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Pirates

pirate-flag

By: Billy Beerslugger

So a U.S. freighter ship was boarded by pirates last week somewhere off the coast of Somalia.  I’m not really sure what happened to the rest of the crew but the Captain was taken hostage.  The news stations made a huge deal of this.  If you watched CNN, Fox, MSNBC over the last couple of days this was the main story.

The story ends with 3 pirates being snipered by the Navy Seals and the U.S. captain being freed.  Somehow though, I was rooting for the Pirates.  What if the main Pirate was in the same league as Jack Sparrow or One Eyed Willy from Goonies?

While I certainly wanted no one to die, it’s got to take a lot of balls to board a freighter ship, take hostages and demand a ransom.  You’ve got to be a little crazy.  ARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

These pirates differ from their Hollywood cousins in that the “booty” they desire is citizens who will pay a ransom for safe return instead of gold, silver or other precious cargo.  A cargo freighter isn’t something you’re going to steal and take to the high seas as your new pirate ship. Exchanging the new cars or other booty on board for the the vast amount of gas it takes to run one of these things just doesn’t make sense.

Somalia is a war ravaged country.  It’s government was overthrown in 1991 and for nearly 20 years has been ruled by rival clans.  Whomever has more pickup trucks, guns and men in that area is who the people listen to.  Some Somali people call these pirates heroes.  In reality, these men are just your ordinary fisherman, paid by the overlords to assault the some 25,000 ships that pass through the Gulf of Aden each year.  In 2008 piracy incidents in the area jumped to 111 from 41 in 2007.

It’s big business over there.  On average the Pirates earn between 1 million and 2 million per boat.  But all that money does not go to the pirates.  The pirates themselves make only about 30% of that while twenty percent goes to group bosses,  another 30 percent is spent on bribing local officials, and 20 percent goes for capital investment like guns, ammunition, fuel, food, cigarettes.  And these pirates are getting more sophisticated because increasing night time attacks suggest the use of Night Vision Goggles.

Love them or hate them, the Pirates do not seem to be going anywhere soon in that area.  And this brings me to another point, don’t work anywhere where there’s pirates.  This ship captain obviously knew of the pirate activity in the area. He chose to take the job anyway.  Just like if you go over to Iraq as some sort of contractor, the pay is higher but you run the risk of getting killed.

My advice,don’t work anywhere but the U.S., Europe, the British Isles and maybe Australia.  Anywhere else you’re fucking crazy.

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Magic and Russell Simmons – Taking it to the Little Guy

By: Billy Beerslugger

Recently I’ve seen both Magic Johnson and Russell Simmons promoting various products and companies on commercials.  Magic Johnson is promoting a “Money Now Loan” for tax service Jackson Hewitt which is essentially a loan against your tax refund.  Russell Simmons (founder of Def Jam) is promoting the “Rush Card” which is billed as a pre-paid credit card but actually amounts to a debit card.

Whats is surprising in both instances is that both services/products are either unnecessary or detrimental to the communities that they champion, lower income people of color.

Where the Magic Happens: There is coming legislation in the government on so called “Predatory Loans” which are short-term and high-cost.  In this category are “Payday Loans” which is an advance on your paycheck and these tax-refund loans.  In Magic Johnson’ s case he is advocating to get an advance on your tax refund.  Seems harmless enough, I mean it’s Magic Johnson, one of the most stand up black guys of all time, he’s got HIV for Christ Sakes why would he be giving you a raw deal?  What the people who use this service fail to recognize is that annual interest rates on these types of loans can range from 50% to nearly 500% (Jackson Hewitt charges Jackson Hewitt charges fees with an APR of either 134% or 140%.).  This scam is even better than the “Payday Loans” because they are backed by the Federal Tax refund they just did for the victim client.  Basically Jackson Hewitt is going to get their money.  And you will never guess who these loans are targeted to.  Yep upper class white people.  Nah, (JK : just kidding),   Magic Johnson appears in television ads, radio spots on urban stations and billboards in lower income communities.

I think the best part about the whole thing is that Jackson Hewitt’s website offers a 20 percent discount for customers who order Johnson’s book, 32 Ways to be a Champion in Business.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Chapter 3: Use your reputation as a person of high moral fiber to take advantage of people who don’t know any better.  The more you pretend to be helping these people the more they will believe you and the more money you will get.  In addition to taking advantage of them, get them to buy your book about how you’re such a good business person.  To increase book sales couple the purchase of the book with a discount on one of the unscrupulous services you endorse.

(Yea I went there, unscrupulous,  look it up bitches.  And no a Thesaurus is not a Dinosaur as I recently found out.)

I digress, back to the story.  The IRS states that about 8.7 million people took out these tax refund loans last year resulting in about 1 billion dollars in fees.  Around 5.8 million of these people are recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which helps people with low incomes and is the govenments most effective anti-poverty program. Consumer advocates estimate that about $523 million was drained from the EITC program by refund anticipation loan fees in 2007.

Jackson Hewitt  has been the target of several government lawsuits for its abusive practices. In 2007, the California Attorney General won a $5 million settlement from the company for violating state and federal laws in marketing its tax refund loans to low income customers.

So not only are Magic and Jackson Hewitt fucking these low income people in the ass, they are fucking the American taxpayers who are supplementing these low income people in the ass.  I just hope Magic is wearing a condom.

Russell Simmons, Entreponinja:

Russell Simmons makes money on everything.  He’s a true mogul in every sense of the word.  Def Jam, Phat Farm Clothing line among other ventures.  Russell in the past couple years has been touting the “Rush Card”.  It’s a prepaid debit card for people with bad credit touted as a tool to financial empowerment.  These cards have an activation fee of $19.95 and a $1.95 ATM withdraw fee (in addition to the actual ATM fees) among other fees.  As far as I can tell there is no interest applied to purchases which is better than other prepaid credit cards. I guess one selling point is that it is free to cash checks which most people without checking account will have to pay to get their checks cashed at a check cashing place.

What I don’t get is that people can just go to the bank and get a debit card for free.  Just because you have bad credit does not mean you will be denied a checking account.  Having delinquent checks may preclude you from acquiring a checking account though.  If that’s the case I would suggest Russell Simmons go on TV and tell people to make good on those bounced checks instead of making money off of them.  If you’re really trying to empower the low income and African American community tell them the truth.  The truth is they don’t need this card.   They need to get a checking account and a debit card that’s free.

However, I guess you can’t really hate on these guys, America was built on screwing over the little people.  They’re just two more in a long line that has sold out for a buck.

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Don't Tell Me How to Drive Kid

By: Gene Yuss

I just can't help but hate this kid...
I just can't help but hate this kid...

There is a marketing campaign that is absolutely in the top five of all time commercials that annoy me.

Mazda started running cheap cialis 20mg their “Zoom-Zoom” commercials several years ago, and have been pushing me to the brink of madness ever since.

It is not really that I don’t like the cars (the RX-8 is actually a nice little whip for the affluently challenged), I just can’t stand that kid that so smugly urges us to zoom-zoom.

The kid is no longer in the commercials, but his voice still echoes through the halls of my Bose surround sound between every inning of this young baseball season.

Where does this kid get the nerve to tell me how to drive?

Seriously.

Just looking at him you know he’s obviously not old enough to drive. After some research I was able to determine that this kid’s name is Micah Kanters. Kanters was only ten years of age when he began making these commercials. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a ten year old tell me how to drive.

And why is he always in such a hurry? At ten years old there are only so many things he can be rushing to… With that Irish little mug of his it is either river dancing or to a potato mixer. Think about how long these commercials have been on the air and Kanters is still probably not old enough to drive. Arrogant little bastard.

The only thing I can be thankful for is that his entry into puberty has obviously taken a toll on his infamous voice and we don’t have to look at his face anymore.

Kanters – If you are reading this, I have a message for you. There is only one thing in this world (at least that I can think of at the time that I’m writing this) that can get away with repeating only one word twice as their only form of communication. Sadly, you sir are not the Road Runner. Ironically though, the Road Runner’s “beep-beep” is arguably in the car family of onomatopoeia.

I also saw a rumor online that Kanters was killed – ironically being run over by a Mazda. While this is hilariously untrue, I can only hope he instead takes a lesson from Wile E. Coyote and falls off a cliff…

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Polygamy and The Girls Next Door

By: Billy Beerslugger

You gotta give it up to Hugh Hefner. Dude is like 80+ years old and pretty much has had any girl he ever wanted.  He’s the founder of Playboy magazine and has been male whoring it up ever since.  He lives in a mansion with a several “girlfriends” and given the show “The Girls Next Door”, you have to assume he takes heaping doses of Viagra and lays down so these young gold diggers can ride him until satisfaction.  And who knows maybe he bangs other girls too besides his girlfriends.

Recently he got 3 brand new girlfriends (video below) as the old ones (one of whom got married to Eagles receiver Hank Basket) moved on.

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and besides the moral implications of glamorizing the life of a playboy bunny to 11 year old girls on the E network, what about the fact that he lives with 3 “girlfriends”.  I like the show Big Love, Bill Paxton has 3 fictitious wives in this show, all of whom live in the 3 houses right next door to one another.  This 3 wife, multi-child family depicted in the show is considered Polygamist.

Polygamy is the practice of being married to more than one spouse at a time.  You may remember the April 2008 raid on a polygamist compound in Texas which was carried by every major news network and talk show for a good period of time last year.

That compound was raided because there was alleged child abuse occurring there and in general on these types of compounds it seems as if girls are forced to marry early into Polygamist families.

Obviously I’m not saying Hugh Hefner is raping little girls, but what is the fundamental difference between the actors pretending to live together in Big Love and Hefner and partners actually living together in The Girls Next Door?  In both instances 3 women share one man and engage in co-habitation.

In the Big Love scenario the extended family must try and hide their situation from the community for fear of being ostracized.  In the girls next door this scenario is championed.  It’s great the girls get naked, take pictures, go on trips together and generally have a worry free life.  The obvious difference is that Hef is not married to the “girlfriends” but if you are living with, banging and providing for 3 women that’s about as close as you can come to marriage without a certificate.

Now I’m not telling people how to live their life.  Hef wants to live with and be intimate with 3 women who want the same so be it.  A woman wants to live with and get rocked by 10 men who want the same, I’m all for that too.  All I’m saying is don’t glamorize one scenario in the media and shun the other.

And to elaborate further on my “Kids have it easy nowadays” rant, why couldn’t the E channel and the Girls Next Door be on when I was in my mid teens.  I was stuck spanking it to scrambled porn on cable and fake nudie pics of Sandra Bullock I found on CompuServe.  Every show these chicks get butt naked and E just blurs out the nipple and ass crack.  Then you got whorebag Kim Kardashian doing the same thing the next half hour.  But shit what teenage male today is watching TV when there’s free streaming video porn on the internet?

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Ethanol – Drink it or put it in your car?

corn

By: Billy Beerslugger

A couple of weeks ago i was talking to some random person at a bar.  Somehow we got into talking about the environment and in particular gasoline prices, U.S. natural gas reserves and Ethanol.

If everyone switched to using Ethanol instead of gasoline she said would reduce greenhouse gasses by a shit ton.  With Ethanol and those crazy incandescent  light bulbs we could basically forget about global warming.

I’ll admit I fell for this myth as well in the early to mid 2000’s.  I was thinking if I threw some money into one of these Midwest cornfield turned ethanol plant I could make some real money when this whole going green thing really took off.

What I didn’t know is that it takes more energy to make a gallon of Ethanol than the gallon of Ethanol actually provides.  You see Ethanol is made (primarily) from Corn.  This corn has to be  harvested by huge farm equipment which runs on diesel fuel.  The harvested corn then goes through a process including Fermentation, Distillation and Dehydration.  This cumulative process consumes a lot of energy.

The resulting product, “Ethanol” holds approximately 34% less energy by volume than regular gasoline.  Couple that with it’s general higher price (on the East and West Coast) and treehuggers are not only paying more for less Miles Per Gallon but are also producing a whole bunch of Greenhouse Gasses in the process.

“Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley recently examined six major studies of ethanol production and concluded that using ethanol made from corn instead of gasoline would lead to a moderate 13 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions.” (cite).

However, using a significant portion of the U.S. corn crop for energy production drives up corn based food products.  Supply and Demand, Action and Reaction.

Now I’m all for anything that lowers our dependence on foreign oil and if technology advances sufficiently this may be a viable option in the future.  Sadly though, right now, it may be doing more harm than good.

That’s not to say that Ethanol is not useful.  Far from it.  Back in my halcyon collegiate days we took a 40 gallon trashcan, put a fresh trashbag in there, filled it up with water from the shower, threw about a billion packets of Kool Aid in there and dumped a couple of handles of Ethanol (commonly sold in Liquor stores as Grain Alcohol) and you got yourself a kick ass party. Freshman girls were amazed at how great it tasted and Grain Alcohol is a great at lowering inhibitions.

I remember one time when I was dared to do a Gator Bomb.  A shot of Grain Alcohol dropped in to a larger Gatorade bottle and chugged.  While this did cause temporary blindness, when I got my sight back and picked myself off the ground I gotta say I was really fucked up.

In summary, Ethanol may be a feasible fuel in the future.  Today, however, I suggest drinking it rather than putting it in your car.

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A lighter shade of green

styroBy Gene Yuss

We see a lot of “Go Green” propaganda urging you to save the environment. As if I have time to worry about the latest drive to save the whales and kill the babies that the liberals are slamming down my throat…

Any way, some of the statistics are so hilarious that it almost pushes me to the point of environmental unfriendliness in Dennis Leary’s “Asshole” (FYI – Rescue Me is a dominant show and season five premiers 4/7/09).

Statistic on a Go Green Flyer: “It takes a styrofoam cup over 500 years to biodegrade.”

Fact: Styrofoam was invented by the good people at the Dow company around 50 years ago. Initial research began in the early 1900s when The Dow Chemical Company invented a process for extruding polystyrene to achieve a closed cell foam that resists moisture.

Trademark Warning: Today, the Dow Styrofoam brand includes a variety of building materials (including insulated sheathing and housewrap), pipe insulation and floral and craft products. But there isn’t a coffee cup, cooler or packaging material in the world made from Styrofoam. These common disposable items are typically white in color and are made of expanded polystyrene beads. They do not provide the insulating value, compressive strength or moisture resistance properties of Styrofoam products. In order to protect the Dow trademarked name “Styrofoam“, such other material should be referred to by the generic term “foam.”

Conclusion 1: Hippies please watch your use of Styrofoam. Styrofoam keeps you warm in the winter while you pass around your peace pipes. Foam is what I waste like it is going out of style. I waste a lot more foam today (among many other non-biodegradable items) to make up for the slack created by environmentalists. Take that Al Gore!

Conclusion 2: If you continue to use the trademarked Styrofoam I’m going to turn you into Dow’s law department. They may only get your hacky-sack and Grateful Dead albums in subsequent lawsuits, but The Man will vanquish his enemies!

Conclusion 3: Stop making up statistics! It was only invented 50 years ago. You can’t possibly know it takes 500 years. That number either came to you in a psychedelic trip, you got the first foam cup ever and it just degraded (not to mention that you put an extra zero on the flyer), or you just want to impress intelligent people with numbers. You may have fooled Cameron Diaz, but you’re Trippin’ if you think you’re going to get me…

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Mass Shootings …. Mass Media

By: Billy Beerslugger

In the last month or so about 47 people have been shot and killed in mass shootings by multiple gun persons.  American media picks up on this stuff and runs with it for days at a time in each case.  Updates, bio’s, theorizing, re-enacting, interviews and opinions litter the airways.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is terrible and a tragedy when American lives are lost for no reason.  I am in no way a fan of senseless violence.  However, do I really need to know about this?  Do i need to know 5 people were shot 7 states away from me by a crazed gunman?  Yes I’m guessing it is important to alert the people occupying the town it occured in about this situation, but why the hell does America need to know.  I would say in a vast majority of these cases, thats exactly what the gunperson wants, national recognition.  Shoot a bunch of people, go out in a blaze of glory and get your picture plastered on every news station in the country as well as everyone knowing your full (including middle) name.  Forever known as a crazy badass dude that shot as many people as he could before shooting himself or getting taken out by SWAT team.

All this oversaturated coverage of these events only serves to invite more and more of these tragedies.  Some misguided person see’s this crap on TV and decides they will do the same thing.  Makes me think of when the government shuts down some illegal file sharing site, 10 more pop up and thousands more people check out illegal file sharing sites because they saw them on TV.  Effectively defeating the purpose of what the government set out to do.

So why do people need to know about a mass shooting?  Why is there incessant mass media coverage of it?  Do people enjoy seeing other people in pain?  I certainly don’t unless it’s the show Intervention (my guilty pleasure). Is it empathy?  Are they afraid something like this could happen in their town?  Well I’ve got news for those people.  You could walk out of your house and slip and fall and die.  Every time you get into a car you run a risk.  What are you going to do not go out and live in a paralyzing fear of the outside world?

Yes these events are news worthy but are not all consuming. There’s other stuff going on in the world.  In third world countries 10 people being shot doesn’t mean shit.  It happens all the time.  People die.. life goes on.

So again, I’m not saying it’s not a terrible tragedy that people were shot for no good reason, I just don’t want to be inundated with the details of it.  Tell me it happened and move on.

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Things I’ve noticed

young money, dipset, thats what this is and if i aint good lookin you can bet my bitch is
"...if i aint good lookin you can bet my bitch is."

By: Billy Beerslugger

It was revealed that the opening number on American Idol where all remaining contestants sing and dance to choreography is in fact lip-synced.  Apparently they do sing when they are up there singularly though.  That’s a big fuck you to whoever told me they don’t lip-sync on that show.  It’s up there with Lawrence Welk and American Bandstand now.  Who wants to watch these nobody’s sing anyway?  You want a singer you go out and get Celine Dion, that woman crushes it.

In the past couple weeks i’ve seen Lil Wayne and Bob Wow on ESPN talking about sports.  Now I’m not sure who’s idea this is but what exactly does some dude that drink’s codine cough syrup concoctions and the artist formerly know as Lil’ Bow Wow have to do with me getting my sports news.  I care about their opinions about as much as I care about who wins American idol.  If these guys are any indication of the type of credentials needed to appear on ESPN, Screech Powers from Saved By The Bell should be allowed to go on.  Steve Urkel too.

Recently i tried Pantene Pro V shampoo because there was no other shampoo available.  I’ll tell you what I don’t feel like less of a man. I just feel like a man with really soft and manageble hair.

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American Commerce Building – 18th and Arch

An arttist rendering of American Commerce Center
An artist rendering of American Commerce Center

By: Billy Beerslugger

Sitting currently at 18th and Arch is a parking lot.  I know because I’ve thrown up there.  Some people have pretty big plans for this parking lot.  Developers have proposed a skyscaper which would be the 3rd tallest building in the United States according to their website.

The American Commerce Building would be 1,500ft high toping the Comcast Building by about 500ft. It will boast a restaurant, 26-story hotel,  three to six stories of street-accessible retail, two roof gardens and a 63-story office tower.  The observation deck would be the tallest in the city and probably where Police Commissioner Gordon will put the Bat Signal.

On Decemer 11th 2008 city council approved zoning changes that will allow the developers to start construction as early as Spring of this year.

simcity

I ‘m Mc’Lovin all the huge ass buildings going up all over the city. Reminds of Sim City 2000 when all your commercial zones start popping up skyscrapers all over the place and the city is officially major.

If Philadelphia was a playable scenario in Sim City 2000, what would your first move be?

Check out the Image Gallery on their website, the place looks pretty awesome.

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A Rant

By: Billy Beerslugger

I got text messages from two ex girlfriends today for varying reasons. I mean yea I guess in both cases we said we were going to be friends but who actually means that? If I want to see how one of my friends is doing I call them. I’m like “Hey how ya doing?”, my buddy goes, “Good How you doin?” Then we talk about other extraneous shit like how wasted we got last weekend or “How bout that local sports team? Boy are they sucking/doing well”.

I can hear the tone and inflection of my friends’ voice over the phone. I can tell if that person is happy, sad, laughing, surprised or confused. With a text message I have to read how the other person is feeling (LOL, ROTFL, HAHA). Sometimes I get text messages with just one letter (K). As if it was way too much trouble to write OK.

Phone calls are good because I can get the statement I am trying to convey over to my friend in the time it takes to say it instead of the time it takes for me to type it on a small ass keyboard (and I don’t care how fast you think you are at typing on your Iphone or Blackberry, you’re not beating speech chief).

I can’t tell you how much I hate having conversations over text messages. However, i don’t completely hate texting itself, just the use of texting as an impediment of actual human interaction. When I was a kid I thought by now we would be talking over video phones and stuff like that (which we actually have), but it seems more and more that people are intent on texting, IM’ing and messaging each other on Facebook and MySpace than actually interacting.

So this gets me to thinking about something else. Kids nowadays have it soooo easy (yes I’m going to sound old here). Until the last 5-8 years or so, if you asked a girl for her phone number in high school you got her house number. When you called her you ran the risk of the Dad answering, the Mom answering, an older brother asking you what the hell you wanted. Then you had to say something retarded like “I just wanted to ask Susie about one of our homework problems”. You also ran the risk of another person listening in on another phone in the house and foiling your plot to sneak out and play a little grab ass in the park that night.

You don’t have that now. You just call the girl on her cell phone. Bing Bang Boom, done deal. She might even surprise you with a “Sext Message”, which is a naughty picture of her sent via the cell phone. Maybe she makes a little movie with her friend of them dancing to Lady Ga Ga in bikini’s and puts it on YouTube.

God I envy you High School aged kid. Well except for the acne.

Note: This Rant was written while listening to ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits.