HOPE AND CHANGE! Fewer Than 20% of Grads Land Job Offers. (Via NewsAlert).

Possibly related: AP poll: Many students stressed, some depressed.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson writes:

The funny thing about the article you linked is that they don’t mention any of the graduating students majors. Usually that’s the first thing you list when quoting them. So they’re graduating with a 3.8 GPA – if it’s not a marketable field then no company really cares. “I’m an honors grad in Western Lit, I deserve a good job!” Doing what?

I graduated in ’84 from a college in the Pacific NW where the recession had hit especially hard. I had a 3.5 GPA in mathematics with a double minor in computer science and statistics. I started interviewing the first week of school my senior and continually throughout that year, including several site visits where I was flown in to interview. I didn’t get my first job offer until after I had graduated and I didn’t accept/start my first “real” job until September. Today’s grads are experiencing what I went through and if they don’t have a marketable skill they need to think about learning something that is.

Yes. That’s always good advice, really.

HEALTH CARE AND COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS STUDIES: “The FDA used the lightest possible statistical test on a pretty important medication for millions of asthmatics. Do you want Medicare denying your mother a possibly effective treatment for her otherwise terminal cancer with the same kind of test?”

My prediction: Soon it won’t be the same kind of test. It’ll be one that’s deliberately cooked to produce the results that save money. Though there’s some suggestion that in this case, the test was deliberately cooked to produce the result the EPA wanted.

PRAISE FOR OBAMA FROM KARL ROVE: “Barack Obama inherited a set of national-security policies that he rejected during the campaign but now embraces as president. This is a stunning and welcome about-face.”

CHANGE: Jobless number hits record high. Plus, a creepy number: “The total number of people collecting benefits rose to 6.66 million, a record reading for a 16th straight week, and a sign companies are still not hiring.” 6.66 million? That’s like the number of 10,000 beasts or something. Oh nooo. . . . .

PARKING-TICKET FRAUD IN WASHINGTON, D.C. If there’s really a pattern of writing fraudulent tickets in order to raise money — and I’m pretty sure that there is, as I recall watching a D.C. meter maid ticket legally parked cars back in the 1980s, hitting only the ones with non-DC plates — would a civil RICO suit be appropriate?

I once got a ticket in D.C. for “driving through a flashing yellow light.” I won in court with the novel argument that doing that isn’t against the law. But I had to go, and I’m guessing a quota-driven officer was just hoping I’d pay the fine and not show up. The judge did fuss at him some, which was something.

ROGER KIMBALL: Social Security: A Refresher Course.

NO FAVORITISM HERE: Democrats seek financial rescue of minority-owned broadcasters.

ABC NEWS: Four Charged in Alleged Synagogue Bomb Plot to Appear in Court.

FROM GOLDEN STATE to Gitmo State?

CHANGE! Coming to Your Garage: Le Car.

It’s the 1970s all over again! At best . . . .

IS THIS WHERE THE U.S. IS HEADING? S&P Downgrade Sinks U.K. Pound. “Buyers of the pound faced an unexpected reversal of fortunes Thursday, after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s Corp. downgraded its credit-rating outlook for the U.K. to “negative” from ‘stable.'” Upside for Britain — other countries are likely to be downgraded, too. We’ll all fall together, which means none of us will be falling at all! Er, kind of.

DAVID KIRKHAM SENDS THESE PICTURES from yesterday’s Salt Lake City Tea Party. This stuff is already having an effect on the Senate race in Utah.

SHOCKING NEWS: This Just In: U.S. Obesity “Epidemic” Due Solely to Overeating! “So the implied solution seems to be that food industry must be forced to make their products tasteless and unattractive.”

HUFFINGTON POST: Dodd Dinner With Online Payday Lenders Transforms Into Fundraiser. Doesn’t everything, with this guy?

ANN ALTHOUSE:

I’m one of those people that pay the entire balance every month to avoid paying any interest, and being told I’ve been taking a free ride all these years does not soften me up to pay my supposed fair share to support the credit card system. I just won’t use the card if that’s the deal. I’ll switch to a debit card or pay cash.

I’m still waiting to be told how this credit-card plan will stimulate the economy. I have my doubts . . . . Interesting discussion in the comments.

LAST LAUGH: “Why are newspapers dying? Because they damn well deserve to.” I talk to the wind. The wind cannot hear.

THE “OBAMA STRADDLE” — a brilliant success! “Sullivan, after writing for years about the lawlessness of the Bush administration, accepts the Obama military commissions largely because of a change in style. Let me repeat: There’s very little substantive difference here between what Bush did and what Obama is doing.” Yeah, but although Obama says he opposes gay marriage, it’s obvious that he’s lying about that — so everything else he does is basically okay! At least in Sullivanland, which has been increasingly divorced from reality since . . . Bush came out against gay marriage.

Said the straight man, to the late man: Where have you been?

UPDATE: Yes, back-to-back King Crimson references. Full lyrics here. Though I was actually listening to the Kirsty Hawkshaw / Opus III version.

MOE LANE looks at the April fundraising numbers: “Bottom line? For a organization that’s supposedly simultaneously dead, hated, at war with itself, and shrinking, the Republican Party seems to be oddly functional.” Hmm. Well, stay tuned.

WHERE’S MY HOPE AND CHANGE? Fed’s Economic Forecast Worsens.

SOME CIVIL RIGHTS PROGRESS: “Congress has voted to allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. The House today approved the measure, 279-147, one day after the Senate acted.” An overwhelming bipartisan vote!

Plus, SayUncle notes that the Brady Campaign blew it on this one.

TERROR PLOT FOILED IN NEW YORK? FBI, NYPD Arrest 4 in Alleged Plot to Bomb NY Synagogues.

MEDIA MATTERS POINTS OUT THAT Fox’s “tea party-like hyping” of Obama protests at Notre Dame didn’t produce much in the way of results.

Which, you know, undercuts previous dismissals of the Tea Party protests as just a Fox News hype-production, right?

BOB SOMERBY defends Donald Rumsfeld.

ALINSKY LIVES: Just remember that these tactics work both ways, and people on the left — used to having the media cover for them and less used to harsh criticism in private settings — are probably more vulnerable. Wind, whirlwind, and all that . . . .

UPDATE: For pointing out the wages of thuggery, I’m accused of being a “tenured thug.” Double standards abound on the left.

IRAQ BOMBINGS? I THOUGHT THOSE HAD STOPPED BECAUSE EVERYONE LOVES OUR PRESIDENT NOW. Reader Paul Harper writes:

Remember how we used to see snaps of the carnage in Iraq before the election? Well, the Obama loving press has decided Iraq no longer matters. But it gets worse, the right is following the left. Nothing on Drudge, the Telegraph or in the Corner of the horrific bombing that killed more than 30 civilians.

We may be tired about reading about bombing, problem is, the bombers aren’t tired of bombing and don’t look to be anytime soon.

Cost of progress or a sign of a what Iraq will look like without the stability US troops provide?

Hard to say, especially if folks aren’t even aware that the bombings have resumed.

Good point.