Our Store's New Procedure For Black Friday

We at RapaciousMart would like to wish you a happy holidays, and a wonderful shopping experience for the holidays.  Due to the fact that 157 people were killed in our stores through their own negligence at our last Black Friday sale, we will be instituting the following new procedures to control shopper traffic for the coming Black Friday.  We hope to make a better buying experience for everybody, and want to let you know that entering the front doors of our store constitutes acceptance of these conditions, our terms of service, and our newly revised privacy policy, the full text of which can be found in a random cave in France.  Please be assured that the savings you will experience will more than outweigh any brief inconvenience.

When you first enter our store, please don't be alarmed when one of our greeters puts you in a brief cheerful holiday detention.  If you have children, they will also be held for their own safety in our day care detention camp while you are enjoying your shopping experience.  Please instruct them to stay away from the barbed wire surrounding the perimeter as we cannot be responsible for any injuries they receive due to your failure to properly brief them on any information they would need to have to ensure their survival in these conditions.

During your cheerful holiday detention, your arms will be pinned behind your back for quality assurance.  First, your mouth will be filled with cotton and covered with duct tape to ensure a uniform and happy shopping experience.  Next, a black hood will be placed over your head and fastened at the neck to help with managing the traffic flow through the aisles.  You will receive an injection to enhance your involvement in shopping, and to decrease the terror that our staff psych-ops claim some may feel due to an rare adverse response to our holiday procedures. You will then be guided through the rows by one of our guiders.  Please be assured that the rumors that people are just being kicked down the aisles are absolutely untrue.  Our security personnel will create a human tunnel that your guiders will usher you through.

You will retain enough visual acuity to vaguely see the items you wish to purchase.  When you see the item you want, please make an audible grunt, and your guider will cheerfully place the item in a shopping basket.  You may continue to shop using these procedures.  When you are done shopping, please jump up and down briefly, and you will be guided to the register.  If your guider misinterpreted your grunt, and grabbed the wrong item, we will cheerfully apply our return policy for you.  Simply take a number, and our company's guarantee is that we will call your number within one week or you will be given store credit for the full purchase price of your item!

We at RapaciousMart would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, and if you sue us, we will countersue you into oblivion! Mo Fo Ho!

Bro-tocol, Or How To Blather Disinterestedly About Ebola And Still Sound Important

It's really disturbing how Dr. Tom Frieden keeps throwing out the "fact" that there "Clearly there was a breach of protocol" without stating any evidence for that proposition or even making it sound like there is anything beyond conjecture backing up that statement.  What breach of protocol occurred?  That part of the explanation is completely absent.  This appears to be just another example of a powerful white dude mansplaining how reality (and particularly that corner of reality that he is in charge of) works, for the benefit of those of us who are just too feeble-minded and submissive to not understand the travails that the rich and powerful must endure in plundering managing us.

Then he comes out and says that we have to re-examine our approach to infection control.  You would think that along with this, he might toss out three or four ideas that smart people have come up with about WHAT WE SHOULD DO to change our approach to infection control.  Just to let us know that he is not just sniffing octane booster and getting blown by farm animals, and to give us some assurance that "doing his job" involves something actually related to the matters he is responsible for, not just tickling the balls of the rich and powerful.  No, this just looks like a case of a scared bureaucrat trying to save his ass by coming up with some official, avuncular-sounding bullshit that is designed to reassure us that Daddy and company are in charge.  And the fire is stoked by the media's gasoline in portraying this institutional succubus as a steady hand on the tiller.

It really looks like the CDC is messing this whole thing up from the get-go.  Don't get me wrong, they have a tough job that gets even tougher as stuff like this gets thrown into the blender.  But there is a big difference between competence (or even one's best attempt at competence) and blatantly covering one's posterior.  The basic dysfunction that is going to play into this whole health care mess in the US is the fact that patients without insurance (read: blood money to big corporate interests who demand it as tribute for us daring to want health care) are often just shunted away, and that is going to make this all much worse.  That is the basic structural problem in the system, and who is going to address that?  We can be whipped up about insurgents in Syria (because there are war profits to be made there), but we won't be told of the much more impending emergency that is our own health insurance system with a structural deficiency that will spread this problem.

Texas Presbyterian Hospital hasn't really added much confidence to this situation.  There is really no adequate explanation why Thomas Eric Duncan was initially turned away, but their behavior seems to be aggressively supporting the contention that they did everything right and shouldn't even be questioned.  But the fact is, people are already starting to not want to go to Texas Presbyterian.  If I was being taken to a hospital by ambulance in Dallas, I would possibly consider telling the ambulance driver to take me to a hospital other than Texas Presbyterian.  And the hospital isn't helping itself by suddenly closing its ER with no explanation.

This is your basic case study in power and control.  How to look authoritative.  How to make meaningless, brief, sound-bite statements that get amplified by a media megaphone in the pockets of big money.  How to hide the ball while pretending a pile of dog turds is really the ball.

So they are telling us that there is not much threat from the Ebola epidemic in the US.  Maybe we can believe them, maybe we can't.  The problem is...the information on this issue is mostly in the hands of a power elite.  So far they are showing us that they are more interested in squashing scandals that arise solely from policies of their own making, and protecting their own lucrative positions, than disseminating correct information and finding solutions.

Brad The Impaler

Greetings Internet dating person! You have truly won the jackcup. You are lucky you!  So much!  I am wealthy beyond repair, as I am the King of Chicago. I also often show face in majestic movie scenes as "Brad Pit." If you have seen this "Brad Pit", you will know that I am also handsomer than hundred muskox smelling for old food to break the starvation. 

Unfortunately, I must ask you for twenty thousand dollars to unlock door to best restaurant in world when we meet to discuss mating. Key can only be crafted painfully from tusk of white rhino.  Please help make special night of many romantic collisions, because, alas, I left my wallet in Chechnya after Chicago coronation party.  Funds can be wired to bank in Uzbekistan, or my courier Boris can pick up cash money. I will pay you back with rainy torrent of millions upon millions of many dollars after restaurant door is opened, as I have gigantic amount of money in kitchen there.

Please, I only ask, no police this time. In the before time, brutal beating from perceived need about extracted justice and bloodlust was unwanted interference with repeatedful and fruitly mating appointment.  After that, for many days I could only make sweet love with myself or with cellmate.

I see you have stars in ears and shiny taste in mouth. I am happy to readily counteract your strongest night sweats like buffalo in tundra. But first we must have magic very much eating night in restaurant so twenty thousand dollars is of maximum importance.

I am sweating that my philosophy of love for you is very much good. Yes very much many times. Yes yes yes.  And more.  I look kindly forward to break your water of love.  We will have mystifying night, silky and clumpy like thick yak secretion beverage. We will move together as like one giant egg so to break the wind.

Now I, "Brad Pit", must share with you my face, as we are now pinned to that corner in relation boat.

Somebody sent picture of me with "Bruss Wilis."  This made me sad as walrus on metro train.  I see this picture of before time that was happy for me, and I want to cry like little boy peeling onion.

I do not like to be reminded of my before relation boat. It makes bad thinking, like vomit. Discovery of penis was bigger surprise than chocolate eggplant. Until penis was inside my face, I had thought he was little girl, but never mind, OK.  Much luck that it was only beginning of very, very long boat of relations.  But then later it had made sour after love long time, like Chechen wolf beans. And was before I had manly mustache face.

You may wonder, my sweet molasses navel, why I always write "Brad Pit", like it is strange and foreign and not me. It is because it is my cage name for big movie and telewizora productions, in exotic American celebrity cities like Howlywood, Cleveland, and New Jersey. It is our little secret that I am rich and famous beyond redemption.

So come make rich tasty strawberry love with me until the People's Carpathian Army drinks from the sheep intestines.  And do not make mistake of forgetting the twenty thousand dollars, because my courier Boris will become unkind all over everything in sight.

Today's News Interpreted For The Astute

Today's national news. Brought to you by corporate media, drug pushers and 21st century plantation owners, and above all, rich people:

Rich lady died. Rich people knew rich lady, say nice things about her. Rich news guy talked to rich lady many years ago, here's what she said. Terrorist being hunted down, because that's what America does, even though we probably loved him a year ago. Bad weather somewhere; sucks if you're there. Predictable corrupt investigation into white officer who killed black guy. Rich corrupt politician and wife convicted; most of the rest of them are still free. Children tortured by Vatican when explosion set off in front of them. Dad who let kid fry in car will spin the wheel of justice; will likely get a worse deal than rich people if convicted. White ebola doc airlifted to America while inconsequential people die. America crashed a web site with patriotism. Celebrity shill wants you to buy some crap. Corrupt pharmaceutical company wants you to buy some drug. Cute shark attack story. You're not buying enough drugs so buy more drugs. No, really, buy more drugs, because your face looks like shit. Even Abraham Lincoln wants you to buy more shit. Buy more drugs, because you're old and weak, or you will be. This oil company that polluted huge amounts of habitat is better than Jesus. Humongolunatic rich internet company has to pay basically a traffic fine; that'll teach them. There's a bigass volcano, but it probably won't bother you. Rich people honored for being rich people. Recognizable character famous only for wanting you to buy some crap wants you to buy some crap. Buy more drugs for your stomach. We know we already told you your face looks like shit...now you need surgery. Buy more drugs for your head. Drink this fake crap because it has cool stuff in it. Watch our shit later. More about the dead rich lady, here's more of what she said.

Biases

The bias of the young is impatience/arrogance (you old people screwed it up for years,
we are going to come in and wipe the slate clean)...the bias of the old is condescension/complacency (you young people don't have the experience and the wisdom to know how things work).

And the beautiful thing is, everybody can define themselves as in-between.  An eighteen-year old might consider the "young" to be 10 and the "old" to be 25. A seventy-year old might think of "young" people as 50, and "old" people as 85. We all impute to ourselves the experience that we feel is perfect for the job.

Postal Service in Crisis

The Postal Service provides a vital service for all of us. Can you imagine what would happen if cheap delivery of mail and goods were no longer available? UPS, FedEx and other competitors are only able to maintain their level of services because when private deliveries were authorized, they were allowed to cherry-pick the most lucrative business.

The letter delivery service (especially to rural areas) is the most expensive and least profitable part of the Postal Service's business. Yet they still manage to deliver parcels at a competitive rate with decent services, despite being mandated to take on the most difficult and costly deliveries. It is true that the service is not perfect. But UPS and FedEx drivers routinely just run up to a customer's door and dump a package on the doorstep.

Many detractors of the Postal Service will cite the story of Lysander Spooner and the American Letter Mail Company. It is true that Lysander Spooner made a valiant effort to fight what he percieved as an unfair governmental monopoly on delivery of first class-mail. But Spooner had offices only in the largest cities (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston) and only delivered in those cities. It would be easy to undercut the Postal Service by taking their most lucrative routes, without taking on the responsibility of delivering to Bastrop, Peoria, Wasilla, and other out-of-the way locales. That monopoly was imposed for a reason...because without it, letter delivery costs would spiral out of control in the "free market." Isn't that what has happened to health care costs?

Applying For A Job In The Modern Age

In this era in which resumes are routinely ignored by "job creators," maybe the resume needs to become a petition? You know, where 1000 people sign a statement that says, "X Company, you should hire Y because..."

"And BTW, we are all consumers of your product."

There's your keywords.

How To Ruin Music

"Musical Stockholm Syndrome":  Insane greedy sociopaths are out to fill a monstrous notch they tore into the fabric of society with whatever vapid extension of pop culture that they think will fly, just so they can buy more crack and helicopters. Creativity has been gunned down like a rival drug gang in Juarez.

Every once in a while somebody will show some documentary about some kindly old producer who brought us all this wonderful band that everybody loves.  Are you kidding? These corporate assassins of art are not promoting creativity.  They are stifling it.  They are using up the oxygen in the room with inbred mouth-breathers of the soul.  Yeah, they figure out just what the latest pop trends were, mix them all together, and stretch them just the right amount to create a new pile of dog turd that they can sell.  And they manage to convince the listening public that this is what they like.  The only envelope that is being stretched in this scenario is the one holding the big ugly wad of turd-covered cash.  And the turds are the only thing drippin' on you.