photo du jour: PINTO

This is one of the many reasons that American automakers are, and have been, in trouble for so many years:  The Ford Pinto

Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words.

word du jour: FLATULENCE

According to Merriam-Webster online FLATULENCE is defined:

1.  the quality or state of being flatulent

2.  flatus expelled through the anus

Sometimes words cannot adequately explain, so watch the video.

My Top Ten Posts

My top ten posts amuse me.  By a large margin, the most popular is about Bristol Palin’s Breasts.  Don’t we have more important things to spend our time on?

Title	Views
Bristol Palin, with insanely ginormous b	2,835
Mystery Dog Braves Speeding Traffic To P	731
Nadya Suleman, mother of 14, is a delusi	546
Who Endorses Barack Obama and Joe Biden?	541
Couple defy odds with second pair of bla	540
Is Todd Palin Really, Really Stupid? Or	475
About	443
IQ Scores of the Presidential Candidates	415
Palin Even More Rogue and Maverick-y Tha	373
Update on the shackled 17 year old boy t	342

About four times more “popular” than the dog rescuing the other dog.  I find it interesting and a “sneak peek” into the minds of the internet users.

word du jour: VIGILANTE

According to Merriam-Webster online, the definition of VIGILANTE is:

a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate) ; broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice

In light of recent events in Oakland, with the most recent being a career criminal that shot and killed three, and possibly four, Oakland Police Officers, it is my firm belief that VIGILANTISM is going to be on the rise. 

Oakland is in bad shape.  Therefore, we are all in bad shape.

Not much progress since the “Wild, Wild West”.

song du jour: Woke Up This Morning

You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun,
Mama always said you’d be
The Chosen One.

She said: You’re one in a million
You’ve got to burn to shine,
But you were born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.

You woke up this morning
All the love has gone,
Your Papa never told you
About right and wrong.

But you’re looking good, baby,
I believe you’re feeling fine, (shame about it),
Born under a bad sign
With a blue moon in your eyes.

You woke up this morning
The world turned upside down,
Thing’s ain’t been the same
Since the Blues walked into town.

But you’re one in a million
You’ve got that shotgun shine.
Born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.

When you woke up this morning everything you had was
gone. By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
like a voice telling you there was something you should
know. Last night you were flying but today you’re so low
- ain’t it times like these that make you wonder if
you’ll ever know the meaning of things as they appear to
the others; wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and
brothers. Don’t you wish you didn’t function, wish you
didn’t think beyond the next paycheck and the next little
drink’ Well you do so make up your mind to go on, ‘cos
when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.

When you woke up this morning,
When you woke up this morning,
When you woke up this morning,
Mama said you’d be the Chosen One.

When you woke up this morning,
When you woke up this morning,
When you woke up this morning,
You got yourself a gun.

If you weren’t already pissed off enough about AIG, now we hear that AIG is suing the American Government. Seriously.

The Grumpy Lion brought this to my attention:

While American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

AIG sued the government in February in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles, and other offshore havens.

AIG is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured $180 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that AIG is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the IRS last year.

The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 27 in US District Court in Manhattan, details, among other things, certain tax-related dealings of the financial products unit, the once high-flying division that has been singled out for AIG’s financial crisis last fall. Other deals involved AIG offshore entities whose function centers on executive compensation and include C.V. Starr & Co., a closely held concern controlled by Hank Greenberg, AIG’s former chairman, and the Starr International Co., a privately held enterprise incorporated in Panama, and commonly known as SICO.

The lawsuit contends in part that the federal government owes AIG nearly $62 million in foreign tax credits related to eight foreign entities, with names like Lumagrove, Laperouse, and Foppingadreef, that were set up or controlled by financial products, often through a unit known as Pinestead Holdings.

US tax law allows US companies to claim a credit for any taxes paid to a foreign government. But the IRS denied AIG’s refund claims in 2008, saying it had improperly calculated the credits. The IRS has identified so-called foreign tax-credit generators as an area of abuse that it is increasingly monitoring.

The remainder of AIG’s claim, for $244 million, concerns net operating loss carry-backs, capital loss carry-backs, a general refund claim, and claims for refunds of other tax-related payments that AIG says it made to the IRS but are now owed back. The claim also covers $119 million in penalties and interest that AIG says it is due back from the government.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

I predicted earlier this year that vigilanteism will be on the rise.  Now, I’m saying it again.

We Americans are one pissed off group of people as a result of being pissed on!

If AIG’s People Are “The Best And The Brightest” We’re In Real Trouble

AIG’s people ran a huge, global company into the ground.  HUGE.  GLOBAL.  They are the best and the brightest???

AIG wants to (or already has?) shell out millions in bonuses and retention pay because they are afraid they are going to leave???  I say, don’t let the door hit ‘em in the ass on the way out.  Good Riddance!

Where the hell do they think they are going to go?  Oh, wait!, after they get their multi-million dollar bonuses and retention pay that they didn’t earn and don’t deserve, they’ll go live somewhere else, some other scoundrel-friendly country, and spend it.  Yeah, that’s right.

There are plenty of qualified, honest people out there that are currently without a job that can likely do a helluva lot better than these jackasses.

This is so outrageous that I am almost speechless.

 

The former CEO of AIG, Hank Greenberg (who resigned in 2005) calls the retention pay “mind boggling” and that “many of the people who received bonuses did not deserve them.”

He goes on further to say that “During his time at the company, Greenberg said, retention packages did not exist at AIG Financial Products, the Connecticut-based division of AIG now under fire for the bonuses.

“We would never have been blackmailed into such an arrangement,” he said.

 

Honestly, they must think that we are all a bunch of idiots.  They are pissing all over us and laughing…

 

 

Every picture tells a story, don’t it?

I Want To See Those AIG Employment Bonus Contracts — NOW

Any time someone is compensated with a bonus or commission structure it is based on performance.  I heard a  news clip with someone from AIG speaking saying that their life insurance sales staff were to get “x” for each policy sold and that is why they must pay out billions in bonuses. 

BULLSHIT!!!  Sales staff are paid at the time of sale.

“Upper” management, who do NOT sell policies, are bonused on performance, which in their case would mean profitability.  THAT obviously didn’t happen.

BEFORE any bonuses are paid with our taxpayer dollars we should be allowed to see these contracts.

Hello Obama and Geithner!  Let’s see the AIG contracts!

One obviously cannot take anyone’s word at AIG.

According to the BBC: 

“It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165m in extra pay,” Obama said.

He has told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to “pursue every single legal avenue” to block the bonuses.

Thankfully, we have a smart President.  But what is UP with the IOUs?

Just in case you were wondering, I say fuck the IOUs too!

WHAT SAY YOU?

word du jour: HYPOCRISY (think Repooplicans)

Today’s word du jour was inspired by Helen Philpot–and quite honestly I don’t care if that’s a nom de plum or not.  It’s a damned good blog.

Merriam Webster online defines HYPOCRISY as:

1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

2: an act or instance of hypocrisy

Helen also asks us to define CULPABLE:

1archaic : guilty , criminal

2: meriting condemnation or blame especially as wrong or harmful <culpable negligence>

Helen also asks us to define GLUTTONY:

1 : excess in eating or drinking

2 : greedy or excessive indulgence

Need we say more?

What’s Up With The Obsession With Bristol Palin’s Breasts?

Seriously, I did one stupid post one day when I finally noticed that her breasts were ginormous.  That post gets more traffic by far than anything actually interesting.

Check out the search terms for the past few days:

These are terms people used to find your blog.

Today

Search	Views
bristol palin breasts	13
bristol palin bra size	4
bristol palin breast size	2
bristol palin’s bra size	2
bristol palin breast	2
bristol palin breats	1
how big are bristol palins breasts	1
when was bernie madoff head of nasdaq	1
breast “bristol palin”	1
bristol palins bra size	1

Yesterday

Search	Views
bristol palin breasts	99
bristol palin bra size	22
bristol palin’s breasts	19
bristol palin breast	16
yes we can	16
bristol palin’s bra size	8
bristol palin cup size	8
bristol palin breasts pics	8
bristol palin breast size	8
edward jones ponzi scam	7

 

Don’t people have anything better to do than investigate the size of this girl’s breasts?  I guess it must be all the unemployed…

Or are all breasts are highly searched and sought after items???