Sarah Palin just signed a deal with Fox News to be a contributor, and I am excited!

No, I’m not a staunch Palin supporter…..but man, she was so entertaining during the Presidential Campaign. Sarah had some of the best videoed moments; I just had to favorite it on YouTube. I love listening to her talk circles and make absolutely no sense what so ever…all with that charming accent of hers.

I’ve never looked so forward to tuning into Fox News! And Fox News knows it. Smart on their part.

I know I’m not the only American who will be tuning in JUST to see Palin. Although, I bet I’m one of the few who will admit it.

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I’m not going to even pretend to be the politically correct guru of the East Coast. Actually, I’m very often accused of P.C. fouls. But damn, Harry Reid (aka Democratic Senate Majority Leader from Nevada), do you have any common sense? Any common sense at all? Running around insulting visitors to the Capitol (they’re the ones that pay you to work 103 days a year, dumbass) then going off at the mouth about Obama. Do you get off on having to apologize to people; is that your kink?

It’s not even run of the mill Obama-bashing that many of use do and is just a part of the political game….but to say Barrack is “light-skinned” with “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one” is inconceivable moronic. I’m not condemning nor condoning his opinion, I just happen to think that even the average person’s mental filter would recognize that statement shouldn’t be made within ear shot of ANYONE if you work on Capitol Hill.

What I find even more confusing is how the hell does the phrase “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one” flows from ones lips smoothly? It’s a struggle to read it without sounding like I’m an undergraduate of Hooked on Phonics.

Harry, collect your inflated salary, tally up your lobbyists’ donations, enjoy the $9 Million you have in the bank, and shut the fuck up.

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Europe decides traffic fines based on wealth. It’s a brilliant idea! On two levels.

One, yay revenue! Two, sometimes it’s the only way to make the wealthy understand how wrong their actions are.

The average person gets hit with fines, court costs, and (depending on the violation) costly classes. That severe cut in time and income teaches several people in the general population a valuable lesson.

If you are rich, the fines and court costs seem very minimal to you, and you had the money for a lawyer who got you out of any community service or classes. No biggie.

The European courts do weigh in prior behavior. You don’t get a quarter million dollar fine without priors…so again…a way to teach a lesson that may not be able to be taught any other way.

It’s a logical system to balance the scales and keep punishments as harsh as necessary as compared to that person’s status in life.

I got a $400 speeding ticket one time in Pennsylvania and had 7 days to pay it. I never worked so much overtime or was so stressed on how to make rent and get PA off my back. I haven’t gotten a ticket for speeding since. *finds wood; knocks on it*

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Obama has a new job package to present. Small business tax breaks and incentives to stimulate hiring and production. Of course, it’s for creating 21st Century jobs…i.e. “green manufacturing jobs”.

I’m all for the environment. I grew up on the Chesapeake, adore the outdoors, get angry when someone litters, and recycle every week. I would just like to know how this helps the unemployment rate to significantly decrease.

Do most of the people who have found themselves struggling for the past couple years in the bleak job market have manufacturing skills to benefit this greener technology? I’m going to say “no”.

Just another bill to get more money to companies who are in the business of the environment and who happen to drop some change in election funds.

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I’m sure everyone knows the punchline to that joke, and with good reason. When a company starts to decline in quality and expectations are not met, people will take every opportunity to rag on it.

Sync, Ford’s answer to mobile technology, now has apps. Keep up on Twitter, get movie times, and so on and so forth. Many states banned texting on cell phones, however, running apps on your dashboard is ok apparently. Go figure.

The prior Ford models with Sync sold twice as much as the same Ford without. And do you know why? Because the model itself, the engineering, precision and quality isn’t good enough to warrant just really wanting that vehicle.

Lucky for Ford we have become a messenging/mobile computing obsessed society, so much so we now judge cars based on their dashboard technology. That’s what I’ve always looked for in a vehicle…not horsepower or reliability…but how much non-driving crap I can access in the car.

Maybe it’s not so bad…at least I’d have something to do while I wait on the side of the road for a tow truck.

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The Newark Liberty Airport was in lockdown over a security breach. That sentence conjures up immediate images and fears for most Americans. Then you read further to what the “security breach” was.

A man walked the wrong way down the exit path of a terminal. And for some reason they lost track of him, still haven’t located him, and evacuated all planes and terminals to re-screen all passengers.

Now, we can’t have people trying to get aboard without going through security. However, couldn’t someone just say “Hey Mister, you’re going the wrong way”? Then if he ran, go after his ass…or if it was innocent, he could carry himself back to get checked properly.

I’ve had grocery store employees call me out if I’m in the wrong lane, and someone can’t holler out to the dude walking the wrong way down a terminal exit? Instead the airport is in lockdown, people re-screened, and still can’t find him.

Now, I’m sure someone will say that airport security, and the airport employees, didn’t notice the man as he entered via the exit. That creates an entirely new realm of alarm and concern for those we trust to keep our skies safe.

I feel real secure, don’t you?

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I have long believed and expressed that cars are not built like they used to. They are built of cheaper material; a small fender bender and a body shop makes money. The engines are not built to last 10 or 15 years; you’re lucky if you get through the 6 years you financed it for. Tonight I realized cars are not the only product that continues to increase in price, decrease in quality, and force us to submit to the shakedown from the repair and maintenance industry.

My step-daughter’s laptop had been acting strange, over-heating and such. It finally stopped booting up. This laptop is a mid-line model that she purchased a year and a half ago, new from Circuit City, with all of her money she had earned that summer. Circuit City is closed and the manufacturer’s warranty has run out. I know enough about computers, and have enough geektastic friends, that I wanted to examine the fan before recycling the computer and purchasing a new one.

Commences the disassembly of said laptop.

I thought it would be pretty straight forward. The fan is visible from underneath the laptop; I assumed it could not be THAT difficult to access. I removed approximately 80 screws, the battery, the hard drive, the wi-fi, the memory, the rom drive, the keyboard, the top cover, the audio board, part of the screen assembly, and finally the motherboard. All of this to reach the freaking fan. I encountered more delicate and easily destroyable parts than one should to reach an inexpensive part with plastic rotating blades.

When I unscrewed the first cover on the back (protecting the memory and wi-fi) I was created by several stickers that said “Replace with” and followed by model number of the part. I commented on the unease that gives someone about their machinery as soon as I saw them. An hour later, and a dozen “Replace with” stickers later, I had become very apprehensive about this entire undertaking.

At this point, her mother suggested maybe I should stop. I rationalized that if it was going to be tossed aside there was nothing to lose at that point. Then I started to think, and began to articulate my dissatisfaction with this operation.

Computers are increasingly expensive and have become a mandate in our lives. Yet they are built in such a way that we will have to expend a couple hundred at some point to diagnose a problem that may or may not be able to be fixed. If it can be fixed, we shell out a few hundred more on top of that. Or it can’t be fixed and we spend another thousand or so on a new computer. Sometimes the repairs are so expensive a new system is in the cards anyway. And these episodes of repair are far too early in the life of a computer. Doesn’t this sound like an experience you would have with a vehicle?

Capitalism forces even the most educated consumer to compromise. You can do without, but then you fall behind. You can go with what is now deemed a staple of modern living, and get screwed by the servicing of the product.

Hopefully I can get this thing up and running, but I know, even if I do, I’ll be at the local electronics store buying another one…probably before 2011…to spite my best frontier spirited efforts.

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