Thomas Hunt

So..., what's next? The unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.1% in August, but there's little reason to cheer. Despite the "look" of the declining unemployment figure, the monthly report contains bad news and worse news. The bad news is the meager 96,000 jobs created during the month. While most expected August numbers to decline a bit, analysts were predicting something like 120,000 jobs created. With just 96,000 jobs, the unemployment rate should have gone up. About 150,000 jobs a month need to be added just to keep pace with working-age population growth. The worse news is the reason the unemployment rate dropped. Many Americans - about 368,000 of them - simply stopped looking for work in August. The bulk of those who dropped out of the job market are young people, aged 16-24. We cannot attribute the decline to students heading back to school (as much as we might like to), because the statistics factor in those seasonal changes. This is a strong indicator that...

The Obama Administration has finally released the recipes of the first documented home-brews produced in the White House. Now, I'm wondering if this is a subject that will come up at Presidential news conferences: "Mr. President, if an American citizen resides in an area with hard water, should he or she omit the gypsum from your home-brew recipe?" "Mr. President, it is difficult for many Americans to acquire White House honey. Can you tell us if the bees that make it are exposed to clover and dandelion or are they confined to the rose garden?"

Kids' first day of school. Though I am in a celebratory mood, no party is planned here. The occasion requires a very different approach. I'm thinking about a quiet moment with a mug of tea (toast would be far too noisy), a quiet uninterrupted shower, some quiet editing followed by some quiet research on the computer or maybe I'll do book-based research today to avoid all that noisy mouse-clicking, then a nice quiet walk around the property with the dog (when the bees and birds aren't too loud), a bit of quiet work on the house and some lengthy daydreams about the virtues of boarding school. Basically... quiet. I have formulated a contingency plan if non-quiet situations occur. If, for example, the phone should happen to ring or one of the kids' diabolical electronic noise-making devices should happen to squawk, I intend to toss it out into the middle of Route 30 and immediately erase the incident from my mind. (Just noticed kitty preparing to meow and then t...

Living here in our old* Vermont farmhouse has provided unique exercise opportunities. Each morning, I get up and take a long walk up and down and across several significant hills, and that's just to get from the bedroom to the bathroom. Yes, the interior terrain has been challenging. When we first moved in, I noticed that I was rolling out of bed in the morning far too literally. So we moved the furniture against different walls. Now, I can't get to sleep because I fear the bureau falling on me. (And the recliner doesn't seem to recline nearly as far as it used to, though setting it upright performs a useful dumping feature for the occupant). Of course, I'm exaggerating a little here. There are hills and valleys in our old wood floors. But they're nowhere near as bad as some of the homes we considered buying. One house actually came with several sets of alpine gear to help you get from the kitchen to the dining room. (* - The building is "old" by our...

George W. Romney (father of Mitt Romney) released twelve (12) years of tax returns when he ran against Richard Nixon for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1967-68. He was believed to be the first candidate to release that amount of personal financial data. The UPI reported at the time, "Many presidential candidates in the past have disclosed their net assets, stock holdings and other financial data which might relate to the public trust. But Gov. Romney was believed the first to make his income tax returns public - including his annual wages, dividends, interest, capital gains and other compensation." The article mentioned that George Harris, senior editor of Look magazine, asked to see Romney's latest tax filing. Romney hesitated, saying, "One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show..." Romney then shocked Harris by compiling and releasing all the 1040 forms he and his wife had filed for the past twelve years, including the period of time in w...

Recently tried the Vermont version of the "beef on weck" sandwich. I had been seeing it on restaurant menus around the area, and I had always been curious about the Buffalo, New York, creation. A few days ago, I could resist no more and placed my order for "beef on weck," drawing curious looks from my companions. The sandwich was good, but I suspect the original western New York version is substantially more flavorful and more... well... damp.  There was little in the way of salt/caraway seed crusting on the alleged-kummelweck roll (caraway is the "kummel" portion of the German kummelweck roll recipe). The mound of roast beef was more medium than the traditional rare. That was actually a relief, as there was no cow blood spurting from my meal, but it was not entirely authentic. Rather than dunk the top of  the roll in beef juices, as apparently called for in the original Buffalo version, the Vermont sandwich was served with au jus on the side.  A pi...

Got a solution to the Celsius-Fahrenheit thing. You're probably aware that the war over conflicting temperature scales has been raging for the past 270 years or so. Well, I'm putting a stop to it here and now. Celsius forces gradually have taken over much of the world (most of the conquest was achieved while they called themselves Centigraders, but we knew what they really were). The United States and fellow former British colonies the Cayman Islands and Belize are the remaining bastions of Fahrenheitism. The solution to the dispute is fairly simple. I'll walk you through it: Now, let's first agree that it would be stupid to drop °F for °C, because °F is a far more precise measurement. There are almost two Fahrenheit degrees for every Celsius degree. It frankly makes no sense to move from our slender, exact Fahrenheit degrees to fat, clumsy Celsius degrees. All those countries that have already done so are simply dumb. (Sorry. I know the truth hurts sometimes...