Sep 20 2008
I wish I had a cocaine habit…
… or smoked or drank or had insurance or ate out so I could cut back on my high-rolling lifestyle to pay for the new 40% hike in my utility bill. I used almost exactly the same number of kW hours for the last two months, and this bill is $100 more than the last. Where they imagine people are supposed to come up with this money, I just don’t know. I can’t afford supplies for my counterfeit press now, so I guess it’ll come from dropping my cell phone ($5 a month) and Netflix ($10 a month). Oh, wait, that’s only $15… Okay, guess we can wash dishes by hand, eat only foodstuffs that don’t require heating, and turn off the air conditioner to stew in our own sweat. Hell, if we eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, not only will we save a fortune on groceries, we won’t even need the refrigerator. Maybe I can sell my plasma, too. And get an extra nights-and-weekends job.
Take a wild guess where the time is going to come from. Hint: I only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night as it is, so that’s not it. Screw my future. As long as the electric company is flush, that’s all that matters.
I thought somebody made a whoops when I opened the bill. Then I read the “no, seriously, we really are ass-raping you and there’s nothing you can do about it” statement and burst into tears.
September 20th, 2008 at 10:20 am
damn kerry, where are you that they can stick that kind of increased price tag on a utility bill without warning?
in nova scotia, the power company wants to add more than 9% to domestic user bills, but the utility review board has yet to approve that!
September 20th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I’m in sunny Florida, where solar energy… Oh. Right. Wait.
Florida, where we harness the power of the waves surrounding… Oh. Just a sec.
Florida, where we use the power of the coastal winds… Oh, damn it all to hell. What do we do here?
Oh, that’s right! We chuck barrels of oil into a big furnace to create electricity!
It depends on the electric company, though. My mom is 15 miles away on a different grid and paying less than half of this BS going on here. Time to move to the boonies, I guess…
September 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Did they give you a nice, “It’s not *our* fault that we haven’t diversified our energy sources, but rather yours for not voting for the people who would let us drill offshore. That way supply would increase and the price would go down (…in ten or twenty years. Shhh! And not enough to really make a difference. SHHHH!).
Oh, and its God’s fault too, because of that Hurricane business. So we’re going to punish you along with God. Cause we’ve decided we’re God.”
…I live in JAPAN. An island. They don’t have oil. Barely any coal. Gas and Electric prices are very, very reasonable. I grant you, I live alone–but I paid way more living alone in America than I pay living here.
Its ridiculous.
I think you should go kick ‘em in the balls….
…or something a bit more restrained that won’t cause the police to come after you.
September 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am
How about arson? Arson is restrained, right? And it generates energy, which will help offset fuel costs!
But then I suppose they’d have to build a new $2 million dollar office building.
Again.
Right about now, I’m wishing I had chosen the Dark Side and become a slimy business mogul/politician because they seem to be immune from what is known to the rest of us as Reality.
I walked out of a job interview this morning. “You want how many years of education? And how many years of experience? And you’re paying WHAT? You do realize that’s 10 cents above minimum wage.”
Makes it hard to tell the younguns they need to carry their educations as far as possible when they can make more money waitressing than at the jobs they’ve worked so hard to become qualified for…
September 21st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I’ll assume I’m preaching to the choir here, but…
McCain Skipped Vote on Green Tax Credits in Stimulus Package. In the 2008 Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act the Senate included provisions to renew and extend the Production Tax Credit and Investment Tax credit for power companies, businesses, and individuals who employ wind, geothermal, solar, and other types of renewable electricity. The February 6, 2008 Senate vote failed to invoke cloture by one vote, and the Senate was forced to drop the renewable electricity incentives. Sen. McCain was the only senator to miss the vote. He indicated that he would have voted against the package with the extension of the renewable electricity incentives. [2/6/08; New York Times 2/7/08]
McCain Skipped Vote on Renewable Energy. In 2007, McCain skipped a vote on a motion to invoke cloture (thus limiting debate) on the Energy Independence and Security Act, which included fuel economy, energy efficiency, and renewable fuels provisions. The controversial issue in the Senate was the House-passed provision to require electric utilities to produce at least 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. The previously mentioned clean energy tax package was also an issue. Sixty votes were required for passage. Sen. McCain was the only one of five senators then running for president who missed the vote. The motion was rejected 53-42. [HR 6, Vote #416, 12/07/07] =
McCain Skipped Vote to Establish $32.1B of Tax Incentives for Renewable Energy and Efficiency. In 2007, McCain failed to vote on a motion to invoke cloture (thus limiting debate) on an amendment by Sens. Baucus (D-MT) and Grassley (R-IA) that would establish $32.1 billion of tax incentives for alternative energy sources. The amendment would have provided tax incentives for more energy efficiency and the development of carbon capture and storage technology to reduce global warming pollution from power plants. It would have paid for these tax incentives with savings from closing oil company tax loopholes and recovering unpaid royalties from oil and gas production in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. (Sixty votes were required for passage. Motion rejected 57-36: R 10-34; D 45-2 (ND 41-1, SD 4-1); I 2-0. [HR 6, Vote #223, 6/21/07] NOTE: Sen. Reid switched his vote from “yes” to “no” to protect his ability to conduct a revote.)
McCain Opposes Renewable Electricity. A renewable electricity standard would require utilities to generate a certain portion of their electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources. Twenty six states, including Arizona, have such requirements. In 2002 and 2005, there were votes in the Senate to require utilities nationwide to generate 10 percent or 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy resources. Sen. McCain voted against renewable electricity every time.
McCain Voted Against Important Efficiency Standards. In 2002, Sen. McCain voted against an amendment by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) that would have restored a standard to require a 30 percent increase in efficiency for air conditioners. It would have saved consumers $1 billion on their electric bills, reduced energy use enough to avoid construction of 45 new power plants, and reduced greenhouse gases by 2.5 million metric tons. President Bush had blocked this rule, and Sen. McCain’s vote supported him. [4/25/02]
McCain Has No Plan To Increase Energy Efficiency. Though a recent study by McKinsey &Co. found that the best way to make deep cuts in carbon emissions is to improve energy efficiency of buildings, appliances, and other energy consumers, McCain’s understanding of the problem is woefully lacking. He has proposed a program of “energy audits,” a system Dr. Joseph Romm calls “a weak, uncoordinated, narrowly-targeted action. They will barely have any impact when it comes to large commercial users who can already afford them.” [Dr. Romm, Salon, 2/8/08]
***
Forty-five days and counting before we see if this country’s got the brains God gave cabbage. Me? I’m thinking probably not. But I’ve been told I’m a bit of a cynic.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Do re mi fa so la… la… LAAAAAAAHH! *somewhere, dogs’ heads explode in response to my dulcet tones*
I am definitely voting and mercilessly nagging everyone I know to do the same. It’s true Florida will just throw away our ballots if it doesn’t like them (and, strangely, it never does), but I’ll be damned if I won’t at least TRY to put an end to the “all evidence to the contrary, everything’s just hunky-dory” administration. I don’t know what’s going on in the utopian kingdom of D.C., but the rest of the world is as far from “hunky-dory” as it’s been in my lifetime.
Frankly, smiling at me and telling me I’m mistaken, everything’s fine, just makes me… scream a lot at the TV. (No, of course I didn’t type “homicidal” at first. That would be so wrong.)
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
I need to stop reading conservative blogs (I keep perusing the lists on Word Press), but for some reason, I can’t help myself.
They make me very depressed.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 am
And yet, there are people who eat that stuff like candy. I listen to some of them and sincerely feel they cannot possibly believe the things that are coming out of their mouths because they are absolutely counterlogic, but they’d keep spouting the same BS while being waterboarded, I’m sure. That’s some damn effective brainwashing, there. Lie often enough, convince enough people believe the lie, and it will BECOME the truth. “Things are better than they’ve ever been. There is no environmental, energy, or economic crisis. The whole world loves America. Government officials deserve a 20% raise every year. God says so.”
I may try it myself. “All the politicians and lobbyists were dragged underground by jackalopes to be prepared for the Jackalope New Year feast. Regular people took over and cleaned up the mess the politicians left behind, and we all lived happily ever after.”
*sigh* What a beautiful dream…
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:57 am
I’ll be voting in November. I always do. But this time, I sincerely don’t believe that either candidate offers anything new or useful. Neither one is qualified or ready to lead, imo.
So, what do you say, Kerry? Shall we run for Pres/VP? I hear the pay is much better (and hey! I have more college degrees than several on the tickets…), you get a private chef, and you get to blow things up when you get pissed.
We could be a crackerjack team. If the morons in Congress don’t start acting like human beings, we’ll appoint all of them to be ambassadors to the outer regions of Antartica and invite real people in instead! =D
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
But I iz a unwed muther clearly lacking in small town values and appropriate Christian religious affiliation. And I am a confessed jaywalker.
(Oh, wait. I forgot Trent and I will be getting married at the end of October. Does that erase my “impure whore, downfall of western civilization” status, at least?)
I’ve been voting for the lesser evil for the last 16 years, pretty much. Sometimes the best I hope for is to clear out the incumbents and bring in some fresh corruption. In this Pres election, I may not be ZOMG! SQUEE! about one party’s offering, but I’m freakin’ scared to death of the other one, which settles it for me.
My impossible-but-I’d-really-like-to-see celebrity dream team would be Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan. They’re self-made men. They know how to WORK, and they expect those around them to do the same. Washington needs some of that—no more sitting there collecting a paycheck, actually DO YOUR JOB, which is supposed to be advocating for the best interests of THE PEOPLE, not the lobbyists funding your next reelection campaign.
And the accents together would be fantastic.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
You may be on to something. Who would dare mess with the Terminator and Jackie “I Can Kick Your Teeth Out The Back Of Your Head Faster Than You Can Blink” Chan??
That’s better than the two of us. After all, I had no idea you were a jaywalker. Since I ignore stop signs and have been known to confront belligerent sales clerks with a dose of their own medicine, we’d never be vetted for politics.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
they are definitely putting less black beans in the black bean can. those %%*&^#%s get you coming & going.
On a more serious note, Obama is a workhorse. when I say workhorse, I don’t mean just taking everyone within reach to the woodshed cause it’s so fun to feel righteous. We’ve had some boring presidents (Truman, Eisenhower) who got a lot more done than some of the glamorous ones.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:23 am
Tuna in pouches: When they first started packaging this way, there was NO liquid in that pouch. Picked one up a couple weeks ago, and it felt like a juice pouch. Put it back on the shelf.
Yeah, I love going to the grocery store. They love having me there too, so much that they have a security guard shadow me so I can mutter ominously under my breath and have as many “Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!” outbursts as I like without interruption from other shoppers.
Needless to say, I absolutely embrace the idea of the government bailing out kajillion $$$ corporations with my tax dollars.
VP Chan: *headbutts table in conference room, splitting it down the middle and causing kajillionaires to scurry for cover*
Prez Arnie: “What my colleague is trying to say is, NO. Time for you to hang a ‘for sale’ sign on da choppah. I’m sure you’ll be bahk, at which time you will meet Mr. Li, the Secretary of Quit Wasting My Fucking Time or I’ll Rip Out Your Medulla Oblongata and Use It for a Doorstop.”
September 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Political Math!
Finance industry lobbyists/special interest groups/favor whores have given $800,000 to my friendly local congressman.
Let’s assume they’ve been equally generous with all 100 in the Senate and 435 in the House.
That’s $428,000,000 of the $700,000,000 bailout right there! All our elected officials have to do to fix the latest economic crisis is give that money back, and we’ll all be saved!
*crickets*
September 25th, 2008 at 1:13 am
*snorts* But it’s so much easier to convince me to take it out of my own pocket, right? I mean…I have all this extra money just sitting here in my change jar. And I can’t really begrudge any member of Congress their ASTRONOMICAL benefits/pension package because I don’t understand the peculiar pressure one endures when one is forced to decide how to spend everyone else’s money.
Since when did the government decide it was responsible for our entire financial market??? Oh. Wait. FDR. That’s right.
*sigh* One step closer to socialism.
Bring in Arnie/Chan!
September 25th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Boy, do I feel silly. There should be an extra three zeroes on that bailout amount.
In that case, those bribes and kickbacks won’t even touch it, so they might as well keep them and let the bottom of the pyramid—people who can’t even afford to pay their bills—pick up the tab.
I propose a new prerequisite for any political office: Prove you can balance a checkbook and live without credit because pissing away other people’s money isn’t going to cut it anymore, particularly after you’ve made what little money they have practically worthless.
I feel the need to become a political activist, but it’ll be hard to find the time now that I have to work 70 hours a week to maintain last year’s standard of living, for which I had to work only 40. Perhaps that’s the idea—we can’t have one of those pesky civil uprisings if they keep us really, really busy.