Friday, November 30, 2012

Edgy Powerball Plans


Jackasses should realize that the $570 million jackpot would have only funded the federal fix for 86 minutes, so Lotto Luck with that plan of living on the fiscal edge. 

 h/t: Dana Summers

Taxing Public Perception


How easily the public's perception is taxed.  So enough about the boring stuff like the fiscal cliff or covering up the Obama Administration's Benghazi bungle, so how about more fluff about the big Lotto winners

Professor John Keating on Communication

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Lotto Luck Avoiding the Fiscal Cliff



As American teeters at the edge of the fiscal cliff, and most of the Lamestream Media gave saturation coverage to Powerball mania, it may be instructive to use the lotto fever paradigm to explain the futility of “soaking the rich” via President Obama’s unceasing class warfare campaigning as governing strategy.

As the Heritage Foundation’s graphic illustrates, even confiscating all of the lucky Lotto winners gross (granted government already takes around 50%), this would only fund the Federal Government for 86 MINUTES.

... If the American public thinks that by soaking the wealthiest one percent, it will balance the budget, then lotto luck. If they are able to engage in critical thinking, it would behoove them to determine what is someone’s “fair share”. Moreover, since the Obama Administration has defined millionaires downward to just $200,000, they should discern how low the label of the wealthy will go when seizing true millionaire’s incomes only funds the government for around just 100 days. As Ayn Rand observed in Atlas Shrugged: “If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.” READ MORE at DCBarroco.com

Zig Ziglar on Motivation

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Orientation Origins?


h/t: Derek Brettle

Half Baked Hostess Humor



Hostess Brands  has shut down bakeries nationwide after a strike by the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union combined with poor with poor management.

But you probably have not heard how Hostess is splitting up  

its assets. It is all earmarked for the District of Calamity. 


  • The State Department took all the Twinkies
  • The Secret Service hired all of the Ho-Hos
  • The generals cornered the Cupcakes
  • and the voters sent all of the Ding Dongs to Congress.

But what about the Wonder Bread?  Will the best thing since sliced bread head to the White House?






That's dubious as it is probably too white bread for the Obama's.  Besides, it doesn't go well with organic arugula. 



R.I.P. Zig Ziglar (1926-2012)



Zig Ziglar, known as the Master Motivator, died of pneumonia in a hospital in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex at the age of 86.  Ziglar was born in Alabama in 1926 but spent much of his youth in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

After serving in the Navy during World War II, Ziglar briefly studied at the University of South Carolina.  But Ziglar chose a career in sales rather than studying and started out selling pots and pans.  He went on to successfully sell for various companies. But as Ziglar improved his pitch and sales increased, he developed a basic philosophy which impacted his personal and professional career for more than half a century.

The Ziglar Way considers action, common sense, fairness, commitment and integrity to be the basis of living well.  Ziglar believed that if you lived by this powers of positive thinking philosophy, you would live a balanced life while achieving significance at work and home.



In the early 1970s, Ziglar began his career as a motivational speaker and corporate trainer.  Along with being a headliner on the speaking circuit, Ziglar  authored 29 books, including 10 best sellers on topics like sales, leadership, personal growth and faith.  His "One Year Daily Insights with Zig Ziglar" is an inspiring daily devotional. His self help classic “See You At The Top” (originally titled "Biscuits, Fleas and Pump Handles") still generates strong sales thirty years after originally being published.

Though he was known as the World’s Greatest Salesman and a Master Motivator, Ziglar was not all business.  The Ziglar Way reflected his fervent evangelical Christian beliefs and much of Ziglar’s work had subtle evangelization without sounding too preachy.

Ziglar continued to be a feature on the speaker circuit through 2010, despite a tumble down the stairs in 2007 which impacted his short term memory.  When Ziglar appearing in Washington, DC in October 2010, he was joined by his daughter who guided him through his presentation.  Ziglar persiverated on “winning the home court” and did not realize that he had thoroughly covered that point a couple of times before.  Still, the then 84 year old speaker was inspiring and offered earnest down home advice.


Zig Ziglar, Verizon Center Washington, DC October 2010 (photo: Gail Broeckel)

Ziglar’s Facebook page proclaims:


Though his time on earth has ended, he is speaking with Jesus now in his heavenly home... The angels in heaven are rejoicing and his family is celebrating a life well lived.

A fitting tribute for an American Icon.  But as Zig Ziglar would put it:

"This is not the end of your story...Turn the page and start a new chapter."

Naked Ambition on Capitol Hill


Yesterday, some publicity seeking protesters with naked ambition briefly occupied the ante-chamber to House Speaker John Boehner's office.

WARNING the video exposes the naked truth from this "happening". It is not for the faint hearted or those offended by public nudity.



 Former Majority Whip Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) quipped "If you are naked, you're without clothes. If you are nekkid, you're also without clothes but you're up to something."  Aside from generating some titillating news pegs, it is unclear what these demonstrators are really seeking to do.

Presumably, they are agitating over sequestration (a.k.a. the fiscal cliff) during the 112th Congress' Lame Duck session, but that is a 10% across the board spending reduction. So is their plan to not cut discretionary domestic to make the greenback as worthless as Monopoly money or to follow a donkey plan to extract all savings at the expense of the Pentagon?

Maybe President Obama could show some leadership and offer a real plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, instead of remaining in the role of campaigner-in-chief for class warfare without offering any real solutions.  

But then the protesters would have to move to Lafayette Park and it's pretty cold in the District of Calamity right now.

One thing is for sure is that these protesters are better bathed than the Occupy types who were permitted to take over McPherson Square last year.

Carl Jung on Adversity

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Zombie Black Friday


Kind of hard to tell the difference. So mash the two scenarios.




Just remember Zombieland rule #22, how to get out.  But the answer is not just a physical exit.  It is a paradigm shift.  And what better philosopher to rethink the premise than George Carlin.


Ignorance Isn't Bliss

You are not just another brick in the wall.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Flippant Food for Thought on Turkey Day



As most Americans are recovering from their tryptophan induced comas from enjoying the bounty of a Thanksgiving meal, it is worth considering that had Ben Franklin had his way, America’s national bird might have been a turkey.

In a letter to his daughter in 1782, Ben Franklin championed the virtues of the turkey over the bald eagle.  Franklin wrote:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

Franklin’s spirited defense of the flightless fowl was depicted in the 1972 Peter Hunt directed film 1776.



In defense of the colonial sage, Franklin was probably referring to barnyard turkeys protecting their territory rather than the feckless wild turkeys who tended to run and hide from intruders.

So as we consider the manifold blessings bestowed upon America, we should thank God that we feast upon the turkey rather than festoon it as our national icon.

Tony Snow on Thanksgiving

Alice's Restaurant--A Rock and Roll Turkey Day Tradition


On Thanksgiving 1965, folk singer Arlo Guthrie was caught illegally dumping half a pickup truck of trash in Stockbrook, Massachusetts and was arrested. This rubbish arrest supposedly made the 18 year old ineligible to be drafted for questionable morals. Guthrie turned this small town saga of small town saga of stupidity into a tongue in cheek 18 minute spoken blues song in 1967.

 This humorous folk song was so popular in its day that Arlo Guthrie made a film about “Alice’s Restaurant” in 1969. To this day, album oriented rock radio stations will play the song on Thanksgiving. This might be due to the length of the song, which interferes with most commercial cycles. Or perhaps it was played because there was no ratings book over the holiday. Now it just seems like a tradition that has a tangential Turkey Day connection.

I remember hearing “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre” on 101.1 FM  WRIF in Detroit during the late 1970s. But with the draft long abolished and American in retreat from military engagements after Vietnam, this song lost its sting and was just a quirky rambling ditty.

 Guthrie stopped playing it in concert for a while but resumed playing it after its 30th anniversary but now the folk singer says it's more about idiocy than it's anti-war aura.   The song's association with idiocy was bolstered by serial killer Rodney Acala insisting on playing the entire 18 minute song as part of his pro-se defense. Acala was convicted in 2010.



You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant  Excepting Alice.You can get anything you want,at Alice's Restaurant.Walk right in it's around the backJust a half a mile from the railroad track.You can get anything you want,at Alice's Restaurant. Da da da da da da da dum. At Alice's Restaurant.

Post Scriptus:

 "Alice's Restaurant is not an anti-war song. It was an anti-stupid song. What's funny is this idiocy. That's what's funny. I didn't make-up getting out of the military because I was a litterbug. They did!" - Arlo Guthrie Nov 2005 

Monday, November 19, 2012

Mirth About Mayan Millenarism


I have long assumed when the end of the world is nigh that there would be two things that survive.


But the liquidation of Hostess puts this eschatological assumption in peril.  



Perhaps ConAgra, or Flower Food or another corporate white knight may come to the rescue of the iconic snack food. It may seem quite ironic but Twinkie the Kid's savior might actually be a Bimbo, that is Grupo Bimbo.

Commemorating the Gettysburg Address



Today is the 149th anniversary of the delivery of the Gettysburg Address. On November 19th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address to dedicate the battlefield in the bloodiest skirmish during the war between the States as a resting place for the fallen.

Lincoln was said to have written his brief remarks on the back of an envelope, yet those scribbling still resonate today.


Photo of President Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address, 1863


 Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
One of the most stirring renditions of this concise but iconic 267 word speech was done by Johnny Cash.




Whether it is the Blues and the Grays or the Reds against the Blues, it is prudent to honor Lincoln's invocation that:

...this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

John Kennedy on Negotiations


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Unexpected Eschatology


I would imagine the opening verbal salvo to this divine reward would be "Holy crap!"  Of course, it could be worse, sharing a suitcase with Walter's deadly flatulence. 

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Commemorating the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

 

On November 10, 1975, Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior. This was the worst loss on the Great Lakes, as the crew of all 29 sailors perished along with the $24 million freighter and a cache of 26 tons of iron ore.

 This maritime tragedy was immortalized in the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, which was written and composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in 1976.

 On the eve of Veterans Day, as we also celebrate the anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps, it is worthy to toll the bell of honor 29 times for the valor of the lost crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

While the classic Gordon Lightfoot song has been covered many times, few others catch the haunting nature of the harrowing tale than the Dandy Warhol's Black Album version.



READ MORE at the DCBarroco.com website

Commemorating the 247th Birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps was created on November 10th, 1775 to guard vessels during the American Revolutionary War.  Since then, the Marine Corps responsibilities have expanded as in integral component of American military forces working with the Navy to rapidly deploy combined armed task forces.  While the U.S. Marine Corps is the smallest of the nation’s combat forces, it is the largest Marine Corps in the world and is often the first forces sent out. ... Marines attach great tradition to celebrating their founding.  A ceremonial cake is presented where the oldest Marine cuts the culinary creation with his sword and then feeds the youngest Marine present. Often this is done in dress uniforms and high ceremony.  But this video from last year’s ceremony in Afghanistan poignantly captures that same spirit in the fields of combat. READ MORE at DCBarroco.com

King Alfonso X on Creation

King Alfonso X

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Teasing Electoral Adjustments

As the election results roll in, it appears that it is not a clear cut decision by the American people.  In the Presidential Race, several battleground states are razor thin margins, with Ohio again being the lynchpin for the decision.  Democrats seem poised to increase their numbers in the Senate, yet Republicans may increase their majority in the House of Representatives.  That is a very mixed bag.

...

President Obama managed to get re-elected with a higher unemployment than when he initially took office, losing support in his overall popularity and winning a second term with fewer electoral votes. President Obama may have to adjust after re-election to blaming the incumbent rather than former President George W. Bush for his woes.  Americans will also have to adjust after the election to a Chief Executive who no longer needs to worry about pleasing people for re-election.

READ MORE at DCBarroco.com

Grover Cleveland on Politics

Grover Cleveland