Competing In The Wrong Labor Market

Lately, I've seen a lot of articles about the manufacturing industry in the US needing skilled labor but finding that labor with the skill sets they need do not tend to apply for their jobs.   There is a shortage of labor in this sector... and it seems to be the "in" thing at the moment, for various reporters and bloggers to examine the situation by sitting down with employers to discover what the problem is and how to remedy it.

Occasionally, these articles will mention how much these jobs pay -- most often, in the articles I've read, the hourly wage cited comes out to  around $40k/year.  This looks pretty good compared to minimum wage stocking shelves at the local BigBox or Grocer, but it's in the same pay range that unskilled labor was earning in manufacturing 30 years ago.   And these employers will bemoan the fact that despite paying this good wage with benefits, the labor force they attract is generally unskilled and thus unqualified, leaving them with this labor shortfall.

Then they list the skill sets the modern manufacturing facility requires... and it is in this list that the reason these employers cannot seem to attract the labor force they need becomes glaringly obvious (to me. Apparently it is not so obvious to them or to the people interviewing them.)

 People with those skills command a higher salary in (pretty much all) other industries - higher by 50% or more, with similar or better benefits packages at entry level and these other industries offer ladders to climb in addition to regular raise and bonus structures.  Why would John or Suzy Skilled-Worker apply to work for $40k/year at the widget factory when Big Corp, Little Corp and even Locally Owned Business are all advertising job openings requiring the same skills that pay $60k/year?  Answer: They wouldn't.  And they aren't.

The employers in these articles have consistently  blamed the disparity between the work force that seeks them and the workforce they seek on an unchanged cultural perception of manufacturing jobs as unskilled, hard, dirty labor, when these jobs have changed to clean, smart, skilled labor.  And, to some extent, that is true. There is still an underlying cultural perception of manufacturing jobs as jobs for hard workers who lack further education and training.

 However, the employers fail to see that their own perception of what a manufacturing employee should earn in relation to his/her skills has also failed to change with the times and with their own changed needs.

Their "competitive wage" does not begin to compete in the segment of the labor market they need to tap.  It's competitive in exactly the unqualified workforce they are attracting.    The employers in several of the articles I've read urge young people to go to college to acquire these skills and to then consider jobs in manufacturing when they have completed their schooling -- and this sounds like an awesome idea at a glance, but even this shows how little these employers understand about why they're not attracting and likely will not attract the right workforce.

 A kid about to graduate from high school very well might read one of these articles, be attracted to the wage cited because it's so much higher than minimum wage and pursue further education to acquire the skills necessary to land one of those jobs.  He or she might even apply for and get one of those jobs (assuming they're not recruited straight out of college by an employer in another industry that pays more.)

 But six months later, when it's time to start paying their student loan payments,  they'll start looking for work -- because the wage these employers offer is not enough to cover the student loan payments that will result from acquiring those skills, plus rent or mortgage on a modest home, plus food, fuel, car payment, insurance & utilities.  If he/she ever wants to move out of Mommy's & Daddy's house to begin a life of their own and enjoy the fruits of their own labor, there's no choice but to look for a better job.

 If this entire generation that is coming of age, now, happens to heed the urging of these employers - acquiring the skills necessary and then seeking employment in manufacturing only to find that it doesn't pay enough to continue with it long term, these same employers will shift from complaining that the workforce lacks the skills they require to complaining about major problems with workforce retention... and, likely, they'll fail to see their own part in it and label the entire generation as "fickle" or "unreliable" or perhaps even "lazy" when in fact, this upcoming generation is no different from my generation or my parents' or grandparents' or great-grandparents' generation.   They want to make their own way in the world.

There's a similar disconnect among the reporters who've written these articles.  They have done an excellent job interviewing these employers about what they offer, what they need,  who applies for these jobs,  who doesn't apply for them, why the employers think this problem exists for them and even how someone can qualify for the jobs they offer.

 But, not one has followed up by interviewing workers in other industries, who do have those skills or by examining what it really costs to acquire those skills or what salary those skills generally command outside of the manufacturing industry.  Not one has even gone to a nearby college and inquired as to how many jobs & what those jobs are and what salaries likely await students who will be graduating from the school of business most closely associated with these required skills to verify whether the wage and benefits package offered by manufacturing is, indeed, competitive for workers with those skills seeking work in that region.

Each reporter, in the articles I've read so far,  has accepted as fact, without question, the employer's reasoning as to why they face the problems they do with attracting the workforce they require and then structured their interviews and wrote their articles based on that premise.

 I find the entire multi-layered disconnect fascinating to observe from my safe distance.  Deeply troubling, but fascinating.  

Johnny

Johnny

by Melhi7/12/13

Johnny's got a problem
But he does nobody harm
He rode the rails with the throttle jacked
Til the tracks ran up his arm

End of the line was straight ahead
When Johnny pulled the pin
And floated onto the rip track
(or where it should have been)

"Repairing Johnny costs too much
Let's make a buck instead
Take him down to the tie-up point"
And that's just what they did

Johnny's in the pokey, now
They put that boy to work
Earning pennies on the dollar
From a privateering jerk.

The job our harmless Johnny does
Won't hire you or me
Til slavery is legal
And we have to work for free

So, walk your unemployment line
and bitch about D.C.
Throw a rock at welfare moms
And suck your bag of tea

The job you tell that bum to get
The job you cannot find
Johnny's got the lock on those
Cuz Johnny jumped the line

Yeah, Johnny's got a problem
But he does nobody harm
He's just another captive slave
On Massa's prison farm.

Because They Can't Reproduce? Umm....

A handy list of opposite-gendered couples who cannot reproduce:

1.  One man and one woman - when one is or both are infertile

2.   One man and one post-menopausal woman.

3.  One man and one woman - when one is or both are using contraception

4. One man and one woman when one has or both have been sterilized.

5.  One man and one woman when one is or both are serving in the military overseas.

6.  One man and one woman who, for any reason, are not having sex with one another.


But you say we should deny gay couples the right to marry because they can't reproduce naturally with one another?   Until you rant, rave & work as hard to pass legislation that would forbid these couples from being married as you've done to prevent same-gendered couples from marrying,  you can STFU about reproduction when you argue against gay marriage.



 









.

Goodbye GOP

The Republicans in office refuse to do the people's business, while continuing to collect paychecks from the people. They'd rather arm infants than feed them. They want a gun in every hand and their hands in every womb. They've declared corporations people and they've declared the people parasites. They've smacked democracy in the face by establishing minority rule in our legislature. They've defined up as down, left as right and pizza as a vegetable. They have put Corporate greed ahead of our safety and our national security. They've eroded our children's education ensuring that the next generation cannot compete on the world stage. They have become toxic to freedom and to the American way. Enough is enough! November 14 is coming, GOP and we will be saying Goodbye to you and your extremist, anti American People agenda.

How To Disable Touchpad On A Chromebook

As some of you already know, my house and everything in it burned down on Feb 22.  Our insurance company has gone paperless, so our Adjuster's enthusiastic "and we're paperless, so you can scan things to send to us and just log on from your computer to do all the claims work"   Um... you mean with the scanners and computers that are baked and drowned in the smouldering, flooded hole where my house used to be? (Yes, I actually said that out loud to him.)  "Oh... yeah..."

He told us to go buy a permanent comparable replacement for one of our lost computers, that night at the nearest big box store.  Problem:  None of us had off the shelf machines - or want one as our permanent replacement - plus we were staying in a tiny hotel room at that time (we were moved to the Fire Victims Suite when it came available two weeks later and after 5 weeks, we finally got to move into a rental home, where we will remain until our home is rebuilt.)  No room for a real machine.   So we went for a fast and cheap way to meet our immediate needs and bought a Chromebook and a wireless mouse.

Then we had a new problem.  No setting to let us switch off the ultra sensitive touchpad so you don't cursor jump and page jump constantly.  I searched for an app to let me access the setting for nearly 7 weeks before I finally broke down and asked my FaceBook pals - Adam and Cynthia came to my rescue and their help got me the right combination of keywords to find what I needed.   It's simple and I'm going to share it with you, here, so the next person who needs it might have an easier time finding it in a Google search without having to know the magic combination of keywords necessary to find it:


1. Type:  CTRL ALT T
     (This will get you into the crosh terminal screen and you'll have a crosh prompt.)

2.  At the prompt, type:  tpcontrol status  
      (then press ENTER)

3.  A big list of stuff will scroll onto your screen.  Scroll up near the top of this and look for a line that says the device is enabled - in this line, there will be two numbers, the device's ID number and the number 1.  (The one is the binary value of the on/off switch. 0=off, 1=on.)

4.  This is the format of what you are going to type (minus enclosures):
      tpcontrol set <id> <value>

5.  For my chromebook, I type:
      tpcontrol set 129 0  (to turn off the touchpad... and...)
       tpcontrol set 129 1 (to turn the touchpad back on.)

NOTE:  Turning the touchpad off is  a non-persistent setting, meaning that it will definitely not "stick" and will definitely revert to the touchpad being switched on again, after a restart and when you log your profile out.  So, if you never want the touchpad to be switched on, you'll need to go to the terminal (step 1 above) and set the switch to off (step 4/5 above.)

Hope this helps someone -- and if that someone is you, I hope your Chromebook was purchased under less catastrophic circumstances.  :)

Gun Control

Before I begin... I want to address a couple of things I've seen over and over on social networking sites and in the comments of many, many articles in the wake of the recent mass shootings in Oregon and Connecticut.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
This is true. It's also true that heroin doesn't inject itself into anyone's body, but we can't buy heroin at the local CrapMart or at a big old drug show down at the sale barn on a Saturday or (so far as we know) from an online store set up by the Mormon church.

If only the victims in Connecticut had been armed, this tragedy would have been prevented.
One victim was armed - heavily armed. The first one. The shooter's mother. She was killed with her own gun, in her own home and then it was her guns used to kill all of the other slain victims. That she was armed didn't save her life or prevent the tragedy. Quite the opposite. The killer planned what he did - he may have been nuts, but he wasn't stupid. His plan included an advantage for himself. At the school, even if every member of the faculty had been armed, the killer still had an advantage - he knew the attack was coming, he had weapons in hand ready to fire, he was wearing clothing designed to protect himself from bullets, he carried weapons that fired rapidly and did not require aiming or reloading to do their deadly job well. The faculty were tending to their jobs with no clue that anything bad was about to happen. They were attired in normal clothing. Their weapons would have been put away with safeties or locks on so the children couldn't accidentally get hold of them and harm themselves or their classmates. With the shooter's weapon requiring no pause to reload or to aim or to fire again, there was no window of time, however small, for a faculty member, armed or not, to have gained an advantage.

You can't get the guns out of the hands of criminals... they'll always find a way.
True. But, nobody's suggesting that we can. No law exists that effectively prevents everyone from breaking it. There is no substance or product banned that effectively prevents everyone from obtaining or manufacturing it. If a law had to be 100% effective to achieving its goal, we would have no laws and/or no jails/prisons.

...and that leads me to what I wanted to say, today.

As the discussion of gun control and whether it violates the 2nd amendment to ban or make it harder to legally possess a specific type of weapon heats up, please bear in mind that we already draw a line as to what "arms" are included in that right. The issue is not whether to draw a line where none exists, but whether to move the line, slightly.

Example: I don't have the right to own a nuclear weapon. If I so much as seek to obtain one or to purchase the components necessary to manufacture one, I will go to prison. I don't even have to succeed in obtaining anything at all. But, nuclear weapons are "arms." They simply happen to be arms on the other side of the line drawn in our legislation. (sidenote: Curiously, a few of those on the "anything should be legal for us to own" side will argue just as adamantly that we should dictate to other nations what arms their militaries are and are not allowed to possess.)

There is NO solution that will end ALL gun violence or take the most efficient killing machines out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. Everyone on the "let's make it harder for the worst of the worst to be obtained" side of the issue knows this. We are not suggesting that moving the line will forever end all gun violence & have us all huddled together in a planetary group hug singing kum bay yah in perfect harmony and buying the world a Coke.

The goal in moving the line or at least putting more steps in place to legally obtain rapid fire, large clip/magazine/drum automatic assault weapons is to slow down the nutjobs who appear to pose no serious mortal threat one day, but prove they've snapped in the worst possible way the next. The goal is simply to make it harder for those who snap to find, afford & obtain weapons that will put them at a steep advantage in any situation (including those where an entire school administration or theatre or mall staff is packing.)

If the gunman in CT would have had to stop to reload or if he'd had to fire his shots one at a time instead of in rapid fire bursts, someone might have been able to get an advantage in that small window of time... whether it was someone with a weapon they could get to in the turmoil or someone who wasn't armed with anything more than an adrenaline rush & instinct. It still creates only a "maybe" of a chance - but there was zero chance with the weaponry this gunman was carrying.

The criminals & terrorists haven't snapped. They are criminals and terrorists every day for decades of their lives and they have access to things the rest of us don't. They will always have time on their side to find ways to obtain or manufacture whatever they want. By contrast, the nutjobs who walk into schools or theatres or malls to open fire on large groups of innocents don't have that advantage. They go from being just fine or even "deeply troubled but not seriously planning to commit mass murder" to deciding to do these horrific things and then perpetrating them in a relatively short period of time. Their time frame for preparation is hours, days, even months of planning - usually alone & isolated or with a single partner & most of them have no more access to weapons and ammo than any sane law abiding citizen. If the guns aren't available on the legitimate market, SOME of them won't be able to find a way to obtain them at all. Will this stop them? No. But it will lead some of them to choose lesser weapons so there's at least some chance of a potential victim or a trained and armed security person gaining an advantage to prevent or stop the carnage.

Unlike criminals and terrorists, the nutjobs generally don't have decades of criminal/terrorist activity & access to networks/conduits that have been established over generations & often stretch across the globe. They have gun shows, CrapMart, legitimate internet dealers, pawn shops, sporting goods stores and Mommy's gun cabinet. That's why the bulk of the mass shootings over the last several years have involved LEGALLY obtained weapons, while the gang bangers & druglords who are caught are usually tried on illegal-weapons charges in addition to charges related to their other illegal activities. We can't stop all gun violence - but this one particular kind of violence... there are ways we can slow it down to give intended victims a CHANCE of gaining an advantage. ...And if we can slow them down, maybe we can put something in place to let us catch some of them in the planning stages BEFORE there's a heart breaking death toll... something similar to whatever they're doing that would get us caught and stopped before we obtained a nuclear device.

Chess Club Strikes Again & Rogue Elf Belches Tune

911 dispatchers received numerous calls shortly after 11:30pm, last evening, from motorists who reported seeing what they alleged to be the TV travel gnome doing a bodacious truck-surfing keg stand on a moving beer tanker said to be travelling north east on the 101, just west of the Seaport Blvd exit. Officials are dismissing the reports as another wacky chess club prank from students at the city college.

As many long time area residents remember, the city college chess club is notorious for a prank they pulled in 1982, when members loosened all the salt shaker lids in a popular fast food hamburger restaurant.

In unrelated news, massive crowds gathered, yet again, at Zazzle, last night, hoping to glimpse the intoxicated rogue elf who has used magic dust to embark on midnight joyrides through the aisles of apparel, office ware and gift items on an enchanted shopping cart. Shoppers waved signs in the air, proclaiming love for the little merry maker, thanking him for monumental holiday shopping savings and, in a few cases, offering to bear the elf's children.

One group of onlookers was wearing matching Team Eggnog shirts purchased from what many now believe to be one of the elf's favorite shops at Zazzle. We asked them what the shirt was about. "It's from his favorite shop," explained one member of the group, "and before the North Pole started denying they know him, Santa said the little guy had gotten into the eggnog cabinet." "Plus, we're his biggest fans!" added a second member of the group.

The crowds were not disappointed as the elf arrived, right on schedule, went straight to his shopping cart sleigh, sprinkled it with magic powder, said "12DAILYDEAL9'" and took flight. Shoppers looked on in amazement as the elf circled overhead belching out three verses of "Deck the Halls" in astoundingly perfect pitch. "It smells like a brewery in here, thanks to all that belching" said one onlooker, "but that was AWESOME!!!"

Shortly after the elf's departure, shoppers around the world began taking advantage of the night's magic word 12DAILYDEAL9 to save 40% off mugs & electronics cases and 15% off everything else in thousands of Zazzle shops.

That the magic has worn off at 11:59pm PST each night, precisely 24 hours after it has been applied to the shopping cart, seems to confirm early reports that the elf is indeed one of Santa's elves and that the fur lined red velvet pouch contains Santa's magic flying sleigh dust, taken from the North Pole upon the elf's escape. The North Pole, continues to deny the elf is one of theirs.

Officials are urging shoppers who want to save 40% on mugs, cell phone or tablet cases and 15% on other unique home, office and gift items to test the magic word 12DAILYDEAL9 for themselves before the magic expires at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time, tonight.

You can try it out in the Christmas Fun shop or any of these fine shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if these shops don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

More Security Footage of Rogue Elf!

If you were waiting for an update, yesterday, on the antics of the rogue elf that has entertained Zazzle shoppers with his nightly midnight joy ride - we apologize. In an attempt to catch up with the elf, to photogragh and interview him, we were camped out in the bushes at the home of a local man who had invited the elf to stop by his porch for a couple of free bottles of peppermint schnapps. We learned, late last night, that the elf had finally appeared approximately 10 minutes after we gave up and left the man's home to wait for the elf at Zazzle HQ, where the elf appeared, right on schedule, sprinkling magic dust on the shopping cart for his joyride and spreading cheer and the overwhelming scent of candy canes throughout the aisles of Zazzle shops.

We regret that we were again unable to photograph the nightly spectacle, due to the throngs of excited shoppers blocking our camera lens with signs proclaiming their love of the elf and thanking him for the monumental holiday shopping savings they've enjoyed since he first began his nightly visits.

We did, however, catch up with ScareBaby, the owner of what seems to be one of the elf's favorite shops, Christmas Fun. She was kind enough to let us roll back her shop's surveillance footage where we were able to obtain this still to share with our readers:

Shortly after the elf's departure, shoppers around the world began taking advantage of the night's magic word 12DAILYDEAL8 to save 40% off shirts & electronics cases and 15% off everything else in thousands of Zazzle shops.

That the magic has worn off at 11:59pm PST each night, precisely 24 hours after it has been applied to the shopping cart, seems to confirm early reports that the elf is indeed one of Santa's elves and that the fur lined red velvet pouch contains Santa's magic flying sleigh dust, taken from the North Pole upon the elf's escape. The North Pole, continues to deny the elf is one of theirs.

Officials are urging shoppers who want to save 40% on shirts and cell phone or tablet cases and 15% on other cool home, office and gift items to test the magic word 12DAILYDEAL8 for themselves before the magic expires at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time, tonight.

You can try it out in the Christmas Fun shop or any of these fine shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if these shops don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Live Garden Gnome? and More On Rogue Elf

Police were called to the home of a frantic 63 yr. old widow, late last night after the woman told a 911 dispatcher that one of the statues from her prized garden gnome collection had come to life.

When police arrived, the woman told them that, earlier in the evening, she was cleaning out a storage room in her basement when she discovered that two large jugs of homemade apple juice had been forgotten and had accidentally turned to hard cider. She further explained that alcohol is "the devil's juice" and she didn't want it in her house. She claimed she had set the jugs at the curb for trash collection and didn't think anything more of them until she heard a disturbance at her curb around 10pm., at which time, she looked out her window to witness what she claimed was one of her garden gnomes come to life, chugging the last drop of cider from one of the jugs before sprinkling the second jug with an unknown sparkly substance, mounting the jug like a pony and flying off into the sky on it. Police confirmed the presence of an empty glass jug on the woman's curb, but refused to comment when asked whether they'd be issuing an all points bulletin for the gallivanting garden gnome. The woman, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of her family, passed a breathalyzer and is being held for psychiatric evaluation at a local hospital.

In unrelated news, for the sixth straight night, throngs of holiday shoppers at Zazzle, were delighted by the antics of a drunken elf, alleged to be an escaped North Pole elf on an epic bender. As per his now well established schedule, the intoxicated merry maker arrived just before midnight, sprinkled magic dust on a shopping cart and flew up and down the aisles of countless Zazzle shops. "I always thought a Christmas elf would smell like cookies or hot chocolate," said one eyewitness, "but underneath the heavy stench of alcohol, I swear I smelled a hint of apples!"

The crowds that have gathered in hopes of seeing the elf have grown, each night and several shoppers have taken to holding up signs proclaiming their love and admiration for the elf. One man brought a sign that said, "The next round is on me" with his home address on it. The man later told us the elf had taken the sign from his upreached hands as he flew the cart over the crowd and that he'd be leaving two bottles of peppermint schnapps on his porch for the diminutive toy maker. "I bet he's never tried a liquid candy cane," the man later told reporters, "but I know he's going to love it!"

Shortly after the elf's departure, shoppers around the world began taking advantage of the night's magic word 12DAILYDEAL6 to save 40% off shirts & mugs and 15% off everything else in thousands of Zazzle shops.

That the magic has worn off at 11:59pm PST each night, precisely 24 hours after it has been applied to the shopping cart, seems to confirm early reports that the elf is indeed one of Santa's elves and that the fur lined red velvet pouch contains Santa's magic flying sleigh dust, taken from the North Pole upon the elf's escape. The North Pole, continues to deny the elf is one of theirs.

Officials are encouraging anyone who wishes to save 40% on shirts and mugs or 15% on other cool home, office and gift items to test the magic word 12DAILYDEAL6 for themselves before the magic expires at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time, tonight.

You can try it out in any of these fine shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if these shops don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Elf Spotted In Surveillance Footage!

If you've been following the ongoing story of the rogue elf on an epic bender and his nightly visits to Zazzle HQ and have been hoping for a glimpse of the drunken merry maker, we have an exciting development in the story!

In looking through surveillance footage from some of the shops he's flown his enchanted shopping cart sleigh through, we believe we have discovered footage of the elf in a rare out-of-the-cart moment.

This still was taken from surveillance footage in the Funny Bowling Shirts shop on Zazzle:

Once again, throngs of shoppers standing vigil, waiting for the inebriated toymaker's return were delighted to witness his joyous midnight ride and take advantage of the night's magic word 12DAILYDEALS5 to get astounding deals on merchandise throughout the giant Zazzle complex of stores.

This is great news for you! Until the Santa magic in the pixie dust sprinkled onto the cart by the elf wears off, you can harness its power to magically get 40% off all ornaments and mugs in my Zazzle shops! AND 15% off everything else! All you have to do is enter the code 12DAILYDEAL5 at checkout! But hurry! Santa's flying sleigh magic only lasts 24hrs and the clock is already ticking! It's set to wear off at 11:59pm PST, tonight!

You can try it out in any of my shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if I don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Rum Cake Heist & Rogue Elf Hijinks

At approximately 9pm Pacific Standard Time, last night, police were called to a popular local bakery, known for its delicious rum cakes. Witnesses reported that what appeared to be a leprechaun had entered, sprinkled glitter on a chair, then flew the chair from table to table, snarfing up the rum cake from their plates, before flying to the kitchen and returning with two full bottles of rum, which he then chugged. "The place is a shambles," said one investigator on the scene. "It's clear that SOMEthing happened here, but before we can determine what really happened, we need to isolate the source of the mass hallucination."

In other news, the North Pole is officially backing off its claims that the drunken elf who has made nightly visits to Zazzle Headquarters is one of their own and is suggesting he might be a cookie baking tree elf. The drunken elf, whose identity remains unknown, has appeared at approximately midnight, each evening, used pixie dust and a magic word to make a shopping cart fly like Santa's sleigh and embarked on a joy ride through the aisles of Zazzle shops. The magic words have enabled millions of holiday shoppers to get unbelievably low prices on Zazzle merchandise using those same magic words for the 24 hours the dust maintains its magic potency.

Anticipating his third nightly visit, millions of eager shoppers hoping for a bargain and a glimpse of the hard partying elf flocked to Zazzle and stood vigil awaiting his arrival. They were not disappointed. As in previous nights, the inebriated merrymaker appeared as expected at approximately midnight. One observer reported that the elf looked disheveled, reeked of rum and was covered from head to toe in what appeared to be cake crumbs.

Immediately after the elf sprinkled the magic dust on the shopping cart, the cry went up among the delighted crowd of holiday shoppers, "12DAILYDEAL3 - the magic word is 12DAILYDEAL3" It was later learned that, until the magic wears off at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time, this evening, this latest magic word, when entered at checkout after putting things in the magic Zazzle shopping cart will enable shoppers to get a whopping 40% off t-shirts, phone cases and tablet cases and 15% off of everything else.

We're advising shoppers to try the magic word 12DAILYDEAL3 out for themselves in any of these fine shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

Or in any of thousands of other shops at Zazzle.

Happy shopping!

Rogue Elf Strikes Again!

Well, kids and kidettes, that rogue elf wasn't kidding when he told Zazzle shoppers he'd be back! At approximately midnight, pacific standard time, this morning, he returned for his shopping cart sleigh with liquor on his breath and jello stains on his shirt. We don't know whose party he crashed, but from the looks of that elf, it must have been EPIC!

As he did the night before, the drunken merry maker commandeered a shopping cart, sprinkled it with stolen pixie dust to make it fly and zoomed up and down the aisles of Zazzle shops, site wide, spreading joy and laughter! And then, he fell out, told onlookers to keep his sleigh warm for his return and scampered off (in search of more inebriating treats, no doubt!)

Once again, this is great news for you! Until the magic in that pixie dust wears off, you can harness its power to magically get 40% off all shirts (guaranteed not to have Jello stains, btw!) and coffee mugs in my Zazzle shops! AND 15% off everything else! All you have to know is the magic word & how to use it! And thanks to all those witnesses, we have today's magic word for you!

All you have to do is enter the code 12DAILYDEAL2 at checkout! But hurry! Santa's flying sleigh magic only lasts 24hrs and the clock is already ticking! It's set to wear off at 11:59pm PST, tonight!

You can try it out in any of my shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if I don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Tired Excuses

Two over-used phrases I wish politicians from the local level to the national would retire, permanently:

1. "We don't want to re-invent the wheel""
If our ancestors had adopted this same attitude, we'd still be using rollers and a sledge to move things around. The wheel has been re-invented many times and each time, it moved us forward by leaps and bounds.

2. "We don't want to just kick the can down the road"
My problem with this one is that it's just thrown out there with no explanation as to why the can should continue to lie where it is, following a statement that makes it clear that we need the can to be somewhere other than where it lies. Whether we need to kick the can down the road depends on where we need that can to be. Sometimes, "down the road" is the wrong direction, other times, it's exactly the direction the can needs to move if it's ever to reach that final goal. Maybe we can't kick the can all the way to where we need it to be, in one short kicking session, but that doesn't mean we should just leave it where it lies. Kicking it down the road to move it closer to the goal is called "progress." It's what our ancestors did with each improvement of the wheel from its humble beginnings as rollers and sledge through its many re-inventions along the road to becoming the modern version we rely on, today.

Overall, I really just want our elected representatives to stop telling us what they don't want to do and just get to work doing the jobs they asked us to give them.

Drunken Elf Dazzles Shoppers With Midnight Joyride

Breaking: A rogue elf on an epic eggnog bender has escaped from the North Pole with a pouch of Santa's magic pixie dust! Investigators have tracked the elf as far as Zazzle HQ where, at approximately midnight pacific standard time, this morning, the drunken toymaker commandeered a shopping cart and sprinkled it with a pinch of the stolen pixie dust to make it fly. For more than an hour, shoppers in thousands of Zazzle shops witnessed the elf's wild ride through aisles of shirts, playing cards, skateboards, drinkware and hundreds of other home, office and gift items before the inebriated elf did what has been described as a truly awesome loop-de-loop, fell out and then scurried off shouting, "Keep my sleigh warm, kiddies, I'll be back! Woo hoo!"

This is great news for you! Until the magic in that pixie dust wears off, you can harness its power to magically get 40% off all shirts in my Zazzle shops! And 40% off prints & cards! AND 15% off everything else! All you have to know is the magic word & how to use it! And thanks to all those witnesses, we have it for you!

All you have to do is enter the code 12DAILYDEAL1 at checkout! But hurry! Santa's flying sleigh magic only lasts 24hrs and the clock is already ticking! It's set to wear off at 11:59pm PST, tonight!

You can try it out in any of my shops:

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, lgbt, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular lines of Ninja or Mayan Calendar items? This is the shop you'll find them in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if I don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Cyber Tuesday 2012

Happy Cyber Tuesday!

Everything is 30% off* in my shops, today only - until 11:59pst - with checkout code CRAZYHOLIDAY

*note: in regards to postage, the discount is not applied to the face value, only the portion of the price above face value.

If you haven't checked out my shops, before, please do (it's how I finance my lavish lifestyle of extravagances such as eating at least once a day and having a roof over my head when it rains.) Each shop is packed with apparel, housewares, cool things to dress your favorite gadgets in, gift items and more! We carry everything from pacifiers to playing cards. Shirts to speakers. Clocks to cases for your cell or tablet. Mugs to Messenger bags. Well, you get the idea.

Melhi Ink - My primary shop. Liberal politics, Peace, green living, humor/snark, anti-Valentine, pro-divorce, etc.

GearCandy - Image driven designs. Patterns, photos, drawings, etc. Looking for my popular line of Ninja items? This is the shop you'll find him in!

GlibWare - Word/writing driven designs. Slogans, signs, sayings -- plus a couple of old school travel games.

Heirloom Salon - Vintage treasures and antique book illustrations brought to life again for modern day enjoyment.

The Bone Garden - Skulls, skulls and more skulls.

GrimDandy - The lighter side of Halloween - cute monsters, pumpkins, bats and our trademark character, Grim Dandy, himself, in his fancy stovepipe hat. (A few items say Trick or Treat or Happy Halloween on them, but most do not and can be used/worn year round.)

Crenshaw Bros. Alternative Mortuary Solutions - our hilarious line of Mortuary advertising/marketing humor. (examples: Buy a Happy Cadaver kids meal (with free gummi worms!) in the funeral parlour concession stand, Ask about premium scented embalming fluids in lavender, vanilla or new car. Book Crenshaw the Clown to turn your loved one's funeral into a circus!)

Rapture Rejects - Fun gear for all of us sinners who keep getting left behind every time the righteous have a rapture and whose faces don't get eaten off in the zombie apocalypse and who find out that the Mayan doomsday wasn't the end of the world, after all. (There's literally something for everyone in this shop. Heh.)

And if I don't have what you're looking for, I'm sure one of the other fine designers at Zazzle does!

Happy shopping!

Election 2012 Lexicon

Mittmentum: (noun) Hallucinatory sensation of surging rapidly forward/upward experienced by one who is standing still, moving backward, falling or sinking.

Obama DID Say It!

Sorry Mittens, as the debate moderator pointed out, when she fact checked you in real time, before a live television audience of millions of voters,  you were wrong.  Obama DID say it, when and where he said he did.

Oh and looky, here's a T-shirt to commemorate his lovely, strong, PRO-AMERICAN quote:



But good for you sticking with a position for more than 10 minutes, Mr. Romney! Your supporters probably wish it wasn't your position to not indulge in fact-checking, but hey, at least you picked SOMEthing to stick with.

Sneak Abortion Attacks

Off and on for the last few days, I have been working on my daughter's laptop. Apparantly, somebody at her college, where she's a double Finance and Accounting major thought it would be fun to disguise a very nasty virus as a homework assignment. Turns out it was way more fun for them than it is for us trying to undo the damage.

Between that and a wonderful weekend getting to talk to voters from my local party's booth at a busy street festival over the weekend, I have been away from the dull roar of the television speakers and from the blinding glare of my own computer screen, for several hours at a time, over the last several days. ...And sometime during my absence I missed the latest bombshell scientific announcement from Todd "Magical Mystery Uterus" Akin.

According to Mr. Akin, who is the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri, running against Democratic incumbent Claire "Actually Has a Legitimate Uterus" McCaskill, there's been something sinister afoot for a loooong time. Sneaky abortion doctors have been giving abortions to innocent people WHO AREN'T EVEN PREGNANT!!!!

I know, right?! Some of these unwitting innocents might even be MEN! They're almost NEVER pregnant!! This is clearly the story of the century - sure to rock the medical and scientific communities not only to their cores but off their snobby "we know how the human body actually works and that's not possible" high horses.

I am neither a doctor nor a scientist, so, like Mr. Akin, I have absolutely no freaking clue how it is scientifically, medically or anatomically possible to abort a fetus that doesn't exist. But, according to Todd Akin, it's happening, buddy, and it might have happened to YOU, without your knowledge!

How can you be sure a sneaky abortion doctor didn't perform an abortion on you, without your knowledge, when you weren't even pregnant?! Well, lucky for you, my crack team of Melhican Un-scientists came up with a few simple yes or no questions you can ask yourself, privately, to determine whether you have been a victim of a sneak abortion attack when you weren't even pregnant:

Instructions: Answer Yes or No to each question, then use the scoring provided after the quiz, to determine whether you've been a victim of a drive-by fetus-less abortion.

1. Since the day you entered puberty, have you ever experienced one or more days (not necessarily in a row) that you were NOT pregnant?
2. Have you ever looked at a clock, only to discover that more time had passed than you thought?
3. Have you ever had what felt like an abdominal cramp, a stomach ache or a side stitch?
4. Have you ever had the feeling someone was watching you? OR noticed a stranger actually looking at you?

Scoring:

• If you answered "PURPLE" to any of these questions, I'd like to thank you for reading my blog, Mr. Akin.
• If you answered "YES" or "NO" to any of these questions, you can rest easy. You've never had an abortion performed on you, with or without your knowledge, when you were not pregnant. BECAUSE IT ISN'T FRIGGING POSSIBLE TO ABORT A FETUS THAT DOES NOT EXIST. DUH!!!!!!
• If you answered "Muslim Brotherhood" to any of these questions, for the love of something, somewhere, Ms. Bachmann, please seek professional help and take the anti-psychotic medication the good doctor prescribes you. We're all worried about you, dear.

I hope I have helped ease some worried minds, this morning.

America Runs On Us.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who has said his job is to convince the 10% of us he sees as easily led sheep to free the 43% of us he considers worthy of freedom from the 47% of us he considers parasites.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who has vowed that on DAY ONE, he will strip 30+ million Americans, including an estimated 2.5 million women and their unborn babies, of the freedom to go to the doctor when they're sick.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who carried signs at rallies to protest that other men should fight for freedom, and who had the opportunity to volunteer to fight for freedom, himself, but instead, went to France to avoid fighting for it.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who has said he will leap at the chance to deny same-gender couples the freedom to marry.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who hired a firm known for perpetrating registration fraud that denied new Democratic registrants the freedom to vote, by pretending to register them, but shredding their voter registration forms, so that when they appear at their polling places to vote, they will discover they are not free to vote, after all and that it is too late to retrieve the freedom stripped from them so that they may make their voices heard from the ballot box.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who admired, to his wealthy benefactors, the razor wire and slave labor conditions of a Chinese factory.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who will take away women's freedom to choose & the right of couples to plan their families.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who said he wishes workers didn't have the freedom to organize.

"America runs on freedom" says the man who didn't care if his outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries and his "harvesting" of successful American companies consigned American workers to the shackles of poverty.

America runs on the blood, sweat, tears, joys, genius, creativity, compassion, ingenuity & tenacity of the American people whose ongoing efforts build, shape, expand, protect and maintain our freedom. We are free because we fight to be free and because we work to remain free. We know that extending freedom to one man does not diminish the freedom of another, but strengthens the freedom of us all. And we know that diminishing the freedom of one man, diminishes the freedom of us all. Together, we are an unstoppable machine. Our mettle never rusts and our engine never stalls. We achieve greatness because we ARE greatness.

WE built freedom and WE are the force that drives freedom. America runs on US.

 

Political Weasel