…you can buy them here.
Signs of the times
Truly appalling trend, as described in today’s Wall Street Journal:
When a deputy sheriff came to his door with a court summons, George Kneifel, a retiree in Union Mills, Ind., was mystified. His former employer was suing him.
The employer, beverage-can maker Rexam Inc., had agreed in labor contracts to provide retirees with health-care coverage. But now the company was asking a federal judge to rule that it could reduce or eliminate the benefit.
Many companies have already cut back company-paid health-care coverage for retirees from their salaried staffs. But until recently, employers generally were barred from touching unionized retirees’ benefits because they are spelled out in labor contracts. Now, some are taking aggressive steps to pare those benefits as well, including going to court.
In the past two years, employers have sued union retirees across the country. In the suits, they ask judges to rule that no matter what labor contracts say, they have a right to change the benefits. Some companies also argue that contract references to “lifetime” coverage don’t mean the lifetime of the retirees, but the life of the labor contract. Since the contracts expired many years ago, the promises, they say, have expired too.
WTF?
Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, “The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.”
TCB
Now that the election’s over, I’m going to pull a couple of designs from the shop (this one and this one for sure, maybe a couple of others).
Other designs, unfortunately, are more timely than ever.
Also, while I’m on the subject of business — I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but the holidays aren’t too far away now, and if you’re thinking of ordering either the Sparky & Blinky ornaments from Great Lakes, or a signed print, you’d be very wise to do this sooner rather than later.
The “stolen” election
I’m with Atrios on this one:
…irregularities and questionable results are not necessarily “proof” of “fraud” and “proof” that the “election was stolen. ” If people want this issue to be taken seriously they need to stop thinking that any of the information floating around right now – and yes, I’ve seen it all multiple times – provides proof of any such thing. Yes, legitimate questions have been raised, but I fear people on “our side” have started to confuse the legitimate questions with the answers to those questions they’ve imagined. I’m fully ready to believe that everything was corrupt in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, but thinking and knowing are different things entirely.
The “stolen election” argument was a loser in 2000 when the election pretty clearly was stolen. Without a smoking gun, preferably with Karl Rove’s fingerprints on it, I just don’t think it’s going anywhere this year.
But if that smoking gun turns up, all bets are, of course, off.