Ryan's Dirty Trailer

If the police were as lickety split in their prosecution of the people who conned the American public during the subprime mortgage crisis, we might still have a serviceable economy.

Then again, yeah, people who are camping out on a city street are far more dangerous than men willing to tank an entire economy for their own personal gain. 

Maybe we should be happy that these cops didn’t put anyone in a coma today?

Per CNN:

The arrests occurred thousands of miles apart, but the scenes were similar in Oregon and Texas early Sunday: In the dark of night, police told Occupy demonstrators to leave protest sites. Those who refused were handcuffed and arrested.

Authorities in Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, say protesters were trespassing and violating city rules. Demonstrators say authorities were infringing on protesters’ rights to assemble.

Police arrested more than two dozen people who refused to leave a park in northwest Portland, Oregon, after warnings that the park closed at midnight, police said.

private-revolution:

Let me get this straight, you can spew hateful shit and in essence tell me I am a second class citizen and it’s free, protected speech, but if I said that your corrupt ass organization was a congregation of puerile, asinine, shitfaced child molesters, I’d be “oppressing” you. If I were to call your organization out for its numerous crimes against society, such as selling 300,000 babies, refusal to condone condom use as AIDS continues to kill people, the pope has been directly implicated in the cover up of a molestation scandal with 200 victims, I’d be “hateful” and “unforgiving”. You can literally be the bane of society and be holy but I can’t marry a female presenting person because it’s immoral?

Agreed, the apologists sicken me, quite frankly.  I wouldn’t let one of my children within a mile of a Catholic church, as their own leader is a part of the massive institutionalized protection of these monsters who victimize innocent kids.

The question now becomes, how soon will I need a change of under-roos? I managed to get through It without pissing myself, so who knows, it may be a one undies night for me.

1. Stephen King’s It

2. Paranormal Activity (Which, in fact, was a bad choice because it’s now 11:30 and I’m only half-way through my laundry, which means I have to venture back into my creepy garage a few more times… AND… open my closet a few times too. This is bad because the first PA scares the crap out of me. Yikes.)

3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Remake) 

TCM may get pushed back to Monday night, as I’m getting extremely drowsy.  Wish me luck!

House Re­pub­li­cans took the gov­ern­ment to the brink of shut­down last spring by de­mand­ing across-the-board bud­get cuts to many vital pro­grams. In­stead of fo­cus­ing on job cre­ation, as Amer­i­cans wanted them to, the GOP turned its at­ten­tion to slash­ing funds for pro­grams that funded as­sis­tance for women and chil­dren, local law en­force­ment, the so­cial safety net, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions, and many other pro­grams they deemed as ei­ther too ex­pen­sive or un­nec­es­sary.

Worse, when chal­lenged on why they hadn’t made the ef­fort to tackle high un­em­ploy­ment, Re­pub­li­cans in­sisted that their slash-and-burn bud­get cuts were meant to cre­ate jobs.

Not all of those cuts made it through, but the GOP suc­ceeded in pass­ing mas­sive spend­ing re­duc­tions as part of a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion that kept the gov­ern­ment op­er­at­ing. Ac­cord­ing to a new re­port from the Cen­ter for Amer­i­can Progress’ Scott Lilly, those cuts didn’t re­sult in the job cre­at­ing boon Re­pub­li­cans in­sisted would fol­low. In­stead, it has done just the op­po­site, as those cuts will re­sult in the de­struc­tion of roughly 370,000 jobs.

Yes, but for Republicans, government jobs don’t count.  Obviously those employed by the government don’t pay taxes, consume goods and services, or participate in our economy.  And surely their families aren’t every bit as dependent upon jobs as those in the private sector.

What’s even worse is these same greedy, heartless sons-of-bitches will be smiling and gleefully wishing each other Merry Christmas here in about a week and a half.

Fucking morons.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Friday. Mine’s been a little rough, but I’m thinking happy thoughts, and looking forward to spending a lot of time with my babies this weekend.

For this week’s SSNF, I’d like to recognize a girl that can be summed up in one word: badass. I became acquainted with her at the KC Slutwalk in September, and to say I was impressed would be a pretty severe understatement. Wearing a leopard-print dress with curled red hair and lipstick, she looked absolutely incredible. (Which is odd, as she’s perpetually under-complimented to my knowledge.) I’ve since learned that even when she’s not glammed up for a Slutwalk, she’s every bit as beautiful. Her sign, however, demonstrated how sexy her brain is. (Which is to say, it’s hotter than hell.)

To make a longer story short, I’ve followed her Tumblr ever since, and all of you should as well. Her creativity and sheer moxie are awesome to behold.

I encourage all of my followers to say something nice about your friends today, and Callie, this one’s for you.

A good friend of mine, and one of the finest women I’ve ever known, passed away yesterday.  Mary Ann, I’m going to miss you terribly, but I can’t be sad that your pain is over.

The world won’t be as wonderful of a place without you in it.

Mary Ann was born May 23, 1960, in Independence, Missouri, to Mancel and Dorothy (Griffin) Bowers. Her faith in God was most important to her. She loved her family dearly and enjoyed flower gardening and traveling in her spare time. Mary Ann was an active and proud member of the Red Hat Society. She was a nurse at Ft. Osage High School.

hendricks-:

it’s cool that “occupy” protests are happening everywhere, but it would be great if all of those cities broke out into classic, cinematic riots, with the cops outnumbered 100/1. then progress would be made.

I have to disagree.  Widespread violence would discredit the entire movement, and move us even further away from our goal.  Remember the backlash against the riots in London?

One of the great things about performing in shows is meeting new and interesting people, and coming away with a ton of new friends. (Thankfully I’m very social.) To satisfy my curiosity, I asked a castmate about her religious views last night, and got the above response.

I have many intellectual problems with this.

As my friend Brittany summarized quite succinctly, this is like saying: “I’m religious, but I’m not religious”. Intellectually, I can only see this as a valid position if a person is following the conceptual teachings of Jesus as recorded in the mythology surrounding his life, but acknowledges none of the religious dogma attached to it. (Son of God, miracles, resurrection, virgin birth, etc.)

Don’t get me wrong, I can see some value in Jesus’ more hippiefied side. Turning the other cheek, forgiveness, unconditional love… these are all pretty awesome things for a human being to build their life around, but I can’t see any value in the negative side of Christianity. (Original sin, hell, eternal damnation, God aborting the world via flood.) Religion may say I’m a sinner, but I live a life of genuine goodness and the love I have for others is much greater than the love I have for myself, so I refuse to apologize or endure guilt for my basic humanity.

The thing is, we atheists live by the same code, we simply leave religion out of it. Part of my life is centered around making the world better than I found it and living a life that is full and meaningful, because the evidence we have suggests that this is the only life I get, and therefore, the time I have and the way I spend it are of paramount importance. I don’t have (or want) a god to correct my mistakes for me. I do this myself, and in doing so, I learn from them and incorporate that knowledge into my way of life. We atheists don’t have a hell, but I observe that people create their own hell in life by living in ways that are destructive to them and those around them, and ultimately, they are forgotten in death. A good life reverberates throughout time as the love one gives lives on and transforms those who come after him.

What are your thoughts?

Fuck, I hope he has a good medical team.  What’s disappointing is we all know that there won’t be any serious charges leveled against the cops who did this.

About. Fucking. Time.

There’s no question that these restrictive voting laws target young people and the elderly.  The state of Wisconsin even fired a worker for blowing the whistle on the fact that they were charging people for ID’s that they were required to provide freely, by law.

Furthermore, even the Department of Justice (Under President Bush), concluded that voter fraud is not a widespread problem, so Republicans need to shove their baseless assertions into a deeply recessed part of their anatomy.  Why, in this time of economic crisis, are Republicans legislating against a problem that is basically nonexistent?

What’s next, legislating a no-fly zone against Superman?

Per McClatchy:

Minority voters have long had problems simply exercising their right to vote in certain parts of the country — and minority lawmakers fear the situation will become worse in 2012.

Their worries are heightened by new laws in 13 states that they say will restrict access to the ballot box. Some of the changes would require voters to show government-approved identification, restrict voter registration drives by third-party groups, curtail early voting, do away with same-day registration, and reverse rules allowing convicted felons who’ve served their time the right to vote.

The study found that more than 21 million Americans don’t possess government-issued photo identification. More than 3.2 million people alone in South Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin don’t have state-issued identification that’s now required to vote in those states.

Some 25 percent of African-Americans nationwide do not have the proper documentation to meet ID requirements, according to Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington Bureau.

States that have adopted new voting laws account for 171 electoral votes in 2012 — or 63 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, the Brennan Center report said.

“‘Voter ID is making it harder to get registered,” said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “You can’t get a birth certificate in the South in many instances. … This is a way of making it difficult to vote.”

Due to my body’s adaptation, my weight loss has slowed a bit of late, but I’m still getting after it… and today… I weighed in at 267.  For me, this constitutes a loss of 41 FUCKING POUNDS!!!

YEAH!!!

Now, I just have to resist the urge to run around the office fighting imaginary bad guys for the rest of the day.

I’ll post a pic or two when the rest of the costume arrives.

I love Halloween.

…seems to reblog damn near everything I write. Thanks for the love, my friend.

So, many of you know that I utterly despise the early onset of Christmas every year. When I was younger, Christmas didn’t spring on us until the day after Thanksgiving, and the corporate movement to cash in on Christmas right after Halloween has made the season a little less magical, and infinitely more trite. (In my humble opinion.)

But… maybe it’s something in the water, or perhaps it’s watching my babies grow and become their own persons, or maybe it’s being part of the awesome cast of Scrooge: The Musical but dammit, I’m actually excited for early Christmas stuff this year.

Weird.

Really, this headline should read “Republicans Ticked Off That People Are Taught How Not To Get Pregnant”. Without the boogeyman of pregnancy hanging over the heads of young people, these Republicans can’t make them appropriately fearful of sexual activity, and cannot punish them with pregnancy for choosing to become sexually active.

What is it about Republicans that makes them think ignoring part of an issue is going to help them achieve their goals? (In this case, the fact that abstinence will be taught as part of comprehensive sex education in New York) As I’ve emphasized in the article below, the NYDOE has publicly confirmed that abstinence is part of the curriculum.

Really, people, you look like a bunch of brain-dead simpletons when you try to assert idiotic falsehoods like this.


Per CNN:

As I’m sure they are aware, the New York Department of Education has publicly affirmed that abstinence will be part of their new sex education programs.

New York (CNN) — A new sexual education curriculum provided by the New York City Department of Education is raising eyebrows among some parents concerned with the program’s level of detail and overall message.

One group, The NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition, has been particularly outspoken against the new curriculum and held a press conference Monday to voice their concerns.

“I know that as my grandchildren, I want them to be able to know that abstinence is an option,” Sylvia Laughlin, a group member, said at the press conference. “It’s something they have a right to choose.”

However, the Department of Education insists that while the program would begin sexual education classes in middle school and provide far more in-depth instruction regarding safe-sex practices, abstinence would continue to be taught.

What a huge fucking surprise. 

It’s simple, if you ask me.  This isn’t about job creation, it’s about rewarding Republicans’ golf buddies for keeping them in their respective political offices.

Nationwide, all of these funds we’ve simply given to corporations to create jobs have produced absolutely nothing, so why would we continue to take their word on anything?  Oh, you want regulations eliminated so you can create jobs?  You’ll stop outsourcing jobs if we simply give you a boatload free cash?  We’ve seen how that bullshit works out over the last three years.

Simply put, this is a fundamental failure of Republican dogma, and wouldn’t be tolerated if their voters weren’t the dumbest fucking pieces of shit in the known world.

Per McClatchy:

Florida has given tax breaks and other cash incentives to some of the world’s biggest companies in return for creating jobs.

But even Wal-Mart, Publix, Kraft Foods and other corporate giants have had trouble meeting job goals.

New data shows Florida has signed contracts worth $1.7 billion since 1995 in return for promises of 225,000 new jobs. But only about one-third of those jobs have been filled while the state has paid out 43 percent of the contracts.

That averages out to $10,237 per job.

anglophonic:

Wait…did she actually have the nerve to say “freedom” agenda?

The Bush “freedom agenda,” as left on the White House porch.

-

The Bush administration illegally kidnapped hundreds of American citizens off of our own streets (for being Muslim, based on hearsay and bad tips) and then held them in foreign offshore prisons so that they would not be entitled to any of their constitutional rights.  Many of them are still in prison and will never see the light of day again.

That freedom agenda?

Lady, you must be fucking kidding.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/23/condoleezza-rice-on-gaddafi-death-bush-freedom-agenda-won.html

Reblogging for Anglo’s excellent commentary.

First, getting up early and kicking some serious ass in the gym, then weighing in to find I’ve finally hit the 40 lb mark in my weight loss. (Started out at 308 lbs and am down to 268.)

Second, watching my two kid brothers play some competitive Pop Warner playoff football.  (One of them won, one didn’t, but they looked damn good doing it.)

Third, lunch at Fazolis, then a side-trip to Best Buy before a movie with my three intelligent and beautiful kid sisters.  (During which we played Dance Dance, and I gave them a good laugh during my performance of ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time. Video on my facebook if you’ve friended me.)

Fourth, cuddling with my baby girls while watching 50/50, and hearing them cry when Adam is wheeled in for surgery.  Not only are my babies fun, intelligent, and gorgeous… but they have good hearts too.

Yes… what a great day.

It saddens me that only a handful of Americans seem to understand this.  We’ve taken our revenge on entire countries, and millions of people, that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 incident.

I found this commentary on McClatchy this morning, and it’s quite interesting.  As predicted by progressive political organizations, we’re seeing myriad negative effects of these ‘crackdowns’ on illegal immigrants. (Or rather, brown people, as these laws do promote racial profiling and our ignorant American countrymen equate illegal immigration status with Hispanic ethnicity.)

Farmers in Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona are seeing their crops rot for lack of workers to tend them, indicating the guest worker program we do have in this country is woefully insufficient. Innocent kids are being hidden away by their parents for having been brought to the country illegally. 

The fact that we’ve essentially terrorized the entire Hispanic populations in these states is fundamentally opposed to America’s founding principles.  Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that the states passing these laws were home to the worst Jim Crow cultures of the sixties?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand it. My father’s business has suffered during the down economy, in part to the use of illegal labor by competitors, but the answer is not to resort to Nazi tactics that alienate naturalized citizens who happen to have brown skin, militarize the border, or deport people en masse. Barack Obama has deported more people than Bush ever did, and has even spent hundred of millions placing drones at the US/Mexico border.

And for what?  All of these actions have simply caused the problem to be displaced.  Illegals will always come, because America offers stability, opportunity, and a haven from the the violent communities that threaten immigrants and their families in their home countries.

The solution is to find the most successful way to integrate them into our communities.  The guest worker program is begging for reform, and laws like the DREAM Act are necessary.  If people want to be citizens, let’s give them the right to earn it.  Seriously, teabaggers?  How many of you offered to pay for your own education or serve your country in war as a means of earning your citizenship?  And why would you deny someone the opportunity to pay and earn an education in this country or serve in our military, if they’re willing to put those resource on the line in an effort to become an American citizen?

I, for one, don’t understand your opposition outside the context of xenophobia and racism.

So, for fuck’s sake, can we please stop acting like fucking Nazis?

Today, I’m going to write about an adorable and interesting buddy of mine. He is Phil of WrittenMemory4.

There are many reasons to love Phil.  If you check out his Tumblr, you’ll probably notice first that he is a very handsome individual, but that’s not all there is to love about Phil.  Phil, despite his obvious good looks, is a monogamist who doesn’t scam on random people, and his emotional depth is pretty astounding for a person as young as he is. As a committed and avowed slut, I have to admire someone like him for being so principled.

Also, Phil has interesting and eclectic (in a good way) taste in music, something that we who have tinychatted with him have come to enjoy.

As if that wasn’t enough, I love that Phil’s a guy who follows his heart.  There are too few who do these days.

Phil, this one’s for you sir.  Happy ‘Say Something Nice’ Friday!