How stupid do they think we are?

How can you tell when a politician is lying?



When their lips are moving.

In all seriousness how can anyone take Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama seriously? I want to keep a "I mispoke" counter someplace just to remember how many times they've lied or had to retract something they've said. In case you missed them, Hillary claims to have arrived in Bosnia under attack of sinper fire in 1996. When videos of the event clearly show her statement was a total fabrication, she claimed she misspoke. Is that like another word for LIE? And just the other day Barack Obama apparently decided that people from small towns in Pennsylvania are bitter and turn to guns and their faith. After being labeled an elitist, he recanted the statement and said he misspoke. I don't know if he ever said he misspoke about being a professor at the University of Chicago (he wasn't, he simply lectured there), or about his parent's falling in love because of the tumult happing in Selma, when in fact he was born 4 years before the riots occurred in Selma.

Can't we get someone to run that isn't a pathological liar?

Related to my topic is the issue of package sizes. I've noted with some dismay that ice cream manufacturers have quietly and slowly gypped us out of 12.5% of our ice cream. Over the last several years, the size of a half gallon of ice cream, you know the one, the rectangular box that ice cream has come in for decades, now only contains 1.75 quarts. Not 2 quarts as it used to, but 1.75 quarts, or 12.5% less ice cream. I wonder if they'll do as the deodorant manufacturers have done and at some point go back to a full half gallon and keep the price the same so they can say we're getting 14% more ice cream for free. Later they increase the price, then shrink the package, then claim to give us more for free, then increase the price, then shrink the package... Well, you get the idea.

And last but not least, how about those margarine marketing folks! Lite Margarine. What does that mean exactly? Well it means they add more water to the oil before turning it into margarine. In fact, some lite margarines contain 70% water. That has to make that water even more expensive than the bottled water the hotels leave by your bedside table hoping you won't notice the $8 price on it for a 375ml bottle of water (probably was tap water originally to boot!)

OK, that reminds me of one more rant before I go, which is bottled water. According to Consumer Reports, there is very little in the way of quality standards for bottled water. Tap water on the other hand is highly regulated in terms of water quality and purity. So why again do people buy bottled water at $1 - $4 per bottle when that same amount of water from the tap would cost less than a penny? It isn't necessarily going to be as good as the water from your tap either.