Why, Why, Why?

Why is it okay for for the financial "gurus" to receive millions of dollars in bonuses after making so many mistakes that the economy of the US still hasn't recovered from, but it isn't okay for teachers or any union member to make $75K to 100K teaching children how to read and write?  For some reason unions send the almost never right into spasms of impotent fury, could it be because they're jealous that collective bargaining provides some measure of protection from arbitrary firings and ensures that workers get benefits and a decent living wage? Do they mind that the police and fire departments are unionized? Curious minds want to know.

Why is it that whenever I put something away for safekeeping that I can never find it again?

Why are doctors trying to fix something that clearly can't be fixed?  Are they sure it wasn't just gas?  If he had a heart I could understand, but he doesn't.  Obviously death panels don't exist, since Cheney has used more than his fair share of government provided health care.

But voters quickly sniff out what this means. The government will use the "science" of comparative effectiveness research to achieve cost savings the only way government can: denial of care. The Soviet medical system kept down the heart disease caseload by placing cardiac care units on the fifth floor, walk up. Death panels, anyone?

A majority of Americans want the public option, why is it that the mainstream media and Republicans not only think otherwise, but repeatedly try to marginalize everyone that does?

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Saturday Morning Snickers

The economy is so bad that:

I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's and the kid behind the counter asked "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked  "Insufficient Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.

Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.

Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.

The Mafia is laying off judges.

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!

And, finally...

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Lifeline. I got a call center in Pakistan, and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

Thanks L

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Tuesday Morning Rant

Has anybody considered the idea that if Democrats and Republicans had to vote in each others primaries instead of their own, that we might have better candidates to choose from?  Both sides could run their own candidates but then the voters could decide who they hated least in the primaries and the general elections could be reserved for who they liked more.  We might end up with politicians who appeal to the majority instead of the wingnuts.  As a plus, people might start thinking their vote really mattered.

Steve Doocy believes that the Stupak Amendment will "make it very clear that federal money will not be used to end a life."  I guess it's magic fairy dust that pays for executions.  Or that once a child is born, it isn't a life.

This is so wrong.  One of the commenters at CBS Political Hotsheet compared Palin to Jesus on the cross.  It's a good thing the Bible says he rose from the dead otherwise he would be spinning in his grave.  Like a nuclear powered top.

by 50BMS13 November 17, 2009 3:20 AM EST

This article is nonsense. SARAH PALIN WILL BE THE 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! She is Beautiful, Bright, and has Braun. She FAR MORE QUALIFIED than Obama to run this country. As Lou Dobbs said today,"Obama is mis-managing the USA" All the hate I see posted here makes me think of what Jesus said when he was dying. Jesus said "Forgive them Father for they do not know what they are doing". A lot of posters here don't realize it now, but you will love Sarah Palin when she puts our great country back on track. She will know how to deal with Ahmadinejad and Kim Il Jong. She won't kiss muslim a** and "waiter bow" to foreign heads of state. She won't apologize for the American way to the world. You will all see this soon enough. Please keep an open mind my friends and don't listen to all the poison posts of hate people put up. She never lies. She knows lots of stuff. She can kill a moose, gut it, and cook it. She has been Mayor, Governor, and VP candidate. Great days are ahead of us. The future is bright!

On track to where?  Due to the great corporate policies of off-shoring jobs and manufacturing, we don't make anything here anymore and until we do, we are not going to recover.  I'm sorry, but the woman isn't qualified to be a dog catcher much less President of the United States.  I realize that Bush set the bar pretty low but politics isn't the limbo, it's more like the high jump.  The idea is to step over the bar, not under it.  At least it used to be.  Going Rogue or Going Rouge, it really doesn't matter.  She's had more fame and shame than she deserves and it's time for the country to find a different American Idiot.

As the country recovered from World War II, the unions prospered.  And when the unions prospered, everyone else did also.  Men made a wage that enabled them to pay for the roof over their families heads, put food on the table, take a vacation once in a while, save for retirement and put at least one of their children through college.  All without government help.

Medical care wasn't an issue if you had a job and most schools not only taught reading, writing and arithmetic, they also had chemistry and biology labs, sports, art, wood shop, choir, band classes, automotive shops, drama classes and field trips.  Quite a few people were happy.  My, how times have changed.

At the Division of Family and Children Services, Keasha Taylor, 36 and black, helped explain the system recently to a white mother. Ms. Taylor, who was there because her family had been evicted, told the mother, who was in line for food stamps, that a child with acute asthma might be eligible for Social Security.

“Right now, a lot of white people are in this situation,” Ms. Taylor said, recalling the conversation later. “We’re already used to poverty; they’re really not.”

In the eighties, corporations and politicians began accusing the unions of ruining the country.  They decimated whole towns by shipping work off to the other side of the world in order to avoid paying union wages and to increase corporate and shareholder profits.  They were extremely successful.  They no longer provide jobs here in America and Americans can no longer afford to buy their products.  Heck, they can't even afford to keep their homes.

Meanwhile, cities and towns lost their tax base, hospitals closed and schools became rundown and all but a few classes were eliminated.  This is now the fault of the SEIU (why is it that I specifically searched for news stories and the majority of the stories were from blogs?) and teacher's unions, with the reasoning being that the unions are thugs, they are protecting incompetent people and if the unions didn't exist everything would be better.  Taxes would go down, even thought they are much less than in the sixties, and everyone would have a job due to the trickle down effect. 

The only thing trickling down is brown, stinky and increasing.  There will be no pony and there will be no freedom.  During the last Depression, people were able to grow some of their food and barter for other necessities.  How can you barter when your neighbor has less than you do?  How is the next generation going to compete on the global stage when they don't have the tools they need to compete or the critical thinking to tell the difference?

Today's politicians are proud that they believe that evolution and climate change are a crock of bull, right up until they get a disease that can only be cured by more research or their waterfront property washes away, and don't mind eliminating funding for science and education as if the future is less important than a past that existed three hundred years ago.  Then they screech about the Taliban (not too fond of people committing crimes in their name) and how they must be stopped in order to preserve American freedoms.

What freedoms would those be?  Other than the right to bear arms and put people to death at will, not many spring to mind.  Freedom of speech only applies if you aren't disagreeing with the uber right's point of view.  Freedom of religion only applies if you're Christian.  And you had better be the right type of Christian.   It's hard to have freedom of the press when they bought and sold their own soul. The freedom to be secure in your own home or person hasn't existed in years.  Amendments Five through Eight only apply if you are rich and powerful and the Ninth and Tenth are only used when politicians can't get around the first eight.  The only one that hasn't been abridged in the last few years is the Third and they got around that in New Orleans by sending in Blackwater. 

How can we return to a time when America was great if we don't have anything to build on except hate and fear?  How is voting for any politician going to do anything except rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?  The American people fell for empty hope and change promises last year and all they got was Bush not white.

Putting an idiot in office won't fix the problems we have as a nation.  Investing in our people will.  We need jobs and in order to have jobs we need to make something and make it well.  Americans need jobs that will pay their bills, not put money into executive pockets that are already so full that they don't have a concept of how the majority of Americans are suffering and have the balls to say that it's God's will.

Codswallop is more like it.

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Going To The Dogs

Wow!  Republicans really are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.  The comments are fascinating.  No matter how the NY-23 race turns out the GOP is dissolving from within.  I almost feel sorry for the them but it's their own fault.  They embraced the wackos last year, they tolerated and encouraged the fringe to express their anger, rage and hatred during the campaign and as with any rabid animal, it's biting the hand that feeds them.

They don't need another job, they need to live within their means.  I'm sorry that one can't live comfortably on $93K a year and while I admire the work ethic of getting another job to support your lifestyle instead of doing what the rest of us do which is to cut back or eliminate expenses, taking a minimum wage job that might keep a family on the lower end of the economic spectrum from becoming homeless, is part of why we are in the economic mess we are all suffering through.  Those that have always think they deserve more or that they shouldn't have to sacrifice.  Marie Antoinette would be so impressed.

The kerfuffle about the Obama boy's club amuses me.  I tried warning people that he had little to no respect for women and their opinions, so it doesn't surprise me at all that women are being cockblocked while decisions are being made in circumstances that have no official record.

Somebody has been watching a little too much television.  The story never says why the owner had to steal his dog from the pound under the cover of night instead of picking him up during normal business hours.  It doesn't sound like the dog's behavior was a problem since the animal society released the dog to a friend of the owner.

Speaking of dogs, is this normal sleeping behavior?

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This 'N That

No wonder people have given up looking for work.  They did everything they were supposed to, they got more education so they could get ahead and now their resumes are the first ones discarded by employers looking to hire.  Because they might leave for a better job when times get better.  Like that's going to happen anytime in the near future.

The overwhelming response astonished him. He asked Cheree Seawood, one of his current assistants, to go through the résumés and help pick out several to interview. To make the task easier, he decided they should be even more rigorous in ruling out anyone who appeared even slightly overqualified (emphasis mine).

Key senators are not thwarting President Obama on healthcare, they are thwarting the will of the American people.  And it should be reported that way.  If the senators are worried about survival, perhaps they should vote the way their constituents want instead of pandering to the insurance industry.

Newsday is going to put its content behind a paywall, with access limited to people who subscribe to the print edition, pay for local cable, or you can pony up $5 a week, which is $260 a year.  If people wouldn't pay $50 a year for the NYTimes a few years ago, very few people are going to find Newsday to be worthy of $260 a year or $5 an article when they accidentally print something interesting.

What drugs are these people on?  For eight of the twelve years the Republicans controlled Congress they had a Republican president who claimed he was the Decider and they rammed bills, useless proclamations and tax cuts through to the detriment of the country.  And the spineless Democrats not only helped them, sometimes they gave them more than they asked for.

“We need more voices,” said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, one of the party’s up-and-coming leaders. “Our party’s challenge has been that we need to be more inclusive — we need to attract the middle again. ... When one party controls all the levers of power in Washington, they’re going to try and villainize whoever they can on our side. It gives us an opportunity now to try and harness the energy and point it in a positive direction, so that we can attract the middle of the country to the common-sense conservative views that we have been about as a party.”

As the Bible states (Job 4:8), those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it, and by pandering to the lowest common denominator the Republicans coddled a section of society which attacks its own instead of working together.  80 percent of voters do not identify with the Republican party or its ideals and unless there are some major changes in attitude those in the middle will run even further away.

Cheney wants Obama to quit "dithering" on sending more troops to Afghanistan.  Meanwhile, back in the real world, a majority oppose sending more troops off to die in another useless land war in Asia.

Singing for her supper. Or not.The Performance Royal Society caused itself a little bad publicity by telling a woman who sings while she stocks shelves in a grocery store that she needs a performance license. Meanwhile musicians also don't approve of the government using their songs for torture. Britney Spears and Eminem qualify, but the Bee Gees?

Someone is begging for a Darwin Award.  Dennis LeRoy Anderson outfitted is La-Z-Boy with a lawnmower engine, a cup holder and what every pimped out ride needs, a stereo.  One day he rode it to the bar and had eight or nine beers.  He tried to ride it home but a parked vehicle jumped in his way and with a blood alcohol level of .029, besides wrecking his ride, he received a DWI.

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Total Fluff

A long time ago I used to watch soap operas.  Mom was a fan of All My Children and my brothers watched One Life To Live until Meredith was killed off (I told you it was a long time ago) but it remained my favorite for many years.  My ex-husband and I used to race home from school to watch the ABC soaps and when they went to an hour we were ecstatic.  That is not to say that some of the story lines didn't wander in to "what the HECK were you thinking" territory.  Eterna?  Really?  On the other hand,  Ryan Phillipe as the first gay teen in a soap opera and subsequent story displayed the best of daytime television.  As did Ellen Wheeler's portrayal of a woman dying of AIDS in 1988.

Soap operas have been both the training ground (Kevin Bacon, Morgan Freeman, Kathleen Turner, Meg Ryan, Christopher Reeve, Tommy Lee Jones, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Susan Sarandon) and the final resting place ( Ruth Warrick, Anna Lee) for many a great actor.  When Guiding Light went off the air a few weeks ago I'm sure a few people were surprised at some of the now famous stars who were doctors, lawyers, troublemakers and hearthrobs back in the day.  Judith Light turned in some of the best dramatic performances I've ever seen and did it day after day long before she was known for that stupid comedy.  And while most people know Nathan Fillion from Firefly, I remember him sleeping with his mother's same age mortal enemy.

Which brings me to Hans Gudegast.  Mom was a fan of 12 O'Clock High, Combat, and my personal favorites, the Rat Patrol and Mission Impossible, where he played a not so nice German in all of them.  For the last 29 years he has starred as Victor Newman on the Young and the Restless and due to the economy, irrelevant stories and corporate stupidity, the powers that be have decided that six months into a three year contract and having not violated any of the terms, his contract is no longer valid and want him to take a pay cut.  Like he dropped off the turnip truck this morning.

Sony is willing to cut off its nose to spite its face.  The genre is dying and they are eagerly tapping the last nail in the coffin.  The soap heyday has come and gone.  Luke and Laura are no more, Erica has married everyone in town and Viki doesn't have any more marbles to lose.  Their children have become whiny adults and nobody wants to watch them.  Instead of returning to what made soaps so entertaining, they shove hugely uninteresting characters down the viewer's throats in a vain effort to capture today's ADD (tweet tweet) youth market.  And the slide into
oblivion will continue because once you don't care about the characters the story becomes moot.

Soap operas have killed off many a favorite character (or tried recasting), but Victor is one of the biggies.  You don't get rid of the star of the number one soap opera since 1988 and expect to stay in the top spot without a character that people love to hate.  Or hate to love.  Like most corporate decisions nowadays, it's about the current bottom line with no thought to the future or props to the past.  They think that by cutting salaries and benefits for the workers that the executives will continue to enjoy their outrageous bonuses and the piper will continue to play.  Unfortunately, history has shown that if you don't pay the piper, the music stops and the greedy are usually left without a chair.

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Looney Tunes

What has happened to this country?  People seem to have lost their freaking minds.  The state of Michigan would rather have kids wait outside in the rain and snow (give them an umbrella was one suggestion) for a bus than let them wait inside a neighbor's house.  They have a law on the books that says if a child who isn't related to you is in your house more than 28 days a year while their parents aren't at home you are running an unlicensed daycare center even if you aren't being paid.  It doesn't matter if the kids are there five minutes or five hours.  As one commenter pointed out, if one of those kids was abducted there would be a completely different attitude and people would be wailing about how neighbors don't watch out for each other anymore.  Once again no good deed goes unpunished.

Who's doing the economic projections now?  Condoleeza Rice?  It's not unexpected to me or anyone else I know that consumer confidence would drop.  Money doesn't go as far as it used to and opportunities to increase one's income have become almost nonexistent.  It's only if you live in a bubble that you think things are getting better for the average consumer.  You know people aren't dealing with a full deck when they think that a few hundred people on Wall Street raking in dough is an indicator of a bogus recovery than the reality that hundreds of thousands of people who can't play the stock market, don't have jobs, are losing their homes and dying for lack of health care.  Nobody could have seen that coming.

Many years ago I worked for Home Savings in their signature verify department.  There were three of us whose job it was to match suspicious check signatures to their enrollment card on file.  The other fifteen people in the department had the responsibility of authorizing which checks would be paid from flagged accounts.  They would spend the morning ordering the checks so the bank would make more money on overdraft fees.  That was 1983 and not much has changed other than the fees have been increased.  Like any other business they want more of your money and aren't ashamed to use any means to get it.  Debit card transactions and are one more way to accomplish this.  The mistake most people make with banks is thinking that it's your money.  It was until you put it in the bank, now it's theirs and they decide how you can spend it.

Chopped liver, onions on the side.

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Temper Tantrum Thursday

California has tumbled into the sea.  Of stupidity.  Yesterday while everyone was occupied with former state senator Mike Duvall and his drippy mistress, the Governor/Dictator threatened to veto everything that crosses his desk unless he gets exactly what he wants.  This includes such things as a welcome home Vietnam Veteran's Day and health and dental insurance for children.  Nothing like making your bones on the backs of innocent children or veterans who served the country faithfully.

The Senate withdrew all of its 43 bills from the Republican governor's desk for temporary safekeeping. But in an act of defiance, the Assembly left on his desk a bill that would designate March 30 as "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day."

"I dare the governor to veto this bill," said Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, before the close of Tuesday's session.

Shortly afterward, Schwarzenegger accepted the dare and vetoed Assembly Bill 264.

"Our state is facing significant challenges, including the need for comprehensive changes in our policies on water, energy, and corrections and the need to take meaningful steps to stimulate the economy and rein in the rising levels of unemployment," Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto message. "This bill does nothing to address any of these issues. I look forward to considering this measure when these other major issues are addressed."

A good portion of the deficit wouldn't exist if Arnold hadn't revoked the vehicle license fee and given large corporations tax breaks that they didn't need and won't pass the savings on to the consumers.  Waiting until the infrastructure falls down or forest fires are blazing out of control is penny wise and pound foolish.  But that's how legislatures roll nowadays.  Take from the poor and give to the rich.  I loved this comment that went with the article in the Sacramento Bee and it should become the rallying cry for all taxpayers.

It's not about the person that happens to occupy the position of governor in this state, and people need to stop doing the right versus left b.s.. You're all part of a game if you come on here and talk about how bad the folks are with the D's or the R's by their name. Ya'll need to wake up and realize that there is a group of people running our government and our lives, that don't give a rat's patootie about us, as long as we keep paying taxes and filling up their coffers. Folks on the left side and the right side need to STOP playing the game and realize that we're all getting screwed by "them". Stop fighting the other side and DEMAND and that your representatives in government do what is best for the people that pay their salaries.

Like that's going to happen.  Meanwhile, the poverty train is adding new cars.  The more jobs that are cut the less people there are to spend money and more jobs get cut.  Don't you just love merry-go-rounds?

The poor people of South Carolina.  On the one hand they have the magnificent Stephen Colbert and on the other they have a governor who committed adultery on the taxpayer's dime and doesn't have the decency to resign even though he has been asked by his own party to vacate the premises.  In addition to that they also have a representative who can't observe the rules of decorum during a president's speech and feels comfortable calling the President a liar on national television in the midst of his speech.  Mr. Wilson was an Army Reserve Officer and has four children serving in the military and he knows that he is supposed to respect the office if he can't respect the person.  Genteel he is not.

Feeling sorry for the victims in the wrong way driving deaths in New York is natural and wanting some type of closure is also natural.  Michael Bastardi is justified to feel anger but he needs to direct it at the person who caused the accident, not who she was married to.  Mr. Shuler lost his wife, daughter and three nieces while also worrying about whether his son would survive.  Accusing him of involvement or implying that he had a role in the accident is cruel, mean spirited and evil.  It also shows that Mr. Bastardi (it's hard to put that "i" on the end) wants to profit monetarily from his father and brother's death.  This is a no win situation and trying to get revenge by ruining one more person's life by making blanket statements and accusations of a cover-up from someone who was miles away when the accident happened, is foolish.  Ever since 9/11 Americans have been determined to make someone pay, even if it isn't the someone who caused the tragedy.

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Saturday Morning Observations

Sometimes you hear things that are so funny they are referred to as knee slappers.  Nothing had ever struck me like that until I read this.  I must have snickered for half an hour.  Webster's is going to have to redefine the definition of crazy.  It should be pretty easy, all they need is Bachmann's picture and a link to any news article that quotes her.  She almost makes Palin sound sane.  In Chinese Medicine the unnatural sheen to her eyes would make a practitioner refer to her as "shen disturbed" or as it's known in western medicine "bat-shit crazy". Malkin also has that glassy eyed look when she's ranting, ma belle they are not.

Joining them in the bat-shit crazy department is GOP Congressman Paul Broun.  He thinks the President is on his way to enacting a dictatorship.  Warrantless wiretapping, imprisoning people for years without a trial, torture and the destruction of civil liberties didn't bother him during the Bush administration but a civilian disaster response team, nonexistent gun control, and a national press corp that consistently reports and repeats the Rushpublican mantra as gospel give him the vapors.  The devil really did go down to Georgia and after he lost the golden fiddle he stayed once he realized that the politicians would sell their soul to keep their fellow man in poverty and despair while pretending it in the little people's best interests.

So the President wants the liberals to be good soldiers about abandoning the public option.  The country would be better served if he would man up and support the public option that two thirds of this country wants instead of pandering to lunatics, lobbyists and legislators who don't have a clue what it's like to try and survive during the jobless recovery.  First of all I already have been a good soldier but I'm not eligible for Veteran's healthcare.  Secondly, while I do have preexisting conditions (asthma and kidney problems) and have been turned down several times for insurance in the past, who cares if insurance companies will cover me when I can't afford the premiums, the out of pocket expenses or the co-pays?  If by some misfortune I develop a disease that requires more expensive medication what makes anyone think $300 a month for drugs is feasible?  Instead of the liberals compromising why don't you do what we want and what you promised during the election?  I barely voted for Obama in the first place, I will be more than happy to vote against him in a primary.

Interesting how bankers and economists are worried about consumers not contributing to the economic recovery and gloss over the fact that more employed people have to use food stamps in order to survive.  They seem to have missed the point that it's awfully hard to buy stuff when you don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  9.7% unemployment and that doesn't take into account the underemployed or people who have dropped off the grid completely.  Remember, it's always dark before it goes completely black and any light you see at the end of the tunnel is likely to be the headlamp of an oncoming train.

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Guns, Cuts, Tax Credits And War Crimes

Okay, I'm breaking down and buying myself a pistol.  Three of them to be exact, all strategically placed within the house.  And unlike the people from the right wing fringe who strut around using their Second Amendment "right" to intimidate people into not using their First Amendment right to free speech to express an opposing viewpoint (Arthur Frommer is trying to decide if he should recommend a travel boycott of Arizona but he personally has canceled all his trips), I'm going to be using mine to try and stop Shadow from barking at everything that happens outside in the parking lot.  Of course I will be using water instead of bullets and neither the President nor innocent bystanders can be affected by my actions.

And so it begins.  The closing of for profit nursing homes due to budget cuts.  88 elderly people, many who don't have families and all who are on Medi-Cal,  are being forced from their nursing facility into whatever dump can be found for them.  And the seniors have to hope that their new home doesn't end up closing due to the asinine budget cuts the Governator has determined must be done in his ongoing effort to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly.  While the rest of the country worries about end-of-life counseling nonexistent death panels, these defenseless members of society have become pawns in the California budget power game.  Isn't that just great?  The generation that lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War get to end their lives in urine scented dormitories with the same sad eyed compatriots.  Until they are moved to different facilities that can warehouse them for ten cents less a person.

The 47 million uninsured and the 30 million underinsured in this country don't need and can't use tax credits.  When making rent is an issue, when feeding the kids and keeping the lights on consumes your budget then money later on is not going to help.  Simply put, what people need is to be able to access medical, dental and eye care when they need them, not when their budget says they can afford to.  If you don't have $50 for a doctor's visit you either hope the problem goes away on its own, that you don't have to go to the emergency room or that you learn to live with the issue.  None of those are optimal health care options and not only do they directly affect the quality of life, they also affect the quantity of life.  Maybe if we were a healthier country we wouldn't be so angry.

I almost feel sorry for him but then I remember I have two Article 15s for disobeying a lawful order and know he had a choice and he took the coward's way out.  And now, many more years later than it should have taken, he's sorry about it.  Interesting how he served three years under house arrest for the deaths of 500 people and Charles Graner got ten years in Leavenworth for abuse, conspiracy and assault.  From a government that condoned torture.

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Penny Wise And Pound Foolish

The California Dream has become a nightmare for a good proportion of its citizens. The Governator continues his policy of balancing the budget on the backs of the poor because the poor can't contribute to his coffers or buy him cigars and they must be punished until they miraculously find a way to improve their situation and their salaries. Without education or viable job opportunities of course. His solutions to the California budget crises is too take from the poor and give discounts to the corporations and the rich.  As a result emergency rooms will become even more crowded, elderly people with dementia will have little to no support and for $8 an hour will have very few competent people to help take care of them, and going to the park or beach for recreation is on its way to becoming a thing of the past.

The Golden State no longer gleams unless you're rich, in which case the immediate future looks quite bright.  It's only a matter of time before the worker bees find somewhere else where their minimum wage will go farther and they won't have to live in tent cites or parking lots that let them park their RV for the night.  And these aren't illegals, they are electricians and truck drivers.  Who will probably be joined by other middle class workers that worked for the state and couldn't afford to lose 14 percent of their pay.  And the best part?  Schwarzenegger and crew believe that the same amount of tax revenue can be brought in even if there are fewer employees to do it.

As part of budget-cutting measures, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered most state employees to take off three days each month without pay, including the staff of the Franchise Tax Board.

Despite objections from the board, the governor ordered employees to take two days off each month starting in February and a third beginning this month. The board estimated that the loss of work time already had cut income tax revenue by $177.4 million for the spending year that ended June 30.

If the furloughs continue, the board said the backlog of dealing with tax disputes and late collections would contribute to a net loss of another $372 million over the two years after that.

This isn't about balancing the budget, it's about revenge and punishing people for working for the state.

The board collects both the personal and corporate income tax, which bankrolls about 70% of the state's $85-billion general fund. The estimated tax collections lost through furloughs represent about 1% of all state income taxes paid in the state.

Forcing about 5,000 people at the board to take furloughs essentially reduces an already streamlined workforce by about 15%. But the productivity losses don't stop there. An additional 289 staffers have received notices that they could be laid off in the fall.

The reductions in personnel immediately translate into lost revenue for a state that's trying to dig itself out of a $24-billion hole with an austerity budget that the governor signed into law Tuesday.

"As a department, whose only product is revenue -- voluntary and involuntary -- cuts in our operations do impact our final revenue output," Franchise Tax Board Executive Officer Selvi Stanislaus wrote on June 30 to Schwarzenegger's finance director, Mike Genest.

The state would save about $60 million in salaries by furloughing all board workers for three days per month, the board said. But cumulative revenue losses would be as much as nine times that amount.

It looks like I really did get out in time even though there are three things I don't like about living in Reno.  One, the cigarette smoke.  It's everywhere.  I didn't realize how few people smoked in California until I started dodging the smoke clouds that hang in the most unusual places.  Two, they don't recycle here and I feel guilty not sorting my trash or returning my bottles.  Third and most important, I traded Dianne (I don't care what my constituents want) Feinstein for Harry (what are cojones and why do I need them) Reid.  Good grief, his hands off approach has made sure that nothing gets done in a timely manner except whatever is good for corporations and banks.  We the people are treated more like silly children instead of taxpaying citizens who deserve equal representation.

What the heck is wrong with this country when a family forgets one of their kids in a taxi and the taxi driver gets the reprimand instead of the parents?  Twenty years ago I had a friend who left his five year old at the grocery store.  For four hours.  He finally noticed the kid was missing and went back and found him tapping his foot with his hands on hips.  I never let an opportunity pass to tease this guy.  He may have been cute but he certainly wasn't responsible.  And neither was the taxi driver.

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Saturday Morning Observations

That is kind of the point, isnt't it?  Schwarzenegger is California's version of hurricane Katrina.  Get rid of the poor, elderly and disabled by any means necessary, let them die if he has to and California will be the Golden State once again.  Completely missing the point that the people who actually do the work, the ones that clean the buildings, pick the fruits and vegetables, serve the food in restaurants or other such "lowly" jobs can no longer afford to live there and that eventually there won't be anyone to give the rich their due.

"It does not look like rich people are leaving California in order to avoid income taxes," Kolko said.

Tax critics often claim the state's high cost of living and tax structure drive high-income earners out.

The study found that the rich — those in the top 20 percent of income earners — leave California at only a slightly higher rate than those who arrive. For those with incomes above $200,0000, the departure rate is only 1.09 households for every one household that arrives, the report said.

Meanwhile, 1.73 households with annual incomes of $22,000 or less depart California each year for every one out-of-state arrival.

And yes, one of the factors in my decision to move to Nevada is that they have no state income tax.  I don't mind paying taxes, as long as they are used to benefit the public not just a select few.

The older I get, the less geek cred I have.  Along with not having any interest because I think we're in a technological holding pattern at the moment and I'm waiting for something a little more interesting than Twitter.

The problem with Texas having a known creationist in charge of the state Board of Education is that Texas has great influence on textbook printings.  Publishers are as cash strapped as any other business and can only afford to print a select number of books.  If Texas wants to teach creationism as part of its curriculum then a lot of other states (and children) will be exposed to the same nonsense.

The New York Times is considering charging for access.  Again.  Good luck with that.  All it did the last time was take themselves out of my reading rotation.  I don't pay for Wikipedia and the Times version of information sharing isn't much more accurate.

The Quit bull (love that term!) is still babbling.  So she chose not to play "their game".  What game would that be?  The one where you have to cross the finish line in order to collect your reward?

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More Opinions Than A Newspaper

Looks like we left just in time. I didn't vote for Arnold and I most certainly didn't vote to recall Gray Davis because I didn't believe rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic was going to help. I did vote for Prop 13 and believe it is long past time for parts of it to be repealed. Specifically the two thirds majority for tax increases and corporations receiving the same tax break that only the elderly should have.  Fifteen people who have roofs over their head, food in their stomachs, taxpayer paid healthcare to go along with their cars, limousines and Hummers have cost the state an additional $7billion with their artificial tantrums and complete disregard for the welfare of their non-corporate constituents.

Now sit back and watch as the quality of life in California plummets: More crime and fewer law enforcement officers; more prisoners in already overflowing penitentiaries; more students crammed in dilapidated classrooms with fewer and lower-paid teachers; more kids thrown out of programs and into the streets; more layoffs and "furloughs"; more poverty without relief; more drug addicts and meth labs in "unincorporated" areas where sheriffs have been laid-off. And don't forget the crumbling infrastructure and the unkempt and unsafe state parks and young people denied the opportunity to go to college and a public health care system on the verge of collapse and a widening class divide between the richest and poorest Californians. Schwarzenegger's "legacy" will be that he tried his best to turn California into a post-apocalyptic Hellscape replicating the dystopian cinematography of one his Sci-Fi movies.

Yup, he played his best Kindergarten Cop in True Lies fashion.  Somehow they seem to get things done in Nevada.  We even have the occasional nice cop.

This just in, General Franco Michael Jackson is still dead.  I hope Lompoc gets some of the tourist dollars, they would appreciate it and people would discover a town where the air smells of flowers.  Oh, and to that paper that I no longer link to, Michael Jackson is not getting weirder in death, the coverage is.

Mine isn't worth the paper it's printed on.  And it certainly isn't worth the money it took to get it.

Kick his ass to the curb and don't look back.  There is no marriage to work on and it would be better for the kids if they saw that at least one parent had respect for themselves.  If it had been a single incident or partner maybe he could be forgiven.  But once your husband of twenty years has babbled in public about his soul mate and it isn't you, there is nothing left to save. It's time to move on with your life and find somebody who respects you.

Perhaps if the movie industry had actors instead of stars and good writing instead of explosions every five seconds and it didn't cost $10 for a ticket to a movie where the credits are almost as long as the  movie, maybe the industry wouldn't be in such trouble.

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It Must Be Thursday

If you can't stand the heat maybe you shouldn't be in the kitchen.  Sarah Palin wants to be president (or does she?) and she can't take a little humor about her family?  Good grief, they are one whiny bunch.  I don't remember Republicans doing anything but laughing when 13 year old Chelsea Clinton was described by Rush Limbaugh as ugly because her father was Janet Reno.  And having read the joke about A-Rod knocking up a Palin, it sounded more like a slam on A-Rod than a dig at Willow or Bristol because in A-Rod's steroid induced haze he'd hit Amy Winehouse if she could stay away from her drugs for an hour.  Though he does seem to have a penchant for older women with kids which is why Sarah pretends to be so upset, she thought she was going to be the punchline.

Speaking of beauty queens that can't do their job, Miss California has finally been replaced by someone willing to represent California and not herself or her fake agenda.  Carrie Prejean was given more chances than Tom Sizemore and just like him she couldn't stay out of trouble or follow the terms of their probation.

Does the internet have a short attention span?  Of course it does.  Too much press about torture photos? Announce a Supreme Court nominee and poof! the photos go the way of the dodo bird.  Hopefully the same thing won't happen to the Inspector General report that's been hidden for five years.  Shooting an abortion doctor in a church provides a little too much heat and shows the hypocrisy of the Pro-Life or right wing extremist movement?  Poof!  Tase a 72 year old grandma for obnoxiously refusing to sign a traffic ticket.  I remember when cops used to be able to do their job without resorting to tasers or high speed chases that result in the deaths of innocent people.  Heaven forbid that the police do detective work and arrest them the old fashioned way.

The AMA opposes a government sponsored health plan for everyone.  Why would anyone be surprised by that?  When I was in school we had this elderly acupuncturist from China.  He talked about how he loved MRIs but the problem was you needed a whole building to use it and it didn't treat anything.  He also told a story about going to the doctor, he called them note givers.  You enter the office and the doctor doesn't even look up.  You start to tell him your problem and seventeen seconds later he has made his decision and either hands you a prescription, paperwork for a blood or urine test or sends you for X-rays.  You go back two weeks later and if you aren't better he gives you one of the the papers you didn't get the first time.  On your third visit he might look up from his desk, mainly because he wants to see who is causing him all this paperwork.  Chances are he hasn't touched you, which used to be known as palpation, because his assistant has done that for him.  You go home, still not feeling well so now you are on anti-depressants, and the bills start arriving.  Great system for the doctor, not so great for the patient.

There are mistakes and then there are MISTAKES.  No matter how much money this family receives, it will never replace the memories or the possessions.  It should be the law that when a house is going to be demolished that paperwork should be plastered on the doors, the mailbox and there should be an actual address, not just GPS coordinates.  A little common sense from the demolition company wouldn't have hurt either.  Such as the house was in good condition and there were valuables inside.  A few questions would have gone a long way in preventing this tragedy.

I would have had to have net worth for this statistic to directly affect me.  As it is I can't fix my broken tooth, mom broke her glasses this morning and I have no way to replace them which leaves her almost blind and even though I've dropped the price on my car by $1000 the only offers I've received have been obvious scams.  And the best part?  Due to a mixup Social Security is going to adjust mom's check by $300 in July.  And by adjust, I mean down not up.  Unless I sell the car for less than it's worth or a miracle happens, mom and I are going to be homeless.  Oh to be sixteen again, the fridge was always full and the rent was always paid.  As long as I'm dreaming, a fairy godmother would be really cool.  And nowadays it doesn't even have to be a woman.

Thirty five years ago yesterday at 4:55 pm  I raised my right hand and swore to defend this country by serving in the US Army.  Back then the enemy was Vietnam and communism.  Now we're falling apart from the inside.  Who would have ever guessed?

When Did We Lose Our Ability To Empathize?

What the heck is wrong with people?  Are our math skills so poor that we can't do simple addition and subtraction?  For a supposedly Christian nation we sure are harsh on those who have the least.  A recent Gallup poll finds that even though the economy has tanked, that rental prices have risen as home prices have fallen, that food and medical costs have also risen high enough that families making $50K a year are visiting food banks to supplement their pantry and doing without medical insurance while hoping for the best and yet only 41% of Americans think that the poor are paying their far share of taxes and 16% believe that the poor pay too little.  If you want the poor to pay more taxes, you should let them earn more money.  As Warren Buffet pointed out a few years ago, his secretary and cleaning lady paid a higher tax rate than he did.  In other words, a larger proportion of their income.

In California the minimum wage is $8 an hour.  If your company hasn't forced you to take an unpaid vacation or cut your hours you will gross $320 per week, $1,387 per month and $16,640 per year. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it?  Back in the day, the rule was that you were to spend less than one third of your income on lodging so living by yourself is out of the question if you plan on eating.  Rents in Santa Clara for a one bedroom apartment hover between $950 and $1400 a month.  These numbers can be reduced if you are willing to live in a high crime area on the wrong side of town or live so far away from your job that it takes you an hour to get to work.  But what the heck, you're poor and don't deserve to live with the "better" members of society.

Federal and State taxes are taken out before you ever see your check, along with Medicare, State Disability and Social Security taxes, so that $1387 a month is really closer to $1000 which means you compromise and live in a house or apartment with several other people and rent will only cost you $550.  That doesn't include utilities or telephone, be it a land line or cell.  If you don't have a car there are no payments, repairs, registration or insurance to worry about but the bus pass for the bus that doesn't run on weekends or holidays that's a mile from your apartment on one end and a mile to the job on the other is $70 a month.

Now this job obviously doesn't have health insurance and if you are young and never been seriously ill, the premiums can be pretty low but heaven forbid you're over thirty because you are looking at premiums around $250 a month.  I hear tell that you are supposed to buy new clothes occasionally so you had better be a Wal-Mart shopper, but not too often.  No going to the dentist either and if you need glasses they had best be of the birth control variety.  Fortunately they happen to be in style now.

You really shouldn't have pets, hobbies, own a television now that everything is going digital and you can't afford cable or satellite, go to the movies, smoke cigarettes, or enjoy a beer or latte because that money is coming directly out of your food budget since you gross over $1100 a month you aren't eligible for food stamps.  And with the price for a decent loaf of bread coming in at over $3.50 you should be eating rice and beans.  It doesn't matter if you aren't getting proper nutrition and are gaining weight because all you can afford are simple carbohydrates, you're poor and that's all the world owes you.

Now what happens if you stupidly fall in love and get married?  That salary will not support two people but you will finally qualify for food stamps.  According to the traditional view of Christian marriage a man is supposed to support the wife and she is supposed to stay home and take care of the kids you can't afford.  Reliable birth control is out of the question and abortion is a no-no so you better not have sex either.

Unfortunately this recession is hitting all income levels and the ranks of the newly poor are swelling at the same time as all of the safety nets are being eliminated.  For those of us who are either not knowledgeable or have too much knowledge, poverty is our future.  It won't matter how much you have paid into the system over the years, your fellow Americans think you are a loser and abusing the system because they are positive you're lazy.  Not that the job that required a Master's degree when you took it was shipped overseas and the only thing left in your area is working at Wal-Mart and they won't hire you because you're over qualified.  Even though you had six months of savings that have run out and now can't pay your bills, it's all your fault now because you're poor.  You should have planned better and gotten an advanced education.  Oh wait, you did that and have the student loans to prove it.

What the heck is wrong with us that we must make ourselves feel better by demeaning those who can't fight back? The poor pay into the system in many ways (including the regressive sales tax) and then society determines that this isn't enough and that they aren't contributing as much as they should even though it's all they have.  And then have the audacity to say that the poor should work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps when all they have are flip-flops.  How messed up is that?

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Union Of The Snake

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much we interfere in other country's dealings that within a short amount of time they revert to their old ways?  We went to war with Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban and to capture Osama bin Laden.  Seven years later and the Taliban are back in power and threatening us without impunity.  And that crap about improving the lives of women?  It was just that.  Crap.  Afghanistan's freely elected President, Hamid Karzai, rushed a bill through Parliament whose only goal was to keep him in office until they have their next election.  Most world leaders wouldn't put pen to paper and legalise the rape of women, restrict their access to courts, and approve child marriage in this day and age but that didn't stop Mr. Karzai.  Oh no, he rushed the bill through without it being read out loud or debated by the Parliament.  And we keep supporting this guy. You know it's bad when Saddam Hussein had more respect for women.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  We get the picture, things haven't changed much since the last Depression.  Corporations, banks and Wall Street are the winners and their employees are the losers.  And will stay that way.  In the waiting line. 

For a country that revolves around its citizens buying things we aren't going to last very long if a majority of the people are unemployed and stuck in places that don't have enough jobs for the amount of people who would like one and therefore can't afford to buy anything.  If people can't afford housing, food or clothes, how can they afford a new car or a refrigerator for the house they no longer have?  The recovery needs to start at the bottom, the top has had help for years and look at the mess they made.  Not that they're suffering.  Yet.

This is my issue with working for a corporate employer.  They require that you be at work at a certain time, eat and sleep at a certain time, dress a certain way, behave according to their rules and that if you break them, you can be dismissed.  For complying they promise to pay you a certain wage on a predetermined schedule and years ago they offered benefits such as a steady job, health insurance, vacation and sick pay and a pension after committing a large percentage of your life to the company.

In the eighties they started spending company money to move production to another country to save costs and increase profits.  When they figured out that the people they laid off could no longer afford their products they didn't discipline the people who had exhibited faulty judgment by eliminating the consumer base, they laid off more people in the States and moved production to even poorer countries where they wouldn't have to pay benefits or worry about workplace conditions and could still give the almighty shareholders their precious dividends and executives received bonuses.  Then they set about systematically dismantling the pension and health insurance for the people who had already fulfilled their end of the bargain and worked faithfully for them for years by claiming that they couldn't afford to keep the deals they made with the employees.  And then the Bush administration shifted large sums of money from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to the already unstable stock market.  End result?  The elderly will eat dog food and ketchup or die of starvation or they can hang on until winter when they can freeze to death.  The middle aged live in their cars and earn just enough to eat a mini meal at Mickey D's once a day and the youth wander the streets aimlessly with no hope for the future and see crime as their only way of getting ahead.  I know I'm a cynic but what's next?  Lining the homeless up against a wall and shooting them so the rich aren't offended by all those lazy people?

At one time we were the greatest country in the world and now all we have is faded glory.  The rich don't notice, they are too busy vacationing or buying homes in other countries while ensuring that they pay less and less to the country that made it possible for them to be a success.  Heck, they even adopt kids from poor countries while forgetting about the ones in the land of their birth. The sad part is that those who aren't rich don't mind getting help to cut their own throat because they no longer have the skills to think critically, question authority before it goes too far and are willing to be spoon fed economic pablum by the pundits instead of looking at their own circumstances and seeing how screwed they are.

We may not be watching Rollerball but American Idol, Survivor and Dancing With The Stars make a nice substitute, don't they?

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Spin Me Right Round

For a good portion of my teen and young adult life I lived in the Lompoc area.  We started with Vandenberg AFB and then moved to Vandenberg Village which was halfway between the base and Lompoc.  As we would travel to visit Solvang, the La Purisima Mission was on our left and across from the most spectacular field of flowers just as you left town.  This quiet and beautiful place, so packed with history, is on the Governor's list of state parks to be closed.  How much more can this state lose and still offer a quality of life that makes it worth it for an individual to live here and pay higher taxes while corporations pay practically none?

Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of dealing with Nevada state employees.  It seems that if you call for information about their Medicaid program your name goes on a list and pretty soon all these associated agencies start calling you and offering their services.  When I first started looking I thought we were going to move to Las Vegas but still couldn't afford it.  The other day Medicaid called to check and see if I needed any help filling out the paperwork and I told them we were moving to Reno instead.  Two hours later the Reno office calls me and then yesterday an Alzheimer's group called and asked if they could send me an application for a grant for my mother to help make the move less traumatic and to help her out.  It's like being in the Twilight Zone but in a good way.  Oh, and did I mention that the energy company bills you for the deposit and if you can't pay it in one month they give you two?  They don't even have a state tax, do they put happy pills in the water?

Having been a child of the military and a veteran myself, I can say that universal health care works.  Sometimes slowly but it works and is much better than nothing at all.  Health care is a right for everyone and should not be reserved for the very rich or the very poor.  Unfortunately those in the middle have to either do without or pay so much that they have to do without other things in their lives such as saving for their child's college.  I've had insurance in the past but no longer qualify due to asthma and a tendency for kidney stones and have had to rely on the county health care system when either of those flares up.  All other problems I'm managing by myself but as I age that will only go so far.  Whatever the solution is, it shouldn't be to prop up the insurance companies and their mountains of paperwork.

Good thing DiSH has its moving program though they might not be any more financially stable than any other highly overpriced television provider either.  Tumbling dice is the best way to describe our economy.  And the reason they are still tumbling is because the board is slanted downhill.

Consumer spending may be up while income is down, but what did they spend what they don't have on?  The article never says.  It was too happy that the savings rate was above 4% for two months in a row.  The only people making money off of me are the banks.  Two days ago BofA said they would probably decide my case in my favor (photos, persistence, plus merchant fraud helped) but they still haven't refunded the $500 (or the $140 in fees yet) and California lowering my check by $101 with less than 24 hours warning has made me even more resolved to get the heck out of here.  If I'm going to make less money, I would rather know it ahead of time.

Plus, the people really do sound happy in Nevada.

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Infotainment Instead Of News

Well isn't that just awful, the pundits have lost patience with the President.  As if I care what the pundits think.  I remember when they were relatively good (This Week with David Brinkley, Tony Brown's Journal and the good versions of Meet the Press and Face the Nation) and confined to their place voicing opinion, not making it.  I lost all respect for them during the Clinton affair.  They perpetrated and encouraged a witch hunt against a sitting President whose only results were to expose private marital discord to public ridicule and to ensure that when the bumbling idiot that is George W. Bush took over and ran this country into the ground that they could say that the country was tired and that all talk of impeachment was off the table and we must support the President otherwise we were automatically guilty of treason. One must not criticize the President.  Unless he isn't the President that the wingnuts wanted, then all bets are off.

And people wonder why today's youth are so confused and who could blame them?  On the one hand they were taught that it is okay to try to impeach a President for lying about having sex outside his marriage (like that hasn't been done before!) but it isn't okay to impeach a President for lying about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, allowing an American city to drown on worldwide television, spying on innocent Americans without any oversight from the court system, considered the Constitution as an old piece of paper, destroyed the military and then cut benefits to veterans, gave the orders that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in two countries, let the Grand High Poobah of the Taliban live free after the most traumatic incident this country had seen in a decade (funny how the FBI could find Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols within days but the military and the CIA can't find a 6'5" man on dialysis in a country where we've been for eight years) and I'm supposed to think that pundits opinions are the word from on high?  Oh my, I'm just quaking in my boots.  And what the heck is wrong with a little patience?  Bush got eight years to screw up this country while the press was complicitly quiet and because Obama hasn't fixed everything that the press has just noticed is broken in the last four months while only being in office for two of them, he doesn't know what he's doing?

Maybe the President is combative because the press asks stupid questions.  Repeatedly.  Substance is no longer the press' forte.  If half as much time was spent on researching what the public needs to know as the news spends on letting us know about the lives, loves and tweets of today's entertainment crowd maybe the President and I could take them seriously. 

Our country is in deep doodoo and avoiding the issues is what the press does best and they are at the top of their game.  Unfortunately these guys are so clueless that it probably hasn't occurred to them that if they reported the news in an objective manner that maybe so many papers wouldn't be going out of business for lack of readership.

As Anna Z pointed out so eloquently, why is it that nothing can be done about the AIG bonuses but the government has rules and regulations in place to deal with the last dime of a Medicaid patient because it is considered government money and must be repaid by any means possible?  The rich can commit crimes and escape punishment on a consistent basis but the poor must be stripped of everything, including their dignity.

Not that the press notices these things, that would be too much like doing their jobs and they would rather be voicing their opinions instead of reporting the news.  Bloviating is their specialty which is why they think everybody else does it too.

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The Lex Luthor Bailout

Jon Hamm does a wonderful job as the psychotic Lex Luthor in this spoof of the bank bailouts. I just might have to rent the Mad Men DVD.

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos

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Life Without Credit

Russ over at Scholars and Rogues, has an excellent article about credit cards being equivalent to usury and used George Washington as an example as to some of the other reasons why our Founding Fathers started the Revolutionary War. One of my college professors had told us stories about ol' George's spending habits so it wasn't a total surprise but if the Founding Fathers thought that 5% interest was robbery, I wonder what they would think of us putting up with 30-36%?

I no longer carry credit cards, they won't let me have one. They don't even send me offers. Which is okay by me because when I run out of money to pay my bills and unlike my government and huge corporations, I stop spending. I just wish there weren't so many bills left over. The last few years of taking care of mom has taken a severe financial and emotional toll as it has for many in my generation. Every month I run out of money about two weeks before I run out of month. And just like a lot of other people we are falling through the cracks.

I don't own video games, I don't go on vacation to exotic places, I don't go out to eat very often and unlike some women, I only own two pair of shoes and one purse. I hate clothes shopping which is unfortunate since mom has magically disappeared almost everything I own several times. So, where did my money go? Rent, food, cell and gas. At the end of the month rent is not going to be an issue because unless a miracle happens we'll be homeless and that bill will go the way of the dodo. Thank goodness my two year contract is up with DiSH on the 17th and I can cancel the cable without penalty. Which I can also do with mom's phone as of yesterday since no one calls her and even though I have it set to answer when she flips it open, she misses most of my calls and uses it mainly to see the time. I can't justify the expense so there's another $10 a month saved.

Last year when gas was getting close to $5 a gallon here in San Jose I put myself on a gas budget. I bought a $100 gift card at Costco at the beginning of the month and when it ran out, I walked or stayed home. And even though I am not within walking distance of anything important such as food, I cut my driving by over 70%, a practice that continues to this day though now the requirement is one tank per month.

Could I use a credit at this moment? You betcha. When I bought the used 1994 Infiniti I checked Carfax for everything except how much it cost to tune it up. It never occurred to me that it would be more than $100. Boy was I naive. Depending on the place it is anywhere from $942 to $1200. Mainly for labor. You have to take half the engine off just to get to the spark plugs! Which can only be platinum. As tight as things are I would need to spread that amount over twelve months and hope that nothing else goes wrong. If I'm not willing to take that chance why would a creditor? So, I'm cleaning it and selling it this weekend.

Fortunately I do have an iPod and it will help entertain me while riding the bus. Since public transportation was one of the things that the Governator decided wasn't important enough to be funded and he had to give corporations a $1B tax break, I will walk a mile or two to get to a bus stop where I can pay higher fares and go fewer places. It's tough losing one's autonomy in California, the state isn't designed for it. On the bright side, there is the added benefit of increasing my cardiovascular health and helping me to lose weight.

Like a lot of people I've cut back everywhere I can, I even live in a crime ridden area because the rent is cheaper. Mom and I would like to move out of the state but we can't for three reasons. One, we don't know anything or anyone in the places mom wants to go so we would have no idea about the quality of the neighborhood. Two, she loses her Medicaid until residency is established and the drugs the doctor just put her on are as much as her Social Security each month so that presents a huge problem but three is the kicker. It seems we need a credit card to rent a truck. Not pay since they are only to happy to accept cash, just as security to rent.

It's sad that our nation has become the laughingstock of the world. Our news exports scenes of beautiful people doing nothing but attending parties or adopting babies while the poor and the middle class are blamed for not being one of the beautiful people. Hospitals are content to let people die in the waiting room, food banks are teeming with more people than they can healthfully feed while restaurants are throwing out unused food by the tons as the dinner rush becomes the dinner trickle. Meanwhile, those that have not only blame those that have not, they seem to spend every waking moment trying to get the last penny from those that don't have it to spare and then call them deadbeats because the have nots can't afford all the new rates and penalties on what they already don't have.

How many tent cities will it take before the populace can drag themselves away from American Idol Idle and see that the flood waters of debt are at their doorstep and still rising? How much longer will the people tolerate bailing out the banks when they can't bail themselves out of the mess they're in? Especially without a job. Telling people not to live above their means when everywhere they turn all they see is stuff that they are brainwashed into needing is like telling an eight month pregnant teenager that sex is even better after you have the baby but abstinence is the way to make your parents happy. Some other advice needs to be given.

There's a reason why Clara Cannucciari is becoming so popular that she is getting ready to release her first DVD at the age of 92. She knows a Depression when she sees one. Cooking from scratch is an art, cooking with cheaply available ingredients is magic in the land of Mickey Ds, Whole Foods and tight budgets. I remember many of those meals from when I was growing up and you know what? They still taste good. Comfort food rocks. I may like caviar and champagne but fried potatoes and club soda taste just as good when you're hungry. Plus, you don't need credit to enjoy them.

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