U.S. Economy Adds 248,000 Jobs in May After bottoming out in August, payroll employment has posted nine consecutive monthly gains, restoring 1.4 million of the 2.6 million jobs lost during the first 31 months of Bush’s presidency. Sorry, John, but by November the Bush Administration will be showing a net job gain.
U.S. Economy Adds 248,000 Jobs in May
After bottoming out in August, payroll employment has posted nine consecutive monthly gains, restoring 1.4 million of the 2.6 million jobs lost during the first 31 months of Bush’s presidency.
Sorry, John, but by November the Bush Administration will be showing a net job gain.
The article in the New Statesman about the alliance between hard-left and hard-right forces in the anti-war movement’s getting a lot of attention today (Jarvis, Simon, Hurryup Harry, et. al.) and it’s fair reading, although a bit insular. It makes the point that the SWP/radical Islamist alliance behind the anti-war movement wasn’t reported by the … Continue reading “Saddam’s very own party”
The article in the New Statesman about the alliance between hard-left and hard-right forces in the anti-war movement’s getting a lot of attention today (Jarvis, Simon, Hurryup Harry, et. al.) and it’s fair reading, although a bit insular. It makes the point that the SWP/radical Islamist alliance behind the anti-war movement wasn’t reported by the BBC on orders from management:
The anti-war movement wasn’t a simple repetition of the old story of the politically naive being led by the nose by sly operators. The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba’athist fascism as it dared and had formed a working alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain, which, along with the usual misogyny and homophobia of such organisations, also believed that Muslims who decided that there was no God deserved to die for the crime of free thought. In a few weeks hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, would allow themselves to be organised by the opponents of democracy and modernity and would march through the streets of London without a flicker of self-doubt. Wasn’t this a story?
It’s a great story, I cried. But why don’t you broadcast it?
We can’t, said the bitter hacks. Our editors won’t let us.
…and goes on to marvel about the fact that the far left has become, in effect, pro-fascist. How this transformation has come about bears some examination (Simon does his usual soul-searching on the issue), and in the end comes down to one key observation, I think: a generation ago, the left had a plausible case that socialism’s ability to manage the distribution of wealth was indispensible for the creation of just societies. But socialism, we’ve learned, can only achieve just distribution by suppressing the formation of wealth, that is, it can make us all equally poor but it can’t make us all equally rich.
On balance, the poor fare better in a free economy than in the condition of state-managed (and some would say -mandated) poverty that socialism creates. So the forces of progress have been forced to abandon socialism, leaving only a hard core behind. Fascists have always been in favor of state-run economy, so they have the core issue in common with the hard left. And this is the way it’s always been.
Say what you want about crazy Al Gore and his bizarre speechifying to the Moveon.org brownshirts, the dude gets results. He called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Stephen Cambone, and already Tenet is gone, so it’s one down and five to go for Big Al. … Continue reading “Al Gore gets results”
Say what you want about crazy Al Gore and his bizarre speechifying to the Moveon.org brownshirts, the dude gets results. He called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Stephen Cambone, and already Tenet is gone, so it’s one down and five to go for Big Al. The President is following John Kerry’s advice on the role of the UN in the handover, so what’s the Administration doing in the way of policy these days, just setting back and waiting for the Dems to come up with the ideas?
It sorta looks that way on the terror front, and when you factor in prescription drugs and school funding, it looks even more that way.
So I guess the days of partisan conflict in Washington are officially over.
The resignation of worthless bureaucrat George Tenet took way too long. His agency blew the pre-9/11 warnings and the pre-liberation intelligence on Saddam’s weapons programs, either one of which is grounds for tarring and feathering. A couple of years ago, I got some e-mail from a former CIA employee who was fired by Tenet for … Continue reading “Long overdue”
The resignation of worthless bureaucrat George Tenet took way too long. His agency blew the pre-9/11 warnings and the pre-liberation intelligence on Saddam’s weapons programs, either one of which is grounds for tarring and feathering.
A couple of years ago, I got some e-mail from a former CIA employee who was fired by Tenet for taking part in an on-line discussion group inside the agency where folks passed along jokes and movie reviews. The respondent, clearly disgruntled, told me that Tenet was hated by agency staff, which certainly appears to be true. In a normal organization, the underlings are going to prevent the boss from making an ass of himself over and over again, but nobody did that for Tenet.
RIP, loser.
Here’s an interesting chart on global migration trends, which shows the judgment of the authentic people regarding national quality.
Here’s an interesting chart on global migration trends, which shows the judgment of the authentic people regarding national quality.
Spirit of America is an excellent cause, even though the scourge of humanity thinks blogs are too pure to be sullied by charity. Link via Mr. Jarvis.
Spirit of America is an excellent cause, even though the scourge of humanity thinks blogs are too pure to be sullied by charity.
Link via Mr. Jarvis.
Take a cheap WiFi router and add some mesh networking software, and before you know it he Telcos are obsolete. Read Cringely’s theory about how it will unfold: A disruptive technology is any new gizmo that puts an end to the good life for technologies that preceded it. Personal computers were disruptive, toppling mainframes from … Continue reading “Disruptive technology”
Take a cheap WiFi router and add some mesh networking software, and before you know it he Telcos are obsolete. Read Cringely’s theory about how it will unfold:
A disruptive technology is any new gizmo that puts an end to the good life for technologies that preceded it. Personal computers were disruptive, toppling mainframes from their throne. Yes, mainframe computers are still being sold, but IBM today sells about $4 billion worth of them per year compared to more than three times that amount a decade ago. Take inflation into account, and mainframe sales look even worse. Cellular telephones are a disruptive technology, putting a serious hurt on the 125 year-old hard-wired phone system. For the first time in telephone history, the U.S. is each year using fewer telephone numbers than it did the year before as people scrap their fixed phones for mobile ones and give up their fax lines in favor of Internet file attachments. Ah yes, the Internet is itself a disruptive technology, and where we’ll see the WRT54G and its brethren shortly begin to have startling impact.
RTWT for the theory, which sounds crazy, but who really knows?
See Good News from Iraq. I know, you thought there wasn’t any. Via Third Hand.
See Good News from Iraq. I know, you thought there wasn’t any.
Via Third Hand.
Jill Stewart credits Schwarzenegger with improving the economy in California: Our highly methodical governor is lining up many other boxes to blow up. California added 16,300 new jobs in April, according to the Department of Labor. Some analysts believe that’s not only due to stimulation from federal tax cuts, but also because of a buoyant … Continue reading “Blowing up boxes in Sacramento”
Jill Stewart credits Schwarzenegger with improving the economy in California:
Our highly methodical governor is lining up many other boxes to blow up. California added 16,300 new jobs in April, according to the Department of Labor. Some analysts believe that’s not only due to stimulation from federal tax cuts, but also because of a buoyant attitude by businesses who think Schwarzenegger intends true change.
…and lists some of the reforms that promise to reign in the growth of public employee union costs. Good column, check it out.
Yummy.
