The Inspiron Mini proves its worth yet again. With the 6-cell battery pack, it represents a great tradeoff between form factor, horsepower, and endurance. The trackpad exhibits some personality, so you may want some sort of USB device to tidy that up. I have the T-Mobile Ludicrous Data plan, and the unit survived the Tea Party test on Tax Day down on the Mall. Even in the relatively mellow case of a blood donation taking an hour, the ability to have the thing on the lap and work the Google Reader proved a good source of entertainment. Sure, I could have brought a book, but where is the nerd factor in that?
Yeah, Reynolds may have InstaVision, but *sniff* I got my Mini and my pride, and he can’t take that away. I should also add that this post’s title alludes to Steven Wright’s ‘self portrait of an artist writing his own autobiography’.
We have previously discussed the difference between “cyclical” unemployment — temporary job losses caused by a dip in the business cycle — and “structural” unemployment, which is a function of fundamental changes in the economy. That is to say, if you’re waiting for the buggy-whip industry to rebound, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
Fewer construction workers will be needed. Don’t expect as many interior designers or advertising copywriters, either. Retailers will get by with leaner staffs.
The economy is strengthening. But millions of jobs lost in the recession could be gone for good.
And unlike in past recessions, jobs in the beleaguered manufacturing sector aren’t the only ones likely lost forever.
That helps explain why economists think it will take at least five years for the economy to regain the 8.2 million jobs wiped out by the recession — longer than in any other recovery since World War II. . . .
More than one-third of chief financial officers at 620 big companies surveyed in March by Duke University and CFO magazine said they didn’t expect to restore their payrolls to pre-recession levels for at least three years. . . .
“Companies have just figured out, ‘We didn’t want to fire people . . . but now that they’re gone, we’ve realized that we can get by without them,'” said John Graham, a Duke finance professor who directed the survey. . . .
The job you got laid off from? You weren’t needed. That’s not necessarily your fault. Don’t wait around for your old company to re-hire you, and don’t cling to the idea that because you were a service technician in your old job that your next job will be as a service technician. Go find a new job — any job, in whatever field is available, even if it means moving halfway across the world — and you’ll be better off.
Labor is just another product in the market. You are the supply, and your employer is the demand. Once you get that concept figured out, things make a lot more sense. For example, if you think you’re underpaid, quit your job. If you don’t immediately find a job somewhere else at higher pay, guess what? You weren’t underpaid.
Try that little thought-experiment next time you’re complaining about your job. In an economy with 10% unemployment, you can be replaced.
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is coming to western Pennsylvania to try to help the Republicans do what he did in January: win a special election to fill a seat vacated by the death of a powerful Democrat lawmaker.
Brown will be in Washington, Pa. Friday afternoon to stump for Republican businessman Tim Burns. Brown won a special election in January to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Burns is running in the special May 18 election to serve the remaining term of Democrat U.S. Rep. John Murtha who died in February. . . .
The big-picture implications in the contest between Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns are clear: With the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulling out of the May 22 Hawaii special election, the Pennsylvania race has become the only game in town — the bellwether contest for shaping perceptions about the political landscape.
In the past week, Republicans in Utah gave their senator, Bob Bennett, his notice, and some Democrats in West Virginia did likewise to one of their Congressmen, Alan Mollohan. “Bennett represents Washington as usual,” Burns told me, “and people are tired of Washington as usual.”
Meanwhile, I’m about to head out on the road to cover today’s rally. I’m grateful to readers who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund for my two previous trips to cover the PA-12 special election, and hope you’ll hit the tip jar again so that I can continue covering this crucial campaign.
The Burns campaign is still inviting all Tea Party activists and conservatives to come volunteer in the final push to Election Day. To find out how you can help, visit TimBurnsForCongress.com, or e-mail the campaign or call 814-619-3414.
Federal agents are scrambling today to determine whether a Boston cab driver and Brookline gas station attendant arrested yesterday in a massive sweep knew whether their money was provided to a suspected Times Square terror bomber.
The Pakistani natives were rounded up in raids in Watertown and Brookline and at a taxi stand in Allston. . . . A third person was arrested in Maine.
All three are being held on immigration violations and do not face any criminal charges linked to the May 1 Times Square bombing attempt, officials said yesterday . . .
Federal law enforcement officials added it is not yet clear whether those arrested realized how the money was going to be used by [Faisal] Shahzad . . . “They’re very good men, all hard workers,” said Ser Khan of Watertown, adding that his friends did not voice any radical views or hatred toward the United States. “They got jobs. They got money. They live here. They eat here. They work here. How can someone hate America?”
Before delving into details, let’s note that the overwhelming bulk of human history, and, indeed, the contemporary situation, has featured unrepresentative regimes. For example, the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon does a fine job of kicking European representative democracy in the dental work. Examples get uglier from there.
#17:
Good job ignoring this part of Colmes’ article, then demonstrating its central point:
“There is something upsetting about how eager folks on the right have been to say it’s all been downhill since the 1780s. Sure, if called on it, as in the Marshall-Kagan business, they’ll backtrack and say that they obviously think emancipation and women’s suffrage were good things. But they appear mainly unperturbed about the fact that in 1792, the percentage of the population with full citizenship was probably less than one-fourth. It’s an afterthought.”
Exactly. Most conservative pleas for a return to strict constitutional government ignore the fact that relatively few “Americans” got to participate in anything remotely resembling a free market at the nation’s founding.
So the fact that things were less than perfect at when the 1787 Constitution was signed renders the document useless? If you read Amar’s book, you’ll discover that the 1787 Constitution was, itself, a fairly radical step over its Colonial/State predecessors. For example, there were no requirements for land ownership to vote. Yes, women and blacks took longer, and it’s as easy to shoot the Founding messengers for operating within the realm of the possible as it is to contend that a 223 year old document must obviously be useless because it’s old. Your argument would be equally cool on either foundation.
The idea that America is somehow less free today, when all 100% of adults are enfranchised but taxed at one of the lowest rates in modern world history, than it was at its founding, when being born with the wrong skin color or genitalia consigned you to lifelong second-class status, but there was no income tax, is ludicrous on its face.
The rest of your post is a festival of straw men. (Who, for example, on the Left doesn’t believe in “sober management”? Seems like the last time the budget was balanced, a Democrat was in office. Check the deficit records of the Presidents who came out of the modern conservative movement, especially Reagan, for a clear picture of irresponsible financial management.)
When they wrote the 1787 Constitution, the Framers were delegating certain powers to a Federal government. While 1913 brought the scourge of the income tax (Amendment 16), it also stripped States of an advocate (Amendment 17), and brought in the Federal Reserve Act, which un-elected, un-accountable cabal of thieves has supported large scale, systemic robbery from the people. Show me the people in either the Democratic or Republican party (modulo Paul Ryan) doing anything substantial to plan for a debt-free America? Your attempt at holding up a balanced budget figleaf tempts a remark somewhere between Biden and Emmanual on the potty-mouth scale. Tell you what: review this clip and let’s talk about debt and deficit.
#20:
Well, I tried. Did I “shoot the messenger”? No, I responded to your artful eliding of what seemed to me to be a valid point.
Hopefully this more full response answers the mail.
“History is unalterable…” I agree, which is why I wrote the above comment, the substance of which you declined to address.
“…which is why the Left ignores and airbrushes it.” My entire argument is based on matters of historical record. How have I “airbrushed” anything?
The country’s problems, in my opinion, are rooted in the Federal government undertaking non-Federal tasking.
A response might be: “If DC hadn’t enacted Social Security/Fannie/Freddie/ObamaCare, it wouldn’t get done.”
You may argue that pointing to the debt is a strawman, but, if the strawman is of sufficient size/density that it crushes you like a bug when it topples, you may want to respect that strawman.
Also: I realize that it’s pretty much standard fare in web disputes to respond to a charge (in this case: “you’re ignoring the historical case against your position”) with some variant of “I know you are but what am I?” (in this case: “the Left ignores and airbrushes [history].”) But really, is it that difficult to respond to a substantive critique with a specific rebuttal?
Unless you don’t have one, that is. If that’s the case, by all means continue slandering liberals in general for saying things you don’t have an answer for.
And no, none of the points I’m raising in this post are terribly fresh for this blog.
You seem more avid than many on the Left. Hang out, join in. We can recover the country.
Pir Khan, Mohammad Bakht Zameen, Said Pervez — these are reportedly the names of three tenants of the boarding house at 39 Waverley Avenue in Watertown, Mass., raided Thursday morning by agents of the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and local police. At least six search warrants were executed, and two men were reportedly arrested, although law-enforcement officials have yet to identify the arrested men by name. Here is video of one suspect being arrested by ICE agents:
The Watertown raid was connected to the May 1 car bomb attempt in New York City, the Wall Street Journal reports:
The suspect in the Times Square plot, Faisal Shahzad, has been cooperating with prosecutors since his capture two days after the May 1 bombing attempt. . . .
The raids are part of the FBI effort to track down the sources of cash that Mr. Shahzad used to finance the bombing attempt, U.S. officials said. Investigators have focused on money couriers, commonly used in immigrant communities, as a possible way Mr. Shahzad got the cash, though there’s no indication anyone handling the money knew Mr. Shahzad’s intention to use it to build a bomb, officials said.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s primary concern during his testimony before Congress today was, evidently, to avoid using the term “radical Islam” to describe the motives of Shahzad and his accomplices:
Members of the Allston-Brighton Islamic Center are watching the news very closely after one of their own was arrested in the FBI raids. . . .
Center officials say Pir Khan has been coming here for Friday prayers for about eight or nine years. “I would describe him as a nice guy, a very good guy,” said Haroon Khan, the center’s director of community affairs. “And even I can not think of him that he can do anything wrong.” . . .
Investigators believe the two Massachusetts men arrested in the FBI raids provided money to the accused bomber, maybe unwittingly. . . .
Sher Wahab says he is shocked over Khan’s arrest.
He owns the cab company Khan drove for. “He’s a very polite person, a very nice person,” said Wahab. . . .
Islamic center officials say they will cooperate with the FBI in their investigation.
In fact, a month ago, the center’s president invited the FBI there when he learned agents were questioning a member about people at the center.
The fact that the FBI was asking questions about members of this mosque a month ago — i.e., before the May 1 bomb attempt — could be connected to reports that the feds had previously aware of Faisal Shahzad’s possible terrorism ties. Like the cab company owner who employed Khan, the landlord of 39 Waverley Avenue was “shocked” by the FBI raid:
He said once he learned of the search, he called the FBI, which sent an agent to show him photographs of his tenants. “And basically the information I gave them was they’re good people. They’ve been living there since 2005 or 6,” said Baij Joshi, who manages the Waverly Avenue apartment for his father.
Joshi recalled his four tenants living there, all male, all from Pakistan, paid their $1,100 a month rent on time and “maintained their property well.” . . .
“Only (thing) unusual is whenever the roommates, they go to Pakistan, they go for like two months and they always have people coming over,” said Joshi.
Joshi says one of the tenants, Said Pervez, worked at a 7-Eleven on Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown. Another worked at the Brookline Mobil station searched by the FBI, said Joshi; a third, Pir Khan, owned taxicab medallions.
The focus of the investigation was on a gray Honda Accord registered to Mohammad Bakht Zameen of 39 Waverley Avenue in Watertown, Mass. That residence was also raided by FBI officials Thursday morning, and involved the arrest of one man accused of alleged immigration violations.
Another neighbor . . . said two men “with connections to Pakistan” have lived in the top floor of the house for a few months. The neighbor said he had seen law enforcement officials conducting surveillance at the house for about a week.
The boarding house where the suspects were arrested is “next door to public housing” in an “ethnically mixed neighborhood.” . . .
[T]he 2-story boarding house at 39 Waverly Ave. is located two doors down and across the street from Watertown Middle School . . . [M]ost people in the neighborhood don’t know their neighbors. That might make it “a perfect place” for would-be terrorists to keep a low profile . . .
[T]he rental property, which is located across the street from Watertown Middle School, is constantly turning over with new residents.
So it was the kind of place where residents wouldn’t pay much attention to the comings and goings of strangers. Da Tech Guy has now posted several videos from Watertown today, including this 360-degree pan showing the locations of 39 Waverley Avenue, the Watertown Housing Authority and Watertown Middle School:
A pleasant-looking New England neighborhood and it’s not been established that anyone at 39 Waverley Avenue — including the men arrested Thursday on immigration violations — had any knowledge of Faisal Shahzad’s plans:
Federal officials say the searches were to check out money couriers who may have facilitated currency exchanges for Shahzad . . .
Immigration agents on Thursday took three men into custody – two in the Boston area and one in Maine. The Boston men, identified as Pir Khan and Aftab Khan, are not charged in connection with the terror plot, and officials said the third man wasn’t involved in the plot either.
Officials said it is still unclear if anyone who might have helped Shahzad get money had any idea about his bomb plans.
On Long Island, the FBI searched the basement apartment of Mohammed Younus along Oxhead Street looking for possible evidence. Younus has not been charged with any wrongdoing, officials said.
Investigators said the reason the raids spanned such a large area is because the old-world money lending system Shahzad used to raise funds, called Hawala, connects people in disparate places.
See Da Tech Guy’s videos, including his interview with Barbara Lacerra, who became something of a local media celebrity today.
Oddly, the same people who disparage us also have love affairs with our culture. They ridicule us and then profess their love for Nina Simone, Austin, Johnny Cash or Louisiana’s crawfish etouffee dish when it’s trendy. This brings me to my favourite specimens: cocktail party progressives. You know the type – can’t converse without referencing the New Yorker. Pretentious, self-congratulatory liberals who applaud their own humanity while mocking the south. Curiously, they feign knowledge of Hank Williams when fashionable, but their intellectual elitism forgets that Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were southern geniuses.
I adore our southern nights and the taste of authenticity in Willie Nelson’s voice and Muddy Waters’ blues. I love that we celebrate colossally in New Orleans: Jazz Fest, Crawfish Fest, Mardi Gras, even Jazz Funerals. I was touched when kind neighbours baked us casseroles and stood by us as we endured post-9/11 racism. I am proud that Houstonians opened their homes to 250,000 New Orleans evacuees. That’s genuine southern hospitality. Southerners are not the ignorant, inbreeding, toothless rifle-owning trailer trash that my progressive colleagues paint them as. They are vibrant, passionate Americans with resolve. . . .
Jiliani didn’t mention William Faulkner or Mark Twain or Edgard Allen Poe or Willie Morris on her list of “southern geniuses,” but there’s never enough room, eh?
Also: “Southern” should always be capitalized as a proper noun. “Southern” refers to a people and a culture, whereas “northern” is merely a direction.
Last week, the Boston City Council passed a measure that would immediately end all city contracts with the state of Arizona and Arizona-based companies. This week, officials in Worcester, Lawrence, Springfield and Amherst were considering similar actions. Other cities in other states also are looking at taking action.
Suffice to say, the open-borders lobby’s “STOP THE RAIDS” and “STOP THE DEPORTATIONS” rhetoric will be on momentary pause so the Obama administration can selectively enforce our immigration rules for a brief, politically expedient moment before returning to the regularly scheduled, anti-Arizona demagoguery programming.
•June 30, 1979 – Born in Pakistan.
•December 22, 1998 – Issued student visa in Islamabad. It is difficult to justify the issuance of this student visa. Shahzad certainly failed to demonstrate that he had “sufficient academic preparation to pursue the intended course of study” at the University of Bridgeport, as the regulations required. He was applying as a transfer student, and his transcript from his correspondence course with Southeastern University, a now defunct fourth-rate academic program, showed a GPA of 2.78, including several D’s and an F (in statistics). . . .
•Fall 2000 – Graduates from University of Bridgeport, Conn. Several media reports have noted that Shahzad was flagged by border officials for carrying large sums of cash into the United States and for his repeated visits home to Pakistan. . . .
•2001 – Begins working for a temporary staffing agency. Shahzad entered on a student visa, which does not include permission to work. . . .
•2002 – Issued H-1B visa. Shahzad was sponsored by Elizabeth Arden to work in a low level accounting job under the H-1B visa program. This would seem to support the argument that the visa program brings in primarily ordinary workers, not the best and the brightest as its defenders claim.
•2004 – Obtains mortgage with Huma Anif Mian (U.S. citizen and future spouse).
•2004 – Comes under scrutiny of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. . . .
•February 2005 – U.S. citizen wife files green card petition. Neighbors of Shahzad’s bride have told reporters that he had visited her in Colorado just once before she left to marry him.
•January 2006 – Green card approved. USCIS was apparently unconcerned about either the suddenness of the marriage or the JTTF investigation. . . .
•October 2008 – Applies for citizenship. Shahzad wasted no time applying for U.S. citizenship, which can happen after three years of marriage to a U.S. citizen, compared with five years of residency for other legal immigrants. Shahzad’s alacrity in submitting his citizenship application is very unusual. The average immigrant waits six to ten years before applying, according to DHS statistics. . . .
•April 17, 2009 – Sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Again, it appears that USCIS was untroubled by or unaware of the previous JTTF investigation.
•June 2, 2009 – Departs for Pakistan.
•February 3, 2010 – Returns to the United States.
•May 1, 2010 – Attempts to set off bomb in Times Square.
Yeah, but I bet he paid his rent on time. They’re so hard-working, these immigrants. Building car-bombs American car-bomb builders won’t build.
UPDATE II: Meanwhile, in Illinois, liberals are cracking down on girls’ basketball teams. No word yet on whether the Faisal Shahzad or Mohammad Bakht Zameen or any of the other PakistaniArizonan terror suspects ever attended a Tea Party, but I’m sure Frank Rich will have that angle covered.
by Smitty
