Enthusiastically gonna vote Democratic ...

My previous post might have led some of you to doubt if I were gonna vote in mid-term elections. OH YEAH! And ... I WILL VOTE ENTHUSIASTICALLY IN FAVOR OF DEMOCRATS. No enthusiasm gap here. Know why? BECAUSE I HATE REPUBLICANS AND WHAT THEY STAND FOR.

I will never let the Republicans win when I can vote against them.

We cannot let the Republicans win!!! It's as simple as that. I don't think they're gonna win. Because you gotta remember -- THEY'RE A BUNCH OF WINDBAGS. They always brag about how they're gonna win.

We must let President Obama and his administration finish their work -- isn't that why we elected him in 2008? (I'm just not gonna donate money, that's all.)


VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN!

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Happy Caturday!

(from our friends at ICANHASCHEEZBURGER)

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President Obama: Jobs and Foreclosures!

Someone from the Democratic Party just called my home and asked for money. I said: when you create more jobs and stop foreclosures, then I'll donate money.

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I pay taxes so the filthy god damn rich don't have to!

Yes, our precious, needy rich should not have to pay taxes. None at all. The only people who should pay taxes are us poor suckers in the middle and lower classes, at least that is what Republicans think. No wonder I hate the fucking bastards so much.

How much do the rich pay? A lot. Yes, it's true, the rich pay a tremendous amount of taxes in this country, they really do and I don't dispute that for a second.

Except that is the wrong fucking question.

The right question we should all be asking is how much do the rich pay as a percentage of their income? Warren Buffett has famously said that he pays less as a percentage of his income than his secretary does and he says that isn't fair. And you know what, I totally agree with him.

Indeed, I would like to see this country return to the progressive tax system that we had under President Eisenhower, where the top rate was 91%. There are all kinds of great reasons to return to that tax policy and as far as I am concerned, there are NO (ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, ZIP, NONE) good reasons not to and to keep things the way they are.

But since it is late and I have to get up early in the morning, I am going to leave you with one good reason found in the quite below that we should be soaking the rich, the fucking freeloaders that they are. Need I say more?


"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Louis D. Brandeis (Supreme Court Judge)

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Labor Day today

This post is going to be very short and sweet. Today is Labor Day, a day to honor labor, the workers who built this country. Remember, it was not the rich who built this country, it was labor. All the money in the world will not build a road or a dam or a bridge or a building without the workers to do the labor.

And no rich person in the world ever got rich in a vacuum. They were only able to get rich because of people doing the work, supplying the labor, and buying the stuff that made the rich rich, rich on the backs of labor. Take away labor and it will all go to hell.

Wikipedia has a good page on the establishment of Labor Day as a National holiday back in 1894 as legislation enacted by Congress and signed by President Grover Cleveland. Originally established as reconciliation with labor following the deaths of workers at the hands of the US military and US marshals during the Pullman Strike, in recent years we have used the holiday as a end of summer celebration with only passing reference to labor.

With the millions of Americans out of work and desperately wanting work while the rich are sitting on their piles of money, maybe we should remember labor once again both for the workers who built this country and for the current and future workers who will rebuild this country given half a chance. So here is to the American worker! Hooray!

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In Honour of Labouring Folks Everywhere

Today, we celebrate Labour Day (which, everywhere else in the world, is celebrated on May 1st, also known as Lady Day) with a little ditty from the Great Depression. No doubt it will warm the cockles of every heart that has experienced these fine characters, especially of late.


Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

1.
I'm an autocratic figure in these democratic states,
A dandy demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the baker bake the most delicious breads,
As the sons of Casanova fill the most exclusive beds,
As the Barrymores, the Roosevelts, and others I could name
Inherited the talents that perpetuate their fame,
My position in the structure of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My pappy was a gentleman, and musical to boot,
He used to play piano in a house of ill repute.
The madam was a lady, and a credit to her cult.
She enjoyed my pappy's playing, and I was the result!
So my mammy and my pappy are the ones I have to thank
That I'm Chairman of the Board of the National Silly Bank!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

2.
In a cozy little farmhouse in a cozy little dell,
A dear old-fashioned farmer and his daughter used to dwell.
She was pretty, she was charming, she was tender, she was mild,
And her sympathy was such that she was frequently with child.
The year her hospitality attained a record high
She became the happy mother of an infant, which was I.
Whenever she was gloomy I could always make her grin
By childishly inquiring who my daddy could have been.
The hired man was favored by the girls in Mummy's set
And a trav'ling man from Scranton was an even money bet.
But such were Mammy's motives, and such was her allure,
That even Roger Babson wasn't altogether sure.
Well I took my mother's morals and I took my daddy's crust,
And I grew to be the founder of the New York Blanker's Trust.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

3.
In a torrid penal chain gang on a dusty southern road,
My late lamented daddy had his permanent abode.
Now some were there for stealing, but my daddy's only fault
Was an overwhelming tendency for criminal ault.
His philosophy was simple and quite free of moral taint:
Seduction is for sissies, but a he-man wants his rape.
Daddy's total list of victims was embarrassingly rich,
And one of them was Mother, but he couldn't tell me which.
Well I didn't go to college, but I got me a degree.
I reckon I'm the model of a perfect S.O.B.
I'm a debit to my country but a credit to my Dad,
The most expensive senator the country ever had.
I remember Daddy's warning -- that raping is a crime,
Unless you rape the voters a million at a time.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

4.
I'm an ordinary figure in these democratic states,
A pathetic demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the cop possess the flattest kind of feet,
As the daughter of the floozie has a waggle to her seat,
My position at the bottom of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My father was a married man and, what is even more,
He was married to my mother -- a fact which I deplore.
I was born in holy wedlock, consequently by and by,
I was rooked by every bastard who had plunder in his eye.
I invested, I deposited, I voted every fall,
And I saved up every penny and the bastards took it all.
At last I've learned my lesson and I'm on the proper track:
I'm a self-appointed bastard and I'M GOING TO GET IT BACK!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

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Arizona Gets Teh Big Ugly

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona

 

 

 

 

 

It would appear the "illegal alien" hysteria that Republicans whipped up to scare all them scary brown people away from the polls is having dubious effects, at best. Raw Story tells us that the State of Arizona has already incurred costs of close to half a million dollars defending the deeply flawed legislation that is at the heart of this battle, SB 1070. 

Apparently, one of the effects has been to reveal Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's true nature. We don't often pick on people for their looks here at La Casa de Los Gatos. We much prefer picking on their character flaws. But every now and then one comes along that just leaves us flapdoodled.

I mean, lookit, this lady has money. She's not some poor slob who works two jobs fourteen hours a day to put food on the table. And she obviously spends a good bit of that money on her appearance. I mean, the dye job alone is keeping a good part of the chemical and fashion industries employed, heah!

So, what, Jan, did the plastic surgeon want to charge by the yard to get rid of those dreadful frown lines? Perhaps if you worked on your inside a bit, you know, took time to see the good and beautiful around you, those dreadful lines would fade. After all, wrinkles should, you know, convey character. And yours are not conveying anything nice about you at all.

She's not a nice person, Jan Brewer. She lies about all kinds of stuff, and most of what comes out of her mouth is hateful and false.

Looks like it's catching up with her, though. She's off her game, and as the cost of defending this ridiculous piece of legislation goes up, up, up, she's stumbling and stammering and falling apart. Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

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Divide and conquer

All *true* red-blooded Americans hate labor unions. Obviously they are all corrupt and at the root of all our problems. Hell, America hates workers and labor in general. And don’t even mention government workers. They are the absolutely worst. Why, if we get rid of government workers and outlaw labor unions, all our problems will be solved.

And hell, while we’re at it, let’s get rid of all our workers and labor in general, and just send all of the good paying jobs overseas. And for any work that needs to be done, we’ll just get slaves who will work for whatever crumbs we might toss at them. If they die, oh well, cost of business. There are plenty more slaves out there to take their place. Isn’t America great?!!

Frankly, I’ve had it and it is really pissing me off. Not the labor unions or government employees, or workers in general, but the attitude.

Maybe I am alone in this but I am concerned that labor unions have taken it on the chin for far too long. Every time I turn around I find myself talking to a still employed worker (not management) who hates labor unions and sees them as totally corrupt and useless, whether it’s teachers unions or police or firefighter unions or whatever. The union employees are seen as getting too sweet of a deal, making too much money or getting too generous of a pension.

And I don’t know, maybe some labor unions do get too sweet of a deal, with more pay than what we think the job deserves or a pension that is to generous.

Indeed, they have better pensions than I do as my current job in industry doesn’t even have a pension. Wouldn’t I love to have retired at say 55 with a pension equal to my pay at the time or something like that? Absolutely! I’m a bit older now and I am tired, physically and mentally, and it is becoming harder and harder for me to keep going at it each day. But I can’t retire yet. I have to keep going as I don’t yet have the means to support myself in retirement. Hell, I haven’t even had a raise for the last 3 years and I am not particularly happy about that either.

But I don’t begrudge for a moment the union worker who is getting a good deal these days. No, I say right the fuck on! God damn it, right the fuck on!

Hell, I was just talking to a friend who was bemoaning the labor costs of the airlines. And he was complaining about a long time 30-year stewardess who had broken into 6 figures with her pay. I say right on to that stewardess!

Imagine if the airlines did this way back when she was first hired:

“Join our airlines with an exciting career as a stewardess. You’ll start off at minimum wage with no benefits. We’ll fly you to exotic places where you will often spend 12 hours a day at 40,000 feet where you can deal with unruly passengers while living with the risk that one day your plane will crash. Won’t that be fun? And after working your entire career in this exciting field, you will still be making minimum wage with no benefits and no retirement, save perhaps Social Security and whatever pennies from your minimum wage you might have saved in your 401k. Oh, you didn’t make the best investments in it? Too bad for you.”

Would you take and work for that deal? Would you like to be a fucking slave all your life? Or would you like your job to offer opportunity for growth?

And while I am ranting, lets not forget the evil government worker. They obviously make too much money, like my sister did, who had a BA degree in law enforcement and worked for over 30 years in the California prison system in a high stress job and yet never made more than about 50K a year. After a lifetime of performing that job as a California State employee, she retired “early” at 61 as she could not take it anymore. And her sweet pension after a lifetime of service? It’s about $2900/month. She will survive on that but I would hardly call that a sweet deal.

But you say, the states are broke and we don’t have money for anything, let alone schools or police or firefighters or parks or welfare for the poor or anything. We have to cut cut cut and too bad for the labor unions and government workers as we’re overtaxed and we’ve had it.

Well, I say bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

I say there is plenty of fucking money in this country, enough to pay decent wages and provide livable pensions, and provide for education and the services we ought to expect from a “civilized” society.

You see, when I hear that 2 trillion dollars is unaccounted for by the Pentagon, or I hear about the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or that Exxon Mobile made 19 billion in profits last year on how many billions in revenue and yet paid ZERO, ZILCH, no income taxes on it and still got back hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds, I say there is plenty of money if we tax it and spent it wisely.

And when I hear that this CEO or that CEO got canned from this corporation or that and still walked away with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in severance pay, or that CEO’s make 300 times more than the average worker, I say there is plenty of god damn money to pay the workers a decent wage and provide a pension.

Instead, there is a PROPAGANDA WAR in this country to divide the workers from labor unions and from ourselves so that we fight each other and distract ourselves from the real sources of our problems.

Our problems are not because of labor unions. It’s not the “high cost” of labor, which has largely been sent off shore anyway so that the oligarchy in this country can keep more money for themselves.

Our problem is the oligarchy controlling government policy and stupid management that has abandoned even good business sense so they can have their own corporate piggy banks while their corporations, and the rich, pay little or no taxes and don’t want you or I to notice it. We pay through the nose while they get rich and I am god damned spitting mad about it.

So when I hear a union managed a sweet deal? I say right on union! God damn it, right on because no matter how sweet the deal they got, it's not going to even come close to the sweet deal the oligarchs have stolen from society for themselves. And yes, I say stolen because I defy you to show me what the hell they did to earn it. With the exception of artists or creative people who really created something of value, the oligarchs aren't rich because they earned it. They are rich because they took it. They just took it.

And so damn it, I don’t want to hear another god damn word about the evils or excesses of any union until the oligarchs have fully paid their dues and their fair share. Until then, I say we need more labor unions so we can reclaim the ground the middle class has lost. We’ll be a better society for it.

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Caturday!!!

from our friends at www.icanhascheezburger.com

Have a great Caturday, everybody!!

Now, this one ... really doesn't need a caption IMHO. But if you've got one, head on over to www.icanhascheezburger.com -- they're asking for captions.

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Schwarzenegger: Typical Politician

Photoshopped by K. Smokey Cormier
this is an actual quote

Schwarzenegger, when running for the governor's office, claimed to be a leader. Nuts to that. A real leader stands up for his beliefs. He vetoed same-sex marriage twice when the California state legislature passed it in 2005 and 2007.

So, why is he in favor of same-sex marriage now? Typical politician: he's not running for any election.

Hypocrite: a person who pretends to be what he is not. Is Schwarzenegger a free thinker and an ally of gay people, or is he a bigot?

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BP: "Plug for good" ... "Never leak again"

I guess people in the United States of Amnesia would fall for these words:

BP delivered what should be a knockout punch on Thursday to its damaged Macondo well, filling it with concrete and all but guaranteeing oil will never leak from it again.

-- from the always believable HEARST NEWSPAPERS

they did use those truth-insurance-policy phrases: "should be" and "all but guaranteeing"

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Anne Rice: Today I quit being a Christian

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Those are the words of the writer Anne Rice. She has left the Catholic Church. Her reason is because she could not stand by and just watch as the bishops spent parishioners' hard-earned money to defeat the civil rights of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men in secular society.

... When that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement.

Evil? Too strong a word? No. It is evil. It is the evil of George Wallace ... the evil of Adolph Hitler. If they had their way, we would be burning like witches.

Want to read the story? Go here.

Bishops, beware ... drop drop drop drop that becomes a tidal wave.

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Quote from the movie Mother ...

Companion quote to previous Caturday post ...



“Always eat well after coming back from the police station.”
-- Park Eun-kyo and Bong Joon-ho from the movie Mother

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Caturday! Got in under the wire ...

Friends and family have asked just this question of Ms. Manitoba. I iz experienced.

Yes, it's still Caturday here in Pacific Time. Hope you all had a great Caturday ... and those of us with a few more hours ... party on, cats and kitties.

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