God Hates Turtlenecks

I was watching a rerun of  ‘Til Death where Kenny was debating whether to get circumcized for a girl he was dating.  This reminded me of a friend I had who was once temporarily obsessed with why it’s not necessary.  I thought I’d break my hiatus from the blog  by talking about penises.  And yes, I am straight.

Did you know that there is no medical reason for routine circumcision?  I say routine, because there are some instances later in life where it becomes necessary to treat, I believe, penile cancer, which is extremely rare.

“The American Cancer Society does not consider routine circumcision to be a valid or effective measure to prevent such cancers… Penile cancer is an extremely rare condition, affecting one in 200,000 men… Perpetrating the mistaken belief that circumcision prevents cancer is inappropriate.” ¹⁰

The American Medical Association, in a July 2000 report, states, “… because this disease [penile cancer] is rare and occurs later in life, the use of circumcision as a preventive practice is not justified.”

That paragraph was cited from this link: http://www.nocircpa.org/4642.html

So why do we do it?  I’m not sure how the Jewish tradition came to be, other than that is was a covenant between God and Abraham.  In exchange for Abraham’s circumcision, and promise to teach his descendants “perfect devotion” God, in turn, guaranteed the survival of Abraham’s “progeny – the family of Jews that became the nation of Israel…”

I’m guessing perfect devotion means “no jacking off.”  If you have too much fun in life, what do you need God for?  I’m not entirely sure about that one, but it does bring me to how nonritualistic circumcision came into being.

It was, in the late 19th century, believed to help with disease prevention.  But as much in that regard, circumcision was also believed to curtail the discovery of “self-abuse.”  If you have to pull it back to clean it, you might inadvertantly realize it’s kind of fun to play with.  You know we can’t have that.  Masterbation leads to mass rape and social anarchy afterall.  You know, like they said pot did in the 50′s.

Another excerpt from http://www.nocircpa.org/4642.html that I like is as follows:

“John Harvey Kellogg, of cereal fame, was a proponent of genital cutting as a cure for this “horrible practice.”  He recommended performing circumcision “without administering an anesthetic, as the pain attending the operation will have a salutary [health-giving] effect upon the mind, especially if connected with the idea of punishment.”  ”

Good God we are monsters.   

And we don’t even know what we’re missing.  It’s been estimated that male circumcision leads to a 25% loss of sensation.  That sucks.  I want my weiner to enjoy all the glory it was meant to.  Poor little guy.  You try getting hit in the head all your life with no helmet on, you’d probably have trouble standing up on command by the time you reached 50 too.

To those of you who read this post and are now disgusted with me: that’s what you get for giving me a hard time about not posting anything new.  HA!!  Weiner talk.  But in all seriousness, is it a decision we should make for our children anymore?  They may grow up and meet a girl who thinks it looks weird, but at least then it’ll be their decision.

sources:

http://www.nocircpa.org/4642.html

http://www.aish.com/jl/l/48955616.html

First it was “Big Oil,” now it’s “big wind” and “big Solar.” What’s next, “big candle?”

Enviornmentalists are again trying to stop a wind farm going up in the west and a solar farm too.  Where are we supposed to get our power from?  Hippy love and daffodils?  Flower power is a nice renewable resource, but very difficult to harvest efficiently.  The workers are always too busy getting stoned behind the barn.

Oil and coal are too dirty, admittedly, nuclear power is potentially dangerous.  Meltdowns and nuclear waste could ruin your day.  Solar power and windfarms are eye sores.  Oh yeah, and the dumber birds might fly into a blade.

Jesus Christ man, what do ya want?  Ya FINALLY got the government and the people of this country on the green bandwagon, which, for the consumer of 25% of the world’s resources, is long overdue, and it’s still not good enough.  What do you want to use, millions of hamsters running on wheels hooked into the power grid deep underground?  No wait, PETA won’t allow that.  We’ll have to use people instead.  Hey, it will create jobs.  It can’t be bad if it creates jobs, like legalizing drugs.  People can’t handle THEM when they ARE illegal.

Wind and solar are miles away from perfect.  I like animals, really.  I don’t WANT them to get chopped up.  And they are eye sores.  But can’t we give Obama SOME credit for effort?  Do you have a better idea?  We can go invade another oil rich country if you like. 

Isn’t the idea in going green to do the best we can with the technology we have and to try to improve that technology in the meantime?  Or should we just gobble up nonrenwables until that magic “silver bullet” is discovered.  Perhaps a Mr. Fusion for our hover cars?  Sorry, Back to the Future II hasn’t come true yet.  I’m as disappointed as you are.

OSHIT it’s OSHA

I wanted to share an interesting little tidbit about my workplace.  Today marked two-hundred fifty work days that my shift has gone without a lost-time accident.  A lost-time accident is when someone gets hurt, goes to the hospital, and then comes back with restrictions.  That is to say, that can’t do all the tasks normally required of them.

Every fifty days we go without such an incident, we get a set amount of money on our paycheck.  And with each increment of fifty, the dollar amount increases.  It’s called our “saftey bonus.”  Everyone, including myself, eats up the free money and doesn’t ask questions.  I do, however, ask myself, how can this be legal?  Obviously the money isn’t going to be an incentive not to get hurt.  Pain should be plenty incentive for that.  What it REALLY is is a bribe to make you think twice about going to the doctor if you DO get hurt.  If you do get hurt, and you do cost us the bonus, you bet your ass you’re going to be shunned for a while.

One time two temps were working on a press that has several dies in it.  The short of it is that each of them moves the parts across the dies to form the part in different ways, and one of them pushes the buttons that activate the press when everything is set.  You know where this is going.  The first rule of operating any kind of punch press is to look in the damn thing before you push the buttons.  This would apply even more so if you know someone else is or was in there.  Well, the stoner crushed the old hippy’s hand in the die. 

It’s not nearly as bad as it sounds.  Without going into boring specifications about the workings of the die, the specific one he was in just bruised his hand, not even any broken bones, but he did go to the hospital, and the incident was reported.  Following this, OSHA has been a regular fixture in our plant.  Now, would you care to guess who got “let go?”  Go ahead and guess.  The guy who pushed the buttons is still there to this day.  The guy who went to the doctor is not.  To be fair, he was old and slow, and not really all that good at anything, but the other guy is a raving pill freak who routinely shows up late.  He has since been hired on, and is now a full-time employee.

I’m not trying to get my company in trouble, and I do like the bonus on the check.  It just seems like such a dirty tactic to save money.  Obviously they can afford to pay us a lot of money and still save money.  Insurance costs and OSHA visits and subsequent fines go way down with fewer and fewer accidents reported annually.

I’ve never been a big fan of OSHA.  I have the right to leave a job I feel is unsafe.  I choose to keep working where I do, but I bet if I let OSHA catch me doing something I shouldn’t the choice won’t be up to me.  Even if it is something I was taught to do by my employer.

I would just think if they were so interested in safety they might question this safety bonus program that encourages people not to report accidents to them.

It was once said that we would see a black president when pigs fly.  A hundred days into the Obama presidency and wouldn’t you know it?  Swine flu.

 

(It may be said that this joke has rascist overtones.  That was not my intention in repeating it.  I just thought it was funny.)

Dude, where’s my Kumar?

If you are planning to watch last monday’s House on Fox and haven’t yet, don’t read this.

So I was watching House on Fox.com tonight, which I haven’t seen in a few episodes, and was surprised to find out that they just killed off Kutner out of the blue.  I wasn’t planning on posting anything today, but I found this interesting.  If you don’t watch House, Kutner is played by that dumb ass from the Harold and Kumar movies.  He’s a fine actor and all, I’ve just only seen him play a dumb ass.

I found it strange that he was killed off so suddenly, so I went to find out why.  It turns out he accepted a position in the Obama administration.  Maaaaan Barack I dunno…  Kal Penn, aka Kumar, aka Kutner is going to be the associate director in the White House’s Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Maybe Kumar has some kind of political or business qualifications.  That could very well be.  I just always thought he was an actor who played a stoner a lot.

OK I just read another article.  Apparently ”His role will be to connect Obama with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, as well as arts and entertainment groups.”   I guess the arts and entertainment groups thing makes sense…  But dude, Kumar?  I hope Barack doesn’t take this hip young president thing too far.

“You know a healthy baby can bring upwards of $60,000.” Dr. Hibbert

In light of fast approaching tax day, I’d like to share my relevant bitterness.

I filed my tax return in early March.  Admittedly, I got almost every dime I paid in back.  Why?  Partially because of my income, and largely because my wife is a full-time student and qualifies for the hope credit, yada yada.

Now, I claim zero on my w-2 because I’m a child.  I’m not that desperate for extra money every check and I like a big winfall at the end of the year.  Also, I want to make damn sure I won’t have to pay in.  Anyway, I was pretty tickled about a nice refund.

I was talking to a friend of mine about it.  He had been telling me about his, and that it was double mine.  I tried to figure it out.  I make more than he does…   I claim less on my w-2 than he does.  What the hell?

He has kids.  That’s what’s the hell.

He makes a dollar and a half per hour LESS than I do, claims 3 and still brings home 50 bucks a week more.

He receives child support from his ex-wife.

Nearest I can figure, if everything he told me is true, his tax refund was more than double the maximum amount he could have even been ASKED to pay in.  Not more than double what he DID pay in, more than double what he WOULD have paid in had he been claiming zero deductions.

Now, I’m all for tax breaks to struggling families, but I never knew having kids could get him so much more than he ever paid in in the first place.  Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know that.  This would, of course, be separate from any other government aid he may or may not get, and separate from the child support he gets, and separate from the homestead credit he’ll get, which I also don’t qualify for cuz I made too much with my entry level factory job.

All told, I think the homestead credit is like a thousand bucks, and if so, he gets about $8,000 more a year even though he makes about 3 grand less.  This is just tax money, no child support or anything mind you.  Am I on crack?  Am I doing the math wrong?

I know this is a very American thing for me to ask, but why the hell do I have to pay for it when someone else chooses to have children?  I realize in Europe or even Canada people have more of a “help your neigbor” kinda attitude, but Jesus Christ, I bet I’m struggling more than he is.

I’ll be honest, I don’t wanna pay for your kids, just like I don’t wanna watch ‘em on Saturday night while you go get lit at the tavern.  Seriously…  I keep looking back up there to see if I added that right…  I guess so.

I am going to hope and pray that my one Canadian friend will read this and show me the error of my ways.  I do wish that we as a society were better about taking care of each other.  I wish it wasn’t so “me me me.”  But I always go back to thinking that the only people that need help are the ones who don’t WANT to take care of themselves.  I’m not that smart, I’m not educated, I’m not even in that good of shape, but I take care of myself.

Ok gods of the internet, tear away at this post.  Be gentle, I just ran out of KY.

This post was inspired loosely by a comment on the “apply liberally for maximum effect” post.

Yo quiero the Taco Bell dog

You remember the Taco Bell dog?  I miss him.  Yo quiero Taco Bell.  I believe it was decided that the dog was rascist against the Mexicans.  Why?  The dog is of Mexican origin and named after a Mexican state, for christ sake.  Made sense to me that he would be the mascot for a Mexican (sort of) restaurant.  I, for one, never saw one of those commercials with the cute chihuahua and thought “man, I hate Mexicans.” 

Shouldn’t taco be removed from the name Taco Bell then?  It’s not cool to associate tacos with Mexico, either.  Dude, I’m gonna go to BELL and get some cheesy gorditas.  Cheesy Gorditas, by the way, rock.  I’m sure they are in no way Mexican food, but, come on, it IS Taco Bell.  They are tasty.

UNRELATED

Bring back Crystal Pepsi.  I know what you’re gonna say, “hey, dip, it’s just clear Pepsi.”  I don’t care.  I liked it.  A crystal Pepsi would go real well with a cheesy gordita crunch on a warm summer’s eve.

You give me a pack of Viceroys for $2.60, a Crystal Pepsi and two cheesy gorditas and you won’t hear me bitch.