My logic was that just 30 years ago, scientists were SURE that the Earth was about to freeze into a solid chunk of ice, and they were actively attempting to MELT the polar ice caps.

Global Warming Scientists Cooking the Books

As it turns out, some prominent scientists who advocate global warming have been busted basically cooking all the numbers, trying to stifle any opposing thought, and just all around politicizing global warming. Like I’m surprised.

CRU, University of Pennsylvania, and several other prominent global warming “scientific” research centers are implicated in the scandal.

Now, in much of the mainstream media, you won’t find much on this topic. You’ll have to type in “Climategate” into Google and you’ll discover that most of the articles have been published in the UK. Hmmm. Very interesting.

ANYHOW, the long and the short is, the “scientists” were fudging the numbers, actively trying to prevent anti-global warming scientists from being published in scientific journals, CHEERING the death of one of the prominent anti-global warming scientists, and talking about “just how in the heck are we going to keep people from finding out that global warming stopped several years ago.”

Not making this up.

If you still think global warming is bringing on the destruction of planet Earth, you should consider looking up gullible in the dictionary. I hear that Webster decided to remove it.

Apparently these two chuckleheads decided to burn down a dentists office here in Kansas City. They went inside and started setting things on fire. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t really have a game plan, and they ended up trapping themselves in the fire.

One of them was rushed to the hospital with extensive burns, and the local radio is reporting that the second suspect burned to death in the building.

I don’t know where these two went to arson school, but apparently they missed the day when the course on leaving an escape route was taught. Wouldn’t you think that… much like mopping the kitchen, you’d start at the back and work your way out of the building? They must have started by the door and worked towards the back instead.

I imagine that this is how Congress would go about torching a dentist’s office if they ever decided to.

There’s just one slight problem. AIG has contracts to pay these bonuses. If they don’t pay them, they will undoubtedly get their pants sued off, and guess what money they’d have to use for their legal defense? You guessed it.

Let me preface this by saying that any company who is willing to take bailout money automatically deserves any bad thing that the government does to them. If they were truly capitalists, they would choose death of the company over letting the government tell them what to do. Clearly AIG is not run by capitalists. Apparently it’s run by the same type of morons who are running the government.

I agree it’s outrageous to use taxpayer money to hand out bonuses. Absolutely. I think it’s a stench, an outrage, a despicable thing.

I also think that AIG is pretty much blameless. Yup, you heard me.

Who are the morons who gave private companies taxpayer money with no strings attached? Was it AIG? Was it GM? Was it US?

No, it was the sleazy politicians who went AGAINST the public outcry and dolled out cash to whoever was running their business WORST. Never mind all of the small businesses who are struggling, making hard cuts, and in many cases going out of business. It wouldn’t make sense to help the people who run their businesses well. Instead, we give money to people who’ve already proven that they can’t run their business. Smart. And then we did it without oversight or conditions. Doubly Smart.

And then we wonder why they used the money that way? That’s where we the public have misplaced our anger.

AIG is running their business according to contracts they have in place. If breaking those contracts was a condition of taking bailout money, that would be one thing. But it wasn’t.

Our anger is deserved, but it should be aimed at the utter morons who decided to take OUR money and give it to BAD BUSINESSMEN. HELLO!

If we’re really capitalists, then people who are crooks and morons will run their business poorly and go bankrupt, and the people who are smart and honest will succeed. Do you really think if AIG or CITI went out of business that the world would end? Or would all of their competitors benefit and thus eliminate the burden on the economy of a poorly run business and replace it with a well-run alternative?

The best way to f%@# up your economy is to let the government have the reigns.

Be angry. Just not at AIG.

It includes things like 50 million to the NEA, an organization that among other things is a liberal stronghold of kooks. One thing it’s NOT is a way to create new jobs.

The bill also includes tons of infrastructure money – billons of dollars – aimed at “spending money for spending’s sake.” Much of this money will be injected over the course of 5-7 years. Somehow I struggle with how this will help the unemployment in 2009. I’m not a Nobel Laureate, but I did take a lot of economics, and this concept that the government can spend us out of a crisis is simply silly.

At first, when Bush wanted to do the bailout, most Americans hated the concept. We were told it was absolutely necessary, and they passed it in spite of public outcry. It did nothing to help the economy, and the Republicans went on to get their hineys handed to them in November.

Yesterday, conservative free-market thinkers like myself lost. The stimulus passed handily. But I’m proud. I’m proud because not one Republican voted for it.

One of our local representatives was on the radio afterwards, and he said “we finally did the right thing in spite of political pressure, and we did it because the public melted our phones.”

Maybe there’s still a twinkle of conservatism still alive. It’s on life support, but it’s still there. Now, should the stimulus bill fail (which it will), Obama and the Democrats will have 100% of the responsibility for the failure. If it works (which it won’t), the Republicans are finished for at least 50 years.

HA. As I’m writing this and listening to Rush Limbaugh, he just started talking about it…

ANYHOW, one of my biggest questions is, since when does Somalia even have BOATS? Last I heard, they can’t even have food! Did they swim out and throw rocks at the tanker?

And how much of a wuss is the captain of the supertanker that he allowed himself to be a modern-day victim of a 15th century crime?! Couldn’t he just throw some rocks back at the pirates and sink their rowboats?

The Brits had the whole pirate thing figured out 500 years ago. If we think you remotely look like a pirate, we sink you. That basic strategy worked quite well.

The thing that’s bad is, no one is going to do anything about it unless it’s the US. Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a Navy – not exactly a top priority for a country made entirely of sand. Since the tanker full of oil hadn’t arrived where it was going, the oil still belonged to Saudi Arabia, so the recipient isn’t likely to do anything about it. China and Russia are probably happy about it. So, once again, the only country with any cajones will likely end up being us. It’s just a good thing this didn’t happen AFTER inauguration day.

My experience with Ebay has been love-hate from the beginning. I love being able to sell to such a huge market, and I hate that the large market includes about 25% scammers. Fraud is so rampant on Ebay that they have to have a huge division to deal with it, and frankly, they’re doing a piss-poor job.

I’ve sold about 25 things on Ebay in the past year, and 6 of those involved some form of fraud. Fortunately for me, it’s always been buyer fraud (they try to get stuff from me for free) and not seller fraud (where I pay and get nothing). The sophistication of these scams is a marvel to behold. If the same energy were harnessed to solve the world’s energy crisis or cure cancer, we’d have both problems knocked out in about a week.

The early scams were lame and transparent. You’d get an email where the name would say “Abu Ebuoforitoan” and the message would be something to the effect of “Please click this link http://10.124.52.92/~paypal and enter your Paypal username and password to confirm your account”. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that’s a scam. The emails back then didn’t even LOOK like the Paypal emails.

Since then, it’s reached a whole new level. The latest scam I was almost taken by was very well executed. The scammer hijacked a legitimate Ebay user account and clicked “Buy it Now” on my listing. Shortly thereafter, they sent a very authentic looking email to me that looked like a Paypal payment notification. It was odd, however, because it came to my secondary Paypal email address. However, stranger things have happened and I was still game, because payment is payment.

This morning I came in and went to Paypal to create a shipping label for UPS. I went through the whole thing, and then at the end, it said “Your Paypal balance is $0.00, your checking account will be charged for the shipping.” And I said “WHOA, THERE!”

I immediately emailed scam-boy and told him the money wasn’t there. He told me to look at the “Paypal” payment email and make sure I verified my email address, because the account was unconfirmed, which meant the funds were in limbo (according to him). Well, that sounds pretty darn flaky, but I went ahead and looked at the email again.

There was a link… something like http://CONFIRM.HUMPDICKER.FAKE.US/PAYPAL/CONFIRM. Just for the fun of it, I clicked the link, and it took me to a VERY authentic looking Paypal spoof… and get this, it even showed paypal.com in my browser URL. However, it asked me to confirm personal information and a quick glance down was all it took to see I was on an unsecure site. Paypal wouldn’t ask for personal information anyhow, but they certainly wouldn’t do it without SSL.

Then comes the really fun part. I email fraud-boy again and tell him I’m wise to his plot. IMMEDIATELY, he CALLS me on my cell phone (SCARY) and begins to threaten me! I’m not making this up! This guy was so mad I didn’t fall for his scam he had the gall to go off on ME!!

I told him I was reporting him to everyone I could think of and hung up on him.

After 45 minutes of talking to Ebay, I realized why they were victim to so much fraud. They are idiots.

So, in a last-ditch effort to make this ugly transaction go away, I emailed the guy and told him if he agreed to mutually withdraw from the transaction, I wouldn’t report his activity.

We mutually withdrew.

Then I reported him.

Scammers 0, Pete 1

Watch yourselves out there!

Pete

Am I the only person who’s noticed that the entire real estate market has imploded? What the hell are these idiots doing continuing to build more McMansions and commercial buildings? Are they nuts, or are they just morons?

Within two blocks of my house, there are two new strip malls. Between them, there are about 15 storefronts… and out of those, only 6 are filled. One of these strip malls has been finished and sitting vacant for more than two years, and the other has been sitting there for well over a year.

People are losing their shirts trying to unload houses that are now worth a buck fifty, but these developers are out there, chugging away, building hundreds of huge houses. There’s a new development that’s just been started a few miles from my house. It’s literally going to have 450 homes, each of which will be in the 280-350k range. Who do they think is going to buy these homes?

They are pouring millions of dollars into simply putting utilities and sewers into the area. They haven’t even built the first model home yet. Surely they can look around and see this is a bad plan – right? Cut their losses and find a new career?

Sprint is one of the biggest companies in Kansas City. About 5-10 years ago, they decided to build a billion dollar complex, lovingly known around here as the “Sprint Compound” and “The Barracks”. I won’t even get into how hideous the complex is… that’s not the point. The point is, when Sprint built their billion dollar complex, they vacated about 35 buildings throughout Kansas City and its suburbs.

As a result, commercial real estate collapsed. And this was several years ago. The building where I work is only about 20% occupied. That’s not unusual around here. But there are still idiots out there building NEW fricking buildings!

So, let me recap. There are vacant and semi-vacant commercial buildings and retail storefronts all over the city. People are losing their shirts trying to sell their houses because the economy has gone to crap. People are getting laid off and companies are downsizing, so the number of people who can afford to buy a house is going down. Developers are still building tons of huge houses, office buildings, and retail storefronts.

There’s only one possible explanation. Developers are retarded.

No, I’m not making it up. I listened to a local news report about this, and apparently the woman was in the restroom for a long time, so coworkers went in and found her in the bathroom, apparently lamenting that she kept trying to flush, but the baby just wouldn’t go down. She also claimed that she had no idea she was pregnant.

This is disturbing and difficult to believe on many levels, all of which are obvious. First, how the heck can you NOT KNOW that you’re pregnant. You’ll occasionally hear stories like that… woman is shocked to give birth on the toilet. How can you not know? Aren’t there severe hormonal changes, lack of a period for nine months, weight gain, and KICKING INSIDE YOUR BELLY?

Alright, I can buy that a woman might be large enough that 30 or 40 extra pounds don’t get her attention. That’s conceivable (no pun intended). But what about the no period thing? I’m not a chick, but wouldn’t you notice that??? Let’s pretend that she is morbidly obese and for some reason that was messing up her cycle, so she really didn’t have those two indicators to help.

Did she think she ATE something that was still kicking?

But let’s put all that aside for the moment. IF you were morbidly obese and didn’t notice you were missing your period for nearly a year, and then you suddenly gave birth while on the toilet… would your first instinct be to FLUSH IT??? Would you try repeatedly to try and flush it?

The hospital says the baby is expected to live, no thanks to his mother. The ambulance crew gave the baby CPR and he started breathing on his own.

This sounds like either a case of outright insanity, or the worst case of denial E-V-E-R. There are some people who can ignore the most obvious and persistent clues about their lives and pretend like it’s not happening. A classic and much less outrageous example is ignoring the letters and calls from collections after you stop paying your bills. You know you stopped paying them. You know the letters are demanding money and threatening action. You know the calls are to get you to pay. How can you just pretend there’s nothing wrong and go about your business?

We humans are an odd bunch, able to deny truths about ourselves and our situations. No other animal is capable of such a feat.

This woman… she should be put in jail for attempted murder. At the very least, she should be sterilized and put into a mental institution.

Doesn’t that just make you wonder what the car manufacturers are really up to? It sure makes me wonder.

Pete

Phelps of course QUICKLY took up the offer. So the picket is off. However, I don’t like the idea of him getting heard on the radio, either. At least this way he’s not directly hurting innocent girls’ families like he was planning to do, all for publicity.

His website says all material can be used for any reason, so here is a sign held outside a soldier’s funeral in Independence, MO, September 28th. Keep in mind that the soldier was NOT in fact gay.

Since his entire family is lawyers, I will list the source of this photo, but I ask that you NOT visit the site. If publicity is his game, then don’t give him the satisfaction of giving him hits on his website. http://godhatesfags.com

It’s completely inexcusable (not to mention the fact that the graphics are hysterical.) Actually, seeing that signs mostly makes me snort Cherry Pepsi out my nose, because it’s just too darned funny seeing gay stick people in compromising positions.

Imagine you have a little kid and they ask you what the people in the picture are doing… would you want to explain ANY sex act to your child? I sure wouldn’t. Phelps and his posse of 3 family members need to find something constructive to do.

I seem to recall Jesus acting a tad differently than the Phelps family. Two examples come to mind. One, Jesus drove the PHARISEES out of the temple with a whip. They were the religious leaders of the time, and they had become judgemental twits… people who saw nothing but the letter of the law, rather than seeing the person. Sounds familiar, eh?

The second example is Jesus’ friend Mary Magdelene… a prostitute. Now, the law of the Bible says that prostitutes should be stoned. Hmmm…. doesn’t sound like God is big on prostitution. If you were a twit, you might expect that Jesus, the son of God, would want her dead. However, what really happened was that Jesus was friends with her, and hung out with her, and she washed his feet with her expensive perfume. Sounds like perhaps his love had a positive impact and helped to turn her from her prostitution. Doesn’t sound like our friends from Westboro Baptist Church, does it?

Yes, the Bible teaches right and wrong. God condemns certain behavior. But the example from the Bible set by Jesus NEVER involved hatred or threats towards people who really just needed an example of real love. Jesus only really got ticked off at the religious leaders who were too thickheaded to understand the difference between witnessing and judging.

It’s God’s job to judge, Fred. Let’s leave the heavy lifting to Him, eh?

Pete