Did W. muzzle the messenger? David Lazarus of the San Francisco Chronicle had a very interesting article Friday in which he reported the Bush administration has killed a layoff tracking program. The $6.6m initiative provided statistics about the number of “mass layoffs” (when greater than 50 employees were let go at once.)

Sharon Brown, the program’s overseer, said the move ended “a high-quality program, producing timely information on important developments in the labor market.” Not so, says deputy assistant secretary Mason Bishop: “We didn’t see how this program was helping workers re-enter the workforce.” Not a bad argument, but Lazarus convincingly destroys it by noting the Dept. of Labor is doing plenty of volunteerism studies, and nobody gets a job from that, either.

To no-one’s surprise, Bush Sr. made exactly the same moves during his administration. Let’s all hope his son meets with the same fate.

Update: Not related to layoffs, but Helen Thomas has an interesting take on what W. and his cronies appear to be spending their time on instead of jobs creation.

I was going to write a quick entry about a custom license plate generator I found via some guy’s blog.

But then I saw some plates on their Recent License Maker Licenses page. When I visited, they included:

There were several variants on that theme. The fact that someone would take the time to select Wyoming and craft this stuff causes me more sadness than I can explain.

I mean, they killed him. Jesus. They killed him.

I have a certain amount of tolerance for the incredibly stupid. A low tolerance, but it’s still there. When I see Olive Garden commercials that purport to show some woman in Italy who creates their dishes and supposedly teaches their cooks — err, chefs — how to make food, I try not to think of the fact that this is the same chain owned by a company based in Orlando that also brings you Red Lobster and Bahama Breeze (which is of course genuinely Caribbean. Now hiring in Cincinnati, Detroit, Cleveland…)

But I have my limits. Take this banner ad:

A chance to own authentic items from the movie? Wow! Except… wasn’t that a fucking animated movie? A computer-generated animated movie? Why yes, yes it was. The items that Yahoo! assures us “come directly from the making of Ice Age” include: a book, a t-shirt, a finger puppet, and a “pencil kit.” Own a piece of history, kids.

You MUST be kidding me. First, it’s bad enough that I am awake at this ungodly hour. (My alarm went off almost an hour ago!) But what do I wake up to? The soothing sound of robins or some other freaking bird that would somehow be hanging around my window in November?

Nope. It’s a fucking JACKHAMMER.

Yes, that’s right, the construction project across the street was not satisfied with just coordinating all their equipment so at least one guy was beep-beep-beep-backing up at all times. They had to get a guy ripping up the curb.

I’m thinking I may need to reprise my city council appearance. (At home, I chastised the council for attempting to pass a noise ordinance. Here, I think it’s a great idea. But forget the kids with stereos — I say shut down the Caterpillars.)

OK. End it’s-way-too-early rant. Let the weekend begin.