Mourning For America

Nobody knows when an accident is going to change their life and as more Americans continue the slide into poverty you would think there would be more compassion for their fellow man. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

I love how baggers and dittoheads babble on about how government workers are lazy, overpaid, couldn't get a real job if they had to and every one of them that becomes unemployed is better for the taxpayers, yet complain about how long it takes when they have to do anything at a government office.  Or that people are abusing food stamps and don't really need them.  Then within the last few days reports of rural suicides increasing amid Medicaid cuts and a story like this comes along and they still can't make the f****ing connection between penalizing people (An 18 page application? One would think Texas purposely makes it difficult for anyone to collect aid.) by reducing or eliminating services for those who don't have the political clout to defend themselves and the despair that causes people to kill themselves and their families.  These are not isolated incidents and there will be more of them as more people feel they have no way out.

The powers behind the throne have successfully conned gullible Americans into demanding that the poor, the disabled and the elderly should pay the price so the rich won't have to contribute while they rob this country blind.  All the while never realizing that the problems didn't exist until the powers that be needed a distraction as they turn America into a third world country.

Like a majority of the world's population my financial situation deteriorates every day.  If you receive SSI (as I am stuck doing until my appeal goes through) you are not allowed to have more than $674 a month under any circumstances.  Otherwise two months after you made the extra few dollars they reduce your benefits until the overpayment is taken care of.  Funnily enough it does not work the other way around. If they underpay you they are not obligated to make up the difference.

After I was declared disabled I continued collecting unemployment while I looked for work that wouldn't aggravate my disability.  Unemployment was deducted from the $674 to make sure I didn't get ahead.  In August I started suffering from trigeminal neuralgia in addition to my disability and stopped collecting unemployment as I was no longer able to look for work while electrical shocks were stabbing me in the face every few minutes.  Since SSI runs two months behind I didn't start collecting the full $674 from them until November.  This means I was underpaid by $157 in August, $236 in September and $312 in October.

My rent is $475.  Other bills include utilities, car insurance and the student loan that was turned over to a debt recovery company.  Those nice people added $50k in fees and interest for a grand total of $148k and continually want to know when and how much I will pay them each month.  Anyone with basic math skills can tell that my income is less than my outgo.  Fortunately for me my landlady is of the saint variety and deferred October's rent until after the first of the year when hopefully I can start making payments to bring me current.  She isn't even charging interest.

This arrangement was based on the assumption that SSI would be making up the difference as the months passed and they could tell that I had been making less than $674.  Well, you know what they say about assuming. I went to the Social Security office to find out when they would credit me the underpayments since they were so good at penalizing me for overpayments that occurred when the calendar month and unemployment weeks didn't match.  After half an hour of trying to explain that I hadn't made $674 for the last few months I finally realized they weren't going to fix the underpayments.  Panic started to set in, my voice started to rise and polite behavior proceeded to go the way of the Dodo bird.   I barely made it to my car before saying things that would get me arrested.

Obviously I don't have enough money for food so Nevada graciously gives me $188 in food stamps and I can eat relatively healthily given the limited variety of fresh vegetables in Reno and an ability to cook from scratch.  To help make ends meet we found a third roommate and got rid of cable and the internet.  Tabletop antennas pick up local channels and I discovered that I don't watch enough television to justify paying for cable or satellite ever again.   I was without the internet for a few months and going a little stir crazy until E took pity on me and installed the cheapest DSL for internet access.

With these changes I am almost able to meet my obligations and with "free play" from the casinos I occasionally have some money to put gas in the car and keep it just above the line that says E. I can walk to the store two miles away but I can't carry many groceries while using a cane and from bitter experience I know that the following two days I'm unable to do more than lurch around the house, oofing and woofing with every step.

If you've made it this far through my sad tale, there is a small spot of hope on the horizon.  I was talking to another vet at the VA and a social worker overheard my story.  It seems that since Social Security declared me disabled and I served more than 90 days during a time of war (government inefficiency at work, Congress was really slow to declare the end of the Vietnam debacle), I qualify for a non service connected disability pension.  $985 a month. I can't believe how excited I am about an extra $300 that still leaves me in the poverty zone.  The paperwork has been filed and the local AMVet office is trying to expedite it but it will probably take a year before that help arrives.  Meanwhile the social worker at the VA will get my doctor to sign the disability papers from the debt recovery company so they don't garnish my Social Security and I might be able to keep my head above water until the pension kicks in.  Yippee!

Not everyone is so lucky and it pains me to see that for a so called Christian nation people seem to have forgotten "there but for the grace of God go I".

BBB

Where Have I Been?

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in the last few months but for some reason blogging just hasn't been important to me.  During my recovery I had time to reflect and one of the things I decided was that I've been wasting my time and the following quote from Tristero at Hullabaloo sums it up quite nicely.

Why? Because some of you, right now, are starting to waste the little time you have here on earth by marshaling reasoned arguments and accurate facts to refute Conservapedia's lies. And so are others. And that is terribly sad.

And then Jon Stewart crystallized it for me in a segment titled "I Give Up".

My surgery went well, at least from the doctor's point of view.  He didn't grace me with his presence until the evening after the surgery when he breezed into my hospital room to discharge me.  Then he wouldn't answer my questions and acted like I was a nuisance.  Heaven forbid that I should know what he did or what he found while surgeons and students in Los Angeles were privy to every aspect of my surgery.  All follow up appointments were handled by his physicians assistant. The conscious time I've spent in his presence is less than ten minutes.

The cancer was classified as being Stage 1A and if you have to get diagnosed with cancer this would be the stage you would want since it has a 93% survival rate.  What you don't want is to do the robot surgery.

It turns out that they cut everything into little pieces so they can be removed through the less than one inch incisions.  While it may be cutting edge technology it also means that during the slice and dice procedure some cancer cells may be dislodged and left behind.  It also means that they pump you full of air so they have room to move around.  This air cannot be expelled by normal means, it has to be absorbed by the body or you are deflated after the surgery.  This was not done for me.  For three weeks I looked and felt like I had beach ball in the abdominal area.  Simple things like using the toilet, getting out of bed, bending to put on shoes or simply sitting were extremely uncomfortable. 

One of the hallmarks of cancer survivors is that they realize that a positive attitude and a reduction in anger and frustration give them a better chance of surviving and/or preventing a recurrence.  I want to live a long and healthy life and I can't do that if I spend most of my time trying to convince stupid people to look at facts instead of listening to people who spread hatred and intolerance on a daily basis.

I live in Nevada now and the people here believe the darnedest things, most of which don't exist in reality.  From the Park 51 controversy to burning the Koran as a warning, this country has gone off the deep end and trashed the First Amendment while ensuring that the rest of the world can see how hypocritical we are.  We are no longer a shining beacon of light and freedom, we are a fading nightlight trying to shield ourselves from a bogeyman that has already accomplished his job.  People were worried about Y2K destroying our way of living and it turns out we did it to ourselves.

On a distinctly happier note there has been an addition to the family, a Boston/Rat terrier puppy.  His name is Galen and while Shadow wasn't too thrilled in the beginning she had a great time playing with him this morning.  Shai has been more tolerant and I think she's been enjoying Shadow's discomfort.  I will have pictures tomorrow.

BBB

This 'N That

Macs crash?  I've had my iMac for almost four years and while certain programs may have given me the spinning beach ball of death (Firefox, but I have to admit I run the beta versions), never has the whole system crashed. 

Jobs said Flash is a closed proprietary technology that should be bypassed in favor of open standards such as HTML5, a new Web technology that Apple is promoting. He said Flash consumes twice the amount of battery life for video playback, is a security risk and is the No. 1 source of crashes on Mac computers. Jobs added that it's also not suited for the touch interfaces of many modern mobile devices.

Um, Steve?  People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Apple isn't exactly known for sharing.  Not that this is a bad thing since your devices have always worked for me, but maybe you could phrase it a little differently.  What I've discovered is that I basically use my computer for email, to surf the web and to charge my iTouch so I should probably get an iPad and be done with it.  I would have room for dining room table after all that space was freed up.  Hmm, and the need for power strips would also decrease.  Win, win.

Not content with mucking up California, the Governator wants to run for president.

Not exactly a surprise.  Of course she's a liar, she slept with another woman's husband.  And it's pretty easy to see she isn't firmly attached to reality.

I am not a Madonna fan by any stretch of the imagination.  Business wise she is incredibly smart and managed to ensure that she received most of the profits from her work, unlike a lot of popular artists, but I still don't like her.  I do like Jane Lynch and because of her I now have a Madonna song on the iTouch.  A most spectacular cover version of Vogue.  I wonder why I can't get into Glee, it's a great premise and everyone attached to the project is extremely talented, but I can't bring myself to watch it on a regular basis.

Ihre Papiere, Bitte

It's fascinating how the Tea Partiers can carry signs of Obama with a Hitler mustache or can accuse him of being a socialist while totally ignoring the fact that every time they celebrate passing a bill that discriminates against a select group of people, that they are creating the very future they are accusing Obama of desiring.

The Arizona "Papers, Please" law is a prime example.  The more laws that are passed because of fear, ignorance or racism, the closer the United States comes to replicating whichever totalitarian regime the conservatives and their right wing militants are most afraid of. It's either Nazism or Fascism, depending on which group you are talking to and what day of the week it is.

Many years ago, back when I was married, I lived in the Catskills and worked at the Granit Hotel as a busgirl and server.  Most of the servers were Colombian and a few were probably in the states illegally.  Every once in a while INS would make a sweep of all the workers who looked like they might be illegal and would lock them up until they could prove citizenship. 

My ex was of Sicilian descent and one time he was rounded up and had to have his parents come down with his birth certificate.  He was telling me about it and said that it is much harder to prove you are an American than most people realize.  Carrying around a birth certificate or passport to prove your identity is an invitation to disaster, especially if you lose them.

Since I grew up with a steady diet of science fiction books, I believe that there are other forms of intelligent life not located on the planet Earth.  How do I know they are intelligent?  Because they haven't revealed themselves to us.  It only takes  a brief scan of the news for one to realize that humans are a pretty violent species and at the same time we are afraid of our own shadows.  On the other hand, the majority of us would probably make good slaves.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said.

Prof Hawking thinks that, rather than actively trying to communicate with extra-terrestrials, humans should do everything possible to avoid contact.

He explained: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

Truer words were never spoken.

BBB

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?

BBB

My New Blog

I started a new blog because my first one had drifted away from my original intentions.  I have many things that interest me, but politics soon overwhelmed all of the them.  And since I think that much of today's culture consists of things that are so stupid that most of us wish we could whip out a magic wand a la Harry Potter and dispose of the boggarts by yelling "Riddikulous!", I decided to devote this blog to those items and leave my original blog to my many other interests.

So, almost five years later I've decided to try and centralize those items that reflect the decline of logical thinking and the increase in lemming activity.

I have the same feelings about Obama as I did about Bush.  They both reflect the worst that politics has to offer.  Neither one had or has had any interest in helping the majority of Americans unless it was time for an election or they were consolidating the power of their donors and wanted to keep the populace as quiet as possible until the deed was done.

Our so-called elected "Representatives" are about as useful as throwing gasoline on a fire.  They neither represent us nor do they maintain the checks and balances the Founding Fathers envisioned for them.

And the Supreme Court?  The current version is determined to make Dred Scott look like a high point of jurisprudence.  Corporations are not people, they are businesses run by people and should not have the same, or more, rights than a kindergarten teacher.  Besides having more money than most individuals, they now have more influence in an election.  Like a double double at In-N-Out burger.  They get to buy votes as a corporation and the same individuals who decide who the corporation backs also get to throw in their two centsmillions any time they want.  And the best part?  Most of those people sit on more than one board of directors, so they have even more influence.  Isn't that lovely?

Public figures do stupid things all the time so this blog won't always be about politics, but it will be about things that make you go "huh?"

I'm a couple of days behind, so let's start with Tom Tancredo and his "literacy" tests.  I'm all for them.  Especially for the people currently in power.  What the almost never right party of "No, because I said so!" Republicans and the "I can't find my balls with two hands and a flashlight" Demowienies have in common, is a complete lack of understanding of how to run this country effectively.  And they have communicated that to their die hard followers.  The sky is what we should be aiming for, not running into the ground like a plane without a pilot.

Yesterday's favorite was Michael Steele's "after taxes a million dollars isn't a lot of money."  I'm willing to give it a try since I know plenty of people who are living on less than ten thousand a year and they work for a living instead of giving speeches on subjects that affect less than two percent of the American population.

I'm sure that with a little more research there will be more to come.  Unfortunately.

BBB and The Stupid For The Day

Stupid Begets Stupid

Politico has the results of a poll (OMG! the rampant stupidity from the respondents is mindboggling) commissioned by the Kos group, a blog to which I neither read nor link to. The results didn't really surprise me considering how many people consider Fox News to be "fair and balanced", but one of the comments did. Someone called "beisbolfan" sounded relatively reasonable and informed until you get to the third paragraph.

For Republicans to even think about the word "impeachment" is absolutely nuts. Didn't these idiots learn anything from the Clinton episode? People don't like the opposition trying to overturn democratic elections in the courts.

I don't believe he is a socialist, but he does want a strong "social safety net", and very intrusive government regulation of private business. That is basically how western Europe is governed, and I don't have much problem with it. My main goal as a conservative is to preserve traditional America as much as possible.

That means stopping mass immigration. I want my nation to remain majority white for as long as possible. And I don't care who doesn't like hearing that or reading that. Why should white people, whose ancestors founded this country, volunteer to become a racial minority, by accepting unlimited immigration?

Most people want to live in residential neighborhoods where the majority of their neighbors are people of their own race, language, religion, culture. That's the truth, and everybody knows it. Whites don't move into nonwhite neighborhoods. If their neighborhood becomes majority nonwhite, they typically move out, if they can.

I also believe firmly in capitalism, as free and unfettered as possible, albeit with sensible regulations. The prior 8 years are enough evidence that the financial system needs policing.

So, don't call Obama a socialist. George Will, a pretty even-keel conservative, wrote "nobody wants to live in a country without a welfare system"

He was right.

White people founded this country?  I'm sure this is a major surprise to the Indians who lived here for hundreds of years before the Puritans invaded and brought their restricted views on life to the new world.  And since history isn't taught in school anymore and teabaggers believe that only whites were willing to die for freedom, Crispus Attucks has been deliberately relegated to the dustbin of history.

So what am I?  Dad married mom, a German citizen at the time.  She got her citizenshipin 1959 and proudly called it the best day of her life.  There isn't one inch of me that identifies with my so called African heritage.  The only African heritage I have is my skin color.  Period.  I don't dance because I hate that frog in a blender look.  I definitely don't rap and singing is relegated to places where people can't hear me, like my car.

My preferred music is classic rock, though I have tunes from Glenn Miller to Pink Floyd, Dusty Springfield to Michael Jackson and Beck to MC Hammer in addition to Amy Winehouse, Golden Earring, the Scorpions, Grover Washington, Jr.and Led Zeppelin on my iPod.

Black citizens in Britain are called British, black citizens in France are called French.  I'm an American.  Not a black American, nor am I a German American.  I'm an American who was willing to die for her country so the above bumpkin could make stupid remarks with complete freedom.  It does make me wonder why I was so eager to fight for a country that hates me so much.

With attitudes like these, it's no wonder that there are still women in th USA who don't know they're pregnant until they give birth.  There even was a television series on TLC called I didn't know I was pregnant.  Innocence was not lost, information was imparted at at an age where girls need to know before the parents think they need to learn it. Raging hormones are better helped by the truth than they are by a promise ring. And if parents think ten year old boys aren't looking at Playboy, or National Geographic like when I was a kid, they are not living on the same planet as the rest of us.  On the other hand, these people are from Texas.  The state that ranks fifth in teen pregnancies and third in teen births.  The mythical theory that abstinence and religion prevent pregnancy is wrong, it's correct information and contraception that do.

BBB

And The Rock Cried Out

I've never hidden the fact that Babylon 5 was my favorite science fiction show.  Actually it's my favorite show. Period. I've been a Trekker since I saw The Man Trap on Armed Forces Radio and Television.  Or Afarts as we called it.

Star Trek provided me with a vision of the future that told me I could be anyone I wanted to, that eventually everyone would be equal.  And from my point of view that meant men and women could both be captains or they could be navigators or they could whatever they wanted.  I had to take this on faith because female captains were pretty rare on TOS.  I believe that the first one was Klingon, the rest were women Kirk tried, and many times succeeded, in bedding.  It wasn't until TNG that we learned there had been a female captain of the Enterprise, who dies trying to right a blip in time and her helmsman ends up saving the timeline.  But still, I just knew there would be a time when men and women were equal, unfortunately it isn't likely to be in my lifetime.

Enough about Trek, on to a more realistic version of the future:  Babylon 5.  Way back in the mid-nineties another vision of space appeared on television and Battlestar Galactica should thank its luck stars.  B5 had aliens who didn't always get along with one another and women were considered the exact equal of men and could protect themselves. The special effects were fantastic when you remember that this was a television show that saved them for when they were needed, not as plot filler. B5 had politics galore and most importantly, it showed how easy it was to turn a liberal civilization into a totalitarian society.  For two years the hints were simple and sprinkled on the wind before coming to fruition. B5 was the last, best hope for victory.

While Gene Roddenberry created and produced a great show (thank you Lucille Ball), most of the episodes were pretty much fluff except for The Famous Kiss and The City on the Edge of Forever.  The stories tended towards being lighthearted and playful while touching on a few important themes.  J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 was nothing like that.  Most of the episodes were completely serious interjected with moments (and people thought he would always be Flounder) of humor.  The story arc from first episode to the last was incredibly consistent and from today's perspective, way too prescient.  Take out the space ships and the aliens and you pretty much have the present we live in and the future we're headed for.

At the end of the first season, the President of Earth was killed under what the viewers knew were suspicious circumstance, but looked like a tragic accident to others.  A Narn outpost had been destroyed and the Centauri were solidifying their alliance with the Shadows.  Then things got worse.

The Earth Alliance under President Cheney Clark rounded up people who didn't agree with his decisions, bombed civilians deliberately to get their leaders to surrender, forced television stations off the air until he could get his own mouthpieces to recite the company line while he declared war on former colonies of Earth and B5. In the end Clark was willing to destroy the Earth as his last act before killing himself instead of being captured.

B5 didn't portray humans as the best of the universe, other cultures and characters always had something to offer (such as the (one moment of perfect beauty) and embracing the differences made all of the characters stronger for it,  Even if it took acts of evil to realize their redemption.  Or, as in the video below, revenge. And how sweet it was.
Marva Hicks can certainly belt one out, can't she?  The episode was about different faiths coming aboard the station to have a conference and the music was perfect for the scene and for the moral of the story.  Here is a version of just the lyrics and music.Unlike most shows, B5 credits were always worthy of watching, you never knew what you were going to hear.For those who say that those who participated at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and black sites we don't know about were just doing their jobs and also believe that waterboarding and other forms of torture are okay, there will come a day (hopefully) where somebody, somewhere will stand up and fight for what is right instead of blindly following orders, especially the ones they have qualms about.Otherwise, it really is too late for the pebbles to vote.

That is all.

BBB

The Stupid, It Burns

I actually started writing this post a few days ago and then several personal issues came up.  My disgust with politics, what passes for news (it used to be called gossip), the lack of intelligence and the stunning erosion of critical thinking of the average American has prevented me from caring as much as I used to about the future of America.

And then, sure enough, another act of stupidity wasted no time raising my blood pressure to the boiling point.  Banning the Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary from the Menifee Union School District because a student found the definition of oral sex in a dictionary. Menifee may be located in California, but it is definitely behind the Orange Curtain.

The Golden State's Menifee Union School District has yanked all copies of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from its shelves and is investigating the classic American text for containing "age-inappropriate" words.
snip
Menifee, which is composed of 9,000 students between kindergarten and 8th grade, is forming a committee of principals, teachers and parents to pore over the book and determine whether it's fit for young eyes. It could take a while: the unabridged edition available online contains over 470,000 entries.

Cheese and rice, these people are just plain stupid, there is no other way to put it.  In the mid nineties "oral sex" was all over the news, now it can't be in a dictionary because kids might find the correct definition instead of what they hear on the playground.

Up until this morning my, and most other liberals, definition of "f*cking retarded" was when you screw over 88 percent of the people who approve of most of what you're doing AND WHO GOT YOU ELECTED in the first place in order to please the same 22 percent who still thinks Bush and Cheney walk on water that isn't frozen and who wouldn't approve of anything the Obama did if God himself came down from on high and anointed Obama as his son by a different mother.  Now it seems to encompass everything in politics.

Of course there is going to be political pain on the democratic side, what did they expect?  Flowers thrown in the street for not doing the job that the American people elected them to do?  For saving Wall Street instead of Main Street and then letting Wall Street enjoy bonuses completely out of proportion to the crappy job they performed?  After suffering through eight years of the the Bush maladministration, the last thing that the democratic base wanted was to be ground under the jackbooted heel of the same people who caused the country to head into the crapper in the first place.  Sure, you can blame it on the economy, and you would be right.  It's too bad that what passes for leadership these days only cares about the economy of the working people when it's time for them to get reelected.

Living in an unequal society creates shorter lifespans.  That would be for the poor and the middle class, the rich have all their needs met.  Even when they contribute nothing to society except to increase the inequality.  Welcome to America, land of the free, home of the brave.  If you have lots of money .

Over 200 studies since the early 1980s have now documented that people living in societies where wealth has concentrated at the top of the economic ladder live significantly shorter, less healthy lives than people who live in societies that spread their wealth more evenly.

And we’re not talking just poor folks here. All people in unequal societies do worse. Middle-income people in the United States, the world’s most unequal developed nation, have shorter lifespans than middle-income people in Japan, Sweden and a host of other more equal nations.

So, my newest iWant is called iPad?  What the hell was Apple thinking?  Aren't there any females in their advertising department?  It reminds of some comedian in the nineties who made fun of sanitary pads.  As he said, why not call them what they are instead of some gussied up name that has no relation to its purpose.    He used the example of Always and thought a better name would be cranky hanky.  I realize that the iPod saved Apple's bacon, but there were a slew of better names than iPad.  Duh!

BBB

Couldn't Keep Quiet Forever

Waah, waah, waah.  So Obama has broken every single promise he ever made to the people who worked and got him elected and now everyone is surprised that the people are revolting?  What drugs are you people on?  Obama got what he wanted and then reverted to the same person I met when he was a young man at Occidental College.  Just like every other president we've had since 1980 he speaks out both sides of his...mouth.  The really sad part is, voting for the other guy out of anger is only going to make things worse.  Such is our lovely political system, a two party affair that the rich control and the poor serve.  And any idea that the individual citizen mattered was removed by the Supreme Court this morning.  Our individual political contributions are going to mean nothing.  Actually, less than nothing.

To lose the Kennedy seat to a GOP representative that stands against everything that the Kennedy brothers stood for, isn't just mindboggling, it was inevitable.  My thoughts are best expressed by Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mass Backwards

www.thedailyshow.com

Democrats have balls? I admit I'm surprised, I didn't even know they had gonads.

Thank God the Kennedys who gave so much are gone, they might have been tempted to kill themselves to see how far the America that two out of three of them died for has turned into "it's not my problem, it's everyone else's and they must be trying to take what little I have even if it isn't as worth as much as it was last week and I just won't stand for it!"

When did we become a nation of taking the good stuff for ourselves and punishing or restricting those who want the same things?  Oh, that's right.  Ever since we started slaughtering Indians because they lived on land we wanted and then used slaves to turn that land into crops that not only sustained a family but enabled that same family to "lord" it over those who owned shops instead of land.  Just like every other period throughout human history.

What my father neglected to tell me all the times he swore that America was a few steps away from a police state was that one of the first steps was for the people to become sheeple.  Like the Germans, Russians, North Koreans, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis and Afghans before us, sheeple believe that someone else will save them.  And if takes a loss of opportunities, liberties, freedom of movement, then so be it.  And so it will be.

Thanks to an education system that rewards standardization and punishes individual thinking.

BBB

The Buck Doesn't Stop With Him

I tried to leave this comment at the LA Times article on the Governator blaming California's Federal Representatives for not bringing more tax money back to the state so it can resolve its budget crisis.

What a crybaby!  Blaming others for problems he helped create and then expecting someone else to bail him out.  The hypocrisy boggles the mind.

For all the pissing and moaning about intrusive federal government what does this Republican governor do?  He begs the feds to bail him out or he will once again take from those who have given; the elderly who paid taxes most of their lives and are now incapable of working; the disabled, who don't have a snowball's chance of earning enough money to live; and children, who through no fault of their own need healthcare. 

He's a namby pamby excuse for a governor.  He governed the state into the ground as he  did his corporate master's bidding and now that the state has fallen into ruin, he wants a federal bailout and tries to blame the state misfortune on its federal representatives.  Now that's taking responsibility.  Not.

California has needed help for quite a while and now that his reign is ending, the governor is trying to deflect attention from his own inadequacies or he will leave a scorched earth behind.  In defiance of both the courts and the people.

The two thirds budget voting needs to be repealed or California will never recover.  The partisanship has prevented the legislature from doing its job of representing the people.

Somewhere, Gray Davis is sipping champagne and laughing his ass off.

California suffers from several problems, not all are the Governor's fault.  It used to be a liberal state with a great school system, but every year people from conservative states moved to California to pursue the dream and brought their politics with them.  They wanted the dream but didn't want to pay for it or for anyone else.  Taxes are lower but never low enough so more must be cut from the budget.   Firehouses, libraries and parks are closed, the schools are producing uneducated citizens, jobs have moved overseas for the tax breaks and the dream has disappeared for all but a lucky few.

In Cathleen Decker's article, she writes that in the early months of Schwarzenegger's first term that nobody could have foreseen the wreckage that was to come.  Why do people say that when it is patently not true?  I, and quite a few others, told anybody who would listen that changing governors was like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic minutes before it sank.

Before Arnold took office I had a successful practice and was considering adding another treatment room.  Two years later I didn't even have a roof over my head.  My small business wasn't big enough to stay afloat.  His policies ruined my practice, destroyed my dreams and left me with a mountain of debt.  Just like he did to California.

Like most politicians, his wealth grew while in office and it wasn't from royalties.  When I was a kid I used to wonder how someone could have more money at the end of their term than their salary would have provided.  Now I know.  Campaign contributions, PAC funds, vacations paid by someone else under the guise of business trips, etc.  Politics as usual.

I may have moved to Nevada, the land of philandering governor and senator, but I still care about California.  There are days when I miss it terribly.  This isn't one of them.

It's Always About Them

Conservative pundits are complaining about liberal bias in Avatar.  A corporation gets its butt kicked and the hero does marry a girl of color while enjoying the beauty of a land not marred by smokestacks and skyscrapers, is that what they mean?  They should have thought about that last month, before it earned a billion dollars at the box office.  It's a movie and a fluff one at that.  Heaven forbid that people can enjoy a movie as a chance to get away from life's trials and tribulations for a few hours.  Not everyone wants to see a movie where people get laid off to increase a company's bottom line.

The level of paranoia on the right must be rising because Jonah Goldberg goes so far as to bring up Star Wars as an example of movies taking potshots at Bush.

"There are dozens of movies that have taken shots at Bush, starting with 'Star Wars' movies," Goldberg told ABC News. "What's offensive about this is not that it's carrying an ideological agenda. It's that it's so lame. The guy is not even president anymore. ... It's bravery at the cheapest for Cameron to think, if he thinks that, this took courage on his part to make."

Four of those movies were made before Bush was on anyone's radar.  Plus, I don't recall any of the characters being that stupid, unless he thinks Jar Jar Binks was patterned after Bush.  Cheney has dibs on Darth Vader and Obi Wan is not an option.  Yoda liked to speak in short sentences also, but not to prop up his ego so why even bring up Star Wars unless simplistic movies about good triumphing over evil make conservatives think that they are being personally attacked?

The reason it took courage for Cameron to make Avatar is because he invested his own money, invented new equipment and held to true to his vision despite people telling him that it couldn't be done.  You would think that conservatives would be touting him as a successful example of their beliefs instead of getting all worked up because the message is one they don't like.  They can't all be The Birth of a Nation.

BBB

Profiles In Courage? Not This Decade

President Kennedy once said "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." How quaint.

Despite all the action movies (the Die Hards, True Lies, Passenger 57, etc.) that Americans are so fond of, an incident that an individual person has a one in 10.4 million chance of being involved in has once again brought out the stupid and the fearful.  The same people who vociferously scream and wail about how their Second Amendment right to bear arms must not be infringed upon are willing to give up what's left of their Fourth Amendment rights so they can occasionally fly in an airplane.  Instead of training and using animals to sniff out explosives, expensive and invasive full body scanners will be used.  As Petrillic tweeted:

TSA - Protecting you from yesterday, tomorrow.

It won't be long before terrorists find another way around the system, they always do and even more liberties will be lost.

Five year olds.  Are you sure?  Last time I checked five year olds didn't wear diapers.  Unless they were developmentally delayed.  Which might explain the self serving behavior of the almost never right.  Once again the land of the free and the home of the brave is losing its collective shit, crying out for the government to save them from the bogeyman.  This would be the same government that they accused during the "health reform" debate of intruding on their personal freedoms.

Or as Charles Bouley wrote:

Once again America had the chance to be in the driver's seat, in a position of power. Instead, American media, and officials, chose the victim route and the cowering and scampering to get under tables began almost immediately. Suddenly, passengers became prisoners on flights, not able to move during the last hour, having to ask permission to go pee like in second grade.

snip

The coverage and knee jerk reaction became too much for some, myself included, so it was back to holiday TV. Somehow in the afternoon we all found ourselves watching "The Tale of Despereaux" on cable; the story of an outcast mouse that uses bravery, courage and honor to help a princess (of course). But the movie spoke of Americans, not mice. In the film, Despereaux is an outcast because he's a mouse that refuses to be afraid. As flash cards are shown in his mouse class, when a cleaver appears, he doesn't hide and scamper like the others, and simply comments on how they are used to cook. His Peachie has doodles of cats because he thinks they're cute instead of fearful agents of death. The mouse council doesn't know what to do. What if he teaches other mice not to fear? After all, "he has to learn how to be afraid, after all, no one is born afraid..." says the mouse leader.

Mr. Bouley, thank you for pointing that out.  Too bad the media would rather fan the flames of fear instead of nurturing the calm of reason.

Meanwhile, Jim DeMint decries the lack of a unified response while he holds up the confirmation of TSA nominee Errol Southers because he's concerned that Southers might let TSA employees join a union and then complains that the Obama administration isn't taking terrorism seriously.

The America that I grew up in, the one I was willing to die to protect, is long gone.  In its place are sheeple led by politicians that only serve themselves and their corporate masters.  We might as well call the nation Stepford instead of limiting it to a fictional town in Connecticut. 

BBB

It's Snowing!

And the dogs are not happy about it.  It's about 6-8 inches, all white, soft and fluffy.  Sounds are muffled and the place looks like a postcard.  I haven't lived in a snow area for almost thirty years and while I may think it's pretty now, that will quickly change.  The roads will be plowed and salted, the snow will pile up by the curb and turn brown and slushy from car exhaust.  At least is isn't going to be like when I lived in Germany.  I would drive the ex to work, passing by numerous fields covered with pure driven snow and come back less than an hour later and those pristine fields would now be covered with neat rows of manure spread by the honeywagons.  The offal fragrance would travel on the crisp air and overwhelm the senses until you were back home and safely indoors.

Several years later we lived off Route 209, between Kerhonkson and Kingston, NY, in a small one bedroom house that was heated by oil.  If you had the money.  During the winter heating oil was our most important bill.  We were as frugal as possible, but when your pipes freeze for eight days and you're boiling snow to flush the toilet and taking ho baths in the restroom at work, one tends to think that the term "winter wonderland" is a tad overrated.

I loved snow when dad was stationed in Spokane.  There was this marvelous thing called snow day and you didn't have to go to school, but then we were transferred to Puerto Rico and its beach weather and I've been a tropical girl ever since.  Rarely do I think that it's too warm.  Last night as I was shivering in bed I wondered where those personal summers were that some women complain about and then I covered my head with the covers and I warmed up enough to go to sleep.

Thermal underwear, gloves and a winter hat have greatly increased my tolerance to the cold, I wish I could say the same for the car.  It sounds like a belt is being tortured and the sound goes away after it warms up, I hope nothing breaks.  I bought a snow brush ice scraper thingy and some window de-icer but I'm not happy about my tires.  One shouldn't slide when accelerating at 2 mph, I'm so glad they're new.  It doesn't really matter since the car is snowed in and the maintenance guy locked up the shovels.

Meanwhile, back in the somewhat real world.

Off the deep end.  While I may not like Obama, every little farting thing that goes wrong is not his fault and blaming him because regulations that have been in place for many years prohibiting animals from food establishments is a little over the top.  As was banning the dog in the first place.

Why is everyone so surprised that there isn't going to be a public option?  Congress has done very little over the last thirty years to help those people who don't put massive amounts of campaign cash in their pockets and everything that the corporations  who do contribute have asked for.  Making it harder and more expensive to file bankruptcy when all indicators showed that out of pocket expenses for health care were increasing and that a majority of bankruptcies were related to medical issues should have been a glaring warning sign.  So of course it makes sense to add another mandatory expense to shrinking household budgets and babble about health care gulags or the wonders of employer based insurance when people don't have jobs and companies are eliminating benefits faster than the road runner evading a falling anvil.

BBB

Friday Afternoon Rants

The FDA is still trying to intimidate doctors into not prescribing strong pain medication for their patients by having drugmakers create risk management plans.  Since I'm allergic to all of the drugs mentioned in the article I won't be affected, but many people who are in chronic pain will.  I know what it's like to be in constant pain with no relief in sight and it isn't pretty.  Too bad the FDA wasn't interfering when Rush Limbaugh was scoring oxycontin with his secretary's help.  It might have saved him a few brain cells and then he wouldn't run around making stupid statements like the poor have no right to health care because they can't afford it.

We don't want them either.

I was thinking the same thing.  It was okay for them to sleep with a married man, accept his gifts and travel on his dime but now they want money to keep quiet.  Prostitutes have more class.

Oreo.  He certainly made sure bankers can afford to live on their segregated estates while the help live under the bridge.

Aetna only made a 7% profit this year so they are going to raise their rates and eliminate about 600,000 people from their health insurance plans.  What will it take for teabaggers to wake up and realize that the only death panels are located in insurance companies and while teabaggers are purportedly worrying about single payer health care killing grandma that corporations have been robbing the taxpayers blind? Or as commenter Chernynkaya so artfully put it:

I am so s!ck of hearing from the Right how we liberals are always looking for a government “handout.” Here’s what the government has the money to do for CORPORATIONS:
-- subsidies and other direct grants;

-- tax breaks, reductions, deductions, exclusions, write-offs, exemptions, credits, loopholes, shelters, and rebates even for profitable companies;

-- letting corporations be headquartered off-shore and pay no federal income taxes;

-- large government contracts of every imaginable kind; some on a cost-plus basis with every incentive to cheat and get more;

-- discounted user fees or subsidized use of public resources (land, water, airwaves,e­¬tc.);

-- free government-funded R & D;

-- every program from the Department of Commerce, Agriculture and others underwrites it; the FDA for Big Pharma; the FCC for media and telecommunications firms; the FAA for the airlines, the Treasury and Fed for Wall Street;

-- individual tax breaks for the rich; billions offshored to tax havens; allowing corporate fraud and abuse

-- privatizing more - schools, highways, bridges, airports, prisons, public lands, utilities, parts of the military, mercenaries, and thus far a failed attempt to privatise the most important program for seniors and the disabled - Social Security;

But nothing for the basic right of LIFE (unless you haven’t yet had the nerve to be born).

Let the good times roll.

BBB

Tuesday Quickies

I voted no.  On what grounds is Tiger Woods' accident any of my business?  Or yours?  When, where, how or who applies only to the parties involved.  It is none of my business if he was leaving the house at 2:25 am, nor is it any of my business where he was going.  How the accident happened may be of interest but it isn't critical to our existence on the planet.  No alcohol was involved and Tiger was the only one who was injured and if he doesn't want to speak about the accident, that is his business.  Because he is a celebrity does not make his personal life my business.  Honestly, with every day that goes by reality appears to drift further away from the news media as they get closer to the twilight zone.  From balloon boy to gate crashers to single car accidents, infotainment (I can't believe the spell checker thinks that's a real word!) rules the news cycle.  ABC wasn't content with gossiping about Tiger, they added another star  and an ambulance chaser to make the story even more titillating.

I've tried reading Little Green Footballs off and on for the past five years but the vitriol and hatred for anyone who disagreed with their view was too much for me.  I guess it was also too much for Charles Johnson.  Over the last few months he has been bemused by the invective coming from the right and he has officially decided to part company.  I'm adding him to my blogroll, some of his stuff is pretty interesting.


Wow, just wow.  How can people live with themselves having that level of hatred?  Somewhere between my teens and my forties the definition of Christian behavior changed.  And not for the better.

BBB

Saturday Morning Observations

Supposedly the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is to quit digging.  Unfortunately for the Republican party, their goal seems to be China.  Not content to be the minority party they are now trying to be the minuscule party.  The dittoheads and Palinites want to purge the party of those who don't believe exactly as they do.  If this means getting rid of people who are already serving in office, well, so be it.  To the teabaggers it is better to have nothing than it is to appeal to more citizens or to be relevant.

Josef Stalin was also extremely fond of purging and millions of people died because of it.  Funny thing is he started with his own party and as his paranoia grew, so did the circle of people he considered to be disloyal.  Eventually generals and peasants alike were purged and Big Brother was officially born.

But the impetus to "cleanse" the social body rapidly spilled beyond these elite boundaries, and the greatest impact of the Purge was felt in the wider society -- where millions of ordinary Soviet citizens assisted in "unmasking" their compatriots. Frank Smitha describes this mass hysteria well, writing that

A society that is intense in its struggle for change has a flip side to its idealism: intolerance. People saw enemies everywhere, enemies who wanted to destroy the revolution and diminish the results of their hard work and accomplishments, enemies who wanted to restore capitalism for selfish reasons against the collective interests of the nation. If those at the top of the Communist Party and an old revolutionary like Trotsky could join the enemy, what about lesser people? In factories and offices, mass meetings were held in which people were urged to be vigilant against sabotage. It was up to common folks to make the distinction between incompetence and intentional wrecking [i.e., sabotage], and any mishap might be blamed on wrecking. Denunciations became common. Neighbors denounced neighbors. Denunciations were a good way of striking against people one did not like, including one's parents, a way of eliminating people blocking one's promotion, and ... a means of proving one's patriotism. Many realized that some innocent people were being victimized, and the saying went around that "when you chop wood the chips fly." As with Lenin, it was believed that some who were innocent would have to be victimized if all of the guilty were to be apprehended.

History is a pesky thing and while some might say that today's political purges aren't violent, calling for a revolution is one step in that direction.  Eventually an innocent person is going to die due to the intolerance now making its way through the country, but the teabaggers are so far gone that they will consider it a step in the right direction.  Returning this country to a McCarthy like existence with a 1984 mindset and 2009 technology enforcement capabilities.  Does anybody think this will end well?

Better late than never. Now that female Vietnam War veterans are in their sixties, it's time to investigate how the war affected their health.  As with men, a good guess would be, poorly.

Well, that was depressing.  Hopefully this should bring a smile to almost anyone's face.

BBB

Things I Don't Understand

Why should I, or anyone else, care that Nidal Hasan is paralyzed from the nipples down?  There are thirteen people who would be more than happy to trade places with him but they can't because they're dead.  By his hand.  If there was any justice he would have CRPS instead.

The new Air Force commercial.  The tag line is that "it's not science fiction, it's what we do every day".  On what planet?  At approximately 11 seconds in there are two moons on the horizon, how is this not science fiction?  Or a video game?

Why do more Americans attribute a bible saying to Obama than to the Bible?

The Plan.  Mao would be so...honored.  Statistically speaking, Glenn Beck's attempt at destroying America is doomed to fail.  Melanin impaired Americans are becoming a minority and all the ranting, raving, bigotry and hatred are not going to change that.  He can try to co-opt as many national holidays as he wants, he will never be the equal of Martin Luther King.   And so-called "voter education events" are laughable.  Self reliance and community organizing.  I thought he hated ACORN, now I see he's just jealous.

Hypocrisy.  Has the definition changed?  Inconceivable!  What I want to know is, how many Republicans used the abortion benefit before the cat was out of the bag?

Purity oaths?  The Republicans might find candidates who fulfill the requirements, but  they won't find a majority of voters who agree with them.  Sometimes young people are a little savvier than they are given credit for and more than likely won't vote against their own best interests.  They'll leave that job to the old people.

BBB

Boobs And Boobies

Don't make me puke.  The twit is going to be signing her book at Costco, down the street from my house.  She will probably get a great reception since this is a conservative area, but it didn't look like her book was selling as well as the Star Trek video.  I was at another store yesterday and some guy in line brought up her name and asked wouldn't it be funny if she was elected in 2012.  I said it would be a disaster and the woman directly behind the man looked extremely offended.  I then proceeded to list a few logical reasons why Palin isn't qualified and caught the woman nodding her head over two of them.  It looks like people are going to have be deprogrammed on an individual basis as the media is too busy basking in its own reflection to do its job.   That would be to report the news, not try and make it.

But the past week's media Palin-palooza has been more than a little over the top, even for a news corps that devotes wall-to-wall coverage to a helium balloon that isn't carrying a small child.

The diaper man doesn't know if Loving v. Virginia was correctly decided.  Methinks he's been pampered a little too long.

Running for office after office.  Whatever happened to serving the people and doing the job you were elected for?  It's all about them and their authoritarian dreams.  If we invaded from another solar system it would only be a matter of weeks before they started running for President of the Universe.

The new breast cancer guidelines have quite a few people with their knickers in a knot.  I've been getting squished every year since I was 35 because of a false positive.  Every year I step up to a machine, flop one on the freezer plate, stand at an anatomically inconvenient angle and have a truck run over it while I hold my breath.  Then I change sides.  Digital mammography is more accurate for women in their forties but insurance companies prefer the cheaper avenue.  That is true health care rationing, changing the guideline isn't.  And at exactly what age should men get screened for breast cancer?  My issue with the new guidelines is that self exam shouldn't be taught by doctors.  What will the immature male do for a Halloween costume if that's eliminated? 

BBB

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.

BBB