Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Will Ferrell and Baby Jesus

Okay…I’m trying to understand a couple things that happened the other day.

I walked in a conference room at work. There were a group of folks gathered around a computer monitor. On the monitor was a YouTube clip from Talladega Nights, Will Farrell’s salute to NASCAR.  There were 4, 5 or 6 folks watching the clip which was a scene where Farrell’s character, Ricky Bobby, is praying over a white trash dinner about to be served.  He is praying to “Baby Jesus”.  Shortly Ricky’s wife takes exception with his praying to Baby Jesus.   Ricky’s partner pipes in about a partying Jesus.

There were several folks laughing heartily.  One was nearly falling out of his chair. Let me be frank.  I do not understand Will Ferrell’s popularity.  In my universe he is the un-funniest man in America.  That is the first thing I do not understand. Why is this man even working in show business.

I know for a fact that all of these folks but one would classify themselves as religious.  A couple I would classify as seriously religious.  Now I am an agnostic trending Continue reading “Will Ferrell and Baby Jesus”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 9,610

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Was Wal-Mart the lead lemming or the Pied Piper  in the plunge we all took  over the cliff when we moved our manufacturing offshore?

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Smoking Gun Aimed at OWS

A lobbying group, Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford, put out a memo to one of their clients, the American Bankers Association about “constructing a negative narrative about Occupy Wall Street”.  I’m not sure it is really a smoking gun as most of this falls into the realm of “common knowledge”.  I do think that most folks believe this is how our sick system really works.  It is, however, very scary to see this in print.

From an article on CommonDreams.org gleaned from MSNBC:

 According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.” Continue reading “Smoking Gun Aimed at OWS”

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Want to Live Forever?

I met a fairy today who said she would grant me one wish.

“I want to live forever,” I said.

“Sorry,” said the fairy, “I’m not allowed to grant wishes like that!”

“Fine,” I said, “then I want to die after the U.S. Congress gets their heads out of their asses.”

“You crafty bastard,” said the fairy.

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Strategy Masquerading as a Tactic

We were sitting around the table the other night playing cards (well Phase 10 – which is almost a card game).  For some reason the question came up as what the difference was between strategy and tactic.  We hashed it around a while, and we came to a consensus.

A few days later I was listening to NPR and they were doing a story on Newt Gingrich.  They said of an exchange he had with a reporter that it was “a strategy masquerading as a tactic’.  He was turning the tables on the political press.  The reporter asked him a long winded question that was essentially of the type “so how long since you stopped beating your wife.”   Mr. Gingrich flipped it on the reporter and asked him when he was going to stop asking “gotcha” questions.

From the NPR print version of the story I heard By Attacking The Media, Gingrich Built A Following here is the actual exchange: Continue reading “Strategy Masquerading as a Tactic”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 3,936

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Let’s quit mincing words.  Instead of conservative and ultra-conservative let’s call them what they are and replace those phrases with greedy and very greedy.

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Vote with your $$, Vote with your feet, Move your bank accounts

As I touched on in Banks, Boobs, Bamboozled I moved my checking account.  I had been with Bank of America.  I initially signed up with them when I moved to a new town and I was in hurry to get a bank.  The more I learned about BoA, the unhappier I became with banking there.  I stayed with BoA much too long due to inertia. It is a pain changing banks.  But I finally bit the bullet and made the change.  I chose Regions as they have branches in both St. Louis and Memphis.  I had only been with them a few months when they decided they just had to charge their customers for use of their debit cards. (They have since reversed that decision, but they have lost my trust)  I immediately started the process of changing banks.  I went with the local company credit union.  Much to my surprise there is a network of ATMs that I can use free of charge available to credit unions. Continue reading “Vote with your $$, Vote with your feet, Move your bank accounts”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,948

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Ever wonder where the human race would be if we worked as hard on quality of life technology as we do war technology?