Jane!

uh oh.

It’s good to know that Bush has not succeeded in completely compromising the Federal courts.

Well, it was the 9th Circuit, after all. Troublesome, uppity, activist, left-coastie liberal judges!
Though, I have to say, if the 9th gets packed with reactionaries, I really will have to consider emigrating.

FunnyDiva

The view in this house is that any one of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates (with the possible exception of Ron Paul) are far more dangerous than GWB.

Huckabee’s got his bunches in a pant.

Hey, Jane
Some funny “ads by Google” today! Is that _really_ Freedom Swatch daht ogre? And Civilian Contractor Jobs in Iraq?
Although having FreedomSwatch right next to the Fries/NoFries is kinda surreal…

FunnyDiva

The view in this house is that any one of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates (with the possible exception of Ron Paul) are far more dangerous than GWB.

And the view in this house is that Ron Paul is at least as dangerous as any of the current crop of repug candidates. But us uppity progressive single wimmins is known to be pretty selfish and self-centered about certain of our civil rights.

Shorter me: RP has two good positions, and that’s just NOT enough.

FunnyDiva

So I have one, and only one, Wal-Mart story. It took place about 30 years ago, when I was at Goldman, Sachs. The investment bankers wanted me to meet with David Glass, who, iirc, was then treasurer. Now I never heard of Wal-Mart back then. But if IB thought it was important, you hopped to. Back then, you couldn’t get to Bentonville from anywhere, though I suppose they now have a full airport & direct flights from Wall St. So it took all day to get there & back, for a 45 minute meeting. Glass did indeed have a tiny cube in a warehouse style building with linoleum on the floor. Yes, I can personally testify that Wal-Mart was what it billed itself to be 30 years ago. Now they’ve become a caricature of themselves.

I also find very little to like about Mr. Paul. I believe a closer study of his beliefs would dissuade most Liberals of their infatuation with him as well.

Yes…I want something like the NRA for women’s rights. Period.

I won’t be voting for Mr. Paul under any circumstances. But his opposition to the Iraq War and the general Libertarian attitude that unprovoked foreign adventures should be avoided, I cannot disagree with. And you may notice that I said ‘with the “possible” exception of Ron Paul’. And in this home we feel that avoiding nuclear war is crucial, and trumps all else. You of course, don’t have to agree with this position.

Walmart had such a positive response with their 3rd SS Division tee-shirts that “hooker” panties for kids seemed like a good follow up.

I don’t know why some are so upset with the Wal Mart mob. This family is poverty stricken.

OT- The ABA has announced their pick of Lawyer of the Year… Alberto Gonzales… WTF?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/ar…..p#comments

They still have that have that brick building in Bentonville. Did you know Karen V. at Lehman(?) she was on the cover of the NYT Mag in (86)?..she has some funny stories about coming to AR to do business.

The ABA must be using Diebold machines.

Huckabee’s got his bunches in a pant.

*almart has their knickers in a t*ist.

Havent shopped at Wal Mart for years. I cant remember the last time it was so long ago.

My small town of 30,000 has two Wal Marts. Because we have a small Indian Reservation that has a shopping center (Hoem Depot, Target, etc) Wal Mart could black mail the town.

They came in and wanted 6 million in tax breaks for their store, and got their way by saying they would simply open a store on the Indian reservation and the town would get nothing in tax revenue.

So, we have the regular store and the super-duper center, both getting huge tax breaks.
The small downtown business owner is struggling to overcome this.

Heh: who needs peace?

And RNC servers… It reminds me of Time’s choice of Hitler…

Nope. Didn’t know her. One of my abiding sorrows about us women Wall St. pioneers is that we never got together. The ones at the very top, who thought they could make partner, viewed us (very competent) troops are rivals, or even enemies (because only one was going to make it), and shunned us, instead of going for group power by showing leadership. It worked for some of them, but my feeling is that women were very little better off on Wall St when I left than when I started. At my end point there were many more at decent levels than when I started (in 1976 Goldman Sachs had 24 professional women out of about 1000+ professional and I still have the list), but almost none in positions of real power.

The fact is that there are thousands of small stores that sell T-shirts with all kinds of slogans, and no one touches them or objects to them. I think the pulling of the panties from Wallmart advances the feminist cause for equality not one nano fraction of one scintilla.

The more serious litigation with Walmart that’s hitting SCOTUS after a cert. grant last week is Pam Huber’s case that she was discriminated against for being transferred within the context of the ADA. Pam Huber became disabled (I’m not sure of her injury) but said she could not do her job as an “order filler” after the injury and was transferred to a janitorial job that paid $6.50/hour and someone else was given a job she could do for $12.50.

The Soopreemes are being asked to decide the extent of the ADA, and my money with my bookie is that we will have a 5-4 with Tony Kennedy the swinger, adding his vote to the the screw the individual block upholding the 8th Circuit opinion that reversed the district court.

Screw the individual block= of course Thomas, Scalia, and the big boo boo among many that Senate Judiciary left on the rug and will never be cleaned up Alito and Roberts.

Again, when people give you the finger and won’t answer key questions you don’t vote to confirm if you are a half decent SJC member, or you screw up the country irreversibly. Can you spell Mukasey, Alito, and Roberts.

We have very very few half decent SJC or SSIC member and everyone’s about to find out in a way that hits home with Telco Immunity and the continued principle of the U.S.: Surveillance without a warrant everywhere all the time.

The Republicans and the completely gutless dems have made that the infrastructure of current American government.

The only time I ever entered a Wal-Mart was 5 or 6 years ago. Met my Houston friend in Fort Worth, where we visited their new MOMA and other local attractions. She drove us back to Houston & we stopped at a Wal-Mart somewhere in rural TX in-between. I have never seen such a display of fat women in my life. The last time I related this anecdote here, I got critized for denegrating poor women with bad diets who tend to be morbidly overweight. I mean no disparagment toward that population segment, but just mentioned it to show how depressing the whole Wal-Mart phenomenon is. I think we can do better for those poor fat women in rural TX. The solution is not for cheap shopping at Wal-Mart, but better education so they can get decent jobs so they don’t need to shop at Wal-Mart and so that they know how to manage their diet and exercise, under circumstances where eating is not their only solace.

S’more from our compassionately conservative Prez:

AP – President Bush vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program.

Reminder.
Only too-dumb-to-live Ds would call medical care for children SCHIP.

IIRC, that acronym was coined back when the Rs were in control of the congress.

Or even earlier: once upon a time, acronymns were designed to say what the program was about, rather than as a PR slogan. “State Childrens’ Health Insurance Program” is about as “plain English” a description as you can get.

“But his opposition to the Iraq War”

He’s only opposed to the Iraq War because he hates Jews, blacks, and Hispanics more than he hates the Arabs.

“and the general Libertarian attitude that unprovoked foreign adventures should be avoided”

The key waffle here is “unprovoked.” Ron Paul would put us on a military footing against Mexico.

And the Ds can’t rebrand it because…?

Wrong company..V.P., E F Hutton

WTF?

I don’t care that he was the most talked about — he doesn’t deserve any kind of recognition for anything.

Doesn’t matter. My response at 22 was generic.

Wal Mart’s ok. It’s sad that they put so many small town retailers out of of business- but the towns profited on the whole. They pay about the same as other big box retailers–with a few exceptions- such as Costco. Best place to buy some electronics.

Further thougts on my 24.

Wal-Mart should be viewed as a national disgrace, in the following way. The sign of a healthy wealthy middle class is that they don’t have to pay attention to what necessities cost. That was my most important indicator that my standard of living had exceeded my parents’, who were married in 1932 and had to keep track of every penney to make sure they could raise their 3 children in solid middle class circumstances, vs. the poverty that they were raised in. The fact that many households feel that Wal-Mart’s EDLP is a necessity to maintain their standard of living represents a failure of U.S. economic policy.

See my 35. The objective of economic policy should not be cut-throat prices, but rather that average income should be high enough that prices for many items are irrelevant.

One has to wonder at how far our culture has slipped, when there is a demand for products for things such that which is pictured in the above pix.

Now there you are wrong. Americans have always coveted such products. It’s only in recent times that those (base?) desires have been catered to. I prefer we acknowledge what people want rather than deny it thru legal proscriptions.

Hucklebee on MSNBC. He likes school vouchers, charter schools and home schooling. No mention of support for conventional public education.

Policies aside, I found him very smooth. Snake oil. Elmer Gantry?

I don’t have a problem with the idea of not legislating morality. I didn’t say anything about that. I just have to wonder about why anyone would want this stuff. Of course, one might ask the same question about the demand for certain kinds of very demeanig music. And I do think our culture has “slipped”, if you will.

Jane has a new post upstairs.

Are those panties for little girls? If I were a father who found out my little one owned such a garment..heck I would probably just start crying over my failure as a parent on the spot. Is this some snarky trend? Or are Wal-Mart people completely oblivious to their own individual self worth?

I do think our culture has “slipped”, if you will.

since when?

i confess, i don’t get it.

In response to many of the posts here:

The issue with the panties is that Wal-Mart has for so long promoted itself as family and fundie friendly. Remember the brouhaha years ago about how they wouldn’t sell CDs with the parental advisory sticker? Because bad words will morally corrupt our kids, while teaching them to barter their bodies for material wealth is just peachy.

Regarding their stores, the only way I’ve been able to put my finger on it is that Wal-Mart stores just have bad energy. Whether it’s due to being overcrammed with stuff and people or whatever, the place is where good feelings go to die.

Then there’s the virtual indentured servitude of their employees. Low wages, few benefits for some, none for many, and really gestapo tactics by management.

As to what eCHAN#35, this is one of the things so insidious about Wal-Mart – it has moved in in tandem with a gradually lowering standard of living for a significant number of people in this country. Folks that who, even if they realize the benefits to the community of supporting smaller retailers, cannot afford to do so for the basic necessities of life…which are the only things they can afford to buy. And if they find themselves from time to time with a few extra bucks…well, Wal-Mart will capture those dollars too, with a variety of cheap crap from China.

It’s a really ugly circle there.

Well… I could say our culture of greed became more pronounced the day GWB was sworn in as prez the first time.

i think that was the ’80s

Just like the Maffia – start mom and pop and end up a corporate giant bully.

And further, the poor Chinese slave worker can’t read the English message he/she is sewing on the panties. Can’t blame the workers. The pantie message came straight from Wal-Mart heads. You mean the old bald guys in Wal-Mart like girl childs?

I’m down here in the Wal-Mart sewer because I can’t stand the CanDates any more. Think I’ll fix dinner and cut myself a slice of spice cake for something wholesomee.

To whoever said that “towns profit” from Wal-Mart, please think again.

Wal-Mart enters towns and small cities and blackmails local governments into giving them huge tax breaks, such as via Chicago’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) program.

Now, what’s so bad about giving a potential employer like WalMart a big tax break? Well, for one thing, the jobs WalMart provides do nothing to help other businesses in the region, as the workers make little more than what is desperately needed for food, rent and utilities. So the money it generates goes mostly to landlords, banks and power companies—hardly a boon to the local economy.

Worse, since the cities and town still need the tax revenue that WalMart isn’t paying, guess who gets a huge boost to THEIR taxes to make up the shortfall? You guessed it—those same put upon small businesses, schools and home owners who have to share a zip code with America’s Funniest Parasite.

Further, local hopsital emergency rooms are finding out the hard way how WalMart reaps its profits: by forcing so many workers to do without health insurance, WalMart burdens local medical facilities where its low paid workers show up for free or low cost care. Nuthin like getting Uncle Sam to foot the bill for your workers’ accidents and illnesses—great for the stockholders!

Isn’t it simply the acronym for State Childrens’ Health Insurance Program? What’s wrong with calling it that? Am I missing a nuance or something?

Teen girls and young not-so-well-educated young women would think wearing those is a bit of rebellion against their parents’ conventions.