Miscellaneous snowy-day links

Because the sidewalks are now shoveled enough to take the toddler to Grandma's! woot!!

• It's hard not to be impressed by these graphs, which show that the unemployment crisis is disproportionately hitting those with less education. That's partly an explanation for why lawmakers and banksters don't seem too het up about it all; one could also imagine that it has policy implications such as Rafe suggests.
  
  
• A really interesting mental exercise: If Senators Represented Demographics Instead of States. Somehow seems unlikely we'll get anything close to that in either house, as long as corporate spending in politics is unlimited...
  
  
• I'm totally with Rafe in his frustration with constant stirring up of fear by politicians and talking heads on the right. It seems to start with terrorism, and then the worry is easily redirected onto other "suspicious" groups, and suddenly there's no talking rationally about anything. It's hard to see how to fight it when it's so effective as a(n amoral) tool. Sigh.
  
  
• Meantime, healthcare reform seems stalled while people's lives are at stake. Nobody seems to give a crap, when it's clearly a financial and humanitarian crisis right here at home.
  
  
• On a cheerier note, there are some really great videos at the Muppet Studio YouTube site. Heck, I'm just happy to know that there are still videos being made with some of these great characters -- poor Beaker!