Here we go again.

If you can't handle profanity or are too young to find the entertainment value in a psychotic rant, please don't go any further. Otherwise, you've been warned...

I am sick.

Really sick.

I somehow, out of nowhere, caught a head-cold last night and it keeps triggered my angioedema. This makes for a miserable existence where sleep is almost impossible. I spent all of last night and most of today hopped up on cold pills, antihistamines, pain-killers, and rage. Most of my waking moments are spent wishing I would just die already.

So, you can imagine my happiness when I finally manage to balance out all the pills and find a mix that allows me to get some sleep. Which is what finally happened around 1:00 today.

Until the phone rings.

Turns out it's an automated message on behalf this fucker...

His name is Jim Johnson and he's running for a second term in Washington State's Supreme Court.

And some piece of shit dickwad feels that it's critical to interrupt my weekend with a scare tactics telemarketer message to get him re-elected. Thus destroying any chance of getting some rest so I can recover from all that ails me.

So right now I don't care if Jim Johnson gets re-elected.

I don't care who endorses him. I don't give a crap what his politics are. I don't give a shit if he's a liberal or a conservative. I don't even give a flying fuck if he's offering free blow-jobs at the Playboy Mansion with every vote.

He will NEVER get my vote.

Any asshole politician who has followers willing to terrorize people with random cold-calls on his behalf... endorsed by the candidate or not... is just fucking garbage.

So fuck you Jim Johnson.

Since, technically, the automated dialing equipment wasn't trying to sell me anything, they're not in violation of Washington State Law RCW 80.36.400... but they fucking should be. And any candidate for Washington State Supreme Court should be committed to protecting citizens from bullshit like this instead of being the cause of it.

Now whom am I voting for? Whoever the fuck is NOT Jim Johnson.

And to whoever is responsible for ruining my day... congratulations.

Memorial Day is a special day here in the USA which is set aside to remember those who died in military service.

Unfortunately it's also become a day of politically exploiting those who died in military service. I found this out the hard way when I opened my email this morning only to find this absurd rant about "Obama being the first American president not to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery." Because the email had been forwarded, there were several witty comments attached... everything from "Obama prefers to spit on the graves of dead soldiers" and "This just proves Hussein Obama is a commie dictator with no respect for American values."

Whenever I get an email like this, the first thing I do is go to Google News and see what Obama is actually up to.

Turns out he's in Chicago, and attended a Memorial Day event at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery where he laid a wreath of remembrance there (after sending VP Biden to lay the traditional wreath at Arlington). He tried to give a speech, but a lightning storm made it unsafe to do so. This was sad, but he had already posted a Memorial Day video, so no harm no foul, I guess.

After confirming that President Obama was NOT, in fact, spitting on the graves of fallen American soldiers, I clicked over to Snopes to see if they had an article about him being the only American President to not lay a wreath at Arlington. Not surprisingly, Snopes did have an article.

Turns out that President H.W. Bush, President G.W. Bush, and even President Ronald Reagan... the fucking Conservative Presidential Holy Trifecta... ALL did not lay wreaths at Arlington on Memorial Day at some time or another. Hell, President H.W. Bush didn't lay a SINGLE WREATH AT ARLINGTON DURING THE ENTIRE FOUR YEARS HE WAS IN OFFICE!

Heaven only knows I am not President Obama's biggest fan, but this stupid shit drives me insane.

How is spreading lies and cheapening the memories of American soldiers who paid for our freedoms with their lives a proper show of respect on Memorial Day?

I guess all I can say to those who died in service so we can carry on with our reprehensible behavior is "thanks anyway."

This morning the Washington State House and Senate ended their "special session" to balance the state's budget. They did this by passing a package of tax hikes and spending cuts, which kind of makes sense given that we don't want to end up on the verge of bankruptcy like California. Nobody likes more taxes and less spending, but you do what you have to do to make things work, Right? I can live with that.

Except...

While I may be open to sucking it up and paying a little more in taxes so that critical services and functions will continue in my home state, I do insist that the new taxes MAKE SOME FUCKING SENSE IF I HAVE TO FUCKING PAY THEM!

If you're not afraid of the word "fuck" and aren't bothered by mindless ranting, then feel free to proceed...

   
A major source of the new taxes are on bottled water, tobacco products, pop, candy, gum, and beer. I don't pretend to understand exactly what's going on with all this (exactly as our government wants it) but I'll do my best to comment anyway. From what I can tell, these taxes are on things that are supposedly "bad" for you or "luxuries"...

• Bottled Water. Water isn't bad for you, but those plastic bottles are bad for the environment and taking up space in our landfills. From that perspective, I guess taxing bottled water isn't such a bad thing. Maybe it will encourage people to buy water filters and re-use plastic bottles and stuff? But here's my problem... when did water become a "luxury" item? The classification is categorically absurd. I stopped drinking tap-water because it tastes like chemicals and contains fluoride (a substance which keeps your teeth healthier but may cause problems). WHERE'S THE FUCKING SENSE IN RAISING TAXES ON DRINKING WATER WHEN YOU ARE MESSING WITH THE FREELY AVAILABLE ALTERNATIVE? Answer: THERE IS NO SENSE IN IT, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS POLITICIANS!! And heaven help you if you don't have drinkable water where you live.
• Tobacco Products. I think we can all agree that society would be a lot healthier if tobacco products were eliminated. Cigarettes, cigars, chew, snuff, whatever... it's all bad for you. But here's the thing, tobacco products are already taxed to death. Washington currently has the third-highest tax on tobacco in the entire country. And since the tax on a pack of cigarettes is already in excess of $2.00, it raises the question: exactly how much of our state's spending are smokers expected to bear? Because of massive anti-smoking campaigns, education, location limits, and (a-ha!) huge taxes, the number of people using tobacco is decreasing every year, yet Washington seems intent on maintaining the amount of money they get from smokers. WHERE'S THE FUCKING SENSE IN HEAPING A MASSIVE TAX BURDEN ON AN ALREADY OVER-TAXED SEGMENT OF OUR RESIDENTS? Answer: THERE IS NO SENSE IN IT, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS POLITICIANS!! If you smoke, there's now a much bigger reason than your health to quit.
• Pop/Soda. In all honesty, I am of the opinion that any product using high fructose corn syrup deserves more taxes. High fructose corn syrup is pure evil in liquid form but, because of massive government corn farm subsidies, it's used in absolutely everything because it's cheaper than real sugar. And there's the problem. The government GIVES our tax money away to make an unhealthy ingredient cheaper, but then turns around and COLLECTS the money on the back-end... thus fucking over consumers twice. Well, whatever, because deadly high fructose corn syrup needs to be more expensive so real sugar can compete... except real sugar is taxed in pop just the same (even though few use it because subsidized HFCS has been made so cheap). WHERE'S THE FUCKING SENSE IN COLLECTING MORE TAXES ON SOMETHING YOU'VE ALREADY SUBSIDIZED WITH TAX DOLLARS? Answer: THERE IS NO SENSE IN IT, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS POLITICIANS!! Apparently corn has fucking GOD-LIKE POWER to make our government STUPID.
• Candy & Gum. And here's where I really lose it, because this is the stupidest tax of all. NOT because I feel that "luxury" foods like candy shouldn't be taxed... but because candy shouldn't be singled out as a "luxury" food in an arena which is overflowing with foods that aren't good for you when eaten in excess. For example, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is now taxable... but a Twinkie is not. A box of Milk Duds is now taxable... but a can of frosting is not. A box of DOTS is now taxable, but an entire bag of sugar to make your own candy is not. In other words, the candy industry has to take a bullet as being something "bad" for you, when foods that are just as "bad" (or even worse) escape unscathed. To put it in still other words, the entire candy industry just got fucked. Hard. To say nothing of the fact that MEAT, which Americans eat waaayyyy in excess of what could be considered "healthy" is still tax free. WHERE'S THE FUCKING SENSE IN DRAWING LINES ON TAXATION WHERE LINES DON'T EXIST? Answer: THERE IS NO SENSE IN IT, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS POLITICIANS!! Candy is far less "bad" for you than eating lard, but guess which one gets taxed? For your answer, ask which one is supported by the Beef lobby buying off your politicians.
• Beer. NNNOOOOOOoooooo!! WHERE'S THE FUCKING SENSE IN TAXING BEER, WHEN IT'S BEER THAT'S HELPING PEOPLE COPE WITH GOVERNMENT STUPIDITY? Answer: THERE IS NO SENSE IN IT, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS POLITICIANS!! Micro-brews are exempt from new taxes, but that's of little consolation if your beer of choice is Miller or Stella or Corona or whatever. Lovely that your personal beer preference is enough to get you fucked or unfucked by this new law... so much for freedom of choice in America!

Look, I know that my genius-level IQ means that I tend to see things more clearly than a lot of people. But surely I am not the only person who looks at the Washington State government and wonders WHAT THE FUCK?!? None... NONE... of these tax hikes make any sense at all. You can dress it up as a "luxury tax" or a "sin tax" or whatever the fuck you want to call it, but the end result is that these have all been levied unfairly. Poison the water, but tax clean drinking water. Tax the most taxed products ever because less people are using them. Subsidize something bad for your health to make it cheaper, then tax people to buy it after the healthier competition has been slaughtered. Add taxes to a candy that has a cookie in it, but don't tax a cookie that has candies on it. THEN tax a beverage that makes all the other stupid shit bearable.

Again, I understand the need for taxes to help pay for the services we all enjoy... I'm not debating that.

But taxes need to MAKE SOME FUCKING SENSE for me to support them. When lawmakers just pass bullshit taxes because they're too fucking lazy to find logical solutions to balance the budget, it just tells me that these politicians need to get the fuck out of office to make room for creative thinkers who won't tax first, then think later.

And elections are just around the corner...

Yeah, I'm pretty much done with authority now...

It all ends up being the same, and there's no sign of it ever getting better.

So why pretend?

It's Bullet Sunday! And I'm not feeling very well. Waah!

   
• Betty! It is no secret that I love Betty White. She's a monster talent, and I've said many times that Betty White should guest-star on every television show because everything is better with Betty. I will literally watch anything that has Betty White in it, even crappy soap operas. I am a huge, huge, fan...

Given all that, I couldn't be happier that she won a well-deserved lifetime achievement award at the SAG Awards. As usual, she was 100% classy and funny as hell...

Not only should Betty White be in every television show, she should also win all the awards. Knowing that she has no plans to stop working at 88 years old is the cherry on the top of my day. Now if only she'd be cast as a vampire on the next Twilight movie, I may actually end up watching it.

   
• Flash! For those viewing my site on their iPhone, they'll be dismayed that the above video won't work because it uses Adobe Flash to play the movie. Yes, it's a bummer... but, like most every other major website on the planet, Funny or Die is working on an iPhone app to display their media content. So, while this is a temporary stumbling block, eventually there will be a solution for iPhone/iPod/iPad users that doesn't rely on the resource-sucking pile of buggy crap that's Flash. I can live with that. Next up, Hulu.

   
• Who?!? Before the Grammys, I had never heard of "Lady Antebellum" before. This isn't too surprising considering that I can't stand country music, but it is still disturbing to me, because it means I am completely out of touch with popular music...

Yes, I'm the guy watching the Grammys wishing that Taylor Swift would shut up so I can hear Stevie Nicks sing. It has nothing to do with Taylor Swift... I don't even know who she is other than she hosted SNL once. Stevie, on the other hand, is a long-time favorite whom I've followed both in Fleetwood Mac and her solo career. Meh. This is just great. I suppose it's only a matter of time before I'm yelling at kids to stay off my lawn and bitching about the price of a candy bar. When did this happen?

   
• Obama? I've made no secret of my growing disappointment with President Obama. As a politician, I knew he would end up being full of shit... but I had no idea he'd be so blatant about it. The whole lack of transparency and classified status his administration put on the ACTA bullshit has me furious. Staffing his administration with FUCKING LOBBYISTS after he made a massive display about how heinously evil it is while he was campaigning REALLY pisses me off. But my biggest problem has nothing to do with broken promises... Obama's a politician first and I expect that... no, what bothers me is the complete lack of balls from his administration. I may have hated the misguided legislation that President Bush rammed through, but I had to respect him for sticking to his agenda. But Obama is too busy trying to avoid hurting feelings than to push through anything. As if that weren't bad enough, the Democrats in office are a bunch of pussies who are too busy playing politics to do their fucking jobs. It's all so embarrassing. And while Republicans are busy playing politics of their own by publicly attacking Obama at every turn, I can't help but imagine that they are secretly ecstatic that he's proven to be so ineffectual a president.

So imagine my surprise when President Obama did one of the ballsiest things since President Clinton decided to get a Lewinsky in the Oval Office. On Friday he appeared at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore to speak... and take questions from hostile Republicans who seem to despise him and everything he does. It doesn't matter if you love Obama or hate him, it's worth a look (if you'd rather read it, there's a transcript over at Huffington Post)...

Wow. It's as if the president we elected finally realized he's actually the President of the United States of America. Next thing you know, he's going to come out and say: "For a year I've been trying to be all bipartisan and shit, but you Conservatives hate me no matter how hard I try to include you, so FUCK THAT. Starting tomorrow, health care reform is DONE. And if any of you Democrats try and fuck with me and my plan, I'll pop a cap in your ass. I'm using my majority and it's just DONE. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get to work on a list of promises I have to keep... we'll be doing this again next week."

It used to be that I was happy to have a president who could actually form coherent sentences. Turns out that now all I want is a president I can respect. If the Q&A session with the Republicans on Friday is any indication, Obama might just start getting it.

   
And now I suppose I should get some sleep. I only worked a half-day today, so I've got a lot of ground to make up in the morning.

I wrote a long political rant over the past 20 minutes, but deleted it because it was just too easy. President Obama and the Democrats are fucking things up at every turn, nobody can get their shit together, and everybody is acting so surprised. Well, almost everybody.

Democrats are surprised because nothing is really changing and they were delirious with hope that it actually would.

Republicans are surprised because nothing is really changing and they were scared shitless that it actually would.

I, on the other hand, am surprised that people are surprised that nothing is really changing. It's politics as usual in our Nation's capitol... only the players have changed. Personal agendas and personal politics still rule. Lobbyists and money still make the decisions. And it's the citizens, as usual, who are worse off because of it.

Sadly, that's just the way our system works. The only difference from one politician to the next is degrees. And since people are more interested in fighting than coming up with solutions, we end up with the government we deserve.

I remain... unsurprised.

Not a good day to be Dave2.

If you're sensitive to foul language, adult situations, and abundant use of the "F-word," it would be best to skip this entry.

   
This rant has been placed in an extended entry to protect the innocent...

I've misplaced some photo negatives and have spent days trying to find them. All to no avail. They're gone, and I have no clue what happened to them. Needless to say, I'm not in the happiest of moods this Bullet Sunday.

• Translate! For a long, long time I've wanted to provide some kind of translation service on my blog for my non-English reading visitors. But all the options I've found have been kind of cheesy, and didn't work very well. Until now. The lovely people at Google have come up with a brilliant "overlay gadget" that can translate a page into dozens of languages easily. I've added it to my sidebar and it's pretty sweet. If you're interested in adding it to your own site, you can grab the code here.

• Obama! I am sharing a WTF?!? moment with people around the globe now that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it's laughable considering that Obama hasn't really done anything to deserve it and, like many people, feel that it was awarded based not on deed but on intent. Or maybe it was awarded solely for entertainment value. The Nobel Council could have felt that giving Obama the prize would completely freak out Right-Wing America (it's just so easy now-a-days), and wanted a good laugh at their expense. Naturally, total dumbass douchebags like Rush Limbaugh are so fucking stupid that they took the bait hook, line, and sinker... but, much to my shock, one of the more radical Conservatives was smarter about it...

Now, I hate Bill O'Reilly with the fiery passion of a thousand suns... he is an opportunist douchebag who exaggerates, lies, and gleefully divides this nation (all while professing to love it) on a daily basis. He's inflammatory and destructive for no other reason but to keep people angry so he can make a lot of money. I find O'Reilly reprehensible in a way I find ALL political extremists reprehensible... on both the Right and the Left. But, for reasons I cannot fathom, O'Reilly took the high road this time and is basically saying "I don't agree that President Obama deserves this award, but having a US President honored with a peace prize is good for America."

Seriously, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Because I am tired of the Extreme Right's constant need for Obama to fail. They would rather see this country go down in flames than for Obama to gain even the smallest amount of political ground. Case in point: The Olympics. When Chicago lost it's bid to host the games, the Extreme Right was nearly orgasmic with joy because Obama had been promoting his home city. They saw it as a "major loss" for Obama, and were celebrating his "failure." Which is about the most astoundingly fucking stupid thing I've ever heard. Obama didn't lose anything... he's still the president. It's not like he got his salary cut because Brazil won the prize. It was Chicago that lost. Illinois lost. America lost. Jobs were lost. We all lost. But the Neocons don't care about any of that, they'd rather Chicago explode than for anything even remotely associated with President Obama to win anything.

To say I don't understand this kind of self-defeating schadenfreude thinking is putting it mildly. Even though I despised President Bush's policies, I never once wished for him to fail (well, except for his second-term election). When he invaded Iraq, it's not like I was thinking "I hope he fails in Iraq!" On the contrary, even though I vehemently disagreed with the war and felt it would be a total failure, I wished Bush nothing but success for the sake of our troops and our country. I felt the same way about Hurricane Katrina. It's not like I was happy Bush's administration was so pathetically incompetent in dealing with the situation... I was mortified. I would have been much, much happier had Bush's people handled the situation so well that the entire country was rallying to congratulate the President on a job well done. Regardless of who is in office, I want these United States of America to do well because I am an American and this is my country.

But, alas, this kind of rational thought here in the USA seems to be over. For eight long years I had hard-core Conservatives telling me that I should "love it or leave it" when I disagreed with President Bush. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, these same people can't take their own advice. Now they consider it "patriotic" not only to disagree with President Obama, but to hope and pray that he fails in everything he does (then laugh their asses off when they perceive even a hint failure on his part). "United we stand, divided we fall" is no longer a rallying cry to seek commonality amongst diversity... it's become a sad harbinger of the future of this nation. We are indeed falling, and I can only hope that we come to our senses before we hit bottom. Watching Bill O'Reilly have a moment of sanity gives me hope.

• Kitty! My adventures with Kitty Spangles Solitaire are well-documented. It's the best solitaire game for the Mac, which is why I was intrigued when Swoop Software announced Kitty Spangles Sudoku. I'm not much of a Sudoku fan, but have to admit they've done a pretty good job of making it work...

If you've got a Mac and like Sudoku, you can download a demo directly from Swoop!

   
Blargh. I should probably try and get some sleep tonight since I have a very long day tomorrow...