LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

– Bumper sticker of the week: Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.

– Quote of the week: Now is not the time to raise taxes in Galesburg. Anyone proposing to do so is not in touch with reality, once again demonstrating that the city council and mental confusion seem to be synonyms. ThePeever.com

– The Fear—O—Meter: The new Homeland Security Department has taken no time at all to create fear and panic among the public. Mr. Ridge’s newly recruited "security experts" have come up with the Fear—O—Meter. Here’s how it presently looks:

Severe

High

Elevated

Guarded

Low

The arrow was recently raised from Elevated to High. I haven’t heard any sound reasons as to why they did so, other than to perhaps scare us into being hysterically patriotic. So now what are we suppose to do? Not go to the grocery store? Hide under the bed? Not take vacations? Buy more guns? Not go to work? The whole thing scares people, makes us more anxious, more angry. Helps us to condone war. Makes us forget about the tanked economy, the loss of our retirement funds, the growing national debt, the pathetic health care situation, rising unemployment, our lose of individual rights in the fascist Patriot Act. So I figure in the spirit of citizen (in)security, I would propose the Flub—A—Dub meter, designed to measure this administration’s incompetency:

Moron

Idiot

Stupid

Dumber

Dumb

Needless to say, our newest governmental bureaucracy, Homeland (In)security (I always thought Republicans hated evil bureaucracies), has risen to the level of Moronism in record time, proving it doesn’t take very much time at all for the dumb to get even dumber.

– Is just any old job good enough?: The answer is no. A $6.00 an hour job with no benefits, no health insurance, no guarantee of 40 hours, and no assurance that the job will even be there the next day, is not a living wage job, it is a screw job. Most of this cheap labor has to do with corporate greed, CEO‘s padding their paychecks off the backs of their workers, and stockholders who don’t care how their stocks go up, so long as they do. Our "economic development" people count these jobs as proof that their give—away programs to big business are an overwhelming success. Add it up. Even at 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, that’s a staggering $12,480. After federal tax, state tax, social security tax, you may be at about $9,500. God help you if you need to pay for health insurance. The whole thing is a rich mans set—up to get cheap labor. With inflation, the minimum wage should be at about $9 per hour. I’ll bet most businesses have adjusted the price of their products to take into account inflation? When you add it all up, it don’t.

– Is the weather a terrorist plot?: I believe cold weather is evil. The older I get, the more evil it seems. Some murderous heathen must be behind it. Cold weather is dangerous. You can get a cold. Or worse yet, pneumonia. A person can slip on the ice and break an arm or a leg. Or a butt. Shoveling snow is really dangerous, especially for men. The worst is trying to stay warm. Gas is double the price over last year. I guess we’re not collectively eating enough beans. Anyway, one more cold snap, and I think winter will be moving up from High to Severe on the Fear—O—Meter. I don’t think we can take any more chances. This weather situation is out of control. (News bulletin: Global warming may help this threat to subside in the relatively near future.)

– Repeat after me: You cannot kill your way to peace. You cannot kill your way to peace. You cannot ............