ABC News reported this week that President Barack Obama’s budget contains bleak assumptions about the continued future joblessness rate of the United States of America to which he brought so much hope a little over a year ago. Pres. Obama doesn’t think the unemployment rate will return to its relatively low 2007 level (the first year of the Democratic Congress) within the next decade. It is expected to remain at the 10 percent level through 2010. (This means the Democrats can expect a big hurt in November. Americans can handle a lot of things, but the feeling of uselessness that comes with being unemployed is not one of them. The Democrats may be about to get screwed by their own liberal rhetoric about self-esteem. But I digress.) great expectations All this lowering expectations and bleak forecasting inspired me to go back and dig up Pres. Obama’s acceptance speech from the night of Nov. 4, 2008. It’s very interesting, if not a little heartbreaking, to reread. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” -- Where are the possibilities? Where is the dream of the founders? I know way too many people whose possibilities are much fewer and farther between now than they were on Nov.4, 2008. Was this the president’s dream? To have a nation filled with people who have simply given up the chance to find work because those normally in a position to employ are too gripped with fear to risk their capital? “It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.” -- When has there ever been a greater sense of cynicism, fear, and doubt in the United States of America than right now? Is anyone in this country really confident that he will not lose his job as a result of this recession? Is there anyone who is hopeful about where this country is going? Ask any liberal Democrat what it was that drove 52 percent of voters in Massachusetts to vote a Republican into “Ted Kennedy’s seat” and I imagine you’ll hear something like cynicism, fear, and doubt. Only now, it’s cynicism, fear and doubt about Washington – and yes, the man who runs it. “…above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.” -- Most people, I would wager, could care less about whatever victory or defeat belongs to them so long as they have a job. And it’s precisely a job that does not belong to too many people these days. “There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.” – Finally he mentions jobs, but in what context? Right after the “new energy” – meaning so-called “green” energy – that he wants to harness. For Obama, it’s not just about clearing the way so you can have the job you want, or even so you can have any job (as most people these days who don’t have a job would pretty much take whatever offer they could get). It’s about Obama commanding and controlling the energy market and you into the kind of job that he wants you to have. “Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.” – But what have we been hearing about in the press and from the Administration itself for months now? Talk of a “jobless recovery,” which is defined by what Pres. Obama described. It’s downright prophetic. Stocks and economic indicators are going up, but ordinary people still don’t have work. I would suggest that a “jobless recovery” is no recovery at all. the hardest hit It turns out that the hardest hit sectors of the economic downturn, the ones still losing jobs, have been in construction, transportation and warehousing. Not too surprising. If I’m an investor, why would I want to risk my capital on a new building when the President of the United States is publicly supporting a bill to clamp down on emissions for stationary as well as mobile sources, and the Environmental Protection Agency has decided it wants to regulate carbon? This country thrived for years on the strength of its manufacturing sector. We built things that you can hold and sit on and use and drive around in. But these now are sacrificed to – to what? Limit our carbon output that actually turns out to be good for trees? The average duration of unemployment has hit a new record in January. The average unemployed worker has now been unemployed for 30.2 weeks. There are over 6 million Americans who have been unemployed for over 27 weeks. The preseident campaigned on hope. Today, it seems like all too many are living on hope against hope.

proof that i am a geek This past Sunday I bought a brand-spanking new, totally kickass laptop. It's got a 13.3-inch screen, which means it is just barely bigger than one of those "netbooks" that Derek Zoolander would probably love, yet as powerful as an actual laptop. It's extremely light weight, at less than four pounds, and it runs quite beautifully. But what am I most excited about with my brand-spanking new toy? Is it the really fast internet? The great Windows 7 interface? The easiest portability that I've ever enjoyed with a personal computer? The gobs of memory? Nope. What am I most excited about? Two words: Chess Titans. If you click on the "Start" menu, then "All Programs," then "Games," you will find a list of the classics: Solitaire, Minesweeper etc. But also on the list is a game not included in my old laptop (which now serves as my desktop). Chess Titans is basically chess, with solid graphics and an interface that includes statistics to record how well or poorly you've done (wins, losses, and draws). But there were a couple of problems I had with the game that infuriated me when I first started playing it. On the good side, the game has flexible levels of difficulty. You can set it on a scale of 1 to 10 -- 10 being "You must be Bobby Fischer" and 1 being "Just how badly do you suck at this game?" So I thought I'd go easy on myself and set it to 2, knowing that computers are notoriously evil chess players. Ask me how well I did. Yeah, the computer beat the TAR out of me. I whipped out my time-honored, unbeatable strategy to ensure the annihilation of my opponent (which, obviously, I will not articulate here), and the computer revealed to me that it's actually pretty dumb. Thanks PC! After a couple of embarrassing fails, I decided I was more interested in the experience of victory than in actually being good enough to deserve it. I set the difficulty level to 1. I was overjoyed to find that setting the difficulty level to 1 actually renders the computer quite inept. I laid waste to the PC king's defenses with relative ease and only moderate damage to my own army. The PC's queen would, in a most strategically indefensible fashion, place herself in direct harm's way, allowing my rook to pounce. My pawns would cross the board and become new queens. Before long the PC's king would be all alone, on the run from a rook and two queens. We would back him just about into a corner, I could smell victory! And then, a little window popped up, offering me the option to "End Game" or "Try Again." "Umm," I said, "I think I'd prefer to just kill the king and be done with it, if it's all the same." Puzzled, I read the little blurb below the strange draconian choice. "This game will be counted as a draw in your statistics." Que? Say what?? A DRAW?!? I've got the PC's king peeing all over himself. Another move and he'll be begging for death! What is this bulloney? I tried playing again. Once was frustrating enough. Three more times decimating the king's army and being cut off from sweet ultimate triumph by my computerized opponent, and I was about to do something very fiscally irresponsible with my new investment. But instead of chunking my precious new toy over the side of my loft, I decided to google "chess titans checkmate." Sure enough, I found an entry called, "Chess Titans: The Cheating Computer." Naturally I clicked on it. And I proceeded to learn something that I never knew about the game of chess. Turns out, the computer was not cheating. The games really were ending in a draw, even though the PC's king was running for his pathetic life and my army remained strong and my king untouchable. How is this possible? Well, it turns out, if you get your opponent's king into a situation where he is not presently in check, but any move he makes will result in his being in check, then the game is a draw. End of story. In order to keep the game going, you have to actually put the king in check when you move your piece, OR you have to give him some space to which he can move without checing himself. Did you know this? Cuz I sure didn't know this. I always thought if you get the king in a spot where he couldn't go anywhere without putting himself in immediate harm's way, that was checkmate. But what do I know. I play the easiest skill level of chess the computer will allow. The computer is basically saying, "Ordinarily I would smash you. But because you have asked me to be an idiot, I will pretend that I cannot (and will not at this very moment) think 3,000 steps ahead of you, calculating every best possible move I can make in response to every incompetent move you can squeeze out of that pathetic cerebrum of yours. I will even condescend to let you to systematically take my pieces and send my King running for his life. You're welcome."