the last word (tm)

Vol. 20/No. 3 - 462nd issue – July 20, 2011
lastword@bunkerblast.info - http://www.bunkerblast.info - Bellevue, Kentucky
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BIN LADEN THE PARTY ANIMAL

"I'm tired of paying for others habits. I have habits of my own that I must pay for." --user of a right-wing Facebook group

Hey! Did you know that America recently took down Osama bin Laden? Bet you forgot about that, considering how quickly the quisling media swept the story under the rug. (Gee, wonder why?)

Before his fatal takedown, most of us envisioned bin Laden sprinting from cave to cave like Bigfoot, hoarding roadkill, and playing with poo-poo. But he lived a pampered life in his later years.

The terrorist mastermind was the close intellectual cousin of every hypocritical right-wing galoot you've met who tries policing what everybody else does but lives a life of decadence themselves. Bin Laden was found living in a 3-story palace in Pakistan with satellite TV and high-speed Internet access that probably didn't slow down when he tried watching old Crunch 'n Munch commercials and bowling alley mischief videos on YouTube. (I guess they have 'Net neutrality.) And, after he was killed, officials found major porno. His computers were teeming with X-rated clips. (He had 5 computers.)

That after bin Laden denounced everybody else for sexual permissiveness.

Officials say they don't know whether he actually viewed these clips. But somehow, I don't think he stockpiled all this porn just to see if it would make his computer's virtual memory kick in earlier. I can just picture Osama bin Laden visiting fetish and department store catalog websites, saving the photos of the models, and using Paint Shop Pro to make his own composite dream lover from the pictures.

It also sounds like he was an all-around party animal! It appears that when he wasn't buying computer porn, he was burying his head in lampshades and enjoying making a public spectacle of himself. After bin Laden's death, authorities found his mansion well stocked with candy and "Pepsi and Coca Cola" (in Wikipedia's words). Of course, he never paid property tax. (Sound familiar?)

"Do as I say, not as I do" is the philosophy that guides right-wing hypocrites the world over. That the Republican establishment has so much in common with terrorists is unnerving. The real surprise to me is that none of my old schoolmates have gone the Timothy McVeigh route yet, for they fit the bill perfectly.

While I was being tortured, they were out partying. Their brains were pickled before they turned 17, yet they blackballed me for allegedly "supporting drug abuse" (even though I wasn't abusing drugs). They think the purpose of the government is to stop folks from doing what they consider "immoral" - except when they do these things themselves. To them, the government has no role in providing services like health care or fire protection, because that's "redistribution." Yes, their ideology is all about controlling everybody else's lives.

The dumb losers who populate right-wing Facebook sites boast about their own addictions while falsely accusing the poor of squandering welfare monies on dope and drink. I checked the profile of a particular Facebooker who assailed the poor in one group. After this user said the poor drink too much, I saw on this person's own profile that that they answered the poll question "Why can't I send pics to FB from my phone?" with "Alcohol!" Another right-wing user claimed the poor are lazy, but in the space on her profile where it asks where she works, she answered, "as little as possible."

Work is just for the little people, I guess. But hey, I'm just the son of folks who worked, so what do I know? I guess labor is just for suckers like me who got a job when they were 17 instead of going to the prom and getting sloshed afterward like classmates did.

Osama bin Laden comes to life in the hypocritical right-wing parasites we all know and hate. The Tea Party movement is the American Taliban. If The Media doesn't remind people of this, they're not doing their job.

Just like how they're not doing their job by ignoring the fact that the most wanted terrorist in the world - who killed thousands of innocent Americans - is now DEAD! Bush shut down the office that was hunting bin Laden and bragged that catching him wasn't a priority. But President Obama caught bin Laden after 2 years, which Bush wouldn't do in 8. By not reporting the facts, it's clear The Media does not have America's interests at heart.

CIRCUS SHITTY
(and how Amazon covers for them)

Here's some nooz you can yooz about a major scam I've unearthed...

June 9. I could not get my new printer working, so I ordered a different brand off Amazon - via Circuit City, one of Amazon's outside sellers. Then I got the printer I had working, after discovering the instructions for hooking it up were incomplete. That wasn't the real fraud. The real ripoff occurred when I tried canceling the order I made from Circuit City.

Now, I knew this wasn't the defunct retail chain known as Circuit City. A firm called Systemax had purchased the name. That this was a different Circuit City seemed at first to be an improvement - for all I remember about the old Circuit City was having to take back everything I got there because it was defective. (I once noticed there were more customers returning items than there were in the rest of the store.)

The printer like totally costed $79.99 plus $12.89 for shipping - a grand total of $92.88. It was the cheapest I could find other than the one I initially thought didn't work. After ordering this printer, I canceled the order only 4 hours later. Not just the same day, but the same evening. I canceled it before it was shipped, so there was no reason to ship it. My cancellation request consisted of 4 very simple words: "Please cancel this order." Please means please. Cancel means cancel. This means this. Order means order, and orders is orders (as the guy on The Dukes Of Hazzard said). I don't know how I could possibly make it any clearer.

The following day, Circus City shipped the printer anyway and charged me.

I informed Amazon of the situation, but it was only later that I figured out Circuit City is intentionally running game on customers. When we talked to Circuit City by phone, they said the only way to cancel an order is to phone them within 15 minutes of ordering. They claimed this policy is on their website. No it is not. Amazon requires sellers to post their policies on their Amazon profile. Nowhere on Circuit City's Amazon site is this policy found. So Circuit City lied. They also said they had no record of me telling them to cancel - which is impossible, because Amazon had sent me a confirmation e-mail when I canceled. So Circuit City lied twice.

Once the printer arrived, I shipped it back because I did not need it. The cost of shipping it back was only about $8 - which means Circuit Shitty overcharged me by about $5 when they shipped it. Who knows how many other people they've overcharged for shipping, and who just never noticed?

Then, after Circuit City received the printer, they didn't refund the whole price. They refunded only the $79.99 - not the $21 or so I spent on shipping throughout this ordeal. Now, if I'd procrastinated before canceling the order, I'd eat the $21. But I didn't. JerkIt City chose not to cancel the order when they were able to. They made a conscious choice, and they're responsible for it. My instructions to cancel were unmistakable, and they ignored it point blank.

I know this is deliberate and not merely a symptom of Systemax being dumber than shit. I've discovered that Circus Shitty and other Systemax subsidiaries such as Tiger Direct are the subjects of scads of consumer complaints. Many complainants report the exact same problems I had, or something very similar - such as Tiger Direct shipping a video card that the customer never ordered, and charging them for it. This firm also sold a battery charger that almost caught a woman's house ablaze the first time she used it. They refused to refund the shipping, and levied a restocking fee - as if they're going to resell it to somebody else. Tiger Direct also sold a defective mouse, then refused to issue a refund - using the excuse that the buyer had canceled their credit card. Another customer said of this seller, "They are crooks."

Still another customer says Tiger Direct charged him twice for one order. Another says they refused to send her the rebate she was owed because she didn't send in the packing slip - even though she had. When yet another customer tried to cash his rebate check, it bounced - and the bank charged him a bounced check fee. Plus, a fella who ordered a supposedly new hard drive found that the drive was actually one returned by "some person named Bob" who had already filled it up with his Windows operating software. Tiger Direct was even sued by the state of Florida for not paying folks their rebates. An employee admitted that Tiger Direct intentionally failed to pay rebates in the hopes customers would forget they were owed one.

As for the Systemax incarnation of Circuit City, people report a host of scams. One complainant says they paid extra for 2-day shipping for computer items that their daughter needed right away for college. But Circuit City didn't ship the items for 2 weeks. Another paid for 2-day shipping for printer ink. But that item didn't leave JerkIt City's warehouse for 5 days. Like Tiger Direct, Circuit City has reportedly sold people used merchandise after advertising it as new. They've also been accused of not refunding the shipping cost for items that never arrived. (I suspect they never sent the items out in the first place.)

Plus, a customer who ordered a pack of 2 printer ink cartridges from Circuit City received a pack that had been ripped open, with one cartridge missing.

When the thieves at Circuit City refused to refund the entire amount of my printer order, I filed a claim with Amazon. Evidently, Amazon doesn't mind when outside sellers break its rules, for Amazon refused to require Circuit City to pay back the rest of the money they stole. Amazon told me that their guarantee policy only covers undelivered and incorrect items. That too is a lie, as the form on their website has an option for insufficient reimbursement. Amazon's reply told me that "this return is not due to any fault of the seller." Wrong. It is. And Amazon has proof in the form of the cancellation request I sent a month earlier.

That's customer service!

I will use every method at my disposal to recoup the $21 or so that Circuit City defrauded me of. And make no mistake: They committed fraud in the criminal sense. Folks have been convicted of wire fraud for less than what they did. Remember, I'm only one of many consumers reporting this exact same scam by Circuit City.

Here's the real stunner. I found an article from 2008 revealing that the head of Circus Shitty's parent company Systemax launched what the piece called an "anti-fraud initiative." Don't be fooled. This was not an effort by Systemax to make its own operations ethical. Rather, it was purportedly to fight credit card fraud by customers. But if a company that's been proven to be as disreputable as Systemax accuses a customer of fraud, why should we believe it? I long ago expressed distrust of price-gouging corporations that grumbled about folks "stealing" from them. Why should I trust Systemax when it accuses somebody of fraud?

Is this anything like the clod who started a company to blacklist people because they dared to have fraudulent charges on their credit card reversed?

If you see an item being sold by Circuit City or any other Systemax subsidiary, be forewarned. They're serial con artists.

FROM DOJO TO ROJO

When your nose starts to tickle
And you don't have another nickel
Pick your nose like Don Johnson
And tell the world, "I've got a wisconsin!"

That haiku appeared in these pages in the late '90s (during our outside agitation era). Do you know what a wisconsin is? Sure. Sure you do, boys and girls. It's our name for a gob of mucus that petrifies while it's in your nose, causing it to become extremely painful to remove. I call it this because I once experienced such a boo-gar on a road trip in the Badger State. I had to stop at a rest area to extricate it. Each event on this trip was henceforth referred to as "before the booger" or "after the booger."

You've never seen anything like it! It was like the commercials for a decongestant where a person's head was replaced by a giant nose.

The above poem mentioned Don Johnson just for rhyme. The stubble-faced Miami Vice actor has no known connection to the state of Wisconsin.

But Ron Johnson does.

Ron Johnson is a creepy media-backed Wisconsin politico. In his appearance, Johnson - a Tea Party favorite and climate change denier - sort of reminds me of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker. Johnson has a record of hypocrisy and bizarre views. Prior to last year's Senate campaign, Johnson was known primarily for testifying against a Wisconsin bill that would have made it easier for child sex abuse victims to sue their attackers. How anybody could possibly be against that bill, I'll never understand. He was testifying on behalf of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. Johnson also opposed the 2009 stimulus package - even though he sought money from it himself. And he wanted to allow offshore oil drilling in the Great Lakes, of all places.

I know Kentucky isn't known for free and fair elections, but if electoral corruption sells for $5 a gallon, I want drilling rights in Wisconsin. It's a fact that Johnson won his Senate seat because the "election" was rigged. Anybody who doubted this was set straight a few months later when David Prosser won a Wisconsin Supreme Court "election" after perennially corrupt Waukesha County "found" just enough votes. (Prosser later tried choking a fellow Justice in an altercation.)

I believe the Johnson and Prosser fiascoes justify deploying federal troops to Waukesha County next time to ensure electoral integrity. Crooked officials in Wisconsin won't do it, so somebody needs to become their boss. Obey election laws, and this wouldn't have to happen.

Ron Johnson also doesn't know how to produce the number 5. One of his campaign ads showed him scrawling numbers on a marker board, like a child teaching their little sibling how to do addition problems by writing them on a Dr. Shrinker Magic Slate. But when he attempted to write the numeral 5, it looked more like the potbelly stove that used to sit along the road outside a local nudist colony.

This is how we make a 5, Ron:

Not like this:

Instead of defending BP following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, maybe Johnson should have brushed up on making his 5's not look like a bad drawing of Big Boy.

Ron Johnson is almost certain to be at most a one-termer. Nobody likes him. Granted, that hasn't stopped our favorite Howdy Doody look-alike Mitch McConnell, but I'm not betting on Johnson. So we might as well strike the iron while it's hot - by rewriting our famous poem about the state that invites visitors to sniff its dairy air...

When your nose starts to tickle
And you don't have another nickel
Pick your nose like Ron Johnson
And tell the world, "I've got a wisconsin!"

BAILOUT FOR DEVELOPER REJECTED!

Campbell County has become an exercise in poor planning, as every new development full of homes for the very rich is rubber-stamped. At the same time, however, do you honestly think they'd approve low-income housing? Imagine if you can what the reaction would be if an affordable housing development sprang up in some local suburbs.

The scourge of bad planning, overdevelopment, lack of affordability, and outright class warfare heightened in the '80s when Campbell County pulled out of the regional planning commission. The Tea Party whack-a-doodles are now trying to pull Kenton County out too - since they think they have a True Free Speach Now right to use land for unreasonable purposes and price everybody else out of town.

Once most of the good land in rural Campbell County was gobbled up by ill-planned subdivisions, developers turned their sights to the cities. In some cases, cities even abused eminent domain to seize small houses and turn them over to developers to build luxury condos (despite such an act being unconstitutional).

But at long last, there's hope. And (to quote Big Bird) when there's hope, there's birdseed. Campbell County Fiscal Court has now rejected what would have been in effect a bailout for a proposed 6-story luxury condo building in Newport. The resolution would have established industrial revenue bonds that would have exempted the project from property taxes for 30 years.

Let's get this straight: With the bonds, luxury condos would be tax-free, while small homeowners would not be. Because taxes are only for the little people, I guess. You can call it a Leona Helmsley policy.

But this bailout may be dead for good after being voted down. Surprisingly, the more right-wing commishes voted against this handout. They're so right-wing that sometimes they're left-wing! Of course, I still won't vote for them.

I'll all for projects that are actually beneficial to the community. Unfortunately, the modus operandi of local government in recent years has been to decimate what we had that was positive and award lucrative jobs only to right-wing political cronies. (I've actually been blackballed from better jobs because of my political views.) Why do you think it is that we never recover from any recession?

Because of the Gingrich/Bush/Greenspan recession, 25% of America's children now live in absolute poverty. With a poverty rate of 25%, shouldn't any new housing development have to make 25% of its units affordable? That should be the policy in Campbell County - and it should be made retroactive to when the county abandoned the regional planning board. The Reaganites thought they were getting lower taxes, but since they effectively voted themselves a bailout, I think it's time the piper is paid. If they believe my idea would lower property values in their neighborhood, then I'm sorry, that's part of life. Overdevelopment has gutted everybody else's quality of life, so I'm being more than fair.

Meanwhile, existing luxury condos on the Newport and Bellevue riverfronts sit empty - because nobody has the money to buy one. So why do developers think we need more?

WATCH LITTLE BABY CARVE UP DESK

The Republican empire likes to think of itself as an island of maturity. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were wise, Geritol-poppin' mountains of experience just looking to keep young, irresponsible whippersnappers in check - for their own good, don't ya noe.

But - even as the Republicans' ranks are thinning - there's a younger breed of hard-charging GOP conservatives out there. And they act much younger than their ages would justify.

Meet Tennessee State Rep. Julia Hurley. The ALEC-affiliated first-term legislator is one of a very privileged few individuals who serve in the Tennessee House. And I bet the Tennessee House's chamber is very ornate. Often, places like this have stained glass windows and other decorative features. You'd feel guilty if you pooped on them.

So what did Julia Hurley do? She didn't poop on them, but she did do something almost as shocking. She vandalized one of the fancy desks on the House floor by carving her initials into it. The finish on the desk was completely ruined. Her excuse for it? "It was like 1 in the morning on the last day of the session." Oh.

I got an in-school suspension at the far-right Bishop Brossart High School because a teacher merely thought I carved up a table (no proof, of course) - but when some right-wing politician admits doing the same thing in a legislative chamber, it's considered "art."

It turned out that other desks in the Tennessee House were also gouged to hell. Somebody (I wonder who) had carved a dollar sign in one of them. (No, I'm not making this up.) These desks were probably used by Andrew Johnson or some other President from the Volunteer State - and now lawmakers are defacing them.

A few months ago, Hurley was pulled over in a BMW by a state trooper for driving 77 MPH in a 50 MPH zone. Her behavior during this traffic stop was as hilariously juvenile as you might expect from somebody who carved up a desk on the House floor. To be fair though, the fact that Hurley once posed for erotic photos wouldn't be a big deal except that her party is always trying to ban that stuff.

Over 40 years ago, when members of the Kentucky House began eating lunch at their desks, the House Speaker lowered the boom instantly. He pounded his gavel so hard that it shattered! But these days, some legislators think they can do what they want without consequences. They've seen GOP Presidents get away with literally everything, so that's the example that's been set for them. One of Julia Hurley's earliest political memories is probably the elder Bush's pardons of the criminals involved in the Iran/Contra scandal. What message did the pardons of right-wing traitors send to young people? Bush abusing his pardon powers was one of the key events promoting America's downfall. In my day, we had standards. But no more. In truth, a vast majority of Hurley's generation knows how to act right - but right-wingers such as Hurley are of course an exception, thanks to the examples set by the nation's "leaders."

What's next? Singing the diarrhea song during the hearings on the UnfairTax bill?

MONTHLY MORON MOTORIST

You know the Tea Party movement must have some measure of political power when there's enough material for this feature. (Nobody here is saying the Tea Parties have much actual support - except of course from the dinosaur media's press corpse.) Shitty driving and right-wing politics both seem to heighten right at the same time.

I don't think we had a Monthly Moron Motorist for March, but April effectively ushered in Roads Scholaring season, so it was rich in bad driving. April's dubious honor is shared by 2 idiots. The first is a TANK bus driver who I encountered while I was out bicycling in Kenton and Boone counties. The bus zoomed past me at a questionable clip. I didn't realize how close the bus came to hitting me until a man in a pickup truck pulled up and observed, "I don't know the fuck you missed that big-ass bus, man!" He was right. I figured out the bus must have missed me by inches, and it was probably going well over the speed limit.

The second April incident was witnessed on a Jimmy Carter-inspired fact-finding mission in Georgia. Right in the middle of Atlanta, the driver of an SUV opted to coast to a halt right in the center lane of congested I-20. The SUV blocked traffic and enraged motorists.

Our Monthly Moron Motorist for May was some necktie-wearing clod who almost plowed into me out in front of Kroger in Bellevue. He mouthed something to me about how I disobeyed the traffic light. Uh, there is no traffic light, idiot.

June saw its share of bumbling poologs not knowing how to drive but somehow being allowed to. The one that stands out was witnessed in front of the United Dairy Farmers store in the Belv. As a car pulled out of the store parking lot, an SUV driven by some moron blabbing on a cell phone zoomed up Fairfield Avenue at about 50 MPH. The SUV failed to stop, and almost hit the smaller car. Then, guess what? The SUV driver flailed her arms and scowled at the other motorist - as if it was the other driver's fault.

Nope. When you talk on a cell phone while driving a vehicle that's too big for most roadways, it's your fault. Smell reality. It's just like how when politicians support stupid policies and get berated in these pages, it's their fault. Or how when a taxpayer-funded school system illegally blackballs a student for 13 years and then the school system's pwecious widdle fee-fees get hurt when somebody calls them out on it on Facebook, it's the school system's fault.

Personal responsibility. Try it! You'll like it!

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(Copywrong 2011)
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