The recession is over. This is how I know:

1. Certain product lines that died when things got bad are picking up. Now that we finally have our sales forecast adjusted to a realistic level, it’s too low. Customers are getting exceptionally long lead times for items they waited until the last minute to order. No plan, no components; no components, no tools.
2. After spending about nine months on the ground, as far as work is concerned, I have flown twice within two months’ time. Not for any particularly good reason either time, and especially this last time. The travel restrictions are easing (unofficially).
3. We are hiring. Temporary workers. Just for November and December.

While I don’t seriously beleive that all the world’s troubles are behind us–and might even suggest that nothing is more dangerous than a bomb that hasn’t gone off yet–if you a reporter you may feel free to report this a conclusive absolute proof that we have had a total recovery.

You have sunk pretty low when a popular movie can tell you why what you are doing is a bad idea. In this case, extrapolating a crime from a fact.

A joke is only funny if it contains a little truth.

Actually he is a former car salesman. But he still sells.

Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad? by William Butler Yeats is this week’s poem of the week.

Gene Logsdon blog post titled Kill People But Not Dogs and Cats is this week’s rant of the week.

This week’s essay of the week is an argument for the corrosive influence of inflation on people’s habits. The question is: which is cause and which is effect?

Discussion here.

A truly biblical hail storm.

The irony is overwhelming.

We are doomed because we are unable to learn our lesson.

A scandal. That last part of the article calls out the real scandal.

Computer games cure stroke. Sort of.

See, look… even the troops are saying it: “We have all this technology, and we can’t even find one guy!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7Ha3VDbzE

Watch till the very end… there’s an extra gag after the credits pop up.

CNN’s the target of this expose on news, but if they topple under the barrage there are plenty more in the in the battalion marching alongside them.

H/T American Digest.