As Mark noted on Noonan For Nevada, the real unemployment rate actually increased in March.

Now, if we are in a recovery as the experts say, then its ok to guess that 81,000 jobs were created on top of the 81,000 you know about.  But if we’re not in a recovery, then the guess is nonsense and unemployment is actually higher than the numbers suggest.  Given that what the BLS calls the “U-6” number of unemployed was 17.3% in December, 16.5% in January, 16.8% in February and 16.9% in Mrach, I think we can see something other than an economic recovery.

What is the “U-6″?  That is everyone who isn’t working – official unemployed, partially employed and workers who given up because there simply are no jobs to be had.  This figure has been steadily rising since the drop between December and January and seems to be marching back towards the 17.9% peak of February, 2009.

During the Bush years, as the unemployment rate kept going down toward 4% and jobs kept getting added to the economy month after month, Democrats kept trying to find ways to write off the numbers as bogus. They weren’t “real jobs” they said, they were McJobs, “low-paying, low-prestige job that requires few skills.” Meanwhile, as the unemployment rate went into double digits under Obama, they’re telling us bad is news is good news. Go figure. Now that we have an actual problem with under-employment, the “McJobs” talking point has yet to be made. But then again, Obama desperately needs to prove that the stimulus actually worked.

Wizbang explains why the government jobs added to the economy last month are not exactly worth getting excited about:

out of those 162,000 new jobs, 39,000 were directly attributable to the census hiring binge and another 80,000 were government jobs. Taking away those major components of the report, probably only 40,000 net new private sector jobs were created and it is those jobs that pave the way to recovery. Voters understand this, which explains why the President’s job approval numbers continues to deteriorate.

We saw a direct connection between the Bush tax cuts and unemployment going down, yet Obama’s stimulus is struggling to produce tangible results. The legislation Obama said would keep unemployment below 8 percent has us teetering around 10 percent right now.

As millions are still out of work, Obama can try to claim victory in fixing the economy, but there’s not much there worth taking credit for is it? A massive infusion of government jobs won’t help the economy. Government jobs need our tax dollars in order to fund them. With a new health care mandate and other tax increases coming, don’t expect the private sector to be adding the jobs needed to bring us back the low unemployment rate we had under Bush.

Fans of Ferris’s first novel will certainly find this novel to be very different. While Then We Came To The End was a workplace satire, The Unnamed is dark, as it deals with the mysterious affliction of a lawyer named Tim Farnsworth. Tim suffers from an unexplainable condition tha causes him to get up and walk… and just keep going and going until he collapses in exhaustion. This problem has doctors baffled, and causes incredible strain on his family and career.

Ferris effectively captures the struggle of the main character, who not only struggles with symptoms of the disease but with the lack of a diagnosis or explanation. Tim is not much different from Captain Ahab, in Moby Dick, obsessed with catching the white whale, or Dr. Frankenstein who obsesses over killing the monster he created.  The disease is slowley destroying the comfortable life he worked hard for. and that struggle certainly leaves the reader as anxious for the answer as Tim Farnsworth is. In that sense, the book is a hard one to get through in the same way that such classics as Moby Dick and Frankenstein were hard to get through.

Fans of Ferris certainly should not be expecting the same kind of dark comedy they got from Then We Came To The End, Though different, The Unnamed still has the mark of Ferris which should be recogzinable to those familiar with his work.

The Unnamed is an enjoyable read, perhaps not as fun as his first novel, but worth reading whether you are a fan of Ferris or haven’t read him yet.

I love Apple products. I have an iPhone. I have a MacBook Pro. What I was hoping was that Apple would create a keyboard-less MacBook with a touchscreen. Intsead, they created a jumbo-sized iPhone. Frankly, that’s not what I want.

Thinking about it for a while, I’ve put together a list of things that the iPad needed to be to tempt me to get one.

• Native Mac OS X with the ability to run iPhone Apps. What use is a portable device that big if it doesn’t have the ability to function like a laptop first and foremost?
• Dvorak Simplified Keyboard support. As a Dvorak typist, this was probably the biggest deal-breaker of them alll. Nothing in the features or specs says anything about Dvorak keyboard support. I can’t type QWERTY anymore, and lord knows I ain’t switching back, especially for the iPad.
• Syncing capability with a primary Mac computer. The size of a tablet device limits the amount of onboard memory it can have, so why not be able to specify through iTunes, what applications you want to run on the iPad and be able to sync as required? And not only that, but sync specified folders either through iTunes or MobileMe so you can work on files on the road, but they can be updated automatically, or through sycing, back on you main computer?
• Bluetooth. I didn’t see this listed, so, nuts to that.
• Tether capabities with the iPhone, and no extra data plan required.

Is that so hard? I don’t think so. Maybe Apple will develop an actual tablet computer sometime.. but for now, the iPad is not something I need when I already have an iPhone and a MacBook Pro.

THE UNNAMED, Joshua Ferris – I read Ferris’s debut novel THEN WE CAME TO THE END a couple years ago and enjoyed it, and have been looking forward to reading his second, which comes out in January 2010.

THE FINANCIAL LIVES OP POETS, Jess Walter - This book is highly recommended by Nick Hornby, my favorite author, and I actually purchased it before learning about that because I was

EMPIRE FALLS, Richard Russo - My boss recommended this book, and I bought it.

PLAN B, jonathan Tropper - Last year I read three of Tropper’s novels, and have two more. This one is his debut novel (the first one I read was his new one, THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU) which I started, but didn’t finish. After this one is done, I move onto EVERYTHING CHANGES.

HOW WE ARE HUNGRY, Dave Eggers - I’ve been looking to read Dave Eggers for a while, and figure this collection of short fiction is a god place to start.

IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN I STOP,  Joe Pernice - Another book with high marks from Nick Hornby. I plan to get a copy at some point this year and read it.

There are other books on my shelf I hope to read this year as well, but the aforementioned books are higher priority reads. Of course, there are bound to be new releases that I am not aware of that I’ll want to read and give high priority to, but for now, this is my short list of must reads for 2010… in actuality, I’ll read more.

Not on the list is James Patterson, whose novels used to be absolute must-reads, but have now became When-I-Can-Get-To-Them books. Once a devoted fan of his Alex Cross series, I’ve felt his recent books of that series to be lazy and less developed as the early books of the series. The Maximum Ride series started off great, but after the second one, they took a horrible turn for the worst. A new book of the Alex Cross series (which i haven’t read yet) came out last year and a new one of  the Women’s Murder Club series coming out this year, so I’ll probably take a chance on them.

Looks like I should have gone.

Folds also shared a pair of songs from a new album in progress, which will feature lyrics by novelist and established music geek Nick Hornby. One of these, a tale about a fictional aging rock star who had a hit in the ’70s called “Belinda” and can’t stand singing it every night for the memories it dredges up, was fantastically clever.

Oh well. I guess I’ll wait for the Folds/Hornby album to come out next year, which will hopefully be promoted in part with another tour. In the meantime, I’ll settle for listening to the Foldsby demos that hit the internet.

Regrets aside, Hornby’s collaboration with Ben Folds has brought me to rediscover Folds’ music (old and new) which will probably start occupying my iTunes Library in increasing numbers.

To some, this might qualify me as one of the 12 most annoying types of Facebook users… The “Friend-Padder”:

The Friend-Padder. The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. Schmoozers and social butterflies — you know, the ones who make lifelong pals on the subway — might reasonably have 300 or 400. But 1,000 “friends?” Unless you’re George Clooney or just won the lottery, no one has that many. That’s just showing off.

Okay, I don’t have 1,000. But, I can admit that I am near the point where some migt say I am a Friend-Padder… and I don’t like it.

Admittedly, I first joined Facebook with the intention of networking in anticipation of the release of my first book. But now, various changes in the way Facebook operates, and the explosion of users makes my news feed full of mundane details of people I have no idea who they are, why I added them, or why they requested me in the first place.

This explosion of non-friend Facebook friends is intolerable when you have so many people who could qualify as one or more of the top 12 most annoying Facebook users, such as “The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore” and “The Self-Promoter.” Yeah, I don’t need all that. I like Facebook for keeping in touch with people that I’d otherwise have a hard time keeping in touch with. I also do like to have the potential to network. But, I don’t need to keep in touch with people I have never heard of or never met, and I don’t need to network with every single person in politics.

Of course, I know I am partly to blame. My past desire to use Facebook as a networking tool, and the fact that I am a blogger with national readership puts me in a position where I receive 100 or so friend requests from people I have never heard of every 30-60 days. I used to accept them quite liberally, because “that’s what Facebook is for… networking.”

Yes, I still want to use it for that purpose, but for crying out loud I need to establish some guidelines that will determine whose request gets accepted or ignored. Here they are so far.

I am not going accept friend requests from people I don’t know (or haven’t met)

• just because we have 100+ mutual friends
• just because we share the same or similar political view

I will accept a friend requests from people

• I have met at least once or know
• have worked with in some fashion at one point or another
• they are candidates for political office in races that interest me.
• they are a fellow blogger I have heard of or read or worked with.
• I believe there is advantage to networking with that person.

These guidelines are subject to change, be it additions, subtractions, or revisions.

According to the rules of this exercise,

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose.

(To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the note – upper right hand side).

In no particular order…

1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
2. A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
3. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
4. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
5. High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
6. Planet of the Apes, by Pierre Boulle
7. Visions of the Anointed, by Thomas Sowell
8. 1984, by George Orwell
9. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
10. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
11. Slam. by Nick Hornby
12. The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick
13. Kiss The Girls, by James Patterson
14. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
15. Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen

To be honest, I don’t entirely understand what a book that “will always stick with you” means… Is it a book that if you grab if you ran out of your burning house? Is it a book that just left an impression on you? Whatever it means, I did the best I could to come up with books that “stick with me.” though I imagine there are some that may not always appear on this list if I was asked to do this exercise on a different occasion. Kiss The Girls by James Patterson for instance, may not be my favorite of his novels, but it was the first one I read, and began many years of reading and collecting his books. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley may not be a favorite book either, mut boy did it leave an impression on me.

I found the plot to be intriguing, and thus decided to take chance on starting with Tropper’s newest, rather than going chronologically. I must say that not only did I find the book enjoyable, but I have since got audiobooks of two other Tropper novels (The Book of Joe, and How to Talk To A Widower) which I vill listen to while I am flying to and from Hawaii for my honeymoon in two weeks. If all goes well (and I have every reason to believe it will) I will read his other two novels when I return.

I am not too worried. I believe Jonathan Tropper will be another author permanently on my radar.

It was ironic to read a book about superfandom, considering my enthusiasm for Hornby’s writing — which some might perceive as superfandom, though by no means to the degree of the character Duncan in the novel, who gets an advance copy of a yet to be released album of solo acoustic demos of a reclusive 80’s rock star’s last & most famous album. I, unable (or unwilling) to wait until the end of September for the book to be published, got my hands on an advance readers copy (ARC) and read the book in one evening. I rather impressive feat for me. The last book I read in one evening was James Patterson’s Cat & Mouse, back in 1997. I started Juliet, Naked around 6 pm. I finished it around 1 am.

It is hard to say how the book ranks if I were to generate a top 5 list of hornby’s novels. It usually takes me a while to fully absorb a Hornby novel. I didn’t fully appreciate Slam (another book I got prior to publication) until months after I read an advance copy. So, perhaps anything I say about Juliet, Naked now, within 48 hours if finishing it, would be premature. It is hard, after years of built up anticipation, to give a novel proper, objective assessment. The two extreme responses are (a) built up anticipation results in extreme disappointment or (b) extreme desire to love something I have waited so long for ruins any objectivity, in favor of convincing myself that Hornby met or exceeded expectation. Such a problem isn’t present when you’re not dealing with your favorite contemporary author.

Perhaps both extremes are present and are canceling each other out. Nevertheless, this review today with most certainly need to be supplemented by a follow up review closer to the books publication, when I’ll also be more comfortable referencing details of the book. In a sense, this review won’t be so much a review, but a primer for a review, with some of my initial thoughts.

There are lots of Nick Hornby fans waiting for Juliet, Naked to be released. I can safely assure them that the book won’t disappoint them. It’s classic Nick Hornby, delving into obsession, loneliness in a way that Hornby’s fans love and new Hornby readers will appreciate.

How does Juliet, Naked rank compared to other Hornby novels. If I were to create a Top 5 list (which excludes Slam, with the understanding that Siam is technically a different genre) than here is where my list stands.

1. A Long Way Down
2. High Fidelity
3. Juliet, Naked
4. About A Boy
5. How To Be Good

There is a lot a Hornby fan can read into this list. For one thing, High Fidelity is not #1, but A Long Way Down is. High Fidelity is a common favorite of Hornby fans (and especially the one’s who think of the novel before they think of the movie) and, from what I’ve seen, A Long Way Down is one the least favored. For reasons hard to explain, A Long Way Down is slightly more favored than High Fidelity, (an indecisive me would have given them shared first place status) and thus, when I met Nick Hornby at a book signing a couple years ago, I chose A Long Way Down for him to sign. These two books, nevertheless, are hard to beat, so, Juliet’s third place showing is actually nothing to scoff at. It is hard to compete with novels that, for years, have grown to mean a lot more to me than they did even after I first finished them.

That said, it is important to note that Juliet, Naked has all the qualities I love about Hornby’s writing, There are many levels one can appreciate Juliet, Naked… I’ve only just begun.

Until September…