Predictions and Precursors:

• ADP’s Employment Report came in yesterday at 150,000 new nonfarm private payroll jobs.
• The consensus (here) is that about 125,000 new jobs were created in June, and that the current unemployment rate of 4.5% would stay the same.

The Report (to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET; BLS release is here):

• Unemployment — 4.5%, unchanged
• New Establishment Survey Jobs — +132,000
• Revisions to previous months — May, +33,000 (from 157,000 to 190,000); April, +42,000 (from 80,000 to 122,000).
• Net change in new jobs, including revisions to prior months — +207,000 (132 + 33 + 42)
• Change in number of people working per the Household Survey — +310,000.

Quick Thoughts:

June’s number was decent. When combined with pretty significant prior month revisions and no change in the overall unemployment rate, you have the picture of an employment market growing nicely but not spectacularly. I would guess that the stock market will shrug this news off and react more strongly to other news.

Media Commentary:

This AP report will probably be typical of what gets reported during the day. Its repeated reference to the “sluggish economy” of the past year is unfortunately somewhat defensible (GDP has grown 2.0% in the past four quarters; I think “mediocre” is a better word), and will be until second quarter GDP, which I believe will come in at 3.0% or more, is released later this month.

The Ohiosphere’s equilibrium is in better balance, as Bill Sloat has been back to blogging at The Daily Bellwether for about a week after a too-long hiatus.

His return piece was a troubling one about a planned Ohio state agency-sponsored Wilmington-area conference that will feature a speaker discussing “the right of psychiatric patients to take their own lives. Arguments for and against rational suicide will be explored.” Yikes.

A couple of days ago, showing that he’s better off blogging, ex-Plain Dealer reporter Sloat delivered a richly-deserved riposte to ex-colleague Mrs. Sherrod Brown, aka Connie “The World Revolves around Me and the PeeDee” Schultz.

This post at another blog shows that Mrs. Brown aka Connie/MeMe Schultz apparently expects a heads-up before anyone she knows writes anything about her. You’ve got to be kidding.

Update: In a post this morning, Sloat refers to a passage in the book about how Mrs. Brown’s/Schultz’s features editor strongly encouraged her to support her husband’s contemplated Senate run (”this country needs him to run”). I think the really revealing sentence is this one:

Look who you’ve been fighting for your entire career. That’s who he’ll be running for, and they will vote for him and he can win.

Note the use of the word “career,” and not “life.” It’s clear that the PeeDee-ers involved here see themselves in their jobs as societal change agents and not reporters of the news. I am so not surprised.

___________________________________

A new development in the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation mess, namely the indictment of Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, led Matt at RAB to get around to something I’ve been meaning to get to — the demonstrably false notion that it was a Republican scandal. Further evidence that ex-PDer Bill Sloat is better off blogging is that PD Openers blogger Mark Rollenhagen managed to write over 600 words without mentioning the (of course) Democratic Party affiliation of Forbes and at least four others involved — while making sure to note Tom Noe’s GOP ties.

The Blade went one better than the PeeDee. Though it noted Forbes’ party, James Drew and Steve Eder wasted a paragraph implying guilt-by-association between former Cleveland Councilman Forbes and George Voinovich, the mayor of Cleveland ….. over 18 years ago.

More substantively, this Columbus Dispatch piece from June 15 noted the indictment of investment adviser Mark Lay. After nearly two years, the Dispatch’s Mark Niquette finally tells readers that “although coin dealer Thomas W. Noe has had most of the headlines, the MDL investment loss is nearly 16 times what Noe was convicted of stealing.” Of course, Niquette didn’t mention Lay’s record as a Dem Party contributor, even though Don Luskin did back in 2005. Thanks, Mark — Now you can say, “See, see, I reported the loss.” Zheesh. But Niquette really didn’t get it right this time either, because Noe stole a portion of the roughly $13 million involved, and lost the rest by poorly investing it.

Even more substantively, while Noe’s conviction got national coverage, the Forbes and Lay indictments have received only scant coverage (Forbes; Lay) in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Lay is/was based, very little coverage elsewhere, and a couple of mentions in “major” Old Media organs — one of them the UK Guardian.

Most substantively, the state would be better off privatizing workers’ comp, as all but a few states, none of which have fallen into the ocean, have.

Update: Cornell McCleary at American-Experience has thoughts on Forbes’ fall and the betrayal of the real civil-rights movement by it leaders — and promises more elaboration down the road.

___________________________________

The State of Ohio data thefts (it was a month before the one linked to was known), computer crashes, and laptop losses keep on coming.

___________________________________

Well, excuse me for breathing and living. Does this not tie into the beliefs of so many enviros and globalarmists that there are too many humans (noted and quoted previously here, here, and here), and that a few billion of us need to volunteer to die?

___________________________________

Speaking of enviros, globalarmists, and their globaloney — There’s “scepticism” on the part of the public, which “believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested.” Further, “There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money.”

Well, those who think we’re all a bunch of deluded fools could start by explaining this — if they can.

The good professor, who is black, is his usual brilliant self in his latest Towhall column:

Are white people obsessed with and engaged in a conspiracy against black people? I’m guessing no, and here’s an experiment. Walk up to the average white person and ask: How many minutes today have you been thinking about a black person? If the person wasn’t a Klansman or a gushing do-gooder, his answer would probably be zero minutes. If you asked him whether he’s a part of a conspiracy to undermine the welfare of black people, he’d probably look at you as if you were crazy.

By the same token, if you asked me: “Williams, how many minutes today have you been thinking about white people?” I’d probably say, “You’d have to break the time interval down into smaller units, like nanoseconds, for me to give an accurate answer.” Because people don’t care about you one way or another doesn’t mean they wish you good will, ill will or no will.

….. A major implication is that one’s destiny, for the most part, is in his hands. In other words, how you make it in this world, for the most part, depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. In order to produce a successful life, one must find ways to please his fellow man. That is, find out what goods and services his fellow man values, and is willing to pay for, and then acquire the necessary skills and education to provide it. Whether your fellow man cares about you or not is largely irrelevant.

For those tempted to characterize the above as an advocacy of indifference, note that Williams did NOT say “Whether or not YOU care about your fellow man is largely irrelevant.” He also didn’t say that “hiring the government through your taxes (or very often, someone else’s higher taxes) to do the caring for you lets you off the hook.”

From Colorado Springs, Colorado:

Reported by Christina Salvo
(Aired 6-27-07)

As a kid the tallest things Sean Swarmer ever climbed were a couple trees.  Now Swarmer can say he’s climbed the tallest peak on not one continent, but all seven.

A journey that started 5 years ago with Mt. Everest and ended June 18th with the summit of Denali. Swarmer is now one of only five people to ever complete this challenge.

Understanding why Swarmer climbs and why his journey has taken him much higher than any record book can show means understanding the mountains Swarmer climbed before ever stepping foot on a mountain.

13-years-old going in for a lay up in basketball and my knee just broke and all my joints in my body swelled up, said Swarmer.  Soon after he was diagnosed with advanced stage-four Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Swarmer said “doctors gave me 3-4 months to live at 13-14 years old.”

Swarmer beat the odds only to be diagnosed for a second time this time with Askins sarcoma.

Go here for the rest of the story. Swarmer has a web site here.