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Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military

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Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there

Enough Joe already

By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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October 19, 2008, 1:26 AM ET



Just a little note after reading some of the news during the weekend. I’ve made a decision in regards to this election. I haven’t announced my endorsement yet, of course. But I do know one thing very clearly. 

I don’t care about Joe. 

Now, this is not to say I don’t care about ALL Joes. I still like Joe Moscowitz, who runs our Purchasing function. I’m okay about Joe Biden, too. Nothing wrong there, as far as I’m concerned. Good luck to him. And I don’t mind a cup of Joe now and then. But these generic Joes who are assuming such a high profile in the media at this point are really getting on my nerves. 

This goes for Joe Sixpack, first of all. It’s unclear to me whether Joe Sixpack got that name because he always HAS a sixpack that he’s willing to share with friends, which is sort of okay, or that he has recently drunk an entire sixpack or is about to, in which case I’m not quite sure. Either way, I don’t care about his opinions, other than which brand of brewsky he’s hauling around. My policy on this issue has always been rock solid: while some sixpacks appeal to me more than others, I’ll drink anything as long as it’s cold. I guess if Joe Sixpack has a view on this issue, I’ll listen to it. But on subjects like the economy or the War in Iraq, I’m less interested. In fact, I’m not. 

More recently, we’ve had a lot about Joe the Plumber. I thought for a while that this was some person named Joe Plummer, and I’m still sort of unclear about it. If my name was either Joe Plumber or Joe Plummer, I’d be annoyed at this point about all the jokes that were being told at my expense. The fact that the actual Joe the Plumber is bemused and confused by all the attention doesn’t mitigate the profound lack of interest I have in him, those who are covering him, and those who continue to observe him as if he’s some sort of scientific subject worthy of scrutiny. He’s not. I mean, maybe he was for about six minutes, but those minutes are over and if I never see another YouTube video on the guy it will be too soon. 

What’s next? Joe Mama? 

All this Joe stuff is preternaturally weird, as far as I’m concerned. It’s like, we’re on the Titanic, and there’s a huge iceberg in the mist up ahead, and all the guys in the radio room want to do is listen to Jazz on the shortwave from Luxembourg. Why don’t we all pay attention to the boat for a while?

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