CHUCK GRASSLEY V. CHUCK GRASSLEY

It’s still a cliff-hanger, but I think we’re finally going to get health insurance reform.  Here’s the latest from Rachel Maddow.

If you don’t watch her every night, the only reason can be that you lack TiVo. 

And if you lack TiVo (or your cable company equivalent), you have taken the concept of healthy self-sacrifice one order of magnitude too far. 

(Note to hotel chains:  Can’t you finally furnish your rooms with TVs that at least have PAUSE, REWIND, and FAST FORWARD?  Surely, Hilton – with an order for its 545,000 rooms – could get an idiot-proof hard-drive-equipped TV?  At which point: why would anyone stay anywhere else?)

TAX NONSENSE

Mike W. forwards this “LETTER FROM THE BOSS” that’s been circling the Internet:

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way.  To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to  increase by about 10%.  But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead.  This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to  go.
 

So, this is what I did.  I walked through our parking lots and found sixty 'Obama' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go.  I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change, I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

☞  This is such nonsense.

In the first place, taxes have not gone up.

In the second, if they do, why lay anyone off?  Taxes don’t keep an enterprise from making a profit; they take a slice OF the profit. 

If this CEO’s company is making a taxable profit, why would he fire people he needs?  And if he doesn’t need them, wouldn’t he fire them anyway?

More could be said about how dumb (and short-sighted) this is, but I like to think Mike and the others forwarding it are just enjoying a little wry humor (I chuckled, too), not taking it seriously.

AL GORE’S OP-ED

If you think concern over global climate change is exaggerated (or know people who do), read this (or send it to them).  It’s only the habitability of our planet that’s at stake, so it’s worth a few minutes.