I’m not one of those manufacturing workers in states like Ohio or Michigan that got their asses whupped by trade deals (mainly) and other factors (maybe some burdensome regulations), on edge of losing her job and her health care, but I can see the horizon of that sort of thing.

No, I’m not on the verge of losing my job, the last time I checked.  I’m in the popular credit card industry, but I’m getting paid a shitty wage of $8.50 an hour at full-time, which is somewhere below the federal poverty level of $20,800 if I were to go the whole year and collect $17,680 gross per year. (I know I’m living with my grandparents, but a job shouldn’t keep you in poverty.)

It’s just the credit card crunch, which I believe is part-personal responsibility, part-credit card companies gouging working people and their paychecks (but not as badly as the federal income tax, even though it’s progressive and I’m in the lower brackets).  Moving on, some people are using credit cards for their or their spouse’s health care, when they should be paying premiums for health insurance (or signing up for things like Medicare, whichever applies), even though health insurance companies are not that generous in my opinion.

(Just to let you know, my congressional district is a “red” one and the incumbent’s been there for more than a decade now, but my state’s “blue”.  I’m independent who is on the verge of siding with the Democrats, but they’ve been wimps recently — too many factors to determine how they got there.)

I’d change jobs, but it took me about 8-9 months to find my current job.  Plus, just about everything’s in retail and just about everything’s made in China.

However, it’s nearing tax season, and I just read an ad for Tax Preparer classes (e.g., the ones at H&R Block).  I’d have to change my schedule around to fit in 40 hours of work (and however many hours of class time so I can become a Tax Preparer); plus it’s snowing and road conditions are always shit until spring time comes to melt away some of the snow and ice. (Oh, and I got a few sheets of that ice storm, but not as badly as Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.)

Former U.S. Senator (and Senate Majority Leader, 1989-1995) George J. Mitchell (D-Maine, 1980-1995) held his press conference on the so-called Mitchell Report today. MSNBC decided to hold off a live showing of the last Democratic debates before the 2008 Iowa Caucus next month but did show it an hour later. CNN scrolled the names of the guilty who are raging with ‘roids. I didn’t watch much of Fox.

This whole baseball steroid scandal wasn’t about whether or not anybody was doing any juicing, since we heard the rumors and heard of a few guys. It was about who was doping and who wasn’t. It was also about what U.S. baseball can do in order to restore integrity to America’s national pastime — independent drug-testing (MLB commissioners and the baseball unions keeping their hands off of things; baseball players still keeping one hand on the cup, the other hand on a certain thing) and harsh penalties (just like the game and the Republicans’ favorite incarceration formula, Three Strikes and You’re Out!).

I would talk about the Democratic presidential debates, but to tell the truth, they didn’t generate as much interest as would a debate sponsored by one of what I like to call the Three Big Ones (Fox, MSNBC, and CNN). However, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson did get a question with regards to his stint as U.S. Secretary of Energy. Hillary Clinton needs to exercise, surprisingly according to her. (She also thought that studying math and science was a way to serve the country back when she was a little girl — this would’ve been during the 1950s. Perhaps if Bill had taken that route as a kid, he could have told the local boards that he already did his time for Uncle Sam.) No Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel — the moderator would rather say “Sheesh!” if somebody went over 30-seconds rather than blurt their names if either one of them went over the answer time frame. Barack Obama thinks the parents need to the first in line for their children’s education. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden were the 99%-substance, 1%-style Senators that they have always been for a few decades now.

I can be fair and balanced, you know. Even brief.

I’ve been gone a few days and managed to get about 20 hits.  I caught a rerun of the last GOP debate from PBS before the Iowa Caucus next year.  Bush vetoes S-CHIP 2007 (again) — I’m personally mixed on that program since it’s for children but it’s funded with a cigarette tax increase (which prompts the question, “What if people stop smoking?  How do we fund S-CHIP then?”), but it’s for children of working families who do pay taxes (where’s their tax cut, Mr. President?).

And there’s more craziness with Britney Spears and Drew Peterson, which I won’t go over since it’s tabloid junk.

I should insert this in, even though he was a wife-beater:

RIP Ike Turner, 1931-2007

The smaller-than-usual pink Christmas tree was on the sewing table,
For laying down presents which Santa would be able.

Just about everybody was in bed,
except for me, who was not in bed.

I don’t have much else to say, except,
“I will bring back some pictures for my co-workers to accept.”

And I will try to blog — if I have Internet access — for the next few days.  And if I don’t, I’ll just recap.

After that I went to the doctor to check up on blood testing and what I like to call discreet testing.  Nothing wrong…yet.  She also wants me to have Walgreens fax her regarding the refills on Buspirone and Trazodone.

I’m still thinking about how glad I am to get $2000 back into my checking account after I bought a white Ford Contour almost two months ago (yet I don’t have a driver’s license for it, but I’m thinking about acquiring one in the spring).

I have lots to do before I go to up north for a week at an indoor water park.

I got a few callers requesting that I put their names and addresses on the Do Not Mail list.  At least I tried to sell the products for which they received mail offers.

The part of the computer system that deals with break times and lunches shut down, so I had to time a break (10 minutes paid) or lunch (30 minutes unpaid) every two hours.  My shift was 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CST, I got off wonky at first, but I caught on around lunch time.

Then I got off for the last day of my work week before I gave myself a 9-day vacation that I had planned a few weeks in advance with some of my family.

And I’m about to hit the bed, not the ground.

I only have 8 and a 1/2 hours of taking calls tomorrow — 9 hours if I’m held over for an extra 30 minutes due to call volume.  I’m saying “hump day,” because that’s what my grandpa calls the hardest day in the work week, even though it’s tomorrow for me. (I work from Sunday to Thursday.)

I’ve been hearing about interest rates going up to about 30% because of credit scores.  I think we need to have a talk — a conference to see what consumers and lenders can do about this.

With the banking industry going crazy, I’m thinking about changing jobs but I’d wind up with a few dollars less per hour at a place like McDonald’s or Wal-Mart (unless they’re paying wages that I don’t know about).  Or I might try cold calling some places.

Right now, I’m just lucky to have a job.

I saw all three of them report that Iran halted its nuclear enrichment (or whatever the hell the Bush administration is calling it) program in 2003 when we went into Iraq.

That’s all I needed to know as proof that Iran’s not doing anything harmful (and no, I don’t count just mere enrichment of uranium or nuclear energy as harmful for energy purposes since even a country in the Persian Gulf has gotten onto this energy independence bandwagon — but if a country were to develop nuclear weapons, I would want to know whether or not it’s pointing them at us and what the President’s going to do about it).

Bush is still saying “they have nukes,” but the NIE’s saying “not back in 2003.”

Meanwhile, Nelson Muntz is saying, “Ha ha!”  And he’s laughing at the person who doesn’t have the “[National] Intelligence [Estimate]” or is just not believing the NIE report. (I don’t need to link the person’s name this time.)

To you, it’s me bitching.

To me, I see the beginning of one of two paths, death and depression or life and the pursuit of happiness.