War on Christmas!

This Christmas the folks at Fox News have been at it, as if they ever aren’t at it.  What are they at?

That’s right!  Atheists, Agnostics, Muslims, Jews, and Pastafarians beware, Fox News is on to your schemes.

Thanks to extremist action like dubbing seasonally decorated pine trees ‘Holiday Trees’, or erecting a Festivus pole (that sounds a lot dirtier when you read it out of context), to saying “Happy Holidays” at a store instead of “Merry Christmas”.

For those of who are new to the site (welcome newbies!) you might not be aware that I’m not a particularly religious fellow.  You might also be unaware that I am vehemently against the way Republicans have been steadily transforming the nation I once loved into a theocracy, and the way Democrats have just rolled right along with them.

If you’re not new around here, you know my political views are best summarized in this quote by me (you also know I find it slightly abhorrent to quote oneself, so shush!): “The only thing worse than a Republican is a Democrat.  A Republican walks out and says, ‘You’re not a religiously Christian, white, straight, wealthy man?  Well I’m about to screw you over.’  Then he does as promised.  A Democrat walks out and says, ‘You’re not a wealthy, white, religiously Christian, straight man?  Well I’m totally gonna fight for you.’  Then the Democrat does the same thing the Republican did.”

Republicans are all about screwing over the majority of the country; the Democrats are all about hypocrisy.  Welcome to America, folks.

But I have to say that the War on Christmas discussion does bring up valid points, at a ratio of about 1 to 100,000.  Now each of these valid points does have a caveat I must mention.  So here’s my list of Top 5 Valid Points Made by the War on Christmas Idiots.

Hrmm…that’s kind of a very prejudiced title.  Maybe this instead…

Top 5 Valid Points Made by the War on Christmas Argument

Eh, what the hell, works for me.

Point Number 1!

If you’re not Christian and somebody wishes you a Merry Christmas, get off your high horse and just say thank you.  I’m a night owl, I don’t often wake up before the sun rises; more often than not I go to bed as it’s rising (I work evening shifts).  But if someone tells me, ‘Have a Good Day!’ I don’t snap at them say, “I live during the night, I don’t celebrate days!”

So just shut the fuck up and thank them for at least giving a shit about your existence during their holiday season.

Caveat: The first amendment says that the Government will not pick one religion over another.  Therefore we should not have any religious holidays officially recognized by the government.  Christmas should not be a federal holiday.  Now if you want to make a federal holiday in December and call it Winter Holiday, or Solstice Day, or something like that, perfectly fine.  And if a store wants to have a big sale during the Solstice Day season and call it a Christmas Sale, that’s fantastic it’s a private organization, go for it.  Hell stores have Christmas in July sales why not Christmas in December sales, too?  Sure, I’m all for it.  But if the government calls it Christmas, I better get my mail delivered that day.  The Post Office should be open on Easter (well, Good Friday, no mail on Sundays anyway), Christmas, and any other religious holiday.  Thanksgiving I’m okay with, because it just has a semi-religious name.  The actual holiday celebrates a time when a bunch of pioneers got together with the poor bastards they were about to conquer to share food and shelter and give thanks to their chosen deities for being the few survivors to live through the diseases, attacks, cold, and starvation that had killed off so many of their friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Point Number 2!

If you put up a tree…it’s a fucking Christmas Tree!  Don’t call it a Holiday Tree you hypocritical idiot!  If you’re decorating a pine tree with garland and calling it a Holiday Tree because you came from a religious background and you’re just following family tradition, even though you’re Agnostic…you’re an idiot; you’re decorating a Denial Tree is what you’re doing.

Now if you’re calling your garland and ornament covered tree a Holiday Tree because you’re fanatically Christian and you believe that a tree and an old man in a red suit have nothing to do with Christ’s birth, then have at, you are the 1% of Holiday Tree-ers who have a valid excuse!

We don’t put up Menorahs and call them Holiday Candles, we don’t create an Eidgah for Eid-al-Adha and call it Holiday Prayer Field, so why do we put Christmas Trees up and call them Holiday Trees?

It’s stupid is what it is.

Caveat: No government entity should ever, ever erect either a Christmas Tree or a Holiday Tree in the U.S.  I loathe and detest the White House Christmas Tree, because my tax dollars are spent on putting up a religious symbol.  If the President wants to put up a Christmas Tree with his own money, then have at, Hoss.  But stop using my tax dollars to fund your religious celebrations!

One of my coworkers, a Christian, argued that it was a very small amount of money from the nation’s tax income that went to the tree and the celebrations around it.

I presented this scenario: We elect a Jewish president and he uses your tax dollars to put up a 40-foot tall Menorah.  Now how do you feel?

How about this one, we elect a legit Muslim president (Obama doesn’t count, because he’s a fucking Protestant!!) and he puts a giant Crescent Moon, fifty feet tall, in the White House Greens.

What if we elect a President who follows the Norse traditions and he slaughters an ox on the White House lawn?  Your tax dollars funded that ox, that knife, and the whole pagan practice.

That kind of shut him up and he nodded and said, “Okay I see your point.”

So stop using my non-Christian tax money to fund your Christmas Trees, Obama!

Obama, I am disappoint.

Point Number 3!

I heard on Fox News (because it’s the only channel they let us watch in the Lobby now! GAHHH!!  Just condemn me to hell already, it can’t be worse than this!) that Festivus Poles are going up in governmental areas.  This is because governmental organizations like state senates and community councils got tired of getting sued by the ACLU and Atheist organizations for using our tax dollars to put up nativity scenes; or even just allowing nativity scenes on government property.

So now they either have to allow just about anything or allow nothing.  Personally I’m in favor of the latter, but I guess including everyone works, too.

So a Festivus Pole is basically, in most of these cases, a long stack of beer cans (Pabst Blue Ribbon seems to be the norm) to celebrate the holiday invented by George Costanza’s father on the show Seinfield.  “Festivus for the Rest of Us!”

I find this hilarious, but Christian fanatics are pissed because Festivus is a made up holiday.  Which is true, Festivus was invented in the 1990s as a joke for a sitcom.

Caveat: Aaand…Christmas was a holiday created by the Roman Empire to validate still celebrating Saturnalia, a date in late December where they celebrated Sol Invictus the “Birth of the Unconquerable Sun” that is celebrated by role reversal among wealthy classes and slaves, the giving of gifts, and maybe even some gay orgies.

Just like how Hanukkah is also an invented holiday, invented by a bunch of Jews who wanted to celebrate an even that occurred during the Maccabean Revolt.  Just like how Memorial Day is an invented holiday to commemorate soldiers who died in the service of the country, invented by American citizens to honor their war dead (actually it was originally invented by the British as Armistice Day, if I recall my holiday history).

All holidays are made up.  The bible never once mentions any of the holidays being ordained by God that, on a particular day you will stop working and hang out with friends, family, and people you can’t stand to see more than once or twice year (usually defined as relatives).

Point Number 4!

…oh shit, really?  I only came up with 3 points for my list?

Uhh, okay, don’t…now don’t panic.  Take this little mini-photopost to make up for it!

~RCS

Enjoy your holidays, all of them…Christmas, Eid-al-Adha, Bodhi Day, etc.

Blog Topics Are Hard!

So in trying to think of new topics to talk about besides politics, gay rights, and Anderson Cooper’s silvery mane…I found this website called Blog Topic Generator.

My first topic was Nations with wars going on.  Nah, I talk about that enough.  Then Dishes from the Philippines, which I know nothing about; Musicians you have a crush on, which will just wind up getting me in trouble with my fiancé.  Then I got Recording deals followed by Heterophony; neither of which I have any knowledge about.

So I decided, as entertaining as mashing the button for ideas was, that I’d start looking at more specialized things.  Opinions gave me Hang out on a Friday or Saturday and Unforgettable quotes.

Now we’re starting to get somewhere!

Health gave me Running in the morning and Nutrition for young kids.  I skipped religion and science, since I talk so much about them already.  I skipped art as well because I know I’ll eventually get onto this rant…

Probably sold for $50,000.

So we keep going and we find…Personal.  It gives me Naming a child, Things you regret, and the Worst ways to die.

Now we’re talking!  I think this is going to be a great new tool for my blog writing, and if you ever have trouble writing your own…or just want to come up with a conversation topic for the next bridge game or family reunion, then I highly suggest this Blog Topic Generator.

And for an extra little treat, just to show that I’m not totally neglecting Politics…

Speaking of debate topics…Mr. Biden, what’s your favorite lubricant?

~RCS

Of course the third thing Personal gave me was, “What would you do with a million dollars.”  Shucks, already did that topic.

Maximum Wage

A big point of contention in this country is the financial disposition of the nation.  1% of the nation owns a large portion of the country and the top 10% owns over 90% of the nation as a whole.  See the diagram below to see the disparityof wealth in America.

That's cool, I liked Georgia, anyway.

But free marketers say that there’s nothing we can do about it.  If you do a good job, you should get paid and paid well…or at least you should if you’re a CEO.  They claim that doing anything about it would violate the freedoms of the wealthy and would ruin the free market.

We created a minimum wage to ‘help’ the poor class.  It does more to damage small business, you know the least wealthy businesses, than it does to harm big business who runs the country, you know the business owned by that aforementioned 10%

So why can’t we institute a Maximum Wage?  You have to be paid $7.25 an hour, minimum.  So how about a nice calm…$40.25 an hour, maximum.

Put a moratorium on hours workable as well; no person can work more than 16 hours without an 8 hour break.  So if you pay a CEO maximum wage for 16 hours a day, every day-7 days a week, year-round, including overtime…then you achieve the maximum wage for a salaried official.

So regular time for 40 at $40.25 equals out to $1610 a week; add in the overtime at $4347 for time and a half of $40.25 over 72 hours.

That means that the maximum yearly wage would be $309,764.  This will include bonuses, so no salary of $300k and then a $4 million bonus, or anything like that.

Let’s look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s CEOs as a comparison.  They each make $900,000 and then get paid $2.4 million in bonuses.  This is as they ask Congress to give them more money because they can’t make the business profitable enough to stay out of bankruptcy.

So if we assume they had the same losses in 2011 as they did in 2010, that means that Fannie Mae lost $14 billion dollars, even thought they posted an income of $153.8 billion.  That means that their operating expenses were in excess of $167 billion dollars.

So if we cut the CEO of Fannie Mae, Mike Williams, down to $309,764 a year in salary…we just saved the company $2,990,236.  That’s almost 3 million dollars!

So if we assume that the executive board makes 75% of the CEO’s salary and bonuses, that would be about $2.5 million dollars per person.  If we assume an executive board of 10 people, plus the CEO; and we cut that board down from 2.5 million to $300 thousand, then we save 2.2 million dollars, per person.

With just the executive board we’d save the company $24,990,236, that’s roughly $25 million dollars.  It’s not quite 14 billion, but it’s a step in the right direction.  Imagine how many people there make over $300 thousand dollars already, that would all end.

Now we make lobbying illegal like I said in the last post and we also save them another few million.  Before you know it…Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be profitable again!

~RCS

Or else they’ll fold and we can replace them with something that really works.  Either way’s cool with me.