jobsanger Is Now 14 Years Old

With the election and all the Coronavirus news, I forgot something. This blog turned 14 a couple of days ago (on March 16th).

In those 14 years, I have made over 34,000 posts and the blog (according to Google) has received over 8.9 million page views.

I want to thank my readers for keeping me going, and assure you that I have no plans to quit. Things are still very interesting to me.

I think year #15 is going to be a very interesting one.

This Blog Is 12 Years Old Today

On March 16th of 2006, I wrote my first post on this blog. That means that today marks the 12th blogiversary for jobsanger. During that time, I have posted over 28,400 times and the blog has received more than 6.6 million page views. That's a far cry from the early days when I was thrilled to see 20 people had read me on a single day.

I want to thank the readers of this blog -- both those who comment from time to time and those who don't. I sincerely appreciate your readership. You keep me energized and wanting to continue.

I still enjoy writing this blog -- on both the good days and the bad days. And I plan to keep on going. I look forward to the blog becoming a teenager next year.

Do You Like It ?

Regular readers of this blog will notice that I am now using a new font (Josefin Sans). I think it is clearer and easier to read -- but I would love to hear your opinion of it. Is it better?

This Blog Is Now 11 Years Old!

I've been so busy that I let jobsanger's blog anniversary slip by me. A couple of days ago this blog was officially 11 years old (the first post being on March 16, 2006). I have posted 25,073 times, and the blog has garnered 5,724,133 page views.

I want to thank all of those who read this blog. You people are special to me. And I want to assure you that I have plenty more to say, so I plan on this blog becoming much older.

Comments

Here is an example of some of the comments I get on this blog:

I remember a certain overt hypocrite named Ted Wants A Secret (And Authoritarian) Democratic Party too. Kill yourself, what is taking so long you piece of shit coward? That is the best thing you can do since you divided progressives with your self serving BULLSHIT and show you have no conscience or soul TO YOUR OWN SHORT-SIGHTED POLITICAL HACKERY. And you still try to act like you KNOW what the fuck is going on and what people need to hear. DIE SCUMBAG HORRIBLY AND PAINFULLY. You deserve nothing less you sorry excuse for a human. 

PATHOLOGICAL.....while true of trump VERY TRUE OF TED McLAUGHLIN. PERFECT example as a matter of fact. YET YOU ARE FAR TOO STUPID TO EVER REALIZE IT YOURSELF. And far FAR too arrogant to ever take heed from anyone especially online.....as you expect the world to do so to you from your so FULL OF SHIT soapbox any loser with free time, a computer, and no life does. 

Texas should, this from the political hack who said Texas might be blue for November 2016 election SHOWING YOU SELDOM LEAVE YOUR APARTMENT, KNOW VERY FEW PEOPLE, ARE FAR TOO ARROGANT TO BOTHER ACTUALLY ASKING BEFORE ASSUMING INCORRECTLY, THEN POSTING IT TO PROGRESSIVES MANIPULATING THEM INTO A PHONY COMFORT ZONE THAT AFFECTS ELECTIONS. Seriously die. 

You might think these are from a right-wing trumpista troll. Not True. They are from a California supporter of Bernie Sanders. They started during the primaries because he(?) was upset that I supported the nomination of Hillary Clinton -- and he has continued them for months (even though I delete them and none appear in the comments section).

I admit that I was a bit naive before the last campaign. I had thought that progressives were on a higher plane than the teabagger types on the right, and that progressives could disagree without stooping to insults and threats. I guess I was wrong. It seems that some progressives simply can't understand someone not agreeing with everything they say (or that their favorite candidate says) -- and they're perfectly willing to resort to teabagger tactics to enforce their views.

Progressives are normally thinking people, and thinking people will disagree from time to time. I think that is our strength. We don't get our views from the top. We develop them ourselves and discuss them among ourselves. Sadly though, there are some among us who would apply a "purity" test to progressivism and to the Democratic Party. They would do to us what the teabaggers have done to the Republican Party -- turn us into rigid, unthinking, extremists.

Aren't we better than that?

Moving Time Has Arrived

The time has arrived for my move from Amarillo to Austin. For the next few days, I will be packing, transporting, and unpacking all of my possessions.

That means I will not have the time (or the internet connection) to keep up with this blog. I have made some pre-scheduled posts so the blog will not go dark over the next few days -- but I will not be able to make new posts or to moderate the comments.

I hope to be unpacked and have a new internet connection by the 9th or 10th, and will eagerly resume regular posting at that time.

Let me make one thing clear. I am not leaving because of any ill feelings about Amarillo. That city has been good to me and my family, and I've made lots of wonderful friends there. Despite the redness of its politics, Amarillo is not a bad city to live in.

But an opportunity presented itself in Austin that simply could not be turned down. I know I will quickly fall in love with Austin and make good friends there also -- and I promise to do my part to "Keep Austin Weird".

Another Blog Milestone

Over 5 million pageviews.

Tooting My Own Horn

As of 6:45pm (CST) yesterday, this blog had received over 4,000,000 page views (according to Google). That's a pretty good landmark for a small one-person blog. I want to thank the readers of this blog. You are all wonderful!

Another Milestone For This Blog

While I wasn't paying attention, it seems that jobsanger passed the 3 million mark in page views. I'm kind of proud of that. It's not too bad for a small one-person blog in the Texas Panhandle. I remember when I started the blog I was thrilled to see 20 people had read it in a day. Onward to 4 million now!

jobsanger Is 10 Years Old Today

(This image is from pl.dreamstime.com.)

Today marks the 10th anniversary of this blog. I wrote my first post on March 16th of 2006. In that 10 years I have posted 21,700 times, and have gotten over 2.93 million page views. And I have you readers to thank for that. I want you to know that I appreciate each and every one of you for continuing to read (even when I make you mad).

Now I start on my second 10 years, and I still have a lot to say.

Plumbing Problems

I apologize for the light posting today, but we had some plumbing problems and our apartment was completely flooded -- so I just didn't have time. Hope to get those problems fixed soon!

A Note To "Anonymous" Commenters

I have tried to make it clear to anyone wanting to comment on this blog (and I do love comments, whether you agree or disagree with me) that I will delete all comments that come from "anonymous". I say that both on this page, and on the comments page. But every now and then I still get comments from "anonymous", and I delete them.

Recently I got a comment from one of these anonymous commenters that called me a coward for not posting anonymous comments. I found that to be very humorous. I give readers my honest opinion, and I always attach my real name to anything I have to say. You may not agree with what I have to say (and that is OK), but you know exactly who is saying it. To me, a person who is too ashamed or too afraid to put their name (or at least an internet pseudonym) to their comment is the real coward. After all, how hard is it to create and use an internet pseudonym?

Why do I not have a problem with a pseudonym? I understand that some people might wish to keep their real name off the internet. Using a pseudonym though allows me to distinguish a valid comment from spam (most of which is sent as "anonymous"). It also lets other readers (and me) know where the person is coming from -- by connecting that pseudonym to other comments made using it on this blog, or similar blogs.

Why do I moderate comments and delete those from "anonymous"? The main reason is to give me an easy way to eliminate spam. As I said, most spammers comment as "anonymous", and I don't have the time or desire to wade through all comments to figure out which are spam and which are not. And I admit that I don't feel too bad that this also eliminates the comments of a few people too afraid to even use a pseudonym -- people who cannot follow simple instructions (and are usually trolls anyway).

Anonymous commenters may not like my guidelines for commenting -- but this is my blog, and that's the way it is, both now and in the future.

NOTE -- This post is only meant to pertain to people wishing to comment anonymously on this blog -- and should not be construed to include the organization called ANONYMOUS (which I have a great deal of respect for).

(The image above is from the website screened.com.)

jobsanger Tops 2,000,000 Pageviews

jobsanger

 2000009 pageviews - 15719 posts, last published on May 12, 2014

Google / Blogger tells me that this blog passed the 2,000,000 mark last night shortly after midnight. That doesn't make me one of the "big boys" like Daily Kos or Huffington Post, but it is a landmark I'm kind of proud of. I want to thank all of my readers for helping me to accomplish this. Now, let's see how long it takes to get to 3,000,000.

jobsanger Is 8 Years Old Today !

The first post written for this blog was on March 16, 2006 -- which means this blog is now eight years old. It wasn't a great post, but it started me down this road and I've now posted over 15,240 different blog entries.

Google tells me that jobsanger has had more than 1.923 million page views. I was hoping to get to 2 million before this eighth blogiversary, but it didn't quite get there. Of course, that figure doesn't include this blog's posts reposted on other sites -- such as Best of the Blogs, Paperblog, The Rag Blog, or passed on to other publications through NewsTex.

Those figures fall far short of making me one of the "big" blogs, but it exceeds the wildest dreams of what I thought I might accomplish when I wrote that first post. And for that, I want to thank all of my readers. Whether you're a commenter, a regular reader, or just drop by once in a while, I sincerely appreciate it. You make this endeavor both worthwhile, and a lot of fun.

I still feel like I have a lot more to say, so I plan to continue to blog -- hopefully for a few more years. And I will do so without accepting any paid advertisements, so you can be sure you are getting my honest opinion (and not something I was paid to say).

Once again, thanks for reading this blog -- and I hope reading it makes you as happy as it makes me to write it.

(The image of the cake with 8 candles above is from acidstorytime.)

A Class War Exists - And Is Justified

(The image to the left is from Down With Tyranny.)

My fellow Texas blogger, timjoad, over at Free Market Socialist doesn't blog real often, but when he does it is well worth reading. His latest post is on his realization that class warfare is real -- and justified. I thought it was an excellent post, and I repost it here in an effort to give it a little wider readership. Here is what he says:

For years, I wanted to believe class warfare was not a reality in America. That every American child was born with the same opportunity, and that one could get ahead simply with a determined work effort.

I'd like to thank the Republicans for setting me straight on that.

See, I've seen a lot of Americans struggle through to put food on the table. Long hours, poor working conditions, and bosses who essentially threaten them with their jobs if they make too much noise about it. I've seen labor laws openly flouted on a routine basis, with bosses backing down only for the employees with the knowledge to stand up. I've seen those same employees fired for suspicious reasons when they communicated to their coworkers the rights that they did have.

And the whole tradeoff to working those jobs was the imaginary ladder that would somehow get you to the top, to a place where you could stop working second and third jobs and envision a comfortable retirement.

But as the economy has gone cold, I've seen many families with dual two income earners in the household. Their lives revolve around work, and leisure is an unimaginable luxury. They've dug a debt hole so deep to fill society's expectations of what they should have that they will never dig out. Fully 25% of Americans will never realize a positive net worth, and it's reasonable to expect that number to grow.

But where the rubber hit the road on this one was the last election, when GOP contempt for these individuals became clear. They weren't talking about families living on welfare benefits, they're talking about the working poor, who they continue to portray as "parasites" and "victims". These people who spend their lives on a treadmill are being told that THEY are the problem with America, and that if we would only tax them more and the wealthy less, everyone's lives would be better. This while Republicans continue to fight tooth and nail against increases in minimum wage (an intellectual dishonesty on their part, as the longer they continue to pay the same wage, the lower that wage becomes in real dollars; that's Economics 101).

Somewhere along the way, I realized I couldn't be a part of that. I was being ordered to betray the people I know who've worked so hard just to get by, in defense of a Republican ideal that deems the wealthy to be good and the poor to be bad, and reinforces it through societal fairy tales.

Make no mistake about it: what's going on right now IS class warfare. And the stakes are exceedingly high. But don't confuse yourself with who fired the first shot.

Blaming The Poor Is Denying The Truth

(The image to the left is Pablo Picasso's "Poor People on the Seashore".)

The Republicans have been telling us a lie for quite a while now -- that poor people are responsible for our economic troubles. They would have us believe that the poor are just too lazy to work, and are living high off the hog on taxpayer money. That is far from the truth.

The sad fact is that the United States is the stingiest developed country in aid to the poor. We give so little help to the poor that it's a miracle that any of them are able to dig themselves out of poverty. It seems like we hate the poor, and don't believe they deserve our help (in spite of the fact that many claim this is a christian country).

Fellow blogger Marc McDonald, who writes the excellent blog BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, wrote a very good post on this issue a couple of weeks ago. He says:

In America, we hate the poor. We really, really hate the poor. We are indoctrinated from birth to hate the poor. Jesus may have said, "Blessed are you who are poor." But America has no time for that Jesus. Our motto is "Screw the poor."

As a result, America has never been big on social welfare programs for the poor. Even during the peak years of U.S. social program spending (during LBJ's "Great Society" years), America had a skimpy social safety net, compared to other industrialized nations.

Compared to generous European social safety nets, America these days more closely resembles the likes of Mexico than a modern First World industrialized nation. Jobless benefits, for example, are far more meager and stingy in the U.S. than they are in Europe. In fact, for one reason or another, millions of Americans don't even ever qualify for jobless benefits. (I know: I was one of them. Years ago, I applied for jobless benefits and was turned down).

The other pillar of the U.S. social safety net, food stamps, is also very meager. I recall recently playing around with the food stamp eligibility program on a Texas state government Web site. I was curious as to exactly how low one's income had to be in order to qualify. I kept plugging in lower and lower income numbers and kept getting a response page that said, "You earn too much to qualify for food stamps." Eventually, I concluded the Web site must be broken. It was only later that I discovered, much to my amazement, that the Web site was in fact working just fine and the Third World-like wages I'd plugged into the search form were indeed considered too high to qualify for aid.

In short, in America these days, if you're poor, you are screwed. The fact is, many low-income and poor people never even qualify for any type of aid. And the shocking numbers of homeless in the U.S. demonstrates that our social safety net is grotesquely inadequate to meet the needs of the needy. The fact that one in five children lives in poverty is a good indicator of that.

In fact, what meager social safety net programs that are around only exist because corporate America wants them to exist (a good indicator of just how corrupt our government is these days).

Take food stamps for example. This program simply wouldn't exist were it not for the likes of Walmart. Since Walmart (a vastly profitable mega-billion-dollar corporation) can't be bothered to pay their workers a living wage, we the taxpayer in effect subsidize their wages via food stamps, (as well as other programs like Medicaid).

Give corporate America credit: they do know how to exploit a situation to boost their profits.

Despite all this, today's Republican Party is convinced that the reason America is going broke is that we supposedly fund all these lavish, generous social safety net programs. Indeed, the likes of Rush Limbaugh constantly ramble on about "trillions of dollars" that are supposedly spent on welfare. The typical Limbaugh listener these days is convinced that America is going broke because of "excessive welfare spending" and "lavish foreign aid."

It's all a lie, of course.

That's only part of his post. I urge you to go over to his site and read the whole thing.

Nate Silver Returning To First Love - Sports

In the last election, one of the best resources for political junkies like me, was the excellent blog of Nate Silver -- FiveThirtyEight.com (carried by the New York Times). Silver turned out to be the most accurate of all the political prognosticators. He was also a valuable resource in examining the accuracy of the many political polls that were issued.

But Mr. Silver is now ending his relationship with the New York Times. When his contract ends in August, he will take his blog to ESPN. Silver started his career as a sports prognosticator (especially in baseball), and this move means he will be returning to that.

This is a big coup for ESPN, and I'm sure that the blog will be loved by sports fans. I just hope that Silver is not completely giving up his political prognosticating. The elections of 2014 and 2016 will just not be the same without the opinions and skills of Mr. Silver. It will be much harder to wade through the mass of political polling without his expert guidance.

Oops! Forgot My Seventh Blogiversary

Well, this is embarrassing. This blog turned seven years old over a week ago -- on March 16th. And for the first time I forgot to mark the occasion on that date. I hope that's just a sign that I'm so used to blogging that such an anniversary means less now, and is not a sign of approaching senility. Either way, I'm not inclined to make a big deal of it this year. I just want to say that I've still got the passion to blog and hope to continue doing it for many more years. But most important, I want to say how deeply I appreciate you readers who choose to spend some time with me -- whether daily or occasionally. I hope you will continue to find something of value here every now and then.

I'm Flattered (But Doubtful)

42. Frances Martel, Mediaite

43. Tom Curry, NBC

44. Terry Canaan, Griper News

45. Ted McLaughlin, Jobsanger

46. Greg Sargent, The Washington Post

47. Miguel A. Corona

48. Jorge Rivas, Colorlines

49. Gregory Siskind, Visilaw International

50. Gabriella Schwarz, CNN

The list above is of the final nine names on a Forbes list of the "Top Online Political Influencers". The list was put together by Forbes contributor Giovanni Rodriguez. Note the number 45 influencer on this list. Yes, that is yours truly. I have to admit I am flattered to be on it at all. Heck, I'm flattered that someone at Forbes even knows that this blog exists. Here's what Mr. Rodriguez said about how he arrived at the names on this list:

First, a bit more information about the people we are tracking. We’ve set up individual “monitor lists” of the top influencers in four categories that we expect will matter to voters this election: jobs and the economy, education, healthcare, and immigration reform (a nod to the Hispanic vote which many are thinking could swing the election, though studies show that Hispanic voter priorities are more aligned around the first three categories). While no list-making algorithm is perfect, we like the depth and complexity of Traackr’s metrics. Traackr’s PeopleSearch engine scours the content of the social web in order to identify the most influential people in any topic, niche or conversation. It identifies and ranks influencers based on the size of their audience, their level of engagement, and, most important, their relevance to the topic in question.  For this project, Traackr helped us identify the keywords defining the most important, hot button topics affecting the election and pulled the top influencers within those conversations.  The keywords will adjust over time, and so will the influencers.

Entitlement - A Dirty Word ?

A few days ago, I posted the graphic above about Social Security. My purpose, of course, was to defend Social Security as an excellent government program that has worked exactly as it was supposed to (keeping millions of elderly Americans from slipping into poverty after their retirement).

But one of my readers called me out on part of what the graphic says -- that Social Security is not an entitlement. The reader said there is nothing wrong with the word "entitlement", and we should stop allowing the right-wing to demonize and redefine words -- making them sound dirty. After giving the matter some thought, I have to say that he is right. There is nothing wrong with feeling entitled to a check from Social Security after paying into the program for most of a person's life.

Here is how that reader, Jayhawk, puts it on his own blog called On My Mind (which I highly recommend):

Liberals (or “progressives”) have espoused a variation of this image, one which goes on to talk about privatization, which is a different subject altogether. At any rate, they are vigorously denying that the Social Security program is an“entitlement.”

One definition of “entitlement” is “a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group,” but there is nothing inherently “dirty” about that, really. In any case, that is a secondary definition, established by common usage fairly recently in historical context and the primary definition is “a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract.” Which is why Social Security absolutelyis an entitlement.

Beneficiaries of the Social Security entered into a contract that for all of their working lives they would pay money into a trust fund and that once they were no longer working they would receive that money back in the form of a retirement stipend. Having upheld their end of the contract, workers are entitled by contract to receive those benefits, and the government is bound by contract to honor their side of the deal and pay the stipend to which the contractees are entitled.

The second statement on that image, about the “problem” of government borrowing from the fund, is a canard. In fact, the trust fund has invested its surplus in the safest place possible anywhere in the world; in US Treasuries. That is not a problem by anyone’s definition of problem, since the investment with the absolute lowest risk of loss world wide is US government debt. No one has ever lost one cent by investing in US Treasuries, so how is that a “problem,”pray tell?

I never can understand why liberals allow the other side not only to define the argument for them, but even to distort the meanings of individual words, and not push back.

Liberals should be standing up and asserting that “entitlement” is not a dirty word; that an entitlement represents an obligation on the part of the US government no less binding than monetary debt. We should be shouting that in making the claims that they do about entitlements, conservatives are demanding the this nation default on its debt as surely as if it were to refuse to pay on bonds due for redemption; that they are demanding that the government refuse to honor contracts made in good faith.

Instead, we accept the premise of the big lie made by conservatives and hunker down in a defensive crouch, whimpering that “Social Security is not an entitlement.”

I don't disagree at all with this. I have paid into the Social Security program since the mid-sixties. I did so because of an agreement with the federal government -- that if I would pay a percentage of my income throughout my working life, then they would provide me with a check during my retirement years. I kept my part of the bargain, and I have the right to expect the government to keep their part of the bargain. I am "entitled" to that.

As Jayhawk says, "entitlement" is not a dirty word. It is just the expectation that a contract will be honored.