He got TWO appointments, damn it all

Sandra Day, I know you're old, but you couldn't have waited it out even a few more years? Sheesh.

Take a look at this ruling: Pay discrimination? You don't say. Hope you found out about it in time.

Look, if you're "corporations, yay!" in life, I get how this looks great to you. Otherwise, fuck you, too, Alito and Roberts (Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas: y'all should consider yourselves fucked already, many times).

Pay discrimination is an insidious evil in this world, but it's not one you can always immediately--as in the 180 days this fucking court majority thinks isn't anything like immediate--put proof to. Hell, in the case that was decided, the issue of pay discrimination arose over raises that were too low, not a salary that was. That kind of thing doesn't even kick in until you've been at a place for longer than half a year (or so has been my experience). Why the hell isn't every paycheck or raise that comes in below the norm for others considered discriminatory? If someone is consistently underpaying you, you might not notice for a looooong time because a regular low-balling can easily seem like what you should be earning. After all, you trust both your employer and their HR department to crunch the numbers correctly; if you can't, what the fuck are they there for? And, chances are good, that you're not going to go stalking from coworker to coworker on paycheck Fridays making sure that your take-home and rate of salary increase is within some statistically insignificant range until you get to a point where the difference, accrued over a long time would really slap you in the face.

I think it would be fabulous if employers were forced to, upfront, show salaries for each employee upon demand when a prospective employee was given a figure for his/her salary, but this isn't happening and it won't ever. Don't feed me any of this "learn to be a better negotiator" horseshit either. This ruling expects people either to be fucking rude upfront to employers and demand to know salaries across the board (hurting their chances for employment) or to do it later to their coworkers (which is terrific for the bosses as they don't have to be the ones bothered).

Fuck, man. I was all set to squall some about this thing that I read on newredshoes' journal, and I went to the NYT and now I'm even more pissed off. Too mad to write more about this because I won't be coherent. Just grrrrrrrr man.

Once more behind the Times...

Oh, The New York Times, when you can't keep pace with the blogosphere (ugh, hate that word), you're pretty pathetic.

I think I've read this "Hey, torture doesn't work so well after all!" article about a thousand times in the last month on various blogs. Then again, maybe they're just constrained by government time (it's like Hawai'ian time only lamer and without the promise of mai-tais). How many hearings have they had about torture being ineffective and damaging to the American interest abroad and they are still insisting it works?

How elementary is it that if you hurt someone they'll tell you what you want to hear to get you to stop? Bullies teach you this (and what does that say about the US?). Why must it be carrot or stick without the option of ever having carrot? Not that I think psychological mindfucks are necessarily healthier for a body, but if you can outsmart the terrorist, by all means: rape his little brain.

News like this is why I stop reading the news. It's not a perfect solution, but it's definitely better than being depressed all the goddamned time about what the 1% who had the majority over my vote in the last billion elections are doing in my name. Fuck you pricks. When can we secede and join Canada? We'll take our Wall Street monies and dairy farms and join the great white north. Ooh, and we get California, too, which means wine! I could use some wine right now. Wine shall flow until I cannot feel the ache of having to be associated with nationalistic, racist, abusive rednecks whose collective IQs don't outnumber the stars on their beloved Confederate Flag.

Guess who is a dipshit?

Me!

I was totally wonked by the start-of-the-week-isn't-Monday thing and I missed my class last night. At least I got the bathroom cleaned. I missed class, yes, but I didn't just goof off with my ill-gotten hours.

Speaking of class, need to go get the form not to be raped by the tuition for what is, essentially, a play-fun-happy class for me.

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I mentioned (somewhere at the bottom of this post) that I'd seen Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End already at the drive-in upstate. I also mentioned that, drive-in speaker quality being what it is and rain having the effect it does on your viewscreen (i.e. windshield), I didn't really see it all that well. Would anyone be interested in maybe a matinee showing some time this weekend? Matinees are any show before 12 noon, I believe.

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Actually, I saw two movies at the drive-in, which is a steal for $7. Hell, I'd pay that much for Pirates alone, and sometimes the second movie is worth it to. Alas, not the case with the last second-movie I saw: The Invisible. This was a Sixth Sense rip-off for the teens only not really because the guy knew he was dead. Only he wasn't, really. Confusing? Not really when you see it. Note: DO NOT BOTHER SEEING THIS MOVIE. Not even you, ivy03, even if it does have Callum Keith Rennie in it.

You know what makes it really an egregious bit of cinematic trash? The story resolves with the person responsible for the "murder" coming around to realizing she did something wrong and trying to make amends about two days too late. I hate this kind of thing. I know last-minute rescues are most daring, but really? If you're the "bad guy having a change of heart" in a situation without time pressure other than the length of time it takes for person to die of exposure (which isn't that immediate), CHANGE YOUR MIND BEFORE DAY THREE, GODDAMNIT.

This is what bugged both feiran and I about Saw III. The purpose of the tests this time around were to challenge a guy to loook past his hatred and save people in distress who'd wronged him in the past. For at least some of them, he'd wait until they were unsaveable before he'd have his change of heart. WTF? Why bother? This is a pet peeve of mine, which I'm sure can be countered with many a good example of last-minute changes of heart that resolved to the benefit of the heroes (David Morse's and Ed Harris' in The Rock is one), but still. It's like moonlightalice hating on narratives that rely on mistaken coincidences to sustain character arcs (I think at the time she was referring to Harry and Peter's unconsummated lust confusion over Norman Osborne's death in Spider-Man 3). There may be plenty of good uses of this narratively weak device, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a narratively weak device.

Addendum to last post

Oh crap it all, I missed the season finale of House, too while I was cleaning the bathroom last night. No marvelously pristene floors are worth the loss of Hugh Laurie, I tells you.

Well, okay, I really do like that our bathroom is only 1/10th as grody as it was, but still. Sanitary bathroom vs. Hugh Laurie. It's a toss up.

Great one-liners

Inspired things I've heard in the past few days...

From the guy teaching my film class on westerns: "The Irish Catholic 'Book of Sex' is just two-hundred and fifty-six blank pages prefaced by the words 'Hold onto your bonnet, Beatrice.'"

My sister's friend who went upstate with my family this past weekend: "I'm not a bad Jew. I'm a reform Jew!"