09:36 – I’m old enough to remember the time when newspapers did actual journalism rather than just reprinting government press releases. I thought about that this morning while I was scanning the morning paper. There was an article that reported unemployment in the Winston-Salem area was at 5%. Yeah, right. Time was when a newspaper would have pointed out that the government 5% number was entirely bogus. Not only does it not include those who are so discouraged that they’ve given up looking for work, but it counts any job as a job. The simple truth is that the country has lost millions upon millions of good middle-class jobs over the last couple of decades, and replaced them with crap service jobs. If a machinist making $60,000/year loses that job and goes back to work in a minimum-wage retail job, the government considers that a wash. One job lost and one job gained. We should try that on them, making all government jobs start at minimum wage, with a cap no higher than the average wage earned by people with jobs in private businesses.
More science kit stuff today. Barbara assembled a batch of small parts bags for chemistry kits yesterday, and is working on another batch as I write this. We also have chemical bottles to label and fill, and I have purchase orders to cut.
Walmart has some of their Ball canning jars on sale. Their website lists a two-pack of Ball wide-mouth quart jars with lids and rims for $18.95, or $0.79 each. I added three of those to my shopping cart, which was enough to get over $50 for free shipping. But when I tried to place the order, instead of going to the page that confirms shipping address it took me to a page that said I could pick them up at the Elkin Walmart Supercenter. I wasn’t about to make a 60 mile round trip, so I canceled the order.
“We should try that on them, making all government jobs start at minimum wage, with a cap no higher than the average wage earned by people with jobs in private businesses.”
With severe beatings for the gummint drones who put out those phony job stats and their managers.
Mostly sunny but very windy today; off shortly to the vets group meeting, see who’s still above ground.
I would think that reporting the change in how many people had W-2/1099 income over a given period of time would be a better indicator. That coupled with the change in median income over the same period of time would be better indicator.
“The US added 290,000 jobs last month. The largest increase since 2007.”
“Unemployment fell to 5.5% last month.”
Crap like that is completely meaningless. As RBT stated, if an $80K/year skilled tradesmen is now flipping burgers for $15K/year the government considers that a wash. That’s just asinine.
A better general number is the percentage of Americans in the workforce vs those able to work.
That’s been going down steadily and is at or near historic lows.
nick
Yes, and they need to exclude any people “employed” by the government, who are by definition unproductive in an economic sense.
Just got clobbered with a massive thunderstorm. I was trying to drive up north to pickup some auction items and catch an invitation only estate sale, but got flooded out.
Naturally, it’s now sunny and clear.
All the bayous are flooding though and there is a lot of water on the streets.
I think I better stay closer to home today.
nick
1.5+ inches of rain this morning and it’s drizzling on and off. This on top of 3/4 inch yesterday and a half inch the day before. The creek is roaring. So much for yard work…
And, FLASHLIGHTS!!! http://laymanslights.com/blog/
Sounds to me that you folks in Texas need to contact those Amish Carpenters who built that Ark for the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.
(Sorry I didn’t include any links because many start a video right away and/or start with heavy religious message, so just Google “Ark Encounter” and chose your link.)
Already have one
http://www.houstononthecheap.com/stay-cool-at-noahs-ark-pool-for-houston-fun
n
Brazos River flooding in Sugar Land on June 1, 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW65b1ODKWU
That is my levee at the end of the video. Nice levee.
The Brazos is now 4.5 ft above the previous high point in 1994. I know three families that have been flooded by rising water now.
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
@atoz, did you come get your water yet? I sure cannot tell.
Just think how bad the flooding would be if MrAtoZ didn’t come get some.
It takes a while a truck load at a time. I wonder how high all that water would rise Lake Mead? Is that a correct sentence?
Obola at the AF Academy Commencement:
“It’s time for the Senate to do its job and help us advance American leadership, rather than undermine it.”
What a total and complete fukstik.
It takes a while a truck load at a time. I wonder how high all that water would rise Lake Mead?
The Brazos is flowing 144,000 ft3/sec. The Lake Mead surface area is 247.1 mile^2.
144,000 ft3/sec / 247.1 mile^2 * (mile/5280 ft)^2 * 60 sec/min * 60 min/hr = 0.075 ft/hr
So, roughly a tenth of a foot per hour rise in the water level of Lake Mead. I’ll bet that LVians would like that for week or two.
And it is raining again. Pouring, actually.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this was a coincidence:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11845464/us-air-force-thunderbird-navy-blue-angels-jets-crash
http://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-thunderbird-jet-flyover-commencement-obama-2016-6
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-us-blue-angels-jet-has-crashed-in-tennessee-2016-6
This is just a sad indication of the sad state obuttwad has put our once proud and superior military in. U.S Naval vessels are at less than 45% ready. I don’t have inside sources for the other services so I would not believe the lies the gooberment publishes, just like a less than 5% unemployment rate.
Don’t forget that consumer price inflation is negligible and GDP is roaring ahead at 4% or whatever the latest lie is.
@SteveF, I think you forgot a decimal point, more like 0.4%. Not even enough to keep up with the inflation rate.
Actually Q1 was just revised to 0.8%, which means nothing.
If you want to see a great work of fiction:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
103°F but only 79°F inside using the evaporative cooler. No AC so far.
You just can’t make this shit up:
A landmark California bill gaining steam would make it illegal to engage in climate-change dissent, clearing the way for lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies, think-tanks and others that have “deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change.”
Next up: any word SJW/prog/fukstiks don’t like mean prison time or execution depending on which pimp is grieved.
@MrAtoz – don’t you know that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are only works of fiction housed in the National Archives. No longer required reading in school and any attempt to follow it will be met by an IRS Audit and a short-arm inspection by a transgender not of your choice.
Time to build a wall around Californication.
I’m trying to rack up some micro-aggression points today. How am I doin’?
You have a nice “rack” so far Mr. DadCooks.* Mr. OFD should weigh in shortly.
*couldn’t resist after that horrible transgender crack. Safe space, safe space!!!
Time to build a wall around Californication.
Well build it along the coastal mountain range. All of us east of there are okay (well closer to normal). I’m gonna miss artichokes however.
I’ll weigh in heavily later ’cause dat’s just how I roll…or waddle…or limp…
I’m on my Libertas now; wireless issue solved. Princess here on all other devices per usual & my trip w/wife to MA now hosed….again.
This guy’s been listening to both OFD and RBT.
“…if you’d read the right male authors, you really would have read the best works of literature which have ever been written.”
There it is. And it’s certainly NOT because of some reichwingnut patriarchal conspiracy stretching over three-thousand years, either.
“Homer,” Greek dramatists and archaic poets, Virgil, Ovid, Spenser, Sidney, Marlow, de Vere, Jonson, Milton, etc., etc., and that’s just the major poets and dramatists, i.e., imaginative literature. All. Dead. White. Males. Get over it. Deal with it.
For female poets we have “Sappho,” Mary Sidney (Countess of Pembroke, and Sir Philip’s sister), (and right there is a two-thousand-year-old gap), and Emily Dickinson, and for the latter, I defy you to find more than dozen or so poems out of her “canon” that will stand the test of time.
Princess finally left; a plant that had blown over earlier today was left in that state in my office; they couldn’t be bothered to right it. But they could find the time and effort to move my desk and printer stand and chair around, and leave an ungodly mess in the kitchen.
So she’ll be traveling to heavy-duty, week-long Celtic harp classes in Bah Hahbuh, Maine, Ireland, Brittany, and Inverness, Scotland, and possibly also Galicia, and then back through Ireland and then home again, home again, jiggedy jog, on Grandma’s and our dimes AGAIN. I sincerely hope this all pays off someday. And I will do my damndest to live long enough to see her raise at least one daughter.
The Libertas tablet wireless problem was solved by opening the Wireless Police app, closing it, and then rebooting. Bingo. But uh-oh, only the CM brower works, not so the Firefox and OrFox. Gotta run the OpenVPN and keep that running, and then those also work now. Live and learn. This is one nifty little tablet, running Android. Nothing whatsoever of Google on it. Nothing of Microslop. Nothing of Oracle or Adobe, either. But several kinds each of browsers, email and security apps, plus an always-on firewall, AfWall.
” I sincerely hope this all pays off someday. And I will do my damndest to live long enough to see her raise at least one daughter. ”
She’ll see you 2-3 times a week in the old folks home, clean up your dribbling and other stuff, make you nice healthy vegan stuff to eat…
clean up your dribbling and other stuff
No she will not do that. She will scrounge through his pants for spare change.
No old folks home for OFD; I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.
@OFD: “No old folks home for OFD; I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
I’m with you.
“I’m trying to rack up some micro-aggression points today. How am I doin’?”
A shout out to Mr. DadCooks, who wins the micro-aggression point count for yesterday:
I count a total of TEN (10) micro-aggressions in just that one post. Way to go, bro!
I’m sick and tired of this micro stuff. I’d say it’s time for superultrahypermegamacro-aggressions. Preferably large-caliber ones.
I just wish I wasn’t too old for this shit.
Elon Musk, internationally renowned philosopher, physicist, and all-around polymath genius, states that the odds are billions to one that we are living in a simulation. If you can’t trust the reliability of the founder of PayPal, there’s nothing at all that you can trust, so he must be right, so all you need to do is find the right cheat code to youthen yourself. (Important: that was “youthen”, not “euthanize”.)
Probably because of the typo. I think you meant “youthenize”.
I, like probably most of the species homo sapiens sapiens, would like to have my previous body back, say, around the age of 17 or so, but with all the chit I know now, which is still pitifully small. Still. Ditto for Mrs. OFD. And keep them until, oh, until we reach 100-125, maybe. That oughta be enough. But of course we might think differently then and as always, YMMV.
Meanwhile I’ll hunt around for them cheat codes, like we had for Doom and other games back in the day; do they still do that for games? The only ones I play now are Windows 8 Solitaire and another Windows freebie, Zombie Sniper. And even then, only a for a few minutes. Can’t justify the time when there’s a zillion things to do and learn and only so many hours in the day.
Dang it, if I’d thought of that, that is what I’d have meant.
I’m still intending to live until I’m at least 100,000 years old.
At one point, I did have two women who via my journal page had volunteered to be host mothers for my clones, but they’re probably too old to do that now.
Thanks @OFD, I’m just trying to live up to the high standards of this journal.
“…the high standards of this journal.”
Wow. You must be delusional as well as a master of micro-aggressions! Great combination! Outstanding!
I tried to follow in your footsteps a bit yesterday at my vets group meeting by brutally slandering and libeling our capital city up here and its derps; had them on the floor laughing. Which is a very good thing.
I like to keep people guessing 😉