Jobless Rate Keeps On Climbing, Kagan Inquisition Begins, A Little T & E

Paul Krugman
Peter Beinart
Yoel Marcus

"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression... the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense. And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy" - Paul Krugman

"So he hasn’t plugged the leak, and his poll numbers are sagging. Truth is, Obama has exceeded in 18 months what Clinton and Carter achieved in a combined 12 years." - Peter Beinart

"In 1975, the United States Congress cut off funds for the Vietnam War, with those in support of the move asking the obvious question: What had the United States achieved after a decade of fighting that left 58,000 US dead, four million Vietnamese casualties and a land destroyed? Many now ask the same question about Afghanistan and come up with the same answer: Not much." - Saul Landau 

Probably the most important article to read this week is Paul Krugman's article, where he warns that we are entering a third depression. The results from the G20 conference this weekend may confirm his theory, Europe has vowed to do everything wrong by undergoing higher taxes and austerity programs, which will cause even more job losses. In the US the situation will get worse during the next fiscal year when the states that have gone through their reserves just to get through this year, have to make drastic personnel and service cuts. There is a critical point when you won't be able to recover enough to employ all of the jobless, and a certain percentage will remain permanently unemployed. Which means that drug and alcohol consumption will drastically increase along with violent robberies and house invasions. Good thing that the Supreme Court ruled that everyone can bear handguns, because it will start looking like the wild west. In fact, the city of Chicago was so happy that 29 people were shot and killed this weekend. Maybe Arizona and Florida will hire us all as future border guards... My favorite crisis hirings are the security guards that BP have to keep reporters away from the clean up crews on the Louisiana and Alabama beaches...

                                                

not the comfy cushion!...

I forgot to check if CSPAN is covering the Elena Kagan Inquisition, which begun today. I have to force myself to watch Jeff Sessions ask smarmy questions. He just bothers me. He has a repulsive personality that I can't figure out how he won a seat in Congress, it certainly wasn't done by going out and shaking hands or talking to the voters. He reminds me of a Renfield, and I expect him to be catching and eating flies in midair, but that is an insult both to humanity and to the lizards... THis hearing is supposed to be boring, and no matter how hard the GOP tries to make her out to be some kind of liberal wolf in a moderate demon sheep's costume, it will be mercifully short and she will easily be confirmed. Thank god they didn't push the negative campaigning too hard against her, because the stereotyping of a short, chubby, jewish woman and saying that she was probably gay, or was a frustrated loner, and criticizing her because she wasn't a hot legal chick like on television was all backfiring, even among the mama grizzlies... Because there isn't much of a paper trail on Kagan, the GOP will have to tee off on anyone she has ever expressed admiration for or spoken of favorably.

Way back in ancient times, at the beginning of the presidential campaign, we were supposed to have been fed up with the negative ads and personal slurs that was the hallmark of Karl Rovian politics. Once it looked like Barack Obama was going to win, all idealism was thrown out the window and the extreme conservatives have been on the attack ever since. They feel that if they repeat something negative it will believed to be true, because we always remember the mean things said about someone long after we have forgotten the nice things... Maybe it's because we are in the middle of two needless wars sucking up any extra money and contributing to our economic spiral, or the frustrated Alzhenheimeric cry of our aging senior citizens, or we have conflicted our bodies by mixing too many anti-depressants with viagra and thus are stifling our souls, but we are becoming less tolerant as a society and too willing to go to the Internet for a quick reinforcement of our anti-social behaviors. I say this sitting before my keyboard when I haven't left the house in three days, babysitting my sister's three dogs who are getting edgy from having been cooped up and not going outside for a good, long run...

tigris and euphrates still drying up...
A few tidbits I picked up from the Iraqi press this morning: there have been over 1,000 Iraqi teachers who have returned to Iraq since most of the US troops pulled out, and there was a campaign in Baghdad that killed off 20,000 stray dogs. The plans to wall off Baghdad from the rest of Iraq have failed to garnish enough support, I guess they were planning on making the next Snake Pliskin movie there - Escape From Baghdad... Bad news is that rice farmers have been told they cannot grow crops this year because of the low water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the hydroelectric plants may close down as well, making even less electricity available during the 120 degree heat... It looks like the Iraqi military are down to their last al-Qaeda commanders, they are officially looking for 11 tops dogs... oh yeah, and the head of Iraqi prisons wants to build a few more juvenile detention centers, they don't have enough room for all of the criminals...