Thursday, January 28, 2016

Billy Connolly screw it - let's get on with it

I always liked Billy Connolly, he is funny as shit! https://vimeo.com/24340828
And in life it is good to not take things so serious as life does not play fair.

~~~~~Billy Connolly says he's not scared of death and refuses to let
Parkinson's disease get him down
Comedian Billy Connolly ​defiantly refuses to let his battle with Parkinson’s
disease get him down and he insists he isn’t afraid of dying.

The Big Yin, 72, who was diagnosed with the degenerative brain condition,
prostate cancer and had two hearing aids fitted in the same week in 2012, said:
“I am doing as well as can be expected. Some people get grim, but I do not.

“Funny doesn’t go away it just changes slightly, maybe some people get grim but
I don’t. I think it is an attitude you say screw it, let’s get on with it.

“You cannot sit at home wondering about your symptoms. It is not going to go away."
During a radio interview ahead of his Canadian tour, Billy added: “It has never crossed
my mind that I am gonna die. What is dying anyway? It is just a light going out?”

The star, married to psychologist Pamela Stephenson, was given the all-clear from
cancer last October. Complications during surgery to remove his prostate left him
with a life-threatening blood clot.

Most recently Parkinson’s has robbed him of being able to play his beloved banjo
as it makes his hands shake uncontrollably.

And the condition is also a cruel daily reminder of his old pal Robin Williams ,
diagnosed with it just before he committed suicide.

Billy said: “It depressed me terribly. You don’t find a way out of it.
You find a place to put it where you can access when you want it.
Like your mother or father’s death you never get over it, you just find
a place to put it.”

Billy said he and Robin were livid at being diagnosed. “We were both angry
about things,” he added. “For instance the guy who gave me the final diagnosis that
I had Parkinson’s said it was incurable. Now I think that is terrible; he should have
said we have yet to find a cure...leave me a little light on in the corner
for Christ’s sake.”

But Billy, who has also appeared in scores of Hollywood films, added:
“A lot of comedians whine and moan too much.
The whining is overwhelming and deafening sometimes shut up and laugh.

“From an early age I wanted to be a comic and went to theaters.
It has its own particular magic and the comedian was always the highlight for me.
And I always wanted to be one. It was better than a knife thrower or juggler.”

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Effervescent, Nothingness

With me I tend to be a open book. I learned from my past when
I was a kid looking at the now. I was upset over temporary issues.
Would it matter a year from now? Mostly no!
There is gold and fools gold you need to know what is what and
get the gold!

Love is better than that hate! To say I love ya no matter what you are!
Really does have meaning! Accepting people for what they are = gold!

Issues many have today is just like effervescent nothingness and
those issues will go away and you will learn nothing last forever
as those issues where effervescent crap and you went looking for
higher things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqnVhCADFHY

Stuck in your effervescent crap? Whatever, like let it go and stuff!
Would it matter a year from now? Being stuck would be like crying
over spilt milk. Or shoplifting at the Dollar tree! Just know like seeing stolen stuff
at the Dollar tree I will be slapping my chest at you! "Tardy, Tardy, slap, slap, slap!"
as you might go to jail for shoplifting at the Dollar tree and get that other
slap, slap, slap no one wants!

Whats the point? Stop fighting each other and just accept people for what they are!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Walmart increasing wages on FEB 20th.

Walmart is raising the wages and that is good as better pay brings better sales and
is better than having low pay and non sales shutting down businesses.
Consumers make jobs! Can't pay your workers with no sales in your store!

This is good and should ease the food stamp use and help in paying for
insurance in states that have no medicaid expansion to help the poor pay for it.
Higher pay is more going into Social Security and to the state.
Being Oklahoma and many get their funding with sales tax, and taxes.
Not on gas prices! You drive to the store using $2 worth of gas to get
$100 of food etc at Walmart what makes the state more money DUR!
This helps.

So getting better pay is a good thing unless you like doing without!
On the other hand Walmart and other places know the pay does have to go up.
Being the wages need to be up with inflation or it will be lower than inflation 
bringing down sales an all other markets. Walmarts have mostly fought any 
wage growth. If you did get a raise it was only $0.10 at the most. 
That being, the lower pay is more for the tax payers to pay for the workers that 
do not get any bump in pay. But now with most states with workers below their 
purchasing power in what they can buy is forcing the hand. 
Low pay = low taxes from the pay.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades

Walmart cutting the workers hours finding the workers quitting for a better job.
Causing a massive cost to rehire, training the workers if they can pass the
background check. I am talking at about 1000+ of bad workers to get 
2 or 3 workers added then to the turnover of those 2 or 3 workers.
At the Walmart I worked at there was a song many long-timers went by
"Another one bites the dust!" as in they get their first paycheck then they are gone
or got tired of the bad jacks and workload.

Walmart raising the pay is good and for unions if Walmart tries to lower the pay
cut hours being the days today I expect a big battle also from the consumers.
Shoppers also don't like how Walmart is treating the workers but shop there to
keep money going to keep the workers. Yin and Yang!

So the workers need to take the better pay but be alert. If your hours are cut
contact the NLRB in DC not the one in your state and let them know.
The NLRB is on alert with Walmart so keep in touch!

~~~~~Walmart increasing wages; union says it's all show
Starting February 20, every Walmart and Sam's Club employee hired before
January 1, 2016, will earn at least $10 per hour, the company announced Wednesday.

It will be the second round of pay increases, part of a plan to boost wages that
Walmart first announced last year.

The first round came last April. It increased the pay of 500,000 Walmart workers
to at least $9 per hour. After that took effect, Walmart said its average hourly rates
were "about" $13 for full-time employees and $10 for part-time.

The company said Wednesday that the second round of wage hikes in February
will bring the average hourly wage to $13.38 for full-time workers and
$10.58 per hour for part-timers. Walmart (WMT) does not release data about how
many full- or part-time workers it employs in the U.S., but the company said in a
statement that it converted about 150,000 employees from part-time to full-time
status last year.

The group behind Making a Change at Walmart a longstanding campaign for better
employment terms said the pay raises are nothing but a publicity stunt.

"It's easier to find a unicorn than a Walmart worker who has gotten a meaningful raise,
or hasn't had their hours cut," United Food & Commercial Workers Union
spokeswoman Jessica Levin said via email. "America's hard-working families expect
better from a company that makes billions in profit a year."

The organization, along with a coalition of employees called OUR Walmart, have
lobbied the company for a "living wage" of at least $15 an hour.

Related: Walmart will close 269 worldwide, affecting 16,000 workers
The news comes just five days after Walmart announced that it's shutting down 154
of its U.S. locations. That affects 10,000 workers who will either be laid off or
relocated to a different store.

Like most retailers, Walmart suffered in 2015. Its share price dropped 30% over
the course of the year. When the company issued its latest earnings report in October,
CFO Charles Holley said workforce investments like increasing paychecks will put a
dent in its bottom line. Walmart expects operating profits to decrease by $1.5 billion in
its fiscal year ending January 2017.

***Note Better pay is better sales going into Walmart! They get the money back!

Monday, January 18, 2016

RIP a tribute to my 2003 Mazda Protege

One of the cars I had for the longest time. During the crash of the housing crisis and
gas being up to $4 a gal. The car that I MADMAXED and got it up to 152 MPH once.
And can backfire on demand. Has 140,000 miles on it with plastic parts epoxied,
no inside door handles and has only two working gears with the sound of a V8 and
thought it was a Lotus Omega had died.


Well it only needs a new starter, or not the engine is like locked up,
but being the condition it is in it's time to move on.
This is a tribute to my old car it got me far!
https://dugbugoffice.blogspot.com/2018/12/cars.html

Friday, January 15, 2016

Hairball

Being it's one of those things like at my workplace I seen the biggest hairball
on the floor I ever seen. (Hair from a brush) It's not what you think it is, but still it's
too much for me to not put eyes on it!

This is more of a tribute to it.. out of respect for the size.. of it!
But I hope this story helps people there to lighten up!
Y'all don't need to be running in the halls, fighting etc!

I think the thing roams in the hallways anyway, same as...


Make eyes move at:
http://makemegoogly.com/QUZ7U

Walmart closing stores and a sign of shrinking pay

Walmart is closing 269 of their stores and only six of them are in
Oklahoma out in the woods. This is like how Walmart killed your downtown
but this time its a bigger Walmart killing a small Walmart. But why?

"The company said the stores it plans to close are generally poor performers, and most
are within 10 miles of another Walmart. 154 of the locations are in the United States,
two-thirds of which are the smaller "Walmart Express" stores.
Only 12 U.S. Walmart Supercenters will close, along with four Sam's Club stores."

"Yet Walmart says it will continue with its plans to open 300 new stores around the world
later this year and 2017, including up to 60 new U.S. Supercenters and
10 new Sam's Club stores."

"The company aims to place those associates in nearby Walmarts.
But when that's not possible, Walmart said it will provide the laid-off associates
with 60 days worth of pay as well as resume and interview skills training."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/15/news/companies/walmart-store-closings/index.html

Six of the Walmarts are closing in Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma stores slated for closures are:
#4633: 19250 E Hwy 66, Luther, OK
#3756: 124 E. Columbia St., Okemah, OK
#2456: 2310 West Main, Prague, OK
#2462: 1600 West Hwy 66, Stroud, OK
#3767: 812 N Clarence Nash Blvd., Watonga, OK
#3766: 2324 Seran Drive, Wewoka, OK
The Oklahoma stores are scheduled to close on Jan. 28.
http://newsok.com/six-oklahoma-walmarts-to-close/article/5472745

Those towns are out in the woods when looked at.
When you see the view of supply and demand vs low pay so there is not
much demand being from being, things kind of get bad.

The Walmart stores closing in Oklahoma is just a sign of small town wages
and the poor taking it all down with them. And I need to note to workers out there
if your workplace is shrinking with no consumers go find another job don't just
sit there get ahead and get a job fast!

I would say this is a sign of slow wage growth. The income sets the market and
if the pay is low then the market is low!

The wages do need to go up for sales and growth! The poor have no savings and
if you throw money at the poor they will throw it back to the businesses,
making more sales and more sales tax for the town a long with more money going
into Social Security and the state etc.

Why let the poor bring everything down with them, raise the pay now it will have
to be raised anyway down the road!

Thursday, January 14, 2016

David Bowie full of color and will be a light missed

With David Bowie's death shows he is missed by many.
His life was full of color and will be a light missed.
I give full respect to the family and also have to point in the
color in his life and the willingness to go beyond the normality
that did help us get out of our dark thinking.

As in my favorite song from him "Let's Dance."
The red shoes mentioned in the song's lyrics appear in several contexts.
Bowie described this video (and the video for his subsequent single, "China Girl")
as "very simple, very direct" statements against racism and oppression.

David will be missed for his work within his works!

Monday, January 11, 2016

Wage Calculator and EEK, EEK, EEK

To me it gets funny when I look at my pay well about the math of it.
Oklahoma has a tax rev failure and well it's a duh when you look at peoples pay!
As in taking what you make an hour after taxes being that is what you live on and
dividing it by 60 then hit and miss till you see how long it takes you to make $1.
It's in about 8+ min for most in my town.

At Walmart I took my wages per hour then I divided it the LBS I was working.
It was like $0.0007 a pound. And to do a pallet in 45 min came to be a 100 LBS
per min load because it took you 10 min to take the pallet from the back storeroom
to the aisle then another 10 going back because you have a bad jack "eek, eek, eek!"
Having only 25 min to do the 2500 LBS pallet.

Workload and the pay is all related and if you want to know what you need to be making
to be normal! Like to buy a car without them saying "Sorry your income is too low!"
making you walk without a car then go look up the info.

And know your pay is bringing down the state from the non sales the poor has power!
And also know if you get a good paying job it is just temporary like in my town.
You work six months then they get rid of you to not pay full benefits.
So keep that in mind and don't get a new car you will be stuck with the
payments after!

http://livingwage.mit.edu

Friday, January 8, 2016

Oklahoma schools hell in a hand basket

If you go to hell in a hand basket might as well hang on to the handle for the ride!
Oklahoma will have to raise the wages sometime to make more sales come in.
No part time fixes! Raise taxes to get more funding is good but you are taxing
the people out with the same low pay they get so it is not a stable option.
Raise the pay!

Note though raising wages supports spending from those higher wages.
Not the live with no AC or heat on and buy nothing high dollar.
"If they wanted me to buy something then they would of payed me better."
Cant buy anything anyway they keep telling me "Sorry your income is too low!"

But really in Oklahoma there is a massive funding cut for schools.
And points to the need to raise pay to push up the funding.
In cutting you get what you pay for. I expect more discrimination, retaliation
etc from the lower funding as would be the norm as the lack of funding makes
some districts go more renegade in going with their own rules to survive.

~~State Board of Education members voted unanimously to approve a $46.7 million
funding cut for the fiscal year ending June 30, including a $25 million reduction in
funding that goes to schools. The board made 3 percent cuts to several accounts but
made a 6.6 percent cut in the public school activities account to cushion the blow to
local districts.

Last month, state finance officials declared a revenue failure and said monthly general
revenue allocations to state agencies will be cut 3 percent for the next six months to
make up for a projected $157 million shortfall. Rather than impose across-the-board
cuts to schools, Hofmeister said the revised budget imposes steeper cuts to specific
programs in order to cushion the reduction in funding that goes to schools through the
per-student formula.

Deeper cuts were implemented for advanced placement teacher training and test-fee
assistance (55 percent reduction), staff development for schools (50 percent) and
school lunch matching funds (30 percent). Money for Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math, or STEM, education initiatives was completely eliminated.

Matt Holder, the department's chief operating officer, said districts that rely on the state
for the bulk of their funding and have depleted reserves will “definitely be hit much harder
by the reductions.” “We do have districts out there that have very low cash fund balances,
and if they don't make some difficult decisions, yes, they will be closing their doors,”
Holder told the board. “The exact number of what that actually looks like we can't tell
you at this point in time, but we can definitely tell you there are districts out there hurting
really badly right now.”

Oklahoma City School Board member Phil Horning was among those who attended
Thursday's special meeting.

“There's going to be some significant cuts,” Horning said. “This board tried to give some
flexibility to the local boards, and that's a plus.”

While the latest budget cuts will be troublesome for many state agencies, including the
Oklahoma Health Care Authority and the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education,
the situation is expected to become much more difficult in the fiscal year that begins in July.

State officials already are projecting the state will have at least $900 million less to spend
in the coming fiscal year, which is about 12.9 percent less than was allocated for the
current year.

“This is a financially challenging time for schools, and the need for a long-term funding
plan for public education has never been more obvious,” said Shawn Hime, executive
director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. “We look forward to continuing
to work with leaders at the Education Department and at the Capitol to make sure schools
have the resources they need to provide all students the high-quality education
they deserve.”
http://newsok.com/midyear-budget-cuts-could-force-some-oklahoma-school-districts-to-close/article/5471266

"The high-quality education  they deserve." tends to not be there with cuts.
You get what you pay for and is why people want their kid to go to Harvard and not
a JR college!

~~The annual Quality Counts report released Thursday by Education Week shows
Oklahoma public school students performed poorly compared with most states in
K-12 achievement, per-pupil spending and student chances for academic and
career success.

Oklahoma ranked 46th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia with an overall
score of 68.2 out of 100 points and received a grade of D-plus, according to the report,
which tracks key education indicators and grades states on their performance and
outcomes.

State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the report did not come as a surprise.
“We will not see anything different until we do something different,” Hofmeister said.
“The Quality Counts report is a stark reminder that we cannot progress in education
without a full commitment to a better plan and the resources to execute it.

“We need to connect and empower the best parts of our education system to reach the
full promise and potential of Oklahoma schoolchildren.”

The average grade among states was a C. Oklahoma received a D for K-12 achievement
and a D for school finance the state spends about $3,000 less per student than the
national average. Oklahoma scored a C in the chance for success category, which shows
40.5 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool and 33 percent of adults
have a 2- or 4-year college degree.
http://newsok.com/report-gives-oklahoma-students-low-marks/article/5471152

There are options of working at places that hire without a college degree.
Google and etc. It's just a matter of calling those places and finding out.
Or going to a JR college more to pick up on the parts you missed from high school.
In that might be a cost but might not depending upon funding programs.
Those places know and plan about Oklahoma being stupid so there are options
out for the kids. Don't worry about that!

Oklahoma's tax cuts also are shown more I do believe the more crime that
all towns are getting is from the lack of support and wage growth.
It pushes the need to survive so the crime goes up.

I would advise the State that there should be NO cuts to the food stamps
program! As the result would be MADMAX as noted by the recent crimes
in many towns. And shows the part of going to hell in a basket!

In the end the wages does need to be raised.
Right now it's like burning down the weeds to make room for the grass
to grow. The weeds being the stupid people wanting low taxes with the taxes
helping paying many's living, so they don't live making others don't live also!

There will be a change sometime hang on!
I need to say that there will be some hand forced so there will be funding.
The State will use it's rainy day fund to cover some loss and or corporations
will invest to keep Oklahoma's kids qualified for the jobs they will be seeking.
No corporation wants a trailer park full of job applicants from Oklahoma!
Or if no course the Government will bail us out being they do not want a state
holding back growth overall!

But in the long term the wages do need to go up!

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Those guns and people's constitutional rights.

Being the good effort on the paranoid Republicans side about controlling who
gets guns. It's a good point to note about something like a license to drive
a car is kept on a database and if you are bad with a car you won't be able to
drive one. Noted like why kids don't drive cars! And if there is enough on purpose
crashing into people with cars the Government of course will step in being the state
is not keeping it's people safe!

Also the lack of effort is no surprise being the backward thinking wanting us to
go to the western days. Well you can't charge your phone on a horse or run APP's.
It's noted as in they don't want progress and the want to go back, backward thinking!
But more it's driven by paranoia!

Many in the upper North West kind of worry about the melisha popping out
of the woods having a redneck rampage... Oh yes they have already!
"Armed group's leader in federal building: 'We will be here as long as it takes.'"
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/03/us/oregon-wildlife-refuge-protest/index.html

To... get ran over in progress! I have to note the federal building is my building also
it's from the people for the people! And taking over the building shows a clear
lack of education reflecting such actions as not understanding it's the peoples building!
And as all noted you have to be fucked up in the head to live in the woods
with guns and guns and guns and cry about their constitutional rights.
In the same manner as a bad driver wanting to drive his car with no license
or any kept record of who drives that car! Like taking over the DMV in a protest!

Guns and more guns why have everyone go back to the western days
to protect themselves from something they caused by keeping the pay low
so the poor would have to steal to live? Making more paranoid people get guns.
It will be a conservatard nation! As in hearing a shootout in the street and in the morning
you find a dead beaver and a banjo in the street not knowing why.
It was only a concern to them, to everyone else? A whatever!

"Obama has repeatedly expressed his frustration with Congress' inability to pass new
gun laws, and has frequently spoken out about increased gun control in the wake
of mass shootings."

Well they don't want progress and many people do thinking ahead.
It's best to get a grip on the guns not add more guns!
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/03/politics/barack-obama-guns-town-hall 

And also true do you have the constitutional right to pull others down to your level?
Like to take us to the western days and noted why more people don't take horses
on the highway! We are not going back to the western days we move ahead as
nothing stays the same!

"If guns don't kill people... Why do we give people guns when they go to war?
Why not just send the people?" Ozzy!