Job Loss Data...

Over at CoyoteBlog, there's a fascinating post on the actual jobs loss data (as opposed to the overwrought hype that fills our news media).

Bottom line: the losses are real, but not even in the same class as the Great Depression, nor as bad as several other more recent recessions.

What CoyoteBlog did was simply to download and graph data that the government makes freely available to all, over the web. You'd think that somewhere, buried deep in some newsroom, there might be just one journalist who thought that getting actual information to people might be a good idea. But apparently not; that journalist I'm thinking of was probably the first one to be laid off...

This Pretty Much Says It All...

Tiajuana on the Brink...

Tiajuana, Mexico is a city of 2.7 million people, just across the border from San Diego. That puts it about 25 miles from my home.

Over the past year, here and in the rest of Mexico, there has been a very alarming escalation of the long-running war between the drug cartels and the Mexican government. And it doesn't look like the government is winning.

The map at right shows where people have been murdered in just the past three months. Other border cities are seeing much the same thing.

This conflict is driven by exactly one thing: the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. The solution is simple: legalize all drugs, and dispense them through pharmacies. Overnight, the financial incentive for this madness would disappear...

A slightly different perspective from my fellow Jamulian Tom Smith...

Quote of the Day...

From U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald:

“The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering. They allege that Blagojevich put a for-sale sign on the naming of a United States senator.”

He's talking, of course, about the indictment of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges. The best news summary I've seen is at the Wall Street Journal.

Chicago is leading the charge to turn the U.S. into Mexico...