They aren't executive and owners anymore

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Thursday November 15, 2012 · 1:42 PM PST

2012/11/15 · 13:42

Using a commercial entity for political ends by threatening and sacrificing the people who work for you or use your product? Sounds more like a Feudal lord to me. A Feudal lord with little holdings scattered around trying to get their political will done around and outside of elected Government by means of duress. At first it seemed petulant, it still does, now though, this tantrum like behavior is frightening. These assholes aren't going to respect the election and the will of the people represented by that election.

And its frightening for me that there really hasn't been any big, public, media-covered blow back.

Guh. Every which way but forward then?

Slackermagee

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Thursday November 08, 2012 · 9:16 PM PST

2012/11/08 · 21:16

A new diary on Red State details the predicament of the GOP. Do they throw social conservatism and the socially conservative minority vote off the platform? Do they toss fiscal conservatism out in favor or pragmatism and socially conservative policies?

What it really comes down to: How do they change something the citizenry are increasingly unwilling to vote for without alienating the core groups and compromising any potential gains made? I'd not wager on those core, socially conservative constituencies sticking around unless the whole party went mute on the subjects... and given the frequency on which questions on marriage equality, medical choice and freedoms, and faith arise a constant silence would be damaging.

They'll try something prior to the next election. They will adjust and come out with some new scheme in the House to try and get back into the good graces of independent voters. We need to be one step ahead of them, or at the very least laughing our asses off as they stumble every which way but forward spinning off splinter parties here, there, and everywhere.

A Hostile People

Slackermagee

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Thursday August 23, 2012 · 12:54 AM PDT

2012/08/23 · 00:54

Sherman razed a good deal of Georgia to deal with them.

We see them across the aisle trying to keep LGBT folks and women from claiming their due rights.

Slackermagee

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Tuesday July 10, 2012 · 11:04 AM PDT

2012/07/10 · 11:04

Update out of Huffington Post (loathe as I am to link there): Tosh apologies for directing a rape joke at a female audience member. It would seem that this was, in fact, the real deal. With regards to the comments excusing rape jokes: that's disgusting. When so many women (and a small percentage of men) have to deal with the Shell Shock resulting from rape and assault, the jokes just rub salt in the still healing wound. Would you make light of the events that gave a soldier a prosthetic leg? A wounded cop his nervous tics? The issue is raw for too many people for it to be considered acceptable comedy, regardless of how absurd or 'designed to provoke' it is.

I don't write diaries very often and I almost never write anything on the subject of rape, sexual assault, feminism or any of that. I might have an opinion on the current strategies employed by the movement but as I'm not, you know, the carrier of a uterus I'm probably missing some(/all) context or experience relevant to those discussions. I'm a Big White Male, playing on easy mode, riding high on the sins of past assholes and all that. I'll make comments from the peanut gallery but that's about where it ends.

This broke through my fear of provoking a Big Serious Discussion/Action/Something though, Daniel Tosh (of Tosh.0) allegedly advocating that all rape jokes were funny and that his lone rightfully angry critic in the audience should be gang raped. Some of his gigs and lines on TV have been funny but I'll never be able to see a picture of the guy again and not seethe.

Notifying the station/channel managers, boycotting the show Tosh.0, and notifying the advertisers would seem to be the logical next steps here, though there are better people than me at figuring out what to say to whom and when.

HELP: foreclosure time

Slackermagee

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Friday February 24, 2012 · 9:40 PM PST

2012/02/24 · 21:40

I remember seeing diaries on this in the past, for a friend of mine in Oregon (Portland to be exact) which documents are required for a successful foreclosure?

BofA is the one foreclosing at the moment (the loan/mortgage has changed hands more than once) and I know that somewhere back in time there were several good diaries/linkies on the subject.

The family in question cobbled together funds only a month late, and are now being foreclosed upon. I have urged them to become a little more... bloodthirsty in the proceedings. Hence, the need to find out which documents might have been misplaced on their part.

That 51% meme (rage mode, language warning)

Slackermagee

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Wednesday February 22, 2012 · 3:14 PM PST

2012/02/22 · 15:14

49% of non-dependents in the US do not pay any income taxes.

HOLY SHIT, people on Drudge, people on Heritage sites, people cruising RedState... WHY. Why has that rate gone from 14% in the 80s to its current high? Why are half of all Americans THAT GODDAMN POOR.

And why is your immediate reaction always, "Those undeserving people..." as opposed to "Why hasn't 30 years of Reaganomics actually worked?" They think it worked (Look at the rich people! Look at the stock market!) but if they could get their heads out of their collective assholes for two fuck minutes to think about what that number means in terms of the REAL, living, breathing, steel cutting, iron pumping, stuff making economy they'd turn white as a sheet.

They're working poor! That's five times the unemployment rate, that's the working poor, the people who are supposed to be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and you fall over yourselves trying to shit on them, denounce them, or (messily enough) both at the same time.

And I'm not talking about bumming change off the street poor, or qualifying for food stamps poor, no, I'm talking about "Honey, I think we need to find another, yet smaller apartment" poor. The kind of poor where you know that any day now something is going to go wrong and the illusion of financial security is going to head south soon after. The kind of poor where you aren't quite so happy in your little Shangri-La, regardless of what the neighbors are saying about your business.

Half of the non-dependent American public... HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

OWS: Lose the masks, get with CV Dazzle

Slackermagee

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Thursday February 09, 2012 · 12:06 PM PST

2012/02/09 · 12:06

I'll make this one short and sweet: masks are intimidating (as MoT has recently noted just this morning). The moderates and midwestern folks in the US do not like to see masks on the evening news. They immediately associate anarchy, rebellion, and other such status quo threatening things with masks. They may not be adverse to these things happening in general, but certainly not in their own lives or in their own backyard.

The new, old solution from The Brits in WWII: CV Dazzle. When properly applied in allows people to see a human face whilst masking (to the best of my knowledge) the users distinguishing facial features from computer recognition software.

Its important, if this is adopted, to stress WHY it is being adopted.

>The masks were dehumanizing and frightening, people will identify more with camo faces than with The Painted Smile.
>Police and other law enforcement will be able to visually check photo ID easily but will lack the ability to digitally identify and catalogue protesters using recorded images and video (the original reason behind the masks).
>The Black Bloc (that terribly counter-productive segment of many protests) will be more readily identifiable: facial and distinguishing features can be orally passed along to law enforcement or the crowd can simply point to the ONLY people wearing masks.

Linkies here:
General article on hiding from machines
Combatting computer dectection with hair/facial make up
Wiki on Dazzle

Good luck out there!

Getting them to change is hard and painful.

Slackermagee

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Thursday February 02, 2012 · 2:15 PM PST

2012/02/02 · 14:15

I recently got into a heated debate on the FaceBook about urine testing welfare recipients. To me, it was a question of dignity. To them, it was a question of why the poor were allowed to avoid testing to pick up free money while someone working a minimum wage job had to throw down a cup of urine every now and again.

Their arguments revolved around money wasted, undeserving people getting money, and general outrage that someone could use a foodstamp card to help with getting drugs, junk food, and 'luxuries' (I believe they were referring to things like the Perrier water you get for the same price as a Coke).

Slackermagee

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Sunday November 13, 2011 · 2:48 PM PST

2011/11/13 · 14:48

While these tend to be, for the most part, fairly common I'll write up on the smackdown of Occupy Vancouver in the NIMBY media. Up here in Vancouver, we really only have two publications that refrain from pandering to the West End condo crowd: the Georgia Straight and the Metro, both free. The others, ranging from the Vancouver Sun to 24, have been fairly consistent in their attacks, fabrications, and misleading photos. But what are the common complaints against the movement?

Slackermagee

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Sunday October 16, 2011 · 3:00 PM PDT

2011/10/16 · 15:00

1. VPD was awesome. Closing roads, slogging with us with ~40lb medic backpacks, keeping the traffic from plowing through. Excellent. A little creepy with all the video cameras though.

2. 5000 people on march 1, ~8000 people on march 2? Holy cow. Heard one vet say that this was probably the largest protest march Vancouver's had that wasn't associated with an event, say the Olympics or G20.

3. Tri-corner hat man. If you were there, you know who I'm talking about. This creeper tried to split the march at one point and lead people to city hall. Later, he got a hold of the mic and went into his Truther spiel. Something about 12 councils and 12... yeah, no one wants to follow you to Kool-Aid town creepy guy. Please stop.

4. Music music music.

5. Random support from passers by and traffic. Loved the random honkings and the wave of "WOOOHOOOOO" it would elicit down the march.

6. Reeaaaalllly long second march. From the gallery, five blocks over, down to waterfront, ten blocks over, back up to burrard street bridge, five blocks over, back down and around to.... Granville? Then up past the art gallery, then back down and around again. Holy cow. Went through each of the most popular zones DT though, that was good.

7. Tents went up.... after the VPD broke out the no staking signs. Wonder how that's going to go down today.

8. City election coming up in a few weeks! Keep up the energy, CUPE may ride this big time!

Update/Edits:

9. Sunshine. Its winter so someone's been wigglin' his noodley appendages to get us this weather as opposed to steady drizzle.

10. Staking: people are staking in tents (from what I saw yesterday) to the mulched area (nothings growing so I hesitate to call it a garden) in front of the main entrance (steps with dual lion statues).

11. Occupy Vancouver websites:http://www.facebook.com/... http://www.facebook.com/...

12. Here's a nice photo! Probably taken well after the second march, things are drawing down a bit. http://twitpic.com/...

13. I was the guy with the "8 hours of work! 8 hours of sleep! 8 hours of what we will! Bring back the living wage" sign that had "Tall people for wage equality" on the reverse.

14. Apparently VPD had a watergun fight with the protesters. This isn't the exact pic (tee shirts and shorts in October! hahahaha) but it probably went along these lines. http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/...

Why I am an occupier

Slackermagee

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 14, 2011 · 11:58 AM PDT

2011/10/14 · 11:58

I worked at a 7/11 in 7 Fields, PA during the summer of either 2007 or 2008. It wasn't an unpleasant job and it wasn't a fulfilling job but it paid and to my broke ass on-summer-break college self it was pretty good. I worked alone quite a bit, though I wasn't nervous about it like some other folks, at 6'5" I'm a pretty big guy. Tried to keep myself busy cleaning things, making food, cleaning more things, and stocking the dairy, drinks, and tobacco.

Making $7.50 there was pretty good, gas was paid for and my parents provided the roof over my head and the food on my plate.

For the other workers who were in there 30s, 40s, and 60s (!), this wasn't a great place. But where else could they work? It was a white collar town, you couldn't find any degree-less jobs outside of service and construction (which you need to pay to train for).

My manager, who I won't name in case she's still working there, was a hardass when it came to working but a great lady overall. Wonderful attitude. And she was a stoic wreck, you know the type. They look run down but my God, they've still got the energy to see things through. Anyway, she had to be in her 60s at this point and was making just enough to survive. There had to be multiple medical problems, her husband's issues, car maintenance, etc. And she was getting this done on whatever pitiful salary 7/11 was paying her as a manager, working 50-60 hour weeks.

There were other cases, but I think she was the poster child for my motivations to become an occupier. She works damn hard, too damn hard and she still struggles to go on a drive-through vacation. What the hell happened to fair compensation? What the hell happened to living?

Survival isn't living, we should be able to live on a full time, 40 hour/week job. And that's my motivation.

8 hours of work!
8 hours of sleep!
8 hours of what we will!

Stick a fork in her...

Slackermagee

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 28, 2011 · 12:51 AM PDT

2011/08/28 · 00:51

...she's done. It wasn't enough that the 'pie fights' be on the topic of ones loyalty to Obama, now its about how pure we are as progressives, liberals, or left of center rationalists?

Jesus Christ's mother in Nazareth, that's poison we aren't even going to be able to put back in the bottle. Was it a Rovian operative who started this? Was it some idiot without the ability to foresee the fallout? Does it freaking matter?

The animosity between factions on this site is boiling over. When it hits the public sphere, if it hasn't already, the power and influence of the site will start to wane. Before that happens the quality of diaries and threads started will enter a death spiral of the inane, a regressive entrenching of the spiteful, or a frenzy of 'fixed that for you' 'fuck that, fuck you'.

People have a right to air their ideas, unless they're trying to establish some Tychian purity test. We need an Enlightenment Inquisition (hurr hurr hurr) to shut this baloney down and keep the actual ideas/theories/policies/news/info diaries flowing.

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They aren't executive and owners anymore

Guh. Every which way but forward then?

A Hostile People

(Updated:Confusion reigns!) Daniel Tosh (of Tosh.0) crosses the line (trigger warning I would think)

HELP: foreclosure time

That 51% meme (rage mode, language warning)

OWS: Lose the masks, get with CV Dazzle

Getting them to change is hard and painful.

Media Criticisms of the Occupy Movement

Occupy Vancouver Rundown

Why I am an occupier

Stick a fork in her...