In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”

Chuck is a bit of a common sense Republican (not many of those I know of) and a guy I didn't mind all that much when I lived in Iowa. I often didn't agree with him but I knew where he was coming from and why. I think he hit the nail on the head with this one.

Grassley on AIG execs: Quit or suicide - Martin Kady II - POLITICO.com

NOT work safe!

Hilarious yet racy Guinness commercial

The relevant comment is at about 2:39 from Pfotenhauer.

"How can they pay more than the 70% they already pay?"

I want to know who the hell she's getting to buy that. 70%? I call complete and utter bullshit on that one. When you get done adding sales, FICA, property etc. all up, that 1% crowd pays a bigger gross amount, but a LOWER percentage of their money than the guy plugging away at $40K.

"If you asked most New Yorkers what income level qualifies for the highest tax bracket you would get a range of answers -- from $250,000 to $1 million to $5 million. In fact, an individual making just $20,000 pays the highest income tax rate of 6.85 percent." - Nation 2/23/09

Those same numbers hold true here in Missouri starting even earlier. That's the income tax, and doesn't include anything else. When you throw in everything else, for example FICA which STOPS at $102K, after that you pay nothing, or sales which, depending on the state, is on food, clothes, toilet paper, soap, but not on pretty much anything you can't get at Wal-Mart, the percentage starts going back down as you make more.

I would like these scumbags to stop lying. There are too many people out there who buy this crap. "Well gee, someone on teevee said it so it must be true!" All I have to say to that is, watch Colbert from 3/3/09 talking about Fox and Friends and their beer pong and herpes bit.

When the COMEDY show does better with getting the news right than the NEWS show, which one is news and which one is a pathetic joke?

YouTube - Pfotenhauer Would Support Obama If He Enacted Republican Policies

David Ross and Ed Colbert debate the copyright issues surrounding Shepard Fairey's Obama poster. (06:37)

This segment on the Colbert Report is one of the most clued discussions about a copyright matter I've ever seen on TV. If you follow copyleft issues, this is pure candy.

Obama Poster Debate - David Ross and Ed Colbert | February 12th | ColbertNation.com

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

Ouch.

What should government do? A Jindal meditation - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn't mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.

White House Watermelon Email From California Mayor Dean Grose Inspires Outrage

A prominent Muslim scholar in Saudi Arabia has warned that those using alcohol-based biofuels in their cars could be committing a sin.

What, my car is going to get drunk? Hey, I'm against ethanol because it doesn't work, sure, you can run a car on it, but you're pumping a gallon of gas into the tractor to make the gallon of gas out of the corn. That doesn't make a lot of sense. But this? This is heading into "My imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend" territory.

Saudi Muslim cleric warns that biofuels could be sinful | csmonitor.com

WEBB CITY, Mo. -- A man angry about the shut-off of his cable-television service and subsequent inability to convert his analog TV to pick up DTV signals shot his television set Wednesday afternoon, scaring his wife out of the house and holding off a SWAT team in a two-hour standoff.

That's nice, here's the video. Now the video is nice, and you'll want to take note of the flags flying from the front of the house. Why? Because this bonehead is his state Rep. That's right, Mr. "War of Northern Aggression."

It all makes so much sense now. Sometimes comedy is easy, sometimes all it takes is one extra connection...

DTV Transition Failure Leads Man to Shoot TV | dtv, television, service - Local News -

All you need to know is that the Republican/Sara/Palin base of evangelical support is rooting for war, death and killing as a longed for -- even prayed for -- conclusion to human existence. No kidding! Understand what I'm going to tell you here, and you'll understand what went so wrong with America with W. Bush and why we are the most dangerous country on earth. Shorthand: we have nukes and risk being run by kooks. And, until the election of 2008, an evangelical born-again kook was running our country.

Disclosure: I'm the son of one of the evangelical's foremost thinkers, the late Francis Schaeffer. And until I left the fold in the mid 1980s I was intimately involved with the Religious Right and have been (until quite recently) a life-long Republican. I knew Jerry Jenkins' and Tim LaHaye personally and both are followers of my father.

Is this when LaHaye calls for a fatwa to strike down the heretic?

Frank Schaeffer: Why Obama Must Not Work With Republicans

Elonka wrote:

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits may have hit a 26-year high, but there are still lots of jobs open, because no matter how grim the economic forecast, at least some workers will change jobs voluntarily or retire. "Companies may not be making expansionary or discretionary hires," says Marc Cenedella, founder of TheLadders.com a subscription service that lists only jobs that pay $100,000 and up. "But even in a downturn, there's still 20% to 25% natural turnover per year." In the six-figure category, he estimates that will mean 3.2 million hires a year instead of 4 million in a normal market.

Interesting statistics to put the current layoffs in perspective.

Actually no, all this does is cloud the issue. What it says in a very quiet roundabout way is 800,000 jobs in the $100K category are toast, but makes it look like "well gee, if you did a better job prettying up your resume..."

From talking to the people I know around St. Louis who have been laid off, in manufacturing, there are zero replacement jobs. From my IT friends there were 50 applicants for 2 jobs at Citi. They also said when the position starts in March not to worry about the parking situation there (currently a very full lot), the building is going from full customer support, money managers, financial planners, etc, to JUST supporting the computer hub. Virtually everyone else is out.

Turnover is one thing and happens most places. Cenedella is expecting 20% of the openings of the past to not exist. That is the one number in there worth something. The current economy is a completely different ballgame from anything I will wager just about any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Thinking this article adds to the picture, without a LOT more data, is this kind of perspective.

For Decius's response, I am very worried that this downturn will be just as bad if not worse than the dot bomb in IT. The vast majority of IT work is done to support other people using computer resources to do whatever work they do, from finance to scheduling garbage collection routes. Without them, what do the companies need the IT guys for?

RE: The Six-Figure-Job Hunt - TIME