Sometimes taxes are necessary

Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times discusses California's Governor Brown's tax proposal:

We're not talking about peanuts. The average hit for those taxes is $260 per person each year, or $1,040 for a family of four. But what's the cost of not extending them?

It would be huge, and it's not just liberals who are saying so. After looking at what the effect would be on education, healthcare and public safety, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the extension as long as the deal includes future spending caps and pension reform.

California is, in fact, a relatively high-tax state, though not the highest. In 2009, the combined state and local tax burden was 10.6% of personal income, as opposed to the 9.8% national average. As my colleague George Skelton pointed out earlier this month, state general fund spending has dropped by billions in recent years, with next year's spending per $100 of personal income projected to be the lowest since Ronald Reagan was governor.

It's WTF Thursday!

Ex-California Governor Jerry Brown is thinking of running ... for governor?!

San Diego Democratic women are highly dangerous beasts! As are pastors in Texas. They are the worst!

Explains why Bin Laden wanted to attack the US. He visited Indiana and Los Angeles. Sorry about that, guys....

Wonderfully awfully ironic ads from the past.

We knew this just from seeing the photos:

Israel inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip during its 22-day war on the coastal enclave in December and January, Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group has said.

In a 117-page report released on Thursday, Amnesty cited evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm's way "by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions".

I really think Israel crossed the line on this and has lost an immense amount of worldwide support. The 'victims' have become the very thing that victimized them in the first place: bloodthirsty heartless thugs.

Banks and corporations are trying to tell us everything is fine and on the mend, we can go back to spending wildly. Odd that our 'recovery' seems to be a jobless one:

The American economy lost 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent in a sobering indication that the most painful downturn since the Great Depression has yet to release its hold.

And Europe hits a ten year high:

Unemployment in the 16-nation euro zone has climbed to 9.5 per cent, its highest rate in a decade, EU data show.

More than 15 million people are out of work across the zone, with around 273,000 jobs lost in May, the Eurostat data agency estimated.

The increase in jobless was expected, with the eurozone experiencing a 2.5 per cent drop in output in the first quarter of 2009.

"Deep and extended economic contraction, depressed business confidence and deteriorating profitability is pushing unemployment up sharply across the eurozone," Howard Archer, an economist at consultants IHS Global Insight, said.

The May eurozone unemployment rate was up from 9.3 per cent in April and 7.4 per cent in May 2008.

But if you do have a job...there is no escape from your office!

Obama administration being secret about Cheney's interview with the investigators over the Plame affair.

Ants are taking over the wooorrrrrlllddd!

And the most WTF moment of all: Cafferty asks: Good idea to allow guns in bars?