Fat Lady Still Seeks Job (And Republi-CONs Couldn't Care Less)

UPDATE III:  The "president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, was once a leading opponent of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate the economy" finally admits that those invisible Republi-CON bond vigilantes were just his wild imagination, but "that persistent unemployment has created 'a time of testing' for the Fed comparable to the rise of inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s."

So much for the Republi-con myth of expansionary austerity.

Read the New York Times, A Fed Policy Maker, Changing His Mind, Urges More Stimulus.

UPDATE II:  "[T]he labor market has experienced neither terrific gains nor terrific crashes in the last three years. Instead, we've suffered the Curse of Goldilocks: Just fine enough to keep pressure from building in Washington for another round of intervention. . .

It makes you wonder: What kind of recovery might we have today if Washington weren't so enthusiastically trying to kill it?"

Read The Atlantic, The Goldilocks Curse: How America's Job Creation Story Got So Boring.

The link is to The Atlantic, The Greatest Risk to the U.S. Economy Is Still the People in Charge of It, which notes that "[t[he recession gave us a lost decade. Congress added a lost year. The budget wars since 2010 have cost us 12 months in job creation." 

UPDATE:  "[I]nfluential people need to stop using the future as an excuse for inaction. The clear and present danger is mass unemployment, and we should deal with it, now."

Read The New York Times, Fight the Future.  

As I said in February 2009, tax cuts are not the answer, and again in October 2010, this downturn won't be over 'til the fat lady gets a job.  And in June 2011 and Jan-Feb 2012, as well as other times -- it's jobs stupid.

But since Obama first won election, Republi-cons have been using best efforts to tank the economy and keep unemployment high.

So "just a reminder that the U.S. labor market is still in rough shape — despite the considerable improvement in recent years."  Read the Washington Post, The U.S. job market is still worse than at any point during the last downturn.

The article includes this graph:

Republi-CON Family Values in Wisconsin, Republi-CON Personalized Lawmaking is Cheap

A wealthy Wisconsin businessman was "unable to find a judge who [would] cut his substantial child support payments under current law" so he donated $3,500 to a Republi-con lawmaker, $7,500 to his wife (the Republi-con Lt. Gov.), and $15,000 to Republi-con Gov. Scott Walker, who then wrote a special new law just for his case.

Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wealthy divorced donor helped write controversial child-support bill and GOP donor gets lawmaker to write bill to cut his child support.

Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich and Christie -- 'One of These Things Is Not Like the Others'

UPDATE: Also watch the Colbert Report, New Jersey Bridge Scandal - Chris Christie's Someone Else-a Culpa:

The Colbert Report
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"Think for a moment who makes up the Republican Party, and most specifically the part of the GOP base that dominates the presidential nomination process. Think about the people they seriously considered for their party’s presidential nomination last time around. Think Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich. Now, quickly, think Christie. Now think Sesame Street: 'One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn’t belong.' It’s laughable that the party that has previously seriously considered some fairly inconceivable candidates as worthy of the GOP nomination would suddenly reverse course and head over to a center-right candidate such as Christie."

Read The Atlantic, Chris Christie Was Never Going to Be President Anyway, which states that "[t]he New Jersey governor's chances at the Republican nomination were way overrated even before Bridgegate" AKA traffiquiddick.

Test Your Biases

"Everyone has hidden biases."

Read the Wall Street Journal, Bringing Hidden Biases Into the Light, then "[t]ake two tests to determine your racial and gender-career biases.

Gender-career bias test

Racial-bias test

Source: Project Implicit"

Men Are Pigs, What's New

"As a child of the Internet and confirmed weirdo, imagine my relief when they finally took that last bastion of in-person awkwardness -- dating -- to my laptop instead. I've been using one of the major dating sites, OkCupid, on and off for about five years now. While it has its perks, being a woman on a dating site means immersing yourself in a disgusting cesspool of exposed nerves, unfiltered testosterone, and daily propositions to engage in sex acts so horrifying, I hadn't even heard of them before, and I'm from the Internet.

I got the feeling that a lot of men on that site would message literally any woman who had a profile, but the optimist in me wanted to believe that there was a limit. Maybe there was a woman so awful, so toxic, so irredeemably unlikeable that no one would message her, or if they did, at least they would realize they never, ever wanted to meet her. So I made the OkCupid profile of the Worst Woman on Earth, hoping to prove that there exists an online dating profile so loathsome that no man would message it.

I did not accomplish my goal."

Read Cracked, 4 Things I Learned from the Worst Online Dating Profile Ever.

2013: "What A Year!"

For a "collection of 2013 year-in-review videos from Google, Facebook, JibJab, Storyful, DJ Earworm, and the best viral videos, read FastCompany, The 2013 Year-In-Review Videos All In One Place, which notes that "[t]he search bar is once again the star in Google's annual Zeitgeist video".

And as always, "JibJab's talking heads sum up 2013 with a wink and a nod", watch JibJab 2013 Year in Review: "What A Year!":