Linkee-poo, twelve drummer drumming

"I’ve seen a lot of cover letters in my time. Some ramble, some describe the story, others list thirty small publications, some are misaddressed or rife with typos." Cat Rambo with some good advice for (short story/poetry) cover letters. Get in, get out, quit messing about.

Tobias Buckell is looking for your favorite quotes about writing.

"John Scalzi's 10-point plan for getting creative work done in the time of Trump." Also generally good advice for getting work done no matter who is in charge.

"Put another way: The north isn’t just warming. It has a fever… This matters to you and me even if we live thousands of miles away, because what happens in the north won’t stay there. Birds migrate. Disease spreads… This is where Burek comes in. Fundamentally, a veterinary pathologist is a detective. Burek’s city streets are the tissues of wild animals, her crime scenes the discolored and distended organs of tide-washed seals and emaciated wood bison." (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

Yes, wouldn't it be great if the federal government would actually change federal laws regarding employee compensation and benefits instead of forcing local and state governments to act to provide citizens with livable situations. So it's very confusing to employers who have different sites that fall into different jurisdictions. Allow me this moment to laugh. Look, this is only a problem when your business model is based on maximizing profits by paying your employees the lowest possible compensation. I would recommend, instead, a business plan based on providing the customer the highest-quality product at the lowest price point possible. As to the Burger King manager saying they just won't be able to hire all these people and that there's headaches when their employees work at several stores… Dude, you're killing me over here. Okay (breathe breathe breathe) here's the solution, take the most restrictive regulations in all of the places you have a business and base ALL your employees' compensation at that level (the highest minimum wage, the most paid time off, the most benefits, etc). Makes your HR issues vanish. You'll also find your costs of management and the costs of replacement will be greatly reduced (it might not pay for all of it, but it'll be more than 50%, trust me on this). As for not hiring employees… yeah, cause the fast food industry hires people just to hang around the store and keeps them on the clock when there isn't enough work for them… oh man, my sides hurt from laughing so much. You let me know how well not hiring people works out, okay?

"The CEO of a popular fast food chain said this week that he was 'stunned' to see profits soar each time California passed minimum wage increases… In an interview with KQED on Tuesday, Wetzel’s Pretzels CEO Bill Phelps admitted that his investors were worried about how a 2014 wage hike would impact the business… Mike Jacobs, owner of a Wetzel’s Pretzels franchise in Concord’s Sunvalley Shopping Center, told KQED that the increased business can be attributed to the fact that his customers are making more money." Funny how that works out. For all the supposed business and economics pundits out there, it's called "the virtuous cycle." Whereas being a self-important dick by cutting employee wages to the bare bones (and sending them off the clock the moment they're no longer 100% productive) is called "the vicious cycle." (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

Edit Jim Hines tells us that Ann Coulter has been counting down the days until Trump is president, and that there is no nefarious motivation here. End Edit "Ann Coulter today spawned celebration from Twitter’s Nazis by simply posting the number 14." The "14" is a reference to a white genocide passage in Mien Kampf. I'm sure by the time you reads this Annie will have come out with "I was just provoking the left to see how they'd take it." So let me say 1) Support for Nazi is not joke material (unless you're making fun of that support) and 2) most kids realize by the time they're 12 that "playing the Nazi" is not acceptable in roll play and 3) it's not like the first time or all that surprising she would be a Nazi and finally 4) Actual fucking Nazis. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)

The cost of free college education.

Your Obamacare Repeal Talking Points. (Grokked from someone, sorry)

"The House of Representatives Select Investigative Panel investigating the procurement of fetal tissue for research has disbanded, but not before recommending that the National Institutes of Health be required to stop funding fetal tissue research, and that the huge health provider Planned Parenthood be stripped of U.S. funding." Fact checking the Congressional report on fetal tissue research. The quick story, Congressional Conservatives still lying to support their radical social agenda."Blackburn’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the errors. In a statement responding to the report, Planned Parenthood noted that three other congressional investigations and 13 state-level probes of the group, including one by a grand jury in Texas, have cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing." That. (Grokked from Cherie Priest)

In regards to yesterday's link about sportsmen being worried about losing access to public lands… "A new rule, written by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), establishes as fact that any legislation to dispose of public lands and natural resources would cost taxpayers exactly $0. This paves the way for the new Congress to get rid of vast swaths of public lands — all at the expense of the American taxpayer." And this is from the party of "business smarts" and "fiscal responsibility." Let the pillaging of America begin - new GOP slogan for 2016-2018. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)

"Donald Trump's transition team announced Thursday an addition to the President-elect's White House policy team who has a history of railing against chemical birth control, claiming that it causes abortions and 'deliberate miscarriages.'" We're going to need more desks and more foreheads in the coming four years than I think we have any chance of supplying.

Tweet of my heart: ‏@ReformedBroker If you drive off in a stolen Tesla, it becomes an Edison. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)

Double dip: @fawfulfan This is the last month conservatives will deem the #JobsReport a huge conspiracy. They'll praise the exact same #s as miracle growth in Feb. (Grokked from Cat Rambo)