Mr Bison's Journal

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What Is It With Students?

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:53:00 +0000

I was walking back to my charming temporary apartment this afternoon, having singularly failed to locate a shop wherein I could purchase a fucking newspaper, when I walked by a couple of female students. From Northwestern University. I knew they were from Northwestern because they were talking about it, in that peculiarly intense, whiny way that only students can.

Now, Northwestern is right down the street from me, so it's not as though the whole area isn't infested with students, and I do try not to let them wind me up, honestly I do, but it's hard.

This one girl was opining to the other, "...the reason I bonded with Hannah is that she really gets where I'm coming from, you know..."

And that, right there, is why I hate students: their fucking meaningless socio-babble. You spend somewhere North of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars sending some vacuous bint to college and she's walking down the street, talking with an utterly straight face about how Hannah gets where she's coming from. You know.

Well let me tell you, I have a pretty good idea where you're coming from too, Ms. Braindead. You're coming from a nice home where mummy and daddy worked their arse off so that you could go to Northwestern and witter aimlessly about nothing. I swear that every other word out of their mouths was "like", as though they were eleven year-old airheads, OD'd on Kids' TV.

All this would be bad enough, but this area is littered with expensive coffee houses - you know, the places where your cappuccino costs five bucks, and they're perpetually full of students. There's even a sushi place, and that's full of students too. Since when do poor, hard-up students have the wherewithal to be grazing on sushi? Back when I was a student (and I'm not saying that I wasn't an arsehole sometimes too) food was evaluated for purchase based on the ratio of calories to cost.

IN: pasta, rice, cheap pies, tinned meat, bread, potatoes
OUT: just about everything else

Sushi wasn't just "out"; it wasn't even on the consideration list in my non-cosmopolitan backwater, and if I had excess cash it was going on beer, or cheap hamburgers, not tiny pieces of fish.

These fucking kids waltz around in new cars, with cell phones, casually sipping expensive lattes and wittering aimlessly through four years designed to qualify them at great expense for precisely fuck-all. No wonder college is so bank-breakingly expensive: it's a gigantic fucking holiday camp for the hard-of-working.

So excuse me for thinking that you and Hannah and all the rest of the cappuccino kids could do with a little less cash, and the world could do with a whole lot less of your whiny bullshit.

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Airline Taking The Piss

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:07:00 +0000

The list of things that are a pain in the arse when flying is a long one, made ever longer by the almost unbelievable arrogance of semi-literate so-called security personnel, who have barely graduated from flipping burgers but now have a bright blue TSA uniform, which apparently comes complete with a lobotomy and a massive ego infusion. It's a pain in the arse getting to the airport, parking at the airport, checking in, shuffling through the security lines, being ordered to perform completely different but equally useless routines in the interests of "security", traipsing through crappy lounges, consuming overpriced and shitty food and eventually boarding an outdated plane, staffed by surly and ancient flight attendants, determined to get through the flight with the minimum of actual effort, on the basis that they are there "primarily for your security", i.e. to order you around rather than serve you.

That said, airlines are constantly on the lookout for new ways to fuck with you in-flight, hence the much-heralded decision by All Nippon Airlines to introduce women-only toilets on their planes. It's bad enough already trying to take a piss on a plane. For a start they don't want you getting up until well after take-off and they make you sit down more than half an hour before landing, for no fucking good reason. In between time, if you're not in an aisle seat, good fucking luck getting up, crawling over your corpulent seatmate, getting past the cart in the aisle and getting through the line at the toilet before the seatbelt sign comes on and some miserable flight attendant bitch, made bitter by getting fucked all ways by pilots for forty years and never marrying one, orders you back to your seat.

There are never enough toilets on planes, largely because seats can be sold, whereas toilets are a non-revenue generating waste of space. (Unless you're that Ryanair wanker who wants to charge for their use.) Taking one of these rare and sacred appliances and turning it over for the exclusive use of women makes no fucking sense.

Apparently the airline did a survey, and women identified dedicated toilets as their number two need (number two - geddit?) right after desserts. (Here's a thought ladies - if you spent a little less time hitting the desserts you might not have to spend quite so much time in the can.) Why is this? There was some mumbling about men leaving the seat up, or leaving a mess, but I could just as easily complain that they leave the seat down, and what's more, I am reliably informed that women's public toilets are by far in worse state than men's, due in no small part to women's unwillingness to actually sit on the seat, preferring to spray indiscriminately from a great height.

What pisses me off most is that this is a typical double-standard. If men were granted dedicated urinals on planes there'd be a fucking outcry, with women picketing the airline's offices and N.O.W. lezzas in full warcry. Besides, regardless of the cause, it's simply a fact that there are more men flying in business class than women. Always. And there aren't enough bogs to go around now, so how does it make sense to dedicate one to the two women flying?

Actually I'd suggest that men-only toilets would make a lot more sense. Many's the time I've taken the overnight flight to Europe, where you arrive at around 7am, ready to work a full day. You try and sleep on the plane as long as possible, meaning that ideally you wake up, take a piss and land. But the chances are that one of the two women in business class will scuttle into the toilet clasping her make-up bag and then you can forget about anyone else having access for the rest of the flight. The bitch will be in there for twenty minutes, making herself "presentable", and emerging just in time for the wizened old flight attendant to order you back to your seat. Again.

The rule should be "The toilet is for piss, shit, and, maybe, just maybe, cleaning your teeth. For anything else please wait until you fucking land. Bitch."

Of course I'm expecting that the dickheads that All Nippon Airlines did just as good a job polling men on what would make their flight more enjoyable. If so, I shall look forward to the cigar bar, extensive range of scotch, free blow job and full English breakfast on my next flight. Yeah right...

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Ve Haf Vays Of Making You Vait

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:14:00 +0000

I always thought the Germans were supposed to be efficient. And I also thought Chennai airport (that's in India, dumbass) was the worst airport in the civilized world. Well, as of yesterday I have revised my opinion of the Germans, and even though I can't say that Frankfurt airport is actually worse than Chennai, it comes fucking close, especially when you consider that it has all the supposed benefits of Western European development, and that there are no cows in the road outside or one-legged beggars in the parking lot.

Chennai is bad because it's badly run. You go to check in at Jet Airlines but you can't find the desk. Then, when you do find it, you realize that business class check in is a hundred yards away across the concourse. They give you a form when you check in, but they don't tell you that you need to fill it in before you can go to the next stage. Then you stand in a line for immigration (why do they need to inspect your documents so closely when you're leaving, for fuck's sake?), and this can easily take an hour. If you're lucky you can now sit in an overcrowded lounge while you wait for boarding, but don't wait too long, because you still have to clear security. That's the biggest clusterfuck of all, with shiftless workers manning x-ray machines and metal detectors that aren't paired up. I put my belongings on one belt and then got sent five lanes up for scanning. I swear it's a miracle that my laptop was still there when I returned. Then they check you documents THREE more times at the gate. Don't ask me why...

Frankfurt can handle the check-in part OK, but then you clear passport control and head to your gate. I realized there may not be a lounge because the check-in wench didn't give me an invitation, but I didn't realize that the gate would have about ten seats for a whole 767 of passengers. We asked a security bloke at the gate if there was an American Airlines lounge, and he said there was, only it was a bit hard to follow his directions, on account of him having a speech impediment which appeared to be linked to significant mental retardation. Nice of the Germans to give him a job - care in the community and all that.

So we walked in the direction he seemed to be indicating (unless that was just a spasm) and found another set of security checks. The staff there directed us back in the opposite direction, and we had a nice fifteen minute walk through the airport, just to satisfy ourselves that there was, indeed, no American Airlines lounge. But by the time we got back to the gate, the security checks had commenced.

In every other airport in the civilized world they have one big set of security checkpoints and you can go through as soon as you're ready. At Frankfurt they have a little set by gate 6 just for that gate and they don't open it until less than an hour before the flight boards. The set-up was simple - a long, Disney-style winding line, in order to get to two x-ray machines for your bags, either side of a single walk-through metal detector. People loaded their bags on the machines but they didn't move, because the bottleneck was the metal detector. Almost anything would set it off, and then the offending passenger would be subjected to a full pat-down and wanding, shoe removal and x-ray. Meanwhile everyone else had to wait. There as one man doing pat-downs for men, and one woman for the women, but only one of them worked at a time.

I was close to the front of the line and it was fucking painful to see such an exercise in complete fucking futility, organized so fucking inefficiently. Even if you believe that this type of security check does anything useful, you might at least expect that it would be organized so as to run smoothly. I stripped everything metal from my body, with the exception of fillings; even my belt, watch and wallet, which don't EVER set off metal detectors, just so I could avoid having the overtly homosexual German security man rub me down. Then I realized why the process was so fucking slow. In addition to the pointless rub-downs, your bags would be hand-searched, even if nothing suspicious showed on the x-ray. And guess what? It was the retard speech impediment twat who was doing it. Having opened up all the zips on my computer bag and messed everything up, he informed me that my computer power adapter would have to have the cables checked. (At least I think he said that - I have to admit I backed off a little at that point, just to minimize the saliva overspray.) Then he opened my larger bag and rifled through my dirty underwear while other passengers stood by.

[Note to fellow travelers: unless your wiping is of a magnificently high standard I recommend you avoid white underwear. Personally, I only buy black.]

Now you might think that having Helmut the Halfwit rummage through my bag would help save lives and keep America free, but it's worth noting that he failed to search my trainers, which were in a plastic bag, and were easily the most suspicious thing there, and he also failed to spot that I had an illicit bag with liquids in it (which I noticed when he uncovered it, but which he failed to spot). So why go through the fucking motions, piss me off and have the whole plane waiting in a pointless line, when you're not even paying attention?

I went to a separate room for my cable check, but what they actually did was an explosive residue test. Sorry Helmut, you weren't even close.

My colleague asked the Germans at the scanner (you have to do something while you wait) why it was that they didn't put more people on the line. The old woman at the scanner replied that they didn't need more people - "less people, but just more time". That's the kind of attitude that explains why I will be driving to another country before I leave Europe in future. My parting comment to Frankfurt security:

"With organization like that, no wonder you couldn't fucking take Stalingrad."

Wankers.

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Ford Tortoise

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:45:00 +0000

I'd been meaning to get a new car for years, to the point where Mrs Bison refused to engage in any conversation about what I might buy, on the grounds that a) she didn't care, b) she wished I'd just go and buy one, and c) did she mention that she really didn't care?

Part of the problem was that I really wanted an SUV because I'd got used to the higher seating position, and my joints don't favor sedans after soccer games. But I also wanted a sport sedan, because I wanted to drive something that felt alive again. I really wanted something classy, like an Audi, but I was fucked if I was going to lay out the best part of 60 large on something that was going to get dinged in a mall car park the week after it arrived. So I ended up buying nothing.

Well, the best part about my new job was that it came with a company car. Not necessarily one commensurate with my monumental capabilities, you understand, but a company car is a bit like sex - not something you turn down when it's free. So to cut a dull story short I ended up getting a Ford Taurus, because it was an AWD option which I could get with all sorts of equipment. It has a navigation system, which is great, but it also has fancy alloy wheels, of the type which practically guarantee that if I park it in the wrong part of Chicago I'll be coming back to a car on bricks. In fact I might not want to stop at the lights in certain parts of town.

So what's the new Taurus like, I hear you asking? It's not bad, but you can tell it's a Ford. I got a black one, and it looks great, although once you're inside, the narrow slit windows make you feel like you're piloting something from the Wacky Races. And the drop down plastic holder for your shades doesn't fit right - the plastic hangs down, a tragic reminder that in a car that probably sells for close to forty grand, Detroit still can't quite get the basics right. The rain sensor windshield wipers have various settings, all of which are guaranteed to be exactly wrong for whatever precipitation is falling. You either get the annoying squawk of rubber across glass, or you peer out through the frosted windshield, trying not to kill anyone while you wait for the next sweep.

I have to say, though, that it's been great in snow, in spite of the low profile tires. And the stereo sounds good, especially when you turn it up loud enough to cover the squeak from the armrest. But best of all, I won't be boring the living shit out of my spouse with tales of potential car purchases. Lucky her.

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Join The Club

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:24:00 +0000

I've often thought that bringing up kids was the ultimate opportunity for the exercise of simple common sense. So much of what is wrong with kids (especially other people's kids, you understand) comes down to the feckless stupidity and lack of discipline of their parents; surely all you have to do is play the game straight and everything will come out right. Right?

Well, it's now time for Bison Daughter's twelfth birthday, and the thing she wants most is a phone. Not really to talk to anyone, just for the texting. All her friends have phones, and they sit there on the school bus, texting each other. There's absolutely no point to it, of course. They have nothing to say, and I cannot see the point in expending $150 on a phone and a further $20-40 a month on a plan simply so that Bison Daughter can recede into a sad world of "CU L8R" or whatever meaningless drivel it is that passes between preteen girls as an alternative to actual conversation.

It's a no-brainer really. I mean, I didn't get a mobile phone until I got a sales job at the age of twenty four, and that was a car phone which had some apparatus the size of a four-slot toaster in the trunk, so it wasn't really "mobile" in that sense. Since when did it become an imperative that all our offspring have a mobile phone? Since phone companies figured out that they could sell them ringtones, wallpaper and no end of expensive and worthless downloads, that's when.

The problem is that, shite and worthless though the phone-text traffic is, that's the only means of communication kids seem to have now. They don't talk to each other - I don't believe most of them could hold a conversation if their phone depended on it - so if you're not part of the texting network then you're likely an outcast. No parent wants their kid to be left out; teenage girls have cruelty and exclusion down to an art form - I think it gives them something to do in between pulling the wings off insects and torturing small mammals - and being different is just an invitation to exclusion.

So much as I relish the thought of knocking down the "all my friends have one" argument with some tried and tested parental reasoning like "well, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" I know that at some point, eventually, I'm going to break down and get my kid a phone too. Which is a sad indictment of the society in which we live, isn't it? Parents go off to work, and spend way too many hours there, trying to make enough money to pay all the bills, including the mobile phone, while their kids sit around like little vegetables, only able to communicate at all by typing partial words and sub-sentences into their little reality-avoidance machines.

If we hadn't persuaded ourselves that we needed all this shit in the first place we could work less and spend more time with the people we purported to love. Applying the simple principles of common sense to raising them, so they didn't grow up to be dysfunctional freaks with social alienation disorders and an inability to relate to other humans, or cope with delayed gratification. Yeah right. LOL to that.

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Party Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:12:00 +0000

There appears to be a cycle that you fall into, if you're not lucky, of really shit New Years Eves. Things are OK when you're young - I clearly remember back in the day attending a festival of debauchery at our local pub with some mates, which involved fancy dress, joyfully shit music and precious little concern that none of us had yet attained the legal drinking age. I remember subsequent events that involved a touching act of faith by one friend who let me crash in his parents' bed, apparently unconcerned that I might fill it with diced carrot, or urine (which I did not), and sundry acts of lust carried out on someone's lounge carpet. Yes, those were the days - the parties were long and the hangovers short.

Fast forward a few years and for some reason everyone grew up and became sensible. Sure, people still had parties, but they were the kind of party where people played Pictionary, and we weren't invited in any case, possibly because I'm shit at Pictionary, but more likely because no-one wanted their lounge carpet defiled after midnight.

There were still parties at pubs and clubs, and for a few quid, or dollars, you could go along, drink crap beer to excess with people you'd never met before and end up wondering why hangovers, like hemorrhoids or arthritis, never bother you until you get older. But if you don't go you end up at home watching the most utterly fucking shite television in the history of the known universe. Inane and witless presenters fill the air with drivel until what seems like a hundred thousand morons count backwards from twenty and the new year is ushered in, pretty much like the old one, i.e. full of morons.

For that reason I have to admit I've turned in early a couple of times over the years, but recently we've fallen in with a bad crowd of people in our neighborhood who know how to see in the New Year in style. The event always involves lots of well-aged Scotch, so this year I brought along some good rye whiskey, just for a change of pace. My 2009 theory was that if I drank nothing but whiskey all night I might be spared the worst of the 01/01/2010 suffering, and let me tell you that it's a great theory, if for no other reason than that it gives you an excuse to drink whiskey all night.

This year, however, the host's teenage daughter was having a party of her own downstairs, giving us all a chance to vicariously relive earlier excesses. All the attendees were considered responsible enough by their parents either to drink sensibly, or to refrain from drinking, which made it that much more entertaining when the non-drinking girl whose over-protective mother had made a special point of showing up to have a few words and check out the party, ended up draped around the toilet bowl, yurking her champagne-and-cake mixture into the depths.

At least she made it to the bog, unlike the boy who yakked up some orange regurgitate in one of the bedrooms. There was beer pong, but not much else, and I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the youth of today - if you're drunk enough to vomit orange in a stranger's house you ought to be drunk enough to sing, dance, do the conga, attempt to shag someone or stagger out into the street and throw a bottle at a passing car. They just sat around and did nothing. Generation Y, or whatever they're called, can't even figure out how to have a good time unless someone scripts it for them and hand-holds them through it.

There was one blonde girl, all of eighteen, with the kind of wonderful boobs that make you question how any bloke could seriously bear to be gay, and no-one was on top of her under a pile of coats at any point during the evening. You could suggest that this was because of her virtue, or the restraint shown by the fine youth of St.Louis, but frankly that's just bollocks. Restraint be buggered - if you're going to chunder fluorescently in someone's bed, at least make the drunkenness worth your while.

In the end I was just happy to be spared a Pictionary marathon, watching Dick Clark's prune-like visage, an evening with Ryan Seacrest (Jesus!) or an early night like a sad wanker. I also decided that rye whiskey is an exceptionally smooth way to drink through an evening and that I still like big eighteen year-old boobs. But then again, who doesn't?

Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

It's Airline Rules Silly Season Again...

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:02:00 +0000

I read with dismay the details of the latest attempt by a self-proclaimed al-Quaida terrorist to bring down a US-bound airliner. My dismay does not arise, however, from the fear that I will become the victim of another such atrocity, but from the sure and certain knowledge that this incident will precipitate another round of bizarre, pointless and irritating "additional security measures" from the brainless pricks at the TSA and the airlines.

This Nigerian wanker had not even been charged and there were already reports of important new measures being introduced to ensure our greater security in the air, among them:

Passengers to be confined to their seats for an hour prior to landing.
Passengers to be forbidden from having anything on their laps (such as, for instance, a laptop)
Passengers to be discouraged from bringing on any carry-on bags
Passengers to be prevented from accessing their carry-on bags during the flight

Now I would like to point out that the felon in this case had a bomb strapped to his leg, which he apparently attempted to detonate when the plane was coming in to land. It wasn't in his carry-on, or on his lap. He didn't get up and get it out of his bag - it was strapped to his fucking leg from the moment he got on the plane. The salient point here is that someone managed to get explosives through security because security is designed not to detect explosives but to prevent you from taking nail clippers, shampoo or bottles of water onto the flight.

Yeah, if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had attempted to smuggle any shaving cream onto the plane then he'd have been in big shit, but it was only explosives, so he was OK.

So yet again the TSA, in a belated attempt to be seen to be doing something (anything) responds to a problem with a set of entirely unrelated measures, certain that the renewed misery and inconvenience visited upon the traveling public will be interpreted as a sign of vigilance, and that no-one's complaints will even be considered because this is "an issue of airline security". In other words, a reason to suspend common sense and all join in the pathetic charade of lining up and allowing ourselves to be treated like shit.

For a start, what is the point of confining people to their seats for the last hour of the flight? Surely that just means that any future explosion will be attempted while the plane is still at 30,000ft. Do you really believe that will cause al-Quaida to think again? "Oh shit! We can't blow up any more planes because we have to sit in our seats prior to landing. Confound these infidels and their regulatory trickery!"

Did anyone bother to note that theft from checked bags in airports has reached endemic levels? Did you know that it is reported to be up 50% in 2009? It is not safe to check ANY item of value because of the hard to detect and, (thanks to their union) impossible to fire, criminals who infiltrate the ranks of baggage screeners and TSA officials. So if you can't carry on a bag and are forced to check it, who stands behind you when (not "if", you will note) your valuables are stolen? Not the airline, that's for sure; they will quote their terms of carriage, disavow any liability and leave you on your own to file a report with the airport police and kiss your possessions goodbye forever. (See WSJ article HERE.)

So if you can't carry anything onto the plane because it's a "security risk" and you can't check it because there are so many organized thieves in baggage handling and "we cannot be responsible for any losses" what fucking use is an airplane ride? The TSA even boasts that their rules are not consistent, as they are designed to confuse potential terrorists. Really? Seems like they're designed to piss off travelers and yet again provide the pretense of action in the face of political paralysis.

Anyone notice that the screeners at O'Hare used to demand that you put your shoes directly on the belt? If you put them in a tray they would make you take them out. Until last week, when suddenly, for no accountable reason, trays were OK again, just like they are at every other fucking airport. If you couldn't x-ray shoes through a tray I could understand the issue, but that can't be the case, otherwise every other airport in the world wouldn't be wasting their time making us take off our shoes and put them in a tray, would they? So if there's absolutely no security value, why can't they at least be consistent, and sensible?

Don't waste time stopping frequent fliers from accessing their laptops during a flight, and don't prevent people from taking a piss for an hour before landing. It is an insult to our intelligence when I see people in loose-fitting clothing, or apparently obese people, waltzing through security with enough room on their person to conceal any number of bombs, and no-one is taking the time to pat them down. How about starting with anyone in a hijab? Fuck their human rights - why should their right to dress funny trump our right to live. It's not like there's any debate that al-Quaida is an Islamic terrorist organization is there?

If this Nigerian twat smuggled a powder-based bomb through security under his clothing then come up with something to address the real threat, like explosive detection, or pat-downs of all people on a terrorist watch-list, and not a knee-jerk set of pointless rules in a pathetic attempt to divert our attention and make all the sheep believe that "something is being done".

I won't be holding my breath. I just plan to show up at the airport next week in a Speedo. "Is that an explosive device, sir, or are you just pleased to see me?"

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

It Will Rub The Lotion In Its Laundry

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:32:00 +0000

In case anyone wondered if I'd just died, my apparent absence has not been the result of my untimely demise, but instead has been caused by a new job, and the consequent need to move to Chicago. I mentioned a while back that I needed to find a new job, but that I didn't intend to make my job search the subject of a running journal ("Chronicles of an Executive in Transition") or anything wanky like that. So I've been silent on progress and activity.

Now that I have a new position I can reveal to anyone who gives a shit that job hunting is a soul-destroying, miserable pain in the rectum. It tends to become such a complete focus of your life that even when you're not actually engaged in it you tend to forget about anything else (or at least I did) and for that reason it didn't seem like I had much else to write about. Humorous situation observed? Who cares, I'm unemployed. Read an interesting article, could write a funny observation on it? Couldn't give a shit, I'm still unemployed. Why write a blog? Go and find yourself a fucking job.

Well, now that I'm in the middle of all the "new job, find apartment, sell house, buy house, explore new city" bullshit I have plenty of stuff to fuel my writing, but precious little time that I'm inclined to devote to it. Suffice it to say that I have located a temporary apartment and am now experiencing all the joys and misery of living around other people. And I can also reveal to anyone who gives a shit that living around other people is a soul-destroying, miserable pain in the rectum.

It does have its moments of levity, however. The other night is was down in the apartment building laundry room, attempting to decipher the instructions on the washers and dryers so that I could deal with two weeks worth of assorted undergarments and other clothing detritus. It was apparent that you needed to put money on a laundry card, but not at all apparent where said card could be obtained. At this point an attractive blonde girl entered the laundry room and approached the dryer next to me.

Now I don't know about you, but when a pretty young girl comes into a lonely and remote laundry room, and I, 230 lbs of scary male, am the only other occupant, I naturally assume that she's sizing me up as a potential rapist or sex criminal, and so I'm very careful not to do anything that could be construed as rapy, threatening or just plain weird. Standing there staring at an empty dryer, with no washing in my hands and clad in black hooded sweatshirt and black jacket like a target from America's Most Wanted, already put me dangerously close to the "weird" category, though, so I figured I'd better ask her where you get a laundry card.

"They give you one when you move in" she replied.

Great, now she assumes I don't even live here, but that I've somehow sneaked into the building to prey on lone females in the laundry room, chatting them up with stupid laundry card questions to which anyone who actually lived there would already know the answer. (Thanks, apartment rental company, for not giving me either a card or instructions on the fucking laundry.)

At this point she hurriedly opened her dryer, and a pair of her white underwear fell out into the floor between us. And there, on the gusset, was a huge, brown mark. I could immediately sense the shift in priorities. "I don't care if he's a rapist, my gusset-mark is on display. I must retrieve the situation quickly." She bent down and grabbed the offending underwear, while I made my excuses and left.

Over the road was a wonderful little laundry where a friendly Korean woman took my clothes and, for the princely sum of $8.50, will have them clean and folded for me on Monday. And, what's more, she didn't once look at me as though I were a sex criminal. Fuck the laundry room - I'm going there from now on.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Kill Me Now Catalog

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Today the mail brought with it a horrific surprise for Mrs Bison. Mixed in with the bills, statements and assorted credit card offers was a free catalog addressed to her personally; it was a clothing catalog, just 64 pages long and only 8 x 11 inches per page, but the message it delivered was profound and unmistakable:

YOU ARE A FRUMPY OLD BITCH AND YOUR LIFE IS OVER

It was one of those catalogs that is filled with sensible ladies' clothing, with a heavy emphasis on seasonal knitwear, slacks that hide your shape, clogs and patterned cardigans. There were sweaters with flowers, sweaters with animals and sweaters with Christmas designs. In case you needed to drive home the seasonal theme there was even a pair of Rudolph The Fucking Red Nosed Reindeer earrings.

Poor Mrs Bison. For the life of her she couldn't figure out what she'd done to bring this monstrosity down upon herself. These catalog people obviously try to target their audience, so was this just a case of "You're a woman older than 40 so you now need to dress like a comedy fifties housewife"? Or was there something in her previous pattern of purchases that had flagged her profile and brought her to the attention of the Seasonal Attire Mafia?

Mrs Bison isn't what you'd call a fashion victim. She's doesn't abandon everything she bought because "it was last season's outfit". Nevertheless she keeps up with style changes and refuses to dress like an old bag, a direction made easier by Bison Daughter's strident shopping opinions, forcefully delivered any time she sees her mother about to buy something "lame" or "unfashionable".

It's not as though we even buy shit from catalogs. I don't know how anyone buys clothes from catalogs - a simple trip to the store to buy a pair of jeans in the same style as I bought a year ago is enough to convince me that I should never attempt catalog shopping. The same jeans that were "comfortable, bordering on the loose" last year are now "tight enough to cause restricted blood flow to the testicles" today. Or the manufacturer whose XXL shirt was a perfect fit last week now has a new style, and, guess what, the XXL covers my arse like a dress. My success rate trying on clothing in a store is less than 5% - if I bought everything that looked good in a catalog I'd spend my entire fucking week at the post office returning shit that didn't fit.

No, the point is that someone thinks that if we were the sort of people who bought clothing from a catalog we would be buying snowflake sweaters for the winter. And my wife would be wearing seamless high-waist briefs as an accompaniment. (I swear there isn't a man alive who could maintain a viable erection upon lifting his wife's skirt and discovering those.)

Whatever happened to the kind of catalogs that had pretty women in fabulous, sexy underwear plastered across eight pages? Why aren't they sending us any of them? It's a conspiracy, I tell you. The fifty-something Pod Women are determined to reprogram your wife and lure her to the dark side of comfy seasonal knitwear and thermal undergarments. Well fuck 'em. You're never too old to say no to snowman sweaters and reversible quilted jackets...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Uncritical Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:56:00 +0000

One of the downsides of being unemployed is that any time it looks like someone is interested in hiring you they want you to take tests to check if you're really the business genius you portray in your resume, or if you are, in fact, an intellectual midget with excellent bullshitting skills.

I've taken plenty of tests over the years and I'm fully aware that I'm smart. But everyone has their own preferred tests, and it's not like they give a shit what I scored years ago on the GMAT, or anything else. You're only as smart as the last test you took. The toughest tests are the critical thinking ones, where you have to look at data or information and draw conclusions. These tests involve the application of logic, the ability to manipulate data, numerical reasoning and thinking under time pressure.

There's a reason businesses want to know if you can think and reason logically. It's not like anyone presents the "real" problems of business in a nice clean question form. In reality you have a jumble of information, opinions and data. You have to make decisions, but if you make them too soon you might miss something important, and if you wait too long you risk missing the boat completely. Plus, no-one tells you afterwards if you got it right; you only find that out five years and a hundred million dollars later. Oops.

Wouldn't it be great if people in government were required to pass the same kind of tests. or at least expected to perform with a level of ability something above what might be expected from a garden snail? In fact I'd settle for having them all tattooed with one message: Correlation Does Not Imply Causality. In other words, just because one thing is often found at a higher level when another thing is at a higher level does not mean that the one thing caused the other.

I happened to be reading a news article about school test scores. (It's amazing the lengths to which it is necessary to go in order to fill the non-working day.) The point was being made that test scores were lower in areas that were "poorer", and some genius was making the point that this relative poverty explained why test scores were lower in those areas. This person even asserted that "the economy has a significant impact on students' learning". Really? Do kids get thicker when GDP falls?

The really objectionable thing, coming as it does from someone allegedly involved in education, was the logical leap that because lower incomes are correlated with lower test scores they must be the cause. Not only does this not necessarily follow, but it might actually be more sensible to postulate the opposite - that lower test scores are the cause of poverty.

There was a separate news item a few weeks ago which was bemoaning the lack of employment opportunities for young people in the benighted city of Detroit. It profiled a couple of teenagers who had left school at around 15, having been involved in various illegal or antisocial acts while at school, and now found themselves without any qualifications in a job market where employers have no need to take on unqualified people with a history of crime. They appeared destined for a life of crime and/or poverty, but it's safe to assume that their future economic situation would be a result of their lack of application and success at school.

So did the poverty of their parents cause their poor results, or did their parents' poor results cause their poverty? It's an important distinction because treating the symptom rather than the cause won't result in recovery. Trying to find ways to funnel more of other people's money into the hands of the urban poor in the blind assumption that this will result in higher test scores for their kids and a consequent improvement in their life prospects is a pointless waste of effort. Their kids will still be undisciplined and thick to exactly the same extent that they were beforehand, and having a 50" plasma TV at home won't change that.

This use of poverty to excuse poor educational achievement is dangerous, self-deluding bullshit that lets hundreds of thousands of low-income parents off the hook for their failure to instill standards of behavior in their feckless offspring. People don't do badly at school because they're poor, they're poor because they did badly at school. Over in China there are millions of little kids who exist on a fraction of what is regarded as a "poverty line" income here, and they leave school well-educated and ready to kick Western ass in the economic marketplace.

There is another possibility, of course. It's sometimes said that if we moved the kids from the bad schools to good schools then everything would be OK, but how do schools become "bad" in the first place? Violence, disruption, truancy, drugs and indiscipline are not baked into the walls of the building. The blame can't be laid with teachers, either, although there are for sure some crap ones out there. Schools are bad because the kids are bad. And kids are bad largely because their parents are shit. If a whole bunch of people are lazy, skip school, make crappy choices and refuse to work hard then it stands to reason that they will underachieve financially and eventually become concentrated in "lower income" areas.

So instead of making excuses for them, how about holding the parents accountable, and pointing out that crap schools are the result of crap kids, and not the other way round?

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

In Praise Of Bacon

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:26:00 +0000

One of the side benefits of unemployment is that Mrs Bison and I get to have lunch together a lot more frequently these days. It's a small benefit, I know, when set against loss of salary, healthcare costs and the arse-wrenchingly dull and painful process of networking for a new position, but you have to count the small positives...

Anyway, today's lunch happened to be bacon sandwiches, which, again, doesn't seem like it would be a major cause for celebration, but I've developed a renewed affection for this most satisfying of pig products, and all because of my ex-administrative assistant. I used to be firmly of the opinion that bacon was better in Europe - where we had meaty "Canadian-style" back bacon, versus the US, where bacon was thin, streaky and cooked to the point of being brittle and dry. Then I saw my assistant cooking bacon simply by putting it in the oven, rather than grilling or frying it. The result was just wonderful - that perfect stage between fatty and dry, where the bacon glistens and melts in your mouth.

Mrs Bison has really taken to this bacon thing, to the point where "healthy" turkey bacon has been utterly banished from the refrigerator, replaced by stacks of tasty, pig-flavored delight. The experience of eating it is so good that today she wondered aloud to me if it would be better, for a "last request" to have a bacon sandwich or an orgasm. And, you know what, it's not an easy choice. I'm not sure whether it's a sad comment on my sexual technique or a massive affirmation of the power of bacon, but Mrs B was leaning towards the sandwich. (By the way, I'm going for the "massive affirmation" one, in case you're wondering...)

I'm not over-concerned though. I figured I can make the most of this simply by wrapping my knob in fresh bacon. Everyone wins! Just have to be careful to let it cool after it comes out of the oven, otherwise I'll be on bacon sandwiches for the rest of my life, and I can assure you that no pig's going to taste good enough to take your mind off that.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

I'm All Better Now, Honest

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:11:00 +0000

Got a stubborn stain that you need to remove? Tried everything but without success? You need "Sports Fame", the product that's guaranteed to remove any stain from your character, instantly. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but you don't have to take my word for it, just ask any one of our satisfied customers - people who have committed violent, abhorrent or criminal acts and whose characters have been washed clean with the simple application of some Sports Fame.

Take Leonard Little, the St.Louis Rams defensive end - he killed a woman while driving drunk, but thanks to Sports Fame he miraculously avoided serious punishment and was soon back to being cheered as a hero by jerks across the city.

Now, thanks to groundbreaking research, we are pleased to introduce new Sports Fame Plus, offering even faster rehabilitation, with no stubborn lingering character stains. Just ask our spokesperson, Michael Vick. Thanks to Sports Fame Plus he's gone from being an animal-torturing, bankrupt criminal to a cuddly, lovable TV star almost overnight. In fact Black Entertainment Television is now filming an eight-part miniseries about Michael, his fall from grace and his wonderful redemption and transformation into a Humane Society supporting, family-loving role model.

Excuse me a moment while I puke. Hands up if you're stupid enough to fall for Vick's "I'm so sorry - I'm a new man now, just pass me a puppy to pet" act. As a spoiled football player he was raking in millions for running around with a ball in his hand, but he chose to play "Big Man In The Hood" and run a dog-fighting ring with a bunch of low-grade scum. Having been caught he was faced with a simple choice - fade into penniless obscurity as a hated moron with no useful career skills, or kiss as much public ass as possible in the hope of getting reinstated and raking in more millions. Which one did he choose? Let me think about that for a minute...

I can't believe the animal rights brigade actually bought his bullshit. You conduct experiments on animals in the hope of finding a cure for ALS and you'll get your house firebombed, but torture dogs to death as part of some ghetto fun-time amusement and it's all "Wow, good old Michael, hasn't he changed!"

Poor old Phillip Garrido. Yes, I know he kidnapped a young girl, repeatedly raped her and fathered two children with her, keeping her trapped in back-yard squalor, but his big mistake, clearly, was not choosing a career in football. If he had he'd be on Oprah, apologizing for having let down the fans, and hoping for the league to reinstate him, prior to publishing a book. Obviously BET wouldn't be interested in televising his story because he isn't black, but I'm sure he'd find someone.

Just goes to show - a normal person commits a vile act and they can expect to be ostracized and vilified, but a sports personality (or any other famous person, come to that) does it and they're to be "understood, rehabilitated and given another chance".

So, good news for Roman Polanski then. Who'd have thought that drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year-old girl, and then running away before sentencing, would have the film and arts world rallying around you as a "victim" of malicious prosecution? Maybe Phillip Garrido should have been a Hollywood film director. They were right in school when they told us how important our career choices could be for us later in life...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bisom

Magic Dog Anus

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:13:00 +0000

We have these two parakeets as pets, and they get to fly around the house for a while every day. Well, I say "around the house" but in reality they mostly stay along one side, close to the windows. Fortunately this makes it easier when it comes time to pick up their shit. I was consoling myself this morning, as I scraped a small splodge of parakeet crap off the window sill, that, surely, other types of pet would be just as likely to deposit their shit in the house. Wouldn't they?

If I think back to my childhood days, and dog ownership, it's certainly the case that 99% of the time the dog crapped out in the garden. But, and here's the important point, on the rare occasions that it dropped its load in the house, the volume of crap would be more than you could squeeze from a parakeet in several years. Admittedly we didn't have the problem of having to pick up the shit when we took the dog for a walk because, as I said, the dog crapped in the garden, but it wasn't such a large garden that you could ignore the faeces and you would soon get to the point where you didn't so much walk in the garden as mince around it, picking your way between little piles of excrement in various stages of hardening. At that point someone (let's be honest, it was almost always my mum) would carry the shit by the shovel load into the house and flush it down the bog.

The major problem with this endeavor was that the shovel was made of flattish metal and the dog shit was sort of cylindrical, coming as it did from what I assume was a round-shaped dog's arsehole. Cylindrical things tend to roll off flat surfaces, especially if the things in question have been drying nicely for a couple of weeks in the sun, so it would be fair to say there was probably more shit distributed around the house that way. Oh, and the bog was at the front of the house, so the shovel-loads of shit would have to go through the kitchen, out into the carpeted hallway, past the front door and into the bog.

This led to the minor problem associated with the exercise, namely that at any point someone could ring the doorbell. You couldn't pretend not to be in, or walk away, because the door was one of those wonderful frosted glass things (that seemed like such a good idea before the UK government decided that we didn't want to lock up burglars any more), so you'd be standing there, frozen in mid-stride, a shovel full of shit in your hands, pondering your next move. Even if you managed to get the load down the bog, flush quickly and hide the shovel behind the door, you'd still greet the visitor upon opening with the sound of the toilet refilling and a deep and pervasive smell of dog excrement. I don't know what people thought, but they probably assumed we lived on a diet of Pedigree Chum. ("Jesus, did you smell that? What do those people eat?"

So I did indeed conclude that a few parakeet turds around the house still put me ahead of the average dog owner, especially as dogs tend to shit in the house when they ate something that disagreed with them, and then you're not talking turds but lakes of brown sauce. And forget cats - any animal that requires you to have a tray of its leavings permanently on display in your house can fuck right off as far as I'm concerned.

I also considered the issue of dogs, having just deposited a massive squelchy load on the sidewalk, now climbing up on the furniture, or even your bed, or dragging their claggy arses over the shagpile. But to be fair dogs seem to have these magic arseholes that close with no "debris", and that got me wondering how our great Creator managed to fuck up the design on us.

I mean, let's face it, we are kind of the top-of-the-line model when it comes to land-mammals. Dextrous, intelligent, reasoning, with all sorts of fancy capabilities, but He didn't give us the magic self-cleaning arsehole that he fitted on dogs! And, by the way, on just about every other mammal, as far as I can tell. When I buy a high-end S Class Mercedes (we're talking figuratively here) I expect to find all the bells and whistles that you'd find on the C Class, and probably a few more. I don't expect to find that a really useful feature which is present on just about every other vehicle on the road is absent from mine.

We are the S-Class of the mammalian world, but we have an exhaust mechanism from the dark ages that seriously needs updating. You doubt me? Then why does the toilet paper industry exist? Why can't we just drop the kids off at the pool like any other mammal and simply walk away? Fido can dump on the pavement and jump right on your bed but you try not wiping and you can forget all about those white undergarments, sunshine.

Sure, I fully understand why we were not given the capability of licking our own genitalia like dogs can; a lot of people would probably never leave the house otherwise. But I don't see any reason why we wouldn't benefit from the magic dog anus. All I can think is that the lobbyists for Charmin, Cottonelle and Scott are operating at a much higher level than we realized...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Mid-Year Exam: Racism 101

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:32:00 +0000

Before you begin, please fill in your name, school name and ethnicity on the front of your answer booklet. When instructed to do so you may begin to read and answer the questions below. Only write in the spaces provided in the answer booklet. In order to receive full credit it is necessary to show all working. The duration of the examination is one hour, after which you will be instructed to put down your pencil while the answer booklets are collected. [Please note that students of Caucasian/White ethnicity will receive a "Fail" grade regardless of answers.]

QUESTION 1

The President of the United States is called a liar by a member of the opposing party in Congress, because he claims that his health coverage proposal would not cover illegal immigrants while knowing full well that there is absolutely nothing in the bill that could be used to prevent illegal immigrants gaining access (thus allowing him to appear to be "tough" on this issue while doing nothing to offend his liberal supporters). The previous President spent eight years being vilified by Democrats and accused of everything from war crimes to stupidity. Nevertheless it has been suggested that any criticism of the current President must be proof of continuing racism. This is obviously true. Discuss.

QUESTION 2

A white teenager in Belleville is beaten by black teenagers on a crowded school bus as he tries to sit next to one of them. He is beaten once, offers no resistance, and is subsequently taunted and beaten again. Other black teenagers cheer the attack and photograph it with their cell phones. The whole episode is recorded on the BUS VIDEO. The police ask the perpetrators if this was a racist attack and they said it wasn't so obviously that must be true. Plus they're black and the victim was white so it can't be racist can it? Discuss.

QUESTION 3

If a bunch of white Belleville students attacked a black student for sitting next to them on a bus then the attack would definitely be racist. Al Sharpton should immediately organize a march, the school should be picketed, and the parents of the victim should sue the school district for violating their child's civil rights. It's clearly the right thing to do. Discuss.

QUESTION 4

When a black person alleges assault by a white person it's very important to assume from the outset that the white person is guilty and to proceed on that basis, regardless of the facts, or of any regard for due process. Discuss, with special reference to the Tawana Brawley and Duke Lacrosse incidents, which were both clear incidences of the facts interfering with racial justice. [Note that any discussion of the ironic similarity between past lynching of blacks based on a presumption of guilt and the current "media lynching" of white suspects will result in marks being deducted.]

QUESTION 5

There is a clear hierarchy of race in the racism arena. Black or "African-American" people are assumed to be victims of racism but never perpetrators. Those of Hispanic origin can be victims of racism, unless the perpetrators are themselves black, in which case tough luck. People of South Asian ethnicity are not entitled to be viewed as victims of racism except when the perpetrators are white; in all other cases they should themselves be viewed as "white", especially when their grocery stores are being smashed and looted. The same applies to people from the Indian subcontinent, who cannot be victims of racism except by whites, since you're all computer programmers and doctors. Discuss.

This concludes your Racism 101 Examination. If you finish early you may leave your answer booklet on the table and file quietly out of the room. White students last.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Drinking At The Y

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:42:00 +0000

It's always enlightening, and not a little depressing, to see where the government spends some of the money it confiscates from the working population through taxes. It's been said that the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money, but governments, be they in the UK or US, spend other people's cash like it grows on trees.

Problem number one is waste - governments just don't work hard to eliminate waste because if they run out of money they can always increase taxes. There's subway line in Boston which is "forced" by outdated union practices to employ two drivers on each train, while every other Boston line, and just about every subway line in the world, uses only one. The Boston Globe has estimated that the second, utterly unnecessary driver costs the government $30 million every year. It's pathetic that they keep coming back and putting their hands in our pockets when they don't even have the decency to run a competent administration.

What is even more galling, however, is problem number two - stupid spending. Today's case-in-point is a report that the National Institutes of Health has awarded $3 million to the University of Illinois in Chicago to identify the things that cause lesbians to drink alcohol. Newswise has reported:

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing has received a $3 million federal grant to continue research to identify risk factors for excessive drinking among lesbians.

The five-year study, led by Tonda Hughes, professor of health systems science, will examine how stressful experiences -- childhood sexual abuse, adult sexual assault and discrimination based on ethnicity or sexual orientation -- are related to psychological harm and hazardous drinking in adult women.

Data will be collected from a diverse sample of 384 adult lesbians in the Chicago area who were previously interviewed by Hughes and her research team in 2000 and 2004. Another 250 new subjects -- who are 18 to 25 years old and of African-American and Hispanic descent -- will also be interviewed.

The grant is funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Here we are, arguing about how to pay for a massive overhaul of health spending in the US, and the government is throwing money away, millions of taxpayers' dollars, on utterly worthless, politically correct bullshit "research". A bunch of workshy, job-dodging post-graduate researchers will no doubt spend the next five years living off the government teat while they ask a bunch of minge-guzzlers why they drink so much. Note the reference to two previous studies, presumably also funded by the public purse. This "professor" has already, according to the report, spent the last 20 years working on "lesbian health issues". You couldn't make this shit up.

Never mind that $3 million could instead be spent dealing with some of the very real, and very treatable health issues in the US. Or, failing that, that it could be returned to the poor bastards who had it confiscated from their pay packets (including me, thank you very much). No, let's instead spend it on some research with the vague purpose of gaining "...a much more realistic picture of the patterns and variability of lesbians' drinking, and to provide information for developing alcohol abuse prevention and early intervention strategies." This, in spite of the researchers' having found that lesbians who drink do so at levels similar to those of heterosexual women. This is therefore money wasted investigating a problem that doesn't even exist, and which, if it did, would be a self-inflicted disorder, not a genuine health issue.

We'll never solve the health crisis in this country as long as crap like this is considered a priority, or a "reasonable" use of other people's money. This is bullshit.

Of course, I'd be happy to take the $3 million myself, and I'd be prepared to advance a hypothesis that would be at least as credible as anything this team could come up with. It didn't take me five years, either; just five minutes in fact:

Q: Why do lesbians drink alcohol?
A: To take away the taste.

Problem solved - just send me the check...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Hands-Off Banking

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:14:00 +0000

In spite of the fact that I live in the US, I've found that it's useful to maintain a bank account in the UK for occasional transactions in local currency. It was almost impossible to get an account without a UK address, ostensibly because of regulations and policies introduced to prevent money movements by terrorists; nevertheless I do have an account, with one of the major high street banks.

Said bank chose to send me, presumably in ironic celebration of the anniversary of 9/11, an updated schedule of the charges for various bank accounts. (Everyone knows that since banks lost a shitload of money "lending" to penniless deadbeats with no possible means of repayment, they now have to fuck their regular, paying customers in the arse with a slew of increased charges in order to cover their deficits.)

I couldn't help noticing, in amongst the various fee-bearing accounts, that you can now get special FREE Islamic bank accounts:

"No interest paid or received (in accordance with Shariah law) and this means no planned overdraft possible. Money managed in a Shariah way."

I'm sorry? Did I read that right? Is this what we've now come to in the civilized world? Pandering to this miserable religion and giving out free banking to muslims so as not to offend their petty sensibilities? "No, I'm sorry Mr Christian Person. You're out of luck Ms Atheist. No special favors for you. Not until you start bombing people and marching in the street can you expect special accounts from our bank. Oh, and by the way, there'll be no eating by staff on the premises during the month of Ramadan, just in case the sight of it offends any of our more, shall we say, militant customers."

Can vegans now expect special accounts administered in a meatless environment? Can Buddhists have banks which guarantee to harm no living creatures in their offices? Where does it end?

And what the fuck does "managed in a Shariah way" mean? I don't claim to be any kind of authority on Shariah law but it does seem to involve an awful lot of disenfranchising women and wearing pyjamas during the day. Do you get a free prayer mat when you open an account? Does the woman behind the counter have to wear a veil? Whatever you do, don't be tempted to steal the pen from the counter at the bank - they'll probably cut your fucking hand off.

And all this on another day when "right wing" marchers in the UK, protesting the destruction of the nation by uncontrolled immigration, are attacked by thousands of muslims who care nothing for the history or culture of their "adopted" country, and proceed to attack the police for having the temerity to defend some tiny measure of free speech. (Notice how the left, in all its forms, is all in favor of protests, marches and demonstrations right up until the point where someone wants to express a view they don't agree with. Then they violently attack them.)

As Neville Chamberlain memorably demonstrated, appeasement doesn't get you anything. And this just smacks of the worst kind of tokenism in the face of a dangerous religious movement. Kind of like marking Hitler's invasion of Poland by offering special Nazi accounts for German immigrants "managed in an Arian way". I think not...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

The American Bison

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:28:00 +0000

I recently took the final step in a process that commenced more than 12 years ago: I became a US citizen. I didn't need to take this last step - as a permanent resident I could have continued to work and live here indefinitely. No, this was a definite choice.

The ceremony itself is a very tasteful event at a federal courthouse, and I can honestly say that I was proud to become a US citizen. That's now my flag, and my country, in a way that isn't quite the case when you're just a permanent resident. There were about fifty of us going through the process, and most were from Eastern Europe and India. In fact, with the exception of one person from Japan, there was no-one else who originated from what I'd call a "top tier" developed democracy.

While we waited in line to hand in our green cards and sign the citizenship form an American accompanying another applicant asked us where we were from. "United Kingdom" I replied. "Why are you becoming citizens?" he asked, clearly surprised. I gave a short, polite reply, resisting the temptation to spoil the ambience by asking why the fuck he should be so amazed that someone would actually want to become a US citizen for some other reason than to run away from the crappy poverty of their home country.

Actually it was a relief that the twat in question didn't ask us where in the UK we were from. I get that all the time from Americans. When I tell them (actually I give them a list of about ten places I lived) they proceed to look at me blankly before telling me that they had an aunt who once went on vacation to Norwich (which they insist on pronouncing Nor-Witch) or Leicester (which they don't so much pronounce as emit in a spasm of drool). They don't recognize a single place I mention, and if I included a few Serbian place names for the fun of it I doubt they'd notice. So why ask?

Maybe you think it's funny that I take the piss out of Americans having just become one, but that's the thing about citizenship: you don't have to like all the other people who live in the country. You don't even have to like the president (thieving socialist tosser). What you do have to do, as far as I'm concerned, is put that country first. Brits above a certain age (which won't include a bunch of Generation Y Facebook-junkie losers) should remember Norman Tebbit's Cricket Test. For all the immigrants from the Indian subcontinent who call themselves "English" the real test is who you cheer for when England are playing India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka at cricket. If you don't cheer for England you're not English, end of story. You're just using a flag of convenience to enable you to live in a country, in a parasitic way, rather than have to make it back in your "home" country, where life ain't so easy.

So while I will continue to support England over Australia in cricket, in the event of an England vs USA soccer match I'll cheer the US team, because to do otherwise would be the height of hypocrisy. (Of course I'll still want England to beat the French. And the Germans. Even if in reality they're lucky to beat Croatia on a good day.)

But there are some things that won't change. The definition of "fanny" is set in stone for me, and I can't move over to the US version. I'm not getting my teeth straightened, or giving a solitary fuck about baseball statistics. You can stick Disney World up your arse, and I cannot take evolution-denying uber-religious nutjobs seriously under any circumstances, especially when they start speaking in tongues. I won't ever consider American chocolate fit for anything other than cooking low-grade brownies, and I cannot consider a country fully civilized where they consider "salted" to be about the only acceptable potato chip flavor.

I do, however, like living in one of the few developed countries where they still have the balls to execute some of the worst murdering scum (although not nearly enough) and where guns can be owned by normal people, not just criminals (look how well that gun-ban experiment worked in England. Twats.) And as a fully-fledged citizen I can now do my bit to help ensure that the liberal left and their whiny socialist agenda doesn't take away all that made this country worth joining. It ain't perfect, but it's home.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

This Will Hurt A Bit

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:23:00 +0000

It seems you can't fart these days without someone passing comment on the great US healthcare debate. There are clearly two sides to this issue and I have to say, as a dispassionate observer, that they both appear to be fucking clueless. Now I say this having lived for many years under the UK national health care system (the NHS) as well as the US system. Let me summarize the difference for the hard of thinking:

In the UK everyone has access to healthcare but it's pretty crap, so many employers offer supplementary private insurance as a benefit; in the US the healthcare system is great if you're insured but you're buggered if you're not. The merit of the UK system, at least as far as consumers are concerned, is that should you ever need urgent care you'll get good treatment and won't have medical bills bankrupt you. The downside is that for the less urgent stuff you might be waiting a while. Oh, and you might die in hospital from a MRSA or C-Diff. infection.

I clearly remember on the few occasions I went to my primary care physician (GP) in the UK the advice was always "Take two aspirin and come back in a week if it's no better". Didn't matter what was wrong with me - sore throat, broken bone, strange skin disease - it was always two aspirin and come back in a week. I was brought up on the "Don't Go Unless You Need To" philosophy, so by the time I'd decided to go I would have waited a week and taken loads of aspirin, but that didn't matter. I still had to wait another week and then come back again. And in the meantime I'd probably come down with something else, contracted from the dozens of wheezy, infected, spluttering bastards who clog up waiting rooms in the UK. The NHS worked on the principle of attrition - care was rationed according to your willingess to put up with their shit.

Contrast this with the US: here parents take their whiny brats to the doctor for every tiny fucking thing. Kid's got a temperature: let's go to the doctor. Kid fell over: let's go to the doctor. Kid threw up: let's go to the doctor. Kid threw up twice: let's go straight to the emergency room for IV fluids. I puked my ring up for two days solid in the UK and my mum never took me to the fucking emergency room, but here I've lost count of the number of times I've heard about IV fluids for some kid who just had a bug.

And this is perhaps the crux of the whole debate: if something is free, people will use it like crazy. Without some disincentive (and in the UK it's crap service) people trot along to the doctor for every little thing. Now combine this with the other bane of the medical world - litigation. In the US juries of tiny-minded halfwits will throw out multi-million dollar sympathy verdicts to just about anyone who ended up in bad shape, never mind if medical science had a hand in it or not; someone has to pay, and it's only a faceless insurance company, right? So doctors practice defensive medicine, ordering endless tests, and insurance pays for them so the consumer doesn't mind. The hidden costs of all this waste get rolled into health insurance premiums; employers get stung every year for increases and private buyers are priced out of the market completely.

Here's the problem: if you want to have limitless, unrationed healthcare for all it will bankrupt the country. The cost of healthcare in the UK is astronomical, and it rises every year out of all proportion to the cost of living. It's the largest drain on the UK treasury and it's out of control. If the whole US population starts showing up at their doctor for a sore throat and ordering MRIs for a stiff knee it won't matter what the world economy does, the resulting tax rate on income will stifle growth like a stranglehold and the dollar will sink like a stone with the massive borrowing.

So where's the middle ground? How do you have a safety net so that people can get treatment if they fall badly ill, while not creating a sudden and massive new "entitlement" that everyone else has to pay for. Because you know damn well that what starts out as "Don't Let Poor Cancer Patients Suffer Without Morphine" will soon become "Gastric Bands For Fat Fuckers, Transgender Surgery, Breast Enhancement, Hair Removal, Fertility Treatment, Boner Pills, Insemination For Lesbians and New Livers For Alcoholics are a right for all".

This is where the wankers on the right, like that mental pygmy Sarah Palin, have it wrong. If you want to provide the maximum benefit to society as a whole (a humanist perspective that I kind of like) you have to ration healthcare. This means that not every operation should be performed, not every life should be extended and not every condition should be treated as a right. You have fertility issues? I sympathize. Now save up for treatment or have your insurance pay if you're lucky - we're not short of babies in this world and the population is exploding; your problem does not equal my obligation to help pay for it. A safety net health service should be just that - for serious health problems, not lifestyle issues. Think that's harsh? It's just practical common sense, a commodity which appears to be in very short supply on either side of this debate.

Republicans seem to want limitless healthcare, but only for people with insurance; Democrats want limitless healthcare but have no fucking clue how to pay for it. And neither side should, under any circumstances, be trusted to set up a national healthcare system. Let's face it, Congress couldn't run a lemonade stand. Not without running up a million dollars in debt to lemon suppliers, failing to deliver any actual lemonade and pocketing half a million in campaign contributions from the lemon industry.

One thing of which you can be very sure: neither the left or the right has YOUR interests at heart. If the Democrats wanted to fix healthcare the first thing they'd do would be remove the massive cost imposed by meritless litigation, but to do so would hurt their friends in the tort industry (trial lawyers) who bankroll their campaigns with donations, so it doesn't matter what is in your interest, it will never happen. If the Republicans wanted to fix healthcare they would insist that the prices offered by hospitals to large insurance companies are the same prices you and I would pay if we bought the procedure ourselves (rather than the poorest users having to pay the highest prices). Fair and equal pricing is not a new principle in business - that's why we have the Robinson-Patman Act. And the religious right would have to grow up and realize that at some point we need to stop extending worthless life so that we can do real and practical good for more people.

At this point I'd make some comment on the Obama "plan" but he doesn't actually have a plan. Most of the details are "to be defined later" meaning that no-one figured it out yet (or, possibly, that it's figured out but the public would shit a piano if they knew the facts). In the meantime all I know is that the current system is fucked, the new system will be worse, it will cost a fortune, benefit everyone but the working taxpayer and be larded with right-on new lifestyle entitlements that the rest of us will have to bankroll. Just see if I'm wrong.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Walk Or Ride?

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:38:00 +0000

I've spent a fair amount of the last week meeting people for lunch or dinner, all in the noble cause of "networking". The venue has varied, according to where the other party is driving from and what we feel like eating, but it's amazingly easy to eat a lot of crap in a week. Sure, I tend to go for sushi a fair bit, and I'd happily eat it every day, but there are a couple of problems. Firstly, there are some people who can't get their minds around raw fish or, indeed, anything that doesn't come with fries. And secondly, sushi comes in unsatisfyingly small portions or, if eaten in decent quantity, is ruinously expensive.

It's easy to see how people can pile on the pounds eating out. There are some very nice restaurants around, but if you want "convenient and reasonably priced" in this area then you end up with a lot of chain restaurants, where the emphasis is on heavy, carb-and-fat dishes, bread, fries, glutinous salad dressings, pizza, pasta and batter. You could blame the restaurants for offering all this shit, but they're not stupid - they sell what people want to buy. At the end of the day, unless you're getting your meals through a tube, you're directly responsible for what you put in your stomach.

Look, I've got nothing against fat people per se ("some of my best friends are fat") but there are degrees of lardiness. Most of us are technically overweight, and are none the worse for it; obsessive food nazis and nutrition weenies can fuck right off - if you want a piece of cake you should have it. But there has to come a point where you figure that you crossed the line. Different people might draw the line in different places - for some of us it might be a pant size, or being able to run after your kids without a sharp pain in your chest, a bright light and the voices of dead relatives in your ears, but regardless of this I'd hope that we could all agree that once you can no longer walk, you should step away from the buffet line and sort your fucking life out.

So why is it that WalMart is so infested with obese fuckers on mobility scooters? Surely the last people who should be riding around on their arses are those fat wankers who can't walk anymore. This is nature's way of telling you that you should eat less and GET SOME FUCKING EXERCISE. Rather than pander to their self-inflicted flabbiness and lazy self-indulgence, perhaps we'd be better off if society expected them to get off their fucking backside and walk to the cheesecake aisle.

Don't give me any of that whiny crap about glands, or heredity, or "I tried dieting". I don't want to hear about how it's not their fault - of course it is. At some point on the path between eight pound baby and six hundred pound bloated lardarse, surely you considered cutting back on the donuts, or maybe going for the occasional walk? No-one did this to you; you were free to slow down at any point. You CANNOT get to be that big without MASSIVE overeating.

But no, society doesn't just fail to criticize, it has become a blatant enabler of this gross over-consumption. Not only do we accept that fat bastards can now ride through a supermarket, we also classify obesity as a disability, and employment legislation can be used to force companies to buy scooters just so their fatarse employees can ride around instead of doing their job properly. If you want to know why America keeps getting lardier, how about the fact that enabling lardiness has become government policy; I'm only surprised that the stimulus package doesn't have a special donut credit for anyone over three hundred pounds.

Maybe it would help if fast-food chains were forced to use someone other than skinny teenagers in their commercials. How about the next time Pizza Hut advertises its foot-long, one pound, pizza dough, cheese and meat P'Zone, the person chowing down on it is a four hundred pound balding man with an oxygen tank to assist with his breathing? Or the woman buying the P'Zone rides away from the counter on her mobility scooter? Yeah right.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Vertical Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Apparently one of the things you have to do as an unemployed person is have networking meetings, where you attempt to make a good impression with someone who is in a position to introduce you to other people, one of whom might be willing to offer you a job. This makes good sense, at least in principle, so today I found myself driving to such a meeting. Obviously the "make a good impression" part is kind of important - if you're going to come across as feckless, irresponsible twat I would imagine you'd be better off staying at home.

So, step one in the making a good impression stakes is showing up on time. I once had a boss whose motto was "five minutes early is ten minutes late", and while I thought the axiom was a bit wanky I do agree that allowing a bit of extra time for the unforeseen is a good plan. I also believe in making sure you know where you're going, and where you'll park when you get there: in this case no problem since the parking lot was underneath the building where I was meeting.

So all went according to plan and I pulled up outside the building in my (coincidentally freshly washed and surprisingly shiny) truck. That's when I noticed the sign on the ramp down to the parking lot that said "No full size trucks or vans", along with a height limit of 5'9". Being unfamiliar with that part of town I had no idea how long it would take me to find somewhere else to park, how far away it would be, whether I would be on a meter that would expire (resulting in tow away), or how much of a sweaty bastard I would be having hiked six blocks back in the summer heat. I watched two mid-size SUVs drive down into the parking lot and decided, on the basis of no calculation whatsoever, that I would chance the height limit. After all, I could see where the roof line was and it didn't seem that tight to me.

I drove down the ramp and turned to begin looking for a space. Oh fucking hell. Above me was not a simple roof but a maze of hanging pipes, beams and rafters that seemed to be about an inch above the top of my truck. Something snagged my aerial and twanged it back. All the spaces on that level were occupied and so I drove around very slowly, now wondering if at any moment something was going to pierce the top of the cab and peel it back like a large sardine can. It also occurred to me that this would be a great introduction: "Good morning, I'm here to see Reginald Arbuthnot. Oh, and I just got my truck wedged immovably in your car park, so no-one's going home tonight. Is that a problem?"

As I turned the corner in the car park the floor began to slope down to the lower level, temporarily opening up some headroom, but at the bottom it bore down on me again, only this time even closer; I got out to check if I had any room - there were literally a few inches at that point, but it was impossible to tell if any of the pipes or other hanging impediments would pierce the top of the truck further down. But What was I going to do? Back up a full-size pick-up? There were already people behind me, driving regular cars, unconcerned with the risk of roof removal and obviously wishing I would drive faster. Faster? Fuck, I could end up in the very first GMC Sierra cabriolet.

About fifty yards further on I found a spot and managed to back into it. I could have used a small scotch to recover but I doubt that gives a good first impression either. "It's 9am and he smells like he just got off a park bench after necking a bottle of supermarket own-brand whisky." After the meeting I retraced my route, at least with some hope that I could exit the parking garage damage-free, but the exit was on the other side, necessitating the negotiation of a new stretch of hanging pipework, and more aerial twanging.

Eventually I got out in one piece and went home. When I got out of the truck I couldn't help noticing that it was about as tall as I am. That's 6'2". And when I checked the specs for the thing the height was confirmed at 74". In other words "Nowhere near 5'9", you dumb shit."

Effective job hunting is all about emphasizing your strengths. I'm going to point out in future that I'm "a bold decision maker, comfortable taking risks and not afraid to challenge perceived limitations". And I'll take Mrs Bison's car next time. And I'm going to have that scotch now.

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Can I Have A Free Car?

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:19:00 +0000

So the "Cash For Clunkers" money has run out, and members of Congress are running around like headless chickens trying to get more of this "stimulus" money to give away. But before they do, it would be nice if they thought a bit about where this money comes from.

Lesson One: It doesn't grow on trees, fuckwads. All that cash you're giving away in the name of "stimulus" has to be earned by the rest of us and paid in taxes. (I say "has to" rather than "was" because the US Congress is addicted to spending money it hasn't collected, putting off the day when someone somewhere has to cough up.)

Lesson Two: If you designed a program to create 250,000 new sales, surely you should be happy that it succeeded, and move on. Just because more people out there want free cash (there's a novel concept) doesn't mean that you should give it to them. If it was such a good idea for more people to get a handout, why didn't you design the program that way in the first place? This just smacks of opportunistic politics from people who just LOVE to give away other people's money, so long as it buys them popularity.

So 250,000 vehicles at $4,500 a time means $1.1 billion in cash given away like candy. Hey, I'd like some of that cash please! On what basis did the twats in Congress decide that those people with the most worthless, crappy cars should get free money from the rest of us? Socialism, that's what. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." This is the very antithesis of the American way, the philosophy whereby you work for what you want, rather than getting it via redistribution from other people.

If you really wanted to get 250,000 extra cars sold, why not give the money to anyone? Why only target the shittest cars? I imagine the idea is that at that end of the car-buying spectrum the people involved would otherwise buy pre-owned cars, so now you get them to buy new. On the other hand, the free cash from the government helps the car industry sell cars at higher prices than they would otherwise have to: without the extra handout they would simply have to increase the amount of incentives to get regular people to buy. So in that respect this is as much a handout of a billion dollars to the auto industry as it is to people who own ultra-shitty cars. And no-one has had their hand deeper in our pockets than the auto industry, so this represents yet another Socialist propping up of a weak industry that has been hijacked by unions.

Don't get sidetracked by the hype about getting gas guzzlers off the road - this is pure gesture politics, to dress up for the green lobby what is just another handout to the auto industry. What's so special about that sector of the economy? You could just as easily have pumped a billion into some other part of the US manufacturing economy (what's left of it) and spurred demand there.

Bottom line is that I'd find it a refreshing change if some of the relentless taxation found its way back to the people who paid the taxes, rather than continually being siphoned off as free cash to people who didn't earn it. Every dollar the government gives away has to be earned by us, and the interest burden has to be carried by us, just so fat wankers in Congress can play fucking Santa Claus and buy votes for next time around among people who aren't paying the bill.

Breakfast Sausage

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:23:00 +0000

It's a week now since I returned from vacation in Oregon, and the joy of falling asleep to the sound of the sea has been replaced by the irritation of trying to sleep under a ceiling fan that whines if you run it in one direction and clicks if you try the other. Piece of shit.

It was a good holiday, meaning that there was no planning, no list of things we had to do or see, and lots of relaxing. We also ate a lot of good holiday food, including a few cooked breakfasts; there really is nothing quite like bacon and eggs in the morning. Sucks to be a vegetarian, because, let me tell you, fried tofu is not going to get the job done. Sorry. Strips of dead fatty pig, with eggs, fried bread, mushrooms and sausages. Only thing missing was the black pudding and HP sauce.

We ate most morning and evening meals in the house we'd rented, which had a great booth-style table which looked out over a neighbor's garden, towards the sea. And almost without fail the neighbor's overweight labrador would amble down into the garden and take a massive shit in front of us just as we were sitting down to eat. Didn't matter if we ate early or late, the fucking thing adjusted its schedule so that it could curl down its load for us, twice a day.

Down on the sandy beach there were a few families clustered where the steps descended from the road, and quite a few surfers. The beach was blocked off at that end by a rocky point but in the other direction it curved round to a distant lighthouse. We walked along the beach one day, doing pennance for a pizza and some mint Oreos, I think. The tide was in so you could only walk about a mile, to a stretch where the tide washed right up against the sandy cliff above which was the main road. At that point there was also a stream running down to the sea, under a bridge which carried the road. Obviously there was some kind of campsite up there because, in contrast to the completely empty stretch of beach we had just walked, there were more than a hundred people clustered around this stream.

I can remember as a kid how we'd go to the beach, and no sooner had we got on it than I'd want to get out my bucket and spade, or go in the sea. My old man would insist that we walked further along the beach, to where the people thinned out a bit (they never thin out that much in the UK - fucking people everywhere), and it would irritate me, because I was a kid and I just wanted to play. Now.

So it bothered me that here were maybe two hundred people all stuck together in one of the least attractive parts of the beach (road noise overhead, rocky stream, no dunes, trees or scenery) all practically falling over each other as they staked out their tiny piece of sand. There were several blokes trying to fly kites over the heads of other people (without much luck), and absolutely no-one was in the slightest bit inclined to walk a few hundred yards along the beach to have a space to themselves, with driftwood logs to sit on and clean sand.

And they were fat. Not all of them, but for the most part they were chunky bastards, and there were a fair number of absolute bloaters - you know, the kind of people who should have been walking along the beach, or just walking anywhere (other than a donut store). Fat families with grossly overweight kids, all piled together because they couldn't be bothered to walk a few yards further down the beach where it was deserted for a distance of about a mile. What the fuck makes people do that? I mean, it was great that they couldn't be bothered to walk, because we had a mile of beach to ourselves, but there had to be something wrong with them.

In many respects they reminded me of the labrador. I'm sure each day they walked down to the same piece of beach, turned around a few times and just sat down. I guess I should be grateful that they didn't actually take a shit there. Now that would have put me right off my breakfast...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

20 Years Ago Today

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:53:00 +0000

The cake above bears witness to a notable anniversary: 20 years ago today the future Mrs Bison and I met, at a party. We lived in sin for years before marrying (and the sin was great, by the way) so we never really got round to marking the wedding anniversary, preferring instead to remember that original date. I am therefore one of the few non-single men who does not get shit about forgetting his wedding anniversary. (Most of the others probably being married to women with Alzheimer's.)

This event gave us the opportunity to look back and take stock of how far we've come in 20 years. When Mrs Bison met me I was unemployed, and driving a ten year-old car. Now, 20 years later, she's married to a man who's unemployed and driving a ten year-old truck. Big progress!

To be fair to myself (which I fully intend to be, since no other fucker is likely to take the trouble) I've only been unemployed two weeks. I could write for a long time on that subject. In fact I could go on for the next x months about the struggles of the executive job seeker, the highs and lows, the daily challenges and the deep insights I would receive into my personal psyche, but no-one is going to give a shit, because, frankly, it's going to be boring. So let's skip over the whole job-loss thing. Suffice it to say that I worked my arse off so hard over the last 6 months that I've neglected my writing, disappointing my (possibly) one remaining reader, and the only moral I can take from my story is "Don't Work Your Arse Off".

Mrs Bison has been very supportive. She's taken to referring to me as Dole Scum, a reference to the funny Job Seekers sketches with Pauline from the League of Gentlemen, an example of which which you can SEE HERE. She keeps asking me to let her know if it's starting to piss me off, presumably in case I snap and end up burying her in the garden, in a shallow grave, but it's very unlikely, especially if I keep getting cakes made for me.

No, let's focus on the ten year-old car. I remember the piece of shit I had when I met my future spouse: it was an orange Talbot Avenger with a black vinyl roof, and like most cars of that era (it was made in 1979) it was a rust-infested nightmare. Avengers were renowned for the way the brackets around the headlights rusted away to nothing, and the front fenders always rusted too. The sills and the suspension mounting points were hotbeds of rust, and of course the exhaust system was designed to rust through and fall off at the most inopportune moment, giving the vehicle the sound of a jet engine coupled with the torque of a singly-occupied hamster wheel.

I once went to the scrap yard (which was where I obtained all the replacement parts I ever needed for my POS Avenger) looking for a front fender (or wing to UK readers). The scrappy informed me that unrusted fenders were "as rare as rocking horse manure" but I looked anyway. And there it was: not only was the fender in great condition but it was orange, a perfect match for my car, which was uncanny because the car it was attached to was uniformly red on all other panels. Not only was the fender orange but it had the same double-black pinstripe which ran down my car (mine had clearly been resprayed in a past life, and it was probably only the paint that held much of it together). Unfortunately it was the right side fender and I needed a left. Life has a habit of crapping in your lap sometimes, just for the fun of it.

So a ten year-old car in 1989 was a fucking rolling disaster, literally falling apart as you drove it. Now, in 2009, I have a ten year-old GM truck on which I have replaced only the battery and tires from new. I had to top up the fluid in the air conditioner this year but, let's be fair, the only air conditioning in my Avenger was courtesy of the hole in the floor. Cars last a long time now, and look pretty damn good while they do it, which means that today's feckless youth know little of the joys of welding around the suspension mounts to get their car to pass annual MOT inspection.

On this auspicious occasion I would say that my 20 year companion compares better to my 2009 truck than my 1989 Avenger. Bodywork in good shape, low maintenance, and the airbags don't need to be replaced. That, along with the cakes, is the secret of a happy relationship, so I'm going to celebrate by buying her some furry dice to wear later...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison

Nutritional Bisonomics

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Bison) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:10:00 +0000

Here's a couple of statistics that might just be related, although which causes which is up for debate:

Illegal immigrants in the US: 12-20 million
Recipients of food stamps in the US: 30-33 million

Yes, that's right, at least one in ten of the US population is now getting free food paid for by the rest of us, according to Associated Press estimates (although others figure it's now more like one in nine). The federal government has creatively re-branded the food stamps program as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is a piece of timeless lefty euphemism. It would better be described as the Free Food Giveaway Program.

Now, maybe I'm a bit slow, but I'm always hearing about how we only have illegal immigration because of all the jobs that legal US residents won't do. ("It's a victimless crime - without them who will pick the fruit or cut your lawn?") Meanwhile there are thirty million US residents getting free food because they don't work. Excuse me, but that is utterly fucked up.

Let's allow for the fact that some of the thirty million SNAP recipients are children. (Given the high incidence of single parenthood and the unselective breeding habits at that end of society, let's face it, it might be quite a lot.) There are still probably around eight or ten million potential workers getting free food, paid for by taxpayers, while not doing the jobs that illegal immigrants end up doing. Why don't they get out there and get jobs? Because they're better off staying at home and sucking on the public teat than busting there arse cutting lawns, gutting chickens or replacing roofs.

It's a simple fact that with a nice cosy welfare safety net people don't have to go out and find work. Meanwhile, immigrants from countries where the taxpayers won't feed you while you sit on your arse are only too happy to come here and work hard. When I had my roof replaced the workers were all Hispanic. I have no reason to believe they were illegals, but they worked hard from early morning to evening. Meanwhile, in some public housing project, hundreds of thousands of people will have been whining about the lack of job opportunity for them, explaining that this is why their kids are selling drugs, moaning about poor schools and tucking into free food provided at someone else's expense.

In theory you could just send all the illegals home and then have the unemployed do the work. Ten million illegal workers replaced by ten million food stamp recipients. It's easy, right?

Here are some more statistics to brighten up your day:

Average cost of food stamp program per person: $113 per month
Number of recipients: 33 million
Total annual cost: $45 billion

Number of US taxpayers: 90 million (135 million tax returns, less 45 million that pay no federal taxes)
Annual cost to each taxpayer of providing free food to other people: $500

That's right, if you pay federal income tax you're coughing up five hundred bucks out of your paycheck so that other people can spend their money on beer, cigarettes, cable TV and other "essentials" while you buy their family's food. That's fucking bullshit. I've heard from a firefighter, working hard and economizing to make ends meet, who got pissed off continually seeing people in public housing with big flat screen TV's that he couldn't even hope to afford, all paid for with other people's money. Their "entitlements". It's amazing what you can afford when your food comes free, your rent is paid by the government and your kids' clothes are given to you.

Something's wrong here, people. It's fashionable to compare the current economic downturn to the great depression, but that's laughable. Back then people would criss-cross the country, willing to do anything to earn a crust. Nowadays you can just sit on your arse and wait for food to drop in your lap. There are, we are told, so many jobs available that we have to let illegal immigrants come here. So why are more than ten percent of the population getting free food then?

It's enough to make you puke, but bear in mind that you'll be replacing that meal with your own money if you do...

Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison