There is no point here

For reasons I can't explain I've gotten quite addicted to reading the Daily Mail out of the UK. The Great Cosmic Muffin knows it's not because of their award-winning journalism - but I hit their website every morning and a couple times a day.

Is there a 12-step program for this?

Yesterday's fun article was The great pay divide: Why pole dancers, bishops and RAF pilots earn the SAME salary. Some of the jobs are paid the same here in the US (multiply the pound by 2 to get what those jobs would pay here). The PM gets US$376k and other Ministers receive anywhere from US$200k to US$1mil - the Chief of the Metropolitan Police comes within the same range. That seems odd - shouldn't the PM get more than the rest? However, it's more than the US Congress people get... which if memory serves is around US$240k (I'm too lazy to go look it up). Look at the miliary salaries - British Navy Captain, upwards of US$150k; US Navy Captain, I can't figure out the pay-grade nonsense completely but it looks like a comparable position is in the high US$80's to 90's. Big difference.

The point the DM is making:

The comparisons they drew are fascinating - and raise questions about just how a job's worth is judged.

The fortunes of farmers have dropped so dramatically over the past 50 years that they now share the same bracket as sewer cleaners, mortuary assistants and checkout staff, at £10,000 - £20,000.

The real-life James Bonds in MI5 earn the same as binmen, vicars, carpenters and NHS nurses, £20,000 - £30,000.

A bit higher up on £30,000 - £40,000 are the pole dancers and RAF pilots, along with bishops, police constables, sandwich shop managers, vets, London cab drivers, architects and paramedics.

can be said here as well (for that matter, everywhere). What is what we do actually worth? Who and how determines that? If you want to see what you can or should be earning in your own field, try Monster.com.

I am, apparently, grossly overpaid right now. Not good news as I'll be job-hunting soon.

Just. Great.

Maybe I should move to the UK and take up pole dancing.

Or a binman in Birmingham. Oh, wait, that'd be a pay cut. But still, the shear joy of saying I'm a binman in Birmingham might make up for the pay cut.

Yeah, I need help.

Oh, speaking of... the Daily Mail was the first to inform me of Who's the daddy: Pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears dumped by boyfriend who demands proof of paternity. They got Jaime Lynn's age wrong, however... she's 16. They may have been confusing her with this darling lass.

The ho's are back in town...

I just can't wait to read their Mama's parenting book! Damn shame it's been postponed.

in case you're wondering, when I googled "binmen from birmingham", that image came up. google also, rudely, tried to correct my search term to "lineman from birmingham". I hate nit-picky search engines.

Pron update

Since January 19 (or 19 January if you are from outside the US) there have been 221 visitors, but I'm not really sure how many of them are here for the pron. There have been new searches leading people to this blog, such as NYX BABY NAMES PRONUNCIATION and erotic stories panties bra thong sister law and www.heartbreakers.info (don't go there, not work safe... not safe anywhere).

Unknown is still #2 for the number of visitors who arrive here. Those of you from Unknown, please leave me a map of where Unknown is because it's really driving me crazy trying to figure out where you are. 17% of my visitors are from Unknown and I want to know where that it is. I can mentally picture the United Kingdom (4%), Germany (4%), Canada (4%), Norway (1%)... but Unknown has left me baffled. I pride myself on my Geographical prowess and not knowing where Unknown is, is a serious problem for me. Are you all from that region once listed on maps as hic sunt dracones? The Borgia Map has a location described as: Hic etiam homines magna cornua habentes longitudine quatuor pedum, et sunt etiam serpentes tante magnitudinis, ut unum bovem comedant integrum ~ is that you? If so, let me know, please. I'm also interested in communicating with dragons and if you have some I'd like to know.

Anyway... I can't give an accurate number for the pron searchers this week, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 still searching for variations of L l K and ending up here.

Stories like this make me wish I lived somewhere else.

According to Snopes, this is a true story.

Man pays $200 for 3 snowballs for daughters:

Chris Hansen, a firefighter from Milford, Conn., said he bought the snow for his daughters, ages 12, 14, and 16.

Fools and their money are soon parted. Why couldn't that fool be from Rhode Island or Vermont?

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I didn't watch The Decider on 60 Mintues last night. I don't need the aggrivation. AMERICAblog covers it quite well.

My favorite quote from the show:

“Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course,” Bush says. “So I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

What? WHAT? When the hell did that happen?

Never, is the answer. Infuckingcredible.

If The Decider got paid by the lie we could pay down the debt load he's left us.

Impeachment still off the table Ms. Pelosi?

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Ever since I posted the January 9th blog entry I've had the most amazing upsurge in visitors. 385 in less than a week, when most weeks barely pass 30. There are three little words to explain what is going on here. I'm not telling you what they are (you can guess) because I really don't want Google to continue to spider me when it goes out to search for those three little words. If you search those three little words you will find me at number three on the Google list.

For the most part this is funny, but I gotta wonder about people. The visitors are from Greece, North Korea, Japan, India, Turkey, Iran, Canada, several locations in the UK, Pakistan, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy and my all-time favorite, Unknown, with a whopping 129 visitors, which beats number three, Canada, with only 35 visitors. 49 countries in all. I love that I have an international "audience", but not so much for the topic, you know? I don't care what ya'll do in the privacy of your own home, but being associated with pron (mis-spelled on purpose) isn't exactly something that fills me with the warm and gigglies. And yet... it's very funny too.

So, international blog lurkers, come for the pron, stay for the insanity, okay? Oh, and post once in awhile. Just don't complain about the lack of pron here.