any luck, buzzword inclusion, the proper low-balled salary or a point of contact (like say an Uncle Richie who knows the hiring manager) then yer shit outta luck, as my Gramma used to say.

They don’t want you calling for the name of the hiring manager, the HR Department contact or ANYBODY in the friggen company.  THAT’s why it wasn’t included in the ad in the first place, you silly twat.

The person who placed the ad wasn’t being cute, coy or mysterious.  They were instructed not to include anything above or beyond what they did because the company does not want job seekers to know who the hell will be looking at the thousands upon thousands of resumes from college graduates that will be submitted for the part-time job scrubbing the toilets in the head.  There aren’t enough permanent, full-time employees left to answer all the phone calls asking about the job because they’ve all been pink slipped.  If you didn’t have your head wedged quite so far up between your cheeks then you’d know all this, darlin’.

People who write advice columns for a living like Rachel Zupek probably never had to experience a serious job hunt and that’s why she pulls her recommendations out of her ass.  But I would submit to all the job counselor shitheads living in their ivory towers made of HR fluff and bullshit that before they write an article instructing others how to look for a job, that they first do it themselves following their own polished turds of advice.  Then they can report back to the rest of us with the quantified and qualified results.

Update (2013-07-25)

Well, it has only taken Ms. Zupek three (3) years to come back with what she (and her readers) evidently imagine is a witty retort – better late than never, eh Rache?

Oh and by the by, a big thanks for all the extra traffic.  You’re a peach for being so thoughtful.

Unclaimed Property in California

Have lost your job due to the fraudulent shenanigans perpetrated by Goldman Sachs, et al.?

Have you lost your home that was appraised at the half million mark and is now worth less than dog shit?

Have you exhausted your unemployment insurance?

Are you now living out on the street because your government doesn’t give a damn about Main Street nearly as much as it loves to fellate Wall Street bankers and shitty American car manufacturers?

You could be one of the millions of Californians owed money by the State because your crazy ass Uncle Louie did not bother to leave a will, and, as a result, left the contents of his safe deposit box unclaimed.

The State of California is currently in possession of more than $5.7 billion in Unclaimed Property belonging to approximately 11.6 million individuals and organizations.

If you are a resident of the Golden State, don’t rob 14 banks in south county because your UI has expired and you need to feed your family.  Check out the State Controller’s Office Unclaimed Property Division, instead.

Crazy California’s Everything Must Go Sale!

Are you in need of a few passenger school buses?  How about an industrial sized fryer?  Couple dozen computers?  You can find it all at Crazy California’s Everything Must Go Fire Sale!

Having over-leveraged itself in public pension monies, and, just generally pissing away revenue without regard for the future, the State, including the City of San Diego, must now sell off everything from its law enforcement equine and canine forces to public school supplies and everything in between.

As long as you are willing to travel to the west coast to pick up your property, you can start Internet bidding on San Diego property here.

PS:

The city is still considering its Spanos family billionaire bailout program and hopes to build the Bolts a brand new stadium on the taxpayer dime!

Fun Factoid:

I borrowed the “crazy” part from the  infamous Crazy Eddie commercials.

Crazy Eddie sold consumer electronics in the New York – Jersey – PA area and the retailer’s commercials were everywhere on the TV back in the 80s in the Tri-State region.

Jerry Carroll was the well known face of the franchise, but he was just the actor in the commercials.

Tastes Like Ass

Leaving a stick of butter out of the fridge -even in a cutesy, pretty, overpriced crystal dish- has adverse effects on the butter even if it doesn’t go bad and cause food poisoning when ingested.

Resolution Reflections

I don’t usually bother with New Year resolutions because I don’t need a grandiose event to resolve to change something in my life.  However, if I am pressed to provide one in order to fit in with the rest of Facebook society, then my resolution is to stop listening to and reading any economic forecasting predicted for the upcoming year.

The Magic 8-ball has a better chance of predicting the economic future of the United States than any so called experts.  All we really know for sure is that anyone who has to work for a living (and who isn’t in the banking or automotive industry) is deeply, desperately (and probably irrevocably) fucked for at least the next decade due to the greedheads who caused the current recession.

That some of the banksters have paid back a piddly fraction of the Great Taxpayer Bailout of 2008 monies is irrelevant because the damage is done.   State and national unemployment levels remain in the double digits and will probably stay that way since the entire American economy has been a house of cards built on consumer debt for as long as I’ve been alive.

We no longer manufacture anything (except shitty gas guzzlers); Big Bu$ine$$ remains firmly in control of the federal government, and salaries on Main Street haven’t kept pace with cost of living and inflation for the past forty years.  Meanwhile, Obama gets a version of the healthcare bill on the Congre$$ional table,  and, true to SOP for the overpaid clusterfuck known as Congress,  it is nothing but a giant, steaming pile.   BTW, Congress is the only other government entity that makes the California State Legislature look productive and functional.

Included in a bill filled with numerous negatives guaranteed to FUBAR the situation even worse than it already is, the only positive is the inclusion of preexisting conditions.    It would seem to me that if the Congressional aristocracy truly wanted to “fix” the healthcare debacle in this country they would have either put laws in place to return healthcare to the pre-Nixon Administration days of being about people instead of profits, or, in the alternative, simply included every single citizen on its own 24k gold plated bennies plan.  The billions already spent bailing out Obama’s Wall Street buddies -not to be confused with the Deciderer’s buddies- could have easily covered every man, woman and child in the U.S.

But then what am I saying here – This is America.  Unless the recipient is a member of Congress, healthcare isn’t about covering anyone’s health needs;  It’s about providing services to whomever can afford it,  bitches loud and long enough to get it, or, who falls into a politically expedient category.   Everyone else can suck it, Trebek.

Healthcare recipients seem to fall into four main categories:

1. Those whose employer sponsored  health insurance has never been put to the test as with a catastrophic illness are happy, along with the providers,  to keep the status quo;
2. Retired and enjoying taxpayer subsidized services via Medicare;
3. Downtrodden and enjoying taxpayer subsidized services via Medicaid;
4. Everyone else.

With these kind of stats, the new national motto should be:  The United States:  Better healthcare than Somalia!

The late, great George Carlin used to say that the delusion we’re all brainwashed to believe by the plantation owners from cradle to grave is called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Excuse Me Waiter?

Mission Viejo, CA resident, Phil Hodousek, was surprised to find a condom in his mouth one, sunny Sunday during brunch at Claim Jumper with his family.

In a complaint filed with the Orange County Superior Court, Mr. Hodousek says he ordered a bowl of french onion soup as an appetizer and shortly after he began eating it, thought he felt a piece of cheese on the side of his mouth. When he couldn’t chew it into pieces, he spit the cheese into a napkin, and, upon closer inspection, realized it was a condom.

Upon having been notified of the incident, Claim Jumper management told him that the item was a rubber glove used by the kitchen prep crew, but Hodousek says it was clearly a condom.

Hodousek has since had the condom tested by a lab and the results have revealed the presence of female DNA.

According to the court docket, a Case Management Conference has been set for January 4, 2010.

Good luck to Mr. Hodousek with his lawsuit.

It will be a frosty day in Hell before I ever eat another meal at a Claim Jumper restaurant.

The Day After

Black Friday. No other concept seems to be more ridiculous or emblematic of contemporary American society. Whether it’s good or bad depends on which side of the sales counter you’re standing. But we’ll get to that in a sec.

Historically, the words, “black Friday” used to mean exclusively the Wall Street Crash of 1929. But during the eighty (80) year stretch that has gone by since, the American economy has experienced numerous crashes and panics to the extent where we don’t even think about it anymore. We just deal as we are dealing now and the bailouts keep onnnnn coming.

Boom and bust cycles have been engineered by design into our economy by the creation of two financial institutions that are neither public nor part of the federal government, but whose names include the word “federal” in order to hoodwink the uninformed American taxpayer into thinking they are.

I’m referring to, of course, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, better known as the Fed and the FDIC. Two privately held entities that our economy lives or dies by. Currently, it’s dying. The economy, that is. For those of us that don’t make a living as an executive officer in either the banking or automotive industries, there will be no million dollar bonus in our Christmas stockings.

GM and the “too big to fail” bankers Goldman Sachs et al. are doing just fine thanks to the great taxpayer sponsored bailout of 2008. This round of corporate welfare currently comes in at $700 billion and counting, but it could end up costing us as much as $2 trillion.

But don’t take my word for it. If you want a fascinating explanation of the current manufactured fiscal crises and how we got here, then I highly recommend you read Bailout Nation and The Creature from Jekyll Island.

Upon reading these books, you’ll laugh (Like a lunatic in desperate need of thorazine.) You’ll flatulate. Your eyeballs will hemorrhage and pop out of your sockets. Your anal sphincter will pucker. You may even experience simultaneous explosive diarrhea and vomiting. But most of all, you will weep. Uncontrollably. And not even the FDA and CDC approved scam that is known as the swine flu vaccination will help you.

But returning to our topic, Black Friday now simply means this:

And this –

And this.

Personally, I am unable to think of anything more farcical and absurd than standing on a long ass line during the ass crack of dawn in 20°F (-7°C) for a freakin’ X-box or some other item whose availability was deliberately held back so as to create demand and justify jacking up the price tag.

If the average American had a firm grasp of the concept of supply and demand instead of spend and charge it, then those of us who have to work for a living would probably have a hell of a lot better representation in both Houses of Congress. As it currently stands, we’ve got a two party system whose members are indistinguishable from each other on either side and who represent the highest bidder.

It’s ironic. The governments of other developed nations are afraid of pissing off the voters because they fear the people. But instead of holding the “leaders” accountable for their actions, we here in the good, ol’ U.S. of A. go shopping.

I will be spending Black Friday as I usually do. On the couch leaning against my comfy backrest pillow with a good book and/or watching the boys, and, otherwise letting the rest of yooze fight it out amidst the aisles and pallets filled with Chinese manufactured junk at the local crapmart.

Enjoy! I’ll be thinkin’ ’bout ‘cha.

NB: Watch out for the dude who just took a dump in the water fountain.

Sing it, Chrissie.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Caller ID Blues

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Is it just me or does it drive you as batshit crazy when someone rings your line with a blocked number, gets the voicemail, but doesn’t bother to leave a message?

I have a policy – I don’t take live calls from blocked numbers. Period.

The only exemption is if I know in advance that you have a blocked number and that you’ll be ringing the phone. Case in point: I have a friend with a private number and when the caller ID displays “private,” I know it’s usually a legit call. There is the occasional exception, but all these other chuckleheads who call up with “unavailable” displayed on the phone’s L.E.D.? Fahgetaboutit.

The reason I have an unpublished number and caller ID is so that I can avoid the likes of undesirable sales types phoning to waste my time, and, “unavailable” is inevitably what they ring up as. Ironic, isn’t it? They don’t want to reveal their ID, but yet assume their recipients will take the call because why?

Note to all the folks out there with the “unavailable” numbers – I’m probably not the only person on the planet who doesn’t answer blocked numbers, so, no dice, pal. Either unblock your number OR at the very least, if the option exists, then speak your name when the automaton prompts you to ID yourself. If you’re not willing to do either, then I guess what you’re calling about isn’t all that important.

Clueless in Orange County

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So I received a response from one of the recipients I sent my discovery request to in my traffic citation case. You remember, the same organization the traffic court told me was in charge of prosecuting the case?

Hold up a sec. I have to settle myself down a bit before I can continue.

Alright. I’m slightly more composed now. I was on the floor laughing uncontrollably because a sheriff’s department clerk called me to ask for…

You know something? I’m not quite sure and neither was the clerk.

Best I can derive upon attempting to pull away from the clerk’s mouth the tangled morass of English language confusion is that the OCSD wants a copy of my citation.

Wait. One of their officers wrote it, and now they want a copy?

So, essentially, I am being asked to bear witness against myself and GIVE THEM the evidence with which to prosecute me. The same evidence that their own agent originally issued and then, apparently, lost.

What else am I to derive from a clerk who calls me asking for a copy of the citation?

As much as I would like to help out, I’m gonna pass. Because if the sheriff’s department lost THEIR copy of the citation that THEIR OWN officer wrote, then I don’t know how else to put this except:

Too bad, so sad. Not my problem. This is a discovery request, not a discovery call me up and ask me for your evidence because your officer lost his copy.

I’m not an officer of the court, but I distinctly remember a coupla, maybe three Criminal and Con Law classes mentioning something about not being compelled to testify against oneself.

Yes, I’m quite certain I read that somewhere.

Right. Here it is. It’s part of that thing we call the Bill of Rights. Some moldy, old document full of legalese that nobody but lawyers read anymore.

Specifically, the Fifth Amendment states in pertinent part:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Food For Thought

Can we infer that the officer in question, since he may not have kept his copy of the citation that he issued perhaps may also not even have -in his wildest imagination- EVER had to appear in traffic court to testify against a defendant because the citizen fought the ticket and forced the D.A. to prove each and every element of their case?

Naw, couldn’t be. These are Official People we’re talking about here, not the Keystone Kops. And a law enforcement agency tasked with keeping our streets and byways safe from traffic scofflaws such as myself would surely make it a point to keep their official records handy in the event that one of the scofflaws would maybe submit a discovery request for copies of all of their evidence they have against the defendant in which to prosecute the case.

Wouldn’t they?

I’ll let you decide for yourselves as to how on-the-ball these folks are. I’m still pondering that one. May take me awhile…

I think I’ve decided.