Thoughts, American Idol, Bachelor...Tax Cheats, Stephanie and Hollywood Week

If you thought SuperBowl 2009 was the greatest ever, you'll love our exclusive video of the action plus some vid of the great halftime show.

Also, tax dodgers and why we all should just refuse to pay our taxes, damn it!

Finally, Jonbenet case reopened? I've got an interesting hunch why.

Many more thoughts from The Wise I.

It was the last episode before going on to the home towns of the final contenders.

Jason, amidst tears and sobs, sent home what I thought was his best match.

And a rumor about the outcome of this year's show that will shock you.

It's the mid-winter fill time before the final top 15 start American Idol 09 anew.

Some video and pics you'll see nowhere else on the Internet. Plus my guesses as to who to keep a close eye on.

Finally, guest writer Michelle tells of her murdering cat and a stage mother’s travails.

Pic of the Day


 


Jason Sends Stephanie Home

Widow Stephanie Sent Home

I do think the insertion of 34 year old Stephanie was entirely scripted. Well the whole show is very scripted as I often assert but there’s just something weird about Stephanie and her inclusion in the top five finalists, indeed her inclusion as a contender for Bachelor Jason’s heart at all.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that Stephanie looked so much OLDER than Jason.

If I’ve got it right, Jason is 32 years old and Stephanie is allegedly 34 years of age. She looks as if she’s had a whole lot of Botox injections however. Which is not to say she’s not a very attractive woman but I wonder about her age and more, she looks more suited, in looks, behavior and temperament, for a man in his early 40’s.

There was also never any extended makeout session between Jason and Stephanie, never any passion, never any glimmer of unfulfilled youthful lust that one can see, with a close look, between Jason and Melissa, for example.

Stephanie always did this thing where she would softly kiss Jason’s forehead, his cheeks…like that. But there was never a point where Jason grabbed Stephanie and smothered her with a big tongue-probing kiss. Stephanie herself would often mention this lack of lust during a solo camera vignette.



I’d speculated in an earlier post that this meant either the scripting was to lead up to a sudden climax of lust, passion, love and romance between Jason or Stephanie or boom, either by script or for real, Jason just wasn’t all that into Stephanie, to borrow from the popular lingo of our day. Which proved to be the case as widow Stephanie did not get a rose on the episode aired on 2/2/09.

So this upcoming week we have Jason visiting the hometowns of the final four contenders for his heart.

Top Four:
Naomi
Molly
Melissa
Jillian

This is one of my favorite parts of this reality series as the family of one’s beloved speaks volumes about our futures with this potential mate so fashioned from these folk and surroundings, no?

It’s always fun to see the kooks and locate the stable.

There’s a rumor all about how this season with Jason, he formerly rejected by the also-rejected DeAnna, will end. It’s just a rumor, probably the work of an over-heated fan’s imagination. But I’ll throw it out there.

For DeAnna’s engagement with her snowboarder choice from last season’s Bachelorette, Jessie, has ended. I could have told her that kookie Jessie was but an aberration and not for females with dreams of picket fences and pretty children in their future.

So the rumor goes that DeAnna will return to this series, to the Jason who she rejected and left with a broken heart for a snowboarder for God’s sake. And Jason will reject his top four and go off into the sunset with DeAnna, as it was meant to be by the gods of romance.

I don’t believe it for a second. Brad Womack broke the mold with his walking off with NO choice of the many female offerings good enough for his fine self. A series like this that wants to succeed simply cannot lead the viewers on too often lest they lose viewership of those who are tired of being fooled.

We will be watching the visits to the home town of the top four and for now, my money’s on Melissa as Jason’s choice of a bride.

Which probably won’t happen either but that’s another story, another day.
======================

American Idol 2009-Hollywood Weird

The thing about this past week’s Hollywood Rounds (2/3 thru 2/5/09) is that they made no sense and were boring.

The pre-season visits to the various cities was at least amusing on some levels as there were the inevitable kooks, the losers who thought they could be winners, the crowds, the comraderie, the close-ups of the lives of promising contenders.

This Hollywood week was boring as all get out.

In fact I didn’t even tape the shows and got most of my information from AOL, HERE.

First it was a blatant attempt to treat the story of the contenders as some sort of reality show but it was a bust. Yes the contenders, some of whom went through to the next round and some of whom went home, were in the biggest reality contest of them all. It’s just that at this point in the American Idol the viewers have made few attachments to the many contenders.

In fact the only contender that I formed a sort of attachment to was a member of an all-girl band who left her comrades behind to seek the American Idol name. She got sent home during Hollywood week and here I thought she had a real shot at the title.







The rest of the show of the first of the Hollywood round consisted of boring, unbelievable melodramas of various players as they were wrestled with forming groups, practicing and the jealousy that this sort of endeavor will bring.

The so-called bikini girl played a big role in the past week’s melodramas and by me this one does not have a chance of winning the title.

So beyond a few pics I compiled above, that’s pretty much it for Hollywood, Round 1.



Super Bowl 2009



In fact I DID watch the Super Bowl 2009 clash between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburg Steelers.

I did not believe for a second that the Cardinals had a chance one at winning that thing but they played one hell of a game. In fact, the 2009 Super Bowl should go down in history as one of the most exciting of all Super Bowls. Heartbreaker for Arizona, though. That 100 yard touchdown return had me standing on kitchen chairs and screaming to the football gods. And I didn’t even have a dog in that race.

This Super Bowl did leave me pondering the oddity of an Arizona team named after a bird that does not live or nest anywhere near that state. In fact, I wrote a prize-winning fiction story about cardinals, HERE. This story is a whimsical thing, for sure, worth a real laugh. It also illustrates my perplexity about the Arizona Cardinals. I am to understand that the Arizona football team came from St. Louis, as one Freeper patiently explained to me.
Missouri is a place where the beautiful red cardinal DOES live and nest.

Carrying the puzzlement one step further, there are NO ravens in Baltimore either. There is, however, a logical connection for that particular name. If yon reader does not know the origin of the name of the Baltimore Raven football team, you just might be a recent graduate of Baltimore public schools.



Moving on, we do have some great video of this year’s Sooper Bowl, including some outstanding clips of the halftime show. Click in for a smile.



Solving the Stimulus Problem

There are those amongst us who think that the Democrats should pay their tax bills too, damn it!

Which is not to say that I don’t agree. The gubmint is going after my pitiful SS disability pay if it plus husband’s salary goes over $32,000. So damn right all those fat cats up in congress should have to pay their taxes but there is a silver lining.

Let’s have Obama keep appointing the lying, cheating Democrats to his cabinet posts and what with them all having to pay up, even if they DON’T get the job, boom, there you have, a fresh cash infusion into the economy with no need of that pork joke they pee on our feet and tell us it’s raining that it’s a “stimulus” package.

Many of us were born yesterday, most of whom voted for Obama. That so-called stimulus bill, heh, is naught but a way to raid the U.S. treasury to pay back all the big donors who helped The Messiah to get elected. But hey, he pees upon our feet and tells us it’s raining. Those of us who voted for the Messiah immediately go looking for an umbrella for the strange yellow rain.

Below, the winners of the annual Tax Turkey awards, ALL of whom are Democrats. Heh.

New York, NY: Brendan Pack, CEO of Tax Academy.com, a multimillion dollar company based in New York City and services over 100,000 companies, has announced today the annual Tax Turkey awards being given to government officials for their potential tax-related problems. The winner will receive a 14k gold "Tax Turkey" plaque. The top five are as follows:

Caroline Kennedy:
Quit her bid for Senate seat due to "personal" reasons, including "tax" problems. Sources cite that Kennedy ended her campaign for Hillary Clinton's vacant Senate seat due to "potentially embarrassing" situations with tax liabilities and employment with nanny. Ms. Kennedy's only tax issue on the public record appeared to be a $615 city tax lien that she settled in 1994, a minuscule amount for a multimillionaire.

Charles Rangel:
In 2008, the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee was accused of failing to report $75,000 in rental income for a villa he owned at the Punta Cana Yacht Club, in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Documents also released showed that Rep. Rangel paid no interest on a mortgage used to purchase the beach property. His attorney, Lanny Davis, claims these financial issues were unintentional, and Rep. Rangel wasn't previously aware of his failure to disclose the income because most of the mailings were sent to his wife. Republicans have called for the removal of the Congressman from the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the nation's tax laws, and an investigation has been implemented.

Tom Daschle:
President Obama's pick to head the Health and Human Services Department, Tom Daschle, recently filed amended tax returns to report $128,203 in unpaid taxes and $11,964 in interest for 2005-2007. His amended taxes reflect additional income for consulting work, the use of a car service, and reductions in charitable contribution deductions. Daschle has paid the IRS taxes and interest for this error, which has delayed his confirmation as Obama's appointed advisor.

Timothy Geithner:
President Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, disclosed to Senators that he failed to report $34,000 in self-employment taxes from 2001-2004. Although his confirmation hearing was delayed, this tax mistake did not cost him his position as Treasury Secretary, which includes oversight of the IRS.

William Jefferson:
The Congressman was defeated in the 2008 election; however his controversy started a couple years prior to his loss. In 2006, the FBI raided Jefferson's home and claimed they found over $90,000 Jefferson took in bribes, some of the cash stashed away in the freezer. Rep. Jefferson was indicted on 16 charges of corruption by a federal grand jury and stripped of his membership on the House Ways and Mean's Committee, yet the controversy did not end. In June of 2008, his sister pleaded guilty to a Federal fraud scheme.

Excel Rant

I cut my teeth on Lotus 1-2-3 but now the mighty spreadsheet program Excel is the stuff of Accountants. I, with no sense of pride at the admission, use this program for everything from tracking the minutiae of my life to compiling my Blog and, on occasion, I use the program to actually do calculations.

During the years of my work I use to proclaim loudly and with a sense of might that my hands have, indeed, been blessed by God. For I could make a spreadsheet sing, I could make a spreadsheet, with the insertion of one property tax amount in the proper cell, calculate the pro ratio property tax assessment for every merchant in the shopping center, the ratio based on square footage and/or contract limitations. I could calculate payroll tax deposits by state and prove the result back to the original mainframe payroll program total.

What happens when you spend your career doing stuff like this is a tendency to eschew all programs more suited to certain tasks and use just Excel to do everything. At one point in my life I used to poke gentle fun at accountants who used to check their spelling in Excel and some would even draw pictures in the program.

Now I myself am the subject of my former mockery.

This is perhaps why I consider Excel one of the buggiest programs on the planet. It has, since I’ve been using it at home for all manner of things, crashed and burned on me more times than I care to mention.

The buggy stuff this program does amazes me. I’d like to get Bill Gates into a room and show him the most incredible bugs that his programmers managed to cram into one program and hey, how The Wise I has managed to find them ALL.

Sometimes the program will save all my recipes, all in memos on an Excel spreadsheet, natch, in place of my “main” spreadsheet, which is my lifeline to daily living. This sends me screaming with the pain of the damned because all doctors appointments and daily tasks are replaced, boom and with no warning, with recipes for strawberry pie.

At other times I will get something weird in a cell somewhere and the thing will freeze up my computer and slow down every function until I have to stop and meticulously copy every cell, row and column into a new spreadsheet until I find the culprit slowing everything down.

On an older computer I had, Excel would, with no rhyme or reason, suddenly save a file with some huge number name. Such as: “2738475689”. I don’t know why it did that and I lost quite a few files until I learned that this is what happened to those spreadsheets I was saving that suddenly disappeared for no earthly reason.

I do religiously back up all my Excel spreadsheets to a little portable file saving device now because I sometimes lose my entire life when this program does the weird.

I don’t have this sort of weirdness with any other program and hey, I’m glad I documented the craziness of Excel that makes no sense at all to me.

While I’m Complaining…

I didn’t move to the swamps of Delaware to suffer through winters as bad as winters in New England.

Ahem.

And while I’m at it, I never did like February all that much, considering the month’s only virtue being that it’s short.

For the winter of 2009 has been a real brrrrrrr and I’ve already written Al Gore about this global warming gone awry. I asked Al to send some of that warming my way.

Smokers Save the Children

Heh.

According to the Heritage foundation, twenty two million more of us will need to start smoking in order to fully fund the new SCHIP (State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program) funds forced through by The Messiah.

Of course it’s a noble, noble thing folks, to provide healthcare insurance for children, although under the rules of this socialized boondoggle, those so-call “children” range up to thirty years of age!

This is really a backdoor way to socializing healthcare across this country, folks, and has been for many years. In fact, one of the big movers behind all this is none other than health insurance maven, Hillary Clinton.

So in April of this year smokers will have to pay an additional federal tax of .62 a pack for cigarettes, ostensibly, or so the lie goes, to add monies to finance the vaunted SCHIP program.

Problem is, with the total estimated smokers left in America (and folks, people do really stop smoking as the price per pack goes up) there are currently not enough smokers to fully fund the additional revenue being thrown at the SCHIP program.



The legislators who voted for this, they know this. They only do it because hey, everyone hates smokers, yes? For if ever a group was vilified into a despised enemy it is the pathetic smokers of this country. I just want to be around when the gubmint goes after those same holier-than-thou jerks who stood silent while the almighty lawmaker successfully made a group of our fellow citizens into the enemy. For next the gubmint will go after those who are too fat, then those who are ugly, then those with noses entirely too big and scarfing up too much of our precious air.

Then I shall laugh for the total lack of humanity and intelligence of those who didn’t see it coming. What’s the old saying? “They came after the Jews and I did nothing. They came after the Catholics and I did nothing. Then came after the Protestants and I did nothing. Then they came after me and there was no one left to do anything.” I paraphrase.

Beyond keeping second-hand smoke out of your face, property and belongings, what the hell does a smoker owe anybody on this planet? And don’t give me that bit about smokers causing high health care costs. Most smokers die way earlier than the dedicated jogger. Most of them have private health insurance.

It’s just a way for small, tiny people to point a self-righteous finger at someone else. In this case soon, I warn, it will be THEM.

Boo-freaking-hoo.

New Katrina Blog

I have documented the saga of Hurricane Katrina from the week after its impact on through to present day. I documented it on the main Blog but I have now exported all Katrina posts to a separate Blog HERE.

I began this endeavor for granddaughter Kaitlyn, for when the liberals change history for her future. For while the screaming hyenas declared the federal government guilty of failing to rescue hapless Louisiana citizens, the truth for those who bother to seek same, is that it was the LOCAL crooks (see William Jefferson under tax cheats above) who mislead those citizens, who left school buses submerged under water, who failed to warn the welfare recipients to get the hell out of town. I would also remind that Hurricane Katrina caused such havoc because of the failure of the levees to properly hold back the waters. Levees are the responsibility of who? THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Anyway, feel free to bookmark the site for folks, someday, what with The Messiah as President and everything, it will be the documentation of humble Bloggers like myself that will serve as counterpoint to the unionized liberal text books public school children will be forced to read.

It’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Dick Cheney Warns of Danger Because of Obama’s Policies

Soon being a conservative will be quite popular. For The Messiah has been messing up so bad what with ramming his liberal agenda (and of the Democrats as well, let’s be fair) down our throats and his true self being thus exposed, those who had the sense not to vote for this joker will be considered the wise ones.

No, I have no intention of showing respect for The Messiah Obama. I recall how the liberals treated George Bush. What goes around, lib friends, comes around.

So I like Dick Cheney and as I understand it, Dick Cheney cannot stand Chris Matthews.

What’s that I say? What’s Chris Matthews got to do with anything?

Well I recall with a smirk the day Chris “tingling leg” Matthews guested on the Today show and announced proudly that Dick Cheney would be going down. Soon, so mighty inside-the-beltway without a clue Matthews proclaimed, Cheney would be frog-marched to jail for his participation in the Valerie Plame scandal.

Heh.

I watched Hardball on 2/4/09 and Chris and a couple of other DC Beltway liberals without a clue made fun of Cheney and Cheney’s shot over the bow about Obama’s insistence on shutting down Guantanamo (something the American people don’t want but Obama’s campaign financiers certainly expect) Bay and now The Messiah is going to drop the charges against the leader of the bombing of the USS Cole!

What’s 17 dead American sailors after all?

Dick Cheney is right. I only hope we don’t realize it AFTER we lose an American city.

Chris Matthews is, as always, pathetic. He has no credibility anywhere and me and his mother are the only ones who watch his show.

New Jonbenet Ramsey Investigation

Click here to read my take on the COMPLETE story of Jonbenet Ramsey. I am, oddly, a sort of Blogging expert on the Jonbenet Ramsey story, not necessarily an honor but I have followed this case from the day it happened until today.

Last week it was announced that the investigation into the death of little Jonbenet would be returned to the local police department. That joke of a District Attorney in Boulder, you will recall, imported a child sex pervert from Thailand back into America.

I don’t know how much John Ramsey paid her to do that at taxpayer expense. You will recall it turned out to be a big nothing and now we have a pervert running loose but hey, money gets you stuff.



This same joke of a District Attorney also “exonerated” John and Patsy Ramsey for the death of their daughter, based on foreign DNA found on Jonbenet’s underpants.

Well hey, foreign DNA found at a crime scene would certainly EXPAND the list of suspects but since when does such a thing ELIMINATE suspects? John and Patsy Ramsey’s DNA was all over that crime scene and hey I understand that they live there. But to ELIMINATE them because some packer at the underpants factory left a skin cell in those underpants makes no sense.

Unless someone’s paying you money to go out and make a fool out of yourself.

I’m just sayin’.

I have a suspicion as to why the Jonbenet case is being turned back over to the police at this time. First let me point out that Patsy Ramsey killed Jonbenet. It was an accident and Patsy went to her death with that on her soul but I’m not going into it all again. Read the link. All of the investigators into that case think Patsy did it as well.

It’s Burke, Jonbenet’s brother. Little Burke Ramsey was in the home that morning that Jonbenet was found “missing” from her bed. Police investigators DID talk to Burke but John Ramsey had the kid so lawyered up that it was almost impossible to get anything out of the kid.

Murder has no statute of limitations. There’s no reason Burke Ramsey, who is now an adult and able to testify without permission from Daddy, can’t be called in for another round of questioning.

Thing is, perhaps it’s time to put this case to rest. Although I understand a lot of Boulder cops are furious about how they were sold down the river by those who should have been doing their job and protecting the public. But the real culprit is dead and likely is burning in hell.

Burke could be subject to charges if he lies and while John Ramsey should spend some time in jail for covering up that crime, Burke was an innocent child at the time.

And it’s not like they can put Patsy in jail or anything.

 


The Mother of the Star


My kitten killed me this morning.

Oh, it'll take awhile to take effect, but I know he did me in. I was getting ready for work, brushing my teeth, when Zeker wandered into the bathroom. He's almost six months old and quite the little man, and we've stopped noticing quite as much when he's around.

Well, I don't fasten my belt until I've got my badge to the work building secured to it, so I guess my belt was waving around in time
to my brushing.

Wham! Zeker leapt for the tempting target. I didn't even realize he was on his way up until I had a half-grown cat dangling from my belly button. Most of his claws ended up in fabric (or the belt), but two of
his claws punctured my peritoneum. The two puncture marks in my stomach still hurt, and I know it's a matter of time before I get peritonitis and die from it.

Mark my words! In a few months, when I'm gone, you'll remember it was Zeker who did it to me.

Seriously, he's growing really fast and becoming quite the attractive animal. Except for a few misdemeanors (like this morning), he's doing pretty well at being a house pet, too.

But on to the Mother of the Star.

It's been almost a week. Last Friday, work allowed us all off-site for a celebration of the great work we did in 2008. We had four hours at a
local fancy restaurant, where we enjoyed posh food, entertainment, raffles, and fun. (And speeches and so-so service, but what the hey?)
In the entertainment was a teenager, I think a local girl, who sings.
She's on cbs.com's My Grammy Moment as Victoria Matthews. She's very
good, although I don't care for her video on the site.

Friday night, she was introduced by her mom. (Victoria is eighteen.)
Mom gave us some history and encouraged us to vote for Victoria's
video. Then she stepped quietly to the sidelines, pushing - without
contact - her daughter into the lights of stardom.

While the rest of the almost two hundred coworkers watched Victoria
entertain us to a pre-recorded set of songs, I watched the Mother of
the Star. She stood on the outskirts of the crowd; close enough to see
her daughter well, but far enough to have a good view of the audience.
Her focus wavered between how her daughter was doing and what the
audience was doing; tunnel vision limited to only those things that
affected her daughter's performance.



Her gaze shifted lightning-fast to the audience when a couple people
got up and left to smoke outside. What Mom couldn't know was all the
other entertainment was in-house, provided by some extremely talented
employees, and going outside during those wasn't an option except to
the very brave - or foolish. Outside entertainment provided a perfect
place to break for that ciggy or cell phone call to the kids. But for
Mom, each one was a personal affront, a black mark on her Star's
career and she watched them go as if they'd signed her death warrant.

As I watched, I realized that of the two, Mom was working harder than
Star. Not only was she on audience duty, but Mom's lips moved to the
music, mouthing the words her daughter sang; she strained with each
high note and nodded to herself when it went just so; her tensed
stomach muscles allowed for only bare breathing as she yearned toward
her Star, her own, her flesh, singing to a rapt crowd.

I wondered if Mom was living the dream through contact, by proxy, or
if she was seeing herself on that stage, singing that song.

I've always thought the young celebrities have it rough; they don't
grow up the way we did and they often burn out or run into trouble. It
had never occurred to me, though, what a toll it takes on those around
them.


My Grammy Moment HERE


Michelle
winebird@winebird.com
The Desk Drawer writer's exercise list

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