The minimum wage battle continues, with unions and workers fighting for an entry level raise for honest American workers that has been denied for nearly a decade while the dispassionate empty suits of business, their lackeys in local and national Chambers of Commerce, and the evil lick spittle minions they have purchased wholesale in our government at all levels, make pious pronouncements about the "marketplace" and the peril of allowing the government to regulate wages.

In the meantime, I've been talking to my friend, Jane.

frontpaged at My Left Wing

I made mention to some folks the other day that I have a habit of collecting jokes that are awful, disgusting, and tasteless.  Really, many of them can only loosely be called "jokes" since the primary reaction isn't laughter.  Or, if it is, it's not laughing at the humor, it's a kind of startled, disbelieving laughter that people can come up with such perverse things.  (Yeah, I know, it's a bizarre hobby.  Well, at least I don't correspond with serial killers in prison like you do.  Yeah, you, over there.)

In any case, I'm going to share one of these terrible jokes because I think it accurately illustrates how I--and I suspect many others--are feeling these days.  Then I'm going to expound a lot and hopefully come to some kind of coherent point.

Brace yourself.

frontpaged at My Left Wing

Water, grapes, yeast and sugar.  What do they have to do with each other?  Seemingly nothing.  But mix them in a sterile container, put a lid on and then walk away for a while.  Come back, drink heartily and feel good.

A rattlesnake is as much afraid of you as you are of it.  Encounter one in the wilderness and, despite its venom and noisy tail shaking, it will slither on its merry way given a chance.  However, should you get the bright idea to pick up a stick and start poking it repeatedly, you do so at the peril of your life.

What are the lessons here?  Mix the right ingredients together and you get wine.  Torment a rattlenake and you'll get bit.

So what you ask?  I'll tell you.

The Network for Progress reports some good news for Americans under assault by the GOP's class war using the "Starve the Beast" strategy:

Yesterday, Colorado voters streamed to the polls and delivered a devastating blow to anti-government activists like Grover Norquist by passing Referendum C by a margin of 52 - 48!

By suspending the so-called Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), Coloradans rolled back the harshest government spending limits in the nation. This vote will help Colorado rebound from economic crisis and reinvest in education, health care, and public safety.

...The message coming out of Colorado is clear:  After living for 12 years under TABOR's drastic budget cuts, Coloradans have had enough!  Grover Norquist once famously boasted that he hoped to reduce government "to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."  Coloradans have made it clear that they do not want to drown their schools, fire departments, and public health programs.