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* Minimum wage for Tipped workers is still $2.30 an hour as it hasn't been raised in twenty years. They re taxed as if they made regular minimum which means that if the shift is slow they are literal working for nothing.

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* Measuring the people losing their jobs next week because Republicans refuse to negotiate on the sequester:

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* Dear Justice Scalia:

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* The real reasons for the racial wealth gap:

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* Senator Jeff Sessions lies about "welfare" figures in order to prove we are coddling the poor. After all, reality has a liberal bias, so why not be wildly dishonest in order to make more people homeless. After all, it's totally their fault they weren't born wealthy:

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* Greenwick found, "The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty:" http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Truth-And-Lies-Report-smaller.pdf

* How having only the extremely wealthy determine all our economic policy is bad for the country in a variety of material ways:

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* "Taking on Creeping Creationism in Public Schools:" http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/creeping-creationism-schools.html

* "Antarctica’s exit glaciers: The drunk drivers of climate change:" http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/antarcticas-exit-glaciers-the-drunk-drivers-of-climate-change/

* "Whoa! Mutant Tadpoles Sprout Eyeballs on Their Tails:" http://www.livescience.com/27518-tadpoles-sprout-eyeballs-on-tails.html

* "Human sexuality is naturally promiscuous, primarily amorous:" http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/human-sexuality-is-naturally-promiscuous-primarily-amorous/

* "40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage:" http://seeingtheforest.com/40-of-americans-now-make-less-than-1968-minimum-wage/

* I've been aware of this problem for decades and it still infuriates me that we think this is a better idea than medicare for all/universal health care. "On Purposely Getting Arrested, to Get Life-Saving Surgery:" http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/on-purposely-getting-arrested-to-get-life-saving-surgery/273282/

* "Women's History Month 2013 Includes Us Trans Women, Too!:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/03/womens-history-month-2013-includes-us.html

* I'm scary sick. Fantasizing about the oxygen tanks at the hospital having to wake up every two hours because I'm suffocating sick. There is no chance of medical help until Monday. Of course. I'm wondering how bad my breathing has to be to justify a hospital visit to Medicare. Seriously, the hospital sounds RESTFUL at this point. *shudder* Earlier in the week, I was looking forward to some friends visiting today, but I outright forgot when my world narrowed trying to figure out how to keep breathing without my head rattling off my shoulders. The poor bastards came all the way out here, and I had to turn them away, lest I give them this nightmare mutant lung thing. Meanwhile the Butt is scary sick too. He's barely eating, and in the last week has lost so much weight, he's Hector skinny with all his extra skin hanging down like drapes. Squirrel got him a vet appointment for Monday.

* "Diversifying our family’s reading: children’s and young adult books:" http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2013/02/diversifying-our-familys-reading-childrens-and-young-adult-books/

* "Do tinfoil helmets provide adequate protection against mind control rays?:" http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2555/do-tinfoil-helmets-provide-adequate-protection-against-mind-control-rays

* "The American Government's Advice for Yeti Hunters, 1959:" http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/02/26/search_for_yeti_the_foreign_service_memo_advising_yeti_hunters.html

* "9 Houses Built Just for Spite:" http://mentalfloss.com/article/49039/9-houses-built-just-spite

* "Completely Inappropriate First Birthday Cakes:" http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/3/1/completely-inappropriate-first-birthday-cakes.html

* "World's most insane rope swing.:" http://www.wimp.com/insaneswing/

* 3 Days left on Ebay:

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Well that was horrifying. TMI to follow.

I was exhausted from the whole not sleeping properly thing, so I went to bed early. By the time I was settled in for sleep, something terrible had started to happen on top of the bronchitis shading toward pneumonia that I'd already been dealing with. Guessing (correctly as it turned out) that my ear drum was considering rupturing from the infection I've had since October, I applied heat and got dressed again. I had a couple nightmarish hours waiting for Squirrel to get home from work. Of course the emergency was backed up from Saturday night's disasters, including an exciting stabbing, so those of us not actually bleeding to death had to wait and understandably so. Still it was no fun for me and the poor bastards sitting around me to watch me spend several hours coughing up horrifying things under my mask, struggling to breath, and moaning as my left ear drum proceeded to rupture and my right worked itself up toward the same goal. I was already out of spoons like three days ago and the few I had I'd been wasting on things like breathing and periodically feeding myself and the animals. I simply had nothing left for four hours of stoicism. Of course 40+ years of not crying for physical pain no matter how bad meant that I couldn't even though I very much wanted to. It would have been a release, especial for the part where it was like being repeatedly stabbed in both eardrums on top of the baseline pain crescendo. There was moaning alas. I wouldn't have blamed the others if one of them had shot me like a lamed horse.

The sound of the ear going was fascinating. It sounded at first like popcorn popping over the sound of snow creaking. The popping sped up and got loader, sounding more like muffled rapid gunfire. Then there was the sound of ripping silk followed by the sound at the end of an old vinyl record when the last song is over. Then followed a high pitched steady sound like an electric alarm going off, followed by static and more snow creaking. Then I got to listen to the disturbing sound of the puss pouring out for a couple of hours, then soft ringing over silence. Meanwhile the other ear was doing popping and snow creaking, but it's still deciding whether to rupture or not. All of this while waiting to see the doctor and no pains meds. Fun.

I mostly can't hear. It's all staticky hum. I can get enough words to guess what's going on if people look directly and speak loudly. I should get about 80% back eventually. I am hoping I can get hearing aids as I will eventually go progressively deaf from antibiotics as my disease progresses anyway. The emergency room guy didn't say I'm in the next phase of the disease that will eventually kill me, but I've watched the progression in others and I'm not fooling myself. Anyway, we've got another course of even stronger antibiotics and they are sending me to a specialist Monday, something I think should have happened in January but the Doctors weren't willing to escalate. I need a cf/cf carrier specialist, which is again no surprise to me. There is reason to think I'm permanently infected now, like my Mother was the last twenty plus years of her life, which means long term management instead of acute treatment.

Anyway, Ive got the new antibiotics and incredibly expensive ear drops and emergency percacet. I'm done meds and hydrating, so I'm off to bed.

Follow up o Horrible hospital Adventure

The gory details from today. We are talking really disgusting here, as in more disgusting than that time I spent three hours or so trying to clean up after nearly bleeding to death.

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The pain is better and I have the meds. Last night was a whole new level of terrible. The pain was so loud it made a light show behind my eyes in jagged patterns of light pulsing in time with the sound and stabbing sensation. It was impressive in it's way.

Tonight would have been a good night to have someone here to help. Before he left to work, Squirrel was kind enough to clean up the impressive cat vomit collection that appeared while I was asleep, as even short hobbles exhaust me and I'm having trouble with basics like keeping hydrated and figuring out food. Bending over repeatedly is right out. Still, I very much wish I'd laid in fresh fruit before I got too sick to drive, and having someone to make soup and take care of me generally would be so much better than this. It's taken three hours to manage bagel, meds, and yoghurt. At least the senior beasties are on their best behavior. Mache and hector being cuddly and supportive. I could have done without Hector waking me every hour to make sure I wasn't dead, but his heart was in the right place, and as soon as I petted him to let him know I was okay he climbed back on and went back to sleep. He's napping next to me right now.

* The Butt is improving, actually eating and perked up enough to cause mischief and destruction rather than hiding waiting for death. Squirrel's taking him for blood tests still, just in case.