The Minimum

If one makes the minimum wage, one almost cannot afford to drive anymore. The minimum wage is $5.85. A gallon of gas was 3.69 this morning. Federal taxes on 5.85 are .58, social security and medicare are about another .60 -- food has leaped upward in price. A person on minimum wage cannot afford the basics, and it will continue to get worse.

If I Ran the Zoo

I started thinking about things I would do with the tax structure and US purchasing policies if I wanted to bring the country toward a more balanced budget and toward full employment.

1) Government contracts would only go to tax-paying, US based companies. If you wanted a contract, you'd be welcome to set up here.

2) Companies would pay taxes based on the profits reported to their shareholders. No deductions, no chicanery -- if you say you made money, you get to pay taxes on it.

3) Reduce the green-card holding populations back down to Reagan era numbers. Run boot camps to train domestic workers instead of importing foreign workers. Charge companies with foreign "call centers", help lines, and billing facilities a "worker retraining charge" equal to the difference between what they pay their foreign workers, and what they would have to pay a domestic employee. Put that money into a fund to pay education credits that people claim on their taxes. Maybe then English would become the first language of help lines again.

If I think of anything else, no doubt I'll write about it.

:)

Color Me Skeptical

/tinfoil hat on/

The "DC Madam" was found dead today. Suicide.

And I am not sure I believe it, no matter how clear-cut it looked. She often stated that if she were found dead of suicide, it would be because someone killed her.

I hope she did what someone would logically do in that case -- I hope she transmitted all her information to someone charged with releasing it in the event of her death.

The web makes that pretty easy.

If I were in fear for my life, and I had information on that many people with access to folks who want to do them favors, you can be sure I would have made a web site, and that there would be someone to launch it if necessary. Let's hope she did the same.

/tinfoil hat off/

She What?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed Monday that as president she would be willing to use nuclear weapons against Iran if it were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

Ugh. Just ugh.

"Nuke 'em! Nuke em!" Doesn't any candidate think before launching?

Delicious

Fred at The Slacktivist not only blogs Left Behind weekly, but his political commentary is wonderful.

Go and read it. Uncle Fred wouldn't lead you wrong. It was Just Like That in the Good Old Days.

Best Idea So Far

Over at Blah3, Invictus had the best suggestion I've seen for a lot of the mortgage problem -- let people take an emergency, one time withdrawal from IRAs and 401(k)s, interest and penalty free, with no repayment clause, for purposes of rescuing their homes from foreclosure. This would not be a loan, but a redirecting of a person's assets, and it would cost far less than any other kind of taxpayer bailout.

It would be nice if Congress at least considered something rational rather than immediately trying to decide how the rest of us should rescue people in big houses while we live in small apartments.

Shifting Lines

This primary season is at least making some interesting things stir.

Just this evening, Senator Obama spoke up in defense of Senator Clinton's right to keep running for the nomination. Whichever of them gets it, I will vote for. I will say, however, that his sense of fairness and graciousness impresses me -- it's been too long since we had that in our leadership.

The other piece of interesting news was taht Condolezza Rice spoke positively about Obama's race speech -- and the right wing has, of course, started unloading on her as a result.

The GOP, once the party of Lincoln, has become the party of racists. Their southern strategy was way too successful -- all those Southern Democrats who gave the Democratic party a bad name moved over to the Republican party, where they are doing the same. Face it -- racists stink up their environment. Democrats had them by default after the Civil War because Democrats did not impose Reconstruction on the South. Republicans, on the other hand, invited the pigs into their parlor. And their parlor stinks.

Oh.

Several years ago, a friend of mine left the place we worked to work at her boyfriend's business. He claimed he was making a lot of money. Doing what? Writing mortgages.

Huh?

Then another friend told me he took classes and wrote a mortgage. The job didn't agree with him. so he stopped doing it.

A third person told me they were taking classes on how to write mortgages, and that there was a money back guarantee that this would make the person big money in their spare time. Well, she didn't see it that way, so shortly after her class ended, she went and got her money back.

Do you see the trend here that I did?

The first person stayed with the job even though business took and abrupt downturn. She is never going to see the salary she wasn't paid. We can all see why by now.

I kept wondering what qualified these people to decide on the financial state of the applicants -- how they decided whether the loan was good. Short answer: they could not tell and their decisions most likely generated the instruments that are now being called "subprime". There was a real plague of mortgage writers for awhile. Now I am quite certain that I can guess at how that came to be. I'm also pretty sure that they have disappeared in the current climate.

Question

For days I have seen the headline Democrats Divided by Race, Sex on MSNBC online and I have been driven to wonder, is that worse than Republicans being *united* by race and sex? They are the party of rich old warmonger white guys as far as an observer can tell. Is that a *good* thing?

Budget

The military portion of the budget is going up again. There is no sign that any of it will be used to resupply Guard and Reserve units that were stripped for overseas combat.

I used to date a guy in the military who likely let me know more about how his job worked than he should have. One of the things he did was prepare a raft of purchase orders in the couple of weeks before the end of the fiscal year so his unit would use up all the alloted money -- that way they could ask for more next year. They got along *fine* without all those "spend it or lose it" purchases, but this kind of thing is a ritual.

So here's a modest proposal.

At the start of the last month of the fiscal year, orders should be cut suspending all military purchasing. The money unspent at that time should be reapportioned to the Reserve and the Guard to pay for items like trucks, personnel carriers, and other pieces of equipment they left overseas. This should be done annually until all our units have been resupplied.

The gratuitous blowing of money at the end of the fiscal year should stop. We have too many deficiencies to make that acceptable any more.

What blogs are Excellent? Here are my top ten:

The Sideshow was the first blog I ever checked every day. Avedon's blog is indispensable, and I'll talk more about it as I go down this list.

The Alternate Brain Fixer and Gordon are my kinda guys,

The Biomes Blog ;Mark does an interesting job of discussing marine science, and he often discusses other topics with some regularity.

The Fightin' Cock Flyer Michael Caddell does this Kansas Blog, and his main interests have to do with sustainable living -- gardening, fuel, and politics.

The Slacktivist Fred has been dissecting the Left Behind series on Fridays. He has his eye on the Fundamentalist movement

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo I got to Skippy via Avedon Carol's blogroll and references. Skippy has been making a point of networking the smaller blogs via his own blogroll.

Blah3 is often first with an important story, and it's a good place to catch things that are not noticed until later by more prominent news sources. Sometimes I wonder how he does it.

Unsolicited Opinion belongs to Rez Dog, one of my co-bloggers on the Medley. He's concerned about the war, about veterans, and about social justice.

The Reality Based Community is the effort of Mark A.R. Kleinman. He followed the Corey May story in detail. He is concerned with misuse of authority and unrestrained police activity. Someone needs to watch this stuff, and Mark is a good resource.

Last but hardly least, I write for two other blogs.

The Mockingbird's Medley was completely written by Mimus Pauly for several years. He reached a point where he wanted to give it up, but instead decided to invite other to post to his blog -- and I was one of the people he invited, much to my surprise. Mimus came out and decided to use his Real Name, and thus he started writing under the name of Jim Yeager. I always loved the Mockingbird's Medley -- I found it via Skippy, of course, and I found Skippy via Avedon Carol.

Pacific Views is another blog I got to off Avedon Carol's web log, and I have read it for many years. A few weeks ago, Natasha contacted me and asked me to become a contributor. How could I say no (though frankly, I suspect both Natasha and Mary are more tuned in than I am)?

So the two others I write for are mentioned here because they are excellent -- they were excellent before I ever showed up, and I've read them almost from the first.

Now each of you can feel free to name ten excellent blogs.

I was selected by Bryan of Why Now.

Sources

There is a British newspaper web site called The Daily Mail. Lately I have noticed that MSN, MSNBC, CNN, and other US web news outlets have been using the Daily Mail as a source and as a vocabulary guide.

The one that is driving me nuttiest at the moment is "baby bump". The Daily Mail is obsessed with celebrity pregnancy, and has been referring to "baby bumps" for months. Well, the language has hopped the pond, and we now find this term on US news web sites. How ... cute. It is as if there has never before been a term for the rounding out of the female form, and so web content providers have latched onto this coy bit so they can discuss protrusions in a way that only offends adult females -- because, of course, offending them is irrelevant.

Many gossipy news stories are also wending their way to US sources several days after they have started to appear at The Daily Mail -- and of course they have the same links.

If you want gossip, you may as well go right to the source and read The Daily Mail, keeping in mind that all bearing women are under a baby bump watch.

Memory Lane

I am reminded that when I was in college, the euphemism for vomit used to be "ralph" -- a startlingly appropriate term these days.

I cannot imagine what possesses Ralph Nader. He has no qualifications at all for being President. Perhaps he loves the lifestyle -- panhandling, television appearances, blowing hot air, eating rubber chicken and local delicacies, and flying to and fro in the earth.

At least Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and their ilk now have a candidate. They hate McCain rabidly ... though since they do everything rabidly, perhaps the intensity is on the usual note. For people who are racist and/or sexist and who hate McCain, there is now a white male who is utterly useless just wating for donations and votes.

A Day Late

My very first blog post was DATE: 02/23/2004 08:06:40 PM.

Waaah!

Waaaaahhh!

Temper Tantrum

One of the major ways that George Bush gets his way is by throwing tantrums -- as in "If you won't give telecoms immunity, I won't sign the FISA bill." And then he tries to shift the blame for no FISA bill onto the people who would not knuckle to his tantrum. Waaaaah, George! Waaaaah!!!

Face it. Telecoms have always known that they should not tap lines without a warrant. I used to work for one. They would not even tap your own line at your request to get rid of threatening and nuisance callers without a judge's ok in the days before Caller ID. They knew that spying was illegal. What? Did George tell them he would get a retroactive FISA warrant and then fail to do so? If that is the case, the telecoms have a valid defense. If it was not the case, they did wrong and they know it. Moreover, if that is the case, they really should be refusing to cooperate with a government that lies.

The current FISA legislation was offered without Mr. Tantrum getting his demands met. Good. He can sign it or not -- his choice. But his choice is no one's "fault" but his.

There's Only One Leetle Problem

The President of Turkey has declared that he is ok with allowing Moslem women to wear head scarves at the University.

I think that Iraq has been an admirable field test of "allowed to wear scarves." Saddam Hussein had pretty much westernized Iraq and had forbidden the signs of sectarian behavior, including scarves. When the US broke the Iraqi system, scarves came back -- and so did groups of male thugs who harassed and attacked women who did not wear them. The scarf is now required because when religious insanity is allowed out in public, threats soon make a demonstration of piety mandatory -- especially for women. Whenever men are permitted to form intimidation packs, this will happen.

And Moslem men, in particular, rove in packs -- especially the hyper-pious ones.

Turkey is heading for trouble.

Thanks to Making Light

and to Teresa's Particles, I've been introduced to a new blog, Boom2Bust.com -- and the particular pointer went to an article on maintaining one's standard of living in retirement.

One of my friends who retired this past year said he just got a call from his old company, and they want him to come back to work again. Now I will note that he's pretty near a genius, and they are only showing good sense. I'll also note that he started living off his 401(k) and found that he really should have saved more.

The article noted above especially details the amount of money one needs for medical care in retirement, and spots it at 250K to 550K. I don't think that many people have that kind of money set aside for their entire retirement, no less just for medical care. I know that out of pocket medical policies are insanely expensive. Mine has been about 7K a year, and it is a relatively inexpensive policy that I got to by paying 18 months of COBRA and then immediately starting the policy as a guaranteed continuation. There was no inexpensive alternative.

People joining AARP and anticipating reasonably priced health insurance will get a real shock. AARP does not have a regular full medical policy available in most states, but only a couple of wimpy supplemental policies that will pay maybe 200.00 out of a room cost of 5K or more per night. A band-aid on an evisceration, in other words.

Watch your candidates, folks ... see if they speak of the problems that are looming. Most people are headed for financial disaster. Maxed credit cards. Maxed credit. No bankruptcy. No insurance. No money.

Ack!

"Twister Victims to Receive Trailers" -- I am speechless.

No person in their right mind would live in a trailer in Tornado Alley. Trailers are tornado magnets. There is never a set of tornadoes that doesn't hit and demolish a trailer court. I once theorized that if we wanted to change the climate, we should move all trailers to Arizona, and then *they* would get the tornadoes.

Thanks FEMA. Thanks a lot. Formaldehyde interiors and tornado magnet exteriors. What else could someone with a disaster want?

Enumerated Rights Redux

When you put the words “enumerated rights” into Google, the following are the first three entries:

Incorporation (Bill of Rights) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[9] Black felt that the Fourteenth Amendment required the States to respect all of the enumerated rights set forth in the first eight amendments, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_(Bill_of_Rights) - 74k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Restoring the Lost Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's tempting to do something similar and simply check the law against the list of enumerated rights. But the Ninth Amendment says (in its entirety) "The ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoring_the_Lost_Constitution - 41k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
More results from en.wikipedia.org »

Eccentricity: Enumerated Rights - 2 visits - Feb 1
The Bill of Rights belongs to that group of Constitutional items known as "enumerated rights" -- those written out explicitly so that no one could claim ...
scorpio-eccentricity.blogspot.com/2007/01/enumerated-rights.html - 61k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Frightening, isn't it? When you search for this basic tenet of the Constitution, you get two Wikipedia articles and then a blog post I made a year ago because I was furious about the way our government was (and is) behaving. We had an Attorney General who did not know that there was a right to habeas corpus written right there in the Constitution – much to the shame of those who appointed Gonzales, and who confirmed such an ignoramus to that office.

US courts have pretended for years that Jose Padilla has no rights. This article explains what was wrong and illegal about the treatment Padilla was subjected to.

If we are counting high crimes and misdemeanors, the abrogation of habeas corpus is high on the list, but the complete disregard for enumerated rights, from "free speech zones" in violation of the First Amendment through all the others except number three make a body of crimes that break the oath of office taken by members of the administration. A mere court oath breach was enough to set the dogs on William Clinton. Where are those who hold oaths so dear now?

But let us return to Google results for today. Why is a very small blog's brief discussion of enumerated rights third in a Google search on this important topic? Where are the mainstream news articles or columns about the Constitution and its application to the way the US government functions? Where is the American Bar Association? Where are the law school papers and articles?

And last, worst – where are the court cases that cite the enumerated rights as reason to overturn actions of the US government during the last seven years?

Tornadoes

Seeing as how the Feds have done almost nothing toward rebuilding New Orleans, when storms strike and level entire areas, we need to take individual action instead of thinking that the government will help.

Monkeyfister is seeking donations for the victims of the recent tornadoes. Click to visit his site and give ten via the Red Cross or the United Way. The Salvation Army is another charity that gives plenty to folks who lose everything in disasters. Just label your contribution to assure that it goes to the recent tornado victims.

Monday the temperature here was 75 degrees. Tuesday morning we had a thunder ice storm, and the temps dropped to the twenties. The collision of cold and hot brings tornadoes, and five states were hit. We were just lucky this time. April, May and June are the most common tornado months, but when there are clashing weather fronts, any place and any day is a possible day for tornadoes. The high death toll reflects how unexpected these were. Go help the people out.

No Matter How Often they Repeat It

Waterboarding is still a war crime. People were tried for doing it after WWII. The defense fails. It is still a crime no matter how many times Mr. Bush repeats himself.

The Hole in the Polls

Polls are conducted by phone.

Surprisingly few people under 35 have landlines. The get their internet from cable, and their phones are wireless. This means that the youth vote has no voice in most polls.

The polling company that wants to be most accurate will soon have to send text messages to wireless subscribers. "Be Polled! Return this call to register your opinion. Press 1 for Democrat, 2 for Republican, 3 for No Opinion. If you press a 1 or a 2, you will need to enter a candidate number...."

I suspect that the polls would change percentages in interesting ways if methods were updated.

Other Posts

Other places -- this week I have made my first post at Pacific Views, and I placed one in the nest at The Mockingbird's Medley.

Other than those, I have been out there making comments. At The Sideshow I speculated that Harry Reid has caught a disease that is causing Republican-enabling, and out at Alternate Brain observed that instead of a memorial library, George Bush should have a memorial crater of industrial or nuclear waste. It would certainly be a more representative memorial to his time in office.

Roe

As long as there are rapists, there should be legally available abortion. It's pretty much that simple.

If a woman wants to keep a child of rape, it's her decision. Likely she will be supporting it herself, since I'm not sure rapists are ever encumbered with child support.

On the other hand, if she believes that aborting the offspring of rapists will cull the kind of genes that produce rapists, more power to her; and a legal ridding of a possible pregnancy should be beyond question any time in the first three months.

One of the most evil things about Huckabible was that he pardoned a rapist who went on to rape and murder two more women. Any whimpering he does about the sacredness of life should be met with hoots of "rapist enabler!" and "Accessory to murder!" He's both, he is a blot on the body politic, and I hope he is soundly defeated, even if by John McCain, who is another blot on the body politic and a public Bush-hugger.

Green Food

Today MSN had a rather long article on "The Cost of Eating Green."

To me, the cost is not what's at issue here. What eating green does is support smaller and local food sources rather than contribute all the time to the shipping of food. I won't touch a New Zealand apple -- after traveling half a world, the poor apples have no flavor, no juice, and a completely indecent texture. Better they should have stayed in New Zealand and become applesauce! I try to pay attention to sources. Washington apples? Why not Missouri apples?

Let's face it, with peak oil coming or here, the gasoline tax on food transport is about to skyrocket. People who are currently eating green will not have a better place in line for scarce resources unless they belong to co-ops and the co-ops have a secure line on staples. But at least current people eating green are helping to develop resources against the day when the cost of transport is triple or quadruple that of the food itself.

If you have not been to a Farmer's Market, it's time to start going -- not that it will help you when the crunch comes.

Oh Yes!

As the market plunges, as gas prices rise, and banks lose big due to the repackaging of loose loans into "new and improved!" collateral, what is Congress doing?

Complaining about a baseball player's personal trainer?

I'm really glad that Congress gave themselves a raise this year, aren't you? And that they are really working hard on things like the war, the economy, and the rebuilding of New Orleans.

Yeah.

Good

In terms of issues, Hillary Clinton is not the person I favor in the 2008 contest.

But when has media ever dealt with her in terms of issues? This week, news clips of her emotional patriotism and some anger were aired at the expense of any substantial political message. It is with great joy that I report that the people of New Hampshire gave their votes to patriotism and anger, with the second largest number going to the man who was human and gracious -- Barack Obama, who stated that the nomination process was difficult for all candidates.

Genuine patriotism. Excellent sportsmanship. What a wonderful thing to see those qualities rewarded.

Politics Happens

Iowa caucuses are today. Like many other liberals, I have to say that I think John Edwards would be the best person to start undoing some of the Bush damage. Avedon Carol writes a good list of reasons.

One of the best is that he has been discussing issues, not bashing other candidates or looking for little bobbles to turn into media circuses or nails for a crucifixion. Both Hil and Obama are -- too Republican for me, and I do not want a candidate who feels it is necessary to get on the faith bandwagon.

More States Go For Paper Ballots

Makers of voting machines are whining. All the warnings in this news article come from interested parties, people who stand to make fortunes selling crappy and unreliable voting machines to the states.

Let's do it right in 2008 -- no more electronic votes with no trail. It's very hard to recount vapor.