Thursday, May 07, 2009

People Who Suck

- Michelle Bachmann

To get any stupider or more insane, this woman would have to hire a blind child to perform a craniotomy on her with a rusty fork, remove her brains, and replace them with Philly cream cheese. 'Cause she has gone just about as far as nature and science can take her. When she's not blaming ethnic minorities for the housing bust or blaming Democrats for Swine Flu (srsly), or freaking out over lightbulbs and hypothetical currency, she's opposing minimum wage increases and calling for investigations into the "patriotism" of Democratic members of Congress. We already tried that, Ms. Bachmann. We call it McCarthyism. It sucked even more than you do.

- Jon Whatever-his-name-is

Dude. You have 8 kids under the age of 10. You don't have time to date. Whether you're doing this chick or not, bar-hopping in the AM and hanging with 23-year-old hotties is enough to make you look like a dick and your poor wife look like a fool. Your kids are probably wondering where you are. You're also setting a bad example for all the other dads who are going to be raising umpteen kids because of today's ethically questionable fertility methods. I know the stress at home is probably enough to kill you, but seriously. Knock it off. If cold showers don't do the trick, remind yourself how much child support you'll be paying if Kate smartens up and turfs your ridiculous ass.

- A 9/11 Truther and Michael Moore

As you may know, the 9/11 Truth event Richard helped organize took place last weekend. The featured speaker was media critic Barrie Zwicker, a highly interesting, intelligent, and likable man.

Then there's the other guy. Or rather, there's the blank spot where the other guy should have been, which was filled by a documentary he produced and directed. Almost as soon as he was booked to speak at the event, this guy - I'll call him Con McSwindleton - warned the organizers that his chronic health problems might prevent him from making it all the way from his home in the States to Edmonton. That was fine with everybody; they were willing to accommodate him and play it by ear. They didn't even give him a decide-by deadline. When Richard purchased Con's plane ticket a couple of months ago (with generous donations from two members of the group, who subsequently lost their jobs) , he explained the situation to a seasoned travel agent and asked what course of action she would recommend. She advised him to take out cancellation insurance rather than shell out an extra grand for a refundable ticket. If McSwindleton had to cancel, he could get a refund stateside by presenting a doctor's note.

Richard went with the insurance and told Con that if he cancelled (which he did), he would have to give a doc's note to Delta for a refund. Out of that he could keep $500 for his speaker's fee. Consider it a donation to your organization, the Edmonton group told him. You're doing such good work that we'd like to help support it.

You can probably see where this is going.

Con cancelled a couple of days before the event, saying he was too ill with his unspecified condition to travel. One week later, he had made no effort to get the ticket money refunded. Instead, he took $700 worth of credit from Delta for himself and told the Truthers that he simply couldn't get a doctor's note because it is nearly impossible to get one in the U.S. Because he is uninsured, he would have to pay at least $1000 for that sort of thing. Or, as he put it in an email, "You do realize i [sic] dont [sic] have medical insurance and therefore will not be able to obtain a doctors note [sic]". Note, please, that he had never mentioned this snag before.
And because he is sick, unemployed, utterly broke, and living off of friends, he simply can't swing it. It's your fault for being too cheap to get a refundable ticket, he said.

You should know that until recently, McSwindleton was pulling at least $100K a year. Then he was supposedly diagnosed with this grave illness or condition or whatever, and his employer forbid him from working. He has yet to explain why he can't go to the physician(s) who diagnosed him for a note. Yes, Americans can get notes from their doctors without paying $1000. In fact, many doctors will do it free of charge for their patients. At most, you will have to pay a modest fee. Under $20.

Sadly, one of the Truthers halfway buys into Con McSwindleton's blatant B.S., in part because he's a very kind man, and in part because his knowledge of American health care comes exclusively from Sicko.

Damn you, Michael Moore.

6 comments:

tweetey30 said...

People. I remember the last time I was home and asked for a drs note. the dr told me they didnt do that any more.. LOL.. Stupid drs.. They have to for work related and school related things..

S.M. Elliott said...

Drs. can be a hassle, but this guy's lying. It won't cost him a grand to visit his dr. and get a note, particularly *if* he has a documented condition. I wonder if he's really sick at all, though.

He has been incredibly rude and accusatory about everything, calling Richard a "piss poor preparer" who did everything the wrong way. He's trying to fob the blame on to someone else to cover his scam.

He also lied about what he'd been told by Richard - that he would need a dr.'s note to get the ticket refund. McSwindleton agreed with the plan at the time, but now he's pretending he wanted a refundable ticket (rather than the cancellation insurance) all along.

He's a con man, pure and simple. Now he has $700 towards his summer vacation and he didn't have to do a minute's work for it.

Because his scam worked so well this time, I suspect he'll be using it again on some other unsuspecting Truth group.

tshsmom said...

Boss brought up a good point yesterday. Wouldn't he get free airline travel IF he was a former airline pilot as claimed?

S.M. Elliott said...

I have my doubts about that, too. In fact I doubt pretty much everything he says - including his name and location.

Gardenia said...

THANK YOU! I have long contended that men who pull that crappy s___ do make fools of their wives and that is very sad. Very very sad.

S.M. Elliott said...

Amen!