Tiny Morsels [UPDATE]

A couple of morsels, neither long enough for a post.

The population shift from the census.

As I was considering the text for this section, this story popped up in Yahoo!.  If you look at the map, you'll see the issue:  the highest failure rates are in the Redneck States that are said to be "growing".  A nation of yahoos; just what we need to lead the Free World.  Of course, there's this:  "...about one-fourth are obese, making them medically ineligible.  In 1980, by comparison, just 5 percent of youth were obese."  The lemmings headed for the dry, unfertile South will lead to a water war before the next census.  It will likely mean that the Right Wingnuts will use the excuse of their Southern begetting as the justification for taking what ain't their's, and is reason enough not to live in deserts. 


The kerfuffle over net neutrality.

Last time I checked, the www depends on the Internet Backbone.  To the extent that commercial interests control it (they do), they control the www.  This regulation will only increase that level of control.  The bifurcated www is here.

To some extent, I'm OK with that; the NetFlixes of the world should be forced to pay the marginal cost of their services.  Riding for free on the www of web pages is perverse incentive. 

There are these two notions of net neutrality:  those that wish to ride for free (or at least substantially below their inherent marginal cost), and those that wish to avoid commercial control of the www.  The latter is a long lost cause.  The former should never have been allowed.  If you read the history, you'll see that the original net was co-opted by commercial interests, which were more than happy to ride for free.


UPDATE

Unemployment improves.

Well, sort of.  Today (23 Dec) was the weekly unemployment numbers, and continuing claims are down 103,000.  This is not good news, and it's not good news for the simple reason that the main phalanx of the Great Recession Unemployed began their ejection from the workforce two years ago.  What you're seeing now is these folks being ejected from the last bit of income they had.  I wouldn't be surprised to see this number reach into the 200,000 level over the next six months.  And with that, the Double Dip begins.  You read it here first.

For reference, the week of 26 December 2008 had 586,000 initial claims.  I found that from a contemporaneous blog posting.  Note the prediction/assertion that the unemployment rate would reach 8.3%.  I know nothing of this blog, it was just the first in the search that had the number.  The wildly Right Wingnut assertion about the ultimate unemployment rate is instructive.  (You can see the data here.)

Obama, who hasn't shown much interest, needs to pay attention.  He won't of course, and the Lefties will end up taking the heat for the mess, which will usher in President Palin, and then the slide dumps us over the cliff.  The Palinistas will, of course, blame all those greedy hungry poor people.