Good Lord..this pisses me off.

Yet another case of a corporation barging into the private lives of its employees. Which is why we need unions now more than ever. This from a company that manufactures enough pesticides and chemical fertilisers to kill several thousand elephants a year.

It's been my personal observation that the non-smokers at work get sick more than I do. One of the hooved ones at work is a total organic, wholistic, don't see the doctor, don't smoke nutball quasi buddhist bitch....and she's sick all the time. Right before I left for Florida, she was clip-clopping around the office hacking up a lung or two. She managed to infect the whole office.

The children of employees cause lots of doctor's bills to happen. Should we prohibit the hire of employees who have children? Deny their parents family medical benefits, perhaps? This is not to mention that the parents of children bring all their children's diseases to work, and infect their co-workers.

While I'm not even going to suggest that smoking is healthy...I think that my employer has no business sticking its nose into my off-hours behaviour. The reason health care is so expensive in this country is NOT because of unhealthy behaviour by employess...it's because of sheer, unadulterated greed by insurance and drug companies. It's time for single payer, folks. The rest of the industrialised world does it....I have friends in Canada who speak quite highly of their national health care system.

Chicago enacted a dumb-ass smoking ban. Helloooo....no one forces workers to work in restaurants or bars where smoking is permitted. Smoking banned in my very beloved Gold Star? Heaven forfend! I love the Gold Star..it's on Division, 2 doors east of Wood, on the south side of Division. They don't take credit cards, which will either be their salvation or their downfall. Kinda keeps the yuppies out. Which I don't mind.

Blogs I check every day:

Amy
Henway

Housecat?

If this is a housecat...it's the biggest one I've seen in my life. And I know housecats.

It's not a Maine Coon Cat..they are the largest breed of domestic cat. Here is a picture of a woman holding her Maine Coon cat. It is an actual, true blue picture. But Maine Coons have long hair. The cat in the news article is short haired, and really reminds me of a mountain lion.

If I won the lottery...one of the things I'd do with the money is breed housecats up to the size of golden retrievers. I guess it might be a fatal undertaking.....but a dog sized cat would be a cool thing.

Not really, but it's a thought I've had for a while. A cat the size of a dog.......

Christmas thoughts and such...

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Glad Tidings.

Christmas really bums me out at a deep and elemental level..I don't know why. Call me immature, but it really hasn't been that much fun for me since I discovered there wasn't a Santa Claus. I think it's because maybe I have no family around.

Luckily, I was in Florida earlier this month for my dad's 90th birthday/my parent's 50th wedding anniversary party. It was good to see the P's.Dad is fine, and funny, as usual. Me and dad get along great now..it was a different story when we were younger. My mother has become, because of a moderate case of dementia..kind of evil. I don't know this person anymore. Racist, judgemental, bitter.

I actually flew there, because my sister got me to agree to flying in a moment of weakness for me. We flew together from Chicago to Tampa. It was fun...we had a long layover at Midway. Actually, the flights were quite nice, except for the lack of food supplied...the last time I flew(way pre-9/11)...they gave you little box lunches. This time it was chex party mix and a bag of peanuts. There was, however...plenty of booze to be had. Hell, I'd pay $10 for a "chicken wrap".....why the hell don't they serve food on airplanes anymore? When we entered the plane, I started hyperventilating and the pilot told me not to worry..the plane was brand new and a "peach." Later they brought me out some wings and a deck of cards, LOL.

Of course, me and Orlov went to Webster's flea market and of course we got some tatoos. I got her name on my upper arm, and she got my name on her foot.

My brand new range (5 mos. old) crapped out last weekend...just the oven part, so I wasn't able to do the baking I planned to do for the holidays, let alone the normal day to day stuff. It won't be fixed until Jan. 6th, because they had to order a part. I am so pissed. Why didn't they just send me a new stove? I'll be giving Maytag a call......

The insurance company of the guy who wrecked my beloved Taurus is not going to pay me one red cent. So now I have to sue somebody. I've never sued anyone in my entire life. I'm not looking forward to it. I don't get it....I didn't claim any injury, though everyone tells me I should..and my back hurts, which it didn't before. All I want is my car put back the way it was. Cheap, compared to a medical claim. I love insurance companies.

It's not going well here, is it? All I can do is laugh. Me and Dan and the cats are healthy..and that's what matters. I think. I still don't know what material thing to get Dan, and he's being oblique about it. He already has my love and affection....

Merry Christmas All, and God Bless those who are missing their family tonight.

Judge gives g*d a facial. Go union!

It's a happy, happy day when the christianrightwingnuts are dealt such a devastating blow. By a judge appointed by Dubya, no less! Thank you, Judge Jones! You may have to endure a slight registration process to see this article.

And this! I'm staunchly pro-union. I grew up in a union household. The hard work of the union sticking up for my father allowed my family to enjoy a middle class lifestyle. Management never, ever gives anything to workers unless they're forced to. I have never crossed a picket line in my life, and I never will. Too bad for New Yorkers having to walk. The transit authority in NYC has a 1 billion dollar surplus. New Yorkers are walking to work because of management. Period. Surplus means above and beyond expenses, so I don't need to hear any crap about how this money is already spoken for. Unless, of course, it's not really a surplus. If it's not..then why is is being called a surplus? Time to break off a piece for the workers.

Two tiered systems my ass. It's time to draw the line in the sand. I'm sick of hearing big business complain about health care and pension costs. These were PROMISES made to workers at the time of their hiring. And a promise is a promise. Health care costs could be brought under control if we had a single payer health care system. The pensions system would be fine if the boards of corporations weren't morally bankrupt virulent crooks who earn 10's of million$ a year for doing basically nothing except padding the bottom line for the stockholders. Please note that in most of these companies.....employees can't afford to own stock.

And that! Dubya gets busted, yet again, lying to and spying on the American people. Like dangerous anti-war people, Quakers, and gay rights groups.

What does it take to impeach this guy? How much more proof do people need to see that this guy and his administration are morally bankrupt?

Santa gives whole neighborhood a big bummer.

Swingin' Santa. Scaring the kids, outraging the adults, and just generally putting a twist in everybody's knickers.

It's obviously another shot across the bow in the "War On Christmas", which is something that Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity of Fox News made up a couple of years ago. It's also the subject of a book by John Gibson.

Intellectual giant Michelle Malkin also believes in the vast conspiracy to silence Santa.

Gosh, us liberals have a fearsome cadre of jihadis lined up against us...a bunch of people who never let facts get in the way of their perceived persecution. Never mind that Christ, if he existed, was actually born in June or July, never mind that the Puritans didn't celebrate Christmas, as they thought it unseemly, never mind that Christmas is now all about cash slinging. And that the symbols most people associate with Christmas are pagan ones, in fact, the whole idea of Christmas is a pagan idea.

I guess the problem is that some stores are printing "happy holidays" in their ads and saying "happy holidays" to their customers, instead of Merry Christmas. Hmmm..let's have a look at the word "holiday" Holiday is a contraction of the words "holy day." I guess Happy Holy Days just doesn't cut it with the Fox News crowd.

Your baby is ugly.

One of my co-workers was delivered of an 8 lb 9 oz 22 inch long turkey on Thanksgiving day, courtesy of her newly fecund daughter. The same daughter whose exploits in the newly "free" Iraq we were regaled with daily. (Honest to god, My co-workers main concern, once her daughter returned home, was that her daughter provide her with grand-children. Immediately. My main thought at the time was you're goddam lucky your daughter is still alive.) Not to mention the 900 endless wedding photos of same daughter and hubby. Now....daughter has produced a son! Mazel Tov!What talent! We will now never hear the end of "L'il Peanut"

Everytime one of my friends tell me they're pregnant...on the outside I'm all "congratulations" on the inside I'm all..."your life is over". Children are the death of fun. I especially hate it when guys say "We're pregnant" Didn't know you could get knocked up, dude. Feeling a little left out, are you?

"L'il Peanut..it looks like you went through a meat grinder. Red, conehead, UGLY. Moms, your babies are ugly. Get over yourselves. You have birthed an ugly, red, bulldog faced, cone-headed monster, and it's not going to be presentable until it's a year old. Please just stay in the house with it until then, (while it sucks your very soul dry) and think about such weighty matters as bottle vs. breast, and what colour is the correct colour of baby shit, and what KIND of diapers, and how big should the stroller be? the size of a bicycle? A car? A house? Oh, and the endless sleepless nights, which you actually have the nerve to complain about.

18 month old kids are cute. Your infant is not even on the footpath leading up to cute.

Baby foxes are cute. Human infants are not.

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Remember how Regan, in the '80's, in a very compassionate way, closed a bunch of mental hospitals, forcing thousands of mentally ill people out on the streets to fend for themselves? Apparently, some of them were able to get the help they needed, and were able to settle down. Some of them asked you for spare change last week, and some of them didn't get help, yet manage to function and do things like work, marry, reproduce and write blogs. Here's one of them....This person is severely mentally ill. When his head finally does explode, I'm sure we'll all hear it.