Giraffes Neck Wrestle Too

Again, this post has research by Asian Correspondent "The Girl In Black" Grace Hong.

Over Obama

It's pretty clear that Obama's presidency is a failure, despite the hopes of myself and most Obama supporters. The economy is incredibly sluggish, with millions of people unemployed. Partisanship is even worse than under Bush. Instead of being involved in two dumb wars, we now have three. The price of oil has skyrocketed, the deficit is many times larger than ever, and Bush's tax cuts for the rich are now Obama's tax cuts for the rich.

This is not change we can believe in. Unless Hillary runs for president, I am supporting Sarah Palin. It's time we had a woman in the White House.

Brooks on Libya

"[T]his is an intervention done in the spirit of Reinhold Niebuhr. It is motivated by a noble sentiment, to combat evil, but it is being done without self-righteousness and with a prudent awareness of the limits and the ironies of history. And it is being done at a moment in history when change in the Arab world really is possible." --David Brooks

I like Brooks. He's a straight-shooter, even if I disagree with him say...65% of the time.

Recessions in context

Fairly good job report, and unemployment rate continues to drop relatively steadily. Still, if you look at the chart (this recession is the red line) it's clear that we have a ways to go, and we're rebounding pretty slowly. So again - keep focus on jobs, not on slashing spending (which hurts jobs!).

Also something to keep in mind -- look at the most recent recessions in 2001 and 1990 -- those recoveries are very slow too. It's possible that just the modern economy has slower recoveries. Possibly bc of less blue collar construction/manufacturing jobs existing, so those folks don't bounce back as quickly? Something to think about.