Joe the Plumber Live from Gaza!

The only pitch man who makes the ShamWow guy look intelligent and dignified.

You’re supposed to put the script board under the lens so it looks like you’re talking into the camera, you fool.

But then… that’s really the least of his problems.

@ManchuCandidate: The ShamWow guy is a smidge creepier to me than Joe.

How many times is this fuckwit going to get his 15 minutes?

Oh boy.

Today is fucking amazing…

Found out that my GE bred CEO has decided to file for bankruptcy as I suspected. Turns out the Jack Welch way leads to failure.

Look for stock code NT.

I have several ShamWows (they only travel in packs) and they’re fantastic. Nothing better for cleaning up the sewage when your boat toilet acts up (which is what boat toilets do).

@ManchuCandidate: You know that it is only the deeply held conviction (a tenet of both the government and the media) that there must be no word spoken which would further erode the currently non-existent confidence in the economy, which explains the reason we are not seeing 30-point block headlines, every day, on the front page of every paper, saying “HOLY SHIT, WE’RE ALL FUCKED.” Its the only reason why every TV newscast does not begin with shots of the studio filled with weeping and wailing anchors and reporters, slumped at their desks, crying hopelessly, while others, driven mad with despair, run arms flailing aimlessly in circles, ripping their clothes off and gibbering.

@Prommie:
True. I think it doesn’t have to do with concern for little folk like us. More that the panic and despair usually turn to anger at the folks who got us into the mess (gov, bidnez and the majority of the well paid heels/enablers .)

Holy Fucking Shit: Sanity outbreak discovered in US! Absolutely amazing, mark this one, an actual example of sanity in our society: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/technology/internet/14cyberweb.html?_r=2

Apparently the only real predators are the cops pretending to be 12 year old girls.

Holy Fucking Shit, Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys may buy Chrysler!

Nojo, let’s call Joe the Fuckwit and see if he’s interested in advertising a line of Trojan brand prophylactics for ‘high endurance men who burn out normal gear’. He’d probably go on for a good hour or so before figuring out he was being zoo’ed.

Let us all pray to FSM for a safe journey for Manchu, so that he may avoid being rightsized out of a job. Ramen.

Prommie: I’ve figured it out. Per CNBC:

Chrysler Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda Wednesday said the No. 3 U.S. automaker would not sell an individual brand like Jeep but said it would pursue deals to sell off tooling for models going out of production, or even licensing production of current models.

See, that’s your problem right there. Good baseball manager, not a good automobile manufacturing manager.

Anyway:

LaSorda said Chrysler had not had any discussions with Renault, which owns a 44 percent interest in Nissan Motor.

Seriously: that’s how bad Le Car was. A company that is about ready to push daisies instead of envelopes is looking down its nose at a potential savior.

@Prommie: Holy Fucking Shit: Osama bin Ladin comes out of his batcave/estate in Pakistan to opine on the Gaza attacks and encourage holy war.
@ManchuCandidate: Dude, I’m sorry. Are you still going to have a job?

@SanFranLefty: Five days, only five days, if the world can just survive 5 more days. . .

@chicago bureau:
@SanFranLefty:

No one knows yet. I still have a “job” for now but I’m debating whether or not to shut down my work computer and watch TV (I work from home most of the time and am home today)

My coworkers who have many more years of service are screwed even worse than I.

Much of our problematic debt is our US pension plan which is apparently seriously underfunded like many US corporate pensions. In Canada, federal law sez pension plans have to have 90% of their assets funded. In the States, from what I am told and thanks to Raygun it is 50%. This explains why US companies did so well profit wise.

What makes me laugh is that we would be in worse trouble if our CEO had his way. We were trying to buy Avaya and 3Com with money we did not really have and were outbid by other, uh, suckers. The CEO/jackass would have sent us into ruin in 2007 or early 2008. When the credit wheel seized, he was one of the many folks who said, “We didn’t know!” Of course, I was one of those who muttered under his breath, “Well, why the fuck are we paying you 2 mill + 8 mil in perks then?”

My Confucius immersed parents don’t understand why I have such a problem with higher authority especially of the incompetent kind.

@ManchuCandidate: Hope that bankruptcy deal includes a life preserver for you, too. Keep us posted.

@ManchuCandidate: I take it it’s a reorganization?

from bloomberg:

Nortel, based in Toronto, had more than $1 billion in assets and debt, according to today’s Chapter 11 filing of its U.S. subsidiary. The company said that several Canadian affiliates will also seek court protection today.

“The company’s normal day-to-day operations are expected to continue without interruption,” Nortel said today in an e- mailed statement. “This process will allow Nortel to deal decisively with its cost and debt burden, to effectively restructure its operations and to narrow its strategic focus in an effective and timely manner.”

Nortel has lost almost $7 billion since Chief Executive Officer Mike Zafirovski took over in 2005, leaving him struggling for the funds to operate the company. Bank of New York Mellon was listed as Nortel’s largest unsecured creditor in its role as trustee on more than $3.8 billion in notes. Export Development Canada is owed $186.7 million.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aSlk_dJRQyyM&refer=canada

@ManchuCandidate: And stay signed in and working – they might be monitoring keystrokes to see who gets the boot.

I take it Canada has fairly decent unemployment benefits?

@ManchuCandidate: Looks pre-packaged, I will keep my fingers crossed for you. It little matters, anyway, we will all be hobos soon.

@Prommie: Le wow.

@Prommie: Caligutard just released $15 million in emergency management funds for the inaugural. All of it will likely go to helicopter gun ships for ‘crowd control’. The plan is clear. Throw the inaugural into complete chaos, waste as many leftists as possible and send an errant rocket or 20 (whoops) into the ceremonial platform to finish off all possibility of hope, then declare martial law to restore order and order the arrest of all Democratic members of Congress. Even if the Secret Service was competent and loyal to Obama (and they might be as eager to waste him as some psychopaths in the military) they just don’t have the fire power to bring down gun ships equipped with rockets and high-calibre machine guns.

@blogenfreude:
Could be.

Most of the losses were really do to writedowns of assets, the cost of chucking out high paid, highly trained, highly experienced and educated workers then replacing them with inexperienced workers from the 3rd world, and the incredibly expensive implimentation of Six Sigma (including importing a whole bunch of overpaid useless tits from GE.)

@mellbell:
I’ve been living on the bubble for the last eight years so I’ve set aside some money (currently 5 months living expenses) so I can survive for now if I get the heave ho. Plus unemployment benefits (I’ve discounted my severance at this point which would have been about 3/4 of a year’s pay.)

TJ: Nancy Pelosi shows off teh kittehs in her offiss! But be prepared for the :40 mark, however…

@blogenfreude:
We do. I can get about 60% of my pay for a min of 20 weeks.

@Prommie:
We will be hobos. I guess I should study the hobo code then.

Life Lessons: Parenting Rule 1: Don’t name your kids “Adolph Hitler” and “Aryan Nation.” The evil nazi State has taken the kids away from the white supremicist methhead family: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Adolf-Hitler-Sisters-Taken-from-Parents-Home.html

@ManchuCandidate: It’s always better to be the ant than the grasshopper.

@ManchuCandidate: Glad to hear it.

Stock was around $900 at peak, now trading at $0.32. Am I going mad?

@blogenfreude:
Nope. I joined Nortel when the stock was hovering at about $750 just before the long downward spiral.

I still remember naively saying, “It can’t get any lower than $200” in 2001. Heh.

In July 2000, there were about 98000 employees. Our current headcount is 32000. I am one of those who “survived” 16 major layoffs.

If I survive this bankruptcy (probably not) then I am the employment equivalent of a cockroach.

@ManchuCandidate: The Keith Richards of Telecom.

Prommie: Sweet.

blogenfreude: The Keith Richards ShamWow of Telecom.

Fixed. (He absorbs all the jobs he touches and stays resilient and durable. Also known to spill soda on a carpet and slurp it up.)

@ManchuCandidate: Good on you for being prepared. Hopefully, you won’t need to tap into your nest egg. But as a bonus should your job depart, maybe you can make it to the inaugeration now?

Bachmann’s not going to suck Barry’s face.

http://thehill.com/todays-stories/bachmanns-sudden–transformation-2009-01-13.html

@flippin eck:
Sadly no. I waited too long to put in my now disappearing vacation time and my transport options to Phillie dried up.

@ManchuCandidate: Aaarghh.

Joe is such a slick media presence isn’t he? So lifelike for a tool….

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I think it’s the chick who makes this video pop! She spends the entire first segment reading his lines so she knows when to acknowledge his presence.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Speaking of tools, I’d pay good money for video of JtP sticking a screwdriver in a socket.