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“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Projection, Much? Pt. II

Let me see if I've got this straight:

• A male prostitute poses as a reporter at the White House; visits for two years on daily passes, and sometimes apparently spends the night.

• The nominee for ambassador to the U.N.--apparently the worst boss ever--forced his wife to go to swingers' clubs.

• The head of the FDA's department on women's health reportedly repeatedly sodomized his wife, often as rape

• The anti-gay mayor of Spokane, WA has been caught soliciting sex from underage boys

• One of the leading Christian Reconstructionists used to have sex with mules.

And liberals are the bad guys? What the hell am I missing?

It's enough to make you wonder if those stories about the Bohemian Grove aren't so crazy after all. *shudder*

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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Bad News For Us Workers

US real wages fall at fastest rate in 14 years

Real wages in the US are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years, according to data surveyed by the Financial Times.

Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.

The last time salaries fell this steeply was at the start of 1991, when real wages declined by 1.1 per cent.

Stingy pay rises mean many Americans will have to work longer hours to keep up with the cost of living, and they could ultimately undermine consumer spending and economic growth.

Not that I'm surprised, looking at my paycheck.

That meltdown Billmon's been talkin' about is lookin' pretty real.

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Projection, Much?

Via Pandagon, I read about what must be the strangest--and possibly dangerous--Christian Reconstructionist/"Right to Life" activists out there: Neal Horsley, he of the "Nuremberg Files." The guy's scary enough--one of those ex-hoods who finds Jesus and wants to make the world pay for his own sins. But get this:

Colmes asked Horsley about his background, including a statement that he had admitted to engaging in homosexual and bestiality sex.

NH: "Just because it's printed in the media, people jump to believe it."

AC: "Is it true?"

NH: "Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool, I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I..."

AC: "You had sex with animals?"

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."

[snip]

NH: "You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually. You're naive. You know better than that... If it's warm and it's damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it."

Ya know, I'm an environmentalist. I'm in a union. I'm a Democrat. I work in a library, eat sushi, and used to smoke pot. I live in a large, East Coast city. I "live in sin" with my boyfriend. I'm a lot of things this guy rails about. But never in my life have I ever wanted to or attempted to have sex with an animal. And friends, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, so it's not like I'm entirely unfamiliar with the barnyard.

Make of that what you will. Me, I'm pretty skeeved.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Is That a Target on Your Back,
Or Do Ya Just Work Here?

Steve Gilliard gives me some new reasons to shop at Target:

Target isn't being sued for a) sexual discrimination, b)not paying workers, c)locking workers in at night.

Target is non-union, but pays their workers better, treats them better and provides a better shopping experience. Sure, they give to the GOP and they aren't unionized, BUT, they don't take glee in it, they don't treat suppliers like shit and they don't sell the cheapest crap possible. They also don't send their workers to the state to pay their health care bills.

[snip]

Target doesn't like unions, but then they don't treat their employees so badly that they are running to be unionized either. If you get health insurance and fair promotions, unions are going to have a harder time making a pitch than when they treat you like shit.

I've been shopping at Target since they started openning in the Philly area. I always actually liked the stuff they carry, unlike the stuff at Kmart and WalMart. (For the record, I used to work at Kmart and it sucked, but not as bad as WalMart.)

Do I think Target employees should be unionized? Absolutely. At the same time, I have to admit that I'm not exactly earning a lot of money at my current job, and Target's prices are affordable. They treat their employees better than WalMart, so it eases my conscience to go there.

Still, I can't help but wonder if I'm a bit of a hypocrit in all this--but then, where would I buy things I need, like a shower curtain, or propane for my portable grill? I don't know. I try to shop at Acme as much as I can, as they're unionized. But the supermarket doesn't carry everything I need, so I go to Target.

At any rate, I still feel better than if I were going to WalMart.

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Monday, May 9, 2005

The Definition of a Woman

Via Sisyphus Shrugged, there's this absolutely ridiculous language from the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act

WOMAN - The term `woman' means a female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant, whether or not she has reached the age of majority.

Now, not getting into the politics of the bill itself, this is an incredibly stupid definition of what a woman is, even in this context. Apparently, a 13 year old girl is more of a woman than my post-menopausal mother. Or any woman who's had a hysterectomy. I mean, christ, they could have said "a member of the species homo sapiens that has two X chromosomes." That, at least, would have been scientifically correct (as far as I can rememeber from biology class).

Sound odd? Overly pedantic? Sure. But remember, this bill is brought to you by the same folks who believe that marriage exists only for the creation of children, not as a union of two people. Just ask Rick Santorum, he'll explain it to you.

My point? Aside from everything else, they're trying to legally define what a woman is--because you can't view this bill as divorced from the rest of the so-called "Culture of Life" issues, such as gay marriage and adoption, wherein the definition of one's sex is apparently of utmost importance.

Unless you're a Unwoman.

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Don't Like Unions? Move to China

Kevin Drum takes a good swipe at those pseudo-liberals who bash unions:

But the right wing never rests, and for any of my liberal readers who harbor suspicion of labor unions as an "old" liberal cause — just another one of those special interest groups that Democrats are always pandering to — ask yourself this: why are conservatives so hellbent on breaking them? Why did Ronald Reagan fire those air traffic controllers in 1981? Why did George Bush make union busting a key issue in the 2002 midterm election? Why the relentless opposition to using card checks to organize workers in new industries? Why the continuing demonization of unions from a party that's otherwise so conscientious about building its appeal to the working and middle classes?

It's because unions are the only truly effective check on the sine qua non of modern conservatism: corporate power. For all their faults — and they have plenty, just as corporations do — unions are the only organizations that have the power to bargain effectively for the interests of the middle class. Union power in the private sector began to wane in the 1970s, and it's not a coincidence that this was exactly the same time that middle class wages began to stagnate, CEO pay began to skyrocket, and income inequality began increasing inexorably.

Damn straight.

Now, I'll admit I'm partial, seeing as I'm in a union (1199C^[1], y'all). But I've worked non-union jobs, and the pay was worse, the health care practically non-existent, and vacation and personal time was laughable. Simply put, my life is much better now that I have a union job.

However, the issue isn't just a question of how many days off I get each year, or whether my pay increase is 1% or 3%, or how many sick days I have--all of which are important, by the way. Like Drum says, the real power of the union is that the people--all you folks struggling to achieve or maintain a middle class lifestyle--are able to organize and have their voices heard.

People died to bring you a 40 hour work week. They died to bring you a minimum wage. They died to bring you the ability to bargain with your boss, who doesn't give a damn about you. Before the unions, sweatshops were the norm. Work-related deaths were the norm. Twelve-hour work shifts, six days a week were the norm. Hell, even WalMart looks good compared to the days before unions.

And don't for even a second think that the conservatives wouldn't overturn all of this if they can get rid of the unions. That's corporatism. That's fascism.

The unions only stay strong when people join. Like Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

[1]. Here's the funny thing--I'm in a health care union, but I'm a clerk in a library. Why? 'Cause who cares of the library clerks go on strike? So we aligned ourselves with the nurses up at Temple Hospital.

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The Future SATs

Check it out.

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