When you have idiots like this who can bloviate...

I guess the rally made sense.



That makes sense. And people sending fake anthrax to Olberman two years ago and O'Reilly making fun of the fact that he went to a hospital to make sure he was ok?

Yeah, sick puppies, and maybe that rally was needed....

A message for Tony Hayward....... CEO of BAD PRODUCT

You want to get your bloody LIFE back? (That's what you said in a whiny self-pitying tone, you git...) Do us all a favor, Tony... Do it in hell. Because THOUSANDS of people have lost their livlihoods and existences thanks to your 'swell' mismanagement and grasping greed. You inflicted it on them, and the true impact has yet to be seen. Not to mention that a pristine ecological area won't come back for decades, probably. So you just go there, and get your life back, and I hope you suffer forever. Because you have given a new dimension to the concept of spoiled, snivelling, self-pitying prig. Not to mention a new definition of colossal incompetence.

Hat tip to Scott of Bill in Exile for posting the photo. Speaks from my heart, hey.

What in the world...

Does the Texas State Services Commision want looking here? Color me mystified. I've never been west of the Missisippi in my whole life, hey. (Shrugs....) That was odd, but at least I am out of gun range....

I saw a post this morning about the governor of Arizona. She gleefully banned ethnic studies from that state's schools.

Uh-huh...

To be honest, we never learned about Native Americans, too embarassing, I guess. And we never learned that the US killed one million people in Asia over a ten year period after they had established a democracy in the Phillipenes, then got killed in order for the US to control the sugar market. We never learned a lot of things, and btw, killing one million people is what later came to be known as genocide. No one taught us that. It was 'Murka, and everything was wonderful and good, and we were all 'Mr. Clean', hey. Yup.... Knights in shining (white) armour, oh yeah, pretty story.

Well, you'd think, huh?

We didn't learn a hell of a lot of things, input garbage in, you get garbage out, and that is how it goes down.

So Jan Brewer can sweep it all under the rug, and make everything tighty-whitey in her little state, but boy howdy, she is one destructive lady.

Tomorrow, am off to Gamlitz again..... Am not looking forward to what I see.

On profiling....

“This week, Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which will allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there’s some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but could we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying “Show me your papers?” There’s never been a World War II movie that didn’t include the line “show me your papers.” It’s their catchphrase. Every time someone says “show me your papers,” Hitler’s family gets a residual check. So heads up, Arizona; that’s fascism. I know, I know, it’s a dry fascism, but it’s still fascism.”

Seth Myers on SNL’s Weekend Update this week.

Found on Bill in Exile...

I was not surprised at this, not at all. And yes, it is racial profiling.... this time. However there are other kinds of profiling. People look at other people, and immediately classify them in their heads, putting them into drawers with labels in a split second. It is human nature.

Case in point.... Where I grew up, I lived and worked in the center of the city. It was three blocks from my work to my home, walking. And the police had beats, about eight square blocks, I would imagine, and call boxes to ring in where they were and prove they weren't goofing off, or something. The regulars knew me, and I would close up, drop in the days' deposits at the bank next door and walk home.

BUT: if there were someone new on the beat... the following invariably happened. I would be roughly pushed up against a brick wall, frisked, asked for ID, and got the inevitable rapid-fire series of barked questions. 'Where are you coming from?' 'Where are you going?' 'Who are your parents?' (Don't wanna ruffle some big-wigs' feathers, now do we, Preciousses?) And would invariably be allowed to continue on to my home, with the admonition, 'Don't you know that if anything bad were to happen here, you would be the first suspect, because you were here?'

This went on from the late Sixties to mid-Seventies, and you will be asking yourselves, 'Why would he think it was profiling? He is white enough...'

It was profiling however. Poor vs. middle class. Because, you see, if you were over the age to have a car and were walking down Main Street near or after midnight, you just had to be up to no good. I had to deal with that from the time I was about fourteen till the time I left.

Certainly, it wasn't the same, I didn't get any slurs, but in principle, oh yeah, I know that feeling all right... And can imagine how much worse it is going to be for people who have a sort of dark complexion in Arizona.

I never realised at the time that that isn't exactly normal in civilised countries, I thought it was normal. Until I was in Salzburg the first time, and we would be out till all hours of the night, and just marveled that we never even saw a policeman/policewoman. Here they seem to be busy catching real criminals rather than bothering people out on the street at unseemly hours.

All of this comes from a culture of fear. And I think it will only make the existing problems in Arizona much worse, cause a lot of innocent people a lot of grief, and in the end, will cause more problems than it 'solves'.

(And Blogger is driving me nuts with a specific font problem, but that is irrelevant.)

This post is going to be fun. Social Sneakurity

Looking in the mail-box going out every day is a must, but never top priority on my list of things to do. I seldom get snail mail... like twice a year or so, lots of ads I throw away, and an occasional bill. Unless I ordered something at Amazon and am looking for a delivery notice, then it gets exciting... (ha)....

So imagine my astonishment when I opened it this morning and found a HUGE orange DIN-A4 envelope sent from The United States of America, official business on the upper left hand corner of it!

Sent by the embassy in Vienna.

Three questions shot through my brain at that point:

What the FUCK do they want with me after twenty-five years, why is this so heavy, and OMG, they discovered my blog???????

Well, I got on the bus, going to Peter's, ripped it open, and pulled the whole mess out. There was a cover letter. It seems, my pension people contacted them, to point out I am on an invalidity pension, and not sixty-five yet. And since I worked in the US for nine years plus, I might be eligible for benefits, which eligibility they will determine in the coming three to five months or so, so I should apply, and please fill out the forms.

Now, since I got retired 'early', I only get 70% of what I would receive if I were sixty-five, so that was sort-of welcome news....

And then I looked through the forms to be filled out. My GAWWD! There is such a wealth of questions for hilarity and satire in there that I bust out laughing. Now, Lawrence O'Donnell

trashed a Texan congressman yesterday on the tee-vee. (Click on the name for the vid).

Social Security and Medicare are 'socialist', you see.... and wanted him to admit it.

Now, 'here's the different', as Peter used to say....

We moan and groan about the forms we have to fill out here when applying for things. And the forms are only four pages long, usually, and half of the stuff requires 'only the facts, Mister...' and a lot is irrelevant and so you can leave them blank. No stupid questions. Awful, isn't it? Oh, how we complain... 'they're turning us into glass people who know our every instinct, urge, thought... POLICE STATE!' And I would usually just smile.

I would LURVV to show some of them what I just got in the mail! One of the questions that caused me the most hilarity was: 'Is there a warrant out for your arrest?' Followed by 'Have you been convicted of a crime?' Right, am gonna lie of course, and say no if that were the case, but they have a Catch-22... If they catch you lying, you get taken up on federal criminal charges, so you better tell the truth, hey...

Another: 'Tell us what you do from the time you wake up till the time you go to sleep.'

And on another questionare: 'Do you speak english?' 'Can you READ english?' 'Can you write your name IN ENGLISH?' (To the latter: um, excuse me? How the fuck do you think I am filling out this form, hey? Sign language from an interpreter??? And since when do people sign their names in hyrogliphics? Just askin'...)

Ok, could go on and on and ON about this form. Really. I ended up laughing my ass off.

But there is a darker side. They want to talk to your doctors, and see into their records on you. They want to see your diagnoses, in the original, 'and will send them back to you per registered mail.'

I really, really do not see why I should do that.

So, Mr. O'Donell.... that isn't socialism. That is pure fascism.

Will think twice about filling it out.

Gawwd....