2008 gripped my shit
I suspect 2009 will grip it even stronger
Happy New Year everyone!
Securities & Exchange Commission
So, the Securities & Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) were apparently aware of Bernard L. Madoff's financial activities - including his $50 BILLION ponzi scheme which has now defrauded millions of people all over the world.
As far back as 1999, the commission received specific and credible allegations regarding Madoff's financial iniquity but..... they never acted upon them.
Instead - admittedly hampered by inadequate funding by the Bush regime - the S.E.C. pushed forward a program of non-regulation for the financial industries which in turn has directly led to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the current meltdown of the money markets worldwide.
NINE years and the shit gripping S.E.C. did nothing. Christopher Cox, the S.E.C. chairman has REFUSED to accept any responsibility, preferring that the buck - instead of stopping with him - is passed to underlings blaming them for failing to investigate the allegations against Mr Madoff. Well done Mr Cox - you too win a major shit-gripper award for screwing over the very people who depended on you to do your job properly.
Heath & Deborah Campbell
Heath & Deborah Campbell of Holland Township, NJ made the news this past week because they were refused service by their local Rite-Aid store.
The store - to its credit - refused to make a cake with the name "Adolph Hitler" on it.... for the Campbell's son's third birthday.
Yes, their son is called Adolph Hitler Campbell.
They also have two daughters. One is named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell (named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler)
According to reports the Campbells - who, as an aside, live permanently on Social Security payments - are devout holocaust deniers and have decorated their home in swastikas and other Nazi memorabilia.
They claim that they aren't racists, but believe that races "shouldn't mix", adding that they "merely" wanted to give their kids unique names and "didn't expect" the names to cause problems.
Of course not. A kid with the name "Adolph Hitler" is unlikely to have the rip taken out of him when he goes to school or college IS he? He'll most likely be a hit with the "ladeez" when he's old enough too. "Hi, my name's Adolph Hitler, what's yours?"
The Campbells are nothing but a pair of insensitive asshole shit-grippers of the very highest order. It's one thing to have your own fucked up views, but to then inflict them on children who really don't know any better and can't do anything about it is inexcusably retarded.
Kudos then to Rite-Aid for taking a stance on this matter and refusing the Campbells.
Needless to say, as MONEY is always the prime motivator in this country, it comes as absolutely NO SURPRISE that Wal-Mart (perennial shit-grippers) DID agree to make and decorate the Campbell's cake to their exact specifications.
Fritz & Jonathan Mesadieu
On Black Friday Wal-Mart employee Jdimytai Damour was KILLED by a crush of mindless greed-filled shoppers who stormed the store at opening time. They trod all over this guy just so they could grab their cheap trash off the shelves. They saved money, Jdimtai lost his fucking life. The TRUE spirit of Christmas in America if ever there was one.
Now, two of those shoppers - Fritz & Jonathan Mesadieu - who could feasibly be held partially culpable for the death of Jdimtai are gripping everybody's shit by filing a claim against the Nassau County & Nassau Police for "carelessness, recklessness, negligence & gross negligence"
These boo-hoo braindead jokers are claiming a laughable and ludicrous $2m because - awwwwwwww - they sustained injuries to their neck and back (and suffered "emotional harm") during the melee. According to them, the police failed to control the unruly crowd outside the store which then led to the crush. The unruly crowd which... erm... presumably included Fritz & Jonathan Mesadieu amongst its numbers?!
You can't make it up can you? What's the betting this shit-for-brains pair are more concerned at missing out on couple of bargain Wii's than they are at potentially assisting in the MURDER of Jdimytai Damour and are filing the claim because they mistakenly feel $2m will somehow redress the balance for them this coming Christmas.
Fritz & Jonathan Mesadieu - together with their attention-seeking shit-gripping attorney Kenneth M Mollins (425 Broadhollow Rd #215, Melville, NY 11747. Phone 631-608-4100) - should be fucking ashamed of themselves for filing such a mindless piece of shit action.
The Bush Administration
Having promised not to issue any new regulations during the final months of Bush's presidency, his administration - of course - couldn't help but lie AGAIN.
They are all set to implement new rules which would ALLOW individual health care providers - including pharmacies, doctors and specialists - to redefine abortion... presenting them with the perfect LEGAL opportunity to refuse the most common forms of birth control to anyone who asks.
In a nutshell, George, Dick and their team of numb skull politicians - the same team who offered Sarah Palin as a supposed credible politician, remember - wants to STOP women from managing their own health care, instead undermining their needs based on shit-gripping ideological and right-wing political crap.
Merrill Lynch
Potential investors in Merrill Lynch - recently bought out by Bank of America - may care to know where their hard-earned investments REALLY go.
Despite five consecutive losing quarters and a 70% FALL in its stock price in 2008, Merrill Lynch has set aside $6.7 BILLION for year-end employee bonuses.
So whilst its customers continue to have their shit gripped by the current financial situation, a handful of people - intrinsically responsible FOR that very mess - walk away with $6.7 BILLION in time to pay off their post-Christmas credit card bills.
FCC & the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court and the FCC wasted their time on Tuesday talking about "dirty words on television"
At issues was the FCC's 2004 policy which deems that even a one-time use of profanity on live television is indecent because - and I quote - "some words are so offensive that they always evoke sexual or excretory images".
The Associated Press news report on this story refused to use the specific words in question referring to them as beginning with the letters "F" or "S". (May I suggest that the AP grow some balls in this regard)
Chief Justice John Roberts - the only justice with young children - suggested that the FCC's policy was reasonable saying "the use of either word is associated with sexual or excretory activity, that's what gives it its force"
Ummm..... no disrespect Justice Roberts but when someone like myself says "FUCK George Bush" that doesn't literally mean I want to fuck him. Likewise if I make a mistake and exclaim "SHIT!" that doesn't equate to me, or anyone near me, dropping their pants and taking a dump in protest.
They're BOTH JUST WORDS. Christ, this really f-ing grips my s
Sore Losers
Sore losers never fail to grip my shit
There's been a LOT of them about since Tuesday night's historic moment.
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Johnson & Johnson / Ortho Evra
Ortho Evra is a birth control patch from Johnson & Johnson.
The Public Citizen's Health Research Group has been petitioning the FDA to remove it from the market following complaints that the patch, which adheres to the skin, causes blood clots in legs or lungs together with heart attack and strokes.
Gloria Vanderham, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson refutes the complaints stating "When used according to the FDA-approved label, Ortho Evra is a safe and effective method of hormonal birth control"
SO shit-grippingly safe that Johnson & Johnson have so far paid $68.7 million in private settlements over Ortho Evra related claims.
Alan H Fishman
Alan H Fishman was appointed CEO of banking giant Washington Mutual on September 8th 2008.
On September 25th Washington Mutual was purchased by JP Morgan & Co.
This followed a 2-week run on WaMu's deposits, during which customers withdrew $16.7 billion. A move which forced the FDIC to find a buyer so as to avoid draining their insurance funds (All deposits up to $100k in a recognised US financial organisation are insured by the FDIC) in the event of the bank going 'bang'
Alan H Fishman was appointed with a $7.5million sign-on bonus.
17 days later he was "let go" with a cash severance package totaling $11.6 million
Think about this utter shit-gripper as the financial markets implode and you sit at the breakfast table wondering where your next mortgage payment is coming from or why you've just been charged $35 for that bounced check.
FDA & BPA
A month or so ago, shit-gripping scientists at the Food & Drug (Mis-)Administration (FDA) announced that the public "needn't be concerned" about the plastics chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA).
These scientists concluded that even though 90% of Americans now have BPA permanently in their urine, the exposure levels are, apparently, "not dangerous".
However, a NEW - and independent - evaluation by British epidemiologist Dr David Melzer disagrees with those (potentially lobbyist-controlled) conclusions.
Dr Melzer tested the BPA levels in almost 1500 adults and compared them to their health histories. His results show that high BPA levels can be linked to an increased risk for both heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Previous studies on animals have shown that BPA can disrupt hormone balance and can cause infertility, behavioural disorders and cancer.
BPA is used in plastic and metal food packaging, plastic baby bottles, drink bottles, Tupperware, plastic food wrap and all recyclable plastic with the numeral "7" printed on it. It is widely used in packaged foods.
Should we trust an independent evaluation or should we trust a money-influenced government organisation whose credibility is questionable at best? Hmmmm.......
The Bush Administration's Bailout Bill
Not only does the US Government bailout of financial giants Lehman Brothers (and others) make a mockery of the supposed "free market" concept, it highlights the lengths to which Bush and his cronies will protect themselves whilst simultaneously shitting in the mouth of democracy.
Tucked into the corners of shit-gripper Bush's bailout bill is the following clause:-
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
So, let's quietly steal this money from the taxpayers, fill the pockets of the already wealthy, then allow NO court in the land to even question what the fuck is going on.
Nice work if you can scam it George.
Sarah Palin
Oh, come ON people... how could I NOT get my shit gripped by this utterly fake weather girl?
• She boasted to the world that she sold the Alaska state governor's jet on eBay for a profit.
Sarah Palin, shit gripper, ACTUALLY sold it for a $600,000 LOSS to.... well, wouldn't you know it?.... to a Sarah Palin campaign contributor!
• She boasted that she told Congress "Thanks but no thanks on the Bridge to Nowhere".
Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, ACTUALLY supported the project initially, only reversing her stance after she had received $223 million in federal funds... which she then blew on other equally unnecessary projects throughout the state.
• She boasted to the world that she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress".
Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, as mayor of Wasilla, ACTUALLY employed a Jack Abramoff-connected lobbyist who successfully secured $27 million for "pork" in the town, the equivalent of more than $4000 per resident.
Oh, and as Governor, Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, has requested $453 million in earmarks, seven times the national average.
• John McCain told the world that he had found a running mate who "stopped government from wasting money"
Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, as mayor of Wasilla, ACTUALLY wasted $15 million (from an overall city budget of just $20 million) on a hockey arena whose construction was delayed because she hadn't bothered to properly finalize the purchase of the land on which it was to be built. This then forced taxpayers to pay out more than six times what the land was originally agreed to be sold for, and the city having to seize it under eminent domain.
• She stated that she was an "enemy of taxes", that "taxes were too high" and that Barack Obama "wants to raise them"
Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, ACTUALLY - as a result of the hockey arena fiasco mentioned above - RAISED sales tax by 25% to pay for the shortfall caused by her maladministration.
Oh, and Alaska currently collects the MOST taxes per resident of ANY state in the country.
• During her GOP convention speech she stated that she has "protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending"
Sarah Palin, shit gripper, as governor of Alaska, sought travel reimbursement for over 300 nights away. 300+ nights she ACTUALLY spent in her own home!
• Also, let us not forget that Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, tried to have Wasilla's town librarian fired after unsuccessfully trying to persuade her to remove/censor books which Palin found personally objectionable.
• Or that Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, preaches abstinence - rather than proper sex education - something which her daughter, Bristol, obviously took no notice of.
• Or that Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, believes dinosaurs roamed the earth 4000 years ago and is something of a bible-thumping religious nutcase who also thinks "God" wants America to drill for more oil in Alaska.
• Or that Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, is so eagerly "pro-life" that she wants to stop women having abortions even when those women have been raped, battered or abused at the point of conception.
• Or that Sarah Palin, shit-gripper, is so hypocritical about "pro-life" that she approves of the death sentence.
I could literally bang on for hours about how unsuitable this woman is for cleaning my toilet, let alone how she should never be allowed to have a say in how America is run.
Federal Government
The American public filed nearly 22 MILLION Freedom of Information requests with the federal government in 2007.
Only 1 in 3 requests was granted.
Seems as if you can't even discover the truth behind what's gripping your shit anymore?
Republicans in Macomb County
James Carabelli, the chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan is planning to block people from voting in the upcoming election if their homes are in foreclosure.
He told the Michigan Messenger “We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses”
However, a foreclosure notice is hardly PROOF that a resident no longer lives at an address, as many stay in their homes whilst negotiating and/or refinancing the mortgage.
If proof is needed for anything, let's state that Michigan is recognised as a key swing state for November.
Let's also state that majority of households who have defaulted on their loans - and thus could be prevented from casting their ballot on November 4th - are African-American families.... who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters.
Whilst the Republicans are saying they want to avoid voter fraud, they themselves can easily be accused of voter suppression.
It looks like the shit-gripping GOP is gearing itself up to, again, STEAL the election. Just like they did in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.
Charles B Rangel
Congressman Charles B Rangel failed to report over $75,000 of rental income from a villa he owned in the Dominican Republic.
Congressman Charles B Rangel is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee... which writes the Federal tax code.
He claims he did not realise he had to declare the money as income, whilst his lawyer comments that "it would be inaccurate to infer that the congressman was trying to conceal a highly lucrative investment"
Surely the fact that it was "highly lucrative" was the very reason he tried to conceal the income?
Rangel refuses to resign his position - even as hugely embarrassing as his actions are to the Democratic Party ahead of the November elections. His statement of "I really don't believe that making mistakes means you have to give up your career", merely underlines his shit-gripping indifference to, and ignorance of, the very tax payers he is supposed to be representing.
Wal-Mart
In what is being contested as an illegal act, it appears Wal-Mart's latest attempt to control America is to tell its staff how to vote in the upcoming Presidential election.
The New York Times reported that Wal-Mart Stores Inc have been warning their senior managers that if the Democrats gain power in November, Barack Obama will "change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies"
By "companies" they mean "Wal-Mart" obviously
Store managers and department heads were summoned to mandatory meetings around the country where bosses stressed the impact if the Republicans lost the election.
A meeting leader in Missouri is quoted as saying "I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union"
Yeah, god forbid workers in the USA should get any rights. Un-be-shit-grippingly-believable.
An aside
Oh, please don't think things haven't been gripping my shit lately because they most certainly have!
However, I must apologize for the lack of shit-grippable entries.
Currently a shortage of available time to get here and write as often as I would like is.... well.... is gripping my shit!
Normal service - if such a thing even exists in the blogosphere? - will resume very shortly.
Promise
TV Commercials
OK, I get that TV commercials are a required evil that "pay" for most of the programing we receive.
But really, is it THAT necessary for THE FUCKING VOLUME of ads to be SO FUCKING LOUD when we break from the show we were enjoying?
The current Beijing Olympics is highlighting this eardrum-damaging craziness and it is gripping my shit!
Stop it!
(Please)
Whole Foods Market
Back in June Kroger supermarkets started recalling potentially-contaminated meat supplied to them by Nebraska Beef Ltd
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) stated that Nebraska Beef production practices were “insufficient to effectively control E. coli 0157:H7 in their beef products” The agency added that the products subject to recall may have been produced under unsanitary conditions.
At least 41 people in Michigan and Ohio were stricken with E. coli food poisoning that the FSIS linked (through epidemiological investigation and genetic testing) to Nebraska Beef’s ground beef products. 19 people or more had to seek treatment for related food poisoning in hospitals, including one Michigander who was hospitalized for kidney failure.
Following the announcement by the FSIS, Kroger seemed to respond rapidly and admirably.
Did the people at Whole Foods - whose motto is "Quality Foods from sources you can trust" not get the memo? Maybe no-one in the company is intellectual enough to watch the news or even read a newspaper?
Whole Foods failed to recall any of the meat they sourced from Nebraksa Beef until last Friday, August 8th.
Meaning they had been happily selling it for over a month since the problems were first acknowledged.
Whole Foods market themselves as a 'better than the rest' chain with a nod to 'cleaner, healthier living'. This is what their website states ... our business is to sell the highest quality foods we can find at the most competitive prices possible. We evaluate quality in terms of nutrition, freshness, appearance, and taste. Our search for quality is a never-ending process involving the careful judgment of buyers throughout the company.
However, it would appear this statement is mere lip service. Their search for quality must have ended, and their failure to quickly recall contaminated beef may have done a lot more than just grip some people's shit?!
One VERY poor management decision at Whole Foods Markets should have customers seriously considering if the chain's higher-than-average prices (for "quality" remember) are justified.
American Family Association
According to their website, the American Family Association (AFA) "exists to motivate and equip citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth and traditional family values"
By biblical truth they must mean that hoary old fictional tale that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Indeed, a fine truth to live by.
The AFA is a VERY right wing conservative "pressure group" which attempts to police the entertainment industry (and "social culture" in general) over the things they believe attacks the association's own religious concept of "traditional family values".
The AFA is very scared of gay people.
In the past it has boycotted companies for offering same-sex partner employee benefits (including the family friendly Disney Corporation) and condemned others (Sears) for running commercials on TV channels such as the LGBT-friendly Logo.
More recently it has announced a boycott of McDonalds because not only did the corporation have a director on the boards of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, but also because the fast food giant had sponsored a gay pride parade.
Apparently this boycott is "just about" McDonalds, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars.
With hypocrisy already rampant here - why should McDonalds remain neutral when the AFA continually broadcasts its own lack of neutrality? - let us comment on something else that appeared on its website.
Remember me saying the AFA is scared of gay people?
Indeed, the association is so scared of gay people it even refuses to acknowledge their apparent appropriation of the very word "gay".
True to their word, the AFA website has a policy of always replacing the word "gay" with the word "homosexual"
So the website's auto-correct function blew a fuse when it wrote a piece about the Beijing Olympics, more specifically 100m track star Tyson Gay.
"Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has... "It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."
You just know that for all their remarks, extreme hypocrisy exists inside this holier-than-thou association - so I eagerly wait for the time when, for example, a senior member gets done for pedophilia or an executive is unceremoniously outed.
Peddling this type of hate-filled agenda - and persecuting a whole sector of society - smacks of more than just a hint of Hitler - and it most certainly grips my shit.
Indeed, in my head, I have already started to auto-correct what the "F" in AFA actually stands for!
Precious NYC Mommies
New York City spent MILLIONS of dollars upgrading all its children's playgrounds, installing rubber safety matting to protect the little tots from falling off equipment and hurting themselves.
Seems as if New York City has no way of protecting those same children from stupid parents?
The city is now being sued by a number of parents - with the claims for "damages" being anything from $750,000 to $1m - because their kids burnt their bare feet on the rubber playground surface on what were extremely hot summer days.
This act of "nanny state" litigation brings up so many questions, including
1• What are parents doing taking their kids out to an unshaded playground in the heat of the summer?
2 • Why would ANY parent let their children go barefoot in ANY NYC park given the potential dangers of used syringes, broken bottles etc.?
3 • Ever heard of an invention called "shoes"?
Don't get me wrong. I feel sorry for the kids if their feet got burned and they suffered some pain.
But the parents/nannies pucker me right up and grip my shit because, as grown-ups, they should certainly know better than to let their kids play barefoot in that type of heat & environment.
It's the parents who have been irresponsible here, NOT New York City. Why should the city pay for your ignorance and stupidity?
Chevron
It's rare that I am open-mouthed at something I read - the inhumane actions of people rarely surprising me, quite frankly - but this past weekend I happened across something that gripped every conceivable dollop of shit in my system.
Mainly because it gripped it in so many varied ways.
I cannot recall ANY major news report or article on this scandal. Why is that? Has the story been somehow suppressed? It wouldn't surprise me if Texaco/Chevron had somehow managed to keep a lid on this, but you would think that in the ever-growing 'ecological climate' someone somewhere would have blown the whistle on this disgraceful corporate act?
Maybe there's just too much money and influence floating around?
Borne out by the details of an even more disgusting second act to this tale of corporate indifference.
For the past five years a lawsuit has been tried in Ecuador, which has accused Chevron of trying to squirm out of the responsibilities to clean up the rainforest and pay compensation to the many indigenous Indian peasants who have suffered physical deformities and cancer as a direct result of the disaster. A disaster, by the way, which has been described by some as an "Amazon Chernobyl".
Chevron, whose net profit for the past quarter totalled $5.98 billion ("crisis, what gas crisis?") have been resisting the charges, denouncing the Ecuadorian claim as nothing more than a "shakedown".
However, this spring a court-appointed expert recommended that Chevron pay between $7.2 billion and $16.3 billion to clean up the rain forest.
This somewhat moved the goalposts for the oil giant, suddenly forcing them to announce the decision to their shareholders and spawning the next - and quite incredible - piece of shit-gripping.
Chevron have rounded up a veritable army of lawyers and lobbyists and set them free in Washington.
That's maybe not surprising given the influence lobbyists currently enjoy. But what they are lobbying FOR most certainly is.
They are lobbying the Bush administration (an administration run by a bunch of 'oil men' remember) to.... get this.... pull all US trade preferences for Ecuador if that little country's "leftist government" doesn't quash the lawsuit
It's quite incredible isn't it?
But I'm not quite done yet. With my rectal muscles already at bursting point in the ol' shit gripping department, I can report that a spokesman for US Trade Representative Susan Schwabb has confirmed her office is "considering the request"
How can it even be considered? Why is it not immediately laughed out of the room?
The government is actually"considering" imposing trade sanctions on an entire country to punish the people of that country because they had the temerity to file suit against an oil company for creating a major ecological disaster in their rivers and streams.
After all that, I definitely need some fruit'n'fibre.
Verizon
Dr Herman I. Libshitz is a retired physician who lives in West Philadelphia.
He and his wife own a summer home in Reheboth Beach, Delaware.
The summer place had a simple dial-up service for the internet, which Dr Libshitz decided to upgrade to DSL.
He contacted Verizon to get the service installed.
Who were unable to complete the job because when Dr Libshitz was prompted to create his user name and e-mail address, the system spat his request out.
Why?
He called the Verizon help line, only to be told - and I am NOT making this up - "We can't install it because your name has 'shit' in it"
Annoyed, he asked to speak to a supervisor. Who gave him exactly the same response, having the additional balls to actually suggest Dr Libshitz could simply misspell his last name in order to confirm the account! (WTF?!)
The good doctor, a Vietnam war veteran who had previously signed his own proud name to several hundred academic papers without incident, decided that Verizon wasn't for him and stuck with his AT&T dial-up.
This kind of moronic 'holier-than-thou' censorship nonsense really grips my Libshitz. (I say that with every respect in the world)
Psychiatric Research
Three prominent psychiatrists - Dr. Melissa Del Bello, Dr. Alan Schatzburg and Dr. Joseph Biederman - recently admitted to Congress that they had all "under-reported income they had received from drug companies".
All three are considered "Key Opinion Leaders" within the psychiatry community - indeed, Dr. Schatzburg is the president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) - and all three have been vocal advocates of using anti psychotic drugs to treat children believed to suffer from bipolar disorder.
This despite the fact that the drugs in question have been approved ONLY for adults. There is also a big question mark hanging over the legitimacy of "childhood bipolar disorder" by other mental health professionals too, some saying it is usually just "kids being kids".
Call me crazy (and I'm sure some of these professionals would) but do you think there could be ANY link between the payola these Doctors received from big pharma and the recommendations they subsequently made?
Powerful anti-psychotic drugs for children, basically being prescribed for YOUR kids directly by the drug industry.
Everyone should be having their shit gripped by that.
The Airline Industry
Let it be known that, in the aftermath of that disaster, the Airline Industry has maintained the very real potential to actually kill hundreds, maybe thousands, more civilians as a direct result of their continued negligence.
Following diligent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigations, it was determined that the cause for the explosion/crash was an electrical short circuit which ignited gasoline vapors in one of the plane's major fuel tanks.
To combat the accident happening again, the FAA has spent the past 12 years having to fight over the issue with the Airline industry, first strongly recommending, and - more recently - having to ORDER the industry to retrofit a new safety device to the fuel tanks of up to 55% of all commercial planes currently in use.
The industry - complaining about 'cost issues' in today's marketplace (apparently, each plane would cost $90k - $300k) - has so far been surprisingly successful in resisting the necessity. Its latest delay tactic with the FAA - and here's another shit-gripper folks - is that it is negotiating to be permitted to take another NINE years to carry out the necessary work!
For those poor at math amongst us, that means it could take a mind-boggling and staggeringly immoral 21 years from the date of the crash to fix a very important recognised safety issue on many of the planes we happily board each and every day of the week.
For us at IGMS, three things spring to mind here.
One, this stinks - and I mean REEKS - of more lobbyist interference.
Two, it seems that insurance against a class action lawsuit - let's suggest "negligence leading to murder" shall we? - must be less costly than actually carrying out the work.
and three, if the officials at the FAA actually HAD any hairy danglers at all - or even serious influence - they would simply ground each and every plane until the work had been carried out. You can bet your sweet derrière that the companies would get the work done then!
Just a thought for everyone as they board their next flight. Happy traveling!
Exxon
DINP, or diisononyl phthalate to give it its proper name, is amongst a group of phthalates that - according to research carried out by the National Research Center for Women and Families - can potentially make young boys less masculine, decrease the size of their penises and make them more susceptible to testicular cancer in later life. Plus, in adult males it can result in infertility.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been trying to pass legislation in Congress to allow it greater powers to, amongst many other safety matters, ban the use of these phthalates in children's toys.
The proposed ban is similar to bans against phthalates that already exist right across Europe.
One of the largest manufacturers of phthalates in the world is Exxon.
Exxon have so far spent $8 million on lobbying in 2008, the vast majority of which has been spent nefariously lobbying AGAINST the attempts of the CPSC to ban the use of phthalates.
Lobbying which, by its very nature, would appear to be undermining the health and well-being of many young children in this country.
If that doesn't seriously grip your shit, then nothing will. It's irrefutable proof that the Washington lobbyists will stop at absolutely nothing to improve the bottom line and profits of the corporations they are employed by.
How do lobbyists sleep at night?
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Kentucky Fried Chicken in Canada recently launched a new menu item.
The "Unchicken". Which is a vegan/vegetarian sandwich.
Except.
Well, it's not.
KFC staff, with something of a 'smoking gun" attitude, have reported that they are frying the burger in exactly the same fryers/fats they drop the regular chicken pieces/burgers into and, furthermore, they handle the "unchicken" using the same meat/grease-laden gloves & utensils they use for every other procedure.
Not that ANY self-respecting vegetarian diner would ever visit a KFC, but this still demands to be marked as a shit-gripper.
Almost ALL restaurant chains forget that vegetarians enjoy eating out too. They invariably also have MANY non-vegetarian friends or families who may like to share a table or special event with them. So, by discriminating against one person by offering limited menu choices, these chains are actually turning away the business of many more people.
Washington Nationals
Whilst in DC we took in a Washington Nationals baseball game at Nationals Park.
We bought our tickets from one of the booths at the ballpark, and were VERY surprised to be asked for ID along with our credit card.
I wonder if the Nationals organization knows that asking for additional ID along with a signed credit card is a violation of their contract with the credit card company? Violators can be reported by consumers to their credit card companies, and possibly have their accounts taken away.
I haven't got anything against the Nationals though - they're a new team and all that - so I won't grip their shit. However, if they continue doing it, I'm sure it will grip some one's?!
AirTran Airways
My wife and I were subject the THE very worst treatment and customer service over the weekend whilst returning from our vacation.
All at the hands of the ignorant, clueless and untrained staff at AirTran Airways at BWI airport.
Or so we thought.
Several lines snaked back from the AirTran check-in desks, the result of mismanagement earlier in the morning, which was now compounded to such a degree that a wait in excess of 1½ hours was necessary.
Meaning that we, along with several hundred OTHER passengers, could not be confirmed for flights before they were closed.
So, several hundred unhappy passengers all having their shit gripped through no fault of their own.
The gate clerk told us we could be booked on the later 3:52pm flight, which we accepted.
Only to find out much later - almost by accident - that the fucking bitch had marked us as standby-ONLY passengers, despite the check-in snafu being of their making! Indeed, we were marked as "no show" passengers, meaning we had zero preference entitlement.
The 3:52pm flight ended up being "oversold" - gee, I wonder why AirTran? - meaning we had no chance to get on it, and we then heard the even later 9:00pm flight was also oversold.
To add insult to injury the AirTran staff couldn't give a flying fuck for our - or other people's - dilemmas. Not one staff member ever apologised for the situation their incompetence had created - almost as if they had been trained to never admit fault? - and repeated requests to see a supervisor fell on deaf ears.
In fact, we discovered, the supervisor had REFUSED to come down to speak with any disgruntled passenger, and furthermore had ordered the gate staff NOT to give her name to any passenger who asked for it. Again, you have to wonder if this is company policy or a senior member shirking her responsibilities.
It became more and more evident no-one was going to help us - requests for refunds or to be booked on alternate airlines were met with absolute refusals - so we felt forced to hire a car from Hertz and drive ourselves the 500 miles home.
AirTran will never get another cent from me, and we are in the process of (as they say) ripping them a new one. Through the courts if necessary. I will do my utmost to find a way of making AirTran EAT the shit I gripped on Saturday.
Hotel Room Design
Ever stayed in a hotel room where the sink is outside of the bathroom?
Meaning you have to open the door and exit before washing your hands after using the toilet.
Ever wondered what the bacterial count is on the handles of that door as a result of inadequate and thoughtless room design?
Do you think the maid cleans/disinfects those door handles every day?
I think we all know the scary answer.
You've been gripping someone else's shit!
Excuses
IGMS has been on vacation.
Sorry to have gripped your shit with the lack of posts.
The upside is our vacation gave me lots of 'material' for upcoming entries!
Gold Star Chili
Permit me if you will something of personal shit-gripper
I had never been to a Gold Star Chili location before last Wednesday.
I will never go again.
So, I went to the counter and ordered my item to go. Whilst waiting I witnessed this....
The server, having dealt with me, another customer and several drive-thru orders, went straight from handling people's (filthy, dirty, germ-ridden) money to manually dishing out nacho chips from a bag onto a customer's plate. NO hand washing or sanitation in between whatsoever.
Uuuugh!..... Disgusting!
I got my food, exited, and placed it straight in a trash bin outside, not knowing how MY order had been dealt with. I was astonished and surprisingly lost for words at what I had just seen.
(I realize and accept now I should've complained loudly at the counter. Instead I went home and shot off an angry e-mail to their corporate HQ, who - to their credit - responded promptly full of apologies and contriteness)
Is it really any wonder there are so many health scares these days? It would appear Gold Star Chili can't conform to the very simplest precautions to protect its customers and employees. Shit-grippingly scary.
Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn
At the Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn, a woman collapsed and was laying face down on the waiting room floor for OVER AN HOUR before anyone - staff, security guards, nurses, other patients, anyone - decided she should be attended to or assisted.
By which time she was dead.
New York City Health and Hospitals Corp - big-monied owners of the Kings County - have said they will launch an investigation into the matter and have already fired six employees.
I certainly hope this included everyone in the hospital's HR department who must have been responsible for hiring such an ignorant, uncaring & inhumane bunch of poorly-trained (but presumably little-more-than minimum-waged) staff.
Hospitals grip my shit at the best of times, but this story really has a strong wrench around my poop!
DMC Pharmacy & Pharmacists for Life International
People wonder why the rest of the world is always laughing in America's face.
Here's one reason..... a new DMC Pharmacy opening in Chantilly, VA is marketing itself as a pro-life pharmacy.
DMC is the latest in a worrying new trend across the country. Pharmacies who will actually turn away customers with prescriptions for birth control pills, the Plan B emergency contraceptive or who simply want condoms. Apparently, according to DMC, their workers have a "right of conscience" which allows them to refuse the supply of care or products that they find "personally objectionable"
DMC are members of Pharmacists for Life International, a bunch of insidious little playing-at-god hitlers who are attempting to force their own brand of religious fascism on the public and, by doing so, are putting women's health at risk.
I don't know about you, but I think there's the possibility for some comeback here? If people in Chantilly, VA (and/or wherever else PFLI is promoting its screwy ideology) find this as shit-grippingly offensive - as any NORMAL educated, intellectual person undoubtedly will - maybe the narrow-minded weasels who work at the DMC Pharmacy should - in return - also be penalized when they themselves try to shop at other local retailers, eat at a restaurant or fill their cars up with gas?
If I owned or ran a business there, I'd set up a coalition of like minded folks called the F.R.O.N initiative. I would refuse to serve anyone even vaguely associated with the DMC Pharmacy, first outing them publicly to to the rest of my customers as being the "local religious nutjobs". Invoking the initiative, I would then tell them they needed to Fuck Right Off, Now.
Just a suggestion.
Booming Bass Bins
Dear immature drivers with booming bass bins in your cars
Look, lets get a few things straight shall we?... I couldn't care ANY less that you want to permanently damage your hearing, have parts fall off of your car because of excessive vibration or get a cheap hard-on from rattling my windowpanes every time you drive down our street.
BUT, do you really HAVE to have such fucking poor musical taste whilst doing so?
yours sincerely
It Grips My Shit
What's Gripping YOUR shit?
Shit-Grippingly new from IGMS!
If you have something you'd like to squeeze out of your system, you can now try submitting it to us for consideration and possible publication within our dark dank passages.
If you send us something, please be sure to give us some kind of a user name/handle to credit your submission with, 'cos we don't want you gripping your shit as a result of us not acknowledging you properly.
Because this is our bathroom, we naturally reserve the right to edit all external poop where deemed necessary ....oh, and please try NOT to get all backed up if we fail to use/publish your submission. This is merely known as our "flushing clause"
Don't forget to wipe!
Big Pharma
The big pharmaceutical companies just can't help gripping everybody's shit, can they?
Not content with continuing to charge outrageous sums for their products and hiding their huge spending on doctor inducements and TV commercials behind the thin veil of "Research & Development Costs", they've now found a brand new way to continue gouging the American public.
Reuters announced that in 2007, the US Federal Trade Commission discovered 'big pharma' struck FOURTEEN deals which have ALL led to the delayed sale of various cheaper generic drugs. In these deals, 'big pharma' paid off the generic manufacturers with financial "compensation" in respect of delaying production of their version.
Bear in mind here that generic versions of a drug can be priced as low as 10% of their previous cost, thus helping the sick and elderly to benefit immensely.
But, it would seem, no-one is benefiting except the pharmaceutical companies, who maintain their immoral stranglehold... even when the FTC considers the deals to be a violation of antitrust laws.
It is noted in the article that a certain Barack Obama, senator for Illinois, is one of ten sponsors of Senate legislation trying to ensure these deals are made illegal. As he has made his bid for the Presidency based on taking zero donation money from big corporations or lobbying interests, I would love for him to eventually stick a knife in the side of these greedy trough-snorting pigs.
Why? .... because right now the bill has not got very far due to opposition from, yep you guessed it... the pharmaceutical companies.
Oh, and the generic manufacturers who are evidently profiting - and profiteering - from having to do absolutely fuck all!
Beer
Although your favorite shit-gripper is very much an ex-beer drinker, he nevertheless remains incensed by this article in the Wall Street Journal about restaurants and bars short-changing their customers.
Many have quietly replaced their 16-ounce pint glasses with 14-ouncers, naturally charging the same price as before. The glasses look the same but have an artificially-thick bottoms and are known as "falsies" by bartenders.
Bartenders are also encouraged by owners to increasingly pour 'pints' with heavy heads of foam, potentially denying drinkers up to two extra inches of beer in their glass!
Thankfully, beer drinkers have a voice in the shape of website Beer Advocate where forums are full of stories 'outing' rogue pint-pouring establishments across the country with comments from consumers and unhappy bartenders alike.
A GameWorks bartender is quoted as saying their staff are actually trained to say "it's a pint" when serving a (mere) 14-oz glass of beer, whilst the director of marketing for RMD Corp (a franchisee for Hooters Restaurant) boasts that by serving 14-oz pints they can get "20 more beers out of a keg".
Maybe the ultimate bit of 'spin' comes from Tanny Feerer, a vice president at Damons International (owner of Damon's Grill locations). She claims that "someone who comes in and wants a beer doesn't want a huge glass". What an idiot.
The shit gripper suggests that if you ordered a PINT of beer - you should kick up a fuss to make SURE you receive a PINT of beer.
Arbitration Clauses
Frightened of too much 'bad publicity' arising from fully-blown court cases, many companies - including home builders, car salesman, banks, credit card vendors, health offices and medical establishments - are asking customers to sign papers agreeing to arbitration in the event of any problems, billing issues, etc.
It Grips My Shit would like to advise people that arbitration strips consumers of their rights, and that it benefits nobody... except of course the corporation asking you to sign what may seem like an innocuous form.
• An arbitration claim will normally cost you a large chunk of change to set up.
• You are often limited to the evidence you can bring to an arbitration session.
• Arbitration sessions are generally held in far away offices so as to deliberately disadvantage the consumer.
• Arbitration decisions can rarely, if ever, be overturned.
• There is NO public record of any arbitration.
• Awarded damages are generally much lower than if made in a proper court setting.
Worst of all though are the relatively new arbitration services springing up across the country. Arbitration services actually sell their services to corporations, claiming they will save them money. They claim to be non-partial and unbiased but secretly market themselves as "an effective tool for collecting debts"
One arbitration service is NAF (National Arbitration Council), a company specializing in credit-card arbitration, and the recent subject of a major investigation by Business Week.
Employing some 1700 freelance arbitrators, accusations are made that NAF often rushes its part-time employees into making snap decisions, often blaming inadequate paperwork from the very corporation they are claiming to represent. It is also alleged that NAF deliberately delays arbitration hearings until a sympathetic (to the corporation, naturally) arbitrator can be scheduled.
If anyone is still under the impression that arbitration is a good thing for the consumer, it grips my shit to report that in California (one of the few states where arbitration results are made public) creditors (i.e. the corporations) won 99.8% of the disputes handled by NAF.
Richard Neely, a former West Virginia supreme court justice is quoted as saying "NAF is nothing more than an arm of the collection industry hiding behind a veneer of impartiality". His words are supported by the statistic that in a 26-month period (ending March 2007), and out of almost 34,000 cases handled by NAF, a grand total of just 30 were awarded in favor of the consumer.
NAF is now the subject of a lawsuit brought by the City of San Francisco, accused of making awards in favor of creditors (corporations) without sufficient justification. The city's attorney further alleges (in the same Business Week article) that NAF strips consumers of their legal right to a fair collection process.
I wonder why NAF didn't opt for arbitration?
Paramount Pictures & Hollywood
Think on this shit-gripper the next time you go and see a big film at the cinema and spend your hard-earned disposable income on your movie ticket...
Major Hollywood film studios are deliberately creating big sound drop-outs on their films, meaning you are not getting to enjoy everything you are paying for.
It's the movie makers latest crappy excuse to try and cut down on piracy. The prints of big films are tagged/coded with these sound drop-outs - known, apparently, as 'audio cap codes' - some of which can occur in major action and dialogue sequences. Hollywood bosses claim that if pirate copies do turn up they can identify which cinema the original recording came from based on where the sound drop-out occurred.
There's a real buzz brewing online about this issue, with many suggesting that if you experience this problem at the cinema you should simply ask for your money back at the box office, based on the fact that the sound quality was sub-standard. Once the cinemas start reporting back to Paramount Pictures (in the case of the Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie) bosses there might start realising they have fucked up.
Personally I've never comprehended the attraction of watching a major movie pirated via the method of taping it on a camera inside a cinema. The picture quality has to be shit and the sound quality even worse, surely? That's what crazy about this... anyone watching a pirated movie isn't going to give a rat's ass about the sound quality, but if I pay upwards to $20 for my ticket at some swanky film theatre I expect to get my money's worth and not have some paranoid twat of a studio head decide that I should be short changed by this kind of shit.
Of course this could all be 'urban legend', or no more than a malicious meme, but it has been noted that even film technicians are claiming its been going on for some time.
Looks like the movie industry is following the music industry's lead by ripping off its customers whilst simultaneously treating everyone like criminals? It would appear to be a class action lawsuit in the making.
Kieffe & Sons Part III
I just LOVE how this shit-gripping story gets better and better. (First gripped here and here)
Seems as if Kieffe & Sons, that FORD dealership in California wasn't really sorry about offending non-believers in their radio commercials, despite their public apology.
They are now claiming FORD forced them to be contrite and that they fully stand by the 'sentiment' of the commercial.
I certainly hope there enough believers to keep them in business (seems as if MANY Christians have also been offended by the comments) because they're going to need all the help thay can get.
Especially if enough people complain to FORD about Kieffe's & Sons beligerent attitude and their attack on free speech (remember they told us to "sit down and shut up") and FORD then take away their franchise.
Michelle Malkin & Dunkin Donuts
As shit-grippers go Michelle Malkin is quite the opinionated little right-wing floozy.
She actually had the balls to berate Rachael Ray and Dunkin Donuts for helping to promote "Jihadi chic". What a load of old shit. Does this mean the terrorists' true intent is to undermine our fried and baked munchies industry? Oh no!!!
Dunkin Donuts also deserve my "shit-gripping" accolade for actually believing what this delusional attention-seeking moron was spouting... and then consequently pulling the advertisement.
It is clear that Malkin has nothing better to do in her little "ultra-conservative" world but to pick her nose and find things wrong in the otherwise innocent world of... donuts. Some commentator she is?!
I think the true crux of the story is that Malkin is just jealous that Ray has what is known in England as a "three knob gob" whilst the Fox News commentator wouldn't even get touched with a bargepole.
Kieffe & Sons Part II
So, Kieffe & Sons, the FORD Dealership mentioned in yesterday's post has felt it necessary to make a public apology, but in doing so successfully manages to offend even more people (by, amongst other things, suggesting that only atheists were originally upset) whilst simultaneously blaming its longtime advertising writer and producer for the oversight.
Not accepting responsibility is, indeed, the real American way and nothing less than I would expect from people like this.
The longtime advertising writer and producer meanwhile - who goes by the name of J.W.Horne - has written a totally unapologetic rant on his own (new) blog which has nurtured many emotive responses, almost ALL of them negative and criticising him for his actions.
Criticism which he responds to flippantly, more or less boasting about how successful he has been in radio advertising and that this ad was no different to any others he had produced.
Unfortunately this blog is the second version of his debut posting yesterday. No more apologetic, but sadly missing out on some of the blatantly offensive and vitriolic rhetoric of the original. Changing the content is within his rights, obviously, but given the passionate nature of the shitstorm he has caused he may have been wiser to get it right the first times instead of resorting in a cowardly manner later.
If you know anyone in radio who uses the highly questionable services of J.W. Horne for their advertising, you may want to point out to them the bigoted, idiotic and totally unprofessional manner he adopted for his client Kieffe & Sons.
Truth be told, the hypocritical little shit-gripper needs to be retired from all work as soon as humanly possible. Why not drop him a line or give him a call using those contact details and suggest he gets over himself? Along, of course, with any other comments you may have. He sounds like the kind of guy who just LOVES hearing from people while he swims about in his own shit.
Kieffe & Sons
More religious hypocrisy to grip my shit...
Southern Californian FORD dealership Kieffe & Sons have been running radio commercials to (one has to presume) "promote" their business.
These commercials have taken the promotional angle of... erm... ATTACKING non-Christians and condemning people who believe prayer should not be taught in school.
Here's a transcript of the ad:-
"Did you know that there are people in this country who want prayer out of schools, "Under God" out of the Pledge, and "In God We Trust" to be taken off our money?
But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Now, since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians who believe in God, we at Kieffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don't just tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess maybe I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case, then I say that's tough, this is America folks, it's called free speech. And none of us at Kieffe & Sons Ford are afraid to speak up. Kieffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond: if we don't see you today, by the grace of God, we'll be here tomorrow"
What a pompous self-righteous piece of work. I actually admire his free speech rant but unfortunately not when he twins it with the comment that us non-believers should sit down and "shut up"... that kinda defeats part of the argument doesn't it?
Are "86% of us" really all "Christians who believe in God"? I wonder which corner of his cavernous rectal passage he plucked that one out of?
I find it incredible that any business owner would chose to promote himself this way, and wonder what Ford think about this dickhead dealer, who represents THEM, effectively discriminating against potential buyers of their vehicles. (In fact, why not contact Ford's public relations division and let them know what you think?)
I sincerely hope (but not pray, obviously) that Ford pull his dealership right out from underneath his smug hypocritical rear-end. Nothing would please me more as a post-script to this story.
Furthermore, that as a result of his short-sighted idealism, he is forced into major league bankruptcy and pushed out onto the streets to survive.
So let's hear it for karma and let's discover if 86% of us would give a flying fuck about his predicament.
American Airlines
Not content with bleeding their customers dry with "fuel surcharges", American Airlines have doubtless started a brand new trend in the airline industry by introducing a shit-gripping $15 fee for a flyer's' FIRST checked piece of luggage.
Not the often unnecessary second or third suitcases that clothes-hounds travel across the country with, but the FIRST bag, which is pretty much a must-have for most travellers.
American are also planning to charge higher fees for their "reservation help desk".
I think what's surprising about that is that they already charge a fee to customers calling for help on how to book a flight
People bitching about gas prices
People who bitch about gas prices grip my shit.
It might just be my imagination, but it seems like the people who moan the most are the same people who like to waste gas the most. The ones who leave their vehicles idling all the time they are in a store, drive around with a weighty trunk full of unnecessary junk or gun their engines when the lights turn green.
Maybe they're also the ones who make all those stupid little 500-yard trips to the local convenience store or drive-thru restaurant every lunchtime?
You hear them complaining about how gas costs $4 a gallon whilst in the same breath boast of some "made in japan' trinket they found whilst shopping at Kmart or Walgreens.
Or they drive a huge SUV and just "don't get it", as if gas is some kind of unquestionable right.
I feel genuinely sorry for the people who have to drive miles to and from their place of employment, but in many cases those people consciously chose the 'dream' of living out in America's vast suburban landscape and are simply now having to properly pay the price of being so very far from everything.
America's PAST is based on cheap transportation. America's FUTURE has to be based on something entirely different and far more sustainable.
(A glass of beer at the Great American Ball Park costs the equivalent of $62 a gallon. I don't hear as many people bitching about that!)
Silly Alcohol Laws
Today is an election day here in Kentucky.
Like all election days, the supermarkets and liquor stores are not allowed to "sell beer or wine until the polls have closed"
Why?
What possible difference can someone buying beer or wine make to today's events?
Like so many other archaic stupid laws that remain on statute books across the country this one needs to be removed.
I didn't want to buy beer or wine this morning when I went to the local Krogers, but boy if I did this stupid ruling would have most certainly gripped my shit!
George W Bush (2)
I see our clueless precedent continues to stake his place in political history with his comments.
Bush has revealed just how he acknowledges the sacrifices of soldiers in Iraq and their families.
He's given up playing golf.
By not playing golf, he says, he is telling families "I feel your pain, I'm not on the course"
Grip-shittingly unbelievable
George W Bush (I)
I'm sure that if I looked hard enough at what he was doing I could publish a "grips my shit" post about our erstwhile president and his useless lying cronies (Hi Dick!) every hour of every day.
Anyway, just to reiterate, George W Bush grips my shit
Not content last week with attempting to re-write history by suggesting his (in)famous "mission accomplished" banner in 2003 was misunderstood by everybody ("What? I gave the impression that the war was over? Phooey!") his administration once again put the health of the American public at risk.
They urged a federal appeals court to STOP - I'll repeat that... STOP U.S. meat packers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease (also known as Scrabble-beating "Bovine spongiform encephalopathy" or, more boringly, BSE)
The government sought to make a Kansas-based beef supplier - and others - quit conducting more comprehensive checks on its product saying that "widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers"
Is this Mad Politician Disease (Bovine Spongibob Squarepants) or what?
I'll warrant that this had more to do with the lobbying of a Washington "Special Interest Group" than it does with the fake remarks coming out of the Agricultural Department.
What a load of old bull. Or, rather, cow.
Goodyear Tire & Gemini Service Centers
The response of a couple of Goodyear service center employees has gripped my shit, so much so that I will NEVER now use Goodyear tires or visit any of their nationwide locations.
My wife and I were out the other Friday evening doing a necessary grocery run. A few yards from our home we noticed a strange road noise from one side of the car. Thinking we had a flat tire we pulled over and walked around the wheels. No flat, but one tire had what seemed to be the head of a huge screw/bolt embedded in it!
It was only 5:50pm, so we drove to the nearest repair location thinking we could get sorted out and be on our way again to the grocery. It was a Gemini/Goodyear Service center, but one which had absolutely no concept of the word "service".
As we pulled up in front of the office I saw one employee at the counter exclaim "GODDAMN IT" through the glass when he saw us. Upon walking in, we were told in no uncertain terms that they closed at 6 and wouldn't be able to help us. No apologies, no effort to help or advise, no nothing.
As luck would have it we were able to (slowly) drive to another (far friendlier and immediately helpful) repair center in the neighbourhood (Car-X) where we left the vehicle overnight for the repair to be carried out early the following morning. Now, we could just have easily have done that at Goodyear, but it was evident that their employees just didn't want to even care enough to suggest that.
Along with JC Penney, IHOP and a (sadly growing) number of other businesses, Goodyear is now a company we will never use again (their products or franchised "Gemini" service centers) and we will be sure to share our experiences with others so they too can shop elsewhere.
Walgreens
A Walgreens in New York has succesfully gripped my shit.
Whilst waiting in line at this particular Walgreens to be served, a woman went into a diabetic coma, a potentially fatal condition.
A police officer and a couple of nurses, who happened to be in line at the same time, came immediately to her rescue. They grabbed some sugar and a carton of orange juice off the store shelves and started administering them to her. They also used a glucometer off the shelf to get a quick reading on this poor woman's blood sugar levels.
When the paramedics arrived to take the woman to hospital, the manager of the Walgreens walked up to the nurses and police officer and, instead of praising them for their swift action in saving a customer's life, actually DEMANDED they pay him for the orange juice, sugar and glucometer. If they didn't, he added, he would have them arrested for shoplifting.
Once again, profit over people. Un-fucking-believable.
United Airlines
United Airlines have gripped my shit with their latest flimsy excuse to rip off their customers.
They have upped their change ticket fee from $100 to $150 citing 'rising fuel costs' as the reason.
Sorry United, but exactly how does the increased cost of fuel affect your administration costs in re-processing a ticket?
Seems as if the airline industry is getting more and more ignorantly creative in its income-generating methods, refusing to simply raise ticket prices in favor of introducing more and bigger 'backdoor' fees. All of which do nothing but piss customers off making them even less likely to fly.
Pharmaceutical Industry
Almost every page of Melody Peterson's excellent book "Our Daily Meds" is managing to grip my shit.
Her expose of how the pharmaceutical industry operates - immorally, and naturally for profit before any genuine care for health - should be on everybody's reading list, as eye-opening and damning as it is.
I have to hope that the drug companies influence over government is cut-back, curtailed even, [if?/when!] Obama becomes President in November, him being the only candidate not to have taken lobbyists dirty money during the election campaigns.
In the meantime, read and recommend Peterson's book, so that the truth about the big pharma industry is spread loud and wide. Ask for it at your local library or top-up the author's deserving bank account by buying a copy from your local bookstore or online.
You'll discover that the next time you visit your doctor or healthcare professional it could become very important to ask which drug companies they are beholden to before they write you a prescription, and exactly why America is now sicker than it has ever been before.
The Shite House Pt III
Lying governmental officials like Alphonso Jackson really grip my shit.
Jackson was the (Republican, remember) government's HUD (Housing & Urban Development) Secretary, but more importantly to our lame duck Precedent Bush is a long-time friend. Fine cronyistic qualities that helped him quietly slide into a senior political position at a department which is now overseeing a housing and mortgage turmoil that is threatening to completely undermine the USA's stability.
Not that he had ANY time to deal with problems like that as they brewed. Instead, he was apparently busy giving out favors of his own, steering large governmental contracts for the post-Katrina clean-up to his own friends (Methinks he is taking the concept of "Pay It Forward" a little too far?)
Furthermore, it is alleged he used his governmental department to threaten the Philadelphia Housing Authority after they refused to transfer some valuable real estate to an individual named Kenny Gamble. That's Kenny Gamble, the music producer. One half of the famed Gamble & Huff production team recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Oh, and good friend of Alphonso Jackson.
Jackson was asked to resign months ago. Instead he refused to answer any questions (which is lying by default) at congressional hearing about his wrongdoings, and his good friend, Mr G.W. Bush, stood stoically by him.
Apparently, our Alphie has now seen some kind of 'writing on the wall' and resigned from his vaulted handed-to-him-on-a-plate position of authority stating "There are times when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters," adding succinctly "Now is such a time for me"
His resignation was met "with sadness" by Precedent Bush who also said Jackson was a "great man" and "an American Success Story".
"Success" must be awfully close to "Suckiness" in W's private dictionary mustn't it?
Marvin Richardson
Not content with having to put up with the hypocritical Larry Craig as their Senator for several years (he was the high-ranking government officer who allegedly* propositioned a fellow homosexual in an airport toilet stall, despite publicly promoting an anti-homosexuality agenda), the state of Idaho now has a brand new 'crazy' in their midst.
Marvin Richardson has changed his legal name to "Marvin Pro-Life Richardson" JUST so that he can get on the ballot for Craig's empty seat whilst simultaneously promoting his holier-than-thou viewpoint on abortion issues.
He's such a crazy messed-up guy that he actually wants to advocate murder charges for not just any doctors who perform abortions but also for women who obtain the procedure.
The abortion issue is such a ridiculous religiously-led political hot potato in America. Let me state my own viewpoint here on IGMS... people who are so adamantly pro-life grip my shit. Abortion exists to allow women the right to choose their futures and to live in 'free will'. I have no doubt that further hypocrisy would reign, and that losers like this Marvin Richardson and his ilk would line up at the clinic if their 11,12, 13 or 14 year old daughter came home one day and announced she'd been knocked up by the village idiot.
*I feel as if I have to say "allegedly", but only because Craig has asked his lawyer to vacate his previous guilty plea, and he is now maintaining he was doing nothing wrong. However, the very fact that he was a Senator in "that situation" does suggest some element of wrongdoing, don't you think?
Flu & Illness
Flu grips my shit
That's why I haven't been here much lately.
Normal-ish service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Believe me when I say there have been several days when it was impossible to grip my shit. You could not have even saved any in a colander
Andrea Bailey
Andrea Bailey grips my shit.
This clueless mother, from Ashland, KY, complained to Wal-Mart because she bought a set of 'fun straws' for her three year old daughter, and when she got them home she thought a couple of them looked 'disgusting'
She called the local news channel to tell them that she thought the straws - I kid you not, dear reader - "looked like a penis"
She has a child. Andrea Bailey MUST know what a real penis looks like? If her husband's/boyfriend's/one-night-stand's penis actually looked like this straw, he must have been injured in some kind of a bizarre boating accident, or he earns his living as a circus freak.
Nothing like totally humiliating yourself and your child on television for that brief 15 minutes of fame though. Well done on making Ashlynn and yourself a total laughing stock in the eyes of sane people everywhere else in the world. You really must be so prude proud.
Reckitt Benckiser
Despite apparent proof that it effectively ripped off the British government to the tune of millions of pounds, drug maker Reckitt Benckiser tries to say that it is "a responsible firm which behaved honestly and ethically"
An executive from Reckitt wrote this in an e-mail: "Should we not drag it out as long as possible... nine million pounds of business is at stake"
Furthermore, it is alleged (no smoke without fire) that Reckitt misled doctors and had behaved unethically in some of its dealings with them. Its response to that accusation?... "this was an unfortunate one-off incident"
Presumably, this one-off incident excuse also applies to the fact that Reckitt delayed the introduction of a generic for Gaviscon in 2000.
In 2003.
In 2006.
Oh, and again in 2006.
Generic copies of the drug could have saved the NHS, and UK taxpayers, over £40 million. A parliamentary select committee is now all set to investigate the fact that there is STILL no generic equivalent when Reckitt has an 88% hold on the market for this kind of medicine.
Reckitt Benckiser says that "patient care and safety has driven all its actions"
So, not good old-fashioned greed and profiteering then? The stuff that shit is gripped by.
In the USA Gaviscon is made and marketed by pharmaceutical behemoth GlaxoSmithKline. Not that I am suggesting for one minute that USA drug companies act in anyway as unethically as Reckitt Bencksier seems to have done. Perish the very thought.
U-Haul
Just like the airlines with their totally bogus "fuel surcharges", this fee is a massive crock of gripped shit. The disposal and treatment of hazardous waste items are entirely the company's responsibility, and, as such, the costs associated with them are all part of U-Haul's regular operating procedures, therefore those costs should be swallowed up in the fees they charge consumers. Not tacked on like a third testicle.
BUT, I guess, a "$19.99 rental" is nowhere near as attractive to advertise as a "$24.99 rental", so u-Haul instead use fuzzy math to rip its customers off, additionally adopting the familiar - and apparently well-loved - "American" bait and switch method of doing business.
There's nothing like misappropriating a genuine global concern to try and up your profits is there? Company officials, management, shareholders and workers should all feel embarrassed by the introduction of this fake fee, and I REALLY hope people start abandoning U-Haul in their droves as a result.
Doing Taxes
I'm sure I am not the only one who is angrily gripping their shit whilst doing their 2007 tax return.
What a fucked up, complicated piece of work it is. I'm sure the "tax preparation" and "accountancy" lobbyists won't like me saying this, but the system is LONG overdue for a complete revamp.
When I have to complete this form before I can complete that form, but that form needs figures from this form first - resulting in utter confusion and potential inconsistencies - is it really any wonder that many people just fill in a few numbers, don't bother to declare everything they've made, and then just send their incorrect sums off to expedite their refund?
Why not do a complete reform of the tax code to make it a million times simpler and easier to comprehend for us 'normal folk'? Where we don't have to pay and/or rely on "H & R Cockblock & Co" to get it wrong for us.
I suspect this would ensure more taxes would get paid by more people, thus allowing us to at least cling onto the rim of the toilet this country is financially being flushed down.
American Airlines
I have deleted my original post (dated 2/25/08) about American Airlines, and the case of the woman who died on one of their flights from New York to Hawaii.
It was originally alleged that two oxygen tanks and a defibrillator - all from the plane's galley - were all faulty and could not be used, something which could easily have contributed to her demise.
However, later reports suggested this was not the case, so I am happy to withdraw my shit-gripping remarks about A.A.
Unless of course it is later proved the airline cut corners with its safety check procedures, and thus failed in its duty to protect this unfortunate passenger.
Public Hypocrisy
So, another teenage gunman goes on the rampage in Illinois, killing 5 people.
Meanwhile, actress Jane Fonda gets lambasted for uttering the word "c**t" on live television.
As these two stories continue to develop over the next few weeks/months, do you want to hazard at a guess as to which of them will receive the most discussion and comment?
Yes, according to many blinkered right-wing people & politicos in America, guns don't kill people, words do.
It's another shit-gripper
American Healthcare I
Barbara Antonelli, a 76-year old woman was unlucky enough to suffer a heart attack whilst she was at her doctor's surgery for a routine visit.
An ambulance was summoned, she had breathing tubes attached to her, and she was gently placed on a gurney to be wheeled outside.
As she was being pushed out the door of the Staten Island Physician Practise, a receptionist rushed to her side and demanded she handed over her $5 co-pay for her office visit, "before the ambulance could leave the clinic"
If I gave out shit-gripping awards, this clinic would be the first recipient.
The MUCH bigger picture though is that this helps prove that (so-called) healthcare in America is more about the money than it is about healthcare.
Cemetery Thieves
In something of a personal shit-gripping comment, I wish to lambast people who steal from cemeteries.
I visited my mother's grave-site yesterday to sadly discover someone had illegally taken the wreath my father had (positively secured &) placed there around Christmas. He saw it a week ago and deemed it in good healthy shape, certainly worthy of remaining for a few more weeks.
Now gone. Stolen. By people who apparently steal these things to retrieve the wire framing to build their own wreaths for the following season, some for profitable means.
I hope these people die very slow, very painful, very horrible deaths. They're no more than utter scum of the earth, who should simply die to leave more air for the rest of us decent folk.
Aetna Inc
Once again profit being more important than a customer's health grips my shit
Aetna Inc - a major health insurer - wants to stop a group of gastroenterologists in New Jersey from using a proven anesthesia, propofol, during their colonoscopy examination of patients.
Aetna says there are other sedation options. Options that, conveniently, don't require the presence of an anesthesiologist. An anesthesiologist that might cost the insurer an extra $200-1000 per procedure covered.
Options that cause the patient more discomfort too. But that doesn't seem to matter. Neither does the FACT that colecterol cancer is the second cause of cancer death in America and that proper prevention now may actually save Aetna even MORE money further down the line.
Short-sighted greedy fucks.
Federal Trade Commission
In 2006, over 69,000 consumers complained to the FTC regarding deceptive & illegal practises carried out by debt collectors.
- The FTC received more complaints against debt collectors than against any other industry
- 40.3%, 27,929 consumers, complained of debt collectors attempting to collect more than they were owed
- 3.4%, 2,387 consumers, complained that collectors were attempting to collect interest, fees, or expenses that were not owed, such as collection fees, late fees and court costs
- 21.2% or 14,656 consumers complained of harassment from repeated or continuous calls
- 22.1% or 15,314 consumers complained of debt collectors making calls to employers, friends and family repeatedly in an attempt to allegedly gather information to assist them in collecting the debt
- 11.5% or 7,967 consumers complained of being harassed with collectors using obscene, profane or otherwise abusive language
- 11.4% or 7,913 consumers complained that they were threatened with a lawsuit or some other legal action that the debt collector could not or did not intend to take, such as seizure of property or arrest.
Consumers were exercising their rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, brought in to presumably control this otherwise historically scummy industry.
How many cases from 69,000 did the 'mighty' FTC take to court?
One.
(The FTC tried three cases, two settled before reaching the benches)
One out of 69,000 - in percentage terms that's 0.0000144%
Good to know the FTC have our backs in protecting us from this kind of financial scum eh?
Seems like everyone in this business - except the consumers who get shafted - is capable of coersion, something in government which always grips my shit.
Fox TV
Fox just drove a dump-truck of bad advertising through the Superbowl, unloaded it, and expected us to get all excited.
Their overkill promos for "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" just made me want to tune into that sci-fi abortion even less. It just seemed so very obvious they were trying to shine a turd that couldn't be polished.
Talking of which, it gripped my shit
The Church & Double Standards
Yep, it's religious hypocrisy gripping my shit once again.
Many churches throughout the land want to show this coming weekend's Superbowl to lure and attract new members, adding they can do so in a "non-churchlike manner".
Quite aside from the fact that sport is a proper religion all by itself, do the churches not feel that this approach is somewhat unseemly?
Regardless however, the NFL have hit back at the churches, saying that they are not permitted to show the game on TV screens larger than 55" without a proper license. Making this distinction "limits the size of the audience", a matter of copyright/broadcast law (enforceable by the feds).
The churches - especially the mega-churches with their auditorium-sized jumbotron screens - all have their hassocks in a knot because of this ruling, claiming showing the game is "just a little bit of fun", but adding the wonderfully shiny hypocrisy of "Gee, doesn't the NFL have enough money already?"
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