Quick hits

Tiny Kim apparently has the support of the security services, which has now sent a number of senior Party officials tiptoeing through the tulips. Seems Tiny Kim ain't as dim as he might have seemed from his early appearances and isn't going to be tiptoeing through the tulips himself anytime soon -- or turnips either, given the abysmal yield of North Korean agriculture over the past couple of decades.

Gratuitous video of new North Korean dictator:

In other news, Newt the Gingrinch appears to think he's running for President of North Korea, what with basically proposing to take judges who rule in ways he don't like out behind the barn and shoot'em in the head or somethin'. The sad part is that there's a large contingent of Americans who break out in giant shit-eatin' grins at the very thought, who have no problem with the notion of living under a North Korean style dictatorship, as long as it's *their* dictator.

Who are the 1% and what do they do for a living? Hint: It ain't work in the way you and I think of work.

Regulations are not a huge jobs killer. Like, duh. If there's demand for my product I don't give a shit about what regulations I have to comply with, I'm gonna hire folks to produce more product.

50% of Americans are too poor to pay Federal income taxes, but they still pay plenty of other taxes, starting with the 15% payroll tax that the 1% (who don't work for a living, they "invest" for a living and don't earn income, they earn "capital gains") don't pay.

The wealth gap, graphically. It ain't a pretty picture.

Why haven't any of these Wall Street fraudsters gone to prison yet, again? Oh wait, because they're "job creators" in some alternate universe where unicorns are pink and cotton candy grows on trees. Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin