Friday's Brain Is Small But Inspired

[elfs]

Economy lost 80,000 Jobs Last Month

Which is a fairly straightforward article. Except that it includes this stunning exchange:

"So, what you're saying is that, although the United States had seven years of economic growth from 1999 through 2006, the middle class saw no benefit from that growth at all. Why is that?"

"Well, it's complicated."

At which point innocent bystanders should be very happy that I wasn't driving. That made me see blinding red. No, you dumb lying sack of loose, black, tarry feces, it's not complicated at all! It's this goddamned simple:

Look at that spike between 2002 and 2005 and tell me "Uh, we can't figure out where the money from all that economic growth went, because it sure didn't go to the middle class."

The Jewish Journal interviews John McCain

And discovers that Mr. McCain isn't very knowledgeable, and doesn't like being told so when people are listening:

"I know [American evangelical leaders] favor a peace process. I know they favor that because of my close relations with them, and pastor John Hagee ... is one of the leaders of the pro-Israel-evangelical movement in America."

I started to correct him -- Hagee and other evangelicals most certainly don't support compromise on territory or Jerusalem, and McCain must know this. That's when I got my first taste of the famous McCain technique: I'll-talk-so-you-can't.

"Look," he cut me off, "I just have to tell you that we should be so grateful for the support of the evangelical movement for the state of Israel, given the influence that they have, beneficial influence that they have over millions of Americans, and then we'll worry about a peace process later on, but I know that they are committed to peace between Palestinians and Israelis as well."

McCain also re-iterated his belief that Iran is behind Sunni Jihadists and claimed that if we didn't stay in Iraq whoever took over would be bad news for Israel. Someone tell Mr. McCain that unless we want to impose viceroy-level administration over all of Iraq, anyone who takes power there is gonna think ill of Israel.

Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity faces down a legal thug

Seidel has done a great job over at neurodiversity of documenting how the bottom-feeders and scumsucking lawyers of the "antivaccination brigade" have created havoc in our legal system. Well, now one of them is going after her. Take a look at what she's doing. Hopefully, this gets quashed, and if not she'll have PZ Myers, Orac, and the rest of ScienceBlogs and its allies on her side.

Dirty, Sexy Money

Comic author Rupert Smith writes about how much money he's making writing porn on the side. Damn, now if only I had a plot.

Comments

[shaterri.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I'd really like to see that graph with a logarithmic left axis. The relevant scale for talking about income growth isn't linear, it's logarithmic -- which isn't to say that the graph won't be as damning with a log-scale; you can see that the proportionate growth hasn't been nearly so large at the lower income levels. But it'd be at least a bit more honest.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

OMG that economy article just blew my mind in its simplicity. For example:

"Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, told NPR that he believes the biggest worry is weakness in the service sector."

Well, fucking duh! I'm not an economist, and I don't even play one on tv, and I can tell you why! It's because we have a war on immigrants going on right now in this country. And who are the base we draw from to provide for our service sector? The immigrants! Moron.

Plot? What plot?

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, that one.

Elf, you have a lot of stuff that would struggle to find a short-fiction market because it relies a little too much on the reader knowing about Pendor.

But how about a story like Cheyenne?
Or is it that you write SF with sex rather than porn with SF?

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

The Graph: so how did the missing 19% do in that timeframe?

The McCain: so am I to understand that "favor a peace process" automatically equals "support compromise on territory" ?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

If you click on the image, there's a host of other graphs, one of which breaks up incomes by percentiles that includes that 80-99% range. There's also a lively discussion of whether or not the graph is valid.

The point of the conversation was that the interviewer tried to correct McCain: many of the peace deals attempted with the Palestinians do involve so-called "land for peace" arrangements, and McCain's evangelical supporters are vehemently opposed to those for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with seeking peace. When the interviewer tried that, McCain's rather famous intemperance came to the fore.

I've had eight years of being presided over by a man who doesn't want to hear that which contradicts his current running version of reality. That's enough for me.

Rallying around

[firewheelvortex.livejournal.com]

...and frankly, Kathleen's response to the bottom feeder in question reminds me of a right hook from Steven S. Douglas. (Obscure reference folks, from before being a frighteningly obsessive geek had an industry devoted to wiping us out.)