Some clarification for those who think that same sex marriage is like rape, incest, bestiality, and polygamy.

Same sex marriage is not equal to the first three for one very basic reason- consent. Rape, incest and bestiality all involve power imbalances where one (or more) people abuse the body of another being without their consent. Period. Gay marriage involves two adults choosing to take on the responsibility of caring for each other legally, financially and medically. Note the adults choosing part. That means they are consenting. Rape victims, children and animals do not or cannot consent to their own abuse.

Now polygamy might seem a bit more sticky. In a perfect world, polygamy would mean that more than two consenting adults agree to share legal, financial and medical responsibility for each other. But unlike other contracts (which is what marriage essentially is) there is no way to set up equal responsibility over a single person between two or more people. Example:

A man has a wife. He wants another one. So he gets one. Wife number two may have consented to be married to the man, but has she also consented to be married to the other wife. Let’s say she moves into the home jointly owned by Wife One and the man. Does she get partial ownership in the house now? If the man dies, does Wife one have a legal responsibility to share the assets she built up with the man over the years that they were married before wife number two came on the scene? What if the man goes into a coma and there is a question over whether to continue life support or to let the man die? What if the wives disagree? Who gets to make that decision? What if it’s not the man, but it’s Wife One who is in the coma? Does Wife Two get to decide to pull the plug?

Countries where polygamy is legal have solved these problems by disallowing women rights to own property or make legal decisions without the agreement of their husbands. We may be a seriously backwards country when it comes to equal rights, but I do not think that we would undo a hundred years of progress to allow polygamy. Especially when it makes things more

All right peeps, RQ needs some helpful thinking.

I just submitted my resume for my dream job (working to get low income people into affordable home ownership through a community land trust).

And this job, my little friends, comes with benefits. And decent pay.

So I need you all to band together and think happy thoughts for me. I want this job, I am SOOOOOOOOOOO qualified for this job, and I need this job. But the job market is ugly right now.

Since I’ve tweaked my resume and written the best letter of interest ever, I now must wait, not so patiently, for a call or email. I need you peeps to help make the call happen. Think happy.

Those fricken capitalists will tell you (even when all things prove otherwise) that the invisible hand of the market keeps corruption from happening because if a merchant keeps his thumb on the scale then people will shop elsewhere.

Except, we don’t live in tiny hamlets where the guy who grows the tomatoes is the same guy selling the tomatoes at the public market. Word of mouth on consumer goods doesn’t actually work in a global market where prices are set long before goods get to the supermarket and you can’t go spy on your neighbors farm to see if he’s trying to sell meat from downer cows.

Case in point: a New Jersey man is now facing jail time for price fixing canned tomatoes. The dude basically bribed wholesale buyers’ reps into paying more for goods and buying from his company exclusively.

But how can we regular people know that the price of tomatoes went up because some asswipes were making a personal profit shafting us? We can’t be at the canning factory meetings. We aren’t privy to the buyer’s luncheons where sellers woo clients with cash bribes. We just go to the grocery store and discover that canned spaghetti sauce is now twice as expensive.

And this doesn’t just apply to tomatoes. It applies to oil and plywood and health care. Think about that the next time some libertarian fuckwad bitches about government interference. And then offer him a lovely salad of downer cow beef carpaccio and ecoli spinach with price fixed beefsteak tomatoes. When he ends up in the hospital and his insurance has decided it wasn’t enough of an emergency situation to warrant their paying for the out of network fees, ask him how that invisible hand is working for him.

The Republic Windows and Doors workers who locked themselves in the factory to get their back pay and benefits have won!

I wonder if i should stage my own little sit in at the lab here?

Myers (former Clinton Press Secretary- remember when press secretary didn’t equal dancing clueless monkey assface?) on the Favreau nastiness

“I can’t stop thinking about this picture, and I confess I find it really upsetting. And, no, it’s not because I don’t have a sense of humor. I like to think I have a well-earned reputation for often irreverent, sometimes ill-advised humor. But I’m not laughing now”

And to Obama- how many of your lackeys are going to keep making sexism part of your schtick? Cause I’m bored to tears by it. Really, dudes. Bush was/is HORRIBLE for women, but at least he never treated his attempts to put us little ladies back in our barefoot and pregnant place as a humorous endeavor.

Some of you may have heard about Republic Windows & Doors. For those who haven’t, here’s the short version:

Republic Windows and Doors went out of business, giving their employees only 3 days notice instead of the federally required 60 days. Then it came out that Bank of America, the great socialist institution known recently for getting a piece of the cushy federal bailout, told the company that they wouldn’t extend their credit so they could pay the workers the 60 days of wages plus back vacation and sick pay that was owed to them.

So the workers took over the factory and refused to leave until they got their pay. Yay! Workers of the world unite!

But now the state of Illinois is refusing to do business with Bank of America until the extend the credit and pay the workers. From Il governor:

On the one hand, powerful special interest get the money to bail them out, the banks, and yet the purpose of that money was supposed to be to provide a line of credit to businesses like this to keep workers working and keep people employed, and yet the Bank of America has yet to step up and say they’re going to be helpful to this company

Hey BofA- you fuckers! Please eat shit and die. And to the Republic workers, I am right there with ya.