Archive for October 12th, 2012

Biden: “Syria is 5 times larger than Libya” … say, what?

October 12, 2012

During the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night, Joe Biden claimed, incorrectly, that that Team Obama is turning a blind eye towards Syria because – compared to Libya —  it  “is a different country, it is five times as large geographically, it has one fifth the population”.

Ordinarily, we’d give him a pass (yeah, right), but Biden claims to be Mr. International and was trying to discredit Ryan’s foreign policy knowledge.

Turns out –- according to Google –that Syria is about 1/10th the size of Libya with over 3 times the population.

Oops.

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Thanks to AG-C for feeding the lead.

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Posted in 2012 Campaign, Biden - gaffes & lies | 1 Comment »

Veep Debate: morning after thoughts …

October 12, 2012

For what they’re worth …

1. Watching the debate I thought Biden won. Yes, he was a condescending bully … but he dominated. He didn’t raise any new points and told some rehashed whoppers, but he showed passion and a will-to-fight.  Most important, his interruptions and distracting behavior when Ryan was talking kept Ryan from completing any of his logic.  I thought Ryan should have been firmer – with Biden & the moderator – to stop the interruptions.

2. Given the above, I was surprised when the post-debate commentary started.  I was watching CNN. Blitzer’s first reaction was a tie.  Except for ultra-lib Van Jones, all of the panelists took Biden to the hoop for being disrespectful – with virtually no remarks re: content.  Switched to Fox and Chris Wallace – who I think is pretty fair – said “I’ve seen every presidential and VP debate – this was an unprecedented level of disrespect and discourtesy …. by a sitting VP.”  Then came the CNN insta-poll … Ryan 48, Biden 44.  Maybe I should have more faith in the American people.

3. The debate reminded me of the 1976 Olympics (I think it was 1976).  The US boxers were very good, very well trained, very “scientific”. Cuban boxers came with a vengeance and charged the ring like bulls.  They knocked the Americans off-stride and took away a handful of medals.

4. I also flashed back to the Cheney-Lieberman debate – which I thought was the best ever. They disagreed on practically every issue.  But, they were logical and respectful.  So, people could really understand their views.  When they shook hands afterwards, you could see the mutual respect.

5. I expect 2 big stories: Libya and abortion.  Libya because Biden contradicted the prior day’s sworn testimony and threw the Intelligence folks under the bus.  That’ll keep Libya in the news.  I was surprised that the moderator asked about abortion. I thought Ryan stated a sincere pro-life position – but will get hammered for being at war with women.

6. Best line of the night was when Biden asserted that Catholic organizations weren’t being forced to fund abortions & contraception. Ryan’s retort;”Then, why are 20 Catholic organizations suing the government?”

7. Yes, Biden said 47% three or four times.  Did it have any impact?

8. Yeah, Ryan is young – probably too young to be President.  He’ll grow out of that limitation fast. The thought of Biden ascending to the Presidency literally scares me – anybody want that personna running the country?

9. My wild card: keep in mind that Obama owns the youth vote … many (most?) people vote on emotions and candidate’s “cues” … I think that Ryan played as a smart, young, next-gen kind of a guy … (and, jacked, to boot) … it’ll be interesting to see if Ryan connected with some young guys and single women.

10. Bottom line: debate will have little no impact on the polls or the election …

Now, I’ll turn on the TV and listen to what the pundits are saying this morning …

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Posted in 2012 Campaign | Leave a Comment »

Unemployment claims are down (if you don’t count California) … and, yes, the BLS streak continues.

October 12, 2012

The BLS would morph into a punch line if the stakes weren’t so high.

Let’s do the easy part first.

Now we’re up to at least 22 election season weeks in a row that the BLS’s “headline number” has under-reported the number of initial unemployment claims … and cast the jobs situation as brighter than it really is.

Based on Thursday’s BLS report, the number for the week ending Sept. 29 was revised upward from 367,000 to 369,000.

I’ll complain to the BLS Commish when President Obama appoints one.

see the HFs post: BLS Commissioner’s post vacant since January

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* * * * *

Bigger Issue this Week

This week, the BLS reported spectacularly good news …  claims down 30,000 (after revising last week’s claims up).

While the BLS report failed to mention the point, somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 claims from California weren’t processed in time to be included.

Say what?

Business Insider did a nice job decoding the situation:

Some of the jobless claims in one large state–California–were not included in the claims reported to the Department of Labor this week. 

When a state’s jobless claims bureau is short-staffed, sometimes the state does not process all of the claims that came in during the week in time to get them to the DOL.

Our source [at the BLS]  believes that this is what happened this week.

The California claims that were not processed in time to get into this week’s jobless report will appear in future reports, most likely next week’s or the following week’s.

In other words, those reports might be modestly higher than expected.

Our source believes that the number of California claims that were not processed totaled about 15,000-25,000.

Thus, if one were to “normalize” the overall not-seasonally-adjusted jobless claims number, it would increase by about 15,000-25,000.

This week’s “normalized” jobless claims number, therefore, would be about 355,000-365,000, not the 339,000 that was reported.

Are you kidding me?

And, Business Insider missed a key line in the BLS report:

“The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending September 29 were in New York (+2,764) and  California (+2,069)”

So, the missing California claims may be even higher … if the missing regions kept pace with the rest of the state

This is getting silly.

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Posted in 2012 Campaign, BLS, Employment - Jobs, Statistical Bias, Unemployment | 2 Comments »

Let’s go throw down a couple brewskies …

October 12, 2012

Beer sales are rising for the first time since 2008 in another sign that consumers — particularly young men—are slowly but surely emerging from the recession.

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Much of the rebound is being driven by small-batch “craft” brewers, reflecting shifting tastes and forcing dominant players Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors to increasingly borrow from upstarts’ playbooks.

Big brewers also are rolling out alternative malt beverages after liquor companies swiped drinkers.

Americans are branching out from traditional American lager to sample ales, porters and wheat beers from fast-growing small brewers.

The move to craft-style beers could limit consumption.

In addition to charging higher prices, many specialty brews have a heavier taste and higher alcohol content than mainstream beers, making them less likely to be guzzled in rapid-fire.

“People will go out and pound Coronas or Miller Lites, but they’ll sip craft beer.”.

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Posted in Beer & Liquor, Beverages - Soft Drinks | Leave a Comment »

Psst: They like you, but sorry … they’re fakes.

October 12, 2012

Punch line: Analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2014 up to 15% of social media engagements could be fraudulent.

* * * * *

Excerpted from TechCrunch, “Fans, Likes And Reviews Will Be Fake By 2014, Says Gartner”

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Fake fans, fake “likes” and fake reviews are some of the worst aspects of social media.

Now, new research from Gartner lays bare the fact that it’s only going to get worse.

The analysts predict that by 2014, some 10%-15% of all social media reviews and other forms of engagement will be fake, paid for by the companies getting endorsed.

Gaming social media is not exactly a new concept, but given it’s a space that in theory relies on the goodwill of the masses, doing so is a pretty sleazy art.

What makes it more difficult to parse is that a lot of it is hard to pin down.

Meanwhile, another class of social media marketeers appears to be emerging: those who are helping with “reputation defense”: that is, rather than flooding sites with paid endorsements, rising to the task of making sure the negative critiques are complemented by interaction and response (oh, and positive reviews) in a slightly more organic way.

Edit by JDC

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Posted in Internet - Soc Networking, Social Media & Networking | Leave a Comment »