A Look At Employment: ” . . . consider the following unemployment rates by educational level achieved. The first number is for January 2009 and the second is for January 2010:

Less the high school diploma: 12.4%/15.2%

High School Graduates, no college: 8.1%/10.1%

Some college or associate degree: 6.4%/8.5%

Bachelor’s degree or higher: 3.9%/4.9%”

Kids, get as much education after high school that you can. We’ve lost entire categories of jobs that are not coming back any time soon.

(Via FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right.)

Buy Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle!

Buy Ricky Jay’s Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers!

Kenji Johjima opts out of final two years.

One less problem to solve for the 2010 Mariners.

Buy Jerome Greene’s Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The US Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis

This one will interest anyone who has lived in Southeast Washington and Eastern Oregon, especially the Wallowa region.

The settlers were able to seize much of the Nez Perce treaty land simply because the tribe wasn’t physically there to defend it. They roamed over a large area of treaty land, often leaving an area for a year or more. A group of settlers would show up in Oregon, find some empty land, clear it and start farming it, establishing communities.

They either didn’t know or didn’t care that their settlement was illegal. They probably figured that after carving out a life there, htey were naturally entitled to be there. The Nez Perce would return after a year to their land and find illegal settlers who were in no mood to leave and who weren’t eager to share. The tribe could either appeal to the U.S. government, move to some other piece of treaty land, or try to push the interlopers out on their own.

You know where this is headed, and we all know the book ends.

The Nez Perce were better riders, better marksmen, and had superior military leadership throughout the conflict, but it wasn’t enough.

If you live near the intersection of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, you should take a long weekend to drive many of the historic sites of the conflict, including Wallowa, Fort Lapwai, Grangeville, Cottonwood, and Clarkston.

Buy John Hodgman’s More Information Than You Require

Buy Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation

Buy Ron Hall’s Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together

You can’t win an argument with a fundamentalist, because they don’t argue. They have a fixed position that can’t be moved by new information. ‘I know the earth is 10,000 years old, therefore all evidence that the earth is a sphere must be incorrect.’ Try arguing with that. It’s the same with political fundamentalists. ‘The government is bad at some things, therefore the government is bad at everything.’

People don’t see any penalty for holding static views. A highly trained surgeon can safely believe that Obama is not a U.S. citizen because he receives no intellectual penalty for believing it. That belief suits his needs, so he believes it. He’s not stupid, he’s just chosen to cling to a debunked belief because it’s intellectually easier for him to do that than to not.

There is still a small but frighteningly significant number of Americans who believe the moon shot was somehow faked. Do they honestly believe that? Yes, they probably honestly believe it because it’s fun to believe it, or it confirms their suspicions of the government, or they are just contrarians. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that their crackpot belief is possible for them because it doesn’t effect their daily life. They can still perform surgery, trim trees, write software. What’s the harm?

The harm is that it does effect their daily life in the long term. The fact of the matter is that the earth is very old, life has been evolving for a very long time, with humans appearing relatively late in the cycle. I can believe that the earth is 10,000 years old and dinosaurs are a hoax and every living thing was plunked down at once, but that doesn’t make it true. And the only reason my belief doesn’t do permanent harm to society is because there are enough rational people who accept the facts and progress with their work.

We all take intellectual shortcuts. I do it and so do you. We must. One person can not and does not need to personally research every corner of human knowledge. Modern societies are specialized with professionals pursuing their areas of expertise so that I don’t have to. You research blind mole rats, I’ll write some software, your neighbor will fill put out fires, and we’ll progress.

If 98% of the mole rat researchers find that mole rats mate once every six years, I’ll take their word for it. If most economists are telling me that spending money to reform health care is worth the short term it to the deficit, then OK then. They’re the ones with the Nobel Prizes, not me. I expect the President to explain to me how that will work, but I’m not going to reflexively blast the notion.

But I will try not to glibly pop off on topics that are important or that I don’t know about. If you want to cling to irrational beliefs to support your chosen identification group, root for a sports team. There’s an entire media industry just for you to shout, scream, berate your opponents, and generally act like an uninformed ass. You can drop all the verbal hand grenades you want and do no harm.

Here’s are my requirements:

• Sneakers.

I already have running shoes. I’ll likely play some tennis and soccer and such in my sneakers, but these are everyday shoes.

• Low tops.

I prefer high top sneakers, but I already have a pair. I need a set of low tops right now.

• Black or white.

The base color must be black or white. Trim and other colors are not important, but I can’t wear red sneakers for the same reason I can’t wear a red sport coat. It’s just not me.

• Not hideous.

There is no accounting for taste, so I’ll just say that I prefer classic models, but I’m not opposed to a squishy tongue or fat laces. If you’ve ever seen a set of Asics running shoes, those are exactly what I do not want to see. Great shoes, but u-g-l-y.

• Good quality.

I’m not looking for orthopedics here, but I do need my sneakers to treat my feet reasonably well. Yes, I know that soft, comfy, low top sneakers will never be the best thing for my feet, but let’s do the best we can.

Potential mates

Here are some candidates for my feet:

• Adidas Samba Millenium

• PRO-Keds Royal Master Suede

• Puma Basket FS Clyde

Can anyone recommend a good sneaker?

Those screams you hear in the distance are a million Royals fans crying out in unison. If the Royals are paying Yuni’s salary, those fans’ voices will then be suddenly silenced.

Buy Henry Bettenson’s The Early Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius!

Buy Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War!

(Via Ronald Bog blog – all about Shoreline Washington.)

Buy John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise!

Buy The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics!

(Via Ronald Bog blog – all about Shoreline Washington.)

“The Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education studied every American school shooting from 1974 to 2000—37 separate attacks—and reached the same conclusion. Shooters came from all ethnic, economic, and social classes. Most had no history of violence and came from solid, two-parent homes.”

My favorites, which I have actually heard from friend (again, just the one) and at least two relatives (the relatives were speaking at me together, so it probably counts as only a single tax protestor interaction):

• The authors of the Constitution (aka, the “Founding Fathers”) never intended to give Congress the power to tax wages or other incomes from labor
• The 16th Amendment was not properly ratified
• I am not a “person” within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code

Enjoy!

Abby’s been wearing the same haircut, at various lengths, since she’s been getting her hair cut. At yesterday’s haircut, she said she wanted her a “boy haircut”. I said that I thought it wouldn’t make her happy. We discussed it with the hairdresser, who said she thought she knew what we wanted. Then Abby excused me. I came back to find the sweetest haircut, and so feminine. Yet Abby is sure that it is a “boy cut” and is perfectly happy. A good hairdresser can please both mom and daughter.

View all of the photos.