and comfortable with himself are his two most attractive assets. (Pun somewhat intended.)

so much so that I've avoided saying aloud what I've thought ever since he became Chief of Staff: He reminds me of Leonard, Phillip Vandamm's ruthlessly efficient henchman in North By Northwest.

Put together brilliantly with a nice gotcha at the end. Bravo.

Featuring the music of Devo and Siouxsie & the Banshees!

Apparently he also appeared in some racey (and rather homoerotic) photographs. Click on my name. Courtesy of Box Turtle News.

Why? Just, why?

The Scientist looks like the Professor from the Prisoner episode "The General," who the Village kept doped up on drugs throughout the story.

It seems to be working now. Glad to see it. And today's TMW is quite good, if a bit too close to home.

The enlarge link does not work, the old Salon site appears to be retired. TMW is totally impossible to read now. Even with my reading glasses.

It's usually pretty obvious when there is a pattern of abuse of sick leave. Note the signs. Do they call in sick near weekends or holiday weekends? At the end of vacations? During major events (sports or otherwise)? Is the overall sick leave balance rather low and stays low? Monitor the usage and look out for bad patterns. Counsel the employee and, if necessary, ask for a doctor's note. If the employee is out three days or more, invoke Family Medical Leave (FMLA) rights and ask for a note.

Performance management is not rocket science, though it is tedious. And it is the best defense against poor performance or abuse of privileges such as paid sick leave.

sounds a bit like a real life Auntie Mame: Life is a banquet!

May he rest in peace.

This Modern World is the only comic that does not enlarge on the Beta site when you click the enlarge link. It works on the others consistently, but not TMW. Which is rather sad because if any strip needs enlarging it's TMW.

The tags "Fiction, Humor, Satire," etc., are missing from the Mobile Salon page (where I first read this article) and from the Beta page. They are visible only on the standard Salon page.

I wonder if the gratuitous mentioning of Keith and Rachel, the right's current devils de jure, will give this, uh, piece more notice than it would have otherwise received.

On the otherhand, the link to Andrew Sullivan's page about Jonathan Burnham was very useful.

Really? I didn't know that walking one's dog was a sign of the apocalypse.

Did you write a theme song for your proposed new TV show, starring the kid with the balloons? No? Dude, you're a loser! /snark

It's the teeth. The early drawings had very stylized mouths with nothing but teeth on the sides of their faces. You don't see it much in the old lady, but look at her kids. Even the cat sort of has it.

can thwart the machinations of Hollingsworth Hound. The rest of us are at his mercy.

Bravo, Mr. Bolling. Bravo.

but we've been in a drought since you've been living there. I remember when it rained over 30" for three year in a row in the late 70s.

In contrast, New England has turned into Ferenginar this season. The in-laws said it rained pretty much all June and July. We lucked out on our trip to the Cape, but then also read about the organic potato and tomato crops biting the dust because of too much water ruining them.

pays the price come next election. Absolutely amazing.

I know it's supposed to be funny, two little girls wearing Hitler-esque mustaches. But it still looks kinda creepy.

This hits just a little bit too close to home for it to be funny. But it is well done.

Absolutely pathetic.

I don't have any children. But I can't imagine anything more cruel than writing about your child's demons and publishing them for all the world to see while they are still children. No matter how well you cloak things, in the end identities will be revealed and lives will be damaged. A writer should never use her or his gifts in such a matter. Would it have hurt Ms. Myerson to just wait until her kids came of age before publishing her work? At least as adults they can just tell her to sod off; as children they are a helpless, captive audience.

Limbaugh's continued homoerotic-tinged sexual obsessions are getting creepier and creepier and creepier. I tried ignoring this story, now I find it on Salon's front page. TMI! I cry, TMI!

Scott was a gay man who confessed to his friend Jonathan Schmitz on the Jenny Jones Show in 1995 that he had a crush on him. Jonathan laughed it off at first. And then a few days later, killed Scott. The episode never aired, but did in a way on Court TV as the criminal trial against Jonathan proceeded.

There is always a lot of hand wringing afterwards, but clearly the producers of these shows do not perform a very thorough background checks.

Kid power!

had me in stitches. Well stated!

I'm glad to see someone interpreting the new unemployment data appropriately. There is a big difference between things getting better and things worsening more slowly, and I think Prof. Reich articulated the problem quite well. Despite the rise in the stocks today, nothing will really get better until more people are working in sustainable jobs that pay enough to make end's meet.

On a different note, I'm happy to see that the disgusting first post was deleted. I normally don't comment on flame-bait posts, but that one seemed to me particularly gross. Good work, editors!

If a bit too near the mark, making it depressing.