That's the Costco ratio, isn't it?

They seem to be doing well, and their employees feel fairly-treated.

Totally. That fucking damn reagan took out the solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed on

the White House roof. Bastard.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/tp/History-of-White-House-Solar-Panels.htm

No need to conserve or try out alternatives. Let the almighty fucking damn free market just fix everything. Magic!

I also learned something else really encouraging at that link. In 2010, President Obama ordered solar panels reinstalled on the White House roof. Something about how the most famous house in the country ought to be setting an example or some such ridiculous do-gooder thing.

Slightly off-topic - ever notice how the term "do-gooder" is used as an insult? It's a derisive term, as is "empathy" - at least to the bad guys. I heard this talked about on Nicole Sandler's show (filling in for Randi Rhodes today). I hope it's being talked about everywhere. Focuses the attention on who and what we are as a country. President Obama has frequently used the phrase - "it's not who we are" - when giving stirring speeches about the "more perfect union" he sees as our nation's future. Well, I think we ought to start questioning that BIGTIME. We all, in this nation, need to stop and think about exactly who it is that we are - in our dreams and in reality. It might help get a few of our wandering, gullible, and distracted fellow citizens back on track again.

Son of. And no laughing matter, either.

I noticed that, too.

Made me think of the women in the Senate. Twenty of them. Mostly Dems. But they ALL get together every month for dinner hosted by their senior member Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). They stay in communication even when the men are out waving their dicks around and making spectacles of themselves. One in particular whose nickname goes with the word "Carnival."

Love that site! And how it starts out with the subtitle "for when 140 characters isn't enough."

Like jonathan karl? Wondering if any of them came from the Collegiate Network?

I think they're rattled for another reason, too - although, full-disclosure here, I've been out of the AP since 1996 when I retired.

HOWEVER - when it was the Wire Service Guild (and I see it's changed now to News Media Guild so I'm not sure what the contract allows anymore), which it was when I worked there, it was almost impossible to be fired. That's one of the reasons I grabbed that job offer when they presented it. Long story, won't bore you, but...

The Wire Service Guild contract was A-FUCKIN'-MAZING!!! For broadcasting, for any media, for any contract. If you made permanent there, which you did after you survived a nine-month probation period, you were GOLDEN. You were like a tenured teacher. They could NOT fire you. We regarded it as like being in the Army. "Three-square a day and they can't fire you." Meaning - you did NOT aspire toward riches by working at the AP, BUT you had a pretty decent regular salary that kept food on your table and the wolves away from the door, AND the all-important JOB SECURITY!!!! I'd never heard of any such thing in my professional experience! Air talent was something that could be flitched off at a moment's notice, for no reason, out of the capriciousness of whatever management was there or had just flown in from Oklahoma City or some such place and thought they knew EVERYTHING about running a radio station in L.A. For example, I had one job from which I got fired after the ratings went UP. Go figure.

Soooooo... when I saw that "they can't fire you after you make permanent," I RAN, did not walk, to grab it. It meant management couldn't fuck with me anymore. They could nitpick you nearly to death. They could memo you and annoy you and overwork you and you had to settle for less pay for a harder job than your peers at the fancy network stations with the big salaries and exposure and ego glory (and no job security). We used to refer to it as "being eaten by ants." BUT THEY COULD NOT FIRE YOU. Unless of course you gunned down half the people in the building or something else really seriously awful. Sounded like a fair trade-off to me.

So if AP employees are getting fired, either the contract's been changed, OR this is one of those "something else really seriously awful" things that allowed for dismissal. And that will shake up a newsroom like the AP's, like nobody's business. There are lifers there. I worked with a woman whose 40-year party was held. They gave her a special pin in honor of that many years of service, and they had several denominations of them. Believe me, she had one of every denomination (for every five years). It was one of those increasingly rare jobs, even at this late date, in which you could hire on and then plan to settle in for the long term. You could work there til you retired. I lasted nine years - indeed the longest I'd spent at any job I'd ever had before.

I'm not so sure it's like that anymore, though. But there's enough of that mentality still inbred at the AP. You can settle in. You can make long-range plans. And you can get to feeling rather comfy, especially as you see your friends at the big radio stations and networks victimized by layoffs and downturns and management changes and ownership changes and flakiness in the market and flakiness in the ratings, and watch the heads roll down the corporate halls while you, on the other hand, were safe. I'm sure there are still those comfy feelings that come with job security - such as it is - at the AP, even if new guild contracts and changing times start messing with those things. So when there are firings - especially at an organization not accustomed to such things, it's REALLY shaking them up. But good.

Welcome to DU, homegirl! EXCELLENT! Absolutely.

Glad you're here! Everybody needs to be talking about this! It's all part of the "unfit to govern" drumbeat that we have to instigate, encourage, extend, and repeat because it's necessary. Everywhere we should be hearing this message reinforced! darrell issa's showing that R next to his name defines him as manifestly Unfit To Govern. Look what a mess his party just made! They can't win the big elections because their policies are so generally backward-leaning and distasteful that they resort to try to rig the game or buy the election. They go dishonest and attempt to suppress if not silent their opposition. Free-marketers all, btw. Thought they believed in competition.

But here in California, WE have the power statewide. There's the beauty of it. Not enough of them to cause trouble. Let's flex some muscle. We've already taken sensible steps to bring the budget more in line, brought more open minds to Sacramento that are and we have a brilliant, experienced, proven, and progressive-leaning governor.

We've needed to hose this guy for a LONG time. California's needed it. SoCal certainly has needed it. The entire US needs it considering the exalted committee chairman's job he was given in Congress. He's made a whole lotta trouble and heartache for FAR too long. Let's focus, hard, on getting rid of him once and for all!

Dayum, Scuba! These are GREAT!

YES. Be that guy!

I love these! Mind if I steal 'em?

But did any of their friends have a skiing accident?

Car accident? Surfing accident? That girl who lost an arm in a shark attack while surfing a few years ago - she wasn't exactly elderly, you know.

Did any of 'em get mono? Did any of 'em have an asthma attack? Any of their friends? They're young, alright, but they AREN'T immune. Our son had to go to the ER, last year at age 20, because he got hit in the eye by his guitar player's guitar head stock. Ripped open his right eyebrow and he needed six stitches. He's not exactly a geriatric.

Shit happens. Shit can and DOES happen. And it can and does happen to someone their age. Or, heaven forbid, THEM.

YEP! THIS^^^^^^^!!!!

We have every reason to nationalize a lot of their power base. They ARE becoming wealthy exploiting natural resources that belong to ALL OF US. And they WERE/ARE part of an attempted coup to overthrow our government. Seriously, do we need any more evidence than the mountains of evidence, and the forests of evidence, and the earth and below-ground of evidence - a whole planet-full of that one! Hell, a whole planet-full of all those things!!!! They were part of, and underwriters of, an attempted coup d'etat.

WHY CAN'T WE GO AFTER THEM, AS SUCH????????? On MULTIPLE charges of sedition, attempted sedition, and conspiracy to commit sedition.

I think I feel like calling my Congressman... (Waxman, thank goodness!)