Idaho Pocatello - High Paying Jobs

Journal:"I am curious ...Where does Greg Rogers, of Idaho Commerce & Labor, get his statistical facts? He says the annual average wage of an Idahoan with a bachelor's degree is more than $50,000. Where are these high-paying jobs? In the years that I have graduated with a bachelor's degree, I have found jobs that barely keep my income above poverty level. These are mostly part-time jobs without benefits. It is rare to find a professional job with benefits at $24,000 a year (or even $18,000 a year, for that matter). Benefits are scarce, even for the professional who holds a degree (and often a large amount of debt). Unfortunately, it is not just a matter of picking the right degree. A college graduate many times makes half as much as a high school graduate who works in a specific field (think railroad, industrial plants). High school graduates in these areas can make up to $50,000 - an income a lot of college grads may never have access to. So, Greg Rogers, please light a torch to guide us "high-paid graduates" toward the big money to be made after college. It would be nice to at least stay a step ahead of poverty. You could ask any school teacher or social worker about that.....Joni Kuhlman, Downey Idaho" I also live in Pocatello and I agree with her I have friends, who have also gone to collage and decide to stay here and work when they get their degree's. They also say the same thing as what you have read above. If you want a job, to eat & sleep in-doors after going to collage(4+years) around here you'll make around $8.00-11.00 a hour (these usually are only part-time/ no benefits jobs, but you need a degree to just get them)-before tax's. And.. You'll have to be right on top of the job hunting skills to even find that!! Or if you're really lucky as a good friend of mine was last fall. Mind you he worked crappy jobs for 3-years, till he landed a job working for the Health & welfare which put him in the bracket of $21,000.00 a year before tax's. Lucky him!!... Then, the part that really sucks for these BA-collage people is now they have to also pay back those students loans they got to go to collage to better themselves at the price of around $400-$500.00 a-month on top of living expenses, for the next god knows 10-years!! Which would depress anyone. When you see high-school drop-outs making as much money if not more, after you pay your collage loans back each month... Working in Tel-phone-marketing jobs. Makes us wonder why go to collage if your going to stay in Pocatello, or if your smart. You'll move over the state border where the pay is 1/4- double higher. To tell you the truth I have thought about moving out of state many of times but never any extra money to make such a big move, so till I can.

I also will only dream things will change here in Pocatello Idaho, for my children.."

Bush Verses Hitler

Sen.Robert Byrd:" In the magical upside-down world of right-wing blogs, it is now an accepted article of faith that Sen. Robert Byrd compared George W. Bush to Hitler last week. Republicans are demanding an apology, many have taken to high dudgeon, and another pointless flapette is on. Actually Byrd, a noted scholar of the Senate and its procedures, made an interesting speech opposing the "nuclear option" of cutting off Senate debate on judicial nominees. Rumor has it there is a plot afoot in the Senate to curtail the right of extended debate in this hallowed chamber, not in accordance with its rules, mind you, but by fiat from the chair, said the elderly Byrd. He is also famed for his magniloquent speaking style, a splendid old-fashioned oratory known to older Americans who had to study rhetoric. Byrd tangentially mentioned Hitler, quoting historian Alan Bullock to make the following point:Hitler's originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the state: The correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal. A point worth pausing over. Byrd went on to suggest the "nuclear option" ploy is similar in that it involves the same premise: If you can't win under the rules, you change the rules. Certainly a case of rhetorical overreach, but then, that is a hazard of public speaking.The blogger Wonkette posted an amusing collection of Republican politicians comparing this, that and the other to Nazi Germany - a ruling on abortion, stem cell research, even the Kyoto protocol. In 2002, former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas managed to find a tax bill like something right out of Nazi Germany. I don't understand ... why all of a sudden we are passing laws that sound as if they are right out of Nazi Germany. Rhetorical overreach plagues many: George W. Bush once managed to invoke the tragic memory of 9-11 in aid of a capital gains tax cut. Byrd's really quite thoughtful speech should appeal to conservatives with its emphasis on historical precedent, constitutional responsibilities, and the system of checks and balances. Byrd also made a spirited attack on Franklin D. Roosevelt for his misbegotten plan to "pack" the Supreme Court. All of this was about Bush's decision to renominate 20 of his choices for the federal bench who never got a vote in his first term because of threatened filibusters. For some reason, Republicans have chosen to treat these rebuffs as though they were World War III, accusing Democrats of the dread obstructionism. Their own record during the Clinton years of knocking off dozens of President Clinton's judicial nominees gives not the slightest pause. The 20 retreads include some real dogs. One of these prizes is William G. Myers III, nominated for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His qualifications consist of having spent most of his adult life as a lobbyist for Western mining, timber and oil companies. Bush named him top lawyer in the Interior Department in 2001, apparently on the grounds that Myers once compared the federal government's management of federal lands to the tyranny of King George III. Another gem is Janice Rogers Brown of California, nominated for the D.C. Court of Appeals, who described the New Deal as the triumph of our socialist revolution and praised an infamous line of Supreme Court cases from 1905 to 1937 striking down worker health and safety laws as infringing on the rights of business. (Of course your employer has a right to kill you - what are you, out of the mainstream?) Still another prize in this package is Claude A. Allen, who believes abortion rights are causing genocide of black people. A supporter of abstinence education, Allen backed the administration's decision to remove information about condoms from the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. My personal fave is Priscilla Owen of the Texas Supreme Court, who is so far out that Alberto Gonzales once denounced one of her decisions as an unconscionable act of judicial activism. Then there's William Haynes, principal author and defender of the administration's dubious handling of several torture issues. All in all, a lovely bunch of coconuts, with a collective record showing opposition to human rights, civil rights, abortion rights pretty much everything but property rights. I agree....Sorry in my eye's....If the shoe fits!!"