Its my Right to be Left of the Center

When he went to The Hill Sunday..he did not take them with him, as he only chatted up the Democratic Caucus.

WTF? Did you leave them in your other pants? The Dog ate them?

I know our methods are incredibly different, the Big O and I, but for the love of Christ dude..give those fuckwits a hard time when you make the effort to address their sorry asses. Slap them around a bit. They are the worst set of elected representatives this side of Tom Delay.

Ok, maybe not Hot Tub Tommy, but still..wtf, rip em a new asshole ok? The Rethugs are all on the same page, or nearby it..yet the Dem's all go off half-cocked and in six different directions.

Fuckers need to be herded like the dumbass bovines they are. The lobbyists have sure friggin figured it out, why the fuck can't you dude?

He called it a 'pep talk'. Give me an effin break. Those sumbitches don't need a pep talk, they need a sharp object rammed under their fingernails, and a set of electrodes attached to their balls.

Personally, I think avoiding them all year is a good idea. This story on Air America's website is based on the book:The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated By Their Politics And Practices. It's quite interesting in the information it gives you, like the following:

The Children's Place. There are supposedly NO redeeming qualities about this corporation. They get their goods from countries noted for their human rights and labor violations, not to mention they were hit with a 1.5 million dollar fine from the SEC for misrepresenting the company. Also worth noting: Two of the CEO family members did jail time for monkeying around with clothing import documents.

Hanes.Besides the usual "being sued by workers" and "works with countries with widespread, well-documented human and labor rights abuses," Hanes went the extra step to be cited for "egregious labor violations." And while most companies at least try, it has no nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation or gender identity.

JCPenney. Settlements for sweatshop practices and racial discrimination. D- on Green America's scorecard and a D+ from the NAACP. On the other hand, it tries harder than Hanes on the sexual orientation issue. Has a written nondiscrimination policy and has insurance coverage for domestic partners.

Limited Brands Inc. They own brands like Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works among other well-known stores. There's a pending lawsuit that claims that the company fired people based on disability and sexual orientation, although that seems at odds with a pretty good LGBT discrimination and insurance policy. The now scarily common "sourced from countries with widespread, well-documented human and labor rights abuses" rears its head here as does a 23 out 100 score on "The Climate Counts Company Scorecard Report."


Albertson's grocery chain. This company isn't as nationally well known as some of the others, but, man, is it involved with some bad stuff. Unpaid overtime, punishing employees for opposing their discrimination policies, and violations of California anti-trust laws. Intimidates workers into refusing unions and, always a classic, allows its pharmacists to refuse to fill morning after pill prescriptions.

L'OREAL.  There's not a lot bad about this company, really. But it does raise eyebrows that they've been accused of using chemicals banned in some countries and tried to hide that fact. And that it has no policy against animal testing.

Target. This one really hurt. But it has a D+ on Green America's score card and an F on the 2006 NAACP Economic Reciprocity Report Initiative report, besides which it had to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit. And of course: "sourced from countries with widespread, well-documented human and labor rights abuses."

Chiquita. Everything is contaminated. They've threatened unionized workers and have been accused of using pesticides which the U.S. has banned. And were involved in the awesome E. coli spinach recall of 2007. Despite that, has been pretty good about doing outreach and assisting in disaster relief.

So, read this and weep..especially if you frequent some of them like I do. I was unaware of Victoria's Secret's connection to the Limited Brands Inc umbrella. I also was not aware of how smarmy Target had become. The Ball n' Chain™ loves to grocery shop at Albertson's. I am gonna love explaining to him why I will no longer shop there for anything, regardless of how 'great' the deals are.

Hanes really surprised me..and I so like their female underwear line..damn it.

Corporations make conscious decisions to buy from specific countries, knowing full well how the garments are being made. For me, there is also no excuse for using animals to test makeup. I know some will not agree with me, but I refuse to give my money to corporations that inflict pain and agony on animals just so women can look good.

Seriously..I really thought Palin would be smart enough to stay away from the birther bullshit.

Apparently I gave her way too much credit. Friggin nutter and major publicity whore.




Oh, and don't forget to bring your wallet as she now charges for a picture of her. 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Ball n' Chain™ is a type 2 diabetic. He is also a diabetic that doesn't pay attention to his disease. A couple of weeks ago, I got to sit in on one of his doctor appointments. He never lets me go, and I stopped asking a long time ago.

I was there because I was going to get my flu shots, but they were out of them. When they called the BnC's name I just followed him into the examination room. His doctor is my doctor but Dr. Miller will not discuss the BnC's health with me due to one of those laws that protects patient confidentiality. I can tell him things about the BnC but he can't tell me.

Anywho..the Doc took the opportunity to drop the bomb that the BnC needed to go on insulin injections. The BnC became agitated and said no way no how, he has a phobia of needles. I then took the opportunity to tell him, quite loudly and in front of the Doc, that if he didn't do what he had to, to say alive and somewhat healthy, I would be permanently relocating my ass somewhere else in the world besides Bakersfrigginfield. 

I was not going to watch him slowly die. Nope, I wouldn't. He already is fighting glaucoma because he doesn't take care of himself and his disease.

This made the Doc and the BnC sit up and take notice. The Doc said we could give it the old college try, meaning a strict diet and...cough..exercise for three months and see if that made a difference in his blood sugar levels.

So, we enrolled in some expensive classes that our insurance actually pays for..Wellness classes for diabetics.

We have attended two, two hour, classes this week. I have learned so much about his disease and sadly..so has he. Sad because he should of known some of those things, but like I said in the beginning..he never gave a shit because he thinks if you take a pill or two..or ten, then you can do whatever you want and the med's take care of what ails ya.

He really jumped into the program with both feet. I am so proud of him..the old bastard actually walked for 15 minutes..uphill!

Baby steps..it's all about baby steps.

Because I love that fat old bastard like you wouldn't believe, and he worships my leftwing ass. These changes will affect my life too, but it's worth it. It will actually be good for me to eat better and all the things that go along with taking better care of one's self.We actually have a good reason to spend quality time together, discussing his meter readings and how to attack this disease that can slowly take his life.

I know..it's not a political post..but fuck it. I wanted to praise the BnC so that everyone that reads this tripe knows he is making the effort after years, hell 15 years of neglecting his disease. And we will succeed. Because I hate to lose. And I refuse to lose this grand old fucker who actually is a good human being, former republican and a lazy, stubborn Okie.

 Where do you think his speech was on the Bullshit Meter? Off the fucking charts.

Well, what did you think of his plan man? Same shit, different President.

Did ya think he sold it to the majority of Americans? Oh hell no.

Do ya think it's a war worth fighting for another eight fucking years? Not only no but fuck no.

Do ya think he sounded like an eloquent used car salesman who is trying like hell to sell ya a piece of shit yet he makes it sound like the best deal out there? Yep, that sums it up.

I know he told us that he would continue to fight this war, but for the love of Buddha..why prop up another fucked up regime with billions borrowed from China? Don't ask me I am just a pissed off voter..nothing more and nothing less. And there are millions just like me, Dems, Repubs and Indy's alike.

I personally do not consider this news a good thing. The main reason is that Comcast is run by assholes that are nowhere near the center politically. Comcast has been known to consider left of center groups as the enemy and refused to allow their emailings to get to Comcast customers. From the NYT:

Under the current outlines of the agreement between G.E. and Comcast, NBC Universal would be put into a new joint venture, between the two giants. Comcast would pour billions of dollars in cash and its own cable channels for a 51 percent stake, while G.E. would hold an initial 49 percent and contribute about $12 billion in debt.

G.E., which has owned NBC for more than two decades, is expected to eventually sell its ownership interest to Comcast over the next several years.

This sale does not make me feel warm and fuzzy. Not by a longshot.

Once the Canadian Walmart employees unionized, the Quebec Walmart shut it's doors permanently. The former employees then sued Wally World under the Quebec labor code. From Jurist;

 The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday upheld the right of Wal-Mart Inc., the world's largest retailer, to close its operations in Jonquiere, Quebec, shortly after a union attempted to organize employees in 2005. In a 6-3 decision, the court held that there was no law or precedent that forced an employer to stay in business. The suit was filed by laid off Wal-Mart workers who claimed that the retailer violated labor laws by shutting down its operations while negotiations were taking place for a collective agreement. The former employees also alleged that Wal-Mart had a history of being anti-union and that the closure of the store was a direct attack against the employees being involved with the union. The former employees brought suit under section 17 of the Quebec Labour Code, which states that an employee may not be sanctioned for exercising any right under the Code. The court indicated that the former employees could have brought suit under section 12 instead, noting that:

A claim under s. 12 is logical because the essential thrust of the appellant's position is not that he alone or with some colleagues was singled out for discriminatory treatment but that Wal-Mart targeted generally the rights of all employees at the Jonquiere store (and elsewhere). Jobs were lost not only by union supporters but by others who were indifferent about the union or who were altogether against union representation.

Wal-Mart claims that it closed the store due to poor financial performance coupled with demands by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to hire more employees pursuant to the first collective agreement. Wal-mart won both at the Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeals. This was the first North American Wal-Mart to become unionized.

Ain't that some shit?  Kinda makes you go hmmmm...I knew Wally World was staunchly anti-union...but to close a store? And do NOT tell me it was closed for business reasons because that is total horseshit. Walmart closed a meat dept in a TX store because they unionized under the meat cutters national union:

The world's largest retail chain has fiercely and successfully resisted unionization attempts at its 3,600 stores in the United States. Its closest call ended in Texas in 2000 when the store eliminated its meat department after 11 meat cutters voted to join a union. United Food and Commercial Workers is mounting a fresh campaign to organize Wal-Mart workers in the United States, a push it says has been given impetus by recent legal action and a former company vice president's contention that he surreptitiously organized anti-union activities.

Fuckers...Sam Walton and his relatives can take a long walk off a very short pier. I know..Sam is dead but his smarmy 'vision' remains intact.

She is either a major attention whore, or she has gone over the edge of the abyss. How else do you explain her support of the GOP Purity Test.



I have never liked or respected ol Mary and doubt I ever will..but I figured she had at least two brain cells to rub together.

Apparently she doesn't.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving. The only news out there will be about the idiots consumers that take part in the craziness known as Black Friday.

I have done it once in my life and vowed never to do it again. I didn't even get what I went there for.

Unless you love being crammed into stores like sardines in a can or college students in a Volkswagen, you will not be participating either.

But Wait!! There is a Black Friday in the real world. There is this news about Dubai. It's not looking good for those sheiks apparently. The world's stock markets took a huge shit today on the news that Dubai's financial health is in the crapper. From the CNN linky:

The problems Friday stem from Dubai World, the finance arm of Dubai, which is considering a postponement of payments on nearly $60 billion in debt. The debt was used to fuel a construction boom over the last few years, including its palm-tree shaped island projects, but the Middle East nation was hit hard by a real estate crunch.

Oh my...that is nasty indeed! They won't be buying very many Maybachs then, will they? tsk...tsk..tsk. ;>)

It's no easy task evidently as this story from McClatchy shows:

Just getting the ingredients for Golf Company's one-day-early Thanksgiving dinner was a military operation.

First, the Marines consulted their translators. Then the translators persuaded the Afghan border police to go to a market in what may be the most dangerous part of Helmand province.

Buying the $68 worth of chicken and hot peppers and potatoes and rice and flat bread turned out to be the easy part, however. It was the cooking Wednesday night that nearly caused a squad of casualties.

"Hey, you can't put out a grease fire like that!" someone yelled as one of the self-appointed chefs, Cpl. Cody Baird, 21, of Thurmont, Md., yanked a wok-like pan full of flaming grease off the fire, which was fueled by broken up shipping pallets.

He swung the pan around, his mitt already on fire, and he had to set the pan on the ground before the rest of him went up in flames.

That was, by a conservative count, grease fire number eight, including a crowd-pleaser with flames that reached almost as high as the walls of the camp.

And the actual cooking hadn't begun.

Damn, it's funny but it's sad..ya know? Breaks my heart that our soldiers are freezing their asses off in a country that doesn't appreciate them on this special day of the year. But they are thankful and that is the important part:

"This is pretty good for eating," De Young said. "It's like KFC, and we don't get good meals like this often, and if Cummings hadn't thought this up, we'd be eating that stuff in the trays again."

Damn, I got something in my eye..yeah, that's it. Gotta start cooking people, so remember these guys today and be thankful for what you have.

I spent the weekend in San Diego. My yuppie sista had an emotional emergency and I responded. As we were driving towards Carlsbad, a nice and very expensive beach community, I spotted a beautiful car that I did not recognize.

It was a Maybach. At least the nameplate on the ass end announced it as a Maybach. The logo was nothing I had seen before:

My sista thought it was part of the Mercedes family of cars. The vehicle was simply gorgeous. When we got home I googled the sucker and learned the following:

They don’t call dealerships..dealerships. They are ’studios’. A used Maybach can start around $200,000.00 and a new one goes for, depending on the options you want,  around half a million devalued american bucks.

I shit you not..check it out if you don’t believe me. And my sista was right..they are part of Mercedes Benz.

As we sat around her living room..I asked her and her husband, both upwardly mobile, hard working individuals, how much they thought Maybach’s went for..both said $100,000.00. That is a price range seen for Bentley’s, Lamborghini’s and the Rolls-Royce Phantom..to name a few.

The Maybach’s price makes those other vehicle prices pale in comparison.

Conspicuous consumption is something that really jerks my chain.

Especially when you consider that almost fifty million american’s can not afford health insurance, whole families are homeless, millions go to bed hungry at night and the official number of poor in the US in 2008 was 39.1 million people or 13% of the population..children of color make up the majority of the poor with 34% of them African-American and over 30% of them are Hispanic. And our way of measuring poverty is grossly flawed at best.

In America people..in America.Of course the neocon Heritage Foundation will tell you otherwise and actually call it all bullshit. But I have seen poverty and it sure as hell exists, many times generation after generation in the same family. I have looked into the eyes of a hungry child who was too ashamed to admit that the only decent meal they got each day was the fucking free breakfast or lunch at their school. It broke my heart..then it made me so mad I can’t begin to describe it here.

Sure, the top one percent or “ultra high net worth” households (roughly 1 million people in the US) can drive whatever the fuck they want, and I can marvel at the beauty of such a vehicle. But that doesn’t make it morally right.

Heaven help those Maybach owners if all the poor folks ever rise up and want to even the fucking score. It would make the russian revolution look like a walk in fucking Central Park on a sunny day.

I guess those 17 dead Iraqi's don't count for much in the grand scheme of things for the Dept of Justice. Or they just have more important shit to do. From Jurist:

Federal prosecutors from the US Department of Justice indicated Friday that they will drop manslaughter charges against a Blackwater Worldwide security guard who had been involved in the September 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqis. According to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Channing Phillips, a motion was filed under seal to dismiss the charges against Nicholas Slatten. No reason was given as to why the indictment was being dismissed, but prosecutors asked that they be allowed to resubmit the charges at a later date if desired. Since the incident Blackwater has changed its name to Xe Services.

Eric Holder and his folks at the DOJ really haven't impressed me one fucking iota since he took over. They have continued many of the BushCo arguments about secrecy just for starters, and nothing jerks my chain more than seeing BushCo bullshit being continued by the current administration after all the promises that were made during the run-up to the 2008 election.

This is fantastic. Stewart really hits all his marks on his 'special comment' about Sarah the Impaler.



His best line:

"when you peel back the pretty, shooty layers of the Palin onion, there's no onion. It's just a conservative boiler plate mad lib: 'Freedom is good and taxes are--ooh I need an adjective--how about, I don't know, silly?'

I love this man.