One of the first things on the Florida legislature’s agenda is to put off the automatic increase in the unemployment insurance premium that kicked in when the unemployment rate went above 10%. Since they don’t ever want to be accused of raising taxes, the Republicans insert “triggers” into bills, automatic increases that don’t require a vote. Being Republicans, they never imagined that the trigger would actually be pulled.

They have the trigger backwards, but they will never understand why. Republicans have never understood the concept of storing up during good times, so you have the resources you need during bad times. If there is extra revenue in a year, they either spend it or cut another tax. They don’t understand that the fiscally conservative thing to do would be to put it in the “rainy day fund”, so that when hard times hit, they don’t have to make drastic cuts or increase “fees”.

Everyone is probably familiar with the fable, attributed to Aesop, of The Ant and the Grasshopper. Republicans claim to be “Ants”, but that’s absurd on its face. Ants are social creatures who work for the good of their community, while Grasshoppers are only concerned with themselves. Ants are concerned with the future, while Grasshoppers can’t see beyond the current quarter. Ants go about the business of life, while Grasshoppers jump around and make a lot noise. Ants build societies, while Grasshoppers build nothing.

Via Corrente I have learned that Al Weisel, the person behind the very funny satirical blog, Jon Swift, died as a result of multiple aortic aneurysms on February 27^th. In a dual tragedy for his family, he died on the way to his father’s funeral in Virginia.

In addition to the web site, he was one of the founders of Blogroll Amnesty Day, designed to promote smaller blogs.

My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

But the US keeps putting on farces.

From the St. Petersburg Times: Suspect in downtown St. Petersburg evacuation is light, flaky and buttery

Dozens of people were evacuated. A street corner was shut down. The bomb squad was called.

More than two hours later, police discovered what the bag contained: a croissant.

The comments were interesting though:

– Dick and Liz Cheney held a new conference to credit the Bush administration policies for keeping us safe from terrorist baked goods. They allege that if we keep following the current administration, we’ll be a nation continually on the defense from attacking bagels and pastries.

– Somewhere Osama Bin Laden is laughing at us all. This dude has us all so scared that we see an abandoned croissant and call the bomb squad. If that doesn’t say the terrorists have won, I don’t know what does.

– Police suspect the French resistance group… Pièce de résistance is responsible.

So far no one has attempted “Hey, it was crescent-shaped, so it was a Muslim plot to test our security.”