...and I said, "Oh, shit!"
That's 200 points today on top of the 100 point drop yesterday. None of this is necessarily a sign that The Apocalypse Is Upon Us; but in fact nothing has changed materially since 2008 and the problems our economy faced then are still present. Greece is not fixed; but even if it were, there's still Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain to worry about. And in our widely-interconnected global economy this means that we are exposed to this shit, too.
* * *
Washington Post is smoking something illegal. "True but false" is how they characterize the GOP claim:
For far too long women have been left behind in Obama’s job market. Of the 740,000 jobs lost since Obama took office, 683,000 of them were held by women. That is truly unsustainable.Yeah, the WaPo says it's "true but false."
"We cannot fault the RNC’s math, as the numbers add up. But at this point this figure doesn’t mean very much."
...
So WaPo is seriously trying to tell us that the cited statistic--while accurate--doesn't actually reflect reality?
Someone's got to explain this deconstructionist stuff to me, because I can't get my tiny little brain around it. I'm trained as an engineer; I'm used to working with objective reality that doesn't change depending on opinion. When you present me with a number and say it's accurate, I take that to mean it's real data; I can't look at real data and say, "It's wrong solely because it's politically advantageous to my side for it to be wrong."
You know, given a 400 volt, 100 amp circuit, you can't get away with licking the terminals unharmed solely because you think Ohm's Law is a construct of the patriarchal society fostered by dead white slave-owners. While it's true that "40,000 watts" is a mathematical description of a physical fact (a certain number of electrons passing a given point per second) and subject to change depending on how you define your constants, you're just as dead from licking those terminals, whether it be 40,000 watts of electricity or 13.52 grebnils of zort that your tongue connected to ground.
The mutability of those constants doesn't make our chosen description invalid.
(I could go further into this by getting into the panoply of stupidity that is deconstructionism, but I'm going to need my brain, so I won't bother. I expect you'll need yours, too. You can look it up if you're really curious, but just knowing what I know about it has permanently reduced my IQ by at least 25 points.)
* * *
This is why you must only communicate with federal agents via a lawyer.
When federal prosecutors can't muster enough evidence to bring charges against a person suspected of a crime, they can still use a controversial law to get a conviction anyway: They charge the person with lying.This is what happened to Martha Stuart. The charges of "insider trading" turned out to be nonissues, as she had not broken any laws...but because she made some misstatements (about something which wasn't a crime in the first place) she was found guilty of lying to federal prosecutors, and that's why she went to jail.
Okay, the then-wife of this woman's employee went to the feds to ask, "Is this 'whale harassment'?" and that got the feds' attention. The woman--conditioned to cooperate because, after all, she had done nothing wrong, right?--helpfully provided the feds with evidence...and they then served her with a search warrant and seized her computers, photos, videos, etcetera.
If you are on the receiving end of law enforcement, your only words should be, "I want to talk to my lawyer."
* * *
Speaking of federal stormtroopers, EPA just decided to ruin your car, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.
"Oh, hey, aren't you being a bit excessive with that 'ruin your car' thing? I mean, come on, it's only an extra 5% ethanol. Right?"
No. Oh, it's fine if you've got a newer car that's "flex fuel" capable; those things will run on any blend of fuel up to 85% ethanol without any trouble whatsoever. But if you're like me and drive a 12-year-old Jeep that expects no more than 10% ethanol in its fuel?
Well--fortunately the fuel tank is pretty easy to get at in my Jeep. Dropping the hitch and skid plate is the hard part of replacing the fuel pump in my truck, and I should be able to do that in an afternoon or so. (Especially since I slathered the hitch bolts with anti-seize compound.)
I expect I'll get pretty good at replacing that fuel pump. Those of you out there who can't do your own car work? Your mechanic will love you.
Thanks, EPA! Thanks, Obama! Thanks, Democrats!
* * *
"7 Devastating Facts About [Obamanomics]".
#7: A record 87,897,000 Americans are no longer in the labor force. When the number of individuals who have stopped looking for a job and/or who are working part-time but desire full-time employment is included--a figure known as the "underemployment rate"--real unemployment stands at 19.1%.Thanks, Obama! Thanks, Democrats!
* * *
Solar power is so egalitarian and wonderful! Borepatch:
It's a trifecta! Poor people thrown from their houses at gunpoint by Government agents working at the behest of corrupt politicians who are in the pocket of rapacious profit-mad corporations that are befouling the air and water with their careless pollution.Emphasis his. Got to love it.
And it's all being done for the tree hugging Progressives.
* * *
SpaceX wants to build a commercial spaceport in Texas. Go go go go go!!!
...if the article is to be believed, the Texas congressional delegation is anti-commercial space. WTF. The only thing I can figure is that Texas gets a sizable chunk of NASA's spaceflight spending, and if NASA starts buying launches from private industry all those fat NASA dollars will dry up.
Yeah, that's the way to bet, isn't it? The US federal government is out of money and NASA's budget has never topped $20 billion per year, but us Texas congresscritters will stand in the way of making Texas the destination for commercial space travel in the United States!
Wonder if Florida would be more amenable? Mr. Musk is certainly smart enough to figure that one out, though.