Life Rant

Yup, yet more validation as to why I moved away from California. The state senate (along party lines, Dems: yes, Repubs: no) voted to support the nationwide boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants. Nothing like having the government endorse illegal activity, eh?

Personally I think it's a fine opportunity to note who doesn't show up and send the info to the INS.

Not that they'd be able to do anything of course.

You know, it's funny... I'll bet that if illegal immigrants made a concerted effort to "Americanize" and forced themselves to learn the language and if they would stop chanting "La Raza" and instead wave American flags there would be a very different split on how people feel about this issue.

But instead these folks are wanting their cake and to eat it too... Mexican pride, wave their flag around, speak their native tounge, expect business and schools to adapt to their language. I swear it's just another sign of people mistaking privileges for civil rights.

Source: CBS (via Drudge)

Posted by Vic at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

At a time when a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is tickling $3 (and is already above that in Hawaii) the announcement that Lee Raymond, ex-CEO of Exxon will be receiving a retirement package worth over $400 MILLION and has already been paid over $600 MILLION over the course of his time there is just insane to me. I don't care if it's in stock options or some other as of yet non-spendable form or WHATEVER.

We're not talking the CEO of a company that makes something like sofas or Oxy-Clean or a bloody Thighmaster that wouldn't impact people if it didn't exist or wasn't sold. This is OIL, folks, something the country cannot survive without and screw capitalism, something needs to be done.

BTW, in case you weren't aware, even the climb in price per barrel of oil to over $70 does not justify (mathematically speaking) the price per gallon we are paying at the pump. You ARE aware that profits of oil companies have DOUBLED from a year ago, aren't you? That certainly doesn't jive with the theory that the price at the pump is just keeping up with the price of oil per barrel.

No don't get me wrong, I'm the first to admit that it takes a lot to run a business, whether it's a corner store or a conglomerate. Risk is involved, capital is involved and those that make the leap should be rewarded. But this? This is abhorrent and is EXACTLY the sort of thing that makes the common person look at giant corporations as "evil" entities. It is friggin' rape or extortion, pure and simple. Take your pick.

Source: Reuters

Posted by Vic at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A 4th grade 10 year old girl is unhappy that her Pennsylvania school does not allow girls to wear mini-skirts. Her argument is that as long as shorts are worn underneath and "nothing shows" that it should be allowed. Her mother is behind her 100% in her cute little protest (I don't know if she's a single parent, but there was no father shown or mentioned... wouldn't surprise me though).

What I found especially funny about the whole thing was the girl's quote that "it was all the boys fault, because they keep trying to look up girls skirts."

Right... so what part of that does she (and especially her mother) not get? That's a major part of the reason for not ALLOWING skirts that short. Even if they could get the boys to not do that, it would still be a distraction.

Duh.

I'm sure that a sexual harrassment suit will be filed shortly against the elementary school boys...

Source: WPXI

Posted by Vic at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Got a couple of items sent to me by a reader... one of them actually kind of makes sense, and the other makes me so mad I want to go out and slug some parents:

Larger ambulances needed to acommodate obese passengers

It seems that a Las Vegas company is putting extra heavy duty (pardon the pun) ambulances into service due to the increasing number of morbidly obese passengers. If you think about it, it actually makes sense... despite what so-called "fat rights" groups say, obesity causes a variety of medical problems (that we all pay for through higher medical insurance rates, thanks very much), so an increase in obese passengers doesn't surprise me. A statement from the manufacturer of these extra-wide ambulances with beefier gurneys and winches:

...in the last six months, AMR has handled 75 calls involving patients that weighed more than 600 pounds.

Nice, huh?

Now here's the one that sends me through the roof:

Car seats not large enough to accomodate some children

A new study says many young children are too heavy for standard car-safety seats and manufacturers are starting to make heftier models to accommodate them. It seems that over 250 THOUSAND children are too heavy for standard car seats to accomdate them, and most of those are three-year-olds who weigh more than 40 pounds.

Sickening that parents are doing this, yes, doing this to their kids. I am fast hitting the point where I won't be able to keep my mouth shut in public. I'll no doubt either really offend someone or get my butt kicked.

I'll keep you posted on which it turns out to be.

Posted by Vic at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Holy cow, would that be cool or what? Check it out:

Peter Jackson to direct Star Trek 11

Posted by Vic at 03:41 AM | Permalink