2006 Projects?

Karen C - California wrote:
The LYS about a mile away
stocks only expensive, high-maintenance yarns.

My goodness. You mean a yarn shop doesn't carry ANY washable yarns? I
made sweaters for my two grandsons last Christmas. Both with expensive
wool yarns. Both washable. Both wearing them again this year.
Granted, I spent a lot of money on these sweaters, however, I could have
purchased much less expensive yarns had I the hankering.

I don't like the cheap all-cotton panties (they're not "square"), and
finding high quality ones isn't easy. Nor is it necessarily cheap. But
I manage. I found some quite nice ones at Penney's last year.

Dianne
--
"The Journal of Needlework" - The E-zine for All Needleworkers
http://journal.heritageshoppe.com

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:24:45 GMT, "Magic Mood Jeep©"
wrote:

Jangchub wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:27:21 -0500, "Dr. Brat"
wrote:


And I boycott the Salvation Army because they want to be exempted
from respecting the civil rights of gay people for religious reasons.

Elizabeth

Wow, I didn't know that! No more money in that can for me. Of course
according to Bill O'Reily America has a war on Christmas. I never
laughed so hard in all my life.

v

Not Bill O'Reily, m'dear - John Gibson! He even has a book out:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159...books&v=glance


You have not listened to him lately. He thinks this is HIS war to
fight the libs because of course the libs are stealing Christmas. I
know about the book. I DO watch both the Daily Report and Colbert
Repore!

V

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:26:31 -0600, Dianne Lewandowski
wrote:

Karen C - California wrote:
The LYS about a mile away
stocks only expensive, high-maintenance yarns.

My goodness. You mean a yarn shop doesn't carry ANY washable yarns? I
made sweaters for my two grandsons last Christmas. Both with expensive
wool yarns. Both washable. Both wearing them again this year.
Granted, I spent a lot of money on these sweaters, however, I could have
purchased much less expensive yarns had I the hankering.

I don't like the cheap all-cotton panties (they're not "square"), and
finding high quality ones isn't easy. Nor is it necessarily cheap. But
I manage. I found some quite nice ones at Penney's last year.

Dianne

Two words, Dianne:

Wasted breath.

Dr. Brat wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote:
As to corporate or personal charitable giving, never forget such
"giving"
has positive affects on taxable income.

Sure, but that's often not the only reason people give.


And, in fact, just this week there was a survey out that the super-rich
are not as generous as the middle-class. This is something that used to
get to me ... you couldn't get your name in the Symphony program as a
donor unless you donated at least $100. For me, that was more than 1%
of my annual income. The family that owned McDs lived in town, and got
their name in the program as having given $10,000, which was maybe
..0001% of their annual income. No recognition for those of us who truly
deprived ourselves to donate, while those who didn't even feel it were
lauded for making, proportionately, a much lower contribution.

At least three state legislatures (Georgia, Arizona, Maryland) are
looking into forcing Wal*Mart to carry its own share of health insurance
for its employees. And Congress *is* starting to pay attention:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press...rt_health.html


I just don't like the idea that these bills are being written to target
WalMart. Let's write them so that EVERY employer has to provide
affordable health insurance. So many other employee benefit provisions
kick in at 15 or 25 employees ... why does the health insurance bill
affect only those with 200? Because it's written specifically to target
WalMart without affecting other businesses which might withhold campaign
contributions if they were suddenly required to provide health insurance
to all their employees.

Even if it kicked in at 15 or 25 employees, a lot of the places I've
worked would've been exempt. The last place I worked had 8 employees.
The Medical Leave law didn't apply; if I had asked for a medical leave
of absence, I was risking my job because we were too small for that law
to guarantee I could come back. Ditto, they weren't required to provide
me Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations, because we didn't
have enough employees to be covered.

The majority of Americans are employed by small businesses; a lot of
them by businesses who don't have enough employees to trigger the
employee benefit laws that kick in at 15 or 25. So, if you're saying
WalMart needs to be penalized for its size, they already are -- the
small locally-owned stores in my neighborhood are exempt from so many of
the employee benefit laws like ADA and FMLA that WalMart is already
required to comply with.
--
Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
Finished 12/14/05 - Rosebud (my own design)

WIP: July birthstone, Flowers of Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

See my designs exclusively at www.TyWolfeDesigns.com

Editor/Proofreader http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

lucretia borgia wrote:

This is correct and in the case of their employees, they are not in a
position to smack them. With Wartmart, a store in Jonquierre in
Quebec, unionised. All of a sudden, Wartmart decided that was not a
profitable store and closed it. Makes you think ~ they spent the
money to build it, were clearly making a profit but were prepared to
close it in order to demonstrate to other Wartmart employees what
would happen if they had the idea of introducing a union. That's
pretty brutal.


And this is, in fact, what's behind all the negative publicity about
WalMart -- big bucks unions who have their eye on all those WalMart
employees who could be paying union dues.

Do you think the employees at KMart are unionized? Or Target? Or
McD's? I doubt it.

As Linda and I have said, WalMart doesn't do anything that their
competitors don't ... they just get accused as if what they do is an
aberration.

FWIW, DBF has just taken a job in retail sales. Since the mall is open
extended hours this week before Christmas, he was there till 11:30 PM
last night doing closing, and had to be there at 7:45 AM today to open.
Are you going to boycott his employer for scheduling him so that he
couldn't get a full 8 hours sleep? For not being unionized? He has 25+
years experience in retail, and just muttered to me on his coffee break
that after a decade in an office job, he'd forgotten that this is what
retail is like. Most of his career was spent at a major retailer (not
WalMart), and what he's told me about working there is *exactly* what
I've heard in the anti-WalMart campaign. Yet, the campaign targets only
WalMart, and not the other major retailers who do the exact same thing
to their employees.


--
Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
Finished 12/14/05 - Rosebud (my own design)

WIP: July birthstone, Flowers of Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

See my designs exclusively at www.TyWolfeDesigns.com

Editor/Proofreader http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

This is correct and in the case of their employees, they are not in a
position to smack them. With Wartmart, a store in Jonquierre in
Quebec, unionised. All of a sudden, Wartmart decided that was not a
profitable store and closed it. Makes you think ~ they spent the
money to build it, were clearly making a profit but were prepared to
close it in order to demonstrate to other Wartmart employees what
would happen if they had the idea of introducing a union. That's
pretty brutal.

KMart did this in Michigan 25 years ago. I don't see anyone ranting about
KMart here. I used to manage a KMart store. Over 50% of the employees were
kept under hours so they didn't have to pay benefits. That's the way
businesses are run. WalMart isn't going to lower their profit margin. If
you boycott them, they will be forced to fire some employees or raise the
prices. Either way, you're not helping out those people you think are
treated badly.

I live in a big city. There is no place for me to walk to buy things.
There are no smaller stores. I have to drive 4 miles to buy groceries.
Since we pay about .50 more per gallon of gas then the rest of you, I prefer
to buy everything I can at one store.

--
Tamara in sunny San Diego

Dianne Lewandowski wrote:

Jangchub wrote:

I agree fully with their treatment of their poor employees with no
insurance, too expensive insurance, and non-qualifying part time hours
at 35 hours a week. Disgusting. In full agreement.


You can blame our Federal government for that. In the 1970s and 1980s,
the law was: anyone who worked over 24 hours a week was considered full
time for benefits. So, our Congress dismantled that right. Let's put
the blame squarely where it belongs: The legislators that we voted into
office. Put another way: point the finger back at yourself.
Dianne


Amen, Dianne!

Again, it's not just WalMart with no insurance or too expensive
insurance. I've worked in offices with the same circumstances. Where's
the outcry because THEY paid practically nothing and made it impossible
for the employees to get insurance?

A lot of major corporations -- names you'd recognize -- are now hiring
much of their support staff through temporary agencies, so that they
don't have to pay them benefits. People working "temporary" at the same
company for 20 years. Where's the boycott against those companies?

I'm not saying that it's morally right for WalMart to do what they do.
I *am* saying that their detractors have to stop making it sound like
WalMart is the only one. I've heard statistics that anywhere between a
quarter and a third of working California families have no health
insurance. They don't ALL work for WalMart. They work for other
stores, for fast food, for lawyers, for farmers, for janitorial
services, for temporary agencies, for restaurants....

If you really want to make a point about working people being entitled
to fair wages and health insurance, then get hold of your county's
Living Wage statistics, and the next time you go to spend money, you ask
the staff "do you earn $12.19 an hour, or $10+health insurance?", and if
they say No, refuse to do business with that company. Around here, that
means you can't park in the private parking lots, which pay minimum
wage; you have to use the city-owned parking lots which *do* pay Living
Wage. It means you can't go to the lawyer who wanted to hire me as a
part-time paralegal for $10 and no health insurance. It means you can't
do business with a lot of places that aren't WalMart, including the
much-vaunted small locally owned businesses, where the owner and his
wife have insurance and decent pay, but the non-family-member employees
are making minimum wage and no insurance.

Do you really think your LNS is paying its employees $12/hour and
medical insurance?

--
Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
Finished 12/14/05 - Rosebud (my own design)

WIP: July birthstone, Flowers of Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

See my designs exclusively at www.TyWolfeDesigns.com

Editor/Proofreader http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

Dr. Brat wrote:

If you don't pay people, they can't buy things. Henry
Ford knew that. Why have we forgotten it?

Elizabeth


We have forgotten it because greed has taken the place of intelligence.
The business people focus entirely on the bottom line.

I was fired on trumped up charges so that I could be replaced by someone
half my age, half my size, at half my salary. At first blush, this
looks like a great idea to increase profits (and hence, the partners'
year-end bonuses). Small problem, she had less than half the experience
and did less than half the work. So, instead of having a $15/hour legal
assistant filling out court forms, you had a $50/hour lawyer dictating
court forms which then took the same amount of secretarial time to type
up. No savings there. I'm told when the bozo who fired me started
getting complaints from the lawyers about how much of "my job" they had
to do after I was replaced, and started having to pay overtime because
she didn't produce the same amount of work in 8 hours, he realized that
his little profit-increase tactic was costing him more than he'd saved.

This weekend (or maybe last weekend) there was an article in the paper
about how much it costs to hire and train a new employee, i.e., it's
more expensive to have constant turnover than to give your old employees
a raise or some benefits so that they'll stay. I calculated once that
the cost of the help wanted ad, the executive hours lost to
interviewing, the week of upper-level people wasting time getting the
new support person up to speed, was more than a year's worth of the
raise I asked for. That doesn't factor into executive thinking -- all
they see is that they're paying a long-time employee more than they'd
pay a new hire.

And then complain because the employees show no loyalty to the company.
Why should we? They show no loyalty to us. Get close to qualifying
for the pension plan, they'll fire you so they can keep the money. Want
to increase executive bonuses, cut the workers' benefits.



--
Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
Finished 12/14/05 - Rosebud (my own design)

WIP: July birthstone, Flowers of Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

See my designs exclusively at www.TyWolfeDesigns.com

Editor/Proofreader http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:59:36 GMT, "Tamara Bentz"
wrote:

This is correct and in the case of their employees, they are not in a
position to smack them. With Wartmart, a store in Jonquierre in
Quebec, unionised. All of a sudden, Wartmart decided that was not a
profitable store and closed it. Makes you think ~ they spent the
money to build it, were clearly making a profit but were prepared to
close it in order to demonstrate to other Wartmart employees what
would happen if they had the idea of introducing a union. That's
pretty brutal.

KMart did this in Michigan 25 years ago. I don't see anyone ranting about
KMart here. I used to manage a KMart store. Over 50% of the employees were
kept under hours so they didn't have to pay benefits. That's the way
businesses are run. WalMart isn't going to lower their profit margin. If
you boycott them, they will be forced to fire some employees or raise the
prices. Either way, you're not helping out those people you think are
treated badly.

Just the same, I shall not shop at Wartmart, they came to town,
artificially lowered prices and drove competition under. Now the
prices are back up - I choose not to be in their party. If necessary,
if they were the last store left, well too bad, I would make do.

I live in a big city. There is no place for me to walk to buy things.
There are no smaller stores. I have to drive 4 miles to buy groceries.
Since we pay about .50 more per gallon of gas then the rest of you, I prefer
to buy everything I can at one store.

Sorry, I live in Canada where I have paid much more for gas ever since
I can remember. The gas in the USA is too cheap, I know you won't
like that sentiment, but it is.

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:47:39 GMT, Jangchub wrote:

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:51:53 GMT, lucretia borgia
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 03:01:44 GMT, Jangchub wrote:

Well, that's making light of a multi billion dollar a year problem in
the United States. It's called shoplifting. I have no problem when
electronics stores check my purchases. It helps keep prices lower and
it's good for commerce and takes about an average of ten seconds.

This is all buys into the 'they are doing this for my security thing'
while what they are really doing is beginning to control you. I draw
your attention to what a wise American once said, I expect he is
writhing in his grave at this time, people are willingly giving up
their freedom, they are trying to take them away here too.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

That is a little drastic and it's not what he meant. I am fully
against this Patriot Act our dumbo president insists is for "our own
good." The policy at a store which wants to see a recipt before you
exit is not controlling me. I can take a second to get over myself
and be humble and show the recipt. It only controls me if I want to
steal and I can't which is what it's there for. We don't have to
agree, I am more liberal where I draw the line on control and my
perception of control is very different than yours. Do you think a
cop should be able to stop a drunk driver because she's weaving? Or
is that controlling?

Read this http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/tra...icle334686.ece
that illustrates how fast freedom of movement is disappearing. Coming
to a country near you next no doubt.