So How's That Austerity Thing Working Out For You, Britain?

As I mentioned in this morning's StupidiNews, the UK has officially hit a double-dip recession with two quarters of economic contraction as a direct result of the country's austerity policies.

Gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011, when it declined 0.3 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median of 40 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for an increase of 0.1 percent. A technical recession is defined as two straight quarters of contraction.

The Bank of England is in the final month of its latest round of economic stimulus and the drop in output comes as prospects dim in the euro region, Britain’s biggest export market. As an anti-austerity backlash gains ground in Europe, the report may add to criticism of Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s budget cuts.

“This isn’t supportive of the fiscal consolidation program, so the government is likely to be concerned about that,” said Philip Rush, an economist at Nomura International in London. “The data were bad, and that supports the view that the Bank of England will do a final 25 billion pounds of quantitative easing in May.” 

It's going to take a lot more than that to get the Jolly Old back into the black.  This should also put to rest the issue involving austerity and how it will supposedly "save" economies.  Britain has specifically been knocked back into recession because of these massive cuts, plan and simple.  If government is the spender of last resort and they aren't spending, guess what happens to your economic engine?

And now Britain will have to resort to more qualitative easing after the fact rather than having that money put towards spending before the fact in a far more efficient manner.  Oh well, right?

Just remember the GOP wants to bring even deeper austerity cuts here, and if they get control of the Senate and White House, those cuts will happen, and we will plunge into a recession.  Count on it.  You can prevent that, you know.

Where The Arab Spring Failed

Mona Eltahawy's lightning bolt of a piece in Foreign Policy entitled "Why Do They Hate Us?" is staggering, heart-rending, depressing, and brutally truthful.  She goes into candid detail on the treatment of women in the Middle East and why the world keeps looking the other direction.

Name me an Arab country, and I'll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt -- including my mother and all but one of her six sisters -- have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating "virginity tests" merely for speaking out, it's no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband "with good intentions" no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are "good intentions"? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is "not severe" or "directed at the face." What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it's not better than you think. It's much, much worse. Even after these "revolutions," all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian's blessing -- or divorce either.

Not a single Arab country ranks in the top 100 in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, putting the region as a whole solidly at the planet's rock bottom. Poor or rich, we all hate our women. Neighbors Saudi Arabia and Yemen, for instance, might be eons apart when it comes to GDP, but only four places separate them on the index, with the kingdom at 131 and Yemen coming in at 135 out of 135 countries. Morocco, often touted for its "progressive" family law (a 2005 report by Western "experts" called it "an example for Muslim countries aiming to integrate into modern society"), ranks 129; according to Morocco's Ministry of Justice, 41,098 girls under age 18 were married there in 2010.

I don't throw around "must-read" often, but this article certainly belongs in that category if anything does.  Eltahawy herself was detained by Egyptian police during the revolution there last year, sexually assaulted and her arm and wrist broken.  She takes that experience and others in her life and flays the entire culture of the Middle East bare.  It's painful to read at times but it needs to be read anyway, if only to realize how far we have to go as a planet.

And these problems are by no means new.  They were there before we arrived with FREEDOM BOMBS and they're still there now, and yet I can't help seeing where the conservatives in this country want to go.

It's A Gas Gas Gas

Eighteen gas stations in eastern Long Island are charging more than $2 per gallon credit card fees, according to CBS 2 New York. (H/t Consumerist.)

Suffolk County's Weights and Measures Bureau has received 23 complaints about the issue in the past few days alone, according to CBS 2. One customer reported being charged a $15 service fee for using a debit card.

Credit card surcharges are forbidden by law, but there's nothing against a discount for cash.  Clearly, instead of following the spirit of the law, the answer is to hike the price past ridiculous and then slash it for cash.

This is the beginning of a bad trend.  Credit card companies win in the end, it's just a matter of who pays the fee.  Consumers are at the mercy of greed and abuse, and this is only one of many schemes to overcharge.  I'd be against it if they had hard data to show a few cents per gallon made the math work.  But fifteen dollar fees that aren't made clear?  Doubling gas prices or more on a per-gallon basis to use cards?

Bullshit, I say.

Lilly Ledbetter Puts Mittens In His Place

The Lilly Ledbetter Act was meant to give women grounds to sue for unfair pay practices.  It, and other measures like it, have failed.  The Paycheck Fairness Act was the most recent to fail.

Ledbetter points out that women who work for substandard wages lose over a lifetime.  A lifetime of working as hard as men, but lower wages or lack of benefits.  The next time you hear a Republican talk about jobs and growth, remember they unanimously voted against fair pay for women.

In an unrelated news article today, I read some confessions of slimy HR practices.  For example, pictures of kids so parents will chat, and disqualify themselves.  One hiring professional checks for wedding bands, because women can get pregnant and take maternity leave, so no newlyweds for his company.  But the kicker for me was the guy who hired women knowing he could get away with paying her less.  Exploiting working women is a known business strategy.  The GOP stated concerns for businesses if they had to face the "burden" of paying women the same wage for the same work.  But now we're supposed to believe they care about working women.

While Romney decides whether he opposes gender discrimination, here is an important reality he should consider: This isn't just about women. It's about all families and their economic security.

The consequences of unequal pay reach far beyond the paychecks women take home every week. My pension and Social Security were based on an unfair salary, so over the course of my career, I was cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have gone to my kids' education or my family's medical bills or to support the shops and small businesses in my community. I also worked countless hours of overtime, but the extra pay I earned was based on the same uneven scale.

The question Romney's campaign couldn't answer is a question of fairness and whether American workers have a level playing field on which everyone has the same opportunity to get ahead.

I know Obama believes in those values. As the grandson of a woman who worked in a bank long after she hit the glass ceiling -- and who was paid less than the men she trained -- he believes equal pay is an essential right. As the father of two girls, he cares deeply about making sure the work force they'll join one day isn't slanted against them.

But I have no idea where Romney stands -- and from the sound of it, neither do those closest to him.

What we do know about whom and what Romney supports is even more unsettling than his silence on this issue. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently took away citizens' rights to fight workplace discrimination. Romney called him a "hero" and a "man of courage."

Romney is too cowardly to come forward and speak about fair treatment of women.  He didn't even try to promise to think about maybe considering something that worked to benefit everyone.  He ducked the question.

This is not the leader of a nation.  He is King Shit of Turd Mountain, and anyone with sense would wash their hands of him.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

So yeah, this happened in Atlanta at a bar. 

The blurry word starts with N.  But don't you dare call 'em racists.  The owner says "I don't feel bad about anything whatsoever, Therefore, they can go out and put their own sign in their own yard and I will not be offended."  Cause it's all about him, see.

Still six months and change to go, too.

The Big GOP Primary Thread: Nor'easter

There was no surprise in Mitt Romney winning all five primaries in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic yesterday, but it was somewhat surprising to see him not do any better than he did.  Even though he was basically the only viable candidate left, anywhere from 33% to nearly 43% of GOP primary voters voted against him yesterday.   Newt got 27% of the vote in Delaware, and Ron Paul 25% of the vote in Rhode Island.

I'm not convinced that 100% of those non-Romney GOP voters are going to pick Romney over Obama.  A great many of them are, but some will stay home too.  A very small percentage may even vote for Obama, although I can't imagine it being more than a couple percent max.  Certainly there will be disillusioned Obama voters who will stay home or cast their vote for Romney too.  I'm not sure how many of each will be out there, but Romney certainly doesn't have an advantage over the President in that respect if he can't break 67% in a one man race.

On the other hand, last night was the end of Newt Gingrich's run whether or not he wants to admit it.  He's done.  On the gripping hand, Gingrich did as good or better than Ron Paul and nobody's expecting Paul to get out the race either, so why should Newt quit?  The latest PPP poll in Texas shows that state's primary is still in play, with Romney having a 45%-35% lead over Gingrich in the state (Yeah, Mitt Romney may not even get 50% in Texas.  Think about THAT for a while.)

Combine that with news that Ron Paul has managed to secure delegates in Iowa and Minnesota and this coronation isn't going quite as smoothly as Mitt would like.

Meanwhile, on the Dem side of things, two Blue Dogs went down in flames in Pennsylvania, primaried out due to redistricting.  Rep. Tim Holden voted against the PPACA and got shown the door as his district went far more blue, losing by 16 points to Matt Cartwright, who ran, shockingly, as a liberal and won.  Holden was expected to be redistricted out but the margin of victory was pretty telling.

But the real story was Rep. Jason Altmire's 2 point loss to Rep. Mark Critz, and the difference?  Organized labor came out big for Critz and gave him the win.  There's an important lesson there for Democrats if they're willing to listen.

StupidiNews!

• As expected, Mitt Romney has won all five GOP primaries yesterday in PA, NY, DE, RI and CT, with almost two-thirds of the vote in some cases.
• Religious right-wing activists in Oklahoma gathered at the steps of the state capitol to demand a vote on the state's fetal personhood bill, saying they will brand those who don't approve as "pro-abortion".
• Only the fourth case of mad cow disease ever in the US has been found in a dairy cow in California, with state officials immediately launching into action to prevent more.
• The numbers are official:  Britain is in a double-dip recession as the economy contracted another 0.2% in the last quarter after a 0.3% drop in 4Q 2011.
• Science-fiction publisher TOR Books will release e-books without Digital Rights Management on them allowing readers to transfer books between devices.

Last Call

As the Supreme Court takes up Arizona's immigration law tomorrow, no matter what SCOTUS decides it may be a moot point in one sense:  a new study finds that the increasing conservative backlash against undocumented immigrants from Mexico has been wildly successful in actually reversing immigration trends and that there's now a net outflow of Mexicans in the US out of the country as jobs and birth rates are down and deportations and border patrols are up.

A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

It looks to be the first reversal in the trend since the Depression, and experts say that a declining Mexican birthrate and other factors may make it permanent.

“I think the massive boom in Mexican immigration is over and I don’t think it will ever return to the numbers we saw in the 1990s and 2000s,” said Douglas Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, which has been gathering data on the subject for 30 years.

Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans moved from the United States to Mexico between 2005 and 2010, double the number who did so a decade earlier. The number of Mexicans who moved to the United States during that period fell to less than half of the 3 million who came between 1995 and 2000.

The trend could have major political consequences, underscoring the delicate dance by the Republican and Democratic parties as they struggle with immigration policies and court the increasingly important Latino vote.

This should finally put to rest the entire "secure the border" nonsense that we've heard from the GOP as an excuse to refuse to consider comprehensive immigration reform, but now of course the debate will shift to whether or not police should simply have to power to round up undocumented immigrants and ship them out.   Certainly the xenophobes in the GOP will insist it's time for mass detainment, but it seems to me that the crackpots in the Republican party have won this battle.  If you were Latino, would you want to live in Arizona or Alabama or Texas right now, given the climate of hatred?  Can you blame them for saying "screw this!" and leaving?

Because that was the point all along.

Fire Walker Chronicles: Inside Job

Yet more evidence that GOP Gov. Scott Walker needs to be given the boot:  since he took office in January 2011, Wisconsin has now seen the worst year over year change in the jobless rate:

It seems that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) might have been overreaching when he promised to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term. While Walker has spent the last twelve months slashing state budgets and busting unions, Wisconsinites have been dealing with the consequences. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Walker’s state saw the largest decrease in jobs over the last year, dropping nearly a full percentage point:

Over the year, nonfarm employment increased in 45 states and the District of Columbia, decreased in 4 states, and was unchanged in Alabama. The largest over-the-year percentage increase occurred in North Dakota (+6.5 percent). The largest over-the-year percentage decrease in employment occurred in Wisconsin (-0.9 percent).

Walker, meanwhile, told Newsmax this week that, “We ultimately saw a net increase in jobs this year.” That is incorrect, unless by ‘we’ he means a group other than Wisconsinites.

Oops.  And surprise, the state's steep austerity measures have put it in dead last among the 50 states in job growth in 2011.  Shocking, I know:  austerity doesn't work.  Imagine that.

Guess what, Wisconsin?  You get to do something about it.

White Russian With A Bite

Apparently Vladimir Putin's boundless ego has summoned A NEW CHALLENGER in the form of an albino killer whale spotted off the coast of Russia.

An all-white, and possibly albino, killer whale has been spotted in seas off eastern Russia, scientists reported Monday, dubbing the adult male "Iceberg."

"In many ways, Iceberg is a symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting about what is out there in the ocean waiting to be discovered," Erich Hoyt, co-director of the Far East Russia Orca Project, said in a statement. "The challenge is to keep the ocean healthy so that such surprises are always possible."

The researchers, who are studying killer whales in an area that's also seen as an opportunity for oil development, say Iceberg is the first adult, all-white male orca to have been documented.

Young, all-white orcas have been seen before -- including two in Iceberg's pod -- but none has ever been recorded living into adulthood.

Iceberg and his pod of 12 relatives were first spotted off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.

"We have no genetic data" on Iceberg's pod, Hoyt wrote in a blog post Sunday, "but we are hoping to meet them again in summer 2012 and learn more about the phenomenon of white whales, why they occur, what it means and whether Iceberg is a true albino — perhaps we can catch a glimpse of a pink eye — or 'just' one of the most beautiful orcas anyone has ever seen."

No word on if Putin will challenge the orca to a sparring match.  On the other hand, how awesomely deadly is the concept of "pod of albino killer whales" anyway?  "Deep Blue Sea" jokes aside, I'm hoping that Hoyt and his researchers can protect these incredibly rare animals and that they can be documented further.  Russia should be proud of these magnificent cetaceans, dammit.

Also, totally not going to put a massive aquarium of these in my official super villian volcano lair super-spy disposal system.  Nope.

Oops!

In case you are stinging from a difficult Monday, it could be worse.

Every single Aviva employee arrived at work and read an email letting them know they were fired.

"I am required to remind you of your contractual obligations to the company you are leaving," the email said. "You have an obligation to retain any confidential information pertaining to Aviva Investors operations, systems and clients."

The email ordered them to hand over company property and security passes before leaving the building, and left the staff with one final line:

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and wish you all the best for the future," said the letter. 

The good news is, it was a mistake.  The email was only intended for one employee.  Still, pretty cold.

Breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay of Herrin, Illinois was put in debtors' prison over a $280 medical bill that was sent to her by accident, the Associated Pressreports (h/t The Daily Mail). Even after Lindsay was told she didn't have to pay the bill, it was sent to a collection agency. Eventually state troopers took her from her home in handcuffs. Lindsay ended up having to pay $600 to settle the charges. 

The article tells us this is happening more frequently as people are unable to pay their bills and have exhausted their emergency funds.  Good thing we have Republicans trying to look out for businesses instead of fair pay, huh?

Iowa Wonder How Slutty It Will Get

Good for these ladies! I hope they have a good turnout and bring attention to a good cause.

The University of Iowa's Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance will be holding a protest march starting at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Dubbed "SlutWalk Iowa City," the group is gathering feminists, college students, victims and advocates to march in order to "challenge the silent underpinnings of a hypersexualized western society, a notion that sexual assault has as much to do with the victim as the assailant," according to a news release.

It's bogus to treat the victim like they deserved the assault by wearing a short skirt or show some cleavage.  That a woman's wardrobe excuses a rapist is unforgivable territory.  It's good to see young women remember and spread that knowledge.  "He couldn't control himself because of her choice in clothing" has actually worked.  

California Rock Concert

The annual Lyrid meteor shower had some extra kick in it this year as northern California was front and center for one heck of a celestial sound test.

A loud boom similar to the sound of an explosion has been heard over much of northern California apparently as a result of an ongoing meteor shower, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The newspaper, citing Stefanie Henry, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento, said the sound had been produced by a meteor apparently breaking up above the Earth, sending the sound reverberating across the area.

The National Weather Service received reports of the sound across northern California early on Sunday, and even as far south as Orange County, the report said.

Though the peak of the shower was Saturday evening, beams of light will likely still be visible for several days, The LA Times said.

It appears as if one meteor broke up close enough to the Earth's atmosphere to set off a sonic boom in NorCal, which was heard all the way out in neighboring Nevada.  Heck of a light show too out in the high desert last weekend.

No word if anyone got superpowers from any meteor fragments, though.

The Myth of "In The Tank"

The cries of "The LIE-beral Media is in the tank for Obama!" have been loud and long since 2008, but it seems like every time somebody takes an objective look at it, nothing could be further from the truth.  The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has been keeping a weekly tab on positive, negative, and neutral coverage for the GOP candidates and President Obama since the beginning of the year, and the numbers are pretty grim for POTUS.

With friends like these, who needs negative campaign ads? While a friendly press in the tank for President Obama may fit nicely into the right’s narrative of liberal bias in the press, a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that of all the presidential candidates during this election cycle, President Obama has had the least favorable coverage by the news media. Since January, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has actually enjoyed twice as much positive coverage as President Obama.

That's kind of a problem.  Now granted, some of the GOP candidates got more negative coverage than the President did.  But every week so far, the President has been last in percentage of positive news he's gotten.  In fact, several weeks out of the year so far the percentage of positive news coverage in the single digits.  Even Howard Kurtz has noticed.

Overall, it was no contest. From Jan. 2 through April 15, Romney’s coverage was 39 percent positive, 32 percent negative, and 29 percent neutral, the researchers found. Obama’s coverage was 18 percent positive, 34 percent negative, and 34 percent neutral. That means Romney’s depiction by the media was more than twice as positive as the president’s. So much for liberal bias.

Funny how that works.  The media is relentlessly blase' about the President's accomplishments if not outright hostile towards him, while they are in love with Mitt Romney.  But please, let's continue to blame the President for not talking up his accomplishments more and not using the bully pulpit, when the media either doesn't care or is openly disdainful of the man.

StupidiNews!

• Five states go to the polls for all but meaningless primaries today as Mitt Romney wraps up his campaign and moves to the general election.
• A number of major media companies are lobbying against an FCC rule that would require media owners to post political ad revenue data on the net.
• President Obama announced yet another round of sanctions against Iran and Syria, this time involving communications and internet technology.
• The Social Security fund will run out in 2035, but the government will continue to draw from general expenditures if Congress fails to do anything.
• Central Mexico's most famous volcano, Mt. Popocatépetl, has seen the most seismic activity in 40 years, venting gases now for nearly two weeks.