Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

02 August 2013

97% Of Climate Activists In The Pay Of Big Oil. Shocka? Not.



http://www.globalexchange.org/blogs/peopletopeople/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/photo-3.jpg


Unless you're a reader of the Guardian Environment's recently added section "Sacrifice your children to Mother Gaia. It's the only way!", you'll probably never have heard of the man who co-edits it, Dana Nuccitelli. But you'll certainly be familiar with his most famous bogus statistical artefact: the one he created with fellow climate alarmist John Cook to prove that 97 per cent of climate scientists really DO believe in global warming.

The claim has been roundly debunked. Apart from the problems with its statistical methodology, its findings are essentially meaningless. As Ben Pile points out in this characteristically measured, thoughtful piece,

"Nuccitelli’s survey results are either the result of a comprehensive failure to understand the climate debate, or an attempt to divide it in such a way as to frame the result for political ends."

Indeed, adds Pile, they represent:

"a cartoonish polarisation of positions within the climate debate."

How so? Well, as (climate sceptical) Bishop Hill once asked on Twitter: "Isn't everyone in the 97 per cent? I am." When the question was repeated at the Bishop's website by Met Office's Richard Betts, almost all those present agreed that they were. I would have done too, depending, of course, on precisely how you interpret the "consensus position" that "humans are causing global warming."

Well of course they are. Even if it's only down to the Urban Heat Island effect or the methane from beef cattle, humans almost certainly have an influence on climate. But so what? It always astonishes me when I see climate alarmists – even nice, well-meaning ones like Richard Betts – get all excited about this, as if somehow it represents a sudden concession by sceptics to the cause of warmism. If the alarmists spent any time paying attention to Watts Up With That, Bishop Hill or any of the myriad other sceptical websites out there, they would realise that this is what we've always thought. Our beef with the alarmists is not over the issue "Do humans contribute to climate change?" It's over "Do humans significantly contribute to climate chnage?" "Is there any evidence that this climate change is catastrophic or unprecedented?" "Do we need to do anything about it?" "Can we do anything about it?" "And are we sure that the cures currently being proposed aren't worse than the problem they're supposed to solve?"

But see, here we go again: here I am getting bogged down in a tedious and irrelevant non-argument of the kind the Warmists are always setting up in order to distract lay readers from more pertinent issues: like the fact that wind farms are just crap; that the evidence for catastrophic man-made global warming just hasn't materialised; that the polar bears aren't endangered; and so on.

Props to Dana Nuccitelli – he is, like his fellow climate activist Bob Ward – an absolute master of this straw man distraction technique. The term for it is "Clown Dancing" and Nuccitelli is the veritable Coco-and-Ronald-McDonald-in-a-sticky-embrace-with-Nureyev of the coulroterpsichorean art.

Anyway, all this is by the by. Another of the techniques used by Nuccitelli and his ilk is the "funded by Big Oil" meme. This is the silly notion, popularised by the likes of Al Gore and Michael Mann, that the main reason we climate sceptics say the pesky sceptical things we do is because we're paid to say so by various oil interests. Here is Nuccitelli in his Guardian column only last week on sceptical stalwart Pat Michaels:


(Something which, incidentally, Michaels denies. Since August 1 all of his salary has been paid by the Cato Institute. So, add "great fact-checking" to Dana's list of non-skills).

In truth, the exact opposite more commonly the case. Few corporate interests are quite so heavily in bed with Big Green as Big Oil – as you'll shortly be seeing when I do a number on Shell and its highly dubious behaviour re the UK shale gas industry – and it seems the hypocritical and disingenuous clown-dancer extraordinaire Nuccitelli is no exception.

He has tried to keep it quiet. But there's no – what's the word? Oh yeah…. – denying it: green activist Dana Nuccitelli is in the pay of Big Oil.



SoRo: 'But, but, but, the article didn't say that!'  Yes, it did.  You'd be able to figure it out, if you were clever.



Wind Turbines ARE A Human Health Hazard: The Smoking Gun





Yeah, they're, like, really green and safe and good for you…..



How much more dirt needs to come out before  the wind industry gets the thorough investigation it has long deserved?

The reason I ask is that it has now become clear that the industry has known for at least 25 years about the potentially damaging impact on human health of the impulsive infrasound (inaudible intermittent noise) produced by wind turbines. Yet instead of dealing with the problem it has, on the most generous interpretation, swept the issue under the carpet – or worse, been involved in a concerted cover-up operation. 

A research paper prepared in November 1987 for the US Department of Energy demonstrated that the "annoyance" caused by wind turbine noise to nearby residents is "real not imaginary." It further showed that, far from becoming inured to the disturbance people become increasingly sensitive to it over time.

This contradicts claims frequently made by wind industry spokesmen that there is no evidence for so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome (the various health issues ranging from insomnia and anxiety to palpitations and nausea reported by residents living within a mile or more of wind turbines). Until recently, RenewableUK – the British wind industry’s trade body – claimed on its website: “In over 25 years and with more than 68,000 machines installed around the world, no member of the public has ever been harmed by the normal operation of wind farms.”

In a section called Top Myths About Wind Energy’ section it claimed that accusations that wind farms emit ‘infrasound and cause associated health problems’ are ‘unscientific’.

Other pro-wind campaigners, such as Australian public health professor Simon Chapman, have gone still further by insisting that the symptoms reported by Wind Turbine Syndrome victims around the world are imaginary and often politically motivated.

But the 1987 report, based on earlier research by NASA and several universities, tells a different story. A team led by physicist ND Kelley from the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado tested under controlled conditions the impact of low-frequency noise generated by turbine blades.

It found that the disturbance is often worse when indoors than when outside (a sensation which will be familiar to anyone who has heard a helicopter hovering above their house).

In subsequent lab tests involving seven volunteers, it found that “people do indeed react to a low-frequency noise environment”. As a result of its findings, the report recommended that in future wind turbines should be subject to a maximum noise threshold to prevent nearby residents experiencing “low-frequency annoyance situations.”

However these recommendations – widely publicised at the Windpower 87 Conference & Exposition in San Francisco – fell on (willfully, it seems more than plausible) deaf ears.

It found that the disturbance is often worse when indoors than when outside (a sensation which will be familiar to anyone who has heard a helicopter hovering above their house).

In subsequent lab tests involving seven volunteers, it found that “people do indeed react to a low-frequency noise environment”. As a result of its findings, the report recommended that in future wind turbines should be subject to a maximum noise threshold to prevent nearby residents experiencing “low-frequency annoyance situations.”

Rather than respond to the issues raised, the industry devised a code of practice apparently contrived to ignore those very acoustic levels of most concern. ETSU-R-97 – the UK industry standard, which became the model for wind developers around the world – places modest limits on sound within the normal human hearing range, but specifically excludes the lower frequency “infrasonic” noise known to cause problems.

Last month the Department of Energy and Climate Change  (DECC) published a report by the Institute of Acoustics examining whether ETSU-R-97 was still adequate to the task. Remarkably, instead of stiffening regulations, it made them more lax, not only continuing to ignore the Low Frequency Noise and infrasound issue, but actually giving wind farms leeway to make more noise at night and to be built even closer to dwellings.

John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, commented: “The report may represent current wind industry practice but it is very poor guidance and fails in its duty of care.”

The industry's response is that turbine design has grown so much more sophisticated since the late Eighties that the problems identified in the 1987 report – which built on work from another report two years before – no longer apply.

“We’re often hearing these weird and wacky reports on the effects of wind. It seems anyone can stand up and say anything, which we find somewhat worrying because it gives a false impression. We don’t accept the suggestion that there are any health impacts caused by wind turbine noise, though we welcome any new research into the issue," a spokesman for Renewable UK told me.

However this is contradicted by the author of the original reports Neil Kelley. Kelley has told Graham Lloyd – the environment editor from The Australian who (uncharacteristically for an environment editor puts truth before green ideology) broke the story – that research has shown that it is still possible for modern wind turbines to create "community annoyance."

Kelley, who served as the principal scientist (atmospheric physics) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's National Wind Technology Centre from 1980 to 2011, told Lloyd:

"Many of the complaints I have heard described are very similar to those from residents who were exposed to the prototype wind turbine we studied."

He said the original research was performed to understand the "totally unexpected community complaints from a 2MW downwind prototype wind turbine."

He said: "While follow-on turbine designs moved the rotors upwind of the tower, the US Department of Energy funded an extensive multi-year research effort in order to develop a full understanding of what created this situation."

"Their goal was to make such knowledge available to the turbine engineers so they could minimise the possibility of future designs repeating the experience. We found the majority of the physics responsible for creating the annoyance associated with this downwind prototype are applicable to large upwind machines."

The wind industry has resisted demands from campaigners to investigate this problem further. For example, in Australia, Lloyd reports, the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has argued in a submission to the NSW government that low frequency noise not be measured.

But as Kelley said to Lloyd, if low frequency noise from turbines does not influence annoyance within homes, "then why should [the industry] be concerned?"

Those readers with an appetite for even more technical detail may be interested in the views of acoustics expert Dr Malcolm Swinbanks:

The important aspect to understand is that the old-fashioned downwind rotor-turbines did indeed generate a wider spectrum of infranoise and low-frequency noise, extending from 1Hz to 50Hz or 60Hz. Modern upwind rotor turbines are definitely very much quieter in the 32 and 64 Hz octave bands, but under some circumstances they can be similarly noisy over the frequency range 1Hz – 10Hz.
The wind industry denies this aspect, namely that they do not generate impulsive infrasound – I was present at a public meeting, with 400 farmers enthusiastically wanting wind-turbines on their land, when a wind-industry representative argued that I was incorrect to quote NASA research because the NASA research related only to downwind turbines. In fact NASA led the world in developing upwind rotor turbines, with the first, MOD-2 in 1981. They were fully aware of the differences between downwind and upwind configurations as long ago as 1981. Although upwind turbines are indeed quieter in respect of audible sound, NASA was well aware that inflow turbulence or wind-shear could give rise to enhanced infrasound from upwind turbines.
In the context of that particular public meeting, the chairman refused to let me respond at that time to correct the wind-industry presentation, and argued that I could only send a letter to the Planning Committee, which I duly did under strong protest. So I have encountered the wind-industry position directly at first hand.
The problem is that while the acoustics community fully acknowledge that the audible component of low-frequency sound (>20Hz) can cause adverse human reaction, they consistently deny that infrasound (<20Hz) can cause similar effects unless it is "above" the threshold of hearing. Yet there is at least one reported laboratory experiment (Chen et al, 2004) which showed that infrasound 10dB below the hearing threshold caused adverse psychological and physiological effects after 1 hour exposure. This particular test signal was a tone 110dB at 2.14Hz, where the threshold is around 120dB. So infrasonic sound pressure levels "below" the threshold of hearing have indeed been shown to cause adverse effects.
The response of the Australian Senate Inquiry to this information was that wind-turbines don't generate 110dB. But just as sound pressure levels are always weighted in the audible frequency range, using the dBA scale - one does not quote absolute sound pressure levels, but dBA levels, so the infrasound range is correctly measured using the weighted dBG scale. This is an ISO internationally approved scale, and 110dB at 2.14Hz represents 82 dBG on the dBG scale. Modern wind turbine peak infrasonic impulsive levels have been measured as high as 76-80dBG, which is only marginally below the 82dBG level that was found to cause adverse effects in the Chen laboratory tests.
It is notable that when some acousticians wish to argue that wind turbine infrasound is not a problem, they quote known problematic infrasonic sound levels using the unweighted decibel dB scale, which makes these levels seem well "out-of-reach" of wind turbine infrasound levels. Yet these same acousticians would not dream of using absolute sound pressure levels to evaluate conventional audible sound, but will always quote correctly weighted dBA levels.
Thus, for example, the Chen infrasonic tests were at 110dB at 2.14Hz. This is 82dBG. In contrast, a "child-on-a swing" is also quoted by some acousticians as "not-a-problem", when it is experiencing 110dB. This 110dB is at around 0.5Hz, so the corresponding dBG level is only 50dBG. Although the absolute sound pressure levels are identical, the perceived infrasound levels in these two cases are very different and cannot be equated to each other.
So I am unimpressed by the casual practice of quoting absolute sound pressure levels for describing infrasound, in order to exaggerate differences, when it is well recognized that the response of the ear is not uniform, and weighted sound pressure levels should be used for describing the likely hearing response.
This feature is responsible for much of the confusion that arises - interchange of unweighted and weighted levels can lead to very different conclusions - a situation which does not help to clarify the overall impact of infrasound.
It is noteworthy that some recent research indicates that at the very lowest frequencies (around ~1Hz) infrasound may be perceived by a different, separate mechanism than the ear's conventional auditory mechanisms, so that at these frequencies, the G-weighting may no longer be accurate. But this is only a very recent deduction. Wind turbines undoubtedly generate their strongest signals at around 1Hz, so this is a new area of investigation which may also reveal additional adverse effects.

And here is the expert opinion of another US acoustics expert, Rick James – who thinks it somewhat unlikely that the wind industry is unaware of the problem:

The “Kelly paper” is just one of many studies and reports published in the period from 1980 to 1990 by acousticians and other researchers working under grants from the US Dept. of Energy (DOE), NASA, and other agencies and foundations. All of these papers are still available on web sites open to the public. I have attached one of the later papers (“Wind Turbine Acoustics, Hubbard and Shepherd”) that summarize many of those studies. The acoustical conferences, at least those here in the US, all had presentations on wind turbine noise and it was one of the “hot” topics in the field. Earlier papers such as the 1982 Hubbard paper on Noise Induced House Vibrations was reporting some of the early research showing wind turbines were heard at lower auditory thresholds and that the infrasound was affecting people inside homes in much the same was jet noise at airports was affecting communities along flight paths. As a general rule, all of this research noted the need for caution if large upwind wind turbines of the type being installed today were to be located near homes and communities. As you can see in the Kelly paper there was concern over health impacts by the research community. Concurrent with this type of work the US DOD and NASA were investigating human response to infrasonic sound and vibration to help select candidates for jet pilots and space missions. This led to studies of nauseogenicity like the “1987 report on Motion Sickness Symptoms and Postural Changes……” Suffice it to say that between the issues of dynamically modulated infra and low frequency sound causing adverse health effects called “Sick Building Syndrome,” similar effects observed from wind turbines leading to the Kelley paper, military interest in motion sickness and other similar issues for large ships with slowly rotating engines to jet aircraft noise few acousticians in that period would have discounted the premise that for some people these types of sounds posed serious issues.

Can anyone imagine a potential scandal of this magnitude in the fossil fuel industry going uninvestigated by the green lobby – and hitting the front pages of all the newspapers?

I can't.




http://tinyurl.com/mas4kf5

A Murder And A Shooting On Mandeville Street



Mandeville Street house.jpeg

The Mandeville Street home of Merritt Landry and his family in the Marigny. Marshall Coulter, 14, was in the driveway, reportedly near the Landry's back door, when Landry shot and wounded the teenager around 2 a.m. last Friday.
 


By James Varney (h/t JKC)

In less than 48 hours last weekend, two New Orleans men encountered gunfire on Mandeville Street. Although there is no relation between the actors in each shooting, there is no denying the violence afflicting the city connects them.

That second shooting took place around 5 p.m. Saturday in the 1600 block of Mandeville Street. It left an unidentified man perforated with bullets, bleeding out in public in the soft light of a summer's eve. His death provided yet another rimshot in New Orleans' appalling, endless drumbeat of murder and has produced no arrests.

The first occurred in the dead of night in the 700 block of Mandeville Street. It left 14-year-old Marshall Coulter with a bullet in his head and fighting for his life in an intensive care unit. It has resulted in the arrest for attempted second degree murder of one Merritt Landry.

At this point, the public does not know what led to the second shooting. At this point, the public does know the first shooting occurred when, around 2 a.m. and for no discernible good reason, Coulter intruded on property Landry owns with his pregnant wife and young daughter.

The NOPD has noted Coulter was unarmed and posed no "imminent threat" to Landry. But how was Landry expected to know? In the second Mandeville Street shooting, out in space and in daylight, it would be easier to discern if a man was armed, and perhaps even his intent. The facts seem less relevant, however, to an encounter between a homeowner and an interloper on the former's property in the night.

Is it at all surprising Landry felt he and his family were in peril when he found a man lurking in the dark, standing on the private side of a high, wrought-iron fence?

An older brother described Coulter, not yet in high school, as "a professional thief." Landry could not know that, of course, but neither could he have known Coulter was unarmed. Given the steady crime and violence that plagues New Orleans, is it not reasonable for Landry to assume a prowler who has illegally climbed over or slipped through a gate may well be armed?

Then there is the concept of imminent threat. Landry lives in a city in which people are regularly killed - indeed, as we've seen, New Orleans would witness yet another murder within hours mere blocks from where Landry's property was invaded.

What's more, these are tight quarters in the Marigny. The distance between Landry's fence and car and house doors are measured in feet, not yards. Are homeowners expected to take a tape measure to their property, chalking out some line at precise distances that, should a criminal cross it, the threat moves to "imminent?"

Now, an NOPD detective told Naomi Martin and Helen Freund of The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com he had "spoke[n] with an unidentified witness who gave an account that differed from Landry's, though the detective did not specify how."

That would seem to be critical information the public needs and deserves to know. New Orleans is in a perpetual state of alert because of its crime, and the emotional edge added by the Trayvon Martin case in Florida has heightened that atmosphere.

If the NOPD believes something in the known narrative of what happened that night in Landry's driveway is false, or different, it behooves them to make that public. This is not some matter where there are "facts known only to the police" that might help them identify and catch a criminal. The dramatis personae in this tragedy aren't in dispute.

As things stand, the NOPD and the city might be better off if detectives spent less time building an attempted murder case against a homeowner protecting his family and property in the night on the 700 block of Mandeville Street, and more time building a flat-out murder case against the cold-blooded sorts who gunned down a man in the day on the 1600 block.




Thanks, JKC.  It will be interesting to keep an eye on what happens.  What will the NAACP call its newest saint?



http://tinyurl.com/k4w2suk


What Does One Do On The '3:10 To Huma'? Résumé Pad.




Our leadership class’s real accomplishment is résumé padding.


By Mark Steyn

Let us put aside, as he so rarely does, Anthony Weiner’s spambot penis, and consider his wife and putative first lady. By universal consent, Huma Abedin is “smart, accomplished” (the Guardian), “whip-smart” (The Week), “accomplished” (Time), “smart and accomplished” (the Daily News) — oh, and did I mention “accomplished” (Forbes)?

So, if she’s so smart, what has she accomplished? Let us put aside her Muslim Brotherhood family background — let us put it aside in the same corner as Anthony Weiner’s infidel penis, the Muslim Brotherhood being one of the few things on the planet rising even more spectacularly than Anthony. Instead, consider merely the official résumé. Huma Abedin’s present employment is as “head of Hillary Clinton’s transition team.” Mrs Clinton, you may recall, was once secretary of state. This was way back in January. Since then, she has been “transitioning away from government to become more involved in her family’s charitable foundation.” You can’t make a “transition” without a “transition team.” Well, not in America. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands recently abdicated and managed to transition away from being queen back to the non-queen sector without benefit of a “transition team.” But it would be entirely unreasonable to expect U.S. cabinet officials to attempt the same tricky maneuver.

In 2001, Bill Clinton was struggling with his own “transition back to private life.” He was reported by his ever reliable New York Times stenographer Adam Nagourney to be having difficulty “trying to place his own telephone calls.” The telephone is a technology many older people can have problems with, particularly if they had a full-time staff to place their calls throughout the Nineties. The 1890s, that is. So, alone in retirement at Chautauqua, a bewildered Bill would pick up the speaking tube and bark, “Hello, Central, get me Gennifer Flowers.” Fortunately, he was able to make a full recovery, and has since earned (according to CNN) $89 million in “speaking fees.” But few others could manage their “transition” quite that adroitly. So for the last six months the smart, accomplished Huma Abedin has been the executive supremo of Mrs. Clinton’s “transition team.”

Is this a grueling, time-consuming burden? Is this why Anthony Weiner’s shorts find themselves alone in the small hours burning the midnight oil? No. Politico’s Maggie Haberman recently broke the exclusive news that Ms. Abedin is taking “extended vacation time from her job.” This is not because the Clintons are naturally revolted at having their good name sullied by association with a sick pervert and his creepy enabling wife, but because, as you eventually discover if you plough deep into Miss Haberman’s story, “Hillary Clinton has close to no schedule next month.” She is now transitioning from her transition to her summer in the Hamptons, and presumably that requires an entirely different kind of transition team, to bring the beach towels and mix the margaritas.

Let us take it as read that “Head of Hillary Clinton’s Transition Team” is a meaningless title. Many societies have offices of state whose origins are lost in the mists of time. In London, David Cameron’s cabinet includes a man who holds the position of Lord Privy Seal. “Lord Privy Seal” would make an excellent ceremonial title for Anthony Weiner’s penis, but is in fact one of the most ancient gigs on the planet. Prior to 1307, his job was done by the Keeper of the Wardrobe. But the Keeper of the Wardrobe felt that, what with having to keep the wardrobe, he didn’t also have time to keep the privy seal, so a new post was created. Today, the Lord Privy Seal is a position reserved for a valued confidant the prime minister wants in his cabinet but without a department to run. Someone “smart” and “accomplished,” so to speak. But it’s one thing to have a job title rendered meaningless by the intervening seven centuries, and another to invent it out of whole cloth the day before yesterday, and have the media pass it off to their readers with a straight face. Presumably, Ye Lord Keeper of Ye Transition provides some valuable service for Mrs. Clinton, but, if so, it would be nice if Maggie Haberman could let us in on it.

What else has Huma Abedin accomplished? She was Hillary’s right-hand gal in the 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination. Which Hillary lost. So not much of an accomplishment there. Subsequently, she was deputy chief of staff at the State Department, a job so demanding she latterly combined it with some private-sector consulting. What accomplishments does the State Department have to show for the Clinton-Abedin years? Secretary Clinton, as her supporters like to brag, “traveled a million miles.” “One is always nearer by not keeping still,” wrote the poet Thom Gunn. So Mrs. Clinton flew a million miles — to “reset” our relationship with Russia, and lead from behind in the Arab Spring. This weekend, America’s embassies in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and a bunch of other places will be shut down because everybody hates us. Meanwhile, Putin has embraced the first American defector to Moscow in decades, and is all but egging Obama to pull out of the G20 Summit and the insufficiently LGBT-friendly Russian Olympics. As Hillary in her more reflective moments must surely wonder about those million miles, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

What accomplishments does Ms. Abedin’s husband have for his lifetime in “public service”? Other than the $3 million Park Avenue apartment that mysteriously came his way after his enforced return to the private sector. Carlos Danger’s pitch to the electors of New York is that they need him: His gifts are so extraordinary, his talent so prodigious, his skill set so indispensable that, like all great men weighed in the scales of history, he must be taken, as Cromwell said, warts and all. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Yet his time in Congress left no trace whatsoever. The most ridiculous thing about Anthony Weiner is not the tumescence of his Tweets but the flaccidness of his résumé.

Any day now, Hillary Clinton, having spent 20 minutes in the private sector, will be needing a new “transition team” to help her transition into replacing President Obama. He’s “smart” and “accomplished,” too. He had a million bucks of elite education — Occidental College, Columbia University, Harvard Law School — and became a “community organizer.” His wife went to Princeton and became a 350-grand-a-year diversity-outreach coordinator, a job so vital to the University of Chicago Hospitals that when she quit to become first lady they didn’t bother replacing her. This is what it means to be “smart” and “accomplished” in the hyperpower at twilight.

My old boss Conrad Black recently pointed out that “the economy can’t recover as it did in the past until more people are adding value” — making and doing something real. Instead, 40 percent of Americans perform minimal-skilled service jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology, and almost as many pass their productive years shuffling paperwork from one corner of the land to another in various “professional services” jobs that exist to in order to facilitate compliance with the unceasing demands of the microregulatory state. The daily Obamacare fixes — which are nothing to do with “health” “care” but only with navigating an impenetrable bureaucracy — are the perfect embodiment of the Republic of Paperwork.

But nobody adds lack of value like America’s present leadership class — diversicrats, community organizers, and “power couples” comprising somebody handling the transition of a government official and somebody handling the transition in his boxers. If this is “smart” and “accomplished,” no wonder Putin’s laughing his head off.




Takeaways From Today's Job Report






* The American economy added 162,000 jobs in July - below expectations - but unemployment rate fell to 7.4%.

* Lowest job force participation rate since Carter.

If labour force participation were back at the level it was in July 2012, the unemployment rate would be 7.8%.

*  If labour force participation were back at the level it was in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 10.7%.

* Nearly 150,000 (980,000) discouraged workers last month than a year ago.

* Workers worked few hours and received lower wages last month.

* Smallest job increase since March.

* More part-time jobs.

* 41.6% of African-American teens are unemployed compared to 35% one year ago. 

*  Unemployment amongst white teens in 20%.

* 953,000 jobs have been created in 2013:  222,000 are full-time; 731,000 are part-time.

In September 1983, Reagan created 1.114 MILLION jobs.

*  By contrast, only 953,000 jobs have been created (77% of those part-time) in the first 7 months of 2013.


Remember when they used to scream about ‘McJobs’ when unemployment was less than 5%?
 


'Not a peep from Hot Air on last year’s upwardly revised GDP or this year’s relative growth. At a certain point aren’t conservatives going to have to accept that the increase in economic growth and the stagnation or decline of real wages proves that supply side economic theory was total bunk?'

- libfreeordie on August 1, 2013 at 12:40 PM



From Politifact, which is often cited by lefties like liveenslavedthendie:



'We think a few qualifiers are in order. For one, wages aren’t the only way workers are compensated. There’s also health benefits and other compensation. When you look at the “real compensation per hour” paid by companies to nonsupervisory employees, the cost went from 90.2 in 1981 to 95.1 in 1989. So compensation to employees, even when adjusted for inflation, grew during the Reagan era. 

We also think it’s worth noting that stagnation of average hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, predated Reagan. Historical tables show that hourly wages climbed steadily through the 1960s and into 1970s, and then peaked in 1973. From that point on, “real” hourly wages declined for a few years and then pretty much froze until the late 1990s.'



Who knew that Nixon, Ford, and Carter were supply-siders?



Reagan’s average GDP: 3.54%

Obama’s average GDP: 1.3%

Oof.


Where’s that 5% unemployment rate Obama promised by now?

 

 

 

Then, there's this from Pew:

 

SDT-millennials-with-parents-08-2013-02





In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.

A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007. Of these, at least a third and perhaps as many as half are college students. (In the census data used for this analysis, college students who live in dormitories during the academic year are counted as living with their parents).

Younger Millennials (ages 18 to 24) are much more likely than older ones (ages 25 to 31) to be living with their parents—56% versus 16%. Since the onset of the 2007-2009 recession, both age groups have experienced a rise in this living arrangement.


Saddest part?  Even though more people live with their parents now then they have since 1968 - the height of the sexual revolution - 78% of them are satisfied with their living conditions.

Today, I was moved to bring back ‘Stupid Is As Stupid Does.’  It’s pre-reelection, but it still works:

My dear fool, I hope that you tattooed that on your forehead in the orgasmic aftermath of Obama electoral sex.  It will be a wonderful reminder to your grandchildren when they are living in cardboard boxes.

Allah knows, the sex wasn't any good for you.  Certainly, he didn't respect you in the morning.  He wasn't then and isn't now that into you.

He used you.  You were nothing more than a $5 hooker, who he took on a 'round-the-world excursion and left with a wicked case of crabs and herpes; yet, you keep making excuses for him.  Soon, you will be blaming Moses or President James Polk for inventing electric stoplights for unemployment.

I bet you are one of the 80% of college graduates, who have had to move back home with Mum & Dad, that is still waiting by the phone.   No money.  No job.  No car.  No future, but Mummy does still tuck you in at night.

So, tonight, when you are laying in your twin bed with the Buzz Lightyear sheets and the Tickle-Me Elmo doll, just keep saying:


‘I may be unemployed, but Hopenchange is awesome!

I may never be able to own my own home, but Obama is the one that we have been waiting for!

I know that I can't buy a Skinny Caramel Mocha Frappuccino Grande because I'm flat broke, but Socialism is so great!

I know that most of the Northeast got flooded, but Obama still lowered the sea levels!

Besides, Mummy makes me Pop-Tarts and gives me a Flintstones vitamin every morning.  Plus, looking forward to premature balding, a paunch, and a full box of condoms with an expiration date of 01.01.10 isn't so bad when, at 25, I am still considered a child on my parents' health insurance policy.

Eventually, if Obama is reelected, I know he will issue an Executive Order that will force my parents to continue to pay me an allowance until I am 50.  I mean, like ya know, it's only fair.  Some of the kids that I graduated with have their own homes and businesses.  It's not like I am demanding a lot and it's not fair that they have more than me.  Anyhoo, it's the lawin economically-sound countries like Italy.  Me and my chums are working on a really kewl name to call ourselves...unlike in other countries.

In Italy, people like me, ya know, twenty- and thirty-somethings, who are on an allowance, are called "bamboccioni" - "big babies!"  The utter nerve!

In Japan, grown-ups call us "parasaito shinguru."  Can you believe it?  They think we are parasitic singles.  Unbelievable.  We didn't ask to be born.  If you didn't want to take care of us in the style to which we have become accustomed, then you should have aborted us.  Take that, お爺さん!

Now, in Germany, they call people like us "Nesthockers," but what do you expect from NAZIS?  I mean, HELLOOOOOOO....

And, just who the fuck do those British snobs think they are calling their adult children KIPPERS?  After all, who calls their children fish?

Everyone should recognise that, whether they are gutted, salted or pickled, Kids In Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings deserve basic marine rights and, if they aren't going to be respected, then these victims need to organise and appeal to the United Nations.

KIPPERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

All of those racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, flatearther, greedy Fascists saw "Change We Can Believe In!" and they thought Obama was talking about the near-term...ya know...like the next Recovery Summer or the 8th one or something.

Well, like I said, THEY ARE STUPID!  They didn't read the fine print on the back of the signs!

'Change We Can Believe In' = 'Change We Hope We Can Believe Will Happen Before An Asteroid Hits And Destroys the Earth!'

Sheesh, 'tupid 'tard!!!

Okay, I have to go to sleep now so that I can get up early and pack my Transformers lunchbox, beg Mummy for some bus money, walk 3 miles to the bus stop, and ride for 45 minutes to my volunteer job at the local Obama 2012 reelection office.

Don't you people be fooled again.  There is only one man in the world...in fact, only one man in the history of mankind...that has cared more about you than himself and that is:
Barack Hussein Obama!

'O-BAA-MMM-AAA!  O-BAA-MMM-AAA!  O-BAA-MMM-AAA!'


Stupid, Silly Suckers.

 

http://tinyurl.com/lt4h79h