Friday, September 28, 2012
A Verizon Service Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you.
Leo(15:25:19): Technical support :1-800-VERIZON (1-800-837-4966)
You(15:47:41): THE 800 NUMBER WILL NOT PICK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You(15:57:03): Please answer my question......................
Friday, September 14, 2012
#AreYouBetterOff - Why, Yes!
#AreYouBetterOff Since '09: I have 2x in savings and investments, I started a small biz, got married, bought a house..WTF more do I want?
I tweeted this on September 1, 2012 to do my part to help...correct...the #GOP's mistaken, hateful, purchased hashtag #areyoubetteroff. It has been retweeted and favorited on Twitter dozens of times. It has also received many many Mentions and Direct Message responses. Many have been favorable, and with many...hilarity has ensued.
Listen, I was born the son of a union working man and a farmgirl. We never wanted for food, shelter, or healthcare. We never had the nicest car or the biggest TV, but my folks were able to buy me a guitar, save for my college education, and give me a comfortable life.
Nothing in this tweet is a lie. I've been through careers, jobs, and just-getting-by in my life. I have two sons and I have tried to make sure they have had the opportunity I had. I've been divorced, but I never gave up on the work it takes to build a good relationship.
About half of us Americans own stocks - much in 401(k)s or other individual investments. A generation (or two) ago, our employer took care of this as a pension, and anything extra the average person had earned us 5% or-so in savings interest. Now, it's stocks, which are essentially a losing proposition for a buy-and-hold family investor, whether in mutual funds or individual stocks. Investments I got when my marriage ended in '97 halved, and now are valued at a little more than then (not accounting for inflation...). I have continued to nickel and dime my investments, even through the recession, and my employer finally saw the light, started a 401(k) a few years ago, and I have been both aggressively funding this from my paycheck and lucky in what I choose, so my total investments, and what I've been able to put away for emergencies (earning 0.00001% or whatever) is now double what I had four years ago.
Starting 5 years ago or-so, I started making plans to get back into music and to start a small product distribution company. My needs were light and my sons would soon be leaving the nest. That time, of course was 2008, so my plans to make money from these pursuits had to be re-evaluated (but not dashed). I did start the small business, with plans to grow it over time instead of a big launch that wouldn't have been possible as the economy tanked. The biz provides slow and steady monthly income while my day job gives me less and less opportunity.
I met a wonderful woman, a single mom of a boy with high-functioning Autism, and finally last year we tied the knot. We pooled our resources, and figured out a way to buy a small house in a good neighborhood, walking distance to my step-son's school. It's cheaper than renting, even without the mortgage deduction and other benefits. Home values have already been inching up, so we actually have some equity.
Some have noted that my response is selfish. Yes. And the question is selfish. As the dust settles on my new life and house, we are starting to give back what we can, a pittance, really, to help those who do not have what we have.
About half of us Americans own stocks - much in 401(k)s or other individual investments. A generation (or two) ago, our employer took care of this as a pension, and anything extra the average person had earned us 5% or-so in savings interest. Now, it's stocks, which are essentially a losing proposition for a buy-and-hold family investor, whether in mutual funds or individual stocks. Investments I got when my marriage ended in '97 halved, and now are valued at a little more than then (not accounting for inflation...). I have continued to nickel and dime my investments, even through the recession, and my employer finally saw the light, started a 401(k) a few years ago, and I have been both aggressively funding this from my paycheck and lucky in what I choose, so my total investments, and what I've been able to put away for emergencies (earning 0.00001% or whatever) is now double what I had four years ago.
Starting 5 years ago or-so, I started making plans to get back into music and to start a small product distribution company. My needs were light and my sons would soon be leaving the nest. That time, of course was 2008, so my plans to make money from these pursuits had to be re-evaluated (but not dashed). I did start the small business, with plans to grow it over time instead of a big launch that wouldn't have been possible as the economy tanked. The biz provides slow and steady monthly income while my day job gives me less and less opportunity.
I met a wonderful woman, a single mom of a boy with high-functioning Autism, and finally last year we tied the knot. We pooled our resources, and figured out a way to buy a small house in a good neighborhood, walking distance to my step-son's school. It's cheaper than renting, even without the mortgage deduction and other benefits. Home values have already been inching up, so we actually have some equity.
Some have noted that my response is selfish. Yes. And the question is selfish. As the dust settles on my new life and house, we are starting to give back what we can, a pittance, really, to help those who do not have what we have.
#WeBuiltThis Well, yes. My late father didn't have money (what he did, my mother is living very comfortably on), and all my life, I have worked in society, not against it, to grow my life. My college education was a combination of taxpayer-guaranteed loans, scholarships, work, and my parents' savings. The stability a Union job gave my Dad gave me Hope. I saw that work, and working together, is a way to take you where you want to go in life, with luck.
If you say that you have built a job, business, life, or family solely by your hard work and ingenuity, you are just wrong and clueless. Hubris is not an attractive characteristic. We band together. We humans always have. Subsistence hunter-gatherers in the bush unite in tribes to survive, and to prosper in some cases. We united to defeat the British a few centuries ago. They would have eventually tossed us, but we banded together to fight for our independence. It wasn't just a musket, but our muskets in a militia. It wasn't just rogue revolutionaries, it was the people who stayed behind to farm, and tend to houses and families, working with their neighbors to build the nation.
Am I better off? Yes, and even if you are a billionaire, so are you.
If you say that you have built a job, business, life, or family solely by your hard work and ingenuity, you are just wrong and clueless. Hubris is not an attractive characteristic. We band together. We humans always have. Subsistence hunter-gatherers in the bush unite in tribes to survive, and to prosper in some cases. We united to defeat the British a few centuries ago. They would have eventually tossed us, but we banded together to fight for our independence. It wasn't just a musket, but our muskets in a militia. It wasn't just rogue revolutionaries, it was the people who stayed behind to farm, and tend to houses and families, working with their neighbors to build the nation.
Am I better off? Yes, and even if you are a billionaire, so are you.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Wow, Republicans...
Your parents sure were pathetic losers. No wonder their children grew up to be what they are.
I'll tell you something...my mother grew up on a farm in a small midwestern state. She worked every day, didn't have much, but never wanted for the basics. As a teenager, she worked in a small restaurant started by her older sister, saving for college. She met my father as she worked there slingin' hash.
My Dad was a Navy vet, back from WWII, serving on Guam in the waning days. He got electronics training through the GI Bill, a job at the Phone Company, and set his sights on this cute young brunette.
They married. Had a son (my brother), then another (me). Bought a little old house, within walking distance of work and schools. Had no problem paying for medical care. Saved for a modest vacation every year, usually driving to beautiful places around the Midwest and Eastern part of our great country, staying in cheap motels, eating affordable food. Put aside money so the kids could go to college. Put aside money and worked second jobs, planned for retirement.
Do you think a heroic, to this crop of Republicans, life like this would have made them choose the Republican Party of clawing your way to the top? My dad probably voted for Nixon, but changed his allegiance Eugene McCarthy subsequently. Why? My dad was a Union man. Working for Ma Bell, how else was one family man to have a voice against this monopoly? How else would he have been able to retire on a pension (that is still supporting my mother, by the way)? How else could he have medical and dental care for this little family? Was he going to entrepreneur his way to start a competing phone company? My mother's family had always been members of the Democratic Party, even though her parents were conservative, church going farm folk (I never heard Grandpa or Grandma say anything but a loving word about anyone - they walked the walk).
Watch this video montage:
NBCNews.com video: Montage: RNC speakers talk about money struggles:
Do you believe these stories? Do you think that everyone but them got where they are through handouts, the government, and the work of others? Do you think Barack Obama personally had destroyed centuries of self-determination in the US and replaced it with a Marxist/Socialist/Communist redistributive regime?
Instead of choosing a life of lobbyist and taxpayer largess, my parents chose to live a life of work and giving. Instead of being able to sell stocks to pay for Harvard, they were able to use arguably the most beneficial government program ever enacted, the GI Bill, to set the stage for generations to come. Instead of relying on decades-old stories of your parents' self reliance to prop up your decades-long career of leeching off taxpayers and the corporate teat, my family lived their version of the American dream.
I'll tell you something...my mother grew up on a farm in a small midwestern state. She worked every day, didn't have much, but never wanted for the basics. As a teenager, she worked in a small restaurant started by her older sister, saving for college. She met my father as she worked there slingin' hash.
My Dad was a Navy vet, back from WWII, serving on Guam in the waning days. He got electronics training through the GI Bill, a job at the Phone Company, and set his sights on this cute young brunette.
They married. Had a son (my brother), then another (me). Bought a little old house, within walking distance of work and schools. Had no problem paying for medical care. Saved for a modest vacation every year, usually driving to beautiful places around the Midwest and Eastern part of our great country, staying in cheap motels, eating affordable food. Put aside money so the kids could go to college. Put aside money and worked second jobs, planned for retirement.
Do you think a heroic, to this crop of Republicans, life like this would have made them choose the Republican Party of clawing your way to the top? My dad probably voted for Nixon, but changed his allegiance Eugene McCarthy subsequently. Why? My dad was a Union man. Working for Ma Bell, how else was one family man to have a voice against this monopoly? How else would he have been able to retire on a pension (that is still supporting my mother, by the way)? How else could he have medical and dental care for this little family? Was he going to entrepreneur his way to start a competing phone company? My mother's family had always been members of the Democratic Party, even though her parents were conservative, church going farm folk (I never heard Grandpa or Grandma say anything but a loving word about anyone - they walked the walk).
Watch this video montage:
NBCNews.com video: Montage: RNC speakers talk about money struggles:
Do you believe these stories? Do you think that everyone but them got where they are through handouts, the government, and the work of others? Do you think Barack Obama personally had destroyed centuries of self-determination in the US and replaced it with a Marxist/Socialist/Communist redistributive regime?
Instead of choosing a life of lobbyist and taxpayer largess, my parents chose to live a life of work and giving. Instead of being able to sell stocks to pay for Harvard, they were able to use arguably the most beneficial government program ever enacted, the GI Bill, to set the stage for generations to come. Instead of relying on decades-old stories of your parents' self reliance to prop up your decades-long career of leeching off taxpayers and the corporate teat, my family lived their version of the American dream.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
wedge issues, and the evil that is the tax-free pulpit
WEDGE ISSUES
Wedge issues are nothing new. BOTH SIDES ARE NOT EQUAL (sorry I shouted) and the #GOP has become especially adept at engaging low-information voters to vote against their own interests, mostly for things that will never become law. Starting with the Southern Strategy to capture rural, Southern Democrats, Republicans have been wanting to keep Jim Crow alive, women subjugated, and African Americans as second class citizens.
We are one nation. When we eliminate the social wedges, we mostly want the same things. There will always be a rabid right wing that flares up or is inflated by Koch-sized money, but we can mostly just get along and work on the day-to-day issues of running a government. The GOP is making it particularly hard these days...
At their 2012 convention, they are proposing a platform that is surely designed to take our country back - to 1850.
-They propose to repeal #PPACA. This would immediately put us on track to trillions more in national debt, unless we make it up in taxes or decimate our military and social investment programs.
-They would deny a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy, no matter whether it would save her life, or she was raped. This is slavery, pure and simple. I do respect their consistency - if they believe a zygote is a baby, then it still is a baby no matter how the pregnancy started and no matter what it's outcome will be - but their hatred is vile.
-They would deny contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and other common practices that don't even terminate a pregnancy. Outlawing abortion doesn't end abortion, it only denies abortion to those who don't have the money, and makes them dangerous to all. With more pregnancies, because women don't know about contraception and can't get it if they do know, we will have more abortions.
-They would voucherize Medicare, causing an immediate increase of appx. $7,000 a year to seniors, and trust me, this is the difference between security and poverty. To throw the health care of Medicare recipients to the corporate market is simply murder.
-GOP will send Social Security to Wall Street. Good luck if you plan to retire in a down period, when your Social Security is upside down.
-They will destroy Welfare as we know it. More single mothers have to work - family values at its best! Clinton folded in the face of strong opposition, he didn't need to do this, and they still impeached him. The same will happen to Barack Obama during his second term, mark my words, and it won't necessarily be about welfare, but it will be about race.
-"We don't need more fire fighters" - Mitt Romney. We don't need more teachers. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, educate your self, 2nd graders. Save your own homes - buy more hoses!
POLITICAL PREACHERS
-"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." —Matthew 7:15
I have been preached at. "There is evil in Washington" "We need to take our country back" "The president hopes to change our country to a communal, European nation"
Wedge issues are nothing new. BOTH SIDES ARE NOT EQUAL (sorry I shouted) and the #GOP has become especially adept at engaging low-information voters to vote against their own interests, mostly for things that will never become law. Starting with the Southern Strategy to capture rural, Southern Democrats, Republicans have been wanting to keep Jim Crow alive, women subjugated, and African Americans as second class citizens.
We are one nation. When we eliminate the social wedges, we mostly want the same things. There will always be a rabid right wing that flares up or is inflated by Koch-sized money, but we can mostly just get along and work on the day-to-day issues of running a government. The GOP is making it particularly hard these days...
At their 2012 convention, they are proposing a platform that is surely designed to take our country back - to 1850.
-They propose to repeal #PPACA. This would immediately put us on track to trillions more in national debt, unless we make it up in taxes or decimate our military and social investment programs.
-They would deny a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy, no matter whether it would save her life, or she was raped. This is slavery, pure and simple. I do respect their consistency - if they believe a zygote is a baby, then it still is a baby no matter how the pregnancy started and no matter what it's outcome will be - but their hatred is vile.
-They would deny contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and other common practices that don't even terminate a pregnancy. Outlawing abortion doesn't end abortion, it only denies abortion to those who don't have the money, and makes them dangerous to all. With more pregnancies, because women don't know about contraception and can't get it if they do know, we will have more abortions.
-They would voucherize Medicare, causing an immediate increase of appx. $7,000 a year to seniors, and trust me, this is the difference between security and poverty. To throw the health care of Medicare recipients to the corporate market is simply murder.
-GOP will send Social Security to Wall Street. Good luck if you plan to retire in a down period, when your Social Security is upside down.
-They will destroy Welfare as we know it. More single mothers have to work - family values at its best! Clinton folded in the face of strong opposition, he didn't need to do this, and they still impeached him. The same will happen to Barack Obama during his second term, mark my words, and it won't necessarily be about welfare, but it will be about race.
-"We don't need more fire fighters" - Mitt Romney. We don't need more teachers. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, educate your self, 2nd graders. Save your own homes - buy more hoses!
POLITICAL PREACHERS
-"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." —Matthew 7:15
I have been preached at. "There is evil in Washington" "We need to take our country back" "The president hopes to change our country to a communal, European nation"
Every week, from the pulpit, tax-free, preachers are telling their congregations how to vote, how to hate.
"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?-Barry Goldwater knew the truth, and he lost, in part, because he didn't embrace the fringe elements of his party. There were many things I didn't like about his policies, but he seems like a moderate compared to today's GOP.
Insurrectionists like http://www.speakupmovement.org/church/LearnMore/details/4702 have events like Pulpit Freedom Sunday. They have convinced congregations that they are under assault, that some government entity wants to take away their freedoms and tax the church into submission. A big danger is that these seditionists spread hate, fear, and malaise to their congregations so their people can be controlled. This is so their vote can be controlled, not that their souls can be saved. Their votes can be channeled toward hate and repression. It's the people of these congregations that must stand up to the dangerous moneyed interests that control their church. Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group whose founders include James Dobson, the founder of hate group Focus on the Family, collects money by passing the plate in church and funnels it toward policies that subjugate women, blacks, gays, etc.
Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who led preachers in the battle to pass California’s Proposition 8, has subjugated our democracy. Out of state, mostly Morman money, was used to puff up hate legislation. They lied to make people believe that P8 would take away their rights, when it was only extending rights to those who have been disenfranchised.
There is some hope. Rev. Greg Boyd gets it http://astore.amazon.com/christusvicto-20/detail/0310267315 In his book Myth of a Christian Nation, he defends the strong right for religious institutions to stand outside the reach of government influence.
"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?-Barry Goldwater knew the truth, and he lost, in part, because he didn't embrace the fringe elements of his party. There were many things I didn't like about his policies, but he seems like a moderate compared to today's GOP.
Insurrectionists like http://www.speakupmovement.org/church/LearnMore/details/4702 have events like Pulpit Freedom Sunday. They have convinced congregations that they are under assault, that some government entity wants to take away their freedoms and tax the church into submission. A big danger is that these seditionists spread hate, fear, and malaise to their congregations so their people can be controlled. This is so their vote can be controlled, not that their souls can be saved. Their votes can be channeled toward hate and repression. It's the people of these congregations that must stand up to the dangerous moneyed interests that control their church. Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group whose founders include James Dobson, the founder of hate group Focus on the Family, collects money by passing the plate in church and funnels it toward policies that subjugate women, blacks, gays, etc.
Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who led preachers in the battle to pass California’s Proposition 8, has subjugated our democracy. Out of state, mostly Morman money, was used to puff up hate legislation. They lied to make people believe that P8 would take away their rights, when it was only extending rights to those who have been disenfranchised.
There is some hope. Rev. Greg Boyd gets it http://astore.amazon.com/christusvicto-20/detail/0310267315 In his book Myth of a Christian Nation, he defends the strong right for religious institutions to stand outside the reach of government influence.
The GOP platform wedges sane Americans from fringe Americans. We just need more people to see clearly the importance of keeping our government outside the reach of extremist, seditious Religious Industrial Complex influence.
Monday, August 27, 2012
One Delusion to Top Them All
Of course, Cassidy's ten delusions are shared by half of America, and many of them vote.
America’s Twin Delusions and a Proposed Constitutional Amendment | TPJmagazine:
He's missing the one that unites them as one-issue voters: the delusion that life begins at or before the sperm fertilizes the egg.
There is no evidence from or agreement among scientists that this is so. Life exists just as much in the sperm or the egg, or the cells that the sperm was made from, as it does in the fertilized egg. There is no statement or agreement among religious texts that state anything other than life begins with the Breath of Life.
We are born with rights, and one of the greatest things about our country is that it was formed largely to protect these rights. We recognized that no king or country or incorporation had rights superseding those of the People. Much of the Constitution, and certainly the Bill of Rights, was to specify some of these rights we were born with, and how the Federal Government was built to protect them.
Each of these are exclusive rights. We each have a right to our thoughts, and to express them, but we can exclude expression such as shouting fire in a theater. We have a right to bear a musket in a militia (the British had outlawed that so the Colonists couldn't defend themselves), but luckily there are some modern weapons that are limited to law enforcement and military. Each of us is born with the right to our private medical decisions with our physician, including the right, as settled law with Roe v. Wade, to choose to carry a pregnancy to term or not.
This doesn't mean that we can't regulate it reasonably. I, too, think that unless it is absolutely necessary to save a woman's life that there is a stage late in a pregnancy where it is too late to terminate, for example, and we have to make sure every patient is making an informed decisions. To do less, especially with the case of a pregnant woman, is to make her a slave, a soul-less incubator, subjugated to the will of a government.
This subjugation, if carried to an extreme like outlawing abortion in any case, is an example of the Biggest of Big Government. The Tea Party types who rail against Big Government need look no further that how their government regulates what people do in their bedrooms and with their physicians as the first example of what we really need to do with government and its increasing reach into our rights.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Rape Victims' Bill of Rights - Constitutional Amendment
1. If a rape results in pregnancy, no Local, State, or Federal government will restrict the woman's right to a safe and affordable abortion.
2. If a rape results in the birth of a baby, the Rapist and his family will relinquish all visitation rights in perpetuity.
3. If a rape results in the birth of a baby, the Rapist will pay child support in the amount of $6,945/year, adjusted for inflation, until the child turns 18.
4. No state law shall undermine federal minimum standards of punishment for rape.
5. Rape is defined as a sexualized attack on any person by one or more others. Gender of the rapist or victim is irrelevant.
Rape is a crime of sexual domination. I see this in dogs all the time. We are not dogs! Humans live our lives a step above our instincts.
No female is a slave, required to incubate a fetus, give birth to, and nurture a child if she did not consent to its conception. Our nation was founded on one principle: we are born with rights, and the nation exists to ensure those rights. One of the rights is the Right to Bear Children (and not in a militia with a musket). To deny the choice to bear the child or not is subjugation, and in the United States of America, we are all equal.
No person in power is a master, decreeing what contraception can or can not be used, or whether a woman is required to carry a child to term. This is not to say that we can not agree, through our representative government, on reasonable regulation of procedures. All of our rights, including and especially ones involving weapons, are and can be regulated.
It's time to go enforce a Constitutional government and enforce the rights of women.
2. If a rape results in the birth of a baby, the Rapist and his family will relinquish all visitation rights in perpetuity.
3. If a rape results in the birth of a baby, the Rapist will pay child support in the amount of $6,945/year, adjusted for inflation, until the child turns 18.
4. No state law shall undermine federal minimum standards of punishment for rape.
5. Rape is defined as a sexualized attack on any person by one or more others. Gender of the rapist or victim is irrelevant.
Rape is a crime of sexual domination. I see this in dogs all the time. We are not dogs! Humans live our lives a step above our instincts.
No female is a slave, required to incubate a fetus, give birth to, and nurture a child if she did not consent to its conception. Our nation was founded on one principle: we are born with rights, and the nation exists to ensure those rights. One of the rights is the Right to Bear Children (and not in a militia with a musket). To deny the choice to bear the child or not is subjugation, and in the United States of America, we are all equal.
No person in power is a master, decreeing what contraception can or can not be used, or whether a woman is required to carry a child to term. This is not to say that we can not agree, through our representative government, on reasonable regulation of procedures. All of our rights, including and especially ones involving weapons, are and can be regulated.
It's time to go enforce a Constitutional government and enforce the rights of women.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Love Boss, but Kelsey Grammer, you are not entitled to an Emmy
Kelsey Grammer: I was snubbed for an Emmy because I'm a Republican
Oh, come on.
Boss is one of the best shows on TV. Fearless in its storytelling, takes no political prisoners, draining each actor of the truth, in every scene. The details are as astounding as the scenery-chewing.
Grammer's acting is not a revelation. You could always see this in him - the stone professionalism, the ability to inhabit a character, the tools to show an ego without (reportedly) being consumed by one. The combination of confidence and resignation he showed in his first appearance as Frasier Crane, wooing Diane in Cheers, embodied every entitled over-educated guy-who-had-more-money-than-you who was stealing your girlfriend.
Grammer's Republicanism is no surprise. He has drifted toward patrician roles, even laughably military (was the movie Periscope Down?), and he has made sure we knew that he was one of the few conservatives in Hollywood. This is not technically true - the entertainment business is one of the most divided in the world between haves and have-nots. Many of the wealthy and powerful in this world will pay lip service to socially liberal causes while paying actual money to the Republican party - they'd like to hang on to some of their largess, and they hang around a potent world of Big Money.
Kelsey, drop the drug abuse, drive like you're one of us instead of one of them, respect your spouse and love yourself enough to be a willing participant in a marriage, hold on to whatever political views you want as long as they're based in fact, and embrace the work you are able to do and the accolades you have already received.
Oh, come on.
Boss is one of the best shows on TV. Fearless in its storytelling, takes no political prisoners, draining each actor of the truth, in every scene. The details are as astounding as the scenery-chewing.
Grammer's acting is not a revelation. You could always see this in him - the stone professionalism, the ability to inhabit a character, the tools to show an ego without (reportedly) being consumed by one. The combination of confidence and resignation he showed in his first appearance as Frasier Crane, wooing Diane in Cheers, embodied every entitled over-educated guy-who-had-more-money-than-you who was stealing your girlfriend.
Grammer's Republicanism is no surprise. He has drifted toward patrician roles, even laughably military (was the movie Periscope Down?), and he has made sure we knew that he was one of the few conservatives in Hollywood. This is not technically true - the entertainment business is one of the most divided in the world between haves and have-nots. Many of the wealthy and powerful in this world will pay lip service to socially liberal causes while paying actual money to the Republican party - they'd like to hang on to some of their largess, and they hang around a potent world of Big Money.
Kelsey, drop the drug abuse, drive like you're one of us instead of one of them, respect your spouse and love yourself enough to be a willing participant in a marriage, hold on to whatever political views you want as long as they're based in fact, and embrace the work you are able to do and the accolades you have already received.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
NPR, why do you interview idiots in your First and Main Series?
Wis. Business Owner Relates To Romney's Resume : NPR:
NPR, why do you interview idiots in your First and Main series?
This woman, running a restaurant with 46 employees, can't possibly identify with Mitt Romney if she has the slightest bit of knowledge about his resume. He wouldn't have patronized a restaurant like yours, let alone known how to run or turn a profit from it. If you would have been 10 times bigger and part of a chain of restaurants, you might have been on his radar - Bain Capital could have bought the chain, fired you and many of your employees, cut full time employees to part time, shown an improved quarterly profit, and sold their interest in the company at a profit - THIS IS HIS BUSINESS EXPERIENCE!
Come to think of it, how do you run your business? I'd assume you pay most of your employees well below minimum wage, split their tips, expect them to be taxed as if they were working for a full wage full-time, offer them no benefits...
You think Mitt Romney, who never had to run a business or work for a boss in his life, understands you better than Barack Obama, who started with nothing, worked his way through some of the best schools, worked for the common good as a Community Organizer, worked as a lawyer and a law professor in the private sector, etc?
Obama doesn't understand business? He has lowered your taxes! If Mitt Romney is elected, your taxes will go up by at least $6,000 (unless you earn more than $250,000 from your restaurant, in which case you are just a lying idiot).
Don't know what #PPACA will do for you? READ!!! http://www.healthcare.gov/law/index.html http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/healthreform/ and hundreds of other legitimate references. By 2014, all of your employees might have full medical coverage, as opposed to the un-covered employees (I assume) you have now, at no extra expense to you!
Don't feel a "connection" to Barack Obama that you did to Bill Clinton? Sucks to be you, trying to survive with a Black Man in the White House.
Religion in government? Birth Control has a place in government only if religion has taken over government. Fortunately, it's only taken over voters...in a good political environment, people will let their beliefs inform their vote, or their leadership if they are in government, but instead, we've let the most extreme of religious influences infiltrate many layers of government, and we are all suffering for this. Do you actually want more unwanted babies, venereal disease, and abortion? If not, you should be fighting for equal access to birth control for all women, not fighting to demonize birth control and those who use it.
And yes, your pitiful, limited world view comes down to one issue, and one issue alone to determine your vote: abortion. Why do you want the biggest of Big Governments? Why do you want a government so big it can regulate the most personal and private medical decision you, as a woman can make? What is missing in you that you want to control the lives of other women? How many unwanted children have you adopted, sick children have you healed, or hungry children have you fed?
'via Blog this'
NPR, why do you interview idiots in your First and Main series?
This woman, running a restaurant with 46 employees, can't possibly identify with Mitt Romney if she has the slightest bit of knowledge about his resume. He wouldn't have patronized a restaurant like yours, let alone known how to run or turn a profit from it. If you would have been 10 times bigger and part of a chain of restaurants, you might have been on his radar - Bain Capital could have bought the chain, fired you and many of your employees, cut full time employees to part time, shown an improved quarterly profit, and sold their interest in the company at a profit - THIS IS HIS BUSINESS EXPERIENCE!
Come to think of it, how do you run your business? I'd assume you pay most of your employees well below minimum wage, split their tips, expect them to be taxed as if they were working for a full wage full-time, offer them no benefits...
You think Mitt Romney, who never had to run a business or work for a boss in his life, understands you better than Barack Obama, who started with nothing, worked his way through some of the best schools, worked for the common good as a Community Organizer, worked as a lawyer and a law professor in the private sector, etc?
Obama doesn't understand business? He has lowered your taxes! If Mitt Romney is elected, your taxes will go up by at least $6,000 (unless you earn more than $250,000 from your restaurant, in which case you are just a lying idiot).
Don't know what #PPACA will do for you? READ!!! http://www.healthcare.gov/law/index.html http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/healthreform/ and hundreds of other legitimate references. By 2014, all of your employees might have full medical coverage, as opposed to the un-covered employees (I assume) you have now, at no extra expense to you!
Don't feel a "connection" to Barack Obama that you did to Bill Clinton? Sucks to be you, trying to survive with a Black Man in the White House.
Religion in government? Birth Control has a place in government only if religion has taken over government. Fortunately, it's only taken over voters...in a good political environment, people will let their beliefs inform their vote, or their leadership if they are in government, but instead, we've let the most extreme of religious influences infiltrate many layers of government, and we are all suffering for this. Do you actually want more unwanted babies, venereal disease, and abortion? If not, you should be fighting for equal access to birth control for all women, not fighting to demonize birth control and those who use it.
And yes, your pitiful, limited world view comes down to one issue, and one issue alone to determine your vote: abortion. Why do you want the biggest of Big Governments? Why do you want a government so big it can regulate the most personal and private medical decision you, as a woman can make? What is missing in you that you want to control the lives of other women? How many unwanted children have you adopted, sick children have you healed, or hungry children have you fed?
'via Blog this'
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The truth is, you don't need a gun.
I grew up in a safe little neighborhood in a safe little Midwestern town.
When I was young, I shot a few small-caliber bullets at a few innocent woodland creatures, and thankfully they lived to see another day or a more worthy predator.
My immediate family didn't, but neighbors and friends hunted (and fished - Lake Michigan perch was much more tasty than pickup-truck venison). They had guns, and I had no particular fear or curiosity about them. When I was around 7 new neighbors moved in, the woman of the house was pregnant and gave birth to twins.
One of the twins was a blonde kid, the other was a slightly developmentally delayed brown haired kid. The blonde was given my name, with the parents always saying "you're such a good kid, and I hope our son turns out like you."
I grew and the kids grew, of course separated by years but united as neighbors. As I went through high school, and then went off to college, the neighbors bought a newer, nicer home at the outskirts of town in a new development.
Their dad had a nice well-locked gun cabinet. He took his sons out hunting and taught them age-appropriate gun rules. He loved them.
I got a call one day at college that the boys had somehow gotten in the cabinet and were playing with a rifle. They loaded it, and the blonde twin's life was ended with one errant pull of a trigger. The family is, by all reports, to this day decades later, devastated.
The only notable fact is they this family had a gun. Had the gun not been there, this child would have probably lived to see another day.
This family had no need to have a gun. They wanted a gun, for hunting, which was not necessary or efficient for putting food on their table, possibly for protection, even in the unlikely event of some imagined home invasion in this relatively safe community. I don't see any likelihood that this family would take one of their muskets and join a militia to take down a tyrant.
The facts in this story are just that, facts. The truth? I get from this incident that their family, and mine, were not safer with the addition of a gun.
When I was young, I shot a few small-caliber bullets at a few innocent woodland creatures, and thankfully they lived to see another day or a more worthy predator.
My immediate family didn't, but neighbors and friends hunted (and fished - Lake Michigan perch was much more tasty than pickup-truck venison). They had guns, and I had no particular fear or curiosity about them. When I was around 7 new neighbors moved in, the woman of the house was pregnant and gave birth to twins.
One of the twins was a blonde kid, the other was a slightly developmentally delayed brown haired kid. The blonde was given my name, with the parents always saying "you're such a good kid, and I hope our son turns out like you."
I grew and the kids grew, of course separated by years but united as neighbors. As I went through high school, and then went off to college, the neighbors bought a newer, nicer home at the outskirts of town in a new development.
Their dad had a nice well-locked gun cabinet. He took his sons out hunting and taught them age-appropriate gun rules. He loved them.
I got a call one day at college that the boys had somehow gotten in the cabinet and were playing with a rifle. They loaded it, and the blonde twin's life was ended with one errant pull of a trigger. The family is, by all reports, to this day decades later, devastated.
The only notable fact is they this family had a gun. Had the gun not been there, this child would have probably lived to see another day.
This family had no need to have a gun. They wanted a gun, for hunting, which was not necessary or efficient for putting food on their table, possibly for protection, even in the unlikely event of some imagined home invasion in this relatively safe community. I don't see any likelihood that this family would take one of their muskets and join a militia to take down a tyrant.
The facts in this story are just that, facts. The truth? I get from this incident that their family, and mine, were not safer with the addition of a gun.
Friday, January 20, 2012
#KXL: A Pipeline to Nowhere
-Tar sands oil is the dirtiest of a dirty industry. Extracting oil from the earth in this fashion is an environmental catastrophe for all of us.
-A foreign country taking our land by Eminent Domain to enrich a few billionaires is beyond contempt.
-If TransCanada could indemnify themselves and us from inevitable leaks, they would - but they haven't.
-TransCanada couldn't possibly indemnify themselves from the destruction a good sized earthquake on the New Madrid fault would cause to this project.
-KXL is now the poster child for a project that would privatize profits and socialize losses.
-This oil is destined for existing US refineries that will sell their product overseas. We are currently exporting more refined oil products than we import (take that, Drill Baby Drill idiots) and flooding the global will, guess what, increase domestic gasoline cost.
-Not 200,000 permanent jobs! Construction will involve a few thousand temporary construction jobs, and a few hundred permanent operational jobs. Are these worth it for a dirty business that will only enrich a few already wealthy people?
Say no the this pipe.
-A foreign country taking our land by Eminent Domain to enrich a few billionaires is beyond contempt.
-If TransCanada could indemnify themselves and us from inevitable leaks, they would - but they haven't.
-TransCanada couldn't possibly indemnify themselves from the destruction a good sized earthquake on the New Madrid fault would cause to this project.
-KXL is now the poster child for a project that would privatize profits and socialize losses.
-This oil is destined for existing US refineries that will sell their product overseas. We are currently exporting more refined oil products than we import (take that, Drill Baby Drill idiots) and flooding the global will, guess what, increase domestic gasoline cost.
-Not 200,000 permanent jobs! Construction will involve a few thousand temporary construction jobs, and a few hundred permanent operational jobs. Are these worth it for a dirty business that will only enrich a few already wealthy people?
Say no the this pipe.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Ron Paul in 1998 John Birch Society Documentary on the UN Plot to take o...
Remember, Birch = Koch.
Nearly all of the predictions in this video, the horrible things the UN will impose on us, have instead been the goal, and in many cases the accomplishment, of the GOP, TeaParty, corporate-controlled media, and the billionaires that back these.
Central church with no exceptions allowed? We are now a Christian nation.
Property rights? We now can have our property taken away as long as it is for the benefit of billionaires.
Controlled elections? We've already had two completely gamed presidential elections.
Ron Paul is still an extremist, anti-American, racist, xenophobic side show.
This video shows the true nature of so much of the fringe that has overtaken too much of American political thought. Unlike them, I'm not afraid of being taken over from without, but I think it is all too clear that we are being taken over from within.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Keystone XL ≠ Payroll Tax Cut
Time and time again, our Worst Congress in History has proven its inability to govern.
One of the worst examples is the current bill to push through the extension of our current payroll tax cut only if the Keystone XL project is funded. These things have NOTHING to do with each other. If either of these is to be passed, I suggest that the leadership of the house be forced to actually read the bill, understand it, separate it into reasonable issues, and vote on each individually.
The payroll tax cut may or may not be a great thing mid- to long-term, as it may have an effect on the stability of social insurance programs upon which many of us depend It certainly is a tax cut, and one political party worships these over God and Country. It is a break for middle class workers during a time when jobs, families, and lives have been broken by legislation and policy dating back to January 20, 1980. It is a stimulus that more than pays for itself in today's rocky economic climate.
The Keystone XL project is a gift to a few billionaires which creates a few temporary jobs, encourages the rape on Canadian land, endangers the life and health of all along the length of the proposed pipeline, and will result in Canadian petrochemicals being sent to South American users. Magic benefits to America from this do not, and will not exist.
Please, stop any effort to pass this plutocratic pipeline, do what you can to extend this vital tax relief, and at any cost do not let them be tied together in a devil's bargain. Nobody benefits from deals like this - we all lose.
One of the worst examples is the current bill to push through the extension of our current payroll tax cut only if the Keystone XL project is funded. These things have NOTHING to do with each other. If either of these is to be passed, I suggest that the leadership of the house be forced to actually read the bill, understand it, separate it into reasonable issues, and vote on each individually.
The payroll tax cut may or may not be a great thing mid- to long-term, as it may have an effect on the stability of social insurance programs upon which many of us depend It certainly is a tax cut, and one political party worships these over God and Country. It is a break for middle class workers during a time when jobs, families, and lives have been broken by legislation and policy dating back to January 20, 1980. It is a stimulus that more than pays for itself in today's rocky economic climate.
The Keystone XL project is a gift to a few billionaires which creates a few temporary jobs, encourages the rape on Canadian land, endangers the life and health of all along the length of the proposed pipeline, and will result in Canadian petrochemicals being sent to South American users. Magic benefits to America from this do not, and will not exist.
Please, stop any effort to pass this plutocratic pipeline, do what you can to extend this vital tax relief, and at any cost do not let them be tied together in a devil's bargain. Nobody benefits from deals like this - we all lose.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Real Americans redistribute: The payroll tax debate’s dirty secret - The Washington Post
Real Americans redistribute: The payroll tax debate’s dirty secret - The Washington Post:
Matt, you're forgetting the true redistribution that happens. We work for 40 years, paying taxes with few deductions. Those taxes go to help the wealthiest among us use the same roads that we do, be protected by the same army that we do, and collect the same SS that we do. We pay into social insurance programs at the top rate, and the wealthiest among us pay a tiny fraction of their incomes. The wealthiest among us pay much of their taxes as Capital Gains, forcing us who do the work to pay a much higher portion of our pay for the services that we all share.
We who work and consume pay a premium on the goods and services we buy. This premium gets spent financing elections, bribing politicians, and writing legislation, of which at least 50% is is direct opposition to the needs of most of us. This premium goes for money to bail out financial institutions who use it not to provide a better service but to bonus their C-Levels, board members, and institutional shareholders. This premium goes to finance hate. We have little or no chance to choose a proper recipient of our consumer $$ - when both Home Depot and Lowes are essentially evil and have driven out local stores, we have no option to give our $$ to a better organization.
The real redistribution is that which is UP from the combined wealth of the Middle Class to the pockets of the few already wealthy.
It's funny to read ongoing comments on NDAA news stories.
Right wingers blame it on Obama (and inevitably say "Ron Paul 2012"...), and left wingers blame it on back room laws written with John McCain.
The simple truth is that Congress does have the right and duty to pass laws to protect us, and they are attempting to do that in light of battles that our Founding Fathers couldn't have imagined. They have though, with the (un) Patriot Act and other law, stepped far over the line of law and into unConstitutional abridgments of freedom.
We have decades - in fact centuries - of experience fighting terrorists on our soil. Shay's Rebellion, Anarchists, (imagined) Commies, cross burning Klansmen, Weatherman bombings, armed hijackers in the '70s, abortion clinic bombers, etc. Existing law has kept the United States as an unlikely place to be the victim of a terrorist attack.
Every chip from our constitutional protections of rights to justice, equal treatment, etc., takes us further from the free nation we aspire to be.
Please, President Obama, Senators and Congressional Representatives, do not let the NDAA pass with provisions to declare our land as a battleground and our people as enemy combatants.
Right wingers blame it on Obama (and inevitably say "Ron Paul 2012"...), and left wingers blame it on back room laws written with John McCain.
The simple truth is that Congress does have the right and duty to pass laws to protect us, and they are attempting to do that in light of battles that our Founding Fathers couldn't have imagined. They have though, with the (un) Patriot Act and other law, stepped far over the line of law and into unConstitutional abridgments of freedom.
We have decades - in fact centuries - of experience fighting terrorists on our soil. Shay's Rebellion, Anarchists, (imagined) Commies, cross burning Klansmen, Weatherman bombings, armed hijackers in the '70s, abortion clinic bombers, etc. Existing law has kept the United States as an unlikely place to be the victim of a terrorist attack.
Every chip from our constitutional protections of rights to justice, equal treatment, etc., takes us further from the free nation we aspire to be.
Please, President Obama, Senators and Congressional Representatives, do not let the NDAA pass with provisions to declare our land as a battleground and our people as enemy combatants.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Prohibit the use of corporate funds ... for political purposes
The Other 98%: "It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced.
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1910."
'via Blog this'
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1910."
'via Blog this'
"Let us not be afraid to help each other—let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country."
Read more at the American Presidency Project:Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at Marietta, Ohio.http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15672#ixzz1e4RqxqCp
Read more at the American Presidency Project:Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at Marietta, Ohio.http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15672#ixzz1e4RqxqCp
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
A good day to be a Democrat?
(I'm not a Dem, but I usually vote with them)
Were Democrats having bad day on election day in November 2010? Did they have an array of hopeless candidates, each more abusive or nuttier than the rest? Did they have unelectable candidates that were still the main attraction in the 24/7 news cycle? Were they proposing legislation in many states to disenfranchise voters? Were they proposing legislation to make women 2nd class citizens?
No.
Democrats, perhaps from some funky mix of lethargy and overconfidence, just plain did not go out and vote. For this, we got shocked toward banana republic political status, retreating on the economy when we should have been charging forward, and let union workers, teachers, firefighters, homeowners, etc., be blamed for what Wall Street did to the Global economy.
The lesson, today, whether we vote to repeal union-busting in OH or vote to declare zygotes persons, is that if we don't vote, things will change. Not for the better.
Were Democrats having bad day on election day in November 2010? Did they have an array of hopeless candidates, each more abusive or nuttier than the rest? Did they have unelectable candidates that were still the main attraction in the 24/7 news cycle? Were they proposing legislation in many states to disenfranchise voters? Were they proposing legislation to make women 2nd class citizens?
No.
Democrats, perhaps from some funky mix of lethargy and overconfidence, just plain did not go out and vote. For this, we got shocked toward banana republic political status, retreating on the economy when we should have been charging forward, and let union workers, teachers, firefighters, homeowners, etc., be blamed for what Wall Street did to the Global economy.
The lesson, today, whether we vote to repeal union-busting in OH or vote to declare zygotes persons, is that if we don't vote, things will change. Not for the better.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
How Bank Transfer Day Will Help The Banks It’s Trying To Hurt | The New Republic
Simon Van Zuylen-Wood: How Bank Transfer Day Will Help The Banks It’s Trying To Hurt | The New Republic:
Typical of propagandists, Zuylen-Wood chooses not to mention the single-most important aspect of a story, in hopes that we will take his fractured journalism as fact.
Typical of propagandists, Zuylen-Wood chooses not to mention the single-most important aspect of a story, in hopes that we will take his fractured journalism as fact.
Banks make their profit from each depositor by reinvesting their money at a profit. Some accounts are more profitable than others, but each enlarges the pool - as the saying goes "it takes money to make money" and we give them our money so they can make money with it. Traditionally, banks have not charged fees or given interest on small accounts, but the trend is obvious: to charge fees and only give interest on huge accounts.
If a bank can not turn a profit on the money I give them, they don't deserve to be in business.
Name and Shame? Obama May Go Public with Lawmakers' Funding Requests - Reid Wilson - NationalJournal.com
Name and Shame? Obama May Go Public with Lawmakers' Funding Requests - Reid Wilson - NationalJournal.com:
Go Big, President Obama.
Go Big, President Obama.
You have much Executive Power that you have not used. We see that you came from the Senate to the White House with a sincere desire to unite and to use compromise as a way to involve all sides in solutions to our big problems. We also see that you have run into a brick wall from a united Republican front, whose only desire is to drive you out of office.
The Republican establishment is still seething from, of all things, Watergate, and they feel that Executive Power should be pumped up so presidents can operate with impunity in getting elected at any cost to our Democracy. At least use powers at-hand to right some of the abuses that have been allowed to happen in our government. At this point, every election, legislator and legislation are bought and paid for by powerful and wealthy interests - the People, and voters have been robbed of their voice.
You have the support of over half of the American People, and Congress has the support of less than 10% of us. Reflect the will of the People.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Mr. President, I am among the lucky few.
Dear Mr. President,
I am in the lucky (and add many more luckies) position to make a home purchase today, in Southern California no less. I have been renting since 1997, hoping to buy, but watching prices bubble up while the sanity of loan offerings turn cold and my income has shrunk to 60% of what it was the last time I owned.
There are many forces at work here, and many forces that you have Executive Power to address directly, and vast influence to address otherwise. One example is your proposed changes to HARP, which are a start but won't address the fundamental problems. The other is the failed Bowles Simpson plan and the pre-failed Supercommittee; they presume to cut our way out of a hole, which only makes a bigger hole, and they need to be told to address the debt problem by only addressing those elements in our government that caused the debt such as taxation changes and wars, not addressing it by cutting social insurance programs we already paid for or with any other cuts that only hurt those who did not cause the economic meltdown.
The fundamental reason why many of these homeowners are underwater, behind in payments, or foreclosed, is simple, and clear. They were sold mortgages, which were then resold and collateralized, and these securities tanked with small changes and cycles in the global economy taking the rest of the economy with them...our worshipped billionaires faltered, demanded bailouts from the government, fired their employees, and mortgage debt couldn't get paid.
In other words, we deregulated our way to this.
Banks shouldn't be allowed to be brokers, they shouldn't be allowed to sell short to make a profit from their own failures, they shouldn't be allowed to collaterralize debts without potential for devastating loss, they shouldn't be able to socialize the loss while we privatize the gain.
I wish everyone the opportunity to buy a house, if they want, like I can right now. I'm afraid if we let the bankers and brokers buy our elections, legislators, and legislation as they do now, my children and theirs won't have a chance for a home, a good job, and a secure future. I can see that my chances for these have required more work - I work three jobs, and my dad only worked two - than my parents, and I hope that we can move forward to a better system that allows opportunity for all, not just the few.
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