Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:29 AM | Comments (190)
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This is a pretty damning piece on one of the NYT blogs.

...HereÂ’s how it works in Illinois...

...For each business, the state calculates how many dollars have been paid in compensation over the previous three years and adds on about 48 percent through various calculations. The result is that in Illinois, you end up paying for incremental compensation claims at a rate of $1.48 for every dollar that a former employee collects...

For the past decade or so we've been turning into a nation of 1099 "contractors" for those jobs where that sort of ploy is a viable option. As a practical matter, many of the vaunted "benefit packages" offered by large employers aren't worth much at all to younger or unmarried people without children anyway so going the 1099/contract route isn't that big a deal for them and has some distinct tax advantages when you're incorporated.

There was a German commenter on the piece who said the way we do UC was insane and clearly unfair to employers. After reading the piece, and the comments, I think I have to agree. The way it is now is completely insane. For many small businesses that have to scale back, the current system actually kind of encourages a business to simply fold up once a certain level of layoffs or firings occur just so the owner can get out from underneath the crushing UC taxes. If all your income is going back out the door as UC tax, there is little reason to continue. If you've still got some business out there worth pursuing, just fold, and open back up under a new corporation name with the same roster and no tax baggage of the past layoffs haunting you.

There should be incentives for them to soldier on, not say screw it and fold or resort to corporate musical chairs sleight of hand. more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:14 PM | Comments (113)
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Good evening and happy Hump Day all.

A Higgins Boat Lands on Omaha Beach Once Again
12 years ago a Frenchman, Hugues Eliard, found an old D-Day Higgins Boat along a Normandy river and decided to restore it. And this past June after over a decade of hard work on it the boat landed again at Omaha beach.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:38 PM | Comments (764)
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over the top, much?

I don't know if I can blame Fiorina for going after a rival with guns blazing.

But...

If you get bored of it, you have to skip to around 2:20, when the Demon Eyed Sheep makes its appearance.

Now, the demon prince Bamophet usually is depicted as having a sheep's head, or I guess a ram's head. (Goat's head, I'm told -- well, I don't know animals much.)

I'm just sayin'. Seems a little... much.

Posted by: Ace at 02:47 PM | Comments (305)
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Because not every day can be pure negativism and abuse.

Awww.

On the other hand, Barack Obama is a narcissistic-personality disorder dick.

You know, it's common medical jargon to call dicks with narcissistic personality disorders "puppies."

Seriously. I just wrote that at HuffPo, so now it's a fact.

Thanks to Dang Straights.

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (148)
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He's baaaack...

A Congressman with Convictions.

No, but, I guess: At least he's formally paid for his crimes, which puts him ahead of half of Congress.

Former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. of Ohio, who was released from prison four months ago after serving a sentence for racketeering, tax evasion and bribery, is planning another run for Congress in 2010.

Business Journal Daily reports that Traficant told a business networking group in Youngstown, Ohio yesterday that "I'm going to run for Congress." He said he isn't sure which district he will seek or whether he will run as a Democrat, Republican, independent or something else.

...

Traficant also said a far-right group called the American Free Press wants him to run for president as an independent. He is planning to speak to the group in February, if he is allowed to travel under the terms of his parole.

Well, there's a bumper sticker for you.

Jim Traficant

Fighting for America's Families, so long as it doesn't violate the terms of my parole.

As for his program: He's talking like a Republican, and looks to unseat his replacement, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. He's into capitalism and... revenge. He expressly wans revenge on the "suckers" who put him in jail.

I've never been a great fan, but, sure, I'll support him, so long as he's not a Democrat.

Thanks to scm.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (153)
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John Thune is being actively encouraged to run for president in 2012. (Disclosure: I barely know a thing about him but he's kinda my guy at the moment.)

Romney's going to raise money for his 2010 election bid, which is probably kind of unnecessary.

I don't know if this means Romney isn't running, and will instead fashion himself as a kingmaker, or if he's building his credibility inside the party, being a good soldier, and undoing some of that "doesn't play nice with others" reputation he got in 2008.

He will, one presumes, say all sorts of nice things about Thune, which will, of course, be used to rebut his criticisms of Thune should the pair find themselves as rivals in 2012. I guess that's not really a big concern, because, like, duh. Different rules when you're allies than when you're rivals.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (84)
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Ridiculous, in the first place, that a Kennedy, a partisan hack, is supposedly the guy to whom Democrats go for absolution on this issue.

Like, oh, right, totally neutral judge and stuff, eh?

At any rate, whatever you think of this contretemps -- and look, for what it's worth, I agree with Rahm Emanuel: Liberal activists and bloggers are fucking retarded -- the community hurt by this vulgarity doesn't accept the apology.

The Special Olympics is disputing the White House claim that its chairman, Tim Shriver, accepted Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling liberals "retarded."

Seeking to damp down the controversy over Rahm Emanuel's reported, months-old use of the word, a White House official yesterday told me and other reporters that Emanuel had called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize.

"The apology was accepted," the official said yesterday.

The vice president for communications at the Special Olympics, Kirsten Seckler, told me that this account of the conversation is "inaccurate."

"Tim didn't accept his apology," she said. "Tim can't do that. He can't accept an apology on behalf of all people with disabilities."

Shriver had simply said, she said, that he was willing to continue the conversation with the chief of staff.

UPDATE: Emanuel met Wednesday with six disability advocates. He "sincerely apologized," again, for using the word, promising to sign an online pledge to end the use of the word, the advocates said in a joint statement.

Emanuel also promised to "examine" Congressional legislation that would remove the word from federal law.

Assuming Emanuel sinned here -- his penance is to keep other people from using the sinful word?

Really?

You know, I really didn't keep up on this story much -- noticed it, found it meh -- but, like, do you know, are the nutroots pissed off about this, or what?

I understand we are focusing, as we do, on the PC controversy here; but what about the fact that President Wonderful's chief of staff just called his most enthusiastic cultists "fucking retards"?

AKA those who cling bitterly to their retardation?

I really don't know. I guess it would take a five second search to find out, so I guess I can also conclude I really don't care very much, either.

I just want to point out he's right.

Oh, and I also want it noted for the record that, just as it quickly entered leftist mythology that Tea Partiers had themselves used the term "teabaggers," not realizing the sexual import, I have now concluded that fucking liberal retards themselves refer to themselves as fucking retards, so I'm going to use the shit out of that term.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Too Much on the R-Word for One Day: So I'll link this without comment.

On This Theme: Why Rahm Was Right.

My title, not Hawkins'.

Avatarded: The White House should at least get credit for Joe Biden.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (132)
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Delays over.

I never did get to properly dip in the comfort of my own home, reporting the magic moment as it happened. I could only do it stealthily in a back-stage bathroom, as if it were something shameful or something.

Just to let you know: DrewM. pussied out. "I thought it was a joke," he told me.*

Yeah. Right. RINO.

Dan Collins of POWIP didn't pussy out.

He's tearing Andrew Sullivan a fresh one today, too.

* He did give me a very odd look... He really did think it was "just a joke." He thought I was pretty freakin' weird to have done it.

Well, look: As I explained to people-- It's an anecdote, isn't it? Very few people will be able to tell that anecdote, now will they?

Let's say one day I'm in the woods in the Pacific Northwest taking a tinkle on a shrub and a female Sasquatch walks by in that curiously exaggerated arm-swinging manner of locomotion they have and offers to give me a hand-jay.

Now, I don't really want the hand-jay.

But... come on, it's a female Sasquatch. I have to. "Wanting" has nothing to do with it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (127)
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This claim doesn't come from Andrew Young, who does in fact have an incentive to tart things up. But rather from a "close friend" of Elizabeth Edwards.

I suppose she might have a reason to tart things up, too.

But frankly this guy is such a scumbag I believe it.

Disgraced former presidential candidate John Edwards reportedly beat his cancer-stricken wife during a horrific marriage-ending fight.

"John lost his temper big time," a close friend of Elizabeth's revealed to the National Enquirer. "She has the divorce papers drawn up, but she can amend them to charge John with domestic violence."

The couple's furious confrontation was the "final straw" in Elizabeth's decision to end their 32-year marriage after it was revealed that he had fathered a child out of wedlock with his ex-mistress Rielle Hunter, the newspaper revealed today in a bombshell report on its Web site.

"When [John] made the decision to hit me, it was over," a friend said Elizabeth told her.

Why didn't you come to me like a fucking man and tell me not to punch cancer-riddled women?

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (157)
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