— Day of service honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
— Seattle marches in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
— Obama on MLK Day: It’s about service to others.
— January is usually the month I call my family in Wisconsin and complain about having to mow the lawn. This morning I woke up to a freakin’ Winter Wonder Land! Had to shovel the driveway!! Well…how about that forecast: five to eleven more inches by Wednesday!!!
— Speaking of Wisconsin, tomorrow is the day signatures are turned in for the Scott Walker recall drive.
— Randy Stapilus at Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest looks at House Bill 2500 that limits contributions for initiatives.
— You won’t have Jon Huntsman to kick around anymore.
— “Pro-life” candidate Rick Santorum: “…scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”
Huntsman even bows out with class. Too bad no one left it the race will get his message. In the narrow sense of getting Obama re-elected, it’s good that the remaining Republicans will probably continue to fling poo at each other, but it really is bad for us as a people and I wish they’d knock it off.
Again a perfect description of the agenda of a typical HA troll or any right winger who can’t tolerate views other than his own.
Happy MLK Day. Remember one whose life’s work was to make the world a better place.
An example all of us should at least try to live by.
@1 Michael,
Joining and leaving the race with class is nice, but Huntsman spent his time while in the race with his share of negative and personal attacks, and humorously enough those attacks were against the candidate he now endorses.
After running attack ads, Huntsman decries ‘toxicity’
@1 After 80 years of shit-slinging at Democrats and liberal, it was inevitable that Republicans would turn on each other. Just whip up a batch of popcorn and enjoy the show while you can.
@4
Yeah, nobody’s perfect. At least he tried. I hope he stays active. It’s nice to see a Republican that isn’t completely insane.
@5
I go back and forth. With it being MLK day and our nice snowy morning, I’m having a bit of a kumbaya moment right now.
For several years now, I’ve been reading in the financial press about how corporations have boosted their profits by squeezing more “productivity” out of workers, but I’ve rarely — if ever — seen anything written about this from the workers’ point of view.
Well, guess what, making people worker harder while cutting pay and taking away benefits can lead to blowback … YA THINK??!!!!
” … with unemployment falling for the fourth month in a row, talent retention concerns might make more of an appearance. …
“‘I think 2012 is the year of the payback, meaning that all the slashing and burning of the workforce has severely wounded the ability to motivate employees,’ says Irwin Kellner, Chief Economist for Marketwatch.com. …
“Kellner … warns there will be consequences… if management doesn’t launch incentives to retain skilled workers and take the 24/7 stress down a notch. …
“‘The rising quit rate may be the first sign that the balance of power is changing in corporate America between the executives and the underlings,’ says Kellner who adds, ‘The grandiose plans that the corner office has in terms of creativity might have reached a limit. … In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter how much technology you have, if workers are exhausted and hanging on to their jobs by their fingernails,’ says Kellner.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45.....orbes_com/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Today’s employers have no loyalty to their employees — absolutely none. And that’s exactly how much loyalty they deserve back from their employees.
Companies have taken advantage of this recession to sorely use and misuse their workers. But the economy won’t stay depressed forever; and when the labor market becomes competition again and hiring and retaining good workers becomes challenging, there will be a day of reckoning for the companies and employers who had the worst labor policies during the recession.
The state was never a very good employer, and I don’t work for them anymore. Now, they have to pay me to not work. Of course, the rich have always been paid for not working, and now I’m getting a tiny bite of that gravy train, too. I’ve learned that in our system it’s infinitely better to be an owner than a worker. Workers are disrespected, mistreated, and underpaid. But when you own stuff, everybody sucks up to you, even if you’re an idle sloth like me who has to be driven from the bedroom to the bathroom by a servant in an electric cart. I don’t have one of those yet, but I’m working on it. Wall Street gives me money for FREE. That’s the very essence of capitalism, i.e., pay people for owning but don’t pay people for working, because the less workers get paid, the more owners get paid! It’s a rotten, corrupt, and evil system; but it’s what we have. I’m glad I finally wise up, and quit being a worker, and became a capitalist! My life is so much better now that I do no work, produce nothing, and am a leech sucking the lifeblood out of society.
I suppose some stupid troll will now chime in and accuse me of being against capitalism. How little they understand me … I like this rotten, corrupt, and evil system! I mean, getting FREE MONEY from Wall Street sure beats working for some asshole boss, how simple is that??!! I’m one of them now. Even well-meaning rabbits can be corrupted. I tried hard to be good, but everybody has their limits.
@8
One of my grandfathers ran a farm supply co-op and credit union for about a zillion years. When he died in 1995 a couple of people that had worked for him in the 30’s, and 40’s and hadn’t seen him since, showed up at his funeral to pay their respects.
My grandfather was a very successful business man and the co-op he ran was always well in the black.
I think more business people should be like my grandfather was.
To succeed in the financial media, you have to remember you’re always selling. More specifically, you’re selling shit to the proletariat. So you have to become very good at putting lipstick on pigs.
For example, there are only three types of stocks: Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, great stocks, and outperforming stocks. Nobody ever sold a stock by calling it an underperformer. Never mind that’s what most of them are.
To get Wall Street to hire you to report the financial news, you have to be Pollyanna, Miss Rosie Outlook, a bearer of cheer and good tidings. And you also have to be an accomplished wordsmith, because your job is to take actuality and turn it into a new kind of reality. Thusly:
“The outbreak of World War Three has created an unprecedented buying opportunity for forward-looking investors. Iran’s nuclear attack against Israel yesterday has created a vacuum in markets for high-tech, biomedical, and pharmaceutical products once produced by Israeli companies. Entrepreneurs will rush to fill the void, and stock exchanges will be flooded with IPOs of new startups. There has never been a better time to invest.”
Like everything else, it’s not hard, you just have to know how to do it. And if you’re a speculator like me, you simply have to know how to read between the lines of all the published crap that comes from the likes of pundits, financial reporters, etc.
I noticed in the pictures of the cruise liner that smacked a rock in Italy that the Italian Coast Guard uses at least a few Safe Boats, which are built in Bremerton.
http://www.safeboats.com/
Ricky Santorum the usual cookie-cutter “prolifer”: the only “life” he cares about is the unborn and those in persistent vegetative states. War, capital punishment, and the like are just fine.
@15
There are a few folks where it really is about life. I have a lot of respect for these folks.
But, for the Santorum’s of the world it’s really about controlling people and about class. It’s about knowing who’s a slut and who should be shunned. I have nothing but derision for these people.
Freaking awesome piece by Michael Thomas, in which the term neo-feudal makes an appearance.
Ok, I’m confused. CNN just reported the latest poll has Congress at an ALL TIME new record low, 11% approval. How is that? Congress is more Republican than anytime in decades. The Senate is 50/50, and we had that big historic super swing in 2010 that brought in all the Tea Party folks and far right in the House, making the House very Republican. So if Congress had a 35% approval when Nancy was running it and both branches were run fully by Democrats, shouldn’t their approval have shot UP with this huge surge in Republican domination of Congress? Huh. Amazing, we elected all these Republicans, and the approval of Congress doesn’t go up, but drops by 2/3. Wow.
18
Very puzzling, indeed. Moreover, we hear from the Republicans in Congress that the 2010 election gave them a mandate to do whatever they wanted and that the Ds and Obama needed to simply stand aside. I guess I’m just dim, but your numbers don’t seem to support the Rs’ claims, even though their claims must be true because, well, the Rs know the truth.
@18, 19
the gubment is bascicaly 50/50 between the parties, and has been for decades…not sure what you all are stressing about
@15, 16
how come the pro-deathers(aka pro abortionists) seem to care more about the health and welfare of terrorists at guantamino than they do about 3rd trimester unborn children?
why do progressives hate unborn children?
Apparently Michael Baumgartner thinks Social Security contributes to the deficit and wants us to go with The Ryan Plan. So much for that whole sensible moderate thing he was rocking.
http://www.shallowcogitations......nator.html
While we’re on the topic of crazy right wingers from the eastern part of the state there’s this little gem from
Cathy McMorris Rodgers that I thought I’d point out.
Yes, it’s all Obama’s fault for not being willing to work with congress…
Checkout the comment thread. MMR gets completely spanked.
It’s A ‘Ell Of A Mess, Guv’nor
Forget the Ewings of “Dallas” fame. This is much better! Ireland’s formerly richest family has imploded to a singularity tinier than a farthing. Thrills! Spills! Finger-pointing! Blame-shifting! It’s the bank’s fault! (they owned the bank, but never mind that.) Lawsuits! Secret stock deals! Foreign asset havens! Fraud! It’s all here:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46013344
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Looks like there’s not an honest way to be Ireland’s richest man and be bankrupt at the same time.
Wikipedia Joins Piracy Bill Protest
Wikipedia says it will shut down its English-language site for 24 hours starting at midnight Wednesday to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is supported by media content owners like News Corp. and Fox TV owner Rupert Murdoch.
Google, Facebook, and other online sites are joining the protest. They complain the proposed bill amounts to internet censorship and argue there are other ways to protect the legal rights of copyright owners.
The White House has begun responding to the protests by expressing concerns about the bill, which is being pushed by movie studios, music labels, and other content owners.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46020192
re 20: “why do progressives hate unborn children?”
Why do conservatives hate born children?
Hell, why do conservatives hate everything other than money?
Oh, and guns. And their secret porn stashes…..