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Snapshot – Scott Walker, Wisconsin, And Unemployment.

I just saw a thing on the intertubes… OK…. Facebook, posted by some of my liberal friends, where Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker is getting dinged for saying this:

Governor Walker promised Wisconsin 250,000 new jobs again and again while campaigning in 2010. He said he’d accomplish that in his first term as governor. But the latest Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report puts Walker less than a third of the way there. He has less than a year and a half to create nearly 170,000 jobs to keep that pledge.

On Monday in Merrill, he carefully backed away from the specific number.

“My goal wasn’t so much to hit a magic number as much as it was, in the four years before I took office, when I was campaigning, I saw that we lost over 133,000 jobs in the state. I said, ‘it’s really not about jobs, it’s about real people, real jobs like those here, and more importantly, affecting real families all across the state,'” Walker said.

It’s politics, and since Walker seems to be positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2016, I think it’s a fair criticism concerning the quote.

Wisconsin is ranked 20th in unemployment, from lowest to highest, with a current rate at 6.8 percent. 20th isn’t too bad when you consider the state I’m typing this in is near the bottom of that list at 45, with a rate of 8.7 percent.

But what about the numbers? One single snapshot doesn’t tell the story. It’s the trends that counts here.

In the case for California, its worst showing was at something like 12 percent a few years ago.

For Wisconsin, since the issue is with the unemployment rates since Scott Walker enacted his controversial union busting packages, we don’t need to go back to the worst part of the recession, but only to look at the progress since Scott Walkers policies have been implemented.

Again, Wisconsin’s unemployment rates are currently at 6.8 percent. From where I’m sitting, that looks pretty good.

But, if you go back a year and look at the 2012 numbers, the unemployment rate and the improvement in employment numbers has been stagnant.

Wisconsin:

• Jan 6.9.
• Feb 6.9.
• Mar 6.8.
• Apr 6.7.
• May 6.8.
• Jun 7.0.
• Jul 7.3.
• Aug 7.5.
• Sep 7.3.
• Oct 6.9.
• Nov 6.7.
• Dec 6.6.

When you go back to the beginning of the whole deal that put Scott Walker in the national spotlight in the first place, which would be the passage of the controversial “Budget Repair Bill” in March of 2011, the Wisconsin unemployment rate was at 7.6 percent. This chart shows the progress since. While there was some decrease in the first year, with march of 2012 hitting the 6.9 percent, there has been little improvement in the year and a half since. At this point, it’s easy to make the case that his policies are not matching the hype that surrounded them. You often hear Conservative pundits say that”Conservatism works everywhere it’s tried”. Well, we seem to see a pretty good case here that, no, it doesn’t.

So yeah… It’s little wonder Walker is walking back from his predictions of a few years ago. And if you don’t see some real improvement in the next year or so, there’s likely to be a bloodbath in the next election cycle in Wisconsin.

PS.  What concerns me a lot more about Walker, is that he chose pro-torture advocate and “True Conservative” bigwig Marc Thiessen to help him out with his book.

Haven’t Done Sports In A While… Sports… Tim Tebow Edition. And A Little YouTube Banter.

First… Here’s Skip Bayless extolling the greatness that is Tim Tebow.

He hadn’t played a snap for the Patriots.

Second… Here’s Skip Bayless extolling the greatness that is Tim Tebow.

He had taken a snap.

And now that he’s played a few preseason games for the Pats?

Why does everyone rag on Tim Tebow???

Well. There is this.

Who was he supposed to be throwing to????

He was a little closer this time:

And this, mechanics? Here’s a breadown of why many are critical of his throwing motion.

Here’s an example of the bad motion in action.

More:

Here is a video on good QB mechanics:

This guy sums it up nicely:

A commenter notes this is more than just a mechanics issue:

I’m not a steelers fan, but here’s why Tebow isn’t an effective? QB:

1. The long release on his motion forces him to either make a decision to throw too early or take too long to throw, making pressure more effective. AKA Byron Leftwich syndrome.

2. He misses reads. A lot.

3. On top of that, his accuracy isn’t amazing either.

All of those hurt, but #2 is murder. Using logical fallacies doesn’t change the fact that he’s very limited as a QB. Steelers just blew coverage lol.

THAT’S why no one has confidence in Tim Tebow as a starting quarterback. That and the fact that he threw for – 1 yards in his last game against the Buccaneers! Here is what one article said:

TEBOW STILL DOESN’T HAVE IT: Patriots third-string quarterback Tim Tebow had a bad throwing night, completing just one of seven passes. He would have gained more yards passing if they were all incomplete since the one that was caught resulted in a 1-yard loss.

And he overthrew a ball that was intercepted. But he did run six times for 30 yards, second-most for the Patriots. In his other game, he completed 4 of 12 passes for 55 yards.

And another:

All you need to know about Tim Tebow’s night is that he was one-of-seven passing for only negative one yards. Tebow also threw one absolutely terrible interception to nobody in particular. I have praised Tebow throughout camp — despite criticizing him his entire career — but tonight was Tebow at his worst. Even though Tebow was downright awful, I still don’t think a performance was like this is enough to get him cut because of his ability running the ball, where he tallied 30-yards on six rushing attempts. In every single way Ryan Mallett was better tonight, connecting on 12-of-20 passes for 137 yards and one touchdown. Mallett had a few passes that lacked touch but had some other very impressive attempts, including his 22-yard touchdown pass to Zach Sudfeld.

So… It certainly looks like its curtains for Tim Tebows quarterback career.

Failed Foreign Policy.

So. Because someone used chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, we’re on the precipice of directly involving ourselves in yet another Middle East war….

Are we that sure this was done by the Syrian government and not the rebels? That was my thought on the first supposed “attack” back in May. We have no idea who did this. The different factions that make up the rebels are no angels. They are not the civilians who started the uprising. Now, the US is saying that they have intercepted phone calls and e-mail from the Syrian governments (and listening to them is against NSA policy, since this is not specifically a terrorist attack). I want to hear this and know the accuracy of this.

That aside. Dropping a few Tomahawks on anything in Syria is just dumb. It won’t change a damned thing as far as the Syrian government is concerned, and is only going to open the door for Russia to get even more involved. Iran is threatening to bomb Israel if we take action.

We’ve seen where this leads. Even if neither Russia or Iran take any action in retaliation, this is pointless. Nothing good is going to come from it. Clinton used the same methods to try and get Bin Laden, and what did that bring us. Nothing. This is infective policy at best.

Can the Nobel Prize committee rescind awards its issued? Because not only was their no reason to give Barack Obama his Nobel Peace Prize in the first place, but he’s done nothing to earn it after the fact.

Oh… And one more thing. I find it interesting. On the one hand, many people fear that Russia or China might do something militarily because of this. These super-powers are war mongering nations after all. Yet. when you look at their histories for the last 20 years… Are they? Russia took action in the Georgian province, but they had direct involvement from the beginning. I’m not saying I approve of their action, but the conflict was between them and the Georgians from the start. And unless I missed it or have forgotten something, China hasn’t used it’s military at all. There is one super-power that has inserted itself via it’s military might over and over and over again in the last twenty years. Who has been acting a a rogue state?

And we call them the war-mongers????

YouTube Banter… No….. X 100

This is what I was going to say:

“My reaction to Ben Affleck as Batman.”

But someone already said it. It’s currently the most popular comment, by far:

Wait… Who’s Not Eligible To Be President Of The United States?????

Well, this is going to be inconvienient for more than a few people.

Republican Presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz (TX) just released his birth certificate!

Uh Oh! There are serious problems here:

• The birth certificate is a short form.
• He definitely wasn’t born in America.
• His father WAS NOT an American citizen.

AND….

• He’s got dual citizenship….

These are ALL the foundation on which the Barack Obama birther movement is based on!

Come On World Net Daily!!!! Where’s the outrage and demands that Ted Cruz is not eligible to be President Of The United States?????

Crickets Chirping …..

And to think, just days ago, a few Republican Representatives, including one from Cruz’s home state, went on record questioning where Obama was born and STILL endorsing impeachment because of this.

“”””Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) told constituents at an event Saturday in his district that, although it would amount to a fruitless effort that could potentially damage the country, Republicans have the votes in the House to impeach President Barack Obama.

Fielding a question from a birther at a gathering in Luling, Texas, Farnethold at first lamented that Congress didn’t do more to investigate Obama’s birth certificate.

“I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue.” Farenthold said. “The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into this and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.”

“You tie into a question I get a lot, if everybody’s so unhappy with what the President’s done, why don’t you impeach him,” Farenthold continued. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that, if we were to impeach the President tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.””””

Another:

“”””Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told an angry woman last week who identified herself as the “birther brincess” that investigating the birth certificate was a non-starter, even though he said he believed what she was saying. “”””

And another:

“”””Meanwhile, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told constituents earlier this month that he’ll back a birther bill in the House, although he believes the issue is a “distraction.””””

If it’s a distraction, then why back it?

I wonder if these same people will now go on record to demand that Cruz not run because he’s IS actually born in a foreign country and, according to their rules, is not eligible to be President? Or will they support him, even though they know he’s not actually eligible????

Stay tuned kids!  This should be fun!!!

“American Betrayal”… Where Have I Seen This Before????

Andrew Sullivan has been commenting on new book by Diana West that portrays FDR and his administration as basically a bunch of Commie Pinkos. Here’s the blurb for “American Betrayal”:

If the Soviet penetration of Washington, D.C., was so wide and so deep that it functioned like an occupation …

If, as a result of that occupation, American statecraft became an extension of Soviet strategy …

If the people who caught on – investigators, politicians, defectors – and tried to warn the American public were demonized, ridiculed and destroyed for the good of that occupation and to further that strategy …

And if the truth was suppressed by an increasingly complicit Uncle Sam …

Would you feel betrayed?

Yawn… It’s been done… The book I mean.

Years ago, while I was digging into the histories of recessions and depressions in the US and abroad, Conservative friends all were raving about a new book on the Great Depression they said I just had to read! It was called “The Forgotten Man“. Well, I had recently read “The Lords Of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke The World“, a fantastic book about the haphazard management of the European economies during the 1920, which ultimately helped set up some of the conditions that would trigger the Great Depression, so I figured…. Why not!

I bought it. Read it….

Man! Was I disappointed. Unlike the previous books I had read, which gave detailed analysis of economic policies, actions taken, and their seen and unforeseen consequences, Amity Schlaes book was nothing more than a McCarthyish exercise designed to pain the entire FDR administration as Communist sympathizers.

Here is what I wrote at the time:

I’m reading “The Forgotten Man”. I’m on page 139. I can’t say how much more I will read or if I will finish the book. To say that I’m underwhelmed would be an understatement. It’s dull. I expected some real economic information about the underpinnings and policy decisions made in the twenties that set the stage for the depression, and how FDR’s actions helped or hurt the possibility of economic recovery, you know, policy A leads to B which causes C, that sort of thing. Yet all I’m getting is a continuous rambling about this person and so-and-so who would end up working in the Roosevelt government who had some misplaced admiration of socialism and or Stalin. If Mrs Shlaes is to be believed, it’s a virtual commie love-fest. The was she writes about this period, it is the socialist intellectuals who caused and perpetuated the great depression. Yet so much of the info presented feels like gossip and innuendo (there are such things as footnotes you know – see Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton”). She’s almost McCarthyist in the zeal in which she names names. She has mentioned so many names that I can’t keep them all straight; they have become “Forgotten Men”. I will continue to read the book, but I can already say that you will get more useful information from the 40 or so pages devoted to this time period in the fun and concise “The Great Game” than from Mrs. Shlaes effort.

I did read the whole thing. It really wasn’t worth my time. I’m betting this new book isn’t either.

PS. A another good read on economic  / crash histories: The Panic Of 1907. I became interested in this subject when someone in a radio interview had said this near economic crash was triggered by the San Francisco Earthquake the year earlier. It’s a long explaination, but this book lays that out nicely. It also establishes exactly why the government created the Federal Reserve a few years later and why that was a neccessity.

YouTube Banter…. The “Have No Idea How It Got To This Topic” Edition.

How on Earth does this fine album

End up provoking such a wierd conversation?????????????

• Jorge Santa Maria 16 hours ago

  4th Dimension??…why not superstring theory of 11 dimension where we are just hologram being projected from a two dimensional surface of a black hole?!?. Maybe building a “time machine” you can avoid “being animal” and hope meet Flash Gordon…I live quietly in a 3 dimensional Newtonian space with my Chi Energy and meditation. If you feel like an animal something is wrong in your mind reactorfallout….or reactorfixup!!..that is better..

  · in reply to reactorfallout (Show the comment)
• 

  reactorfallout 17 hours ago

  you realize all the educated people stopped reading at “aura” and “chi.” right?

  bioprocessor…that was a good one though. Now go back to your 4th dimension and quit halting the progression of man’s understanding of the world and where he fits into it.

  · in reply to Jorge Santa Maria (Show the comment)
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  Jorge Santa Maria 1 day ago

  Please speak for yourself. I am not just animal. The brain is just a pherypheral bioprocesor connected to the AURA o CHI ENERGY or

  central bioprocessor. Occdiental “culture” make you believe you are just shit.

  · in reply to reactorfallout (Show the comment)
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  reactorfallout 1 day ago

  Believe it or not I do understand what you have been trying to say during this discussion. I just don’t agree. It’s a pollyannish view of humanity. In the end we are all animals, not humans, and that IS out of anyone’s control. Nature is everything. And nature makes harsh judgments against all species in their fight for survival.

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  reactorfallout 1 day ago

  anyways, I have been playing Devils advocate in an effort to relay my sentiment. But the truth is, I am a proponent of due segregation and any other form of remedial judgement. Judgement is how your cerebral cortex functions. It uses comparable knowledge to understand what was not provided by instinct.

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  reactorfallout 1 day ago

  you contradict yourself. were all human in the end right? so don’t all experiences transcend race and creed, distilling into human understanding, of which we are all capable of?

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  reactorfallout 1 day ago

  Everyone should be judged for their differences, not ultimately, but judged on many levels. Thats nature, and thats how animals stay alive. Securing territory and insuring genetic diversity- those are natural behaviors that all vertebrates on the planet earth exhibit.

  Don’t forget that humans are animals. It’s easy to do.

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  reactorfallout 1 day ago

  ok, so you said “as an African-American”. I see no difference. Look, if we are all the same, we are all the same, right?

  You don’t claim to be the same though. You are not American. you claim you are African-American. Thats fine, make that claim, and prepare to be judged, because thats how it works, and that is how it should work.

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  posersaretrash2 2 days ago

  yes I Peter in concert over 30 years ago , fantastic stuff your right no costumes needed , but they just fit so well with early genesis , and can still be enjoyed today as TMB continues to recapture the magic of early genesis

  · in reply to Jon Jacoby (Show the comment)
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  rembeadgc 5 days ago

  I do agree that distinction, for the purpose of detrimental division, is not good. However distinction, for the purpose of due blessing, IS good. First I am human even above American. If humans also lived somewhere other than Earth, it would be appropriate to make that distinction, to communicate the uniqueness of my experience. Embracing the reality of my distinctness doesn’t mean that I separate myself from others. We are family on a level much deeper than skin color or nationality.

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)

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  reactorfallout 5 days ago

  What does “as a black man” even mean in this context? I enjoyed it probably just the same”as” a white man …and arent you just an American, plain and simple, no qualifier? Why make that distinction, unless you are trying to perpetuate cultural segregation?

  · in reply to rembeadgc (Show the comment)
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  rembeadgc 5 days ago

  Greetings. I never used the quote you ascribe to me nor the other ethinic terms. I didn’t use them because they tend to provoke conditioned emotional reactions rather than thoughtful responses. Those terms, used in that fashion, do tend to perpetuate undue segregation. That’s the reason I didn’t use them. Nevertheless, our unique experiences as individuals are relevant and if we are interested in the experience of another, “qualifiers” and factual distinctions help the process of understanding.

  · in reply to reactorfallout (Show the comment)
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  Jon Jacoby 1 week ago

  Drunvalo Melchizidek is very interesting. He teaches the Merkaba meditation, a means to attain higher consciousness and ascension. Walter Russel has a very interesting take on the nature of light and magnetism. Viktor Schauberger was forced to invent the Repulsine the anti gravity drive for the Nazi flying disk and was a forest conservationist who viewed water as a living fluid. Drunvalo= Sacred Geometry, Russel= still white light (magnetism) and Schauberger= fluid plasma vortex. Weird but fun!

  · in reply to ASeasonedWitch (Show the comment)
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  posersaretrash2 1 week ago

  You must be very young for sure , go see TMB it will help you grow up a bit

  · in reply to Jon Jacoby (Show the comment)
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  Jon Jacoby 1 week ago

  TMB? Explain please, I don’t get the reference… Oh! The Musical Box Genesis cover band? Please don’t make me do it.

Should Be Funny…. But No. Star Trek Parody Fail.

Accents can be fun. but, sometimes, it just doesn’t work. In this case, not just once, but twice.

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/bQJrBSXSs6o” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/Khrpy4V0-U4″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

In the meantime, I did meet the guy who played Captain Pike in this independent production of Star Trek. he and his girlfriend were camping right next to us at mineral king. We broke bread, and drank some beer together. These kinds of things happen at camp-outs.

 

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/STZlRdagCEM” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

I Predict That….

For no reason, except it’s fun to predict things and see if it comes true, I predict that this winter is going to be very wet and very cold around these parts.

I base my prediction on nothing other than the fact that I’d like like it to be so.

New Lyric?… Or Bagged Lyric???

I wrote this… But I might have bagged it from someone else, from some other song!

It used to be my way or the highway
Until I realized
The highway is much more fun!

I don’t care if I stole it… I’m keeping it!!!!

 

Any other songwriters have this conundrum of constant fear that you’re subconsciously ripping other people off?????

PS. I’m writing some lyrics with the term “existential dread” in them…. I hope that at least is original enough, although Danny Elfman has probably used that in a song i bet!