July 2007

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U[/youtube]

*Yawwwwn* I don’t know if it’s just me. I feel that everything I write about has already been mentioned to some extent somewhere. Then I think to myself, yes it has. However not everyone seems to get it. Lots of people are just not paying enough attention to what’s going on in the world in order to be able to form a valid opinion. Recently I found myself arguing with a friend about the situation in this country. I made the reference to Mussolini’s definition of Fascism dating all the way back to pre WWII times. The rather immediate response was: Well If you don’t like it here then why are you in this country?

It’s so sickening to watch the amount of misinformation that people base their opinions on. The perfect example of this is the current discussion that’s been started or let’s say continued by Michael Moore’s recent movie ‘Sicko‘. To begin with I can’t even grasp why people have a problem with universal healthcare. Is it really so hard to live with the assurance that if you’re sick you can go to the doctor without having to worry about whether you have an insurance card on you?

Unless your royalty, I think everyone goes through this on nearly daily basis. You’re standing in some store, whether it’s sporting goods store, picking up some fast food or something similar. You can’t help but wonder why the people that are working the counter are moving as if they were on Tranquilizers (which by now many people probably are, in form of various prescription drugs). 20 minutes after getting in line you finally get served, although there were only 2 people ahead of you.

Oooooooo baby it’s not often one of these comes around. Considering the harshness of the interview I’m extremely amazed Michael Moore wasn’t cut off.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA[/youtube]

I have to give some respect to Wolf Blitzer. He did Ok considering Moore laid in on him for nearly 10 minutes straight. It’s refreshing to see someone to just say the real stuff for once instead of beating around the bush and being nice about it.

You’re in the middle Lane on I-95 minding your own business. In addition to that you had the audacity of taking your eyes off the road for a minute to change the radio station and some imbecile decides that this very moment in time is the time he wants to change lanes, nearly cutting you off. Sound familiar?

Welcome to another episode of me getting all worked up about something. I’m hoping by now it serves as some type of entertainment, I’m seeing this as my anger management class. So again here we are, in the “Land of the Free” and I’m going to point out another piece of legislation that’s in place in South Florida.

I guess just in time for me having moved down here, they remove the right of anyone to sell ‘tobacco pipes’. At first I thought ehhh whatever there will be way to get to the merchandise needed, there’s always a way. Few years into the game now I have to say: I was completely wrong.

What strikes me is the fact that I would say a much greater percentage of the population in South Florida engages in some type of drug usage - whether it’s hard or soft drugs. Whether it’s the well-off lawyer, regular Joe coming home from a day on the construction site, or you’re child’s elementary school teacher - they’re all getting high. Of course nobody admits to it, because oh the same that would follow. What has become of this country where everyone is so scared of what other people think of them, or what type of ramification their choice of drugs would have on their job situation. Needless to say certain jobs require the individual to be clean at all times, however just as many jobs don’t require this.

So we’ve established the fact that lots of people smoke down here, and I’m almost certain a lot of the police men do. When I see the police officers drive around South Beach I’m rarely thinking of individuals who keep a clean slate in terms of their intoxication records. Either way, I find it so ineffective to think that banning the tools for smoking will keep the drugs out. Fact of the matter is as long as someone can light the herb, somebody can inhale the fumes. So in the end it’s a rather futile missino to try to take away the utensils that are needed to enjoy the drug. Imagine they wanted to keep Alcoholics from drinking beer. Would they take away their mugs? Oh No!! the inhumanity. Anyway, I think I got my point across. The law sucks, it has to go and everyone knows it. But wait - it sells good as a campaign slogan “were tough on drugs (err we mean plastic that people use to consume drugs)” yeah that’s the person I want to run a high level office.

Anyway, had to get that out there real quick before the desire to even talk about it with someone ceases.

Alright, alright alright I know what you’re going to say. “Oh no not another one of those conspiracy freaks”. Far from it and if you have a minute I’ll explain what exactly I mean. For most Americans the injustice and basically completely scam of the system may not really be very obvious. I however had the privilege of growing up in Europe, Germany to be exact and the banking system there is completely different.

Let’s take the main thing everyone does on a daily basis pretty much - they’re transferring money. Whether it’s paying bills, by check, phone or whatever, money is being transferred from point A to point B. OK. Where I grew up, all that’s needed for a bank transaction of any kind is a transaction slip. You put down your bank account number and that of the recipient, including the amount to be transferred..and that’s it. No seriously that’s it. You hand in the slip and usually within 24 hours that transaction is history. Who on earth thought up the system we live in is beyond me. In the US however that’s a slightly different situation. For every, and I mean every transaction involving money, there is a fee. Of course there are exceptions, but basically everything costs something. Not only that, the transactions usually take days to clear and then there’s always a lag to account for between what you can check on in your online banking account and what’s really going on.

Another thing all German banks have is a built in credit limit on every checking account and here’s where the main ‘let’s sock it to the customers’ comes in for US banks. Instead of arranging let’s say a soft limit on the available funds. US banks watch that “0″ threshold as careful as if it were the crossing into another country and we need to charge a fee for that. What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about the following scenario: Let’s say you have a bill that you already paid worth $100 - the available funds on your account however are only $99.98 at the time of transaction. Now every US bank customers knows what’s going to happen - you’re going to pay a hefty fine on the fact that 2 cents weren’t in your account.

In Europe I guess banks work on a different principle, and that’s based on the idea that they’re the bank and they have our money and make interest on everything we leave with them, on a daily basis. So you’d think they could cut us, the consumers some slack. Not happening. Instead for everytime you cross that “0″ line they will make you pay $35.00.

I know I know everyone’s saying ‘well then just leave enough money in the account to always cover it’ - definitely good point. What about the times where I put a check in that has to ‘clear’ for 5 days. What on earth has to clear is what I want to know. It’s the year 2007 - we can nuke a foreign company within 24 hours but I can’t get a bank transaction to go any quicker than a damn week? What’s happening in that week other than the bank collecting interest.

I’m seriously interested in what happens in those 7 days, whether midgets have to iron and fold the money and reinsert it into the banking machines, I just don’t know.

Oh boy I’ve been waiting to do this. I have to other blogs that just don’t completely fill the needs of what I have to convey to the worlds. There are just too many items that I encounter on a daily basis that I feel I have to write about. Whether it’s the United States as a government or the people that live in this land, I somehow always have my opinion on things.

I’m that in-your-face-guy that should never have to much to drink at a party because I’ll start getting obnoxious, wanting to talk about things nobody wants to talk about. I don’t care.

What I do care about is getting the word out. I don’t even care if anyone ever reads this and even if it just serves as my own personal pressure valve, so be it. The idea here is that whenever I feel to pissed off about something that I feel I’m going to blow a gasket I come on here to express it in words. It’s an idea, who knows if it will work, let’s give a shot why don’t we.

You also have something you wanna piss and moan about? Join in the chant.