May Jobs Report: Great If You Are Into Huge Numbers Of Temporary Federal Workers
— DrewM

On the other hand it's God awful if you think the private sector is the true engine of prosperity (in other words, you're not a liberal).

The U.S. Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls rose by 431,000 last month, the largest gain since March 2000. That followed an unrevised 290,000 increase in April.

Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires were expecting payrolls to rise by an even higher 515,000.

However, the May figure was boosted by the hiring of 411,000 temporary workers for the decennial count of the U.S. population. Only 41,000 private-sector jobs were added.

41,000 non-government jobs?

Thanks to the ridiculous formula the government uses, this actually means the official unemployment rate dropped .2% to 9.9% to 9.7%.

If this AP story is any indicator, not even the usually happy talking media (when the Democrats are in charge) are buying it. Though Obama is giving it the old college try.

President Barack Obama acknowledged that temporary census jobs drove the overall payroll gain. But he said private sector hiring is growing. He noted five straight months of job gains after devastating losses from the recession. He said the recovery is still in its early stages, and that it will be uneven in the months ahead.

"Things never go completely in a smooth line," Obama said during a speech Friday. "This report is a sign that our economy is getting stronger by the day."

Via Jim Geraghty, Clinton's Labor Secretary and economic lunatic Robert Reich says we're entering the back half of the double dip recession because the effects of the stimulus is wearing off. His answer of course is...more stimulus.

Spending and more government, those are the only 'economic growth' tools in the liberal playbook.

God help us all.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:29 AM | Comments (200)
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Bleg: Laptop Buying
— Gabriel Malor

My home lappy is on its last legs and I've been sorta-kinda looking for a cheap replacement while hoping that it spontaneously fixes itself. Since that's not really gonna happen, I could use some advice.

Once upon a time, I wanted every newfangled bell and whistle crammed into a laptop--with a crowbar, if necessary. Now, my needs are really only word processing, blogging, email, hulu. I haven't played WOW or any other computer game in over a year.

So, two questions: (1) anyone try either of the Dell 'mini' models? Can one of those little suckers play hulu without stuttering? If I have ten tabs open in a browser for blogging is it going to gasp and die?

(2) Any other cheap-o laptops I should take a look at?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:20 AM | Comments (391)
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Top Headline Comments 6-4-10
— Gabriel Malor

Frrrrrrriday!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:55 AM | Comments (134)
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Economic Morning Briefing
— Monty

Hello. Thank you for tuning in.

Via FT Alphaville: The BP Logo Redesign Contest. I don't think the "we love green" logo is going to do much for them any more, so it's probably a good idea to investigate alternatives sooner rather than later.

Bammer's ban on offshore drilling may further exacerbate the bad jobs picture. And since that poster-boy Spanish "green jobs" initiative has been a bust, it doesn't look like there's any energy-sector hope on the horizon.

Also via FT Alphaville: Should Investors Boycott the Stock Market? It's sure beginning to look like a rigged game to this investor.

Via Minyanville: What To Expect From Today's NFP Payroll Report. I'm expecting a lot of happy-happy-joy-joy noise [UPDATE: not so much], but I also suspect that the uptick in employment is mainly seasonal/census related, and will wane along with the summer. The real employment picture still sucks, and will continue to suck.

Via the WSJ: The Euro is still tanking. Down to $1.21 vs the USD. Parity this year? If we see Eastern European EU nations going the same way as Greece...maybe. (And the IMF, who will be asked to bail out these indebted nations, has just sold a big hunk of their gold stocks to provide some liquidity. I have a feeling that they're going to be coming back to Uncle Sugar with hat in hand pretty soon, asking for a bailout of their own.)

You've often heard the term "it costs money to make money". This is literally true: there is a cost to manufacture coins and paper bank notes. This cost is generally added to the price of a coin, note, or security. The term for this is seignoirage. Seignoirage is how many national banks make their profits. (It's also the main reason that sovereigns like to hold a monopoly on the issuance of currency. Seignoirage acts as a kind of tax on the holders of a national currency, the proceeds of which go back to the sovereign.)

Happy Friday, Morons. Tune in later for Hanna-Barbera's "Murders in the Rue Morgue", starring Shaggy, Scooby, and the gang.

Posted by: Monty at 04:47 AM | Comments (105)
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This is The Fight
— Dave in Texas

Chapter, hellI'velostcount, 470 in why Chris Christie eats lightning and craps thunder.

"The teachers union is about the accumulation and exercise of raw power."

I'm just an idiot from Texas, where we speak plainly through locally familiar metaphors, like "go piss up a rope."

This guy speaks plainly, like "You punch them. I punch you."

I continue to be impressed with his approach.

video and tip via Allahpundit and Cubachi on Twitter.

Also I use Youtube 448 width because it's slimming.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:13 PM | Comments (210)
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Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

Happy Thursday all.

Countries Where English Is An Official Language

So when you're choosing your apocalypse bolt-hole, you might want to consider which lingua the locals sprechen. And yes that little blue speck in Central America is Belize which speaks English thanks to its history as a British colony. Here's some info on fleeing retiring to Belize as an American. Of course there's also Guyana to the south, but it seems a little far from the US and a little too close to Venezuela. Next best options would probably be some of the Caribbean islands.

All in all English has been remarkably successful for a language that started off as a bastard tongue of German tribes, Vikings, and French noblemen on some island in the North Atlantic. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:46 PM | Comments (818)
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Joran Van der Sloot Arrested
— Ace

Mark my words -- he'll plead insanity.

He's going to tell the psychiatrist that he dreams of being lost in his victims' endless gardens.

Video below.

Oh, and he's also been charged with extortion in the US -- the government claimed he demanded $250,000 to tell them where Natalee Holloway's body could be found.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:45 PM | Comments (35)
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Governor Jan Brewer: I Am Hopeful After Having Met with President Obama
— Dave in Texas

It's like a beer summit, without Budweiser.

She seems to have gotten a commitment from Obama to send flacks to her office in a couple of weeks to explain things about their position on, something.

So she's got that going for her. Which is nice.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:40 PM | Comments (31)
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Andrew Sullivan's Blog Now Officially a Dream-Journal and Online Cry For Help, But Mostly An Online Cry For Help
— Ace

Sadly Yes

I had a dream last night that I was lost in Sarah Palin's garden. It was springtime, and there were bluebells everywhere. I suddenly realized where I was and tried to get out to the street. But there was just more garden ...

Uh huh.

I have Sigmund Freud on the line. He says--

Oh wait, he just hung up. I heard the pattering of running feet before the line disengaged.

To get how massively funny, and tastelessly self-revelatory, this is, you need to know that "garden" is Freudian Symbolism 101 for "vagina."

Oh, and "Andrew Sullivan" just wrote to me, continuing his dream-journaling:

...only, then they weren't bluebells, they were orchids - but the orchids had teeth! Beautiful, pink, wet orchids with rows of sharp teeth, like some kind of shark mouth. And the mouths started to speak to me. It was my mother's voice! I picked a flower, and the stem started to grow longer, while mother shrieked at me that good boys shouldn't look at flowers.

I wonder what it all means?

Hard to say, Andrew. Hard. to. Say.

Posted by: Ace at 05:22 PM | Comments (122)
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South Carolina's Nasty, Berserker Republicans: Sacred Honor Compels Us To Say Nikki Haley Is Not A Christian And, Furthermore, Is A Raghead
— Ace

Sacred Honor, catch the fever!

Worse:

[I]n the nasty game of South Carolina politics, in which Haley has already been accused twice publicly of infidelity, the religion story has a clear political charge. Brody told me in an email that his story was prompted by “a tip from an anonymous source,” and Tim Pearson, Haley’s spokesman, said the story was “being shopped” and that Brody wasn’t the only reporter to call him about it.

A source close to the campaign of one rival — Rep. Gresham Barrett, who touts his Christian faith in his ads — said the Barrett campaign has at least discussed playing the religion card. The source said his aides sometimes refer to her by the Indian name with which she was born, “Nimrata,” in the campaign office.

“They always thought that the relgion thing would be what would save Gresham in the end against Nikki,” said the source, an outside adviser to Barrett who said he was speaking to a reporter because he disliked the notion of attacking Haley on her faith.

And worse yet:

South Carolina Republicans were quick Thursday evening to condemn the remarks of a prominent Republican State Senator, Jake Knotts, who referred to a gubernatorial candidate as a “raghead” on an online political show today.

Knotts, a foe of Governor Mark Sanford and his protege, State Rep. Nikki Haley, made the remark of Haley on the local webcast PubPolitics.

That's it -- I wholeheartedly endorse Nikki Haley, if only because it will make monsters cry.

And nowww comes the breaking point for me, personally, when I simply am no longer willing to credit a single word the Sacred Honor Brigade offers me.

Now, you might ask, what on earth would provoke a large fraction of South Carolina's political class to lose its minds and begin suicide-bombing a single candidate?

Commenters were discussing that last night. Let them put you some information:

tmitsss: The top issue in the governor's race is always "will the Governor try to limit the excesses of the General Assembly or be a willing accomplice. "

Vic: That is one thing that the Sanford detractors try to hang around his neck. That he constantly fought with the SC legislature and "nothing" got done.

Of course that was going from the Dem controlled MFM media here which favors big government. The SC legislature is nominally Republican, but a large portion of them are "converted FDR Democrats" so it is really a Dem controlled legislature.

They believe in "tax and spend" just like Obama. Look at the last major battle with Sanford, a 50 cent a pack tax increase on cigs. He vetoed it and they overrode the veto. That has been the normal thing for the last 8 years.

Moose4: You nailed it. I lived in SC during a lot of Sanford's first term (and the term of his predecessor, Jim "a lottery will fix everything" Hodges). The thing people don't realize about that state, other than the fact that half of it is bugfuck crazy, is that the executive branch of government there is very weak. All the power's in the General Assembly. Up until less than forty years ago, individual state legislators could pretty much fuck with local governments at will in their districts. To an extent, they still have the power to do so. The GA's full of "Republicans" who have a Murtha-esque attachment to pork and spending and are used to getting their way. Sanford came in and proceeded to fight them tooth and nail for both terms every step of the way. In the process, he managed to piss off the fat-cat wing of his own party, guys like Jake Knotts...so when he decided to go "hiking on the AT," he handed them the rope they needed to hang his horny ass.

Here comes Haley now, and she says she's dedicated to the same cut-spending ideals as Sanford, less the Argentinian poontang. So of course the old-boy establishment in SC is going to do everything in their power to take her down. They want one of their boys in there, a Barrett or McMaster or even Bauer. Plus, honestly, they respond to female politicians the same way that a bunch of Team Fortress 2 players would respond to getting fragged by ZOMG A GHURL.

As for Bauer, I called it when this first broke that he was behind it.

So there's your motive, if you're needing a motive to believe in the crime.

By the way, Larry Marchant just wrote me to say he doesn't discriminate against women based on race. "They're all pink on the inside," this notorious ass-crusher reports, then signs off in a cloud of Aquanet and CK One to take longtime secret lover Heather Graham out for a night of dancin' and oral sex, but mostly oral sex.

Posted by: Ace at 05:05 PM | Comments (127)
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