Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

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

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Presidential Candidates

Rick Perry –Do we really want a President who wants to eliminate Federal agencies, and cannot even remember the names of the agencies he wants to axe?  This is the same man who believes global warming/climate change to be a myth and we should not be addressing the issue.  I want a President with intelligence who does not believe in fairy tales.

Herman Cain – He keeps repeating that we need a businessman in the White House.  Pardon me, but was it not business that has gotten us into this current economic morass? There are multiple allegations of sexual harassment of women by Mr. Cain.  I tend to think where there is this much smoke, there must be fire.  Do we really want a President that does not respect women anymore than this?  It is one thing to be a cad like Clinton.  It is quite another thing to attempt to force trading sexual favors for a job.  We need a President with a moral center.

Michele Bachman – All I can say is that she lives in a delusional world.

Ron Paul – The America that this man envisions is not an America I want to live in.  Continue reading “Presidential Candidates”

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Football and Priorities

I will not go into much detail as it is all over the news, but there is a child sexual abuse scandal unfolding at Penn State involving a former assistant coach who worked under Joe Paterno.  Apparently at least one of the alleged incidences happened in the team locker room and Paterno was aware of it.   It also seems the President of the University, Graham Spanier was also aware, and a cover up ensued.

Paterno had announced that he would retire at the end of the season and there is one more game to go.  The university trustees unanimously voted to fire both men for the good of Penn State University.  The news described a “riot” last Continue reading “Football and Priorities”

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Buy your “We are the 99%” bumper sticker at CommonDreams.org

Follow this link to buy this bumper sticker: Common Dreams | Bumper Sticker

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 8,590

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Apparently my portfolio was just climbing to new heights to take a suicidal plunge into the depths of the Greco-Roman debt pool.

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$40 A$$

I use Yahoo as my web portal, partly out of habit, but mainly because I like their financial section.  I follow the market and my investments there.  The news section on the other hand leaves a lot to be desired.  Oh it touches all the key stories of the day, but then I have to wade through the celebrity gossip, the reality show buzz, and other such nonsense.  What really tears me up is that sometimes I find myself reading that garbage.

The other day for some reason still unclear to me,  an article on 10 styles of jeans trending currently caught my attention.  What really made my eyes pop were the prices.  The cheapest pair was maybe $60, most were over $100, and a couple pair were north of two bills.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I still think a good pair of Levi’s should cost $20.  Of course, they don’t, but if I have to pay much over $30 or $35 for a pair of jeans I am not a happy camper.

The overpriced jeans reminded me of an incidence with my now grown daughter when she was in 5th or 6th grade.  This would have been around 1979 or 1980. That year we made the leap and bumped her up to Levi’s from Wranglers.  She was after all a little older now, and young women are very into fashion.  Given our budget at the time we thought this a generous move on our part. Continue reading “$40 A$$”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 9,742

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Am I the only one embarrassed, maybe even crept out a little, to see a coworker the morning after having had a sexual dream about them?  This is especially so when you cannot understand why you were dreaming about them at all, let alone with sexual content.

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Warren Buffett’s ingenious deficit idea

Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes I’ve heard in all this drama about the debt ceiling:

“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told Becky Quick. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

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9-9-9

I do have a question for presidential candidate Herman Cain with his 9-9-9 tax proposal.

If we institute a 9% Federal tax is that to be added on top of state and city taxes?  In Tennessee very little is excluded from sales tax. That would have citizens in this part of the world paying close to a 20% sales tax every time they buy anything.

Can you say regressive, and let’s tax the poor a bigger percentage of their incomes.  I suppose his argument would be to point to the 9% income tax, but many of the our poorest citizens pay little or no taxes now.  There is another whammy on this group.  Especially so since many of these folks are the hard core unemployable, uneducated, disabled, or facing other life circumstances keeping them down.  ( I know a lot of folks will argue with me, but I do not believe that the percentage of folks willing to not work and live hand to mouth is that large.)

Could there be some meaning to 9-9-9.  If you turn it upside down it is 6-6-6.

I ran across this little tidbit after I posted this article:

“Without bold alternatives, Americans desperate for big solutions are attracted to bold crackpot ideas like Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” proposal, which would raise taxes on the poor and cut them for the rich.”

The above quote is from an article by Robert Reich at commondreams.org

To see the whole article follow this link:  The Meagerness of the Republican Debates, the Smallness of the President’s Solutions, and the Need for a Progressive Alternative

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Banks, Breasts, Bamboozled

I quit Bank of America a while back as I decided I did not want to do business with them.  I have major problems with their business practices.  So I switched to Regions.  Now they have started charging customers for the use debit cards.  I decided to quit them and open up an account with the company credit union.  Dollars are votes after all.

To effectuate the change I went to the credit union branch just across from my office.  The branch manager is a young woman of maybe 30 years.  She invites me into her office to do the necessaries involved in opening up a new account.  She was an attractive enough young lady, but no knock out.  She was however wearing a top with a very low scoop neck and some sort of brassiere that barely covered her nipples.  I personally do not find this appropriate business wear, but maybe that is just me.  Just sitting talking to her I was getting an eyeful even though part of me was trying not to look.  She was seated at a rather large desk. Every time she leaned forward to have me sign Continue reading “Banks, Breasts, Bamboozled”