24 CARROT BOLD

Our guess is that President Obama is going to continue reaching out to the Republicans using the carrot rather than the stick, at least for a certain amount of time. And we are going to predict that time is "24" because 1. its such a nice complete number and 2. Its the name of a series that all the conservatives like on Fox and 3. Its the only time any of the conservatives were comfortable with a black President. We predict that at some point Obama is going to suggest that every member of Government (including himself take a month without salary, and just like the Lily Ledbetter law when the only lawmakers voting against it were Republicans, we predict that virtually all the elected officials that will refuse to give up their salary for the American people will be Republicans. Maybe we will be proven wrong and these people will act patriotic instead of only talking patriotic. We haven't seen this yet, but we are on the look out for what we will call President Obama's "24 carrot bold".

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

It requires sifting through many complex questions to reach the simple truth

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY #2

A trip to the dentist (for a cleaning of all things) gave us this Fauxlosophy on pro-active health approaches. We plan doctor visits in the hopes of avoiding unplanned ones.

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IF COFFEE IS YOUR MEDICINE, REMEMBER YOU OFTEN SHOP AT TEACHING HOSPITALS

At one of the largest national brands that is green in label and "green" in approach at which we shop virtually every day, I have had a couple little glitches on the way to my own personal fix. At Starbucks today the lady couldn't get the cash register to work, and then when I overpaid her and she finally got it to work she forgot to give me my coffee. When she finally gave me my coffee it was not the size that I ordered, and when I reminded her of that she took the small coffee and poured it in a large cup and walked away and I didn't have the heart to pursue it. The day before, when I was being served at Starbucks by an elderly lady who tried so hard to be friendly but not hard enough to be efficient. I ordered a glass of ice water with my coffee and she gave me my order and walked away. The only problem (and I'm not making this up) she gave me the coffee and the ice…but forgot the water. Anyways, life is learning and Starbucks is still the best coffee…but we just ask them to start actually listening to people's orders. I have always felt that decaf coffee is like gin and tonic without the gin. Similarly, the folks at Starbucks are capable of making great coffee, just with lousy service.

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LAX CUTS

We've been reviewing some Republican approaches to various economic scenarios. When Bill Clinton was President we had a surplus, and we had a booming stock market and the solution was tax cuts. When things flattened out the Republican suggested cutting taxes to get things "inspired". When we started to go into a bit of a recession and we suddenly had billions of dollars of debt, the Republican said to pump the economy up and reduce the tax rates. Now again, the Republicans in the house and Senate (not to say that they are partisan or "one trick ponies") are saying that the solution to the current recession is tax cuts. We believe that with President Obama setting the bar so high the challenge for the Republicans would appear to be to have someone in their farm-feeder up and comer system who can now do 3 things; 1. Speak proper English 2. Not use racist code and 3. Be able to add and subtract (and not consider that "fuzzy math). The challenge awaits…

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A LONG LIFE AFTER

We at the Faux feel there should be a form of life after life on earth. A status of this is when a persons is a regular topic of conversation when they have been dead longer than they were alive. Based on that, Abraham Lincoln who was born in 1809 (200 years ago) more than surpasses that requirement, and in fact conversation about him grows as he starts his 3rd century. Illinois is called the land of Lincoln, but if you think about what he did preserving the Union and the emancipation proclamation, you could make a pretty good case that "our country" is similar to Illinois (in that respect) and can go by that same nickname. For in a sense this whole country is the "Land of Lincoln".

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CORNY FETISH

I have a fetish for green peas and corn It is so much better that drugs and porn I hope that this poem doesn’t leave you forlorn But I have a fetish for green peas and corn

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ANOTHER PLAGIARIZING IN ADVANCE… THIS TIME OF GEORGE WILL

George Will’s criticism of Barack Obama’s honest assessment of our economic woes, was that Mr. Obama’s only fear is that we have an insufficiency fear. In other words the fear is that we have nothing to fear except for not having the use of fear itself. This has always been on our list of principles (see below) as a faux quote by our patron saint Karl “Roosevelt” Rove. Mr. Will has now used this as a description of a certain type of politics, and we plagiarized him in advance at the beginning of this blog.

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FLIPPING OVER BARNEY, AND HE’S NO DINOSAUR

We’ve got to hand it to Congressman Barney Frank on this week’s Meet the Press, he definitely nailed it. We wish he would speak a bit slower so more Americans can follow his rather direct logic, but he did have a great analogy about Wall St. compensation. He said that if they takes risks and score they get a bonus, and if they take risks and lose they pay no penalty. He followed by saying “heads I win and tails I break even encourages people to flip way too many coins”. Again, this Barney is no dinosaur.

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

One of the rules of relationships and friendships should be to presume good intent; we are still working on the other rules.

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THE DAY ALL MUSIC CRIED

We at the Faux are getting to an anniversary a bit late; 50 years ago on 2/3/59 known as "the day the music died" when Buddy Holly, Richy Valens, and the Big Bopper were killed in that famous plane crash. Given normal demographics thye would likely still be alive today if not for that crash. They were of course immortalizing the song "American Pie", and they are unique American legends. For those of us that knew them even a bit, we miss them a lot. This much is good, they are still alive where live music is played.

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GOPinkslips

Just this past week 7000 jobs were lost at Macy's, 6700 from Starbucks, 1000 from Walgreens, and 7000 from Home Depot. When they lived in tents during the great depression they called the "Hoovervilles", are these now called GOPinkslips?

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WOMEN; CANT SEXUALLY DISCRIMINATE WITH ‘EM OR WITHOUT ‘EM

This big push for equal pay among women is really starting to annoy me. This “Lily Ledbetter” law that says that women should be paid the same as men for the same job is (as McCain says) a trial lawyers dream. The Ledbetter act which says that if you are discriminated against you have 180 days too file after your last paycheck, the old law simply said after your first paycheck. It seems to me that with feminine laws you can go in there and by the water cooler in your first few days on the job and discover what everyone else gets paid. Also, these women are so shortsighted. If they do get less pay (as it turns out the 45-64 discrepancy is the greatest), they can simply make up the difference in social security and pensions. Whats the big deal? It all evens out eventually. Besides, don’t women live longer than men anyways? P.S. I have heard rumors that a lower salary means a lower social security and pension payment, and I will look into this but I think I might be another case of liberal number; as we know number have a bias towards the left.

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HE WASN’T CORRECT, BUT HE WAS RIGHT

Barack Obama has broken his first campaign promise. He promised that he wouldn’t sign any bill into legislation until it had been posted on the Whitehouse website for 5 days for the public to view and comment on. Yet he signed the Lily Ledbetter act that insured fairer pay for women without waiting the above mentioned 5 days. Let’s not forget that he has been speaking for nearly a year about the Lily Ledbetter act and waiting a week on this signing would mean 1 more week of unfair pay. 32 Senators voted against it (Republicans, of course) based on the argument that if women had the right to sue for this “there would be more lawsuits”. We remind you that (then candidate) John McCain used that very argument while campaigning. We compare to saying lets not pass any crime legislation; because if you do and then someone paints a swastika on someone’s wall there might actually be a court trial, and look at all the time that takes up. We at the Faux note that all the women living in the states represented by these 32 Senators probably feel better even though they don’t have fair pay, because at least they can vote.

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ANCIENT WISDOM FROM A JURASSIC TIME

Sometimes a very ordinary movie will give a very extraordinary quote. Case in point, the movie "Jurassic Park" where the scientist (played by Goldblum) in charge of expounding the chaos theory says "we always ask can we do something, not should we". That wisdom applies to Joe Torre's book "The Yankees Years". Yes, he can say things which would be technically accurate which would make it true (though we are not sure we would get a full picture even if it's a true picture), but the question is as a guy in clubhouse where he always talked about sanctity of the clubhouse, he could have been honest but should he have been. Things like Kevin Brown being in fetal position, Mussina’s resentment of Rivera, the nickname “A-fraud” by the players, none of this stuff has ever leaked out before by all the backpages, ipods, and youtube agents. We have met Joe Torre and we really liked him, but we think that here he comes across as just a bit phony. We noticed that there wasn’t any stories about players towards the end of their career who hook up with a hotter younger women and want to remake their life when they get into the media, and leave behind their wife of many years. Of course, that would have described Joe Torre’s current domestic situation. Again, could he tell that stuff, yes. Did he tell that stuff, yes. But it was not common knowledge and Joe, it was not common sense.

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PAUL KRUGMAN'S BIGGER THAN BUSH ARTICLE

I have several thoughts on Paul Krugman's Jan 2nd article in the NY Times titled Bigger than Bush http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bigger%20than%20bush&st=cse 1. Democrats and Republicans do the same thing; look at their history and you will see that. They are both racists (besides for the Democrats) but who looks at that, they are virtually identical. 2. Barack Obama's anger with the Wall St. execs for taking such large bonuses is absurd. They want to be able to jump start the economy, they want to be able to shop, now they have almost 20 billion dollars to go on a shopping spree. 3. The house Republicans were right to not vote for the bailout, although 275 billion of it was tax cuts the other 500 billion had restraints. We didn't want to just give people like the Wall St. bankers the money, and that isnt what the Republican economy has been all about. I have to call my broker now because I am sure thats a mis-statement on my 401k that indicates that its about 60% vanished, I am sure they mistakenly hit a decimal point and it has actually gone substantially up.

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THE ECONOMY

The older we get the less we are bothered by certain facts of prejudice and/or indifference, and the more we are bothered by the people who should know better's refusal to recognize that. Now we have entered the economic doldrums comparable to the early 1980's. Worse than that of course, was the late 1930's, when Herbert Hoover (a Republican) was President. In the early 1980's Ronald Reagan (a Republican was President. And of course, these past 8 years George W. Bush (a Republican) was President. As we know the economy reacts to the prior years which feeds our concern; think of who captained the Titanic before Captained Smith on its fatal voyage.

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AN ANNIVERSARY WHICH AINT WORTH SPIT

This spring will mark an anniversary of sorts (which we will refer to frequently), amonng them the 24 anniversary of the best reason for Jews to show their disgust for the Republican party. No, we are not reffering to George H. W. Bush's attempt to bully Israel into submission during the Gulf war, nor are we reffering to Dubya's irrational ingnorance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are also putting aside John McCain's embrace of Jerry Falwell and others who said that "Jews are deficient", and also the embrace of Jews for Jesus, so embraced by Alaska's Sarah Palin. We refer to the Sping of 1985 (following Reagan's re-election and he no longer needed Jewish votes) Reagan visit to Bitburg, Germany to visit a cemetery where almost 50 SS nazis were buried, with the expressed purpose of honoring them. Elie Wiesel begged him not to go and Reagan arrogantly remarked to John Deaver "I am not going to let the bastards tell me what to do" moments after Elie Wiesel left his office. Reagan's excuse for going was that the SS was young. Now there was definitely no joy brought to the persecuted Jews in the concentration camps by the "youth" and “exhuberance” of these SS men. The 25th anniversary is known as the silver and the 50th as the gold, we refer to this 24th as the “spit in your face” anniversary. This is for the right wing Jews who convince themselves that the Republicans are their friends…except when they aren’t.

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THE CONCEPT OF GOVERNING

When we consider the concept of good governing and we consider the Obama administration 2 thoughts come to mind. 1. Good governing takes time 2. With all due disrespect to Ronald Reagan's philosophy good governing takes governing. P.S. On Mr. Reagan's Bitburg visit; we try to take a lighthearted view on many of the news bits, but with this issue it continues to brew in our minds and hearts. Just think of how many Holocaust survivors were alive at the time living in both Israel and the USA. This reminds of of the saying about conservatives that they love humanity but hate people, and in this case we apply it to Republicans who claim to love Israel but hate the Jews.

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY #3

With the "big three" of rejuvenation which are diet, naps and stretching, at no matter what age we can still feel like a kid...just not for as many hours. The question is what to do when we can't feel like a kid for any hours?

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY #2

Just as you can be sure when someone says "it's not about the money" that the motivation is monetary, we can be just as sure that when someone says "I'm doing this for the American way" that the motivation is not patriotic.

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THE BUCK SPENDS THERE

At a store called the Dollar Tree everything is (as one would think) priced at a dollar (the merchandise mainly consists overflows). While trying to find something gold looking for some friends, I went to a Dollar Tree on Super Bowl Sunday and saw long long lines of customers waiting to buy their desired items. It occurred to us that people would serve themselves well by buying stock in such places as Dollar Tree and Walmart when you have a Republican like George W. Bush in the Whitehouse. Because people are going to appreciate those buys…since the buck spends there.

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FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

The only acceptable apology from someone indifferently or stupidly causing harm or injury to another is to figure out a way to also rehabilitate them.

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ATHLETES VS. ARTISTS

A theory on why freakishly successful athletes tend to be more conservative and freakishly successful artists (actors etc.) tend to be more liberal; Athletes have a sense on entitlement because they have been so good for so long. From the time they were in the 6th grade they were the best anyone had ever seen. Whereas no one told a 10 year old Stephen Colbert and a 13 year old John Stewart and an 8 year old Barbara Streisand that they were going to be freakishly successful and renowned worldwide. For athletes success is no surprise, for entertainers success is the appreciation of surprise.

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OUR PRESIDENT ADMITS HE WAS R-O-N-G, WRONG

Commenting on the tax difficulties of Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle, President Barack Obama admitted that he "screwed up" in those appointments. We now know 2 things that differentiate the current President from the former. He is a human capable of making and admitting mistakes, and has mastered the syntax of the English language.

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FAUX NEWS BOWLS THEM OVER WITH SUPER PREDICTIONS

The legendary baseball Hall of fame pitcher Dizzy Dean was credited with having said "it aint bragging if you can do it". So as to our Super Bowl predictions, cretainly it can't be bragging since we did it. And while we don't wish to encourage gambling, unless we are the ones doing it and we win, anyone who read our prediction knew just what plays to make. To review, the two key lines were the Pittsburgh Steelers were favored by 7 points, and the "under/over" was 46.5. Our prediction of 30-24 while not exact was precise enough to win if followed in both respects. First, the total of 54 points indicated we favored the over (the actual total was 50), and our prediction of a 6 point margin of victory (the actual was 4) had the Arizona Cardinals as winners against the spread.

We could quietly (no, thats not us) retire from the sports prediction venue, but keeping with our prionciple that "we may not always be right but we're always sure" we predict that we'll predict again.

P.S. Last spring we did make another prediction, namely that the under/over in wins for the NY Yankees at 94.5 was absurdly high given their relatively young and unproven pitching. They finished with 89 wins and then only with a late surge to do so. We've often said of former President Bush his problem was not so much that he had a will of iron, but that he seemed to have a whim of iron, we approach sports nostradomy with the same degree of gravitas. Spring training is near...enjoy!
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ALL THE SLUDGE FROM DRUDGE, YOU DONT NEED NO NUDGE

On Friday 1/30 on the Drudge Report he describes the impeachment of former Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich in the following terms; "Another Democratic pol falls". Once again, we find that to be a classic complete sentence but not the complete truth, as he left out the fact that it was a mostly Democratic legislature that voted to impeach him and it was a Democratic Lt. Governor who had (smartly) avoided him for the last year, and it was a Democratic President who completely ignored him, which ignited his ire in the first place. Again, this is the sludge provided by Drudge, and we are sure that he takes it for granted that the Democrats impeach their own just as all the Bush loyalists did to him.

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CARLY, YOU'RE SO SAME YOU SURELY KNOW THESE WRONGS ARE ABOUT YOU

Our favorite failed executive (for her shareholders, not herself) Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, while appearing on "This Week" showed once again her amazing tunnel vision. She said "two thirds of the purchasing is by consumers and two thirds of the jobs are produced by small business, not big business". She said this while complaining about the stimulus package. It must be because she doesnt get another personal bailout, because there were a lot of personal households that lost lots of money as shareholders in her (then) company, which dropped by a full 50% in value under her stewardship. So it is difficult to listen to her advice without discounting by at least half of what she says.
Additionally, Carly said that "all executives who failed and are coming to Washington for help should pay the penalty". This is a complete sentence and not a complete truth. She failed at HP and got a 42 million dollar severance package, so the key word she is missing here is "those who failed NOW" should pay".
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FAUX NEWS MAKES A SUPER BOWL POINT

We should say alot of points that is, because for only the second time in super bowl history both competing teams have quarterbacks that have not only played in previous Superbowl's, but have actually won them. They should be relaxed, and produce plenty of points on both sides. So then our prediction is a very high scoring Superbowl, and we predict a 30-24 victory.

P.S. If anyone can name the previous time and the two winning QB's who competed, we will give the first correct answer a prize, and it could well be Yankee seats.
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