Jade's Blog

Two more things have been going on recently that people are told benefits them, but in reality, it benefits businesses.

One of them is this new check rule. On Thursday nights, I go grocery shopping at Walmart (I know that's wrong, but the day I get rich I'm never going there again). I write a check because I know that at 7 am Friday morning my paycheck will be in my bank account. Well, I guess I can forget about doing that. Bush just passed some new rule where checks are run right then and there. In fact, I'm not sure that it's supposed to benefit the consumer at all, but it's to help out the business by making sure they don't get written bad checks. That's fine and dandy, but say that your checkbook gets stolen. This new rule makes it virtually impossible to stop fraud so the money is gone before you can even do anything about it.

The next one is this overtime rule. Sure it is now including a few people that weren't eligible before. Before, if you made less than $238 a week you were eligible, however, now it is expanded to those making less than $455 a week. Great unless you have two or more people working under you, your job requires creativity, of if you are a salesperson who has to travel and is away from your physical place of employment. If you are a doctor, teacher, or lawyer you also get no overtime pay. Decision-making administrative employees are also ineligible for overtime. People with computer related jobs are ineligible.

Thankfully, this new overtime rule doesn't affect me, but it effects everyone in my family including my boyfriend and his family. So now when my boyfriend is staying late at work for the third night in a row this week, he's doing it for free. When my dad or my boyfriend's dad puts in another 65 hour workweek, that's 25 hours he's not getting paid for.

I wish I could get as angry as I used to about these issues, but now I just get heartburn. If I don't get my way in November, I'm going to need some Xanax.

We had our first registration drive at the Garden, a gay bar downtown Des Moines. We got 14 people registered in two hours. Hopefully it wasn't just beginner's luck. We've got two more coming up this month and next month, one of them on September 11th. The day after my birthday! And that other thing. I probably shouldn't joke about that. It was a horrific day, but if the Republicans can capitalize on the sentiment of it why shouldn't the people who are working to make a difference be able to? I plan on going out full force on that day because those people died as the ignorace and arrogance of this administration.

We went to see John Edwards speak on Wednesday, July 14. I didn't get to see
him, though. We had our tickets and were in line and right after we
gave our tickets to the lady, security sent us to a different area.
When we got there, they sent us back to the original line. We then
heard them talking about opening up a line in that same area, so we
decided to stay there for when they opened up the line anyway. They
told us to move AGAIN, so we just went and sat in the grass in the
shade with a bunch of other people and had a pretty decent view.
Then Secret Service came over and told us we couldn't sit in the
grass. (I think they were just making up rules as they went along.)
The Secret Service guy tells us not to be mad at John Edwards, be mad
at the Secret Service. Then I decided to make the smartass
comment, "Yeah, GEORGE BUSH'S Secret Service!" which incites a mini
riot and I subsequently get kicked out. I did get quite a few
pamphlets handed out, so it wasn't a total bust.

Here's a picture of part of the crowd. Take this many people by about 10 and that's how many people were there.

Once in a while I pick up the Weekly World News at the grocery store while waiting in line. One time, I read that Osama isn't really the 6'5" giant people claim to be, he's actually a dwarf! This story was accompanied by a midget-sized Osama dancing a jig.

There is a lawyer in San Fransisco claiming that he has information that Osama actually died several years ago. It's not an entirely insane notion, I've read reports of Osama having been hooked up to dialysis for many years. Really, I'm just flabbergasted by this report.

I watched the Daily Show the night that Wolf was on and I was a bit taken back when Wolf just laughed and made the comment of making mistakes in regards to faulty intelligence. I make mistakes all the time, but people usually don't die as a result.

I really like this opinion about the religious right and public morality.

One last thing; DV should hook up with these guys!