Christie Takes Job as Jets Linebacker

"I'll punch anybody in the face"says combative candidate

Posted by Roger Kerson, 1:15 pm August 14th

East Rutherford, New Jersey -- The New York Jets announced today they have signed Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) to a new position as a reserve linebacker for the troubled football team. He replaces Ikemefuna Enemkpali, who was cut by the team - and quickly signed by the Buffalo Bills -- after punching teammate Geno Smith, breaking the jaw of the Jet's starting quarterback.

"I'll punch anybody in the face," said the famously combative Christie, currently a long-shot candidate for the 2016 GOP nomination.

The Jets have only one Super Bowl victory in their 55-year history. "This franchise has a storied tradition of signing players who are 100% unqualified to sit on the bench, much less play in an NFL game," said General Manager Mike Maccagnan. "When it comes to 100% unqualified, nobody beats Chris Christie."

Christie, who has been frequently absent from his home state in recent months, asserted he would have no difficulty adding "linebacking, or whatever you call it" to his current duties as governor and presidential candidate. The Jets, he noted, play and practice in Meadowlands Arena, just over an hour's drive from the New Jersey state capitol in Trenton.

"This is basically a once-a-week gig," said the governor. "How hard could it be?" 

When asked earlier this month "Who deserves a punch in the face?" Christie answered instantly: "The national teachers union." Today, he claimed that his new role attacking professional football players would be much easier.

"Seriously, who do you think is tougher," explained Christie. "A veteran teacher who deals with screaming kids all day, and who I personally fucked out of their pension? Or some candyass overpaid athlete who hasn't done a real day's work in long pants his entire life?"

"Anybody who asks me that kind of dumb question again, I won't even bother to hit you in the face. I will hit you below the belt, or wherever it is you bleed from."

Roger Kerson never played tackle football as a child and is still scarred from his lack of experience. The opinions expressed here are his own, as are some of the facts. 

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Jay Leno, Stand-up Guy.

Origins of ObamaCare

GOP’s new demand: Turn ObamaCare over to Putin for “International Supervision”

Eric Cantor explains the GOP's latest plan to avoid a government shutdown. 

by Roger Kerson, InsanelyGrating.com

WASHINGTON DC, Sept. 28^th -- Maneuvering to avoid a government shutdown and a default on the nation’s debt, House Republican leaders unveiled a new demand today.  The president’s signature Obamacare health insurance plan, they said, must be turned over to Russian President Vladimir Putin for “international supervision.”

“No less than Syria’s chemical weapons, Obamacare is a grave threat to every man, woman and child in America,” said House Speak John Boehner (R-OH), speaking at a hastily called Capitol Hill news conference. “The only safe thing to do, when you think about it, is to turn the whole kit-and-kaboodle over to another country so we can get it as far away from us as possible.”

House Republicans approached Putin, said Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA.), “because when it comes to dismantling national health insurance, the Russians are more experienced than anybody else on the block.”

Cantor cited the sharp drop in life expectancy – a six-year shorter life for men, three years for women – that took place in Russia between 1990 and 1994, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. “That’s exactly the kind of ‘put-em-inside-the-box’ thinking we need to balance our budget and save Social Security without raising taxes,” he said.

No "damn panels": Turning the yet-to-be implemented U.S. health care reforms over to Russia, Cantor insisted, will not include the so-called “death panels” that are among the most controversial (and non-existent) features of Obamacare.

“We expect plenty of deaths,” said Cantor, “but we’re not going to have any damn panels.” 

President Obama, Cantor said, “is so committed to big government, he can’t even bomb the living daylights out of a two-bit Arab despot without convening a bunch of committees.” By contrast, he said, “Republicans and the Russian Federation agree that a free-market approach is best.”

“If you take away people’s medicine and their ability to go to the doctor, they don’t live as long,” said Cantor. “It’s as simple as that – and no government bureaucrat ever has to lift a finger.”

The GOP House leaders refused to confirm or deny, meanwhile, that they were in secret talks with former NBA star Dennis Rodman to outsource America’s Social Security program to North Korean President Kim Jong-Un.

“At this stage, all we can say is that nothing is off the table,” said Boehner, who has struggled to maintain his world-class suntan during this latest budget crisis. 

Roger Kerson is a Michigan-based media consultant.  The opinions expressed here are his own, as are some of the facts. 

The Apple Ecosystem

Anybody catch Apple’s gauzy new TV ads during the NBA finals? Or see the full page version in the NY Times and elsewhere?  The new campaign, reports Bloomberg News, "will emphasize the quality and reliability of Apple’s ecosystem of products, apps and content."  

Smart people at Apple and their ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, think this sort of brand advertising is a better way to sell gadgets than spots which focus on the gadgets themselves. 

Okay... but if we're talking about the Apple ecosystem, could we spare a word about the people who actually make the stuff? 

Here's a remix, featuring a few factoids Apple left out:

More than a year after the death of founder Steve Jobs, Apple is still turning out what he liked to call "insanely great" products. The remix above, for example, was created on a MacBook Pro, using iMovie.

Absent such powerful and easy-to-use hardware and software, your humble correspondent could never have pulled off this type of ad parody. But it's insanely grating – for me at least – to see this particular company brag that "Every idea we touch... enhances each life it touches." 

Because working conditions at the giant factories operated by Chinese manufacturer FoxConn, where Apple products are made, are literally driving workers insane.

By "insane," I mean: "My life is so intolerable that I'm going to jump off a high building and kill myself."

Between 2010 and 2012, according to China Labor Watch, there were 18 suicides reported at FoxConn's China plants -- and perhaps many more unreported. In response, Apple and Foxconn took a number of steps, including:

·         Requiring workers to sign a pledge *not* to commit suicide (Not making this up, ask Stephen Colbert);

·         Installing nets beneath Foxconn building, to catch potential jumpers;

·         Providing mental health services, to prevent people from jumping in the first place;

·         Reducing overcrowding in Foxconn dormitories, which had been sleeping as many as 300 people to a room

·         Raising wages.

·         A promise to allow a vote on independent trade unions. 

Foxconn has not followed through on genuine trade union reforms, according to Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior. More than 90 percent of Foxconn workers surveyed never heard of or participated in any trade union election.

As reforms fall short, workers are still falling: Three suicides were reported at Foxconn’s factory in Zhengzhou, China in April and May of this year.

Workers taking their own lives isn’t the only less-than-life-enhancing tragedy linked to workers at Apple’s Chinese suppliers. Four people died in factory explosions in 2011, with scores more injured.  The source of the problem – combustible factory dust – is a well understood hazard, MIT safety expert Nicholas Ashford told the New York Times:

“If it were terribly difficult to deal with aluminum dust, I would understand. But do you know how easy dust is to control? It’s called ventilation. We solved this problem over a century ago.”

Indeed, making factory life more livable isn’t rocket science. It’s a lot easier than coming up with the next insanely great version of the IPhone, IPad or MacBook. All that’s required is to move resources – that is to say, money -- from one part of the Apple ecosystem to another. That shouldn’t be so hard, you would think, for a company with more than $140 billion in cash on hand.

-RK