The official unemployment number came out Friday: 9.1 percent. That’s 14 million Americans without work. Not counted are the underemployed who can’t make ends meet or the people labeled as discouraged workers, more than 200,000 unemployed people who have tried so hard and for so long to find a job that they’ve given up, at least for now. The Congressional Budget Office does not expect the unemployment rate to fall below 8 percent for two more years and says we won’t see 5 percent unemployment until 2017. Further, mass layoffs – when 50 or more workers lose their livelihoods at once – rose 3 percent in August.
Category: off topic
OT: One Last Landing
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Earlier today, Atlantis, America’s last space shuttle – America’s last means of reaching even low orbit – landed safely.
Now, our nation, like our astronauts, is grounded. The best we can do is to beg or buy a ride with the Russians who, despite their many problems, haven’t given up on spaceflight. Before too many years pass, the Chinese may be able and willing to take an American up with them.
We are too beaten down to lift our eyes to the stars and dream and dare. Where once our questing spirit rode rockets it now rides Rocinante and pines for a hitching post.
The last word goes to the Apollo-era flight director who oversaw our glory days:
I pray that our nation will someday soon find the courage to accept the risk and challenge to finish the work that we started.
– Gene Kranz
OT: Pets and the 4th of July
A reminder from the cat side of Catsignal that some of the joys of Independence Day celebrations are lost on the four-footed set. Study this list of cautions from the ASPCA and keep it holy.
One more important matter the ASPCA doesn’t mention: There’s at least one in every crowd who will attempt to do something “entertaining” yet moronically stupid to your pet, like hold it up by its ears or give it a swig of beer. Also, there are some parents who will let their children pester and persecute an animal and yet be outraged when the pet has finally had enough and protects itself. Keep a careful watch on your furry companion to prevent this sort of lunacy.
OT: Double Secret Probation
Do you fans of National Lampoon’s Animal House recall this exchange?
OT: All Things in Moderation
The spam brigade is out in force at present, despite the countermeasures I’ve taken. Thus, I’ve changed Catsignal’s comment settings; I have to approve all comments before they’ll show up. That’s why you’re not getting the instant gratification of seeing your comment post (unless you already have an approved comment posted), and that’s why I’m having to log in to check under the hood more frequently than I have been or care to. I think (today, at least) this is a better system than asking people to register before commenting.
To Catsignal’s friends: Please don’t let this deter you from commenting. I enjoy hearing from you.
To the spammers: You’re not going to get what you want, so go the hell away. This includes the morons who make half-hearted comments for the purpose of linking to their own sites. No one will know you were here but me, and I get to play whack-a-mole with you.
OT: April Fools’ Day
I don’t care much for April Fools’ Day. I think it’s a little juvenile, frankly, and so I don’t participate – not as a trickster and not as a fool (if I can help it). So there’s no gotcha waiting to get you at the end of this post. Really.
But I’ll tell you two true stories about April Fools’ Day, once when I was the trickster and once when I was the fool.
OT: Another New Look
Yeah, a new theme already, less than a year after putting up the last one. It was starting to look a little old-fashioned, somehow, or the colors were wrong … something.
Same great content and price, though.
OT: A Catsignal from The Oatmeal
It’s not meant for this Catsignal, but I couldn’t resist posting this. See the whole storyline at The Oatmeal.
OT: WikiLeaks
I have just two quick things to say about WikiLeaks and its work, and this should be enough to ensure that someone in the national security bureaucracy ever after reads Catsignal (or makes Catsignal and its author suddenly disappear):
1) My parents taught me, so long ago, that if I would be ashamed if something I did or said were to become public knowledge, then the thing was shameful in the first place.
2) We are often urged to believe (contra good sense and the Fourth and Fifth amendments) that if we have done nothing wrong then we have nothing to hide. This must surely apply to the government itself as well as to its subjects.
OT: Election Day Quotable
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
– H.L. Mencken