Yeah, well, whatever.

Dumb question: Did Sarah Palin write notes on her palm to reference during her speech and interview session at the teabagger convention this weekend?

Correct answer: Who gives a flying monkey fuck?

In all honesty, Palin probably did you her hand as a cheat sheet — regardless, my answer remains the same. This is yet another example of useless stories liberals latch onto which have no bearing on issues and policies, whereas of we focused on what Palin actually said instead of its purported source, we would have a larger, more credible story.

I didn’t listen to her whole speech (I can’t listen to Palin for more than a couple minutes before screaming), but here’s a snippet of what Mrs. Family-Values-in-a-Short-Skirt had to say on energy:

So what’s wrong here? After Palin looks at her hand, despite what is written on it, this is what she says:

“We have sitting warehoused, under God’s green Earth here in the United States of America, rich resources — oil, and gas, and our coal, and all these conventional sources of resources — we have got to actually walk that walk to allow them to come to development.”

I emphasized “gas” because, by default, Palin means natural gas — a resource that America doesn’t have an abundance of. But remember, we were told by the media during the 2008 campaign that energy was Palin’s cornerstone issue. Since Palin was governor of an oil rich state, this somehow made her an energy expert. Yet here she is attacking the Obama administration with this natural gas resource.

Fact is that anyone who is an expert on energy resources available in America would not claim that our country would benefit by becoming more dependent on natural gas. Actually, the American economy would become more dependent on Russia and Iran since both countries control a lion’s share of the world’s supply — and more importantly, reserves — of natural gas. Hence they can control global prices of the commodity. For those who need the wonky details proving this, I’ve done the legwork:

America’s natural gas reserves are six trillion cubic meters. What about the countries with greater reserves than America? Russia has 44.6 trillion cubic meters, followed by Iran with nearly 27 trillion CM, and Qatar with 25.6 CM of natural gas. In fact, the Department of Energy’s 2008 outlook states that “Russia, Iran, and Qatar together accounted for about 57 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves as of January 1, 2009.” By the way, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also rank higher in natural gas reserves than the United States.

By claiming that America needs to rely more on its natural gas resources, Palin proves that she knows absolutely nothing about energy policy. Worse, a Palin energy policy would make our economy dependent on the whims of Russia and Iran. All of this isn’t my opinion, this is solid fact — it’s not debatable. Unless conservatives want to debate the 2008 projections of Bush’s Department of Energy (who seem to be pretty unbiased on the matter).

Now should Palin become important in the 2010 or 2012 election cycles, what better issue could there be to use against her, and her teabagging compatriots, than energy? These people are so ignorant on the issue that their energy policy would make America more indebted to Russia and Iran. What American of any political stripe wants that?

But instead, we’re talking about Sarah Palin’s palm. Right now, here’s the only palm I’m thinking of:

1. Uncle Barry gave me a $1000 tax credit for being a college student. I think I like him more now. If anything, it increases my federal tax return so much that, instead of having to work temp gigs for a few months to save up enough money to afford to look for a real job, I only need to think about a couple months of temping now.

2. I’m sick of hearing that I, and people of my somewhat extreme leftward political persuasion, are wrong to criticize Obama for not bringing reform quickly enough. Was it any of us who promised a fixed economy and healthcare system within a year? No. Let’s reach back into the archives — on February 24, 2009 — to see who’s guilty of applying a generous amount of aspirations to the Obama administration:

As you can clearly, it was Obama himself who promised to fix the economy and healthcare (among other things) within a year. I purposely picked this clip from the Daily Show because of Jon (fake-but-should-be-real-journalist) Stewart’s reaction to Obama’s speech — which goes a great deal into explaining why Obama left a bunch of people feeling shitty.

Did we put both the economy and healthcare on the table at the same time? No, Obama did. So I’m sick of being insulted for criticizing Obama’s own agenda. It was Obama himself who pushed both agendas through Congress after this speech he made to a joint session of Congress a month into his presidency. It was Obama himself who set the expectations of his own administration too high. It’s time for pundits to shut up about Obama’s leftwing critics expecting too much of our president — if these parasites had any honest bone in their bodies, that is. Which I’m starting to doubt.

3. If I start calling Obama “Uncle Barry,” will liberals skullfuck me?

4. Classically in American politics, the party which holds the executive office suffers during the midterm elections. Scott Brown’s surprise election to Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts could serve as foreshadowing to a brutal slaughter for the Democrats at the polls this November — that is, if Republicans can hold their party together.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that the rightwing kooks — the ones who claim Obama is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist who wants to destroy Christianity, our nation, and yadda yadda yadda — are holding a “Tea Party Convention this weekend in Nashville. Some of these jerks are even running as third party candidates.

While Tea Party candidates would attract more rightwing voters to the polls in November, the likely outcome is that, despite the higher voter turn out, the conservative vote will be split whenever Tea Party candidates run — and Democrats win despite the traditional anger held by the American electorate during midterm elections against the power holding the executive office.

I dunno about you, but I think a squander of this magnitude would be fucking hilarious.

My apologies to all 2 or 3 readers about the site outage.

Since I’m always interested in new ways to learn new skills, and maintain old ones, with Arabic, this New York Times article on online language studies piqued my interest. Until I read the intro:

The young woman seated next to us at the sushi bar exuded a vaguely exotic air; her looks and style, we thought, made it likely that she was not American born.

But then she spoke in perfect American English, even ending her declarative sentences in that rising questioning lilt characteristic of many young Californians.

As it turns out, however, she wasn’t from these parts after all; she was born in Iran and spoke only Farsi until her arrival here two years ago. What classes, we wondered, had she attended to learn the language so well?

“I didn’t,” she said. “I used RosettaStone.”

Bullshit. On a couple fronts.

First, language education in other parts of the world are drastically different from the United States English-centric (and fuck every other language) approach. Other parts of the world, stretching beyond Europe and into the Middle East, place a heavy emphasis on English language education. From conversations I had with Iranians I met when I studied in Cairo (my university was a nexus students from all over the Middle East looking for a good education), I learned that students in Iran are given a choice to learn English or French as a second language. No offense to the French and their beautiful language, but the majority of Iranian students pick English for its usefulness. (The westernization fetish among many young Muslims in the region plays a role, too.)

And on the second front, there’s wealth. In this case, an Iranian in America (the NYT article seemingly purports that this incident happened in America, though it doesn’t actually say where) would come from one of the country’s wealthiest families. This is true throughout Middle Eastern countries, which have poorer economies than ours — but the rich are very well off. Unless the Iranian in the intro of this article was an exceptional student, she couldn’t have afforded to come to America. But even if she were from a poor family but intelligent enough to get into a school for the wealthy, the end result would have been the same — she would have studied English at a younger age there, and it probably would have been exceptional English when she reached adulthood.

So the NYT’s claim that an Iranian woman in America learned American-accented English in two years with Rosetta Stone, after having no formal classes in English, has to be bullshit. Either this story is an advertisement for Rosetta Stone, and other similar programs, or the journalist who wrote this knows nothing about the Middle East. Either option wouldn’t surprise me; though it’s probably the latter.

Honestly, all you have to do is give me a DVD-ROM to go with it.

I had happily used an iBook for five years up until last summer, when parts started breaking and I was forced to get an IBM compatible laptop because it was damn cheap. But being an intelligent computer user, I also knew that Apple’s are so expensive because they figure what I call the “frustration cost” into the price. PC manufactures take the frustration cost off, and in turn PCs are so frustrating to use that I wish I had the money to shell out for a fucking Apple computer.

People insult Apple’s for being trendy, pretty pieces of plastic. And I assure you, Mr. Jobs, that you’ve made millions upon millions by turning your product into a cult brand and selling your goods to yuppies that you’ve brainwashed. On the plus side, you’re at least selling them computers and gadgets of superior quality that run well, run quickly, and run everything I need.

I wish I could say the same for my new PC. Alas, the frustration cost kicks in. I have to use Windows Vista — I know there are rave reviews about Windows 7 being superior, but I’m not convinced since the operating system hasn’t been out long enough yet for its flaws to reveal themselves. Which always seems to happen with Microsoft products. Anyways, Windows Vista is slow as shit, so I installed Linux Mint on my computer. After years of trying other Linux builds, Linux Mint was the first one that actually worked. Great!, I thought. Problem solved! I’ll never have to pay the frustration cost for an Apple again… That is, until I tried using audio programs in Linux Mint to sync to my iPod so I can listen to podcasts. At first it worked, but now… Now I’m still troubleshooting it.

Linux Mint runs fast and clean on my PC, but the compatibility issues with what have become basic real world tasks are lacking. Linux has been around for a decade, yet it’s still not ready for primetime — how long do Linux developers expect me to wait before they get their shit together?

Right now, I have computer double life between Windows and Linux, troubleshooting both, which causes frustration and wastes time. I wish I could get a computer that runs quickly, doesn’t require much troubleshooting, and is compatible with everything I own and need it to do.

In other words, I wish I had an Apple.

I understand, Mr. Jobs, that beyond getting into new markets with the iPad, you’re hoping to destroy the concept of a PC. You haven’t outright stated this goal, but I can see it. For a couple decades now, computer users have been used to sitting at desks and communicating with their machines through input devices like keyboards. The iPad is designed to change all this by making the power of desktop computing transportable, with the small size and light weight of the device, and personal by removing input devices. And it will catch on like wildfire, starting with the business community and — more importantly — college students looking to save cost (not to mention backpack space) on textbooks. And the iPad will make older end users like myself, who are comfortable with the habits of desktop computing, technological dinosaurs. I’ve never been comfortable with tablet devices, Mr. Jobs, but at the very least I see you have a keyboard and stand as accessories for your new iPad. If you give me a DVD-ROM, since I still have a bunch of educational DVDs I need to access; and a mouse (since I’m a dinosaur), and you’ve got yourself a sale.

In other words, I’ll be happy to purchase the iPad when it’s compatible with my life. I’ve used Apple products before and know their dependability and ease of use — which is certainly lagging in PCs. The PC market will never change. So, Mr. Jobs, I beg of you to get me the hell off this laptop which causes endless amounts of frustration. You’re almost there. Just give me the dinosaur desktop computing stuff I still need.

After a day — afternoon, really — of calling temp agencies and rapid firing resumes around, I had an interview with an agency in downtown Providence today and got temp gig starting Monday Couple thoughts:

1) Landing a job (it’s only a month, but I’ll take it) so quickly was completely unexpected — but makes sense. During a recession companies may need workers but don’t want to risk permanent expansion until the economy looks better; so I knew that if any jobs were to be found, they would be at temp agencies. My strategy was to call as many agencies as possible until I ran across one which had received an assignment that day. My strategy worked, but I lucked out by finding work so quickly.

2) It also helps that I’m broke and need any job right now, so I placed myself in the lowest common denominator. The position pays $10, which is much less than what I could/should be making. Had I demanded a wage a college grad with over a decade of employment experience should earn, I’d still be out on my ass. But this temp gig will give me office experience now, to match my older office experience, and it mean I won’t stay unemployed for long. Since I may need to take an entry level office job for a company I want to advance at in the near future, both factors work to my advantage.

Now I get to save some money and pay for some necessities. Like a couple of Arabic vocabulary DVDs that I can get used for $70, and paying the rest of the $360 of my credit card off now that my APR is 27% and my minimum payment per month is $99 — both figures, by the way, are astro-fucking-nomical. My credit card company, Chase, also denied me a $1500 student loan, so once I get my bill paid off I’m cutting up the card and sending them a profanity-laden note telling them, in so many words, to go fuck themselves.

I also need suits for future job interviews. Until today, the only one I had was black. I’ve been told this is a problem because the interviewer will assume that an interviewee wearing a black suit only has one suit — the same one he wears to funerals. Which, well, is true. I checked the department store prices, all of which were way too much. But after dropping off some clothes at Savers tonight, I found a charcoal pinstripe suit for $13. Score.

Now that I have a little financial security, I get to mull over Phase 2 of Operation: Somebody Hire My Ass. Besides wanting a full time job for at least $30k a year, I still don’t know what Phase 2 will be.

Recently, I applied to one of those mega-banks, that received mega-bailout dollars from our mega-government, for a student loan. Mega-rich, mega-secure, mega-bank turned me mega-down — even when I had a parent cosign. These fuckers just got billions of tax payer — hence, my!!! — money to make loans and kickstart our economy, yet they can’t give an almost graduated student a measly $1500? Are you fucking kidding me?

Maybe I just have horrible credit, despite my cosigner. That’s what I thought (mega-banks are not apt to give you the reason why you’ve been denied a measly-loan) until I had a conversation with one of my department’s administrators at my university. She told me her son applied for student loans from a mega-bank, with the father cosigning, and they were mega-denied as well. Maybe my credit sucks and mega-bank doesn’t like the fact that my cosigner is retired, but these people have full time jobs — yet mega-bank still won’t approve student loans.

I get the feeling that this lending problem isn’t exclusive to student loans, and it’s probably happening all across the board.

Think about that whenever you hear the words “jobless recovery”. There can be no job creation without the mega-banks lending mega-bucks, which was purportedly the reason why our mega-government gave these mega-banks mega-billions of our tax dollars. So when there’s mega-unemployment, where should I direct my fucking middle finger?

Here’s a graph showing the national unemployment rates from the beginning of 2008 til the end of 2009. As you can see, the rate starts its steep ascent less than a year before Bush left office. While such a climb in unemployment surely helped Obama win the 2008 election, it also means that Bush handed the next president quite a shit sandwich to swallow. I wasn’t expecting unemployment to stabilize in a year — and perhaps Obama’s stimulus package helped keep it from becoming worse — but as the evidence clearly shows, unemployment has climbed during Obama’s administration, too.

In Rhode Island, my home state which I just moved back to, the local unemployment rate is worse — it stands at almost 13% right now, third highest in the nation.

Job prospects look bleak. Given that I’m looking for a job, I figured, hey, why not blog about it? My perspective might be a great for such writing: I’m imminently employable — a recent college graduate who also has over a decade of work experience, including office jobs and technical experience, under his belt. I’m also unmarried, not divorced, and I do not have a family, or kids, or a house — my only expenses are my car and a credit card bill I can pay off easily with the right position. Oh, and I must start paying back student loans later this year.

My services can be had for the low, low price of $30,000 a year. Willing to move and available to start immediately!

So, how long will it take for me to get hired at my asking price? Let’s find out!

Operation SHMA Phase One: Years of living off student loans and whatever meager wages I could earn as a waiter have left me kinda broke in the post-college phase of my life. Going to Egypt and not having a job for four (going on five) months now didn’t help matters. So before I can look for a real job, I have to lick my wounds at home and save up some money through temp work.

I created a spreadsheet to keep track of all the temp firms I’ll contact, then populated that spreadsheet by going through the yellow pages and typing in the names, telephone numbers, and websites of 90 agencies to call next week. I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to start, because on Monday I need to meet with one of my professors at UMass-Amherst to finalize loose ends on my transcript to be awarded my bachelor’s in Middle Eastern Studies.

My plan: Call, ask if there are currently any openings, see if there are any tests to take and offer them my shiny new, revised resume.

One annoying thing about temp agencies is testing. Most agencies are unwilling to look at your employment history and call past employers to see if you’re experienced. Instead, they want you to take 2-3 hours of boring tests to prove that you know the complexities of Microsoft Word. As if a college student doesn’t use Word a million and one times to write papers. It’s doubly insulting because when I supported Microsoft Outlook for the evil empire themselves, I also had to be emergency support for Word. I’ve supported this program for Microsoft before, I think I know how to use it! Alas, temp agencies will hear none of it. I have 90 of them to contact and not enough money to spend on gas to drive to all of them and take their tests, so I have to gauge which ones are really interested in my skill set and have positions to offer me; as opposed to the agencies which have nothing for me. No offense to them, but I don’t have time (or gas) to waste.

I’ll do this for two weeks. If it fails, I have two options of last resort: Reporting to Labor Ready (or a similar agency) at 4:30am everyday to see if they have work. Or I can contact a temp agency I’ve already worked with in Western Mass and ask them if they have any jobs; then choke down a long commute between begging friends to sleep on their couch for extended periods of time.

Let’s see how Phase One plays out. Ready, set, go!