Friday, July 30, 2010

Are We More Unemployed Now?

Short answer: Yes. Unemployment is higher now than it was when Bush was in office.

Long answer: Yes. Unemployment was high when he took office in Januaury of 2009, at 11919 (number in thousands) when Obama took office. The month before was at 11400, and before that 10617. Did Obama get caught in some of Bush's leftovers? Yes, every president does to some degree. Null point.

At the one year mark of his presidency Barrack Obama hit at 14837, an increase 4220 over when he took office. Unemployment jumped from %7.7 to %9.7, an entire %2 in just one year of office, when Bush left office the percent of unemployment was %7.4 and the month before that at %6.9.

Current unemployment percentage is at %9.5, an increase of %.2. During the Great Depression the peak unemployment rate was %24.9, important to note that the unemployment rate today is calculated differently than it was during the Great Depression era. By the Great Depression era's calculation we would have to add 15 to our existing percent giving us %24.5, just shy of the peak unemployment during the Great Depression.

So where are the jobs going? The same place they've been going for decades, overseas.

Click here to see the data used through this report.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Diggers Realm: Los Zetas seize ranches

This story circulated on Sunday the 24th. It hasn't been confirmed by police, local news or really any other credible source. Kimberly Dvorak of Examiner.com confirmed the story later, and later after that another source at the same site debunked the claim.

I'm going to dig deeper, hehe.

Diggers Realm is a site that is hosted through GoDaddy.com, the location through the whois database at GoDaddy.com puts Diggers Realm in Scottsdale, Arizona. The claim is that San Diego minutemen quoted sources within Laredo, Texas police department as credible and pushed the story as true. Diggers Realm was contacted by San Diego minuteman Jeff Schwilk who relayed the story as being a story he can "personally vouch" for I suggest reading the updates on the website, it is quite humorous how easily they all screwed up simple information.

So let's shoot their credibility here to shit, huh?

San Diego is approximately 371 miles away from Scottsdale. San Diego is about 1,115 or so miles away from Laredo, Texas. Scottsdale, Arizona is about 847 miles away from Laredo, Texas. So that means that a minuteman from San Diego, approximately 1,115 miles away from Laredo recieved information from a mystical law enforcement (who only spoke on condition of anonymity) official from Laredo that Los Zetas had taken over two ranches. In turn he notifies Diggers Realm about 847 miles away from Laredo and 371 miles away from himself of this development?

Well, that adds up, doesn't it? Sure, if you are a producer at Fox News (even they didn't report it). So what really happened?

Well, Fox News did report on that. The U.S. State Department issued a statement to stay out of Nogales, Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo (funny that, Nuevo Laredo, Laredo). All of this due to on-going violence between Mexican officials and the Mexican drug cartels. I cannot at this time confirm a report that I found earlier that in fact Laredo, Texas is on lockdown due to the gun battle just beyond the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico but I do recall seeing one yesterday.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

We're In This Together

A Nine Inch Nails song from one of Trent Reznor's greatest albums, 'The Fragile.' I'm listening to this as I watch my once proud nation fall apart at the seams, like someone didn't stitch it properly the last time they repaired what people before them fucked up. And I'm reminded, they all really do work together, they blend so well with their null arguments that inevitably go nowhere that no one really picks up on it. I picked up on this idea when I watched the first five or so minutes of 'Fall of the Republic' (no, I didn't watch the entire thing, more often than not I can't even make it through five minutes of the political garbage strewn all over YouTube.).

It kind of hit me like a light bulb you would buy at your local grocery store like Target, or Walmart, that's right, not a corner grocer, hell those have all been replaced by 7-11's and Cum-and-Go's. It really is kind of funny actually, to watch our country fall to the same greedy empire it escaped from, fucked up but none-the-less funny. It is kind of like when your parents always told you not to make the same mistakes they did as if it were supposed to reiterate the “don't do it” or something. I always had a thought that if no one was told what 'not-to-do' they wouldn't have the slightest inkling to even bother finding out about it, but because a preferential person tells us “no” we automatically want to dig it up and figure out ourselves.

Kind of like the government, obviously after Bush nailed us all to the marketing failure of a cross we wanted someone new. This is when we heard the word “Change” how prolific at a time when we all thought things needed to “Change.” This is really kind of the fundamental issue with our society, now I'm not on a McCain-Palin trip, because that would have been an awful choice as well. One flaw of our once great society is that we don't really know shit about politics, or those few of us that do are drowned by the millions that saw it on the news. He promised us this and that, he preached change, he can twist words better than a clown can twist balloons.

Debt was a big one, wasn't it? Yes, yes it was, and every Presidential candidate said the same thing “I will get us out of debt.” Which brings me to another song by Nine Inch Nails 'The Great Below' specifically 'and all that could have been.' Fitting, no? I think so and I'm going to roll with it, all that could have been is potentially where we all closed our eyes, or decided to ignore the best choice in light of pretty words on a colorful banner. In a sense this was kind of the last nail in my 'I Used To Love My Country' coffin. When, and exactly how, did so many people in such diverse landscapes suddenly stop learning on their own? I knew the best candidate was Ron Paul, I read what he wanted to do and his plans for the future of our country, I also read Obama and McCain's strategies (and in all honesty, McCain's was a hell of a lot better than Obama's.).

Yet, none-the-less, the majority of this country voted on the issue and it came back with Obama. Why? Well, let's see: Obama - $670 million; McCain - $370 million; Paul - $28 million (suspended in favor of Campaign for Liberty on June 12th, 2008.). And to be honest, McCain blew through a ton of that money pretty quickly and Obama made a killing in on-line donations (main source of contributions). So, what does this mean? We are a money hungry country and people, more money, the more we want it, more pretty words...of course, we want it. Pathetic, really, well, definition-wise it is purely moronic. But we can all watch TV pretty well, so at least we did get something right even if it isn't what we needed to get right in the first place.

Now, I'm not on a high-horse here telling to you go and try to impeach Obama, because that won't happen no matter how hard you click your heels together like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. All I am saying is try not to make the same damn mistake the next time around, okay? Look into all of your candidates on your own, read into them, look at their past decisions in government (or lack thereof), but most of all...do not let the television educate you on politics, because the news is surprisingly stupider than the population that follows it.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

13 Year Old Killer Sentenced In Detroit

Demarco Harris was handed a blended sentence today by Wayne County Judge Sheila Gibson for the murder of Trisha Babcock during a robbery on August 1st, 2009. She was shot to death inside her parked car by then 12 year old Demarco Harris. If Demarco is convicted of a felony while serving his sentence he will automatically be sent to prison as an adult for a life sentence.

Trisha Babcock's father Steven Babcock told reporters with CNN, "I feel he should definitely spend the rest of his life in prison." As well as, "For him to have a chance or opportunity to be set free when he is 21 is not justice for my daughter." As he criticized the sentence as being unfair, adding, "Just because you're 12, 13, 14 doesn't mean you can murder somebody and be set free when you are 21."

Demarcus Harris will be held in a secure juvenile facility for violent offenders until he turns 21. According to Maria Miller, spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, Harris will be heavily monitored in this facility.

12 years old when he committed the crime? Have times really changed that much, or is Detroit really that bad today?

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

BP Has Agreed To $20 Billion Escrow

Apparently BP has agreed to set up a $20 billion fund for compensation for the current oil disaster, as reported by CNN. This comes after repeated attempts to plug the massive oil leak in the Gulf Coast. There is also a $100 million fund put in place for the oil workers that are out of work due to the disaster.

This announcement came after President Obama met with his personal response team and BP chairmen. According to President Obama he told BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg that for the people involved it wasn't a matter of money, it was a matter of accountability. Which is very true, and in some ways a welcomed view from President Obama; BP is to be held accountable for their actions which caused this disaster.

The fund will not be controlled by BP but by an independent third-party. The process for the claims will be handled by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the claims for victims in the September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

Thief Of Military Equipment Arrested For Possible Explosives

Military police at Fort Gordon, Georgia arrested a man for impersonating a soldier with possible grenades in his vehicle on the base today. Fort Gordon and Richmond county bomb squads were in to the location after officials searched the vehicle the man was driving and found possible explosives. Among the possible explosives there were apparently other "militarylike" items in the vehicle and I would imagine on the person.

Police believe that the man was possible involved in other thefts of military items in Fort Gordon according to base spokesman Buz Yarnell. A call of a suspicious person in Fort Gordon was what lead to the eventual discovery of possible explosives and other items of the like.

This is all coming after repeated terrorist attack attempts on domestic ground, along with the BP dillema off the Gulf Coast. President Obama has a full plate ahead of him and obviously something needs to be done about securing domestic bases or the next "possible" can become the next "attack."

I used to love my country.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Ronnie Lee Gardner - Death By Firing Squad

Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, is going to recieve a death sentence by way of a firing squad. Only a handful of states actually practice this type of death sentence, Utah being one of them which is where Gardner will be executed. I knew Utah was a state that still used this method having lived there for most of my life before moving away a few years ago, it is still interesting to hear that it is going to actually be used.

Gardner who is charged with multiple murders stemming from 1985 when he went on a shooting rampage through Salt Lake City, Utah. April 2nd as he entered a courthouse he grabbed a gun that was left by an accomplice and shot and killed an attorney and wounded a guard but not before taking a round into his lung. He was to be in court over a robbery and murder charge a year before. He recieved the death penalty in November of 1985.

The interesting thing is that he has attempted to appeal the death sentence multiple times, almost out of a fear of sorts, but a death sentence handed out by firing squad has to be requested or performed only if lethal injection is seen as unfit. Really interesting read though.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Presidents That Have Missed Arlington Memorial

There are more:

-President Obama in 2010.
-President Bush in 2007.
-President H.W. Bush in 1992.
-President Reagan in 1983.

Contributing source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006346-503544.html

Friday, May 28, 2010

Hurricane Season On The Horizon

According to weather experts this hurricane season is going to be a very busy one. This can make the recovery effort on the Gulf Coast even more difficult to accomplish than it already has been. If a hurricane were to hit now it would essentially scoop up a lot of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf and send it away, and predicting where that 'away' will be is going to be even more difficult than cleaning it up.

It is kind of back and forth whether or not the spilled oil could slow a potential storm off the coast or if it would actually make a hurricane even more massive than it would be in the first place. President Obama is to be visiting the oil spill and monitor how the ongoing effort is proceeding before heading back to Chicago that night, hopefully when he sees the site for himself he can be better prepared for the future weather that is forecasted to hit.

The Gulf Coast isn't the only one at risk if a hurricane were to hit, in Haiti there is roughly 1.5 million displaced people that will be severly at risk after a devestating earthquake hit there this past January. If a hurricane were to hit the already struggling portion of the Dominican Republic the end result could be catastrophic.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Terrorism Attack Attempts At An All Time High

The Department of Homeland Security is warning the United States that attempted terror attacks are at an all time high on domestic ground. They recently released a four-page report highlighting the 'Evolving Threats to the Homeland' in which they say the increasing number and pace of attacks suggests that terrorist cells are focusing more on smaller operations that garner a higher chance of success rather than larger scale attacks that they have attempted in the past. This all comes in light of the recent Times Square bomb plot in which an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was being delivered by vehicle, which is actually a Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) but news is lazy anymore.

The entire report can be read here thanks to CBS News.

BP Oil Spill - Who's Fault Is It?

Well, this started off well, didn't it? Apparently on April 20th, a blast killed 11 BP workers and released a massive flow of oil into the Gulf, and so far it has been a finger-pointing game. The government pointing their mighty finger of political power at BP, and BP? Taking the blame, well, they should, it is their fault afterall. But that isn't what gets me, no, I'm not concerned that BP is the fall-guy of the oil spill. I'm more concerned with the governments lack of response.

So I began to read on this issue a bit, and came across this blog entry at WashingtonPost.com which goes into pretty good detail as to what the government is doing, and, well, what they cannot do at this time. As that article explains, the government really couldn't do any more than what BP is already doing.

They have already had some remote vehicles get tangled, which only resulted in an even longer operation and if anything hindered the attempt to cull the situation.

The government has also already started to review a plan to place sand berms up to keep sensitive wetland protected, but as the blog above said 'it would take months to execute.'

What do I think? This country is angry, for multiple reasons, and quite a few of them pretty good reasons. However, we need to analyze a situation before we jump down the governments throat and claim them for the fault, we really can't have a 'jump first, check later' attitude at this point in time. We have to be more selective on what we jump on, and how we jump on it, throwing brash insults towards our government isn't going to fix anything.

More to come, I used to love my country.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Job? Where?

Sure, there are a ton of places to go looking for a job. Monster.com is a well-known one, Job.com, stuff like that. But where is the employment at? The unemployment rate is at an all-time high, 9.5% according to Google public data, 9.9% according to http://www.dol.gov/. That is terrible, don't you think? Well, the job market is different I guess, they want experience...right? Depends on the job really, but most jobs will take a less experienced worker because they can get away with paying them less for the same work a college grad would do for twice the rate. This is where the job market is killing itself, I think anyway.

Let me explain; if we have two people of the same age, same ability, but one went to a prestigious college and the other a junior college, obviously the one that went to a prestigious college is going to ask for more money, the junior college grad less. Practical really, I'm sure they both have loans that they need to pay off but I'm also sure that the prestigious college student has far more to pay than his junior college rival which would explain why they would ask for a higher salary. However, when it comes down to money coming in and money coming out a business has to look at it from a different point of view, money spent versus money made. If they are spending more money for someone who has a better education, they are out more money in the long-run than if they just spend less money for someone with less education but enough to do the job.

This is where sites like Monster.com can come in handy, allowing someone to put up their own resume, credentials, and asking pay, while prospective employers look at each one and decide on their own who to hire. Monster.com is a pretty good site, you can put your resume up for companies to view, apply for jobs with relative ease, and it probably works really well, but I found it to be difficult to navigate even with their current Beta. Job.com was easier for me to navigate and had a lot of search options to tick off so you didn't have to type in your own but you could if you wanted, applying for the job is relatively easy just like it was Monster, just click and apply. Both also have a number of articles filled with tips for marketing yourself and all around finding a job.

However, that isn't always enough, sometimes you have to actually head out and talk to the people face to face to inquire about the job. Even with these tools, jobs are still dying, along with the economy.

Which brings us to the government, remember that bailout plan? The one that pretty much tossed dirt into the hole we crawled into? Yes, that one, the one that still today I don't know why we even bothered to try it out. Money makes the world go 'round, and it sinks countries even deeper into the ground. The idea was to get the banks out of debt, banks that probably could have managed to get themselves out of debt alone, but we are a 'instant gratification' culture these days and no one wants to wait for results. So the government through billions of dollars at debt, and even today this concept still escapes me, you essentially threw imaginary money into debt, money we didn't have, still don't have, and I'm not all that convinced we will ever see again.

This was a key area of the presidential candidates for the 2008 presidential campaign, remember? Each of them told us how they were going to get us out of debt? How they were going to end the war in Iraq, even close Guantanamo Bay...well, it seems they had the right idea but were entirely too poor in their execution. The debt rose, Guantanamo is still open, and we are still in Iraq, and on top of it, we threw money we didn't have at all of it. Which would actually explain why nothing was done, little can be done with monopoly money.

More to come, I used to love my country.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Background checks and when they are handy!

Nobody really likes court, especially if you are sitting in the defense chair. So why not go in prepared, right? Well, this is where background checks come in handy, such as those provided by http://www.intelius.com/ or http://www.criminalbackgroundrecords.com/ these are helpful when you are going into a courtroom to defend yourself. Why? Simple, you already know what parts of your criminal history they are going to attack and you have the information available to defend yourself. These really only come in handy if you haven't kept records yourself, which I highly recommend keeping for as long as you possibly can.

Although, if you are like me, you don't make an awful lot of money. In which case it is usually simple to contact the court in the county where the charge occured and get the information that way (costs vary). However programs like Intelius or criminal background checks usually have everything without having to go through multiple courts in possibly multiple counties or even states. Always go to court prepared, know your charges, know your rights, and always try to retain an attorney.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Freedom for all

I guess it all started in 2001, we were approached with a new enemy, one that didn't care about domestic law or international lines. Yes, I think this is where I stopped loving my country, or soon after anyway. September 11th, 2001 marks a day that will live in infamy, a day that will be the staple of my generation, and hopefully a cue card of what to do and what not to do. Soon after September 11th we saw great change in the United States, that day brought about both great and utterly failed change. One terrible decision soon after was the signing of The Patriot Act, a contrived acronym for 'Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.' Now, this wasn't so much a terrible idea as it was a terrible execution of an otherwise decent idea, the problem came when it interfered with civil liberties and our constitutional freedoms.

The Patriot Act on paper looks good, and with the right speech writer and speaker it can even sound good, but let me outline a few of the problems with this specific act. First off, under 'TITLE I--ENHANCING DOMESTIC SECURITY AGAINST TERRORISM' there was 'Sec. 106. Presidential authority.' Which in so many words means the government can confiscate property from an alleged terrorist instead of following the Supreme Court's decision in the 'Brown vs. United States' decision that said that a declaration of war was not means enough to confiscate enemy property on domestic ground. The Supreme Court found that a declaration of war merely places two nations in a state of aggression, or war, but the means to confiscate property was under other sections of the government. This ability, the ability to confiscate foreign property on domestic grounds, well, it is a very powerful ability...and quite simply, one that I didn't think Bush should have nor have the ability to use.

Another issue falls under The Patriot Act as a whole, and that is the ability to spy on Americans. Under wire taps, specifically stated in 'TITLE II--ENHANCED SURVEILLANCE PROCEDURES,' here 'Sec. 201. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism.' and here 'Sec. 202. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses.' What the act fails to distinguish is simply, what is a terrorist? We have all seen the news stories of a fellow American getting harassed by police, or stopped at an airport terminal, even train stations. Pretty much, this violates our core Freedom of Speech, which is the ability to speak out against our government when we think the government isn't acting on our personal best interest.

This government has more than once in the past 10 years failed to act on our personal interest. The best example of this is the war in Iraq, which, in few words was an unjust war. This became a critical point of the current President election (Barrack Obama), that we would move from Iraq, which he has made great stride in doing so...however, we have to realize how this war came to be and why. And I simply cannot come up with a justifiable answer for that, there are plenty of theories; oil, finishing what daddy started, money, and even WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction). However, there were no WMDs found, and of course the counter-argument is that they disposed of all of them. Well, of course they did, I mean, why not? Right? Well, no. A year or two after the war the CIA reported that there were no WMDs found in Iraq. Again, I have no theory as to why the war was started in Iraq, all I do know is that it was a complete and utter failure.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6190720/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3718150.stm
http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

More to come, I used to love my country.

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