I typically avoid being a blog of political commentary, but the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into we’ve been dragged into has reached the last straw. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what kind of political affiliation you have…60 jobs for 6 months is not any sort of recovery. It’s a temporary bailout for those 60. I would love to see the CNN followup: “The original 60 stimulus workers: 7 months later.” This isn’t recovery. It’s not a stimulus. It doesn’t stimulate anything except the rhetoric that’s been going on for the last 6 months.

Obama and friends can now claim “see, we’re fixing it!” when nothing is being done. It’s nothing more than a feel-good stimulus, and that’s all this massive bailout/stimulus/etc plan has to be. It never actually has to create or fix anything, nor does it have to show any sort of real discernable progress. All it has to do (and all it’s intended to do) is make the average American believe it’s working. As long as people think “it’s getting better,” then the politicians in Washington have secured their re-election. And lets be honest: that’s all they’ve ever cared about. Looking at the new Recovery.gov website, I see a pretty website. I’ve yet to see a single thing of substance (and their timeline noticably lacks a “point you will actually notice a change” milestone).

Washington needs to realize that this sort of thing doesn’t help a damn bit, beyond trying to keep the American public from rising up and setting Washington (and Wall St) on fire. To be honest, that’s starting to seem more and more attractive of an option. That, or mass executions of CEOs. Neither will help the economy, sure, but they’ll definitely make us all feel better about it–and they don’t come with a pricetag of ∞.

[EDIT: A little birdy told me of a very similar post, which is a must-read]

For what it’s worth: the Chesterfield police have been (and this is no secret) using Craigslist and other such services to handle sting operations in recent months. Trying to catch pedophiles and such. Wouldn’t the police chief of VCU know better? *sigh* And to think this week was going to end without some mess in Richmond about something remarkably stupid.

[Just to clarify the situation: Chesterfield is a county about 20 minutes south of the city of Richmond. Virginia is fun in that we have incorporated cities, they don't exist within counties like pretty much everywhere else. Richmond has its own police. VCU has its own fully-certified and trained police force, separate from the city's.]

According to the story, the company states that employees need to use the politically correct term of “Happy Holidays” when dealing with customers. Fair enough, and pretty much standard these days. However, the woman was highly offended at being forced to–in her eyes–diminish the value of Christmas (she is a Christian) in relation to the other holidays of the season, making it equal. From her perspective, she should be allowed to say “Merry Christmas” and bah humbug to those who do not celebrate this most joyous of holidays. Accordingly, she was fired for failing to adhear to company policy. I for one say good for her employer for sticking to his policies. Sadly, the story continues that the woman is now pressing charges and seeks damages (on what grounds I dunno). No doubt the woman will get some level of damages…

In any case, this really says a lot about how people view this season, and political correctness seems to crop up every season. This supposed “War on Christmas” and its defenders cry afoul of absolutely any holiday mention besides their own. They refuse to acknowledge any holidays from the season except their own.

Get over yourselves! I’m not one to be passing judgement, but this is ridiculous. Just because someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is not demeaning to Christmas. It isn’t pretending Christmas doesn’t exist, nor is it trying to make Christmas any less important. It is simply a non-denominational greeting in this time of year in which many people tend to celebrate, both religious and secular, Christian and non-Christian. Those people who see this as a put down to Christmas need to remember, realize, and accept that there are in fact celebrations during the month of December besides their own. These non-Christmas-celebrating people, regardless their faith (or lack thereof) have every full right to celebrate the holiday of their choosing without the pesky requirement that they be lumped into Christmas, rather than the more-inclusive “Happy Holidays. And for those who think a “Merry Christmas” is putting down their non-Christmas-holiday-of-choice, you need to not be offended as well.

In short: political correctness sucks and makes needless issues. Happy December everyone.

[EDIT: Just found the story, not too sure on the source however. Anyone got a better link?]

Does this mean Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame (or shame?) will go away. Dear god I hope so…