Month: August 2013

We once were the world leader in hopes and dreams because with hard work you could make something of yourself.

The United States now has 1/3 of the ability of lower earning workers to move up compared to other industrial nations.

What is causing this? Workers are no longer an asset, they are a cost to be cut.

Why? Because we automatically label anyone working at a fast food restaurant as lazy or un-ambitious, while holding them down, limiting their ability to move up.

These people aren’t lazy moochers. They are our brothers and sisters, and they deserve more respect. Raise the taxes on the super rich, stop letting Walmart pay their workers with food stamp benefits (they pay just below the line so their staff can get benefits).

Write your congressmen, speak to your representatives. Reduce the tax breaks for the super rich and big oil.  Allow student loans to be declared in a bankruptcy. Help the middle class!

When the zombies start shambling about you hope this guy is your neighbor.

It’s the end of the world, zombies are shambling about the streets, but you are at a friends house in a strange city. You can readily get to the local pharmacy, what to grab?

• Regular SOAP – Basic hygiene is still very important and this should be your first action for small cuts and abrasions.  Harsher cleaners (Iodine, Alcohol) slow how quickly wounds heal.
• Self Adhesive Bandages – Get the multiple size packs so you can cover a range of small wounds.
• Gauze and Tape – For the large cuts.  Get the cloth tape, it is stronger, and the individually wrapped 4×4 gauze packs.
• Iodine – to sterilize water and the obvious antiseptic uses. Clean water will shortly became a major issue.
• Antiobiotics – Grab some Amoxicillin. Its a good wide spectrum antibiotic for post apocalypse infections.
• Ibuprofen – low grade painkillers, the point is to keep my mind clear, not get high.
• Chewable Multivitamin – They are easy to digest and don’t put the stress on the kidneys that some highly concentrated solid tablets will. Will help you fight off malnutrition when the food gets scarce.
• Zip-Lock Baggies & Black Sharpie Marker – Put everything in bags to reduce its packaging dimensions and weight.
• Tweezers – Splinters are a bitch.
• Power bars – good source of short term fuel to keep you walking/running until you can get someplace safe.
• Bottled water – this is the tough one. Take a liter, but water is heavy and will slow down your march.  But not enough and you rapidly loose effectiveness.  If you think you can easily resupply, just take a little.  If you are in the high desert, this might be the number one item to take though.

Don’t carry so much you can’t walk.  Your primary goal should be to take enough to keep you alive until you can get to someplace safer.

Disclaimer – Remember this is advice for the apocalypse. Its only okay to grab some from the pharmacy when everyone is a zombie.  (The lawyers make us say it.)

A human foot, apparently female, was found by a fisherman at the jersey shore. The smallish, size 5 1/2 shoe had painted nails.

I hope the foot doesn’t belong to a kid.

The Day (4 out of 5 Graves)

Its clearly a 3 out of 5 on any normal scale, but on the apocalypse movie scale The Day is definitely a 4 out of 5.

The Day starts out with a small group of survivors walking down the road. One of them is sick and is having trouble keeping up. The hapless group of survivors finds a house in the middle of nowhere.

The house becomes the centerpiece for the rest of the story. Up until now we have seen a few flashbacks, but don’t really know who the “bad” guys are.  We very shortly find out. (I won’t ruin it.)

Needless to say I enjoyed the movie. It was well acted and the action was non stop. I highly recommend.

This isn’t a sophisticated movie. It is fun, funny, and a bit corny. If you can roll with that, you will love this flick.

Because when there was no OSHA and no oversight everything was so great.

It just makes me so sad, and mad.

I have a buddy who says that if you are too dumb to get an education then you deserve your minimum payment job. It’s almost unbelievable how someone so smart can be so easily sucked into such thinking by those reaping huge profits off the outcome of the decision.

The question I can never seem to get answered by him is what if there is no living wage for any of those workers?  So every quicky mart, Walmart and fast food place shuts down? I’m not saying pay them 200k a year. I’m must saying they should be able to live, not high on the hog, but live.

The next argument I get is that they shouldn’t have had 3 kids then. Granted, I agree with that, but are you going to punish the child for the sins of their parents and take away food assistance? (like the congress just did, while passing a huge farm agro bill – such a slap in the face)

Remember, when you see Walmart and other companies making huge profits, they did it using tax dollars. Our taxes paid for the roads that all their goods roll on.  Our taxes paid for the port security that the ships came in on, and worst of all, our tax dollars are filling in the gaps in what Walmart pays its workers in the form of assistance and food stamps.

If you really want to get people off the government support systems, force companies like Walmart to pay their workers a living wage so they don’t have to use government assistance to live.

When does a company have enough money? I say now. Tax corporations and force them to pay their fair share.