I have to admit it- I love the Stranger’s new pro or con polls. Last week it was honkies, this week functional alcoholics! Like DeeK said about honkies- some of my best friends are functional alcoholics, so I guess I’m pro!

And it turns out that honkies are the root of all evil.

Fake romance novel covers – click title for more and enjoy!

You’ve all heard by now the news that the Decider has been monitoring phone records of thousands of Americans. No- you haven’t? Then go read this.

On one happy note, my phone company (the people in charge of both home and cell and internet, who have been bilking me for fat wads of cash for years) Qwest, is the only company that refused to participate because they weren’t sure of the legal ramifications.

My cell phone contract is up in a few months- guess who I’m sticking with.

The Seattle Times has a brief (and by no means comprehensive) article about the state of the economy, or how is it that record setting stock markets and profit margins aren’t making people feel better about the economy.

Experts agree that U.S. economic growth exceeds historic norms. In late April,
the Commerce Department reported a sizzling first-quarter annual growth rate of
4.8 percent in gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of the
economy. Unemployment, at 4.7 percent, hovers near all-time lows.

Like I said- it’s the disparity stupid!

The same week that the robust GDP numbers came out, the government also reported that worker compensation — pay and benefits — increased in the first quarter at an annual rate of only 2.4 percent, the slowest rate in seven years. That figure, Bernstein said, suggests that workers’ wages aren’t keeping pace with gains during past economic expansions.

So wages aren’t keeping up with inflation (nothing new there), employers don”t want to pay higher wages because they 1) have to keep up with globalization and 2) are paying more towards healthcare (all while employer provided healthcare is becoming more rare- 45% of Americans don’t have health insurance at all).

Let’s look at some numbers:

In 2004 (the last year that census numbers are availalbe for) the number of people living in poverty rose to 12.7% or 37 million people. That was the 4th straight year in a row that the number went up. The US also has the largest percentage of people living in poverty in the developed world. How’s that for the American dream? (And why do I have to get my numbers from Brittish newspapers?)

The minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956.

The top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent

The United States has 269 billionaires, the highest number in the world

These statistics all use the government’s guidelines for poverty thresholds which haven’t been changed since 1955 and don’t include health care, child care, housing and transportation (according to Duke Professor David Brady– who may have to go on my hot brains list). If Brady’s numbers were used insted, the poverty rate is closer to 17%.

But back to the Seattle Times article. If we are in an economic boom with low unemployment- why aren’t wages climbing faster?

“As the expansion progresses, wages tend to catch up to productivity growth, and eventually the growth rate of wages exceeds that of productivity. … We are moving into that phase,” Lazear told the Hudson Institute, a conservative policy-research center.

However:

Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said he thinks the economy will slow in the second half of this year.

So if the economy is looking at a near-future slowdown and wages have yet to catch-up, what happens next?

So Mephistopheles and I are having a battle of the cheesiet love song lyrics.

I need help. My knowledge of sappy 70’s love songs in no way matches the Devil’s.
I pulled out Anne Murray and Celine Dion in hopes of scorched earth policy to end the battle, but he countered with Bacharach.

Please, readers, poster, commentors and lurkers- send my your suggestions. Only you can end this war of the cheese before velveta covers the planet.

Mephistopheles recomended this article in Seattle Weekly. When he talked about it I was much more excited than what I actually got from the article. Maybe he got something from it that I have missed, but hopefully he will comment if our interpertations are different.

The premise is this- Seattle used to be one of the most segregated west coast cities, but gentrification of the CD is changing that. With those changes, it’s time that Seattle has a serious discussion about race.

Ok, this is all good so far. I would take it a step futher and include class and gender, but race is a start.

The honest discussion of racial issues here is difficult in part because it
begins from a commonly held assumption among whites that the ideal society is a
raceless society. If race doesn’t—or shouldn’t—matter, then focusing on race is
a distraction. White conservatives often believe this as a matter of principle,
viewing America as a kind of equal opportunity meritocracy. White liberals, on
the other hand, are eager to focus on how pretty the rainbow is and that we’re
all the same inside. The real translation is that underneath dark skin there is
a white person who is eager to get out. The more minorities “act white,” the
more accepted they are by the mainstream. Such views downplay the life-shaping
importance of racial experience.

I know. I am a giant slacker but mid-terms and migrains are preventing me from writing anything of substance.

Think of it this way- I am just adding fuel to the fire of reason so that by the time I actually finish the damn healthcare plan you all will be ready to torch the old style of private medical insurance like cars in a poor Paris suburb.

On that note:

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

That’s right. For all of our culture of life crap and fetishizing babies and mothers, we sure don’t seem to give a damn about the babies that are born.

hat tip to Shakespeare’s sister.

it seems about right.

Your fearless leader is 56% gay. I don’t know what that means. I prefer boys generally, though there are the occasional girl crushes and flings. I don’t think I’m a BUG (bi until graduation or those college girls who get free drinks by making out with each other) or a LUG (Evergreen’s version- but lesbian until graduation or they find some nice boy to have babies with).

I think of myself more as a sexual opportunist or maybe pansexual. If I am attracted to someone (regardless of their gender) I’ll flirt. To use the ubiquitous Seattle phrase- it’s all good.