When I first moved to my current digs, I dealt with my depression and the wealth of window space in the new place by planting found seeds. The second year I had this:

45,000 before 9am. I'm glad the good folks at Raw are keeping up with this, in that "OMGWTFBBQ???" sort of way.

Somebody was working this weekend to make sure thousands of other people didn't.

US companies announced they're cutting 45,000 jobs by 9 am Eastern Time on Monday morning, even before the US stock market opened, according to a quick count by Raw Story.

The point is: this isn't going to stop. Layoffs lead to layoffs lead to more layoffs, until it's a Depression "for real." I live in MI, and we've been experiencing the truth of this for years now. There is no magic moment in which it all suddenly gets better, so long as policymakers continue to sit on their hands, or pass another round of meaningless tax cuts that lead to exactly no job creation.

So, what's your favorite snarky one-word response to news like this? "Ouch" just isn't enough anymore.

Yesterday I was talking about why it really sucks that being right doesn't matter, but who you are in the Village hierachy does. Similarly, I'll confess to being mildly annoyed that Hoss is finally on board the Shrill Supertrain of "Oh my god we're fucked!" to which an important corollary is "and centrist policies aren't going to help anything." Let me be clear: Atrios is and always has been in the camp of the Good Guys, even if there may be valid reason to include him in the universe of Bad Blogger Boyz, for (not) blogging in certain ways or on certain issues. Regardless, my philosophy has always been "it's your blog, write what you want." Even as I recognize that the PB1.0 has come to mirror the Village SCLM, and that 'leading voices' like his set the tone for much of what is written and discussed. Blogging is still different from paid, professional journalism; I don't believe bloggers have any special responsibility to cover anything other than what they're motivated to write about on any given day. But it's slightly maddening to know that Atrios, and others, have upon occasion taking to calling some of us Doomsayers "too doomy" for pointing out that this was going to happen, and that Dems have proven useless about stopping it.

But getting back to the topic, yes, I agree. I don't see it getting better anytime soon. That's exactly and precisely why blogs like this one have moved in the direction it has over the last few months. Agree or disagree she got a raw deal: making HRC the centerpiece of front page news and policymaker's daily discourse won't address any of the real problems facing us. Just as discussing Sarah Palin's sex life won't, or what kind of dog the Obama kids should get won't, or why KO is the greatest media personality evah won't, or why Joe Lieberman is History's Greatest Monster won't...