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“Hello, my name is Michael Barone. I’m a married, white
Christian. I’m normal. Being normal, I’m naturally a
Republican. If you’re not married, white, or Christian,
you’re not normal. Not being normal, you’re naturally
a Democrat.”
No, of course I don’t blame the new president for our nation’s current predicament. But I do accuse him of a lack of courage in battling the corporate and government regulatory status quo. He’s far more competent than our past four presidents, but the times simply demand more. Not only is the unemployment rate a gauge of that but the rapid wealth lost due to the falling values of Americans’ principal assets has even the employed majority on edge.
State by state unemployment rates as of February 2009
12.0% Michigan
11.0% South Carolina
10.8% Oregon
10.7% North Carolina
10.5% California, Rhode Island
10.1% Nevada
9.9% District of Columbia
9.4% Florida, Ohio, Indiana
9.3% Georgia
9.2% Kentucky
9.1% Tennessee, Mississippi
8.6% Illinois
3 of the 5 most populous states have 8.6% or higher unemployment.
8.4% Washington, Alabama
8.3% Missouri
8.2% New Jersey
8.1% Minnesota
8.0% Maine, Alaska
22 states plus DC have 8% or higher unemployment.
7.8% New York, Massachusetts
7.7% Wisconsin
7.5% Pennsylvania
10 of the 11 most populous states now have 7.5% or higher unemployment. Only Texas, at 6.5% has avoided this benchmark.
7.4% Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware
7.2% Colorado
7.0% Vermont
31 states plus DC have 7% or higher unemployment.
6.8% Idaho
6.7% Maryland
6.6% Virginia, Arkansas
6.5% Texas, Hawaii
All 21 of the most populous states have 6.5% or higher unemployment.
6.0% West Virginia, Montana
39 states plus DC have 6.5% or more unemployment.
5.9% Kansas
5.7% Louisiana
5.5% Oklahoma
5.4% New Mexico
5.3% New Hampshire
5.1% Utah
4.9% Iowa
4.6% South Dakota
4.3% North Dakota
4.2% Nebraska
3.9% Wyoming
It’s historically notable that the 9 lowest rates are in agriculture-intensive states that were harder hit during the Great Depression’s Dust Bowl era. A severe drought in those could change that rapidly, leaving no safe havens at all.
In fact, one agriculture area is already experiencing the worst unemployment rate of all.
Since the official start of the recession, in December of 2007, the highest 15 month increases in unemployment have occurred in these unlucky 11 states:
North Carolina +6.0%
Oregon +5.4%
Rhode Island +5.3%
Florida, Indiana, Nevada +4.9%
Georgia, South Carolina +4.8%
Alabama +4.7%
California, Michigan +4.6%
From a regional perspective, it appears the Southeast and the West Coast are seeing the fastest unemployment rises. It’s also important to note that every one of these numbers is likely to get much worse yet.
From a personal perspective, during this recession, this migrant moved from the third worst (10.8% Oregon) to the twenty-third worst (7.8% Massachusetts) to the eighth worst (9.4% Florida) already and have yet to secure regular employment.
I have been working my ass off despite that, over the past 9 weeks, doing a big concrete pour and a major landscape renovation. For my family. For no pay, other than a roof over my head. I can’t complain about my situation, but I’m certainly going to gripe at the corruption, incompetence and excessive greed of many of our nation’s corporate executives and the response of those political leaders who remain incompetent, ideologically driven or indifferent.
The work and the struggle for any financial stability accounts for my poor blogging performance in recent months. Job hunting has become a torturous affair and my patience with posturing, wimpy and game-playing politicians has become so thin that I can’t even mention their names in my blogging without expressing complete contempt for their low moral character and apparently genetic mental deficiencies.
Other than that, everything’s just hunky dory…
Update: Another California county hits another national low.
Krugman’s right about our country’s damaged reputation but he could certainly broaden the big picture even more.
In most of the world, we’re now seen as a country willing to torture - with no evidence that the torture yielded a single positive result - ready to break any treaty at a drop of the hat, quick to turn on its allies, ready to ignore ongoing genocides, and too easily led by charismatic ideologues and ideologues as sharp as a knife made of mercury (see Bush, GeeDubya).
In much of the world, we’re also viewed as Israel’s handmaiden which especially destroys our influence with the moderate Muslim majority throughout the Arab world. Jimmy Carter’s initiatives in the late 1970s had disrupted that view sufficiently so new inroads could be made with Arab nations but the incompetence and bullyboy tactics employed in the past 8 years have destroyed our rep so badly that we have way more enemies than we did in 2000. It’s a wonder we don’t have more.
But is it just our government’s rep that’s been damaged or is it America as a whole? As Krugman points out, our business leaders are viewed just as unfavorably as our elected ones. And that’s not likely to change so long as the Obama appointees are drawn from the usual recycled pool. Why is that any different than Bush’s, most of whom were operatives for Reagan and Nixon?
Our foreign and financial is justifiably diminished. And will be, till enough new blood is introduced to break the appearance of the status quo. It doesn’t matter if the current crew calls the shots right because the lack of global cooperation is the ongoing cost we deserve to pay for electing crooks, cronies, charlatans and sociopaths.
What’s not fair is that the folks at the bottom of the economic ladder will pay the largest penalties of all while the crooks, cronies and charlatans continue to get the plum jobs, pensions, bonuses and the sociopaths get a tax-funded library and multi-million dollar book deals.
Extreme capitalism, like all other extremes, has failed. It was predicted by realists twenty years ago. If we’re lucky, it will be permanently buried as a legacy of just another set of zealots who should never be in charge of anything.
It’s understandable that Greta tries to distance herself from any appearance of partiality. In doing so, however, she reveals exactly why there’s a Village mentality in the Beltway.
Like it or not, even Andrea Mitchell’s career has been damaged because it’s absolutely justifiable to question her objectivity due to her marriage to one of the country’s biggest power brokers. That she works for MSNBC doesn’t make her neutral or liberal or anything at all. She, like Greta and others, has compromised the historic role of the Fourth Estate because of her personal choices.
Whether or not a candidate has gained any advice from the journalists or their spouses. As citizens, we rightly raise an eyebrow and take their reports with a grain of salt, if not the entire salt shaker. And the fact that Greta doesn’t get why that is so demonstrates just how out of touch she is with the predictable and eminently normal reasoning of average citizens.
Journalists and politicians should be adversaries in a healthy democracy. Those who can’t understand why have already lost their objectivity. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to marry politicians and political players. But just don’t do so and expect your credibility to remain untainted. Stupid just doesn’t wear well, even though it can get sold to a few.
…because, if I wasn’t before, I most certainly would be getting out once I found out about this:
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The Audacity of Poping, by Christopher Buckley Brace yourselves for a tsunami of punditry this weekend, when the much-married Newt Gingrich is received into the Catholic Church. [snip] He and Mother Church—from whose tender embrace I myself have regrettably lapsed—will both be made out to be appalling hypocrites. Who among us should throw stones? But Mr. Gingrich’s marital history is a matter of public record, and it is not tidy. He first married at age 19, to his 26-year-old former high-school geometry teacher and then, so the story goes, presented her with divorce terms after she was wheeled out of cancer surgery. Mrs. Gingrich #2 was dumped after her husband had carried on an extramarital affair with a fetching, blond congressional staffer named Callista Bisek, who went on to become the present Mrs. Gingrich #3. This Family Values paradigm was complicated by the fact that whilst Mr. Gingrich was filibustering Ms. Bisek over the Speaker’s desk, he was simultaneously leading the impeachment charge against a naughty president of the United States. [snip] As for Mother Church, she’ll come in for drubbing this weekend for seeming two-faced about the sanctity of marriage. As you know, divorce is still not allowed in the Catholic Church. But here insert a large “however”—she is liberal in the granting of annulments. Mrs. Gingrich #2 publicly ventilated her displeasure back in 2000 after she received a letter from the Archdiocese of Atlanta informing her that her marriage was being annulled—that is, rendered ex post facto invalid—on the grounds of “ligamen.” She had been married previously, so in the eyes of the church her marriage to Mr. Gingrich simply did not take place. [snip] The stated reason for it is that he wishes to worship alongside his wife, who is described on her husband’s Web site as “a devoted Catholic.” To the extent her devotedness is assessed alongside her early relationship with the then-married Mr. Gingrich, it should be borne in mind that to be “devoted” is not the same as being “perfect”: She is “a member of the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.” She has sung for a pope. And, to judge from her photos of a Barry Manilow concert in Las Vegas—you can view the slideshow for yourself—is a capable amateur photographer. [snip] |
This kind of stuff is quite difficult for me to deal with - the rank hypocrisy of the catholic church in this case is amazing to me, and the rank hypocrisy of its’ followers in staying with the church after it does things like this (among so many other recent examples), makes it somewhat difficult for me to deal with them in a civilized manner. This is also particularly difficult for me to deal with because the vast majority of those catholics that I personally interact with happen to be my relatives. To add another log to the fire here, my soon-to-be-married brother (with a Ph.D in bioengineering no less) has recently informed me that he does not think I (or anyone else who does not believe in some form of Invisible Sky Fairy) can have any morals because of our lack of faith (I believe the exact quote was “If you don’t believe in God, you can’t be a moral person”*).
If you can stomach it, go here and take a look at some other recent notables who decided to willfully ignore reason and reality in favor of the catholic flavor of superstitious nonsense.
Share and Enjoy!
* - he is also firmly convinced that Hitler was an atheist. Almost as firmly convinced as I was that Hitler was a christian - specifically a catholic - until I did this bit of research. Now I’m not so sure he was truly a catholic (or a christian), but I’m even more convinced that he was not an atheist.
Editors’ Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the Funny Farm]
Dr. J. Stephen Jones, “Why are we suddenly having an explosion in guys asking for vasectomies?” They looked at their statistics and realized the uptick started around November as the economic crisis deepened. October went down in the history books as one of Wall Street’s worst months. The Cleveland Clinic has seen a 50 percent increase in vasectomies, an outpatient surgery that is the cheapest form of permanent birth control. Vasectomies are less invasive and cheaper than tubal ligation, which involves blocking, tieing or cutting a woman’s fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy.
Jones was told by patients that they were getting vasectomies because they were losing their jobs and health insurance, or concerned about being out of work soon.
“They realize they don’t have the financial security long-term with what’s going on,” Jones said. “Several of them have mentioned, ‘We can’t afford to have any more children in this economy.’ My perception is that it’s more of the concept of raising children in an uncertain economic future.”
Much like Jones, Dr. Marc Goldstein, surgeon-in-chief of male reproductive medicine and surgery at the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine in New York, saw a 48 percent increase in vasectomy consultations compared with the same time last year.
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Goldstein, a urologist for the last 30 years. “When things started to go south in the stock market, then the vasectomy consults went north.”
Half of Goldstein’s New York patients work in the financial sector. New patients filed into his office in November.
“I think the situation of finance and the economy is the major reason,” Goldstein said. “Some of them have mentioned that, ‘It cost $30,000 a year to put my kids in private school and I can’t afford to have another one.’ It’s never the sole reason, but it’s certainly a contributing factor.
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During the vasectomy, the doctor cuts the two vas deferens, which are the tubes carrying sperm from the testicles to become semen. After the procedure, men can still have sex, but their semen does not contain sperm and therefore they can no longer father children.
“Some folks will postpone having kids,” he said. “If you had a vasectomy, you’ve made a bigger decision that you’re never going to have another child.”
When people stop having children, it implies a loss of confidence in their future employment prospects.
It’s too early to tell whether this recession has crimped the birth rate, Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, said.
At this point, most of the evidence of increased vasectomies has been anecdotal from practicing urologists, because there is no national registry for sterilizations.
This appears to be a most practical response to the economic downswing. With all the breaking news about fertility clinic extravaganzas, it appears that common sense is coming to at least a few people. The cost of having children is an important consideration for everyone. Beyond pure sexual pleasure, the consequences are seldom considered, life is actually created! Babies don’t just happen! Babies grow into children who must be financially supported through sickness and health and education. You are married to your children and responsible for them until they can support themselves. If you can’t support yourself, you can’t support anyone else. This is where responsibility for your actions becomes a critical part of your life. The passion of the moment has consequences. Responsibility does not impair pleasure, responsibility makes it more gratifying.
One has to wonder why a jobless, welfare recipient has the gall to artificially create eight more children. Then proudly announce she plans to support a total of fourteen children, with no resources except notoriety. If the Bush Administration can try to legislate morality, why can’t the Obama Administration legislate responsibility? Wow! You know the Republicans would label that as Socialism. Republicans, however, are quite willing to embrace Theocracy while engaging in their own sexual misconduct…
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RED RIVER VALLEY - As the Red River of the North rose toward record levels and evacuations mounted, the mayor of Fargo, N.D., vowed Thursday that exhausted residents and volunteers would continue to fortify the area and “go down swinging if we go down.”
The mandatory evacuation of more than 190 homes in two Fargo neighbourhoods and an area nursing home have been ordered in North Dakota amid growing doubts over whether the swollen Red River can be held back. Fargo police ordered residents living in about 150 houses in a neighbourhood south of the city’s downtown to evacuate at about 2 a.m. on Friday after a “significant leak” was found in a dike at a crook in the river, said police Capt. Tod Dahle.
Flood volunteers relax a little
This is just another natural disaster. The United States is not really prepared or focused on the FACT that extreme weather will be displacing and disrupting American life more often than the recent past. Weather related disasters may or may not be normal earth cycles, finger pointing at the cause is not the issue. Preparation and adaptation IS the issue. FEMA is only as effective as the people who run it. They have been ruled by politics and power for too long. The population that uses FEMA must also be proactive in their own survival and formulate their own options. There must be a reliable PLAN B already in place for areas in flood plains, coastal communities. These plans must be open and available to everyone. Updates to these plans must be part of every school and public curriculum. Life skills for a changing planet and how it impacts you and your community must be required. With more extreme weather, geological disruptions and political unrest, populations without options will suffer tremendously. After suffering, they become a burden to other survivors. Education systems must teach reality and common sense. Teach students to think about solutions and options to every imaginable scenario. Engaging and enabling youth to accept responsibility for their own survival may also encourage them to appreciate being part of the solution.
What have we learned? Expect the unexpected.
Hate to sound dramatic, but poor education and even poorer curriculum lacks practical application life skills. Education, in general, must be useful for both students and the society they inherit. America, specifically, must do more to encourage education policy makers, to shape teaching agendas to include practical life applications. Ever wonder why many students remain ‘bored’ and distracted? Ask a student, too many cannot make a connection with classrooms and their own life. Students are an unlimited resource of hope, if we prepare them to address the ‘unexpected’. We are at the mercy of the next generations, it would be a global shame to waste it.
Video here.
We smiled and smiled
We smiled and smiled
Laughter echoes in your eyes
We climbed and climbed
We climbed and climbed
Foot falls softly in the pines
We cry and cry
We cry and cry
Sadness passes in a while
We roll and roll
We roll and roll
Help me roll away the stone
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Step 1: Surrender to a Higher Power, or more specifically, Rush Limbaugh.
Lagniappe: Update to Yesterday’s Post
Instead of the NRA eagle for the back of the North American Union’s Amero coins, Michelle Bachmann is considering going with the eagle from the front cover of the GOP’s 12 Step Plan for the Road to Recovery. Mel “Sugar Tits” Gibson must be going nuts because the 13 stars above the head of the eagle form the Star of David instead of a cross. Maybe Mel thinks this means that the Secret Jewish Bankers That Control Everything are covertly suggesting that the original 13 colonies formed a Jewish Nation, and not a Christian Nation.
underground comix, comix, political, cartoons,political cartoons, parody, satire, Republicans, GOP, comics, comic strips, webcomic, Bush
