Thursday, November 26, 2009

What I have to be thankful for

1. I have a working car. The old Victor/Victoria was just getting on its last legs. My bouncing baby Blazer is functioning at the moment and is so much easier to repair than the Vic.

2. I have a job. My company is contracting with a mall that is owned by a company in bankruptcy. I have to give thanks that the company has not gone under. I could easily be without a job in an economy that is not very well.

3. I have a roof over my head, am warm, have a reasonably sound mind and have food in my belly.

4. My best friend is still alive still battling cancer since 2001. It is starting tlook like the home stretch, but she is still alive and laughing.

5. My brother has a car and is still employed.

Things can be so much worse for there are others in so much worse situations than we are. I wish blessings to you and yours.

Thanksgiving day

Today is a day in the United States dedicated to giving thanks. Attributed to the Puritan religious people who fled what they termed religious oppression in England, the holiday evolved over the years to be a day of giving thanks. It eventually became a day in which we have to eat literally everything in sight. I've always wondered what someone in another country thought of our holiday. While at one time it was a holiday dedicated to giving thanks. Now it has become a holiday dedicated to gluttony.

And tomorrow, we have out holiday dedicated to greed. Its called Black Friday because our stores finally make it into the black as far as their profitability. This is the day the retailers dread. Where shoppers charge the doors and the people that open the doors are scared. Last year a worker at Walmart was trampled to death at a store in New York when he opened the doors. This year, in order to avoid that, Walmart will remain open and start specials at 5 am at each department. Not sure what it will accomplish, besides depriving their workers from what in America is a traditional day of the family and no one is really supposed to work. Just another excuse for the cruel retail stores to exploit their workers for another day. While they may pay a little more than the usual minimum wages they pay, it still deprives families of their relatives being able to be with them.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Gratutious Sarah Palin Video

Now you just know I had to post this! The censors ar MSNBC have edited out the more gruesome parts but you get the idea. Just go to show ya that Sarah just doesn't have a clue.


Saturday, November 21, 2009

I wonder how often this happens in America

Thursday, November 19, 2009

You can't marry in Texas

What our friends have done in Texas may finally expose the hipocracy of the anti- gay marriage crusade.


AlterNet

In Trying to Prevent Gay Marriage, Texas May Have Accidently Abolished it for Everyone

By Liz Langley, Liz Langley's Blog
Posted on November 18, 2009, Printed on November 19, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://liz-langley.blogspot.com//144056/

When I was a kid in Catholic school, probably around 6th grade, I remember reading a short story about a little girl who studied the violin. The details are hazy but someone, I think her teacher, told her that another student was getting the gift of a new violin and that there were two to choose from but he didn't know which to pick. He asked the student to help him out by trying both and telling him which one was better.

After playing both the girl knew that the first violin was far and away the superior intstrument, but knowing she would soon be in a competition with the other student she said the second, lower-quality violin was better and that that one should be the gift.

The gift turned out to be for her. She ended up getting the bum deal she was trying to give someone else.

The nuns didn't use the word "karma" but that's what the story was about. Do unto others. Etcetera. You seldom see morality plays as swiftly and compactly played out in real life but when you do it's delicious.

And there may such an instance in store for Texas where, in trying to deprive some people of marriage ... the state may have abolished it for everyone.

A Texas lawyer and candidate for attorney general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, has found a little screw-up in the legal wording of some 2005 anti-equality legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the state. Here's the skinny from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

The amendment, approved by the Texas Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by Texas voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the trouble-making phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Radnofsky says the wording "eliminates marriage in Texas."

It may be waved away as a piffling error made by lawyers who are too highly paid to make such mistakes but I hope it stirs up a hornets nest of problems and that the people who voted for such childish, no-I-won't-share end up with their "sacred" unions treat as null-and-void, exactly as they'd like to do unto others.

Maybe we can get the girl in the story to play them the world's tiniest violin.

� 2009 Liz Langley's Blog All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://liz-langley.blogspot.com//144056/

Monday, November 16, 2009

Very Interesting - The RNC Funds abortions?!?!?

AlterNet

Hypocrisy Watch: RNC Insurance Plan Has Covered Abortions for 18 Years

By Steve Benen, Washington Monthly
Posted on November 13, 2009, Printed on November 16, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/143936/

RNC SUBSIDIZES ABORTIONS FOR 18 YEARS -- AND COUNTING.... The debate over financing of abortions -- the basis for the offensive Stupak amendment -- is all about money being fungible. Amy Sullivan explained the problem nicely recently: "The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars."

But applying this argument can prove problematic. Focus on the Family, for example, one of the nation's largest religious right organizations and a fierce opponent of abortion rights, has health insurance for its employees through a company that covers "abortion services." The far-right outfit, by its own standards, indirectly subsidizes abortions.

Apparently, the Republican National Committee has the same problem. Politico reported yesterday afternoon that the RNC -- whose platform calls abortion "a fundamental assault on innocent human life" -- gets insurance through Cigna with a plan that covers elective abortion.

The Republicans' health care package has been in place since 1991 -- thanks, Lee Atwater -- meaning that, by the party's own argument, it has been indirectly subsidizing abortions for 18 years.

Complicating matters, Politico found that Cigna offers customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage -- "and the RNC did not choose to opt out."

The Republican National Committee, not surprisingly, scrambled. By last night, it resolved the issue. Sort of.

The Republican National Committee will no longer offer employees an insurance plan that covers abortion after POLITICO reported Thursday that the anti-abortion RNC's policy has covered the procedure since 1991.

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

Steele has told the committee's director of administration to opt out of coverage for elective abortion in the policy it uses from Cigna.

But does that actually "settle" the matter? The new RNC policy, apparently, is to have insurance through Cigna, opting out of abortion coverage. But let's not lose sight of the original fungibility problem -- the RNC is taking Republican money and giving it to an insurance company through premiums. That company will then use its pool of money to pay for abortion services, not for RNC employees, but for other customers.

In other words, the Republican National Committee will still indirectly subsidize abortions, every time it writes a check to Cigna.

And if the RNC disagrees with this reasoning, and believes the issue is "settled," then the party has rejected the reasoning of the Stupak amendment at a fundamental level.

Steve Benen is "blogger in chief" of the popular Washington Monthly online blog, Political Animal. His background includes publishing The Carpetbagger Report, and writing for a variety of publications, including Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian. He has also appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," Air America Radio's "Sam Seder Show," and XM Radio's "POTUS '08."

� 2009 Washington Monthly All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/143936/

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A new twist in the Foreclosure Crisis

It was only a matter of time before this happened:


Torture of Loan Agents Charged in Calif. Foreclosure Crisis

Couple With Home in Foreclosure Accused of Beating, Robbing Two Lenders

California's burgeoning foreclosure crisis turned violent after angry homeowners allegedly attacked and tortured two loan agents who they believed had reneged on a promise to help save their home, authorities said.

A California couple and three accomplices were charged in the case. They are accused of beating and torturing the two loan-modification agents, whom they believe defrauded them and did nothing to help them keep their home in a Los Angeles suburb from going into foreclosure, prosecutors said.

Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee and their accomplices allegedly lured loan agents Lamond Dean and Gustavo Canez into a Glendale home last week. There they held the pair for hours, robbed them, threatened them with a firearm and beat them with "wooden knuckles," according to prosecutors.

Weston and Parmelee live in home under foreclosure in La Canada-Flintridge and "allegedly sought loan modification assistance from the victims but believed that nothing was being done and wanted their money back," said Shiara Davila-Morales, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney.

The five defendants intended to "cause cruel and extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose, inflict great bodily injury," according to court documents.

One of the two men escaped their alleged captors and alerted police on Oct. 20. Both men were taken to the hospital and later released.

Parmelee, 52, along with Mario Soloman Gonzales, 47, and Marissa Parker, 49, were arraigned last week and face two counts each of torture, false imprisonment by violence and second-degree robbery.

According to authorities those three watched as Weston, 52, and Gustavo Canez, 36, allegedly beat and robbed them.

"Weston and Canez allegedly carried out the attack in the presence of the other defendants. The victims also were allegedly robbed of their loan paperwork and personal belongings," said Davila-Morales in a statement.

Those men were arraigned Monday and face the same charges plus additional weapons charges, according to the felony complaint filed in court.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/charged-torture-loan-agents/story?id=8929799


Friday, November 6, 2009

Fun with Forklifts



At the good old days when I worked at a warehouse and then later loaded and unloaded aircraft for a living. I have had many accidents with forklifts but none as bad as the one above, (well one ALMOST as bad, but we'll get to that). I once drove a standup forklift into a garage door too small for it. Thank God I wasn't driving too fast or else I would have been toast. Then I had a forklift go through a rotten floor in a trailer. That wasn't a good thing.

But the most joyful mistake I ever made with a forklift was one shining evening in Louisville, KY. A DC-3 had just landed with priority cargo for the Ford Assembly Plant on the other side of the airport. The priority cargo was 6 barrels of differential fluid strapped to two pallets. The airport police stopped by to admire the venerable DC-3. I offloaded the pallets with no problem, one at a time because I didn't want the extra long forks to go through the aircraft. After offloading them, I did a standard trick. Since the forks were long enough to take both the pallets I proceeded to push them both together. I forgot all together that I had tilted the forks up to get at the pallets when they were on the aircraft. Needless to say, disaster ensued. The aforementioned forks punctured one of the barrels on the second pallet. Right in front of the airport police too! Then came the show.

See, this stuff is considered hazardous material due to its environmental impact. So a call was made to the Airport Fire station. I expected just a truck with some absorb-all sand to some out. Oh no, I wasn't going to get off that easy. The whole brigade came out! Lights and sirens galore. You'd think I crashed an airplane on the tarmac. And the real punch line was that this was in full view of the departing and landing flights. A Southwest 737 taxied by, loaded with incredulous passengers wondering what fool caused this disaster!

Meanwhile I had to call the boss about this little incident and the plant is screaming for their priority cargo. Oh the joy of air freight!

We got the barrel upright on the other end before it all ran out, but what spilled on the ground had to be cleaned up. We dumped several bags of absorb-all on it, then shoveled the result into a barrel. I had to sign a statement that this material would be disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner. (As far as I know, the barrel is still sitting in the airport cargo bay my company rented in Louisville waiting to be disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner).

The freight was delivered, the plant didn't shut down, and they even accepted the punctured barrel with no comment. So I guess all ended up being happy with the world.

Monday, November 2, 2009

A Modest proposal 2009-11-02

I have a modest proposal. I have heard many people say its time to throw the bums out and clean out the Congress, get a fresh set of crooks in there. I think an excellent idea would be to do thus: Provide an exam which is the same as the exam given to qualify a foreign born person to obtain naturalization of his citizenship into this country. that way we will guarantee that said persons will have a basic working knowledge of what this country's history is, what it stands for and the political process.

Upon passing said test, the persons name is placed into a pool whereupon, at two year intervals, names are drawn in a lottery of sorts. The "lottery" winners are then shuttled to Washington and will serve as citizen legislators for a period of two years. No one can enter the lottery after he has served and is suitably compensated for his time at the rates we pay other representatives. Each congressional district will send 2 representatives, a man and a woman each to the new Congress.

In this way we keep Congress fresh. The people's voice is heard. The common man gets an idea of service to his country. All citizens of this country would be required to participate in the lottery. No slackers.

Comments?

Sunday, November 1, 2009

One word

Leave ONE WORD (in the comment section) that you think best describes me. It can be only one word. No more. Then copy and paste this on YOUR page so I may leave my one word about you.

About Me

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I am interested in CNG vehicles because they are good for the environment and aren't powered by dead Marines. I still have a little hope for the world. Read the musings and enjoy.