Fauxboes!

An abhorrent trend has been sweeping the nation unchecked for more than 40 years. Fauxboes have been sullying the good names of regular hoboes since the 40's by passing themselves off as actual hoboes.

Of course, not everyone is familiar with the term "fauxbo". A fauxbo will commonly be referred to as a transient, trustafarian, redneck, panhandler, outdoorsman, hippie, tramp, carpet bagger, traveling salesman, migrant worker, crazy, gutter trash, "stranded" person, etc. It is an all too common misconception that is destroying the American way of life and bringing the hobo to the brink of extinction.

You may ask yourself, "Self, how can I tell if someone is really a hobo or just a fauxbo?". In order to clear up all of the confusion, I have provided a simple set of hobo identification guidelines.

1. If the person in question is carrying a bindle then you have a hobo.
2. If the person in question has an afro, dredlocks, or smells of hair gel, pomade, aqua net, mousse, or other styling agents then you do not have a hobo.
3. If the person has facial stubble or a beard with food or other non decorative items lodged in it then you may have a hobo.
4. If the person in question does not have a sanctioned name on this list, then you do not have a hobo.
5. If the individual asks for money, then you do not have a hobo as hoboes only use hobo nickels.
6. If you find hobo symbols in the immediate vicinity, you have have a hobo.
7. If the individual is riding in a boxcar or near rail tracks (and not in or near a rail station), you may have a hobo.
8. If the individual mentions the New Deal or characters in The Grapes of Wrath, you either have a hobo or a pretentious asshole.
9. If the individual will work for food, you do not have a hobo.

The stability of the union depends on everyone doing their part to eradicate the fauxbo menace. These impostors are calumniating the memories of such notable hobo heroes such as Joey Stink-Eye Smiles, Former Secretary of the Treasury Hobo Joe Junkpan, and Nick Nolte.

Further information on the topic of hoboes can be found at e-hobo.com.

God

Yeah that's right, that guy.

The explanation behind it couldn't be simpler. I've even taken the courtesy to outline it in a bulleted list.

Here is how God is destroying America.

1. God created the big bang
2. The big bang created an abundance of Hydrogen, fueling basic nuclear fusion in the earliest stars
3. Once the stars converted most of the hydrogen into heavier atoms, fusion could no longer be sustained and the star exploded, becoming a supernova (or nova or hypernova), expelling these heavier atoms and fueling new stars
4. Eventually enough Helium and Hydrogen collected and created our sun which created our solar system
5. The heavy Hydrogen byproducts, deuterium and tritium combined during the nuclear fusion in our sun to release energy in many wavelengths.
6. The infrared energy released by the sun arrived on Earth at the Equator off the coast of Africa, heating up the surface of the ocean
7. Water temperatures of at least 26.5 °C (80°F) down to a depth of at least 50 m (150 feet) were created. Waters of this temperature caused the overlying atmosphere to be unstable enough to sustain convection and thunderstorms.
8. As the air rised there was a rapid cooling with height. This allowed the release of latent heat, which is the source of energy in a tropical cyclone.
9. The resulting tropical depression made its way across the Atlantic, arriving in the Caribbean and turning into a tropical storm and then a hurricane in the Gulf of America (a.k.a. the Gulf of Mexico, but what have they done with it lately?).
10. When the hurricanes reached the Louisana coast (as Katrina and Wilma) they wreak havoc on the infrastructure of a city built below sea level and not equipped to weather anything approaching a class 3 hurricane.
11. The destruction exacted on the city causes the US government to divert spending (they drug their feet about it, but eventually did) from high priority terrorist targets in Kentucky.
12. The money diverted to New Orleans leaves the nations burbon stills unguarded and tempting targets for burbon-hating terrorists.
13. As the result of such strikes the burbon supply is extinguished thus leaving the nation unable to create mint juleps
14. The resulting mint overstock rots and growers drastically cut back on their production of mint
15. This results in a deficiency of mint with which to create chewing gum
16. The plain flavored gum is immediately shunned by Marines overseas
17. The ability of the Marines to kick ass and chew gum is threatened and thus they compensate by kicking more ass
18. Several platoons of Marines kick too many of the wrong asses creating a much more fierce anti-American sentiment in the middle east
19. As the result, America is invaded and is ill equipped to fend off an invasion with the bulk of the armed forces deployed overseas
20. The American way of life is under attack and can not be repeled
21. America is destroyed

Or, for those with a right-winged point of view:

1. God created the heavens and the earth and everything else in one week, 6,000 years ago (fossils are devices employed by liberals to confuse the righteous, after all)
2. God obviously hates fags (it on the signs at the funerals so it must be right) and decides to show the US who's boss and sends an embryo shaped hurricane over to destroy the gay section of New Orleans
3. He missed, drowns the rest of the city
4. See above, steps 10 through 21

So, through clear, concise, very easy to follow and infallible logic, God is destroying America. Gather your children and head to Independence, MO, Jesus is likely to come walking down that stairway atop the RLDS temple any day now.

The Bullets that Bush is Shooting Himself in the Foot With

Nowadays, it's just not enough for a guy to ignore twice as many laws as all other presidents in history combined. You've got to admit, he's really going the extra mile in order to piss the entire US off. He must be trying to get the lowest approval rating of any president, and if he keeps it up he just might make it. He's damned close as it is (about 31%) compared to Nixon when he resigned (27%). Some of the latest shenanigans just might give him the push he needs to make it big (or little, as it were).

The best part of it is that he couldn't have done it alone. All of his idiot political appointments are really helping out. In case you're confused or in denial, here's a short list of bullets (listed in order of size of metaphorical bullet, as shown in picture above).

1. Can't find Osama worth a damn, may have stopped trying (he's a 50 year old, 6'4" man on dialysis for god sakes!)
2. Allowing for development of logging trails in wilderness areas (Teddy's rolling in his grave)
3. Drilling in ANWR (Teddy's gonna haunt his ass)
4. No Child Left Behind Act (actually left a large number of children behind, even went so far as to make it even worse lately)
5. Ignoring Laws (what a prick!)
6. Torture of POWs (I hear he's a big fan of Rudolf Hoess' work at Auschwitz)
7. Hurricane Katrina (Knew it was coming, knew it was gonna be bad, didn't do shit)
8. Proposed Ammendments to ban gay marriage (It never goes through and yet he keeps on going, quite an election gimmick)
9. Reduced Homeland Security funds to NY and D.C. (Apparently the Empire State building, the Chrysler building, Wall Street, the Brooklyn bridge, the other bridges into Manhattan, the statue of liberty, the Washington monument, the Jefferson memorial, the Lincoln memorial, the Vietnam veterans memorial, the James Garfield memorial, the FDR memorial, the Korean war memorial, the peace monument, the pentagon (still), the white house, the capitol, the treasury, the department of state, two FBI headquarters, the national archives, the bureau of engraving and printing, the smithsonian, the headquarters of the UN, foreign and domestic diplomat housing, and an assload of embassies and consulates don't count as icons or monuments.)
10. Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Iraq War (Still can't find them huh? I thought Rumsfeld knew exactly where they were.)
11. Immigration reform (It's going to take a lot more than all this to make the US unappealing to Mexicans)
12. Domestic Wiretapping (Something tells me that terrorists aren't going to be calling old Mrs. Ferguson down the street and telling her their evil plans.)

That's a lot of bullets to shoot ones self in the foot with.

All metaphors aside, this guy and his lackeys are seriously tearing this country apart.

W!

All right, now he's on the shit list!

Well, actually he has been for a while.

170,000,000 people can't be wrong.

This time, he's gone too far.

To be honest, he's actually been doing it over the course of the past five years. The Boston Globe has reported that W has decided that over 750 laws do not apply to him asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

You can do that? If that's the case I think that the statute that keeps me from kicking him square in the nuts is unconstitutional (1st ammendment, baby!).

Seriously, over the past five years, W has been concentrating a lot of governmental power into the White House, siezing some of the law-making powers of Congress and constitution interpretation powers of the courts.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government. This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

Just a sampling of the laws he has decided to ignore are:

• Military rules and regulations
• Affirmative-action provisions (I hear that he doesn't like black people)
• That Congress be told about immigration services problems,
• ''Whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials
• Safeguards against political interference in federally funded research

Now some would say that being at war affords him the ability to pick and chose what laws he likes. Well, he, far more than any previous president, has been aggressive about his right to ignore massive amounts of laws. This includes ol' FDR who was in office for nearly 4 damned terms, had to fend off enemy attack several times (and I mean actual attacks on US soil), had to deal with the most substantial war of modern time, and battle the most menacing enemy ever faced. Oh yeah, and he had polio and was confined to a wheelchair.

Now, why would ol' W need to sidestep more laws that that guy? The US was actually at war back then (it doesn't count if there are no restrictions on buying aluminum, rubber, and sugar). The war on terror is just an excuse for him to eek out revenge on a personal vendetta (he said it, not me).

Its pretty simple how he's destroying America. He's stepping all over the constitution (I saw him write "except for W" after "We the people"). He's ignoring at least the following Ammendments:

• 1st - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
• 4th-The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
• 5th - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous, crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
• 6th - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state
• 8th - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
• 9th - The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

I think that's pretty clear.

If you think I'm making this up, check Bush challenges hundreds of laws.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, O'Reilly!

Bill O'Reilly

After a brief hiatus I've returned with a new edition of This Week in What's Destroying America. Obviously enough, this week is Bill O'Reilly, and can you think of a more fitting subject?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about fair and balanced reporting, but tactless prick doesn't embody any of the above. He's clearly not all about fair reporting since whenever he has a guest on that has a point of view (or point of fact) different from his own personal (so called secular) views he interrupts them with boundless errors of fact or hasty generalizations and refuses to let them get a word in edgewise. As for balanced, much of the same is true here. He consistently takes the right of center or far right stance on every issue and denounces any other position as untrue, unpatriotic, or as an attempt of the 'liberal media' to sway public opinion. Now, as far as reporting is concerned, there isn't any. The only reporting that is done during his show is during the news breaks. Op-ed stuff is not reporting. Hell, any jackass with an opinion and a ready supply of stamps can send in an editorial to a newspaper and, depending on the paper, have a reasonable chance of getting it published (blogs are totally different!).

And now he "won't stand for liberal smear tactics". The man complains about other journalists making fun of him or calling him out for various things and says that there is no room for that in the media. Then he turns right around and starts smearing them, putting their pictures up on the show or directing people to his website to get their phone numbers so he can get his minions to follow him blindly. Sort of like lemmings.

So, you may ask, "Why is he destroying America (not just reputable journalism)?" and the answer is fairly cut and dry. He uses his position as a media celebrity to persuade the gullible masses into believeing whatever bullshit that he feeds them.

Why, just today he was talking about the current state of gas prices. His guest was making the point that instability in oil rich regions make the futures traders uneasy, hence driving up prices.

Then in comes O'Reilly.

The first statement that he makes is that it is unpatriotic to have high gas prices during a time of war. Now, if you have ever seen the show that is the most common argument that he hides behind. What this accomplishes is that it makes his opponent then appear to hate America when (not if) they take an opposing argument. You can make this argument about almost anything and it automatically creates a supercilious position that can not be attacked directly (or on his show, with any logic). Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that America was founded on capitalism and that in times of war people have to make sacrifices such as in World War II when aluminum and rubber were in short supply and I'll bet the prices were pretty high. Oh yeah, plus we put all japanese immigrants into concentration camps (think camp X-ray).

He also made a comment that it costs the large oil companies $20 per barrel to get the oil out of the ground and into a barrel and that $70 per barrel is just plain unreasonable. Now, assuming this figure is factual (kinda seemed like he pulled it out of his ass) it doesn't account for some key costs such as overhead and transportation.

He also has a penchant for oversimplifying delicate topics like immigration reform. He had a guest on who was an expert in the field, had done copious amounts of research, and had written a book (that wasn't smearing Al Franken) and O'Reilly tells the lady that she was wrong about hispanic immigrants fitting into America and basically says that a neighborhood near where he lives on Long Island had turned from a white middle class neighborhood to a hispanic neighborhood with lower property values.

Next, he decides to take on a journalistic tradition dating back to 1917 by bitching about the Pulitzer Prizes being biased. He starts off on a rant about how Fox News doesn't submit anything for consideration and that the prizes have all been awarded to left wing media outlets. He even started complaining about the journalists that won because of their reporting of the torture at military 'black sites' and basically called it unpatriotic. I'm not entirely sure how reporting violations of human rights is unpatriotic. I guess back in World War II it probably was unpatriotic for Germans to report on the Nazi concentration camps and their treatment of their 'guests'.

Is it really so much different? What if someone had?

Basically, it just sounds like little ol' O'Reilly is pissed off because he never won anything. Something tells me that people aren't going to start ignoring a prestigious journalism prize because little ol' Bill didn't get his award (he probably boycotted the pinewood derby in Boy Scouts because he didn't win a race, too). Well, you know, I'm pretty sure that everything has a left-wing slant to it when you over to the right like Bill. It's like when you tilt your head to the right and everything looks like it's leaning to the left.

I really can't figure out what people see in this clown. His facts are questionable. His opinions are clearly unfair and unbalanced. The whole program is a farce, especially when he gives his guests the "last word". I challenge anyone to point out a time when a guest actually got in the last word (salutations don't count). Everytime I've seen, Bill has to butt in right before the commericals and try and discredit the other person. I've never seen a grown man act so childish.

You want to know why Bill O'Reilly is destroying America? His hippocritical 'journalistic' style creates an unfair, uneducated slant towards many topics that creates a loyal following out of people that can't make decisions for themselves and thus rely on the most forceful and narcissistic sonofabitch they can find. I've never seen a journalist with such a clear cut agenda and claim to be 'fair and balanced'. The last thing that America needs is a war monger that creates political arguments out of simple things like the price of gas and hides behind the word 'patriotism' that is unwilling to criticize the president.

Also, since when are we actually at war? According to Bush, the war officially ended a few years back (mission accomplished . . . remember that? There was an aircraft carrier, sailors, jumpsuits, and everything) and the war on terror is like the war on drugs, not a real war but a prolonged policing action meant to curb certain behaviors or vices rather than an all-out brawl. So it seems to me like O'Reilly is hiding behind something else in an attempt to make his opponents appear unamerican.

I call shenanigans on Bill O'Reily.

Labor Unions

You know who I'm talking about. Those people that stand around outside, holding signs, not working, and demanding money. No, not hoboes. That's right, union workers!

As far as I'm concerned, all that they do is just "gum up the works". Don't get me wrong, they were a good idea in the beginning getting those damned kids out of the factories and lobbying congress for labor reforms. The thing is, all of that productive stuff that they used to do has long since been forgotten by the unions, or as I will refer to them: "whiny sons of bitches". Every thing that you hear about those whiny sons of bitches are striking, embezzling, or making life generally more expensive.

The original function of these organizations was to insure members against unemployment, ill health, old age and funeral expenses, to employ collective bargaining to secure appropriate wages and working conditions, and to lobby political interests for reform. When is actually the last time that any of that actually happened? Originally they were the ones that helped to bring about a national minimum wage and the eight hour work day.

Now what we have to put up with is several organized groups of people that claim responsibility for vary narrow fields of expertise. You will have one union to bring the equipment to the site, another to unload it, another to install it, another to wire it, another to calibrate it, and yet another to paint it. Keep in mind that sometimes you have all of these people tripping all over each other at a job site and what will end up happening is that the work goes slower. Luckily, this is only the situation in a closed shop state. In these states, the whiny sons of bitches lobbied to ensure that any job being done in the state has to hire union labor directly from the hiring hall. And what do you get for this luxury? You get to hire people that have some training (albeit, it doesn't necessarily make them skilled, per se), get to pay exorbitant amounts of money for these people, and have to bow to the every whim of the union. That's what the labor unions of today have afforded us. Now, there are other situations, too. There are the union shop states that say you can hire people outside of the union, but they have to join the union before a certain time, and there are agency shops where the non-union workers have to pay the union for negotiating their contracts.

Luckily, there are also the open shops or "rght to work" states in which the other forms have been viewed as discrimination and hence the non-union workers do not have to affiliate with the union at all, but do benefit from their actions.

Right now in the Denver metro area, there is a strike going on. The local Amalgamated Transit Union has decided to strike, making good on a threat that they have been making every spring for years. What happened is that the bus drivers for the public transportation system in Denver have decided that the livelihoods of the people in Denver that rely on this transportation to get to their jobs, between towns or to the games is less important than their immediate interests. Right now, less than half of the buses and none of the light rail trains are running. How do the union workers gain from this? Well, they might get a few more cents an hour. Right now, the whiny sons of bitches are not working (hence, not making any money), they will get strike pay, but that amounts to only $150 per week and they only get that if the strike goes into its third week (transit strikes typically last two), and they get to piss all of the people that depend on the buses and light rail to get around. "Well, what choice do they have?", you might be saying to yourself. Well, they could have taken the transit authority's offer (which is actually what the union was suggesting) and then try and negotiate something better down the line.

To wrap it all up, labor unions are creating high costs of living and an inconvenience for the rest of us. They are basically a large organization of skilled workers that have the disposition of a 3-year-old child. When they don't get what they want, they stamp their feet, they whine, and they drag their feet and refuse to go to their room. Yeah, sure, America was founded on the ideals of standing up for what you believe in (no divorces and killing Indians) but this doesn't apply to being so headstrong that you are willing to inconvenience thousands for a few extra dollars in your paycheck at the end of the week. Seriously, hoboes have a better work ethic. They take what they can get and if they don't like the pay, the move onto greener pastures.

Basically, Labor Unions are destroying America.


Next time: Hippies