Another Month, Another Jobs Report

Good news everyone!

Employment is at an all time high. There’s 217,000 more jobs than last month, and we finally have more people working than at the start of the Great Recession.

Ok, now for why that isn’t really very good news at all. Good jobs went away only to be replaced by crappy ones with low wages and low/no benefits. This is double true if you happen to be a man. And the number of people who are not in the labor market but now want a job is up 292,000 this month (for the math impaired, 292,000 is greater than 217,000). And we still have businessmen arguing with a straight face that it would be bad for business to pay sick workers to stay home 3 days a year rather than have them come to work and share their illness with coworkers and customers.

No wonder the majority of Americans think that the “American Dream” is out of reach.

In Closing: Got a whole heaping helping of random NSA, Snowden, privacy, secrecy, spying, terrorism, and related links; people hate the cable company, love cute kittens, film at 11; a couple of gun links; turns out the stoner was actually drunk, but that doesn’t make for a good pot-is-bad story; breakin the law; careful what you post on Facebook; eggs; for a movement that calls itself “men’s rights“, they spend a lot of time worrying about women (yeah, pretty sad that’s Cracked pointing it out too); young adult literature; and social media.

You mean news should be informative rather than just sensationalist?

As far as I am concerned, the mainstream TV news sources should be utterly and completely ashamed of themselves.

A new study shows that the most informed “news” watchers are not the ones watching CNN or Fox or even reading their local newspapers. The most informed consumers of news are the ones watching Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

Remember back in the 2004 elections? Presidential candidate and then Senator John Kerry went on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart? He didn’t really do that well. Tucker Carlson wanted to rag on Jon Stewart for not asking hard enough questions, who said among other things “I didn’t realize — and maybe this explains quite a bit — that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity. . . . If your idea of confronting me is that I don’t ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we’re in bad shape, fellows.” 

So here we are, a few months shy of a decade later, and Comedy Central is more than “Where more Americans get their news than probably should.” Comedy Central is in fact where the most informed Americans get their news. Stephen Colbert is doing a better job of explaining convoluted topics like campaign finance than any traditional news source, and that is a pity.

Maybe — just maybe — that’s why all the major news channels are seeing a drop in viewers.

In Closing: “Come on guys, you’re making us look like a bunch of morons“; Portland Japanese Gardens; 86 real Life Pro Tips with pictures!; a few random economy things; a few really random NSA and spying on Americans things; Thank heaven Radley isn’t working for HuffPo anymore (because now I can get a freaking feed that is just him rather than 102 things I don’t care about plus just try to find what he wrote — is HuffPo that desperate for readers?); the only reason I hope Senator Warren doesn’t run for President is that she’s too useful where she is; oh look, they noticed; antibiotic resistance; and the importance of good research methodology.

Music Monday: Ladies and Gentlemen, LENA HORNE!

Apparently, women still say bad things about one another just to preserve their own [perceived] social standing.

Now here’s a topic I’d love to put to bed and never talk about again. Or more accurately, I wish the world would change enough that I never felt the need to talk about it again. However, the fact of the matter is that women and men live in one society but have completely different experiences in it. My life is somewhat better because I don’t live someplace like Nigeria or India, but my risk of being a victim of violence simply because I am not a man is too damn high. Don’t think I am speaking only for myself; Most women who aren’t Fox News anchors are aware that their *ahem* opportunities for good or ill depend in part on the variety of their genitals.

And in a phrase, that sucks.

Look, I don’t want a lot. I want to know that I am valued for who I am rather than my cup size. Women and men to earn the same pay for the same work, and indeed to have the same job opportunities. I want women to be able to go to a bar without worrying about being groped or raped and murdered, or being called a slut for — ironically! — not giving in to a man’s unwanted advances. I want Google to not find it totally logical to autofill “violence against women” from just “violen.” I want people to stop tut-tutting me for admitting that I’m a woman on the internet.

I don’t want better. I just want to be included in that thing all people being “created equal.”

Honeysuckle in Bloom

IMG_20140413_183318

 

In Closing: let the mental health circular firing squad of mostly half-baked ideas begin (but too many people my age and better remember these asshats for any real reform that involves hospitalizing more people); A few stray NSA and Snowden items for you; slipping away; real median household income; “choose between Satan and Lucifer”; yeah, maybe your doctor knows more than Wikipedia; the crushing weight of sex offender registries may force California to consider sensible changes; a startling video; an amusing video.

At the risk of saying something offensive…

Ok, let’s all take a deep breath. In case you don’t know what happened in Santa Barbara yesterday, start here. Like Comrade Misfit, I will not glorify this man above his victims by naming him. Other people have done some terrific commentary, and a few have really stuffed their feet into their mouths as far as they would go.

So let me start by getting a bit obnoxious here for just a moment: How big a jackass did he have to be to be a rich kid in a BMW who still couldn’t get a date? Ponder that for a few minutes.

But seriously, I’d like to talk to all those guys who have some sympathy for Creepy BMW Murderer Guy. You might learn something that might help you actually interact with females.

Nobody owes you sex. Certainly, no “hot chicks” owe you sex.  This may surprise you. Somebody wiser than me pointed out that the Declaration of Independence says your inalienable rights only include the right to pursue happiness, not to catch it.

Indeed, women are human beings. They have their own desires, thoughts, and ambitions which may or may not include sex with you. They are not life sized sex robots that only exist for your pleasure and fantasies (such things do exist, and if you can’t change your ways of thinking, we are all probably better off if you bought one). Again, this could be surprising.

You will probably find that if you treat women like human beings rather than sex robots, your chances of spending time with one increase. You know, like you’d treat a man. With respect. Maybe a little humility. Perhaps give a complement. There’s a little zen thing going on here: think about things other than sex and you might actually have a chance at getting it.

Finally, there’s a lot of finger pointing here. And of course we are going to hear about how we have to “have a serious conversation about gun control” by the time everybody gets back to work. Once again I’d like to point out that the problem wasn’t the gun, but rather a batshit crazy man with a gun. And sadder yet? The same rules that kept the cops from forcibly getting him psychiatric help are the rules that prevent you or I from ending up in the happy home with no way out.

In Closing: Washington; climate change; if car seats were like vaccines; another study says what most people knew; another study shows what some people surely suspected; okay, okay, the NSA; whatever works, Logan; gridlock; more truth; and 29 beautiful beach pictures.

I’m not actually an optimist, but I play one on the Internet

The problem with the unexpected is that, well, it’s unexpected.

A decade ago, some guy was running for Senate in Illinois as a Democrat. I’m not sure anybody thought he had a chance — after all, he’d already lost in a bid for a seat in the House — until the unexpected happened. In this case, details about the divorce of the front running Republican from his very pretty actress wife happened to be disclosed by the courts to the Chicago Tribune. And the details regarding his sex life were absolutely devastating.

The end result of this *ahem* unfortunate turn of events is that the Republican candidate was replaced by someone deemed “more electable,” and the underdog Democrat went on to win a seat in the Senate. Just a few years later, that man went on to become President of the United States.

So, when Serious People say that a Democrat’s only shot at winning is “a Republican screwup“, remember that stranger things have happened.

A quick break: To bring you a metric ton of NSA and NSA “reform” and Ed Snowden and NSA related items.

And, In Closing: on the Class of 2014; someone noticed; given up; most popular Google searches by state; and ironic photos.

Yo, Brian Williams “Raps”

 

In Closing: Ok, we got us a whole bunch of NSA stuff, including some items courtesy of Comrade Misfit; college graduation season is a nice time for life lessons, such as “it’s a bad idea to hide the fact that you’ve dropped out, and a worse idea to hide that fact by calling in a bomb threat to graduation”; the American worker is still screwed, more so if they are of color, and that’s partly because certain people in government thought it was more important to bail out the banks and businesses; I don’t even know what to make of this (EDIT!!); read the labels, people; oops, maybe appealing to science was a bad idea; I clearly don’t link Dave Johnson enough; the real reason for the War on Teachers?; introducing Naia; and Godzilla is growing.

Double Feature

I don’t normally talk about the so-called “rape culture”.

However, if what I am reading about what happens on our college campuses is even halfway true, we should all be outraged. All students — regardless of their gender — have a right to attend school without fear of assault, sexual or otherwise. The idea that some colleges want to cover up these assaults rather than make sure that criminals are prosecuted is absolutely outrageous. It is a travesty that some students feel that the only thing they can do is take matters into their own hands.

Of course, not all rapes happen on campus. It is a sad fact that all too many women have to deal with these issues, and sometimes little is actually done to help them.

More on the freaking NSA.

Glenn Greenwald has been been making the interview circuit, both bringing attention to how little has changed when it comes to the NSA and hyping his new book on the topic. Let’s not forget that he wouldn’t have the story without this guy. In the meantime, remember how we were told that it would be harder to catch terrorists with this information out there? That might not be quite true.

In Closing: on Net Neutrality; what a 10′ sea level rise means to the United States; on nutrition information; Oktoberfest was originally a wedding festival; and you are a great leader.