Supreme Court

Evening Miscellany

By Adam Sorensen | @adamsorensen | February 17, 2010 | +

–Tech President charts the origin of that jobs graphic.

–A politician may finally be allowed to use John Mellencamp songs at rallies: John Mellencamp.

–It’s impersonation day; the NRCC channels Nancy Pelosi in a fundraising e-mail and Charlie Crist ghostwrites a CPAC address for Marco Rubio.

–Bush 43 asks, “Who the [heck] is Marco Rubio?”

–Financial regulation is just like prune juice: The older you get, the better it looks.

–Rick Perry considers being governor for life.

–But Scalia says he can’t secede.

–And Obama drops a Stephen Colbert reference into his chat with astronauts.

Related Topics: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Miscellany, Nancy Pelosi, Republican Party, State Governments, Supreme Court, White House

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  • sisword

    You know, if Swampland is going to continue with this tab-dump-type feature, you really shouldn’t make post continue after a jump. The main nice thing about a tab dump is you can just quickly scan it and see if there’s anything of interest – it is annoying to have to hit “read more” to see everything. Keep it brief.

  • Cliff

    Why do I care what known war criminal George W. Bush says about anything? Especially Mark Rubio?

  • stuartzechman

    This is really, really weak sauce.
    .
    The link copy is written in such a way that’s meant to be titillating to morons (“Click me! Aren’t I intriguing? Don’t you want to find out what I meant by that? No, click me!“), but it comes off as teasers for local evening news (“Is there a type of cleaner in your home that could be dangerous? Find out at the top of the hour!“).
    .
    I’ll leave the emphasis on trivia alone for now.

  • FlownOver

    Wonkette does this a lot better.

    If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: at least Adam doesn’t proceed to debate every linked page ad infinitum à la Joe Klein.

  • formerlyjames

    I offer this summary to spare everybody wasted time. Jobs charts, even Obama’s, belong to the last part of the phrase, lies, damn lies and statistics.
    .
    Mellencamp would fit nicely into the useless Congress, because he plays a mean guitar, which is good entertainment, but irrelevant in good government, just like Congress.
    .
    The older you get, the more money you lose to thieves in unregulated financial markets, the more you believe that regulation of said markets can’t be all that bad.
    .
    W Bush, Perry, Scalia, and Rubio, whether they know one another, or entirely agree, or not, are all cretins who we would be better off without.
    .
    The rest of it is not worth my time.
    .
    I do this as a public service and ask for no accolade or recognition.

  • anon76

    @formerly-
    Twain was a gifted writer and had a way with witticisms, but surely you don’t actually believe that there is no truth to be had from statistics? Do you have any concept of where the scientific enterprise would be without the use of statistics? Do you have any concept of how different your life would be without the scientific enterprise?

    If you can’t engage the job chart to point out flaws in methodology, etc., then perhaps it’s for the better that you don’t try to assert that the information in the graphic is essentially untrue.

  • sacredh

    I’d like to thank the Wizards for trading Jamison to my Cavaliers. He should fit in nicely.

  • formerlyjames

    anon, I use statistics every day, but it is only me in my own mind viewing and not manipulating them. Manipulation is the key. Charts are the most manipulative. I am an Obama supporter, but I intuitively know that things are not as positive as the chart would indicate. When politicians cite statistics and exihibit charts, it always causes me to be suspicious, which is my nature anyway.

  • anon76

    I’d say the chart doesn’t say things *are* good (there’s a lot of lost jobs if you integrate under that curve), but rather that things are trending better than they were. I note that the trend gets to 0 jobs lost with about 0 slope, so it’s not like they’re saying they’re going to recover any of those jobs, just that they’ve stopped the bleeding. Seems a pretty fair assessment, IMO.
    In any case, I thought the claim was that they just charted the BLS data. Presumably if any manipulation occurred, it was at the hands of the bureaucrats and not the politicians.

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