I hope you’re not reading this over your first cuppa of the day. But if you are, maybe you should put it down. Now.
Yup, please put it down before your hands begin to shake. In fear. In anticipation. In desperation.
Because I just learned that coffee is an endangered species. It’s true! Really! Have I ever steered you wrong? I mean, lately?
I guess I need to back up here and explain to you just how the world has failed you, and how life may just not be the same because of it.
When we were just pumping crap into the atmosphere, it didn’t matter. It didn’t affect us directly. I mean it shortened our lives, but that’s acceptable, right? An even trade.
Deep breath now.
When it just affected the polar bears, well, it still didn’t matter. They’re not very cute once they grow up.
HOLY S*H*I*T
Or icebergs. Who needs ’em?
But now global warming is getting serious. Seriously serious! And you’ll feel it at your house and I’ll feel it at mine.
You see, I just read that Jim Hanna, Starbuck’s Director of Sustainability, reported to the Guardian Newspaper that extreme weather fluctuations caused by global warming are projected to f*@k up our supply of coffee beans. That’s because most crops, including coffee, only grow within a narrow range of temperature. All these high highs and low lows from climate change make crappy cappuccinos.
“What we are really seeing as a company as we look 10, 20, 30 years down the road – if conditions continue as they are – is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean,” Hanna said.
But it gets worse.
Because it’s not just coffee.
Gulp.
Chocolate is threatened, too.
Clearly, it’s time to get serious about global warming.
You might have noticed, but I’ve been a bit, ummmm, opinionated lately. OK, so I’m always opinionated, but lately I’ve been opinionated about politics and I pretty much stopped writing about anything else. My bad.
In case you didn’t notice, I have reason to celebrate. So do you. Here in the US we re-elected President Obama and Vice President Biden. We elected intelligent folks to the US Senate over the “Rape Rappers.” Women had great success except for the one who made money off of scantily clad women rolling around in mud while wrestling in an undoubtedly dignified manner. Three of the stupidest Congressmen were defeated (Alan West, Todd Akin and Joe Walsh). And we still get to laugh at Michelle Bachmann.
My blog has reason to celebrate, too. Every Republican I made fun of, with the exception of my BFF Michelle, lost. Damn I’m good.
But I’m going to do you, and especially my international readers, a favor. I’m going to shut up about politics for a while.
Well, at least I will after I tell you that Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell has already let President Obama and the new Senate know that he won’t cooperate.
Portrait of an ASS
Now remember, Mitch is the guy who stated in 2008 that the Republican’s primary job was to make sure that President Obama was a one-term president.
How’d that work for you, Mitch?
But did Mitch learn his lesson? Nope. Here’s what he said today:
The American people did two things: they gave President Obama a second chance to fix the problems that even he admits he failed to solve during his first four years in office, and they preserved Republican control of the House of Representatives. The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the President’s first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control. Now it’s time for the President to propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a closely-divided Senate, step up to the plate on the challenges of the moment, and deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office. To the extent he wants to move to the political center, which is where the work gets done in a divided government, we’ll be there to meet him half way.
Ummm, excuse me Senator McConnell? You lost your chance of gaining control of the U.S. Senate in an election year when there were tons of vulnerable Democratic seats. You blew it. So shut up and learn how to get along. Stop stamping your feet. Cooperate. That’s what’s in the best interest of our country.
In the in-between time between sleep and being awake I thought I was hallucinating. Dreaming. Making shit up.
I had left the TV on in the next room so that I could hear just a little bit of a great MSNBC news show called The Last Word, hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell.
Now Laurence is an amazing guy, actually. He worked for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (one of my all-time favorite Senators) and later for the Senate Finance Committee including during 1986 when they revamped the whole tax code. He was a writer/creator/producer for that wonderful TV show, The West Wing. He understands politics from the inside and from the outside. Lawrence is brilliant and funny and quite often finds interesting quirks in the day’s news.
But what I thought I heard as I drifted between states of consciousness must have been a dream. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be. Then I promptly forgot it, which made me positive that it was just a dream.
Until just now when I bought my lunch and pulled up one of my favorite websites, CrooksandLiars.com to read while I ate. And I realized that my dream had come true.
Shit.
Mitt Romney really did compare cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy tocleaning the field up after a high school football game.
[Lawrence:] And to buff his own image as a disaster-relief specialist, Romney compared the Sandy relief effort to … his experience cleaning up the field after a high-school football game. Seriously.
[Mitt:] I remember once we had a football field at my high school. The field was covered with rubbish and paper goods from people who’d had a big celebration there at the game. And there was a group of us there assigned to clean it up. And I thought, ‘how are we going to clean up all the mess on this football field?’ There were just a few of us. And the person responsible for organizing the effort said, ‘Just line up along the yard lines. You go between the goal line and the 10-yard line, and the next person between the 10 and 20, and just walk down and do your lane. And if everybody cleans their lanes, we’ll get it done.’ And so today, we’re cleaning one lane if you will.
You’ll have to click on the CrooksandLiars post above for the video. I can’t embed.
Somewhere, deep down inside of me, I thought that perhaps I was wrong about Mitt being an oblivious heartless bastard who believes, along with Annie-poo, that he has suffered. You remember how bad it was for him and Ann while in college and law/business school because he had to sell some of his stock portfolio and eat tuna while living in a basement apartment. Perhaps I was missing something in his personality. Perhaps he isn’t really such a dick.
But no. I was wrong in being charitable to Mitt. And (sadly if there is any chance at all of his being elected) I was right – he really is a dick.
Excuse me now. I have to go find a brick wall to slam my head against.
Elections Matter — Please don’t let this guy get into the White House without a tour guide.
It seems like just the other day when I was telling you about David Siegel in my post Robbin’ a Better Hood.
You know, it was the story of David, the poor billionaire CEO of Westgate Resorts who likes to sit on a golden cherub-encrusted throne. In case you can’t remember, he threatened his employees with termination if Mitt Romney doesn’t become president, if Obama wins and raises his taxes. He also complained about not getting any happy hours.
Oh, it was just the other day!
Well, I’ve learned so much since. And I just gotta share.
You see, I learned that apparently CEO’s are pack animals. And a bunch of other CEOs are doing the same thing to their employees so that they can protect their billions.
At first I was confused. How could so many folks, living high on the hog, come up with the very same idea?
Then I learned just last night that there is a common thread here that, well, I for one would never have guessed.
Because guess who is telling those CEO’s to do that? Guess who is showing his leadership ability by actually getting billionaire CEOs to follow an order? Guess who has the morals and ethics of a crack whore?
[26:30] I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, you pass those along to your employees. Mitt Romney, June 6, 2012.
Yup, it’s Mitt. The guy whose team is in favor of voter suppression (heard the one about the Arizona Voter ID cards that were sent out with the wrong date for election date – funny thing, it’s only wrong on the Spanish ones).
Can you say “Watergate?” Can you say “Iran Contra?” Can you say “Tammany Hall?” Are you listening Mitt Romney?
I heard that Ann will be cancelling her next few campaign stops. She’s out shopping for furniture for the Oval Office.
Or maybe they should go on the Truman Balcony. The view of the peasants is way better from there..
Many of you think that I am a communist with socialist sympathies. Or a socialist with communist proclivities. Or that I want to take from the rich and give to the poor. That I have fantasies of becoming the next Mother Theresa or at least Madonna. The singer, not the, you know, Madonna.
Nope. Not me at all. That gum would be in my earrings
But it’s not at all true. I’m not a socialist, I’m a liberal. Someday the GOP will understand the difference between a liberal and a socialist. But certainly not before it’s convenient. And definitely not before November.
Personally, I work hard and am pretty well paid for my efforts. I like that.
I also like the fact that my husband works less hard and is paid even better. Of course that would piss me off royally if I didn’t get to spend more than my share of that haul.
That said, well, I know I’ve been lucky, especially when it comes to the folks I’ve worked for. Yes, I’ve been incredibly lucky in bosses. None of them has asked me to do anything illegal, unethical or even too terribly yucky. Stupid sometimes, annoying at others, but legal and honest and ethical. And none have ever threatened me.
So when I read this article about a very different type of boss, well I saw red.
Not exactly like this, but it was definitely red.
Did you hear about David Siegel, the owner of Westgate Resorts? His estimated net worth is close to $2 Billion. Yeah. That’s with a “B.”
You may recall him from the stories about his house, Versailles:
A quaint little cottage, ain’t it? A mere 90,000 sq. ft.
Here’s the ballroom.
Doesn’t YOUR house have a ballroom?
David made his money selling Time Shares. You know, those “must have” vacation resort scams? My parents owned one. Thanks, David. Can you say “total rip off”? I bet you say it a lot.
Now David’s worried. And that’s never a good thing when all that money is at stake. You see, David is worried that President Obama may get re-elected. And David’s worried that if President Obama is re-elected, he might have to pay more taxes. So he threatened his 7,000 employees, telling them that they may just not have a job if Obama gets 4 more years.
Actually, David held back. He didn’t cross that line. No sirreee Bob. He didn’t tell the folks dependent on him who to vote for! That would be bullying! That would be unethical! That would be illegal!
Here’s what he did say. I’ll use his words, not mine. Here’s what David A. Siegel, Billionnaire, said in an email sent to all of his employees on Monday:
As your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.
Good start, don’t you think. Then he explained to his workers just how hard the life of a billionaire can be:
I eat, live, and breathe this company every minute of the day, every day of the week. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour.
I admit I’d be ticked off if there was no happy hour. Imagine.
And then David mentioned that his employees might just want to think carefully about who they vote for come November:
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.
So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. [Emphasis mine.]
David on his Golden Throne
Talk about folks who feel “Entitled”!
So, in spite of the fact that the Presidency offers no such powers, I’m going to lobby hard for something. Nationalization of David Siegel’s assets.
Yup, I’m going to work towards nationalization of the assets of this asshole. Just the one asshole. We could use a new National Park in Central Florida, wouldn’t you say? Disney gets so crowded these days. We can call it “OverTheTop-Land.”
Of course, if I hear of more of those buckaroo billionaires screwing with people’s right to vote, well, I might just rethink just how keen I am on nationalization. Because you know what they say about socialists/communists. Once they start marching, all the dominoes fall.
Elections matter. And nobody has the right to tell their employees how or for whom to vote.
[And if anybody seriously thinks that I am either a socialist or a communist, or that I think there is any authority for anyone to nationalize the assets of anybody in the country, you are reading the wrong blog.]
FiftyFourandAHalf 