Category: Current Events

I just finished with my every-other-year tradition of watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics while heckling with friends online in a chat room. This basically involves my repeating over and over “I hate Bob Costas” for his inane prattle and commenting on the cool hats everyone seems to have every year (me: The USA team is wearing french berets? I thought we still hated the French? Friend: Duh! They’re FREEDOM hats!)

But the best part was the very end. The torch is run up the stairs to what can only be described as a giant phallus which is pointing down. The guy with the torch lights it and the whole thing arcs upward like a giant erection. It was, I commented, the world’s largest money shot.

I saw on some Fark post the comment that Unemployment rate during Clinton 5.5% = Good, 5.6% during Bush = Bad and thought that that sounded all kinds of wrong. So, I decided to do a little research on my own. The Department of Labor helpfully provides back data on unemployment. When you pull up the rates for the last 12 years, it seems pretty clear to me which President did a better job as far as jobs are concerned. It also shows how well the administration prior to Clinton did as well. The comment was correct in the numbers but static numbers rarely tell the whole story. (Click for expanded view).