Defending what?

Elizabeth Dole wants to "defend" marriage between a man and a woman. Who is attacking that?

"Marriage between a man and a woman isn't something Republicans invented, but it is something Republicans will defend," she said. "We believe in a culture that respects all life ... the frail elderly, the infirm and those not yet born. Protecting life isn't something Republicans invented. But it is something Republicans will defend."

She reads different newspapers than those that come my way, otherwise she would know that you would protect more frail elderly, infirm, and unborn people by expanding access to medical care than you would by overturning Roe v. Wade. And the Republican who is running for President in 2004 does not respect all life. His record on the death penalty proves that.

People who reduce the primary values of human life to buzzwords for political reasons damage the concepts of marriage and family. They seduce voters into thinking that they are voting for family values when in reality a vote for George W. Bush is a vote for a President who has taken jobs and medical insurance away from thousands of families. His bunch will continue to push more families and children into poverty if we are fools enough to let them have another four years to work their magic.

Wal-Mart Culture

Reason of the Day to
Vote for John Kerry and John Edwards

I have been reading the 25-or-so page Congressional Report on Wal-Mart’s Labor Record by Rep. George Miller, February 16, 2004:

In January 2004, the New York Times reported on an internal Wal-Mart audit which found “extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals. One week of time records from 25,000 employees in July 2000 found 1,371 instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too many hours in a day. There were 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times.

According to the New York Times report: “Verette Richardson, a former Wal-Mart cashier in Kansas City, Mo., said it was sometimes so hard to get a break that some cashiers urinated on themselves. Bella Blaubergs, a diabetic who worked at a Wal-Mart in Washington State, said she sometimes nearly fainted from low blood sugar because managers often would not give breaks.

A store manager in Kentucky told the New York Times that, after the audit was issued, he received no word from company executives to try harder to cut down on violations: “There was no follow-up to that audit, there was nothing sent out I was aware of saying, ‘We’re bad. We screwed up. This is the remedy we're going to follow to correct the situation."

I don't remember when the fair Labor Standards Act was passed, but I believe it was in 1938.

International observers at our elections, our wage-earners treated like slaves, our children dropping out of high school to go to work, the L-curve -- we are becoming a model third-world society. Quick, somebody vote for a Democrat!

First Grade

Anybody who has been in first grade knows that first the bully hits you, then he yells to get everybody's attention so you can't hit him back:

This is the second time in recent days that an individual associated with the Bush re-election effort has acknowledged working with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

A book to read before you vote

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips

Rain on Saturday

Reason of the Day to
Vote for John Kerry and John Edwards

If you are following the adventures of the garden spider, you will be happy to know that the rain on Saturday did not damage the web significantly.

Money is heavy

It is difficult to move significant quantities of money from one pocket to another. Say, for example, you are the United States and you have a few thousand moldy million lying around, and you (or at least your leadership) wants to give it to good buddy Halliburton. People would look askance if you just handed it over directly. So you go find a small country that is ruled by an evil dictator, who is also an infidel. It helps that this evil infidel dictator is already killing his people pretty much on the whim of the day. You start a war, move in, and take out the evil dictator. Because he is already killing people, your actions fit well with the principles of compassionate conservatism, putting a lot of them out of their misery more quickly and liberating the rest. Also, because he is an infidel, you look like a crusader. Then you set up a new government that looks wise and experienced, but which, in fact, has no understanding of western-style cost accounting. You give them the money, and you let Halliburton send them invoices. They pay the invoices, money changes pockets, and you are a hero.

Still hanging in there

Reason of the Day to
Vote for John Kerry and John Edwards

And the spider is still there. She has picked the perfect spot to build, in a corner that has plenty of light and air but never gets direct sun and is sheltered from prevaling winds. She eats crickets, which are in good supply. The web was damaged once by a rainstorm, but she built it back quickly at just a little different angle. Here she is, photographed today at about 5:30 p.m.:

Bringing the Military Home

George Bush has announced that he is bringing the boys home," thousands of American military people coming home to their families. Many -- perhaps most -- of the people who will be returning home are accompanied by their families in countries where our allies provide us a base of operations. These American bases in Europe and Asia are the friendly and supportive link between us and our allies.

We already know there are not enough soldiers to send to Iraq. When these military families come home, the military member will get a new assignment to Iraq, unaccompanied of course, since Iraq is a combat zone to which spouses and children cannot travel.

That is, President Bush is bringing our military home from friendly bases that keep the doors open for cooperation between ourselves and other nations, no doubt closing some of those doors as we exit Then he is going to send them back to a combat zone where he has created a war. But first he is going to get the election year political advantage of announcing that they are coming home.

If you're counting pennies

Always pay attention to the news on Friday. That is when they say anything that they don't really want you to hear. The Friday story last week was that the TAX CUT for people in the top 1 percent is roughly equal to 1.5 times the total income of people in the middle 20 percent and almost 5 times the total income of people in the bottom 20 percent.

The big spider

This is my resident garden spider at home.

Trying to keep up

I have returned to work after June and July off, and I am discovering that work really takes up your day.

I have some new pictures of the golden garden spider that has taken up residence in the shrubs in my front yard, and I will post a couple of good ones in the next day or so, I hope.

Also, I am trying to keep up my "Reason of the Day" for voting for John Kerry (link on this page).

I have been searching for a graphic to lend some design to my blog, and I believe that I now have one that will work, so I will be losing a couple of hours sleep working on that this weekend.

So much to blog, so little time.

Who's keeping more of their money?

The median income in the United States is around 40,000.00 to 42,000.00. That is a real family value, one that can be measured. $42,000.00 is what the median American family has to feed, house, educate, entertain, and sustain itself for a year. Car and house payments and clothes for work and play, groceries, medical and dental costs, medications and glasses, haircuts, ballet lessons, soccer uniforms, church and charitable contributions, cable and Internet access, vacations, Christmas, Easter, college tuition, graduations, weddings, and funerals come out of this amount.

Of course, federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, etc. come out of this amount also. Since most families in this income bracket use all of their money, there isn't much left to shelter in an IRA, a trust fund, or a foundation. Each dollar of the $42,000.00 is reduced by the amount of the cumulative tax burden. John Kerry promises this family a tax cut. Bush says they already have gotten one from him, but take a closer look.

The median tax cut in the median income range is not equal to the median increase in the cost of additional child care a family is paying because this administration has cut after-school programs. And when the median increase in the cost of health care kicks in, this family is paying median health care, child care, and tax dollars to subsidize the federal income tax cut for people who make over a million dollars a year.

Dick Cheney says that more people are keeping more of their money due to the Bush tax cuts, but that is not true. More money is being kept, but fewer people are keeping it.

Based solely on the tax policy, anyone whose family income is less than $150,000.00 for 2004 obviously should vote for John Kerry in November, and people above that income but not quite to the million dollar mark probably would benefit from the Kerry policies. People with over a million dollars in income should vote for John Kerry because Kerry's tax plan will create a fair and sustainable system with the potential for steady growth. A government can only rob the poor and middle class to give to the rich up to a certain level of discomfort, and the system becomes unstable and the top falls in. ( If you want a link, I think that you can find something at HISTORY.COM)

Look, a big spider!

And another one!

One thing for sure

Whether you believe torture is a legitimate way of getting information or not, one thing is apparent from this article in the New England Journal of Medicine. That one thing is that the abuse in American prisons was not (is not) the work of a few bad apples.

While we are looking the other way

Well, it's been great watching the Democrats on CSPAN and the rush onto the campaign trail. All of us Democrats have been watching and cheering!

Meanwhile, the Associated Press report printed in our local paper (Bristol Herald Courier) says that on Friday July 30, George Bush announced his intentions to make 20 appointments during the congressional recess. He has had these emergencies before while the Congress is in recess. I don't know what the emergency is this time, or why he can't wait until Congress comes back. I could speculate that he does these recess appointments because he is appointing people that even his own Republican legislators would not approve. Or maybe there is a real emergency. Who would know?

Also in this busy time when we are all catching up on issues we should have been paying attention to for the past ten years, the ban on the sale of assault weapons is about to expire. When Congress comes back, we will have 8 working days until it expires, at midnight on September 13. Maybe since Congress won't have all those appointments to consider, we can get a bead on this assault weapon thing.

Now if I understand the news release from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, on September 14 that deer hunter who wants an assault rifle because he can't learn to sight a hunting rifle can buy himself a new gun that can get the deer and clear away the underbrush. And 24 hours after the purchase, we won't know much about the person who bought the gun because of the new "24-hour rule" protecting the privacy of gun owners. The 24-hour rule (supported by Bush and Ashcroft) was a rider to the FY 2004 Justice Department appropriations bill. It requires that the background check records of gun purchasers be destroyed within 24 hours of the purchase.