Unsought Input

Earlier we wrote about all the great job salary and pay data you can get at indeed.com. I noticed the cool web2.0 widget features they have so I thought I would add to the list, now with exciting graphs!

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

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I did a search to see how much Batman makes in Gotham City. It’s a good thing he’s got a trust fund, because $38K hardly puts spinners on the Batmobile and grills on the Boy Wonder.

Obviously waiting for his performance bonus

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I looked to see what the President makes in Washington, DC. Really this job is about the perks. Bush made much more money running oil companies into the ground and running baseball teams away from the pennant. But could he ignore the Geneva Conventions or invade a county for no particular reason? Nope.

But the cost of living is low, so…

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Did you know that Osama bin Laden is making about $32,000 in Northern Pakistan? That’s my best guess for where he’s employed, anyway - I also searched for him in Afghanistan and came up with the same number. You might think that’s a fairly low income for someone so famous, but keep in mind that prices are so much lower in tribal regions. At that wage he can afford a half-dozen posh caves and apparently evade the world’s only remaining superpower.

That’s not what she said last night

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Last but not least, here’s final proof that all those elementary-school insults were more than just childish taunts. According to the most scientific data available, your mom makes $41,000 per year working the street corner.

Did you know that all over the country, nay the world, people are being persecuted for their belief and intelligence? Did you know that a small, powerful elite controls everything that children are exposed to in school for their own devious, Darwinistic ends? Did you know that only a complete outsider, a rebel with nothing but guts and a heart of steel, can expose the truth?

You might not know these things because none of them are true. But the makers of the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” and star Ben Stein will try to shovel that particular pile of poop in theaters this February. Thanks to Pharyngula, an excellent blog by an actual scientist, for the tip.

From the movie’s home page:

Ben realizes that he has been “Expelled,” and that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the “crime” of merely believing that there might be evidence of “design” in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.

The movie Expelled, in a sense, is nothing new. It follows the established tactics of the creationist / intelligent design crowd, trying to fight the “materialistic” “darwinists” in the court of public opinion rather than in the labs or peer-reviewed journals. It’s yet another attack on science.

“And what’s so wrong with that,” you might ask, “this is a democracy after all.”

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I don’t think I can add anything to this. George W. Bush busts a move with some African dancers, via the Daily Show:

More video of the move-busting…

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The movie 300, based on the Frank Miller graphic novel, has earned $70 million at the box office, breaking some records. But if you read some of the commentary out there you might not be too interested in seeing it.

All the villains are gay. All the good guys are white and the bad guys are black. The whole thing is just Frank Miller’s thinly-veiled cheering for Bush to invade Iran. Etc.

Now, 300 is definitely not a historical documentary. But I don’t think the criticisms mentioned above are completely true-although I can certainly see why many people may have jumped to them.

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A lot of people thought invading Iraq was a bad idea.  A lot of people thought the invasion and occupation plans were unrealistic and wrong-headed.  With the results of the war so far, you might think those people were right.
When President Bush addressed the nation this evening, no one thought he would outright admit to the gigantic series of mistakes this war has been.  No one who has watched this administration seriously expects the President to take responsibility for a problem, take the blame, or apologize.

But he did!  At least, according to some news reports.  Bush Takes Blame in Iraq, Adds Troops, says the San Francisco Chronicle.  Bush’s new strategy includes rare public contrition, says the Seattle Times.

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Lewis Black is an angry, shouting comedian. You might recognize him from his appearances on The Daily Show. He took some time to review the major issues of 2006 and grapple with Christmas.

I’m not sure if this counts as yet another salvo in the ongoing War on Christmas (he hates it) or a brave flanking maneuver from an unlikely ally (he hates the rampant commercialization of it). Perhaps if he had read our guide to fighting the War on Christmas, he would be able to make less ambiguous pronouncements.

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Many, many Americans have been wondering - how can we win the War in Iraq? Up until recently, the President was not one of them. He knew exactly what needed to be done. But times have changed. The President is officially in listening mode.

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What do you do When you find out you are wrong?

Not just wrong about one thing, or a little bit wrong. What do you do when you find out you are very wrong, and consistently wrong, and there are really big consequences?

President Bush, after three years, seems to finally realize he has been wrong. Well, not really. But he has finally acknowledged the big consequences part. Part of the problem has been that he has only gotten advice from those willing to tell him what he wants to hear. So the formation of the Iraq Study Group was a good thing, right? Finally, some independent experts would weight in, and tell the President some things he wouldn’t like to hear.

Except they weren’t really experts. And their advice has little to do with Iraq. And Bush isn’t really listening anyway.

So how do we win the war in Iraq? Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t hurt to ask the real experts - the military people actually in Iraq. In fact, one of our troops has given us a PowerPoint presentation. That’s right, it’s even in the preferred format of upper management everywhere. Seriously, go there right now and watch the presentation, it’s only 18 slides.

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Monday marks 5 years since the 9/11 attacks.

This not a particularly political site. I’ll let others hash out the differences between liberals and conservatives. But I will say that the current administration apparently thinks I, and the rest of America, are idiots. President Bush thinks we are stupid, and afraid, and they think they can sway us with ridiculous, illogical arguments.

At a press briefing on September 8^th, Press Secretary Tony Snow said the following:

“But, more importantly — if we have people who want to re-litigate that, that’s fine, but the President’s stated concern this week, as you’ve seen, is to think, okay, we’ll let people quibble over three years ago; the important thing to do is to figure out what you’re doing tomorrow, and the day after, and the month after, and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won.”

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I’ve never been one to wave the flag. Yes, maybe I take living in the United States for granted sometimes, but if you play the cards you’re dealt, you don’t whine when you get a couple aces.

But reading Daniel Howes’s article in the Detroit News today about Washington’s attitude toward Detroit’s number one industry has me thinking about some recent comments by Bob Lutz, GM’s main product man and a longtime employee of the global auto industry. Lutz - born in Switzerland, I might add - gave a rousing speech defending the concept of “economic patriotism” and noting that we as Americans simply suck at it.

Who more exemplifies how economically unpatriotic we are as Americans than big man George Bush himself, who, as Howes mentioned,

won’t meet with the bosses of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group. But he’ll sit astride a Harley, visit a Nissan truck plant, herald the Toyota engine that won the Indy 500, campaign for Republicans and then have his press secretary swear there’s no snub of Detroit.

Sure, he drives a big ‘ol pickup at his ranch in Texas and Cadillac builds his limos, but those press opps mean nothing when he won’t say carburetor to Rick Wagoner, Tom LaSorda and Bill Ford.

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