The “Today” show has hired Jenna Bush Hager to work for them.

The twinster daughter of ex-President Bush (love how that sounds) will work on just about what ever she wants. Kind of like Luke Russert.

NBC: home of the ordinary Xers with extraordinary connections.

Jenna Bush will work out of the Washington bureau, jumped at the chance to drag down a nice salary and work in Tee Vee.

Here is the ringing endorsement of her qualifications by her new boss:

“I think she can handle it,”

Is this a dream job for Jenna Bush Hager? Hardly, she said:

“It wasn’t something I’d always dreamed to do,” “But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change.”

Jenna Bush-Hager won’t have to give up her part time teaching job. Did I mention she will be covering education?

Sound familar? It’s the same deal offered to Luke Russert, the kid of St. Tim Russert. He was supposed to offer his worldly insights on the political scene.

NBC put Jenna Bush through a rigorous audition. She walked in, stood and read from a prompter and was offered the job.

When she came here for a handful of appearances, she knocked it out of the park.” She “just sort of popped to us as a natural presence, comfortable” on the air.

I guess that’s about the same qualifications as most females of her age group that have network Tee Vee jobs. Except she is missing the beauty queen title that most hotties of the news have.

NBC: Home of the Hotties or the Unnervous.  Tee Vee news marches on.

Oh puh-leeze, the Cash for Clunker Crybabies have just about pushed me to the limits.

First, when the program had been operation for just ten days, an owner of 20 dealerships in the east was crying about how long it took to do the paperwork for Cash for Clunkers. He was bitchin’  because he had to pay a clerk  (probably making $10 an hour) to sit in front of a computer for a few hours to submit the paperwork to collect $4,500 free money collected from you and me.

Now the paperwork is in the gummit’s hands, here’s the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) aka CFCC (Cash for Clunker Crybabies) are crying they aren’t getting their money quick enough.

The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates that dealers have hundreds– and in some cases thousands — of applications pending that are

“worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.”

Peter Kitzmiller, president of the 325-member Maryland Automobile Dealers Association said:

“It is ludicrous at this point, We’ve got deals that are just sitting there waiting to be reviewed. The customer is gone, the car is gone, and you don’t have your money.”

Damn Republicans. (And new car dealers are all Republicans.) They cry that something needs to be done to save the U.S. car business. Obama does something.

They cry that Obama is moving too fast on the stimulus.

They cry that the stimulus idea is bad for the economy.  Cars fly out of the showrooms at record pace – after 18 months of gathering dust.  Factories go on overtime to keep up with demand.

They cry that they aren’t getting their money fast enough. They want quicker turn-around. They want bigger goverment to handle the Cash for Clunkers program.

By the end of the week, up to 1,100 people will be working full time to process cash for clunker reimbursements.

They cry that government is getting too big.

How long would you sit (or pay someone to sit)  in front of a computer to collect $4,500?

Damn Cash for Clunker Crybabies. They give money to McCain, cry that Obama got elected,  line up at the public trough and then cry that the slop is too sour.

Banks are still cheating on regulators and inspectors sent by the government.

For example, a business acquaintance of mine has an checking account that allows him to write 3 check a quarter.

He says that allows him to earn .125% on his money instead of .1%.

But once a year, he has the need to write 20 checks in one quarter. In the past, the banker always looked the other way and didn’t charge him any fees for the extra checks.

Now the bank is cheating because the government overseers are watching.

The bank said he couldn’t cheat for my friend anymore and waive the fees for those 17 checks that were over the limit because “they” were watching that type of activity.

The banker told the businessman, if it was okay with him, they would issue cashier’s checks on that same account –
and -
wait for it -
not charge him for cashier’s check.

That would be okay he said because the regulators aren’t watching that part of the business.

Okay, I get it that some banks offer cashier’s checks free for depositors. But the bank shouldn’t cheat their way around some federal watchdog.

And that is how banks cheat while the government is watching.

I just ran a speed test on how well I am connected to the internet.

Better than my cousin-sister in Hazard, KY, and better than my daddy-uncle in Pikeville, KY, but 1/2 the speed of my friend Elin Woods, in Sweden, and 1/12 the speed of my long-lost friend Danny Choo in Japan.

Right now the government is deciding the future of the Internet in the United States.

The Federal Communications Commission is crafting our national high speed internet strategy, which will determine how fast the Internet is and who has access to high speed connections.

Help shape this policy in just two minutes.

Take this Speed Test, and help  update data and help make universal broadband a reality.

Take the Speed Test now:

http://www.speedmatters.org/speedtest2009

Then fill in the form to send a letter to your feral (no typo – little or no contact with real people) representatives. I personalized my letter because Speedmatters.org was just too nice in their letter.

The United States ranks just 15th among industrialized nations in broadband access — and this is costing our economy billions of dollars every year.

Every day, American businesses are missing out on opportunities to sell their goods and services in the global marketplace. Every day, the American people are missing out on important health and educational benefits. And every day, the American economy is missing out on good jobs created by high speed internet access.

That’s because the U.S. has historically invested relatively less on telecommunications than most other major countries. Consumers are charged more for slower speeds, and our current high-speed networks don’t even reach millions of American households.

Like Bubba-Louise, my cousin-sister in Hazard can’t even watch Keyboard Cat, because it won’t download.
H/she needs to see this stuff:

A couple days ago I explained how a bunch of goofball writers bought a bunch of stuff at thrift stores and put it on eBay writing lies about the backstory of each item.

Genius was the term I used. Now, I’m changing my tune.

Liars and spammers is who they are.

We’ll be adding a new story every single weekday, through July and August at least. (We’ve gotten a lot of great early press/blog coverage.) The writers are coming up with amazing stuff: Funny, sad, poignant, weird, perverse. And we have some interesting collaborations in the works that will take the story/object team-up in different directions still.

Not only are they liars, they stole the emblem of the Salvation Army!

Fakers Logo

Unfake Logo

I was kidding around before, but today I got some spam from them. And we all know how we love spam.

So I’m just getting the word out. Bidding aside, I hope you’ll check out some of the stories. (Though obviously I’d be thrilled if you chose to support these writers with a bid.) Leave a comment, tell a friend — or just enjoy some very imaginative new fiction, for free. We think it’s a cool way of thinking about objects and value.

Well guess what? Lying and spamming and stealing a charity logo is not “cool.”

Especially when they didn’t link back.

Losers.