5 Conversation Starters You Can Use When You Meet A Conservative Republican And Have Nothing In Common.

Have you ever been to a corporate event and found yourself stuck in the corner with a bunch of investment bankers? Did you ever have to go deep into Virginia, or do you have that uncle who voted Republican once the Civil Rights Act passed? Or maybe you’re with a group of white people somewhere, and they get really drunk, and then they start telling you how they really feel about the world. Are you working for a white shoe law firm?

Chances are, you’re likely in the presence of a conservative republican! Not to fear. You don’t need to run away or start sweating profusely. You’ll be just fine with these 5 conversation starters that you can use right now when you have nothing in common with a conservative republican.

1. When in doubt, just shake your head and say, “Hillary Clinton.” If you want to get them really going, just add, “The Clinton Foundation.” You don’t have to provide any supporting evidence. Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation are some of the biggest, if not the biggest talking points after Obama for a conservative republican. They will wax poetic about how Clinton is the biggest criminal since Jack the Ripper, and will go so far as to say that The Clinton Foundation is not only smuggling children from Eastern Europe, but laundering money for their drug dealer friends. When the conversation starts to die down, say, “There should be an indictment by now if Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder didn’t. . .” Don’t worry. You don’t have to finish the thought. The conservative republican will spend the next several minutes finishing the thought for you, as he or she gives you a treatise on how our legal system is supposed to work.

2. “I’m not a big fan of Trump but I’ll tell you this much. I rather have him than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders any day of the week.” There are many never Trumpers among the mostly National-Review-reading-conservative-republican crowd. Further, by saying that you are not a “big fan” of Trump, indicates that you think you’re better than those who wore those stupid Make America Great Again red hats for him, which is what all conservative republicans feel about those who wore those stupid Make America Great Again red hats for him. You’re making a connection, and you also smartly couched that sentiment with two people conservative republicans really despise, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

3. “People kill people. Guns don’t kill people.” You can use this as a canned response for any, and I mean any conversation that invariably comes up about gun control. For instance, if someone says, “The Supreme Court’s Heller decision reaffirmed what we all knew about the Second Amendment.” Just nod your head and say, “That’s right. People kill people. Guns don’t kill people.” You’ll get a lot of, “That’s absolutely right,” and people will start talking about how the “musket” and “militia” examples used by progressive democrats are wrong. They will then go into a philosophical discussion about natural rights, and if things are really good, will contend “if we just could put God back into the schools.”

4.  “Wasn’t Black Panther great?” Conservative republicans are very aware that they are usually portrayed by the media as racists. Whether that is fair or not is beside the point, other than that conservative republicans are very sensitive to charges of being racist. By pointing out that you a) went to go see Black Panther and b) that you thought it was great, is enough to make everyone feel comfortable that you’re definitely not some secret Trump supporter or otherwise a racist. In that regard, you will come to the implicit agreement that you both are enlightened conservative republicans with high degrees of education. This is obviously a good starting point for a conversation with a conservative republican.

5. “Do you think we’ll ever have a president as great as Calvin Coolidge?” Most people think that conservative republicans love Ronald Reagan. For the most part, that is true, but conservative republicans really, really love Calvin Coolidge. He was the only president born on the Fourth of July for Chrissakes. He was a champion of fiscal restraint and small government, two terms that conservative republicans actually had copyrighted. They won’t know a lot of facts about Coolidge other than that he is one of the forefathers of the Conservative movement. Of course, that will provide that person with a springboard in which to talk about how this country was so much better “back then” when there was no government “running our lives.”

Let me know how these conversation starters worked out for you! And if you have any additional conversation starters, please let me know in the comments!

Stay tuned for tomorrow, where I’ll give you 5 conversation starters you can use with a Trump supporter.

 

 

 

 

5 Conversation Starters You Can Use When You Meet A Progressive Democrat And Have Nothing In Common.

Have you ever been to a dinner party at a neighbor’s house and the host ends up putting you on the side of the table with all the progressive Democrats?

Have you been at a barbeque or some other social event where there are progressive Democrats, who apart from maybe being human, don’t seem to have anything in common with you?

Do you find it hard to strike up a conversation in these kinds of situations? Are you not sure what to say or how to say it?

Fear no more, my loyal readers.

Here are 5 conversation starters you can use immediately when you meet a progressive democrat out in the wild. You’ll be able to fit right in, and you won’t face any fear of being shamed somehow on Twitter for not clearly understanding or even knowing the pressing issues of our time.

1. After asking a progressive democrat how they’re doing, respond first by shaking your head slowly, and then say, “I can’t believe Trump is still in office. It’s just crazy. I wish I could explain it to some of my friends in France.” Bashing Trump is a favorite discussion point for progressive democrats. You don’t even have to bring up what exactly you take issue with about Trump’s conduct. The fact that you declare your general disbelief in the Trump presidency, and that you have friends in France, is enough not only to give you 100 percent legitimacy in their eyes but provides that progressive democrat with a springboard to launch into a multi-count indictment listing all of Trump’s failures. Just nod your head and every so often say, “I didn’t realize it was that bad” or “I can only imagine what Rachel Maddow had to say about that.”

2. “The Second Amendment. Jeez. Do we really need that anymore?” Gun control has always been a hot topic for progressives. But instead of just asking out of the blue, “What are your thoughts on gun control?”, which seems like the kind of question your high school teacher would ask, you want to bring up the constitutional angle, confirming that you are enlightened enough to realize that the Second Amendment is outdated. Nod aggressively when the progressive democrat gives you a history lesson about the meaning of the second amendment, particularly when he or she brings up the “musket” and “militia” points. You can extend the conversation further when the progressive democrat invariably lists the memberships to gun control organizations and/or listservs he or she belongs to. Just ask, “What does ________ organization do, and how can I get involved?”

3.  “Did you hear that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are going to be co-teaching a free online seminar together on economics and equity?” When the progressive democrat asks you whether that’s a joke or not, laugh a little, which shows you understand that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have differing viewpoints. But then go on and tell them you have a close friend at MSNBC, a “senior” editor in fact, who says the seminar is in the works. You citing MSNBC gives your story instant credibility, and for all sakes and purposes, your story has now become true. The progressive democrat will tell you how “interesting” it is that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are teaching a class together, then spend several minutes justifying why he or she either voted for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, or someone else maybe you never heard of. The conversation will then swing back around toward bashing Trump and what a horrible world we live in.

4. “The battery on my Prius is on the fritz.” 84.6 percent of progressive democrats own a Prius, and nothing strikes more fear into their hearts than a dead Prius battery. Progressive Democrats love their Priuses and, more particularly, what a Prius represents. For instance, a progressive democrat will not take their Prius to the local Jiffy Lube, because cheap places like that don’t know how to take care of a Prius’s special and unique electronics. A Prius battery is not like the battery you can get at Sears. It’s a very, very special battery that is ecologically mined from the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean by fair trade workers. That’s why the battery is worth 90 percent of the car’s value, and why it’s so expensive to replace. Alerting a progressive democrat that your Prius battery is in danger will garner you a lot of sympathies. Further, as to the small percentage of progressive democrats you encounter that don’t own a Prius, do not worry, the conversation starter still works. You see, that remaining 15-16 percent of progressive Democrats who don’t own a Prius actually ride bikes or skateboards only. That’s a good segue for them to explain to you why these modes of transportation are not only superior but reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

5. “In the age of Trump, I’m trying to get another yard sign that really tells people how I feel about (choose one: immigration, racism, women’s rights, science, etc.), but I want to make sure the message is on point and produced on recyclable materials by workers being paid a living wage. Do you have any ideas?” This is a softball, open-ended question for a progressive democrat. It’s the kind of question that a progressive democrat dreams of getting, one where they are not only being asked for their expertise, but also to showcase how much knowledge they have that can fit into a line. You don’t have to do anything after this except to nod every so often as the progressive democrat gives you dozens, if not hundreds, of deep quotes that vaguely sound like memes you saw on Facebook.

So there you have it. Never get stuck in silence again when you meet a progressive democrat and have nothing in common!

Do let me know in the comments how these conversation starters worked out for you. And, of course, if you have any other conversation starters you’d like to share, please do so in the comments!

Tomorrow, I’ll share 5 conversation starters you can use when you meet a conservative republican and have nothing in common. Stay tuned!

5 Household Uses For Cream Cheese You Never Knew About

You may think you know everything about cream cheese. But I’m going to tell you right now that there’s a lot of things — well, five things to be exact — that you never knew you could do with cream cheese.

Believe it or not, it’s not just something you spread on your bagel or use to make cheesecake.

Here are 5 household uses for cream cheese you never knew about:

1. Don’t have Mastic or Ceramic Tile Adhesive? Everyone loves a backsplash in their bathroom or kitchen. It makes your house look amazing and, more importantly, shows you have good taste. You may even have an unused box of tiles in the basement for a project that you thought you’d start three years ago but never did. Now that you want to start the project because you saw a cool DIY video on Facebook, you realize you don’t have any Mastic or ceramic tile adhesive. But you’re too impatient to drive twenty plus minutes to walk arund aisle after aisle for 90 minutes at the Home Depot or Lowes for an overpriced container of that sticky pasty stuff. Look no further than your refrigerator. Spread some cream cheese on the wall and get to to work! And for the grout, if you don’t have any, you can also use flour and water (2:1) with a bit of kitty litter (1/2 of water ratio) mixed in.

2. Don’t have your Lancome or Loreal beauty mask cream? We all know the importance of moisturizing and rejuvenating your face. One of the best ways to do this is applying a natural mask that you can leave on for several minutes to get the full effects. But in these days of overused chemicals and deregulation, it’s not always healthy to put these over-the-counter beauty products on your face. But look no further than that box of cream cheese in your refrigerator. Get your cream cheese to room temperature, mix it with a wooden spoon until it’s smooth, and apply it to your face. Leave it on for about 10 minutes. You might have glowing and healthy skin after!

3. Have a stain on your couch and not sure how to get it out? It seems like for every stain, you need a separate product to get it out. I can’t keep track of what to do. Nothing can be more frustrating than getting a stain on your expensive couch and not knowing whether it’s the Simple Green you’re supposed to put on, or whether it’s the Sprite you’re supposed to put on first, or whether it’s some other product you know you don’t have, and by the time you get that product, the stain has set. With cream cheese, you can forget about all the confusion. Just spread the cream cheese on the stain — any stain, blood, paint, fluids, it doesn’t matter — and let it sit until the cream cheese dries. Take the cream cheese off with a knife and the stain might not be there anymore! It couldn’t be any more simpler. You can now throw away the stain charts.

4. Is your door squeaking and you don’t have WD-40? Don’t you hate it when your doors at home start to squeak? It’s a horrible situation, because when you’re sneaking around the kitchen in the middle of the night looking for something to eat without your partner knowing, a squeaking door alerts everyone to your presence. Sure, you could use WD-40 like everyone says to do, but do you really know what’s in WD-40? If it was just silicone, why do they call it WD-40? I’ll just say the terms “WMD” and “Iraq” and leave them there. Do yourself a favor and do something healthy for the environment, and your pets or small children if you have any. Put a dab of cream cheese on the squeaky part of your door and in no time the squeaks will be gone!

5. Do you have weak WI-FI? Without question, wifi has revolutionized our world, allowing us to access the internet even if we don’t have cell service. But the problem with wifi, especially at home, is that depending where you are, the strength of your signal fluctuates. How many times were you in the bathroom, watching a youtube video, and all of a sudden your phone switches out of wifi and starts using precious data on your 4G network because your wifi signal can’t reach you. Don’t despair, and don’t spend the extra money on one of those questionable wifi boosters. Get your cream cheese to room temperature and spread it around the antenna only of your wifi router. You should see, as a few unpublished studies have pointed out, a 45% increase in the strength of your wifi signal.

BONUS:

Do you have a chest cold? This was a horrible year for the cold and flu, which means it was a good year for drug companies making millions and millions of dollars selling medicine to the public. But what if I told you there was a natural way to cure your cold that didn’t involve ginger or Vicks? Next time you start feeling congestion, spread some room temperature cream cheese all over your chest before you go to sleep. Make sure you put some gauze over the cream cheese so that it doesn’t come off while you sleep. You should feel better when you wake up!

Do you have a hole in your tire? The flat tire on your bike or while you’re driving will inevitably happen. If it hasn’t happened already, I’m sure you know what an inconvenience it is. Sometimes you have to rack up hundreds of dollars in towing bills or you have to walk several miles to get some help. But fear no longer. Keep some cream cheese in your glove compartment or in your bike’s kit bag. Anytime there’s a hole or some other puncture in your tire, just fill it with cream cheese and wait a few minutes for it to dry. You might be on the road in no time!

Please let me know if you tried any of these household hacks above. And, if you have other household uses for cream cheese that aren’t listed here, let us know in the comments!

 

5 Signs That You Have A Cell Phone Addiction

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing about how some 16-year-old loser invested $1000 dollars in Bitcoin and is now a multi-millionaire. I want to be rich, too, without having to put in any real effort.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Finding the “right” get-rich quick opportunity isn’t easy. Like many others, I tried making my fortune on ebay. That didn’t last very long, as I found it hard to compete with chinese companies that were selling electronics with a 5 cent profit margin.

I later tried buying and selling real estate with no money down, but I could never get through all the instructional videos by that short guy with the fancy car and house who sometimes shows up as a commercial for youtube videos, so I never actually bought anything.

I even tried selling information about how to get rich, but I never got rich before to have any authority on the topic and, to make matters worse, all the information I was trying to sell was already being offered for free by like 44 different people.

As I sat in my parent’s basement trying to figure out what to do next, I came up with a glorious idea that I know is going to make me and many others rich. Drum roll please . . . .

The hottest investment trend in the coming months will be the rise of the Cell Phone Addiction Company. I kid you not. There is a plethora of people who need this treatment, and Cell Phone Addiction Companies are going to be in great demand until the government tries to license the practice. But until then, there is money to be made!

Let’s be honest here. As many people try, and fail, to cure their cellphone addiction, many cellphone addiction companies will fill the void, particularly for those that have neither the time, health insurance, or privilege to see a licensed psychologist. The opportunity is ripe for a solid investment in this burgeoning industry, particularly if you yourself are addicted (or pretend that you aren’t addicted but you know deep down that you are) to cellphones. As I believe the great Tony Robbins said on one of those Inc. videos on Facebook, “You have to speak from a place of authority.” Put another way, to become a great investor in a Cell Phone Addiction Company, you yourslf have to understand the issue of cellphone addiction.

To that end, here are 5 signs that you have a cell phone addiction. Don’t ignore the signs! Once you do, then invest in a Cell Phone Addiction Company or start your own, make a lot of money, and then hopefully you’ll get interviewed by CNN Money or better yet become the subject of a BuzzFeed article! Just don’t forget to reference this article, please!

1. YOU ARE READING THIS POST ON A CELL PHONE: First off, I’m not sure how you came across this article. If you somehow googled this, then you went through at least 13 pages on Google to find it. Enough said, right?

2. YOU ARE READING THIS POST ON A CELL PHONE IN YOUR CAR WHILE AT A RED LIGHT: This is related to the first sign, but really? You’re reading this post while stopped at a red light? Sure, convince yourself that you’re a safe driver because the car isn’t moving while you’re reading your phone.

3. YOU ARE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING PUTTING YOUR CELL PHONE INTO GRAYSCALE MODE OR YOU HAVE AT SOME POINT: For the last couple of years, the same kind of “anti-addiction” advice keeps getting recycled like an old pair of socks, that is, “change your phone into grayscale mode la la la la la.” You’re really at that point in your life where you think maybe you’d look at your phone less if everything you looked at was a horrible looking gray? Do that for an hour or two, and maybe you’ll have a little more sympathy for those who are color blind.

4. YOU CAN REPEATEDLY TOUCH YOUR THUMB TO YOUR INDEX FINGER FASTER THAN 15 TIMES IN 10 SECONDS. Did you really actually just try to do that? Just go straight to a Cellphone Addiction Company. Right now.

5. YOU CAN LOOK AT YOUR BELLY BUTTON FOR MORE THAN 30 SECONDS. Are you sitting down right now? Are you standing in line? Are you at the dinner table? Now look down, curve your back and neck. That’s good. Now curve your back and neck just a little more. Got it? Now stare at your bellybutton, or what you believe it to look like underneath your clothes. Count to 30. Did you count to 30? If you didn’t count to 30, it means you have a cell phone addiction.

So there you have it folks. Those are the 5 main signs that you have a cell phone addiction, as determined by scientists, sociologists, and the hive mind on Facebook.

Everyone stay calm but NYC is going to possibly maybe blow up I think kind of

So you probably all heard the news that there has been some “credible” but “unconfirmed” reports of the possibility that car bombs will explode in New York City in the next couple of days.  Specifically, the New York Times reported, “A White House official said on Thursday evening that while the government has already stepped up its vigilance in advance of the anniversary, ‘the president directed the counterterrorism community to redouble its efforts in response to this credible but unconfirmed information.’

What does this really mean when you cut through the hyperbole and government talk?  According to Vice President Biden, the threat is “credible,” because there are “specifics”, i.e., “car bombs” were described during what I assume was an intercepted or series of intercepted conversations.  The information in the intercepted conversations was not “confirmed,” according to Biden however, because there is no other evidence — read: not even a scintilla of evidence — that corroborates the intercepted statements that “car bombs” would be used.

In fact, what is telling is that the CIA or the NSA or the DEA or whoever else was doing wiretapping has not even suggested or intimated who they were wiretapping.  I assume the target or targets the three letter acronym agencies were wiretapping weren’t high value or even medium value or even low value. Because, let’s assume this: they were wiretapping a suspected terrorist or it came across an intercepted conversation of an unknown person talking to a suspected terrorist or an associate of a suspected terrorist, then the suggestion could at least be articulated that the intercepted conversations describing the “car bomb” threat are not completely “unconfirmed.”

For all we know, the three letter agencies wiretapped a sheep farmer who said, “Hey, did you hear from Ibrahim that he heard from Muhammed that he believes Al Queda might use car bombs on around Sept 11 in New York City?”

Under the definition and standards given by our government, this would be a “credible” but “unconfirmed” threat.

I think it’s fair to say that I don’t want to get blown up or seen anyone  blown up by a damn car bomb.  But I don’t know what or who the hell these announcements serve, other than to do one or all of the following: raise fear, breed apathy, increase overtime for law enforcement, or provide legitimacy to Homeland Security and other government agencies.  They are not much different than the color threat rating levels.

These announcements provide us with absolutely no information and in my opinion, make us less vigilant, not more.

The NYC Blizzard of 2010: Mayor Bloomberg’s Colossal Failure

About ten days before the nasty blizzard that walloped New York City and brought it to its knees, the national weather service and several news agencies predicted that the City would be receiving at least a foot of snow. This blizzard was not a surprise to anyone.  It didn’t come sneaking in the middle of the night under the radar like a stealth ninja.

In places like upstate New York, like Syracuse, Rochester, or Buffalo, blizzard conditions would not have been necessarily front page news for the government, because they have the systems in place to deal with such a weather contingency.  But one foot of snow in upstate New York is a lot of different than one foot of snow in New York City.  For starters, New York City requires much more preparation and planning to galvanize its workers to ensure that the snow is cleared by the plows, both because of the City’s size, as well as the simple fact that heavy snow is not part of the usual NYC winter landscape.

Given all this, at first it was hard to understand why the City was so thoroughly unprepared by the blizzard.  The arguments that were put forward by the City, as well as outlined by many major media outlets, centered around after-the-fact arguments that did nothing to explain why the government was unprepared — thoroughly unprepared — by the blizzard.  These two arguments generally revolved around: 1) there were too many cars stuck in the road for clean up crews and 2) there was a huge fire in Queens.

Within two days of the storm, the estimates quickly went from a foot to as much as 16 inches. This should have clearly moved whatever myopia was over Mayor Bloomberg’s cash infested upper east side loving brain.   But it didn’t.  Instead, Bloomberg decided to do the business as usual plan: mobilize the efforts a few hours after the snow began falling.

That works when you have unsustained snow totaling no more than two or three inches — which is considered usually a “heavy” snowfall for New York City.  When you’re dealing with snowfalls greater than a foot, you can’t start the cleanup after the snow begins falling, because a) it’s falling fast and b) the potential for vehicles not part of the cleanup crew to block the streets increases.  That is why some cities close certain roads to ensure that the cleanup effort is not hampered.  To be sure, the City did recommend  that non-essential driving be kept to a minimum — but it did so only the next morning, when no one in the outer-boroughs could drive anywhere anyway.

It is thus no surprise that the City was and still is a damn mess.  Roads are still unplowed.  Buses are still stuck in the middle of the road.  Trains are not functioning.  People can’t get to work.  The City is still at a standstill.  And the sad fact is that it’s going to be like that for a little while.  To be clear,  when I say the City, I should mention that I’m defining it as the outer-boroughs and parts of Manhattan that do not include the upper east side.  Because to Bloomberg, it seems that the only part of the City that matters to him is the upper east side.  And everything else falls to the wayside in proportion to how far you are away from East 79th Street.

The outer-boroughs look like something from Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”  I know people who can’t get to dialysis because they’re plowed in and can’t either take a taxi or bus to the clinic.  You would not see this on the upper east side.  Their roads will be clear and then wonder why everyone else is complaining.  They say, “If only people were self-reliant.”

In fact, in the throes of the storm, the one place where you could really drive a car, even if you had a Toyota Prius, was on the upper east side.  Bloomberg, for his part, was his testy little Kim Jong-Il self when, in response to criticisms of his leadership (or lack of it more precisely) during the blizzard, he stated, “There’s no reason for everybody to panic.  Our city is doing exactly what you’d want it to do.”

Really, Mr. Bloomberg?  You are completely out of touch.

Post Raisin Bran: Haters of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran

The first raisin bran introduced in the United States was called Skinner’s Raisin Bran, in 1926.  It was made by the same company, U.S. Mills, that made Uncle Sam’s Cereal.  You can still buy Uncle Sam’s Cereal, but I find that cardboard with honey tastes much better.

Nowadays, when most people think of Raisin Bran, they are thinking of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran.   You know, the one with the “two scoops.”  Not surprisingly, Kellogg’s raisin bran is the most popular raisin bran in the United States, regardless of whether the flakes are small, the raisins are dried out, and it’s loaded with sugar, I mean, high-fructose corn syrup.  Enter “raisin bran” in google, and Kellogg’s Raisin Bran will be the first listing that pops up.

Post Raisin Bran, on the other hand, has bigger flakes and the raisins are a lot fluffier.  In their mind, and rightfully so, they feel they should have a larger share of the raisin bran market.  They’re better than Total Raisin Bran or some of the other knock offs or late comers to the Raisin Bran Wars.

So what does Post Raisin Bran do?  They make their cereal box eerily similar to the Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Box.  Same purple themed tone.  And, as you can see in the picture below, they even put Kellogg’s — in the same distinctive “Kellog’s” font no less — front and center on the box, right above a smaller label for “Post.”  If you were to look at this quickly, you would think, “Oh, it’s a Kellog’s Post Raisin Bran Cereal.”

Seems to me that this looks a lot like false advertising.  Decide for yourself.

 

Post Raisin Bran: Notice the purple themed box and the "Kellogs" right above the "Post."

 

 

Kellogg's Raisin Bran: It tastes worse than Post, but it's the original