I wanted to also clarify the Open Blog "rules," which aren't really super-rigorous rules, but still, they're sort of rules.

First of all, I have to apologize for the inconsistency I have shown here, making up ad hoc "rules" and then forgetting them, which has caused confusion.

Here's what I think is the best way to do it:

First of all, if you're an Open Blogger, please feel free to put a post into draft whenever you like. This is very helpful, because it lets me and the cobloggers schedule posts better -- we aim for a post every 20 or 30 minutes during the workweek, for example. We try hard not to immediately bury a fresh post under a new post.

Having a post in draft also lets us post it when, for example, no one's got anything else ready to go, but it's been a while since the last one. If no one seems to be publishing it, write an email to me or a coblog; we might just not have noticed it.

In addition, also first of all, weekends should just be considered generally open blog. We can always use posts on the weekend.

One thing to bear in mind, first of all, is that newsy, breaking-news type posts are usually the order of the day during the workweek hours. The other type of post is welcome -- the "evergreen" post, we call it, as it is not keyed to any particular time-sensitive news event, but is thinky/philosophical in nature, or deals with pop culture, or art, or history, etc. -- is really best saved for the weekends or at night, when there are fewer rapid-fire posts coming.

That's for a couple of reasons. First of all, people tend to want to read the quick-churn stuff during the conventional news-hours week, and so tend to skip over posts which aren't of immediate import. They tend to read those more on off-hours; if these sorts of posts are published during the active news cycle, they tend to get ignored.

And first of all, on weekends and off-hours, there are a lot fewer posts, so these tend to be more prominently displayed for a longer period of time. Thereby giving them time to entice eyeballs.

If it's open blog, publish as you like (you don't have to bother with the draft business), but Make Sure Nothing Has Been Posted Recently Before You Hit Publish! If something's gone up in the last 30 minutes, hold off; give that last post a little time at the top.

Also, first of all, I wanted to say thank you to all the Open Bloggers -- I like reading the stuff from people with different interests and different areas of expertise.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (79)
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He didn't say the last part. I just thought I should add that in, for context and all.

n his Labor Day message to the nation, President Obama credits himself and his administration with having "pulled our country back from the brink" of economic disaster.

"In the last several years, we have pulled our country back from the brink, through a series of tough economic decisions," Obama writes. "While we have come far, great challenges still face us."

According to the Labor Department, the national unemployment rate stood at 7.6 percent when Obama inherited a faltering economy from George W. Bush in January 2009. Unemployment rose to 10.2 percent by October 2009, and, with the exception of February and March 2011, it has been at 9 percent or higher ever since. It was 9.1 percent in August -- a month in which the economy created no new jobs. In addition, economic growth has slowed nearly to zero, raising fears that the country is entering another recession.

Obama is left with the claim that he should be credited for supposedly spurring some growth in 2010 (almost none at all in 2011), but should not be charged with the subsequent stall-out in growth, or the likely recession we're already in.

Here's a little correction for you: I have repeatedly, authoritatively proclaimed that a "recession" is defined as two back to back quarters of sub-zero GDP growth.

I said this because I thought it was true. But then, I think a lot of things are true. I'm a lunatic.

The National Bureau of Economic Research explicitly says that is not how they mark recessions, at least not anymore.

The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity: real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment, and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve's index of industrial production (IP).

On one hand, taking a gestalt view of the economy now, they could easily say we're in a fresh recession, and have been in one for a few months, at least.

On the other hand, a vague, multifactor subjective definition gives them plenty of wiggle room in calling a stall, and they can either claim there is no recession (even if it sure looks like there is) or they could perhaps "reanalyze" the data and claim the previous recession didn't end (despite their previous claims that it had), and so this continues to be, as a formal matter, the recession that began under Bush.

I'm not really sure a formal announcement of what is clearly evident anyway will matter that much. A little, I suppose, as the media would be required to at least note this troublesome fact. But most people say the recession never ended and certainly doesn't seem to be ending now.

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 AM | Comments (172)
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Damn. This got bad and it got bad fast.

Five fires around the Austin area, none of them are contained right now. 350 homes destroyed in an afternoon, and thousands of people evacuated.

Most of Texas is dry as a tinderbox right now, and yesterday the winds were blowing 40 to 45. Worst possible conditions. My youngest kid drove past one yesterday on her way home for a visit, that highway is completely shut down now.

There is no rain in the forecast, but the winds aren't as bad today. There are a lot of tired firefighters working hard today, trying to get this stuff under control.

Also, ain't lettin my kid go back home this afternoon. That's the deal.

link and photo via melissaintexas

UPDATE: Rick Perry pulls out of DeMint event in SC to come back and deal with the emergency [via rdbrewer]

UPDATE2: Fire in the sky, video from Miss80sbaby, the Bastrop fire.

UPDATE3: Livestreams from KXAN (Miss80sBaby) and KVUE (Journolist) more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:17 AM | Comments (243)
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Here is my first official projection for the 2012 Presidential election. I will upload one at the beginning of each month through August of next year, and weekly starting the first week of September. Keep in mind that we are well over a year away, so a plethora of events can alter this.

If the election were held today, President Obama would lose by a margin of 54% to 46% to an unnamed challenger. The electoral vote would break down like this: more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:41 AM | Comments (250)
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Ah, Labor Day. The holiday the celebrates work by....taking the day off. It's pretty much the day we get to experience what's it's like to be in a union.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:13 AM | Comments (109)
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Happy first Monday in September holiday, Morons.

The SCOAMF is spending the day preparing for his big speech:

Posted by: andy at 04:11 AM | Comments (34)
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Have you ever had an incomplete thought rattling around your mind? You can almost put it into words but it remains elusively amorphous? Bill Whittle has the uncanny ability to take that pile of mental toothpicks and glue them into an Eiffel Tower of reason. His PJTV Afterburner series consistently produces videos that frame previously elusive political and cultural issues in a logical and informative way. As you watch his videos you will catch yourself nodding your head in approval silently thinking: yes. It is a great series and watching it is like getting a free political science degree (before the Marxists took over the PoliSci dept). Below is his latest offering: The Truth Is Out There. Enjoy. H/T instapundit.more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:41 PM | Comments (56)
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Heh: Those Dangerous Curbs

Okay this is kinda old but still hilarious. Be sure to read it to the final paragraph.

Pro Tip: Always check out who's collecting for charity before you lift a laptop and start getting stabby.

Sadly according to Snopes the last paragraph is an exaggeration but it should have been true. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:34 PM | Comments (464)
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They're not really paid to report facts; they are paid to reinforce the beliefs of liberals. So this isn't really as humiliating as it might seem -- he carried Obama's water. That was his job, his real job, and so he'll be forgiven for completely missing the actual story.

Here he was nine weeks ago, telling Republicans to suck it with their scurrilous claims of financial trouble and wasted government millions:

I happened to visit SolyndraÂ’s headquarters today, so maybe I can help the Republicans with their investigation. For starters, the reports of SolyndraÂ’s death have been greatly exaggerated. And while reasonable people can disagree about the loan guarantee program, itÂ’s not the boondoggle its critics suggest.

[...]

As for Solyndra, I can report to the Republicans who seemed so concerned about the companyÂ’s viability that it no longer seems to be on the verge of a humiliating collapse. IÂ’m sure theyÂ’ll be relieved.

Sarcasm... so reportorial, and not at all like a partisan liberal blogger.

And now?

Solyndra declared bankruptcy on Wednesday and laid off its 1,100 employees. I’ll have more to say about this after I chat with the smooth-talkers who got me to report in June that Solyndra “no longer seems to be on the verge of a humiliating collapse.”

Yes, we wait with bated breath for your outing of the sources who flat-out lied to you. Of course, you were complicit in your own beclowning. You wanted to believe, and you did; and you reported the claims of self-interested parties uncritically. And not just uncritically, but arrogantly, with a sarcastic f.u. to House investigators.

There's actually more news here: When the company was failing, two investors came in with $75 million in further loans. They'll get paid first in the bankruptcy, which means the odds of the government seeing a few pennies of it's $535 million loan are even lower now.

One of those protected, high-priority lenders was George Kaiser, the big Obama donor.

Sources tell me the Obama administration restructured the loan this winter, so taxpayers probably wonÂ’t even be the first creditors to get paid after Solyndra files for bankruptcy next week. The first $75 million will go to two Solyndra investors who poured in extra cash when the company nearly went bust in January. And one of them is a venture associated with the billionaire George Kaiser, an Obama campaign bundler.

What is that word "probably" doing in the first sentence? There is no "probably" warranted at all -- the rest of the paragraph indicates the government will not be the first creditors. They will be no higher than the third-- no "probably" about it.

What on earth is that doing in there, except to cushion the blow for Team Obama?

He goes on to make further excuses for this boondoggle.

I wanted to correct something I wrote: Several people have written to tell me that Solyndra's low interest rates are not necessarily that suspicious, even if they were much lower than the interest rates for loans extended to other solar ventures, because, they say, the loan terms were relatively short, and thus would carry lower interest rates than longer term loans.

This doesn't really explain it, though, because these were high risk loans, apparently misclassified as fairly low risk.

I believe what House investigators are trying to discover is what risk level these loans were represented as by Solyndra, and decided by the government -- which is what keeps getting redacted and hidden from them.

The Loans Had 100% Risk-- They Would Never Be Paid Back. Analysts have been questioning this "business model" for a while:

"Here's the bottom line," Lynch said. "It costs them $6 to make a unit. They're selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan."

Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal -- and assessed its risk to taxpayers -- before signing off.

Of course, all those pesky questions assumed that Solyndra was selling a business product. It wasn't. It was selling a political product, one that the White House was in need of, some boondoggle it could pour taxpayer money into and then give a speech about.

No matter what the product, if a client wants it, it will get produced.

And if the product the client demands is a half-billion dollar waste of taxpayer money, the market will provide that.

Posted by: Ace at 04:47 PM | Comments (137)
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Hey, how about a tea partier shoutin and denouncing Perry in New Hampshire over a border fence?

Ok then.

It's an odd line of attack really, shoving into the right rather than the left. Which is apparently the only opening.

Speaking to hundreds of Granite State voters at a private reception, the Texas governor was asked whether he supported a fence along the Mexican border.

“No, I don’t support a fence on the border,” he said. “The fact is, it’s 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good.”

The answer produced an angry shout from at least one audience member.

Except someone who says he was there doubts the shout.

And the AP declined to provide the rest of his response in the report.

Instead, Perry said he supported “strategic fencing” and National Guard troops to prevent illegal immigration and violence from Mexican drug cartels.

Perry certainly has to shore up his positioning on immigration. But having watched it for 12 years, I can tell you it's consistent. He's been driving down on violent crime, and demanding federal action to protect citizens.

It isn't as hard as I'd like, but it's aimed at my biggest concern.

via mpur

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:06 PM | Comments (178)
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