Thanks W!

Thanks to our recently retired president's failed economic policies, the company I work for had to resort to drastic measures today to try and stay in business for a little while longer. They called everyone into a meeting first thing this morning to announce that, starting Monday, they would be cutting everyone's pay by 20% across the board. The sad thing is, that was good news compared to how things could have gone. I just feel lucky to still have a job.

To make matters just slightly worse, I was on the phone with my parents tonight talking about all of this when my dad snarkily mentioned that Colorado just passed a "card carry" bill that makes it easier to unionize and that perhaps that would be my salvation. Is there a reason why he felt the need to inject politics into a conversation like that? Perhaps I'm guilty of the same thing with this post; then again I'm not speaking to my daughter who just lost a fifth of her pay and is feeling pretty shitty about the world.

Anyone who still wants to claim that the republican party is pro-business must be mentally challenged. If you can look around at the ruin of 8 years of Bush rule and feel good about republican economic policy, there's probably no hope that you'll ever view our world in a rational way.

More BS here in Colorado

Yesterday it was an article in the Boulder Daily Camera...in the grand scheme of things, not that big of a deal, just some shoddy reporting.

Today, we have a state senator making lunatic statements on the floor of the senate regarding a bill that would extend insurance coverage to domestic partners who work for the state. Here's the audio:



I have a couple of things to say about this:

1. This asshole represents the district (Greeley) in which Angie Zapata lived and was murdered for being trans. It puts his quote from Leviticus about how homosexuals should be put to death into perspective.

2. He claims to represent the will of Colorado voters in his dissent, citing the passage of a marriage ban two years ago. He's a lawmaker, so I'd think he knows better but passing a law saying that marriage is only between one man and one woman does not mean that voters think that LGBT people should not have any rights - just not THAT particular one they voted on.

2.1 Further, isn't the argument of the religious right against gay marriage that "marriage" is sacred and should be protected from being redefined by the homos and their supporters? When we're in the middle of those fights, they always say that it's not about civil rights and that they'd be fine with something less like civil unions or domestic partnerships. Then, when the law passes, they use that vote as an argument against anything resembling civil unions or domestic partnerships. Hell, even just extending employer benefits to unmarried partners, gay or straight.

I'm so fucking sick of hearing our elected representatives use religion as the basis of their arguments. They want to bleat on and on about how their free speech rights as bigoted pricks are in danger from the left while at the same time ignoring the part of the first amendment related to the separation of church and state.

I guess you need to be selective in your reading if you're going to stand on the senate floor in mixed-fiber clothes with a shaved face - both prohibited in Leviticus - and argue for strict adherence to the same passage, but only this part that supports your homophobia.

My dad is starting to worry me

I went out to dinner last night with my family to celebrate my mom's birthday. Of course, you wouldn't know that her birthday was the reason we were having dinner together since she was basically ignored while my dad decided to start ranting about politics, the economy, and whatever other horseshit is being pushed into his head by the right-wing pundits he can never get enough of on TV, the radio, the internet, or in books. When most people retire, they take up hobbies like woodworking, fishing, or traveling. I guess my dad has settled on immersing himself in right-wing battshittery as his.

At one point, he mentioned that he likes to occasionally tune into liberal radio to see what "the other side" is saying. He couldn't listen for very long though, he said, because all he ever hears on Air America are "conspiracy theories". Not five minutes after that, he went on a diatribe about how America was coming to an end, he wanted to move to Costa Rica or Panama, was going to invest all of his money in gold, and wanted to get a concealed-carry permit. This was all supported, of course, by "facts" about how Obama was going to do the country in through "insane" programs like spending on rebuilding our infrastructure.

I really worry about our relationship sometimes. I usually just roll my eyes or occasionally argue with him about this stuff, but political disagreement is usually all it is. When he starts talking about making major decisions like moving out of the country, I'm not sure what to think. At what point do I - his bi, liberal, tranny daughter - become the enemy?