#corporate #greed #gross

EDITED because I left off a couple at the bottom.

I am not entirely certain I know how I feel about first ladies speeches in general. +/-50

BUT I do know that like one commenter to the above link "Listen to any woman deliver a talk in the Mormon church's semiannual conferences. You'll see where Ann Romney learned to speak." I found the biannual pablum just a bit overdone so far from either conference. -90

On that score, since another commenter also mentioned "Animal Farm" and the way to insure nice mushy minds to be molded... You can probably tell that even before I excommunicated myself from the Mormon church I had issues with being spoken to like a child younger than I was. +95

As to the commenters who who talked about fact checking. In the not so recent past it was not only possible, but COMMON for people to attend Ivy League schools on special scholarships, people who were the children of less than qualified to pay parents, people who went on to be awesome in some way or another. +90

The first ladies words regarding Gramma Obama were actually "she started out working as a secretary and rose until she hit a glass ceiling", VASTLY different than "she was not really a secretary, she was a VP" (paraphrased). +90

(forgot the next two)

Every president/first-lady since Jackson (his inaugural party also cost a pretty penny for damage done) has been accused of running up the bill when they and their families remodeled the Whitehouse, and I do not expect that to change anytime soon, +5

though I certainly wish that one president would leave things as they are and remember they are borrowing the house from the people, not moving in for the rest of their life. +100

Fact checking only works if you check facts in context, and without making your own shit up on top of the facts, from a neutral position, not paid for by any party to the facts being researched, etc. -95

Fact checking also only works if there are facts to check, not Sunday Fast and Testimony Meeting pablum, devoid of a fact to check, -90

though to be fair, her (Mrs. Romney's) 5th grade level is probably a little high for F&T meeting (colloquially known by many active members and nearly all past or inactive members as "the water works") which usually rides near a 1st grade level, with addition of loads of tears and some misquoted scripture or another. +5

His public "policies" have little to do with his actions, or his words in places where no cameras are allowed.

EVEN his record is vastly different than his policy statements.

He really wanted either Romney (still has a chance) or better yet Hunstman (who has not yet left the "Utah more Mormon than thou art" fold officially) to be the top contender for president of the US because he thought that would bring his political views to the federal stage.

Romney may have left the (UMMTTA) fold, but he is still officially and publicly practicing, thus VERY dangerous.  These views held by Utah's government come DIRECTLY from "Temple Square" without passing go.

If Romney is going to continue publicly practicing he MUST espouse many of the same views or risk loosing his temple privileges.

This time in the usually much saner E.U. -100

Voting for any political office based solely on one issue is not quite as stupid as playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded Thompson machine gun -95

Voting for a single party rather than each individual office is more stupid than playing R.R. with that same machine gun -100

Of course your vote doesn't count if you vote like a 5 year old voting their favorite candy -100

A protest vote should always be cast with care, they can turn into a vote for the most evil of the lot. -100

Don't be afraid to cast a protest vote if there is little chance that demons from hell will win by default +80

A good protest vote is an obvious protest, but not a vote for vulgarity or silliness that will get your ballot rejected.  +80

Mickey Mouse was a safe bet when I first started voting, in my area now that is a guaranteed invalidater -70

A wise person makes their choice of candidate FINAL a week before the election and does not change that choice unless something VERY significant changes last minute +90

A wise person ignores any ad or political news after that final choice, most of it less than a week to election is bullshit anyway +85

If your "friend" at work comes up to you within a week to election trying to convince you to vote for Candidate Able, even if that was already your choice, it may be a very good idea to look elsewhere for your candidate.  A good candidate does not need last minute pressure to win an election -75

The same mud slung more than once is a pretty good sign that the issue belongs to the victim of the mud attack, not the slinger. People generally only sling mud when they have no substance to stand on -95

corruption abounds in government again as police attack the person who defended a woman under attack by police... -90

YES, ever mindful of the reason for the season (1st chorus: money, money, money...), many retailers have not only started hanging Christmas stuff before Halloween, they have shortened the official pregame festivities by 2 hours and will open the doors at 10PM local time on pergame day.

Walmart stores have had merchandise out, wrapped in environmentally unfriendly black plastic, with messages warning that the products will not ring at the register until the last naughty or nice game contestant has lined up at 10PM pregame day (hopefully with remnants of pregame washed away of course), for several days now in some stores, but for certain by 6pm today.

Next year (Again ever mindful of the reason for the season 2nd chorus: money, money, money) many of the retailers left out of the jump to start this year have vowed to consider starting their contest BEFORE the pregame dishes are cleared, and in one case BEFORE pregame dinner has even been prepared, the DAY BEFORE PREGAME.

While we are on the reason for the season (3rd chorus:MONEY, MONEY MONEY, MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND) it would be fair to point out that the legendary reason for the season (some dead guy on a stick that was supposedly born 25, December in the year of our lord zero (which few had a concept of at the time, zero that is)) is warped and twisted, there is no possible way the shepherds would have been out tending their flocks, nor would the tax collector have been collecting, since many paid "in kind", meaning their crops and livestock, in Jerusalem on the 25th of December, it would have been in the middle to the end of April, but due to overlapping pagan festivities, and the fact that the mythology also places the subject of the mythology's death and laggy respawning around the same time (have I mentioned zombie on a stick yet?) the holiday hungry conservatives of the day decided it would be better to split the two up and stomp all over two pagan celebrations instead of double pounding one pagan festival, after-all you you can only kill a pagan once before they are well and truly dead.

If you are going to preach it, whip it out in public every time I walk (well hobble) past, stuff it down my/children's throats PRACTICE IT -100

THIS MEANS CHRIST-MASS, NOT massing-money-in-my-pockets_mass -100

This means ACTING LIKE CHRIST, not his (im)mortal adversary, or the money changers he tossed out of the temple on more than one occasion -100

This means feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, AND HEY dining with criminals and prostitutes, NOT showing how much you can spend on a CHRIST-MASS meal for the well fed, sheltered, clothed, opulent. Christ after-all came prepared with a few loafs, a couple fish, and some wine (depending on which PARABLE (look it up) we are talking about) and used magic or some other hocus pocus to multiply it when the in-laws arrived as well. +100

One example from my days writing code to make a hospital money. (this was a long time ago and I am sure the numbers have changed, I am also certain that the ratios are more ugly than they were 30 years ago).

We are going to an example from a working hospital, paid for, and long standing.

There are surgeries which were called "break even" because the patient/insurance paid $1.00 and $1.00 was paid out, we are going to use one of those.

There are surgeries which were called (internally) heifers (cash cows) because the hospital paid out less than $1.00 after charging $1.00.

AND there are the surgeries which cost the hospital money, some of them PILES of money because the surgeon made several dollars, and the administrator always takes the exact same cut of all surgeries, actually count procedures, multiply by some obscene amount, pay administrator and doctor regardless of the outcome, cost, etc.

Healthy patient, simple knee injury, scope used to clean up some fragments and apply a little plastic etc.  This surgery costs the patient exactly $1.00 if all goes perfectly, and pays out exactly $1.00. (I know it costs far more than $1.00 but that makes the numbers simple so think of it as percentages if that makes your CDO feel better).

$0.60 surgeon

$0.20 administrator (s/he gets paid to fart as near as I can tell)

$0.10 in theater assistance (other surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologist, etc) 

$0.06 sterile prep, sterile storage, cleaning theater, etc.

$0.02 food service in the surgeons inbound only cafe (no lines, we cant delay this doctor, s/he has important things to do at 16:00 involving a golf cart and hot caddy)

$0.02 administrators staff, accounting, billing, IT, etc.

OK so now lets eliminate JUST the $0.06 going to cleaning and sterile staff... the patient suffers a potentially lethal infection, and further complications requiring another surgery, etc. BUT THE doctor still got paid as did the administrator.

WHO exactly said that the person cleaning the theater and instruments is less important than the surgeon? or the administrator (remember s/he gets paid to fart, exactly the same amount for every procedure in the building)?

I would argue that the cleaning staff are at absolute minimum equally important to the surgeon, yet we pay that staff just better than minimum wage in many cases while paying the surgeon enough that they can pay their malpractice, house, boat, sports car, and sexual company payments with money to spare for that vacation cruise with the new sexual company next month.

Now what about the teachers, instructors, professors, etc. who prepared the doctor to do their job? MANY of them barely make minimum wage on a very good day, get zero thanks from the doctor, and were probably abused by the huge ego the doctor was carefully crafting to make sure they commanded the largest portion of the $1.00.

How often do you think the surgeon buys the cleaning staff, REQUIRED to do their job correctly, a birthday card, or even just smiles at them in the hallway outside the theater? 

From the stories I hear from people currently working as sterile staff in several local area hospitals it is far more likely that the surgeon will verbally abuse, scowl, or otherwise subjugate the cleaning staff, and even many of the "professional" types in the theater during the operation.

YET still we pay this surgeon thousands of dollars an hour while paying the staff supporting them, without which they could not do their job, a few tens of dollars an hour (if they are at the top of that pyramid).

When the administrator and surgeon are made equal  (and I argue that the gassy administrator should be paid an actual wage not per procedure... that would encourage them to do a good job, not to do everything possible to get the maximum number of procedures through the hospital in a day) to the support staff I suspect the knock on effects would be HUGE in terms of everyone making more money in the long term (yes the surgeon would have to put off the new upgraded boat and sexual company for another month, the administrator would need to actually push a pencil once in a while, etc.) and soon insurance companies would be forced to follow the example, not paying their gassy administrators (executives, what ever they choose to call the gas bags)...