Tag: jobs
Thursday’s Thoughts, On Wednesday
Thought #1
There’s something wrong with an employer which takes applications, but disqualifies anyone currently unemployed. I wonder who the moron is that came up with this idea.
If you’re unemployed, don’t even bother applying. That’s a message some job seekers are seeing as they look for their next paycheck.
It’s not the kind of message Peter May expected to see on a job listing. But when he visited the Web site for “The People Place”, an Orlando-based recruiter, there it was, in all caps, bold type: “No unemployed candidates will be considered at all.”
I definitely won’t be purchasing any Sony Ericsson products in the future. If they aren’t going to consider candidates who actually need jobs, I am not going to spend my money on any of their consumer electronics when I actually need something.
Thought #2
Nancy Pelosi says that government policy should be dictated by “The Word”. The same woman who voted to allow partial-birth abortions now says we must all answer to “The Word Made Flesh”. Has Nanny State Nancy been enlightened? Has she seen the light? That, my friends, is the great mystery.
Thought #3
Justice Sotomayor has already proven her appointment to the Supreme Court was a huge mistake.
In a case before the court pertaining to Miranda rights, the Court ruled 5-4 that suspects must implicitly invoke their right to remain silent.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a criminal suspect must explicitly invoke the right to remain silent during a police interrogation, a decision that dissenting liberal justices said turns the protections of a Miranda warning “upside down.”
The court ruled 5 to 4 that a Michigan defendant who incriminated himself in a fatal shooting after nearly three hours of questioning thus gave up his right to silence, and the statement could be used against him at trial.
…
In the case about Miranda rights, suspect Van Chester Thompkins remained mostly silent for three hours of interrogation after reading and being told of his rights to remain silent and have an attorney. He neither acknowledged that he was willing to talk nor that he wanted questioning to stop.
But detectives persisted in what one called mostly a “monologue” until asking Thompkins whether he believed in God. When asked, “Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?” Thompkins looked away and answered, “Yes.”The statement was used against him, and Thompkins was convicted of killing Samuel Morris outside a strip mall in Southfield, Mich.
So what did Justice Sotomayor have to say about this?
“Today’s decision turns Miranda upside down,” wrote Sotomayor. “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent, which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak.” She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Suspects must invoke their right to remain silent? Duh! Of course they do. Miranda states, “You have the right to remain silent”. If you don’t, well, anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.
Hello!?! Dumbass! If you choose to remain silent, you must… How do I write this in a way you’ll understand? I guess I’ll just come out and write it. If you choose to remain silent, then keep your frickin’ mouth shut. Don’t say a word. Don’t mumble, don’t stutter, don’t utter one word. Silence is just that. SILENT.
The scariest part about this decision is that four U.S. Supreme Court Justices (Sotomayor, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer) actually think the right to remain silent is automatically implied by the reading of Miranda. They actually think suspects are being treated unfairly if they don’t remain silent. Does the oath for members of the Supreme Court include the right to remain stupid?
Awesome, Announcements, Amnesty & Articulation
For the first time in over two weeks, I don’t have a headache at this time of the night. It’s refreshing to know I will actually enjoy a day, finally, even if my neck is still as stiff as a board. Well, I guess I can’t be back to 100% all in one day now can I?
Gidget almost has her sewing studio all set up, but here’s a sneak peak at the new “fitting room”.
Sometime next week (or the week after that) I will be setting up my photography “studio” and my woodworking area in the basement. I just don’t have the energy right now.
Here are some thoughts for you…
Thought #1
This is the video where Jon Voight Calls Out President Obama. This is awesome.
Thought #2
The White House says the job numbers in Georgia are looking good. They say that the stimulus program has created 84,000 jobs in the state.
That is probably true. It probably has. It’s also true that the stimulus has not helped one bit.
According to state-by-state numbers released on Friday by the President’s Council on Economic Advisors, the stimulus program created or saved 84,000 jobs in Georgia during the first three months of 2010.
But even with those gains, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Georgia had:
162,000 fewer jobs in January, 2010 than it had in January, 2009
136,000 fewer jobs in February, 2010 than it had in February, 2009
116,600 fewer jobs in March, 2010 than it had in March, 2009
Add it up people. That’s 414,600 jobs. If you adjust for all of those wonderful stimulus jobs (many of which are probably census jobs that won’t exist in next month’s reports), the State of Georgia has 330,600 less jobs than it had last year at this time.
That’s hope for ya! What awesome results huh? Got any spare change?
Thought #3
Keep an eye on Washington, because Scary Harry and company are at it again…
Harry Reid is claiming to already have nearly all the votes he needs to force amnesty for illegal immigrants down our throats (despite voters overwhelmingly rejecting the idea) and is vowing to pick up the remaining stragglers within weeks.
That’s right. In the middle of “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” as Obama calls it, we are now going to reward 15 million uneducated poor people for illegally breaking into our country and cutting in front of law-abiding immigrants.
Just say no to amnesty! If you thought the employment numbers looked bad before, just wait until you’re competing with 15 million more people for that job at Burger King. ¿Qué Pasa?
Thought #4
Herman Cain. What can I say about Herman? I think he is one of the most articulate and well spoken people I have ever listened to in my life. Oh yeah, and he nails it every time he speaks about the government.
Another Day, Another Snow Job
Yesterday some weather forecasters said we’d get snow while others said we wouldn’t. Of those calling for snow, one was correct. We got exactly as much as he said we would, and that’s why I pay attention to Glen Burns at WSB-TV. After 13 years of watching (and listening to) him, he’s right more often than anyone else.
I took the video fairly early in the day. We ended up with about 3 inches total here at our house, but at one point it was melting as quick as it was falling.
It was pretty to watch, but it was a heavy, wet snow and the kids didn’t find much interest in it. Amazing really, because we rarely get snow, so you would think they would want to be out there all day.
With all the snow falling outside, I couldn’t help but wonder if hell had frozen over. After reading the news today, I’m still not sure.
House Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel was on the verge of losing his gavel Tuesday night as a trickle of Democratic defections turned into a flood.
It wasn’t clear how Rangel would go – voluntarily, by force, temporarily or permanently – but the tide had clearly turned against him by the time he walked into a closed-door meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff Tuesday night.
“The dam broke today,” said a senior Democratic aide.
Charlie Rangel has been in the House of Representatives for 39 years. House members are elected every two years. That’s one election and 17 re-elections so far for those of you keeping track. By now, Mr. Rangel is pretty settled into his job as a career politician, but it looks like his days are finally numbered.
Sure, it’s only a leadership role, but a very influential one at that, so if hell is freezing over, I’m hoping his days as a Congressman could be coming to an end as well.
Another interesting development today was the sudden “switch” by Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY).
For days now he has blocked a bill extending unemployment benefits, highway funding, and other government programs because the bill was unfunded.
Tonight, however, he switched his position because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised him a vote on his amendment forcing the $10 billion bill to be offset by closing a tax loophole, as well as a chance to offer amendments on the next Senate jobs bill which will cost $150 billion.
Just moments after he agreed to Scary Harry’s terms, the extension bill passed 78 – 19 and his amendment failed with only 43 Senators voting for it.
So what did Bunning gain out of this? Nothing. Nothing at all. He folded under the pressure when he should have stood his ground. How much longer can we write checks with nothing to pay them with? Here’s Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) speaking on the Senate floor today before Sen. Bunning caved.
The one bright side was seeing which 19 GOP members voted against the measure. Senators Alexander, Barrasso, Bennett (UT), Bunning, Burr, Coburn, Corker, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Ensign, Enzi, Gregg, Hatch, Johanns, McConnell, Risch, Sessions, and Thune all voted against a bill that will cost $10 billion with no money allocated to pay for it.
Even though he voted against the bill itself, by dropping his opposition to the bill Jim Bunning helped increase our national debt by $10 billion in just a matter of minutes. Thanks, Jim!
One Step Forward, Eleven Thousand Steps Backward
When are politicians going to learn that they should not brag about “good news”, especially when that “good news” isn’t really that good at all? You would think, after years of practice, they would realize that their attempts at spinning bad news into political gold just does not work and Rumpelstiltskin is not going to come to their rescue.
The November jobs report was quite shocking to many people. Shocking because the numbers were far better than “experts” thought they were going to be. When I say better, that does not mean it was good news. In fact, it was far from it.
The number of jobs lost in the month of November was just 11,000. The unemployment rate fell from 10.2% to 10%. While both of those numbers are a good sign, and definitely an improvement over last year, there is no logical way anyone could classify the jobs report as “good news”.
November payrolls fell by much less than expected – declining by just 11,000 – and the unemployment rate fell to 10.0%, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday. But while it’s becoming more apparent that the U.S. job market is closer to growth, caution is still the buzzword as the jobless recovery continues.
When growth does return the consensus is that getting back the roughly 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007 won’t be an overnight phenomenon.
In other words, it’s going to be a long hard road. Families are struggling more than ever, and I think it’s rather brash to make statements which spin this news as anything exciting or in anyway permanent. How many times has the government had to revise the job numbers because they realized they screwed up? Shouldn’t we wait a bit and see if these numbers hold up before we start telling everyone that the loss of only 11,000 is good news?
Earlier today I was hanging out on Twitter, and I noticed a message from Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). She said,
“December of last year we lost more than 600,000 jobs. November this year we lost 11,000. Good news. Progress. Still work to do.”
If the goal is to stop job loss, and the target is employment, how can you consider the loss of 11,000 as progress? That’s insane.
If you compare the loss of 11,000 jobs solely with the loss of 600,000 jobs, you may feel like your making progress, but let’s look at it realistically. If you need to walk a total of 10 miles, and last month you walked backward 600,000 steps are you really making progress to complete those 10 miles this month if you walk backward another 11,000 steps? Like I said, you’d have to be insane to think so.
Anyway, I don’t have that many characters on Twitter, so I responded to her message with the following,
@clairecmc Only you could see the loss of 11,000 jobs as “progress”.
I have replied to a couple of Sen. McCaskill’s tweets, but she has never responded directly to me, and I don’t expect her to. She’s not my senator, so why should she? Of course, she only follows one person on Twitter, so she doesn’t even see what her constituents say unless they direct their message directly to her. Twitter must be a lonely place for Sen. Claire McCaskill. Just imagine how engaged she could be on the conversation if she just listened to what people had to say.
I have no idea if her response was directed toward me, but minutes later she responded with the following tweet.
So weird when politics turns good news into cynical disappointment.
She thinks it’s weird when politics turns good news into cynical disappointment? Is she serious? Isn’t she using politics to try and turn a very bad situation into a feel good story for all who will listen to her? Isn’t it weird to think moving backward should be considered progress? Talk about being a cynical disappointment.
Do her constituents really think moving backwards another 11,000 jobs is good news? Maybe it is good news for those who aren’t one of the additional 11,000 who now find themselves unemployed, but I doubt those 11,000 think the report was good news.
I responded to her again, of course with Twitter’s 140 character limit.
@clairecmc I don’t think those 11,000 ppl (or the 15million looking for work) consider it good news at all. Only politicians do.
The truth is, politicians want you to believe these job numbers are good news. No matter how negative the numbers still are, if you believe the numbers are positive, you’ll tend to forget the “bad times” when you walk into that voting booth come election time. And that my friends it the worst kind of cynical disappointment there is.
Apathy at the voting booth leads politicians to believe they can say anything they want because no one really cares and the majority of people aren’t going to do anything different when they walk into that voting booth the next time around.
This type of behavior results in the House and Senate being filled with politicians like Claire McCaskill who will do their best to pull the wool over our eyes as many times as they can as long as they can.
The next time someone tells you the “good news”, sit back for a moment, look at the entire story and make up your own mind. You just might surprise yourself and wake up in time for the next election.
Numbers, Numbing, & Numbnuts
Today was supposed to be a fun day. We were planning on attending a camera club field trip, but all three boys were up late into the night excited about the pending snowfall. The snow began to fall around 2am, lightly. Very lightly. Tiny, almost microscopic snow flurries were drifting down onto our deck.
We woke in the morning, to no snow. None. Nada. Zilch. So there we were with three boys who all had less than 5 hours sleep. The heck if I was going to try to take them anywhere.
We’re waiting now for the annual Christmas parade in our small town. The boys love seeing all the different police cars and fire trucks, as well as all of the floats from the different civic and church organizations. I’m planning to take video of the entire parade, which usually lasts about 10 minutes or so.
Here are some thoughts to get you through until tomorrow, when you’ll be able to see my awesome small town Christmas parade video.
Thought #1
The numbers just don’t add up.
President Obama told us that unemployment would peak at 7.9% if the stimulus was passed. The stimulus passed and now unemployment is sitting at 10%.
More than 2.3 million people have stopped looking for work because of the economy, because more than 2.6 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus was passed.
Want to see more numbers? Check it out.
Thought #2
The Obama administration is sticking their heads in the sand again.
The U.N.’s decision this week to investigate whether some of its climate change research had been manipulated constitutes a “direct rebuke” of the Obama administration, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Friday.
The White House’s unwillingness to open a similar inquiry could now only be characterized as “a sad abdication of their responsibility to ensure that U.S. policies are not driven by corrupted science and data,” the congressman added.
We have evidence that climate data has been tampered with. Raw data has been destroyed, so we have no evidence that man-made global warming even exists. Wouldn’t it be prudent to investigate the events that led up to the deception and the fraud, to find out (a) who is responsible and why, (b) if man is actually having any effect on the Earth’s climate, and (c) what we can do in the future so a handful of over-zealous scientists don’t control all of the raw data that is used to support their own falsified scientific theories?
Thought #3
Would Comcast stoop so low as to blatantly pander the President and Congress to win approval of the Comcast/NBC deal?
Now Comcast is a big company, with about 100,000 employees. I’m sure health care costs have a big impact on their bottom line. But the bottom line impact on Roberts’ personal net worth will be much greater if the federal government, with a big say-so from the US Senate, approves the $13 billion deal.
So Roberts’ heartfelt letter to the president in support of the Democrats’ singular policy issue was the first action he took in what is expected to be a twelve-month regulatory review process. This is an action with absolutely no relevance to the vast intricacies of the merger, but a move that sets a new standard for blatant pandering aimed at a group of people for whom pandering is the new coin of the realm.
Heck, I’ve seen politicians supporting the socialist agenda and American citizens actually supporting that agenda, I’ve seen the women Tiger Woods was with when he allegedly cheated on his wife, none of which are hotter than his wife, and I’ve seen family members show their true colors and take it out on my children, so nothing, and I mean nothing that happens now will ever really surprise me.
Thought #4
Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.
“I assume that what is there is highly damaging,” Mr. Horner said. “These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this.”
The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed that data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for first, with 1934 slightly cooler.
Something tells me, now that the Climategate scandal has broken, we’re going to see another recalculation or two.
Do You Feel Stimulated Yet?
I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the thousands and thousands of jobs that Barack Obama’s stimulus bill has created, haven’t you? If not, here’s a refresher.
Before I begin with all the “regular jobs”, you may want to take a look at recovery.gov. The Obama administration paid $9.5 million for a redesign of that website. I bet that web developer is stimulated.
Now let’s look at some real job stimuli, or at least what the Obama administration wants you to think was job stimuli.
Obama Administration Lie: Talladega County, Alabama received $42,141 in stimulus funds from the Department of Justice which saved or created 5,000 jobs.
Reality Check: According to Talladega County administrator Wayne Hall, all of that money was used to purchase computers, not the creation of jobs.
Obama Administration Lie: Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama received $27,502 from the General Accounting Office which saved or created 14,500 jobs.
Reality Check: Shelton State employs 360 full-time and 300 part-time employees. Where do the other 13,840 people work now?
Obama Administration Lie: Arizona’s 15th congressional district received $761,420 to save or create 30 jobs.
Reality Check: There is no Arizona 15th district. Arizona has just eight congressional districts.
With all the errors, the apparent use of fuzzy math, and the creation of fictitious congressional districts, I decided to look at the summary for all congressional districts in Georgia (we have 13).
If you click the image to your left you will see all of Georgia’s congressional districts listed in the order of stimulus funds received. You will also notice a few more congressional districts than we actually have.
It appears, according to recovery.gov, that Georgia’s fictitious congressional districts 00, 86, 25, 21, 19, 14, and 27 received $6,217,770 in stimulus funds and 1 job was created in that fictitious 00th district.
Where exactly did that money go? We know for a fact the districts don’t exist, so whose pockets were stimulated with those funds? What disturbs me more than the fact they cannot account for any of the funds already spent, they are actually talking about a second stimulus “jobs” package.
Are they kidding?
First they give billions of dollars in TARP funds to banks and other financial firms with no guarantee that we will ever see that money again. Next, they give billions of dollars to automakers, again with no guarantees. And now, they cannot account for all of the stimulus money they have spent yet they want the American people to “pay back” the tax credit they received this year.
More than 15 million taxpayers could unexpectedly owe taxes when they file their federal returns next spring because the government was too generous with their new Making Work Pay tax credit.
Taxpayers are at risk if they have more than one job, are married and both spouses work, or receive Social Security benefits while also earning taxable wages, according to a report Monday by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
…
“While implementing a credit through reduced withholding is an effective way to provide economic stimulus evenly throughout the year, it is difficult to account for everyone’s circumstances,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. “More than 10 percent of all taxpayers who file individual tax returns for 2009 could owe additional taxes.”
That’s right, they spent the earlier part of this year stimulating you just so they could make it easier to screw you before the end of the year.
Taking TARP, the auto bailouts, and the stimulus package into account, how do you think government controlled health care is going to go over? I’ll give you an idea.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain