Say Goodnight, Barney!

Howie Carr said it best about Barney Frank - “Xmas has come early.”

Wrentham Outlets should have a 24/7 mental health clinic open from 11/1 through December. Special interventions should take place for any and all - customers and store managers - involved in any Black Friday sales.

Black Friday is a 100% corporate insult to a steady customer base. You can shop a store year round yet refuse to participate in the foolish madness to save a few bucks and you lose out.

A car dealership tells you all you need to know with the term dealer as part of the title. You go in expecting to “deal.” If you have some poker playing skills and do not mind playing the game you save some money. If you are not adroit at this economic song and dance you do not make out as well. The whole process is reminiscent of “negotiating” with street vendors attempting to sell you knock off items. What is really so pathetic about the situation is that extra few hundred can mean a bundle more to some than others. At least with the internet all those sales tactics and prices are now open for display.

And for car dealers I don’t want an LCD TV or a $500 Visa card so just (insert laughter) apply it to lowering my price.

Comcast is my ISP. I also post on Comcast Forums and just about exclusively on the sports forums. Comcast had decided to close the forums with no apparent reason given. Comcast had 36B in revenue and a net of 8.4% on that revenue,

Comcast also has a help forum that helps customers with trouble shooting. Several years ago I discovered that the forum was operated by volunteers and they had - after some diligent Bogo research - limited access to personal information. I contacted their legal office about this and fired off letters/emails to just about any government agency that is responsible for broadcasters. Can you imagine your bank allowing “volunteers” to “help out” who had access to your personal information?

Many years ago a local political gadfly - Larry Carver - was on the G&E Commission. Larry and I would often converse on a multitude of issues especially politics. Larry was a socialist so we were often polar opposites. Back in those days I was firmly entrenched in the wonderful world of computers and that fascinated Larry. Middleboro was not wired for cable and I do remember that they had a study committee formed to determine if it should be an in house (G&E) operation. Larry and I discussed it many times and he - like I was - felt it was a potential cash cow for the town despite the enormous start up expenses. Eventually it was a no go for the G&E. I know the town did experiment with a phone service - my memory is a bit shady on that - and that was a bust. Some communities have been highly successful with in house cable systems and others have not. Always wondered - usually when I get the cable bill - how it would have worked out.

Private enterprise has motivation to cut cost and keep expenses low - government does not.

In ten years TSA has spent 57B and currently has 65,000 employees. The agency (no surprise) is layered with high level administrative personnel. This according to still another independent study.

I saw some of the excerpts and Gingrich actually makes some sense. Time for another trip to Mexico and make sure I get the real and not faux Prozac this time.

Black Friday had a limited number of killings, robberies and assaults. Way to go, people!

For the uninformed China is adding two new coal fired plants to the grid each week.

The hunt for Bambi has commenced with the opening of shotgun season. Beware walking in your backyard or any place that is marked “posted” as that sign seems to attract Elmer Fudd & Co.

Congress now has an approval rating on 7%. BP during the spill was 16%. Nixon was 24% during Watergate. Even Hitler managed 10% in a recent poll.

Congress has managed to take every minor difference and magnify it ten fold so everything goes into lock down mode. Into this must step leadership and that leadership comes from the executive branch and the failure has been tragic and a bitter disappointment. Obama is clearly a dismal failure of epic proportions. After two years it all became his and in the year that has passed he has done nothing but demonstrate he is an entrenched far left ideologue. If he had a fraction of the ability of Clinton this mess would not be present. A centrist is needed even when philosophical one is not a centrist. Even one of my personal heroes - HST - managed to get almost a 1,000 pieces of legislation passed under similar circumstances.

If you are Martha Stewart and get some insider information and dump a stock you get jail time. If you are Nancy Pelosi or any of the other anointed you get to keep your dough and laugh at us. Until Congress has some real rules of conduct and continues to live above the law and above the rest of us with special privilege we’ll all be what we are - suckers.