For the last decade, Ron Temple has loaded and unloaded bags for United Airlines in Denver, earning more than $20 an hour, plus generous health and flight benefits. On July 6, as management grappled with the rising cost of fuel, Mr. Temple and 150 other people in Denver were offered an unpalatable set of options: they could transfer to another city, go on furlough without pay and hope to be rehired, or stay on at reduced hours.

Mr. Temple and his wife say they cannot envision living outside Colorado, and they probably could not sell their house. Similar homes are now selling for about $180,000, while they owe the bank $203,000.

So Mr. Temple took the third option. He reluctantly traded in his old shift — 3 p.m. to midnight — for a shorter stint from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. He gave up benefits like paid lunches and overtime. His take-home pay shrunk to $570 every two weeks from about $1,350, he said.

Mr. Temple’s wife, Ali, works as an aide at a cancer clinic, bringing home nearly $1,000 every two weeks, he said. But collectively, they earn less than half of what they did.

Suddenly, they are having trouble making their $1,753 monthly mortgage payment, he said. They are relying on credit cards to pay the bills, running up balances of $2,700 so far. Gone are their dinners at the Outback Steakhouse. Mr. Temple recently bought cheap, generic groceries from a church that sells them to people in need.

The problem is that their debt-to-income ratio before the cutback was already nearly 40% on just their mortgage alone. It should be 40% for all monthly "debts", including other debts, groceries, utilities, eating out, car payments, etc, making their financial situation precarious even before the cutback.

-janelane, homeowner

A Hidden Toll on Employment - Cut to Part Time - NYTimes.com

In our continuing saga entitled "It Depends on Who You Ask", 10 things not to worry about, including several related to the environment and this gem.

10. Unmarked wormholes. Could your vacation be interrupted by a sudden plunge into a wormhole? From my limited analysis of space-time theory and the movie “Jumper,” I would have to say that the possibility cannot be eliminated. I would also concede that if the wormhole led to an alternate universe, there’s a good chance your luggage would be lost in transit.

Unless you live like this guy, you'll just have to pick your battles.

-janelane, plastic bags - no, AC - yes, homegrown food - no, swimming with sharks - yes.

Findings - 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was charged Tuesday with making false statements after a wide-ranging probe into ties between an energy company and lawmakers in his home state, according to a federal indictment.

Hey, look! Mr. Bridge to Nowhere is back in the news again. What a sonofabitch that guy is.

-janelane, word to your mother

Grand jury indicts Alaska senator - CNN.com

GM unveils 'fuel-sipping' Camaro

I don't consider 26 mpg highway for a V-6 exactly fuel-sipping, but the new bad ass design certainly doesn't conjure the "poor man's Corvette" in describing it.

-janelane

GM unveils 'fuel-sipping' Camaro - 2010 Chevrolet Camaro (1) - CNNMoney.com

As no repairs have been carried out for 34 years, all of the buildings are slowly falling apart. Nature is reclaiming the area, as metal corrodes, windows break, and plants work their roots into the walls and pavements.

Fascinating! Interesting that people will loot even under the threat of nuclear contamination.

Reminds me of two great books on the subject. :-)

-janelane

10 Most Amazing Ghost Towns

flynn23 wrote:
If you really want to support animals, boycott factory farming and genetic engineering of natural foods. Boycott vivisection and unnecessary testing on animals. And support proper hunting and game reserves that allow people to participate in the food cycle.

Shannon's right as well, but I have to recommend this succinct retort to PETA's fanticism. Their extremist views turn people off from the real issues stated above.

-janelane, animal AND meat lover

RE: PETA: Ingrid Newkirk s Unique Will

The Bush administration’s plan to rescue the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies ran into sharp criticism in Congress on Tuesday as some lawmakers questioned the open-ended request for money that could be used to help the companies.

No. More. Blank. Checks. We've seen what Bush did with the last one.

-janelane

Opposition, From Both Parties, Over Bailout Plan - NYTimes.com

A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details progress toward its Healthy People 2010 goal of delivering optimally fluoridated water to 75 percent of the US population.

In 2006, that goal (defined as 0.7–1.2 mg/L) had been achieved for 69.6 percent of the population, an increase from 62.1 percent in 1992 and from 65 percent in 2000. By 2006, about half the states had reached the 75 percent target.

Some states are still drastically behind the curve on fluoridated public water.

CDC reports on fluoridation - MainStream - Publications - AWWA

Excellent article. Though, of course, the author is biased against "eviscerat[ing] [the] 4th amendment."

More good stuff:

On the face of it, this new loophole might not seem to be such a big problem, barring the facts of a) retroactive telecom immunity and b) the implication that Bush will never be held accountable for numerous felonies. Unfortunately, it also really is, as far as I can tell, a back door to greatly expanded wiretapping powers. Beyond the obvious fact that it requires only certification and loose judicial review rather than a warrant, it does so in the following way:

1. It Eliminates the requirement that there be probable cause that a foreign target is a suspect of any kind — terrorist, criminal, ore “foreign agent.” They merely need be your French grandmother, as long as they are outside the United States and not a U.S. person, and if the government says wiretapping them is for the purpose of collecting “foreign intelligence information” (e.g., her Pommes Frites recipe)

2. It requires the cooperation of telecoms in these efforts

3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped

4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the issue. The point is to use telecom cooperation to target large collections of data on communications between U.S. Persons and foreigners. This implies data mining — where, for instance, because a foreign target has communications passing through a given domestic switch, any communications (domestic or international) passing through that switch are subject to collection, analysis, and storage. There are “minimization requirements” meant to ameliorate this, but it is unclear if they really help.

5. The compromise of domestic communications in (4) is exacerbated by the fact that targets need only be “reasonably believed” to be outside the U.S.

6. It includes only minimal court oversight — who it is that is subject to warrantless wiretapping will not be know to the FISA court; the government can wiretap before it court order is sought and continue to do so even if it is denied — during a lengthy appeal process.

-janelane

Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide

The Federal Reserve unanimously approved new mortgage lending rules Monday in a crackdown on shady practices - particularly subprime loans made to borrowers with weak credit.

About fucking time! Where the hell have they been the last 5 years?

Also, a big F-U to Congress for stalling the homeowner foreclosure aid bill. Not that I agree with bailing people out, but it has taken them 10 times longer to do anything about the homeowners' woes than Wall Street banks'.

That anyone could even THINK about putting another Republican in the executive office is beyond me. We'll be trying to recover ground lost in the last eight years well into the next eighty!

-janelane, "won't someone think of the children"

Fed unveils new rules aimed at curbing shady home loans - Jul. 14, 2008