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.)

Kenji Johjima opts out of final two years.

One less problem to solve for the 2010 Mariners.

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.

(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!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1425085&id=36413251007&ref=mf

(Via TVW, Legislative Podcasts.)

(Via TVW, Legislative Podcasts.)

• Crosscut: http://crosscut.com/
• Crosscut Blog: http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/
• Eye On Olympia: http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/olympia/
• The Capitol Record: http://www.tvw.org/capitolrecord/
• Politics Northwest: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/politicsnorthwest/

All of them offer an RSS feed.

Enjoy!

(Via TVW, Legislative Podcasts.)

(Via The Capitol Record.)

“House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Senate Majority Caucus Chair Ed Murray, D-Seattle, asked the Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials today not to give them a raise.”

Michelle sat on this committee years ago. Ask her about it the next time you see her.

(Via Politics Northwest.)

Buy Christine Garwood’s Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea

Crackpots are fascinating people. What makes a person cling to irrational beliefs in the face of mountains of evidence? Holocaust deniers, moon shoot doubters, and young Earthers all have their charms, but the flat-earthers are the cream of the nut crop.

Some of my friends who reject evolutionary theory claim that they don’t trust anything they can’t observe directly. Their basic position is something like “I interpret the Bible literally and the Biblical texts tell me that God created the earth and everything in it and exactly seven days and that is that.” Their position is a weak one, but I can understand their point of view. They apply a fundamentalist interpretation to the Bible, human knowledge contradicts that interpretation, therefore they don’t trust science. Fine.

But the flat earthers go beyond mistrusting science. They destroy science. They are science Luddites! What makes them so nutty is that we don’t even need science to observer the rotundity of the Earth. Just watch a ship disappear over the horizon and you can see that we live on a globe. This fact is so obvious, so tied to our physical experience, that a globe-shaped Earth has been the standard position of educated Earthlings for about 3,000 years. By the time Columbus set sail, everyone already knew the earth was a globe. Even the most strident Biblical fundamentalists don’t claim that the earth is flat! Yet a handful of plane-loving yahoos insist that we live on a disc-shaped plane.

Garwood’s survey of flat earth believers is mildly disappointing in that there isn’t a lot to know about them. First, there just aren’t many of them around. Sincere flat earth beliers are extremely rare, so Garwood is only able to profile fewer than a half dozen of these people. Second, the foundation of the flat-earthers’ belief is so weak that it’s not even interesting. Their cranky view of topology is based on extremely fundamentalist, literal readings of Biblical texts, like a poor man’s young earth creationists. There’s just no arguing with a regligious fundamentalist who looks to infallible sacred texts for geological knowledge.

Christine Garwood does an entertaining job of documenting all there is to know about the flat-earthers. Sadly, there just isn’t much to know. They’re crackpots, and not very interesting ones at that.

Flat earth resources

Here is a list of flat earth links from the bibliography. Brace yourself for extra nuttiness:

A hundred proofs the Earth is not a Globe

“De Sun Do Move” Sermon by John Jasper (1812-1901)

The late Bob Schadewald interracted with several flat-earthers and wrote about it. His website offers links to some of his work.

More nuts!

If anyone knows about the hollow-earthers or geocentric earth people, let me know. I won’t call them movements, but they are persistent.

(Via TVW, Legislative Podcasts.)

Yahoo! News: ‘US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.’

I scored 31 out of 33, but I took my time to consider each question carefully. I wonder if the 2500 randomly-seleted test takers were given the test at a shopping mall or some other busy, noisy place? Or given the test verbally?

Take the quiz.

(Via inessential.com.)

Turn the page, America, and move forward.

Just enter your street address and Google tells you where to vote on election day. One less excuse to not vote.

“Thousands of years ago, thirteen crystal heads were scattered across the earth – and they are greater and more powerful than anything we have the ability to manufacture today. Their workmanship is perfect: they contain no tool marks and have been cut against the natural axis of the crystal, defying the laws of physics. Some say they are artifacts from the lost civilization of Atlantis, some say they date back to the Mayans, still others say they were created by a higher intelligence.

Brought together, the Crystal Heads are said to contain vast knowledge and enlightenment capable of unlocking our most enigmatic ancient mysteries. Alone, each is believed to house radiant psychic energy, which has magical powers and healing properties.”

Also, it is filtered thrice through diamonds, apparently at Akroyd’s suggestion.