Mild Rants

Around three years ago Lennox Industries in Richardson, TX was ordered by a court to pay $6.2 million to settle an age discrimination lawsuit. The settlement was split among 11 former employees who stated that age discrimination was systemic within the organization and tough to combat. These employees ranged in age from 41 to 58. All eleven of the terminated or demoted employees were sales managers. They all carefully documented daily events that pointed to the fact Lennox Industries overtly age discriminated. Most working stiffs have to be happy that the United States has a federal agency like the EEOC to be a watchdog and an enforcer for any work place grievance. However, positions related to sales often experience high turnover irrespective of the age of the salesperson. Young women with nice bodies, but little expertise about a  company's products or services will often outperform an older bald man with a pot belly even though he may be more knowledgeable and skille...

A New Mexico accountant has pleaded not guilty to charges that he committed fraud on the federal and state unemployment insurance system for around $1.3 million. Accountant Jasonn Gonzales of Velarde has been indicted along with another man after ripping off the NM department of  Workforce Solutions by making fraudulent claims  for unemployment benefits. The false unemployment claims appear to have been filed in behalf of citizens in and around the city of Ojo Caliente according to the news blogger Alex Goldsmith.  More details were provided in the state briefs section of your local newspaper. I am not certain if Gonzales helped people file their personal returns, but if he had ever prepared my IRS tax return I would be awful nervous about right now. A guy who would effectively steal $1.3 million from hard working taxpayers would certainly have no compunction about doing a half ass job on personal tax returns. Wilma Hayes, a tax professional at H&R Block,...

How many of us have said things privately that we would be ashamed of if our private remarks were broadcast to the world? Pretty much all of us right? Imagine the many times you have yelled at your girlfriend and said things which you regret including name calling and hateful remarks that you can not take back. Moreover suppose that your five most offensive private conversations were recorded and played back to your boss, your parents, future employers, etc. Also it is likely that at least 1 in 5 Americans have uttered disdainful racist comments in private dialogues that none of their family or friends would ever believe came out of their mouth. Had these private conversations been recorded and widely disseminated, it is likely they would have been ruined for life with respect to prospective employers or with potential future spouses. Multiply all this by about 100 and you arrive at the public Crucifixion of Donald Sterling who made contemptible racist remarks not publicly, but...

I just read a brief article in Science News titled Rise in stress hormone linked to less risky financial decisions . I have all the respect in the world for properly done science, but it is quite obvious that increased stress would make an investor less likely to gamble away their money. Let's face it, day trading, derivatives and the like are just legalized gambling where places like E-Trade win because they charge a fixed fee per trade. I have seen out of control, stressed out craps players at Bally's in Las Vegas who keep betting more and more, but I have to believe that is the exception rather than the rule. According to short article written by Laura Sanders, chronically high levels of the stress hormone cortisol may make people play it safe financially. She melodramatically claims that this has real economic implications. Please forgive  me, but isn't this a big DUHHH. Say it ain't so Big Daddy Duhh!! A study led by John Coates where some subjects were giv...

The word culture gets overused to the point of almost becoming a meaningless word. I was raised to associate the word culture with an ethnic group or perhaps more commonly to the values and mores of a group of people in a particular region irrespective of their skin color. So, even though words are quite flexible in their usage and meaning, I was disappointed to hear the usage "drinking culture" associated with the northern most region in Canada. I mean, there is SO much more to talk about with respect to the Nanavut province. So called "drinking cultures" exist is various spots all over the world. NFL football fans are a "drinking culture" in that sense of the word. Tailgate parties have become a centerpiece of any NFL football game with fans often becoming inebriated before the game even starts! So needless to say, I was little more than miffed after reading about one of the results of the Nunavut Liquor Act Review Task Force : The Nunavut’s des...

I have rarely, if not ever, heard of any political ambitions or interest in running for office leak from the lips of Bill Maher. Why? Bill has way too much fun exposing the ludicrous hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and religion in general. As if that is not enough to keep the talented comedian and political commentator busy, he will take pot shots at the personal lives of anybody including Gwyneth Paltrow. Maher went marginally ballistic when the sexy actress said her divorce was a 'conscious uncoupling'. Bill reacted by stating "even I wanted to jump in the truck, crank up the Lynyrd Skynyrd and shoot up a farmer's market". Certainly Maher was joking about the shooting spree, but maybe Paltrow really meant her divorce was a conscious uncoupling. Let's face it, many divorces are a result of poor communication and years of insensivity OR perhaps we could characterize this process as unconscious uncoupling ! Maybe unconscious decoupling to avoid two consecu...

Did you know your bank is allowed to re-sequence the order of your balance transfers,deposits and dates your checks are processed? If you do not see the costly consequences of this unfair freedom enjoyed by your online bank, then consider the following sequence of transactions. You have an account balance of two hundred dollars with 15 days left before your rent is due. Your rent is $350, so you deposit another $200 to cover your rent with another $50 left over. You pay your landlord the rent with a check, then the next day write a check for your $75 gas bill knowing the check will clear quite a bit later with gas company avoiding a $25 overdraft. Right? WRONG the bank currently legally has the right to reorder the two transactions even though chronologically you should have avoided any penalties or overdraft fees! This means they can can unfairly clear the $75 check first which happened last in time! THEN the check to your landlord  will bounce which could lead to your evi...

Perhaps the most popular credit card in the world is the 3-2-1 cash back ilk. These cards pay 3% on all gasoline purchases, 2% on grocery purchases, and 1% cash back on any other transaction. I think the limit on our card for the 3-2 part is $1500 of purchases per quarter. Not sure about that, because it was not worded that clearly in agreement or by the phone representative. Let's get on with the rant. Our sixth grade math teacher taught us to round up. You know, 6.49 gets rounded down to 6.00 and 6.50 gets rounded up to 7.00. So I was a little disappointed when our $6.50 purchase of Papa Murphy's pizza was rounded down to $6.00 which equates to a six cents cash back reward. In a similar fashion you can see that the $8.52 grocery purchase at Albertsons was rounded to $9.00 which resulted in a cash rewards of 18 cents or 2 per cent of nine dollars.

What follows is a little more than a mild rant regarding the widely perceived excessive number of police shootings in Albuquerque,NM. As you can read in the pic of newspaper article,  an APD officer shot a woman who stole a car. The cop shot the woman because she was pointing her loaded gun at him as he was attempting to recover the stolen vehicle. Maybe the shooting of James Boyd was marginal, but this woman car thief has to deal with the consequences of stealing a car and aiming a gun at a police officer. People who do what she did get shot occasionally. The mayor of Albuquerque should have the balls to support his police force, who sometime have to kill outlaws, rather than promise reform. Also Police Chief Gordon Eden should take something other than a neutral position about his subordinate's efforts to defend the citizenry.

This photograph of Elenka Bikar's perfectly formed and evolved ass was obtained legally and apparently with the permission of the Slovenian female track star as she was warming up at a track meet. Her tush is big, sexy, muscular enabling her to run 100 meters faster than any Male high school track star. Elenka has settled down to a comfortable married life and I wonder if she has any trouble with paparazzi reporters due to her world famous bum. Her ass has to be in anybody's top 10 list and is probably the number one ass of all time. Prior to her marriage, I believe she dated an NBA athlete and really enjoyed her single life. Black men are known to be super attracted to white women with big round butts, so I bet Elenka had some intense red hot one night stands with the black men who watched her run.  The pornography industry has, no doubt, lost millions of dollars to young males venting their libido viewing a free picture of her perfect figure instead of paying for provocat...

How many times on a cold or rainy day have you gotten the following message at the gas pump indicating you have to enter the convenience store in order to pick up your receipt for gasoline purchase? The last thing anybody wants to see from a credit card purchase gas pump is a message stating that the clerk has the receipt! On this particular day, I was already late to pick up our daughter from day care and did not have time to walk into AllSups to pick up receipt from the convenience store attendant. Did I say CONVENIENCE store!? I think many roadside convenience stores intentionally do not reload the receipt paper rolls in order to force customers into their establishment. Once inside, customer may buy a lottery ticket, cigarettes, beer, condom, etc. Many patrons need the gas receipts either to be reimbursed by their employer or for their IRS tax itemization. Gas stations doing this are in violation of some law. Not many of have the time to file a lawsuit against gas...