Mark Twain said there are lies, damn lies and statistics and his adage applies to unemployment measurement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six unemployment metrics monthly, each referred to in ascending order of inclusiveness of the unemployed as U-1, U-2, etc.

The measure reported by the media as the unemployment rate that severely undercounts the unemployed is referred to as U-3. The U-3 rate is obtained by dividing the narrowest definition of the unemployed by the work force.
The U-3 definition does not include whom the BLS calls discouraged and marginal workers, those who want a job but have given up the search because market conditions and personal experience indicate the process is futile.

U-6 Unemployment counts the marginal and discouraged plus those seeking full time employment but can only find part time work. The Federal Reserve tracks what it defines as the Augmented Unemployment rate, which I’ve read is equivalent to U-6 less part time workers. I couldn’t find any Augmented Unemployment releases on the Fed site and despite major data inclusion differences, some bloggers have used U-6 and the Fed’s stat interchangeably.

The Staten Island Democratic Association, the Island’s progressive Democratic club, hosted a forum for candidates seeking to fill the late John Lavelle’s vacant North Shore 61st State Assembly District seat Thursday night at the American Grill, which was packed with onlookers and 11 office seekers.

There will be no primary. A relatively small cabal of County Committee members residing in the 61st AD will decide who gets the nomination. I moved to the 61st AD from the 63rd 2 days after Election Day. I was supposed to have been appointed to the County Committee back in June, but somehow I was never officially added, so I may be not be part of the cabal making the nominating decision.

Most Staten Island democrats live in the borough’s North Shore and those aspiring to run for office representing that part of the Island typically have to wait in line for a chance to do so. This is why 11 people at the forum sought the nomination, while there may be no Democratic candidate to contest Council special election winner Vincent Ignizio’s newly vacant South Shore Assembly seat, if his opponent Manny Innamorato doesn’t seek to represent the heavily Republican South Shore in Albany.

This should be muy, muy fun.

The man who slapped down Sue Kelly for not wanting to debate John Hall has requested our presence in his show. Yes people : Richard French of RNN's Real Live Politics wants to have me and other notables share their insight about 2006's highs (and lows) in New York politics and what we forsee for the new year.

I have a good idea where to start. I will be pulling out links to our most excellent stash of posts for 2006 --and boy do we have embarrasment of riches in our archives.

At random I can think of my calling first Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency after she hired Peter Daou. We also called here Havesi's win and eventual resgination. How about our stellar coverage of CD-11?

I still want to hear from you. What do you think are the highs and lows of politics in New York state? And what do you see in your crystal ball?

Oh and by the way, if you want to enjoy French at his snarkiest, we've got it after the jump.

Newspapers are blasting the NAMBLA republicans.

The New York Times:

History suggests that once a political party achieves sweeping power, it will only be a matter of time before the power becomes the entire point. Policy, ideology, ethics all gradually fall away, replaced by a political machine that exists to win elections and dispense the goodies that come as a result. The only surprise in Washington now is that the Congressional Republicans managed to reach that point of decayed purpose so thoroughly, so fast.

That House leaders knew Representative Mark Foley had been sending inappropriate e-mail to Capitol pages and did little about it is terrible. It is also the latest in a long, depressing pattern: When there is a choice between the right thing to do and the easiest route to perpetuation of power, top Republicans always pick wrong.

The Washington Post:

Even when damage control seems a lost cause, I suppose you have to follow the playbook. So Mark Foley resigns his House seat in a nanosecond, then explains those creepy electronic messages to young congressional pages by declaring himself an alcoholic, effectively blaming it all on demon rum. House Speaker Dennis Hastert promptly calls for a really thorough -- meaning really slow -- investigation. The rest of the Republican leadership declares itself shocked and/or saddened, but agrees that the time has come to move on, folks, nothing to see here.

How do you know that Team Hillary is definitely planning a run for 2008? When James Carville starts writing Op-Eds that make the threadbare case that she can be elected.

Carville's case is essentially this: Hillary got elected in 2000 to the Senate despite objections from the naysayers; some of her polling numbers are not catastrophic; she has a net positive rating of 54%-42%; having been through the right-wing slime treatment for over a decade, nothing they can say, supposedly, will stick; and besides, those people who like her really, really like her.

Wake up, James (if I may call you that). It ain't so.

Hillary got elected in 2000 because of four factors: her willingness to work very hard for it, her own glamour as First Lady, her luck in having a weak opponent, and because New York is a blue state, at the time a blue state still angry over impeachment. For a sitting First Lady, especially this one, to get elected against a completely unknown junior Congressman in this state is not illustrative of anything. Whatever naysayers there were, not that I can really recall any, were at best marginal; after all, Rangel and Moynihan recruited her.

With regard to her polling numbers, show me one poll that shows a majority of the electorate willing to vote for her. Just one. No, polls from your own outfit, Democracy Corps, don't count. Then, I'll show you a whole series of polls that show a majority saying they wouldn't vote for her if her opponent was Satan incarnate.

Lisa Stone is one of the goddesses of the web. One of the founders of Women.com, she is part of the web's first-wavers; the people who helped shape this thing we call life online. She is also at the vanguard of the web 2.0 as a founder of BlogHer.

She is one of the sharpest people I have had the pleasure to work with --I am on BlogHer's advisory board. She brings her experience as business developer, social networker and technologist to everything she does.

Which is why, not until I read this on her blog did it occur to me that I had "Instalaunched" the New York Times and given them the opportunity to truly build their blog into a must-read by its own merit and not just because it is another extension of their brand :

[via Surfette: Remember "Step 1: No more rookie maneuvers"? Here's how NYTD can avoid delivering Exhibit C.]:

Here's what the NYTD team should do next: Pick door number 1 (above), declare success and work with your blog community. Liza has done you a favor. You've been hoping to recruit Liza's feedback and her readers and you did. Now email all the speakers at the Personal Democracy Forum happening in your neck of the woods on May 15 and ask them to help you test the blog. A blog does not stand alone -- anymore than one talks with one's self, if one wishes to continue charging premium ad rates. So partner with other bloggers to work out the kinks -- if you know what I mean, and I think after covering your competition's "free form editorial experiments," that you do.

Whatever you do, don't ignore Sabater's advice -- she's probably right, given some of the sensitivities at your organization, that she shouldn't have been able to log in and post just yet. Don't fail to take advantage of the fact that she has instalaunched your new blog. Don't, whatever you do, shut the thing down. Looks like the community might be as interested in this project as you are.

Guess what people ... I am one of those speakers at Personal Democracy Forum. And guess what mama's gonna talk about ...

The Rising Power of Local Political Blogs
Monday 15 May | 10 - 11 am
Nancy Scola (moderator), Aldon Hynes, Juan Melli, Scott Sala, Liza Sabater, Gur Tsabar

I am officially bumped out of the blog. I hope this is only temporary, until they formally invite me and most of the local bloggers on their blogroll, to come in as guest bloggers.

Yes. I think they ought to bring me into their blog. Me, the one who has been their most outspoken critic here in New York City. Why? Because that would show they've at least flipped the pages of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

I would give them real street cred to hire a real blogger, and not just a journo who types into a WordPress panel. It would show they have the moxie to acknowledge non-journos as not just content providers but media influencers. I for one are in that rare category of top blogger that didn't get here because some political party or big media company backed me up. I am the real deal as high-profile grassroots media disrupters go.

So hey Grey Lady! The ball is on your court now.

Related entries :
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[via Blauxg Pas Redux | The Daily Gotham]

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[via It was fun while it lasted | The Daily Gotham]

Oooooooops!

Guess which little local newspaper is creating a New York politics blog?

Now guess who got into their blog last night, just as easy as signing in through their WordPress login page?

And guess who is now an approved writer of said blog?

This is an excerpt of the message I left the development team at said "still-in-development" blog :

(Hat tip to The (now sadly Ben-less) Politicker )

It’s a slap in the face to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to take up the debate on whether to give people who are in this country illegally additional rights when we haven’t even given the people who are here legally all of their rights.[...]

Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the LGBT civil rights movement, which has not yet realized all of its goals.

The above are excerpts from The Advocate, making what I perceive to be an argument that is fundamentally flawed on several levels.

The Nation, discussing this piece, quotes Audre Lourde: "There is no hierarchy of oppressions".

True enough. Civil rights are no more the zero-sum game posited by The Advocate than they are a sequence, with dispossessed group B waiting until group A has achieved the fullness of citizenship. Rather, over the course of our common history as Americans, we have moved, in fits and spurts, to expand the full participation in our common citizenship ever wider. Frankly, considering the status of black Americans – of whom perhaps a third, overwhelmingly male, is still disenfranchised in parts of the Old Confederacy – I'd argue that there is still quite a bit of work to do until we can claim to have equality among the races. Under The Advocate's own argument, the LGBT movement is not at the front of the line it claims others need to get to the back of.

The issue of illegal immigration is thorny, no matter how you look at it. Our government – last I checked, controlled by republicans – has largely acquiesced to illegal immigration for a long time, by turning a blind eye to it. You can't throw a deli bagel in this town without hitting an illegal – Mexican, Polish, Israeli, Russian, and so on. The issue of what status to accord illegals is one that should be approached with due regard for both the law and our common humanity, with perhaps a dose of recognition that we find undocumented workers rather useful. The same regard for the law and common humanity should guide our society when discussing the citizenship of gay and lesbian Americans.

I understand the frustration of LGBT activists – I can't marry my partner either. But our struggle is not going to be advanced by relegating others to the back of the bus; not as long as we're all on the same bus.

"This is a blog for the majority of Americans".

Those were the opening words of the first posting on a new blog the Washington post inaugurated this week, Red America. And with those words began a saga, told at Internet speed, which quickly moved from the personal into archetype.

The story itself is quickly told; Domenech, a 24-year old blogger, Bush administration appointee, founder of redstate.com (which is the rather feeble attempt by the right to emulate Daily Kos), was hired by a Washington Post unnerved by accusations of liberalism directed at one of its own bloggers, Dan Froomkin. Froomkin writes the Post's well-regarded White House Briefing, a widely read and occasionally scathing daily examination of the Bush White House. The liberal blogosphere took up this particular gauntlet very quickly, went into Domenech's past writings, and discovered examples of blatant, offensive stupidity – "Coretta Scott King is a communist" – and more seriously, of outright plagiarism, which in turn led to his "resignation", as these things are politely called when an exit is unavoidable and all parties concerned scramble to try and save whatever face they still can.

In this abbreviated story lie several narratives that progressives need to examine.