Go figure

I guess the House of Representatives and the Senate are determined to provoke a full scale revolution in the United States. How else can you explain their failure to raise the minimum wage? Notice that $5.15 per hour, in today's buying power, means working people have less money than they had 40 years ago. Also notice that the House has given itself a raise every year for nine (9) years. I think that is right. Also notice that they are chipping away at the estate tax. Unable to do away with it entirely they have changed it so that fewer and fewer people will be required to pay it. Of course they use the same rationale they have used for years - businesses can't afford to raise wages as they would go out of business. This is known to be blatantly false but they cling to it year after year. As working people actually begin to starve I wonder what will come of this. A people's march on the White House? Massive strikes? Revolution? They are certainly asking for it.

Money. That seems to be what it is all about. In elections, that is. We seem to be obsessed with how much money candidates have raised, the implication being that if one side has more money than the other they will win. As the Republicans generally speaking raise much more money than Democrats everyone seems to think that gives them a great advantage (as they can outspend their rivals on TV and other ads, etc.). Now if this is really true I suggest we just do away with elections entirely. Let whoever raises the most money win. It would be a lot simpler and actually cost a lot less. Unfair, you say. So how fair have our elections been lately? Republicans would always win because they can raise more money. Republicans always win of late anyway. Of course we'd have to have a system, and enforce it rigorously, in which only individuals could donate, and each one could only donate a specific amount. With such a system it would become obvious who should win before an election even took place. Simple, no? Oh well, just another stupid Morialekafa idea.

You must have seen the coal ads that have been running for a while. You know, the ones that use kids to tout the coal industry - we have enough for 250 years, coal is clean, etc. At first I was upset over the use of children for such ads as I felt children couldn't possibly understand the truth or falsity of what they were being paid to say. But then reality set in and I realized that adults who make their living doing ads don't know what they are talking about either. I guess it's never too young to start whoring. Is this a great country or what?

Things are going so well in Iraq they have just declared an emergency and shut down Bagdad. It seems the insurgents have actually started a major attack just north of the green zone. Some think it is only a matter of time before they attack the green zone itself. Let's hear it for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld!

Now we really have to worry about home grown terrorists. They just arrested seven mental midgets in Florida who were apparently talking about bombing the Sears tower. Of course they had no bombs, no materials to make bombs, no expertise, no actual plan as to how to do this, and so on. This didn't keep Alberto the Creep from making it into a really big deal, nor did it keep CNN from featuring it endlessly. You want my advice (I didn't really think so), don't talk at all. Better yet, don't even think. Just accept your $5.15 per hour and be happy you don't live in Mexico. This really is a great country. Or at least it used to be.

Cheers.