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Minimum Wage, Unemployment and Workers On The Dole

Increasing minimum wage isn't about trying to reduce unemployment.  It's about trying to ensure that those of us who work at minimum wage jobs can survive on the earnings without taxpayer assistance from those of us who work at better jobs or find success in business ownership.  

 But, there are some, including a gubernatorial hopeful in my own state of Illinois, who are very loud and active about saying there's a correlation between minimum wage and unemployment rates.

Is this true?  In trying to fix one problem are we merely exacerbating another that will ultimately worsen exactly the same problem (reliance on tax payer assistance to meet basic survival needs) we were trying to fix?   That's not at all what we want to do. So, it's something we really DO need to stop and take a good hard look at before we press ahead.

Luckily, we have all kinds of numbers and data that we can crunch any number of ways to get any results we want.  But, let's not do that.  I'm as liberal as they come, but I could give a rat's ass about preserving the public image of the ideology.  I'm far more interested in solutions that actually work to fix problems and don't inadvertently make those problems worse.

So, we're going to start by taking a quick glance at two states.   These two states are Georgia and Connecticut.

Georgia has the lowest minimum wage in the United States. Georgia does not recognize the federal minimum wage.  They set their own minimum wage more than two dollars per hour below the federal minimum at $5.15 and this applies only to employers with 6 or more employees.  For smaller employers, there is no minimum wage.  It's perfectly legal, if you have a business in Georgia with 5 or fewer employees,  to pay your employees less than a dollar an hour.

Connecticut, by contrast, has chosen to increase its minimum wage to nearly one and a half dollars per hour OVER the federal minimum wage.  It's not the highest minimum wage in the country (that honor belongs to Washington state,) but Connecticut's minimum wage is a whopping $8.70 per hour.

That's 45 cents more per hour than in MY state of Illinois!  My state has an unemployment rate among the highest in the country.

If what the folks who want to lower or even eliminate the minimum wage say about its effect on unemployment  is true, Connecticut must be absolutely drowning in high unemployment while  practically hemorrhaging jobs to Georgia.  ...And Georgia must be getting close to flipping the other way where they're headed toward that negative unemployment rate problem we all played our tiny violins for Japan over a couple of decades or so ago... more jobs than people to fill them.  Right?

Well, let's see.  Numbers are posted online and easy to find for November 2013.  So, how did these two very different states clock in at the end of November 2013?

Connecticut headed into the final month of the year with exactly what we expected to see... a high unemployment rate of 7.6%. More than half a percentage point above the national average. Ouch.  This isn't what I was hoping to see. .Only 11 states and D.C. had higher unemployment rates than Connecticut.

Unfortunately for Georgia, who boasts the lowest minimum wage in the US, it is one of those 11 states, with an even HIGHER 7.7% unemployment rate.  Despite widely disparate minimum wage laws, these two states have almost identical unemployment rates. In fact, they follow one another on the list, when states are ranked in order of unemployment rate for Nov. 2013.

Obviously, every state on the list has a higher minimum wage than Georgia, since Georgia has the lowest in the nation.  But, there are states with a higher minimum wage than Connecticut. Maybe Georgia is a fluke... the oddball out.  Surely all of the other states with unemployment rates higher than Connecticut and Georgia have higher minimum wage than Connecticut, right?

 So, what of those 12 states (including Connecticut) with the highest unemployment rates in the country?  It turns out that  ALL of the states with higher unemployment than Connecticut,  including not only Georgia but also my own state of Illinois, have a LOWER minimum wage than Connecticut!!  ALL of them.   And five (including Georgia) of those dozen highest-unemployment states have minimum wage at or below the federal minimum.

By now, if you're in the camp that believes a higher minimum wage means higher unemployment, and that states who have lowered or abolished the minimum wage attract more jobs and spur business/job creation, you're screaming at me through the monitor to look at the twelve states with the LOWEST unemployment rates in the nation.  ...And you are absolutely 100% correct.  Unless my goal is to find what I hoped to find and boot-scoot out feeling smug... but that's not my goal.  We've identified a problem. A possible solution has been put forward and there are legitimate questions raised about whether it will have other-than-intended effects that would actually worsen the original problem, in the long run.   I'm one of those taxpayer's who's saddled with the burden of feeding people who aren't lazy bums with no ambition to even look for work, but who are out there actually working every day..  So that they don't starve.

So, let's look at the numbers of the top 12.    Good news for those who think minimum wage needs to be lowered or abolished.  Two of the 12 most employed states have a minimum wage that is below the federal minimum.  Wyoming and Minnesota.   But wait, two of the 12 most employed states have a minimum wage ABOVE federal minimum.  Vermont and Montana.  In fact, Vermont has a minimum wage even higher than Connecticut (by 3 cents.) AND Vermont, while tied at 4.4% with Wyoming, actually has lower unemployment than Minnesota's 4.6%!   8 of the 12 states with the lowest unemployment in the nation have a minimum wage that is equal to the federal minimum wage.   Who had the lowest unemployment?  North Dakota with only 2.6% unemployment and a minimum wage equal to the federal minimum.  South Dakota came in second at 3.6%.

 So, out of curiosity, how did Washington state fare?  As I mentioned, earlier, Washington state boasts the highest minimum wage in the U.S., weighing in at a gargantuan $9.32/hr.  That's two dollars and seven cents above the federal minimum wage and more than $4/hr over what all but the smallest employers in Georgia have to pay.  Washington ended the year with 6.8% unemployment.  28 states fared better and 21 states plus D.C.  fared worse with unemployment than Washington.  That puts Washington near the middle of the list and slightly closer to the high-unemployment end of it, but Washington can boast that they did squeak in at just below the national average of 7% unemployment for November 2013.  (I wish my state could boast that!)

How can it be that 21 states plus D.C. have a higher unemployment rate than Washington state with the highest minimum wage in the nation?  How can it be that 39 states have a lower unemployment rate than Georgia with the lowest minimum wage in the nation?  How can it be that 10 out of the 12 states with the lowest unemployment rates in the country also have a minimum wage that is equal to or higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and that of the 12 states with the highest unemployment 5 out of 12 have a minimum wage that is less than or equal to the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr?

Simple.

Because raising or lowering the minimum wage has NOTHING to do with raising or lowering unemployment rates.  One does not impact on the other, either positively or negatively.  When it comes to unemployment rates and minimum wage, there is no correlation, no causation, no relation, whatsoever.

Need numbers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm


 

Things That Aren't News...

The trend of taking and sharing "selfies" is nothing new.  Only the name is new.

But, this truly bizarre new trend among media types of taking and sharing pics of people taking pics of themselves makes me want to travel the country taking pics for a blog that is dedicated to taking pics of media photogs taking pics of people taking selfies. And then invite a documentary crew to follow me, so they can get footage of me taking pics of people taking pics of people taking pics of themselves... and, suggest to them, that a "making of the documentary film" film crew should also follow them to...  well, you get the idea...  

On the upside, the media is circling the drain.

Melhi's Helpful Web Tip For Today:

Have you hopped aboard the hot newish trend of darkening your website's pages when I land on them to force me to view a popup asking me to follow you on Facebook? 

You have? Well, STOP IT! Stop it, right now. You're doing the Internet backwards!!! 

Your Facebook page is supposed to be just one box of ammo in the larger arsenal you employ to drive traffic TO your website -- NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. I'm already on your site. I've already been lured in by the promise of fabulous content and the rules are the same on the net as they are in print media and television -- you have three sentences and/or three seconds to convince me to stay. 

So, what is the first thing you do? You make sure I can't see your fabulous content and you make it clear that the most important thing you have to tell me is that I'm in the wrong place. You tell me I've been tricked, that the excitement isn't on your site and your site isn't the place to be. You tell me that the place to be, the place with all the excitement and fabulous content is actually the very place THAT I JUST CAME FROM. Are you addle-brained? Because you seem addle-brained. This is like if I bought a magazine, only to discover that inside the front cover was a big two-page ad telling me to go back to the bus stop to view the ad for their magazine that I saw on the side of the bus, yesterday, that made me want to buy the magazine... and then discovering that until I tear out the page, I cannot open any other page in the magazine. You know how many magazines have ever, in the history of magazines, done that? None. Can you guess why? (Obviously, you can't or you wouldn't have pulled this boneheaded stunt with your website.) 

Your number one goal once you've successfully baited the hook on the line that reeled me up into the fishing boat that is your website is to keep me from jumping right back out into the ocean of websites that aren't yours. I'm slippery and I'm fast - you've got your work cut out for you. Good luck holding onto me. 

So, how DO you keep your grip on me? You do it exactly the same way it's been done OFF-line for centuries. Duh. 

You dazzle me with fabulous content or products that will hold my interest and make me stay of my own free will. This will keep me clicking around on your site long enough for me to see lots of the ads on your site that pay you based on views OR long enough to entice me to exit through your checkout with a cart full of goodies OR long enough to be put in a buying mood so that I'll exit through one of your commission based affiliate ads.

Right about now, you're wondering how you get me to come back again. If you've done your job with fabulous content, you're half way there - you've already made me WANT to come back again. Now, you just have to overcome the hurdle that is jogging my memory that your site exists. Surely this requires an in-my-face, content-blacking, eye-sore of a popup, right? Wrong. As soon as you do that, you jerk me right out of my love affair with your content and I'm gone, never to return. So, how do you do it? You let me think it was my idea to look for a way to be reminded to come back. In the side bar, at the bottom or at the tippy top of each of your dazzling content-rich pages, in a way that stands out, but doesn't intrude on my uninterrupted enjoyment of your fabulous content (same rules you already follow with your affiliate ads,) you offer me a choice of at least two options - one by email, one not by email - to stay in the loop or be notified when you have fabulous new content for me to devour. (examples: email alert, newletter subscription, liking your Facebook page, following you on Twitter... whatever methods you employ to drive repeat traffic so you have a chance to build long term loyalty among your audience and/or customer base.)

It's Not A Budget Negotiation.

I keep seeing people, from both sides of the aisle,  independent from the aisles and even observing from outside the US talking about the debt ceiling and the shutdown who say things along the lines of "Why can't Congress just pass a budget" or "Congress needs to sit down and balance the budget so they can open the government."

The spending (budget) part of this two step process was already approved.  This is step two... which is basically just to approve paying the bills we've already approved and incurred.  This has nothing to do with passing or balancing a budget... and that there was no big kerfuffle over passing the spending is why so many Americans don't realize that this is a very separate step from that.

The two separate budget/spending and bill-paying steps were briefly combined into just one step under what was dubbed the "Gephardt Rule" (which began in 1979) and then when the Republicans took the house in 1985, they did away with the Gephardt Rule and it became two separate steps again.  

One of the problems with it being two separate steps, now, is that the freshmen Congressmen weren't there to vote a lot of this spending into place and the whip has no "you voted to spend it, now you have to own it and vote to pay for it" leverage with them on a clean CR... and for whatever reason, Boehner decided to go with the deal some in this frosh minority shot back "We weren't here to vote to spend that money and we won't vote to pay for those things, UNLESS we get to knock out this law we don't like that we don't have the numbers or public support to overturn. Give us that and you have our vote."  

My theory is that they thought there was no way on this Earth the Dems would let it go to a shutdown and would vote to pass ANYthing to avoid it.  I think this because they don't seem to have any plan or strategy in place now that their bluff has been called.  

Boehner has one good out -- I doubt he'll take it, but he is the one who set it up -- he said he didn't think they had the votes to pass a clean CR.  So, he could send out the whip, make sure he has the votes (he does, but Boehner tends to adhere to the so-called "Hastert rule" which is basically an unspoken rule that Republican speakers have followed where they won't call a vote on something, even if it will pass easily with bi-partisan support, unless a majority of Congressmen within just their own party will vote to pass it) and then announce that their Whip has done a tremendous job getting the votes necessary to end the shutdown, bring the clean Continuing Resolution to the floor for a vote - pass it, pay the bills and end the shut down.

 He saves face, the Republican Whip looks like a hero, some of the damage to their party is undone and will likely be forgotten by the time the next elections roll around, default is averted and the country re-opens.  Everybody wins.  Except Boehner.  It will  damage Boehner WITHIN his own party for not adhering to the Hastert Rule.  

So, Boehner has to decide which matters more to him - the country and how he's viewed by the people in general or his party and how he's viewed by those within its ranks.  Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?  Pick this great nation & public support from the people... duh!

But, it's actually a pretty tough  little corner he's backed himself into -- no amount of public support will keep him in the Speaker's chair and perhaps not even in Congress if his party turns on him.  On the other hand,  if this continues, both public and party support may fall out from under the small faction within his party who perpetrated this - Boehner may be capitulating to this faction, but he is not actually a part of that faction and he's in a very safe district he can't lose so long as he's not primaried out by his own party.  So, he likely believes (and may very well be right)  he has a better chance of surviving this if he lets it continue just long enough to destroy just that faction within his party.  Will he choose his country or his own political hide?  Which does he love more?  We will know very soon.
  

Oops - Somebody Didn't Read Their Constitution...

Before you read my thoughts on it, go read this article first:

Republican (Valerie Hodges) Horrified To Discover Christianity Is Not The Only Religion - On Jezebel.

She said that in voting for vouchers that would force taxpayers in her state to fund other people's lifestyle choice of sending their kids to private religious schools (a practice that violates my religious AND my political beliefs,) she thought she was only supporting the religion of our founding fathers, which she wrongly assumes to have been a unanimous founding father following of today's fundamentalist Christian religions.  

Even if she was correct in that assumption, which she's not, I wonder how she missed the part of the constitution where the founding fathers intentionally protected against exactly what she thought she was doing?  

Protecting against that sort of thing was so important to them, it's listed first, along with freedom of political speech and freedom of the press.  It's really kind of hard to miss.  

 I wonder if she's aware  that separation of church and state is what protects fundamentalist Christian  students from being taught to cast spells by Wiccan teachers AND protects fundamentalist Christian teachers from having to teach kids to chant "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" just because a majority of students in the class happen to be Buddhist  OR that it protects her religion's continued existence in the event that at some distant or maybe even near point in the future, there's an attempt to outlaw her religion and/or prevent it from building places of worship because an overwhelming majority of citizens has come to think of her church of choice as just a phony tax-sheltered cover for clinic bombing, freedom  hating, bigoted paramilitary domestic terrorist cells? 

 I'm going to bet she doesn't know or appreciate any of that.  But, someday, she or her progeny might be very grateful that it does.  

 I for one, don't want my tax dollars going to fund her or anyone else's faith, so I tell myself that her tax dollars are used for that and war and other things that I want no part of and that my tax dollars go to fund things like making sure poor people can get something to eat today and that sick people can go to a doctor and other things I'm cool with that she might not be.  

But, funding aside, I am already deeply grateful that our founding fathers protected her religion - and that they protected the Islamic faiths - and that they protected Wiccans & Buddhists & Hindu & Atheists &  Scientologists & Mormons &... everyone.   

You are protected from me and my beliefs because I am protected from you and your beliefs. 

I've really gotta hand it to the founding fathers, that was some pretty forward very-long-game thinking for a bunch of wig wearing, rebel rousing, syphilis spreading, 18th century drunkards.

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.



 









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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.