Worst June for Dow since 1930

And they don’t give away those “worst June” prizes away liberally, either. You gotta really earn that, and believe you me the Dow Jones really busted its ass to have the worst June in nearly eighty years.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) tumbled 358.41 points, or 3%, to 11, 453.42, leaving it down nearly 1,200 points, or 9.4%, for the month, with two trading days yet to go. As things stand, the month is the worst June so far since 1930 when the index declined 17.72%.

“It was the middle of March that the Bear Stearns debacle became public, sending the Dow to a low of 11,731. That level was broken within the first minute of trading today,” wrote Kathy Lien, chief strategist of DailyFX.com.

All of the Dow’s 30 components closed in negative territory.

Crude for August delivery reached a high of $140.39 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. The contract closed at a record $139.64 on the New York mercantile Exchange, up $5.09, or 3.8%, for the session after trading as high as $140. .

“One thing is for certain, if crude continues to rally, stocks are dead,” said Dale Doelling, chief market technician at Trends In Commodities.

“If stocks have another day like this tomorrow, then the fallout next week could include government intervention in the markets,” said Doelling.

Sha-zam. But remember, the economy’s done GREAT under Bush and the GOP rule, way better than it ever did under Clinton and the Democrats’ bullshit tax-and-spend policies.

Obama has more than half of Clinton’s supporters.

You know, there shouldn’t BE a rift in the Democratic party, and half of Clinton’s supporters isn’t an accomplishment. I don’t even blame Hillary, she’s stumping for Obama for all she’s worth. What I don’t get is why her damn supporters won’t follow.

Deal with NK over nuclear capabilities

One of these days, I swear I’ll find a way to reconcile the double standard we have vis a vis North Korea and Iran.

Anyway, Bush has agreed to take North Korea off of the list of state sponsors of terror in exchange for their transparency in their nuclear program. Additionally, they’ll get some trade sanctions lifted.

Bush said the declaration showed the effectiveness of diplomacy.

“Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue. North Korea should seize this moment of opportunity to restore its relationship with the international community,” Bush said at a news conference.

Hey, did you catch that? Hold on, let me make it a little bigger.

“Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue.”

That’s a direct quote from George W Bush.

Let me ask you a question. Pretend you’re Iran right now. We all know that the Iranians and others pay close attention to American politics. What do you think their response would be? Is that a motivation to stop pursuing nuclear technology, perhaps weapons? Or is it encouragement to get a small arsenal of nukes, and then use them as leverage to get some concessions from the Americans?

That seems to be the lesson. If we don’t like you and you’re nowhere near nuclear capabilities, we invade you. If we don’t like you and you’re well on the way, we use sanctions and the threat of military involvement. If we don’t like you and you HAVE nukes, we play nice and give you things.

Antonin Scalia is talented (re: handgun ban)

Sometimes I look at the right/left divide in the United States and wonder why we can’t find any common ground. There’s no way, if you were to make a list of 100 issues, that liberals would be categorically on one side and conservatives on the other.

That’s true, but as Antonin Scalia demonstrates in his statement regarding the handgun ban, even when I agree with these guys they manage to make it douchey enough that I want to smack them in the head. Yes, banning handguns is a bad idea. This?

“Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem,” Scalia wrote. “That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

To semi-quote Jon Stewart, why you gotta end it kinda dickish? No one thinks the 2nd amendment is outmoded, at least no one away from the 0.5% fringe on the extreme extreme left. People have the right to keep and bear arms, it’s in the damn thing, whether we think it’s outmoded or not hardly matters anyway.

What drives me crazy is this argument that any, ANY, regulation or lawmaking concerning what weapons people are allowed to have is an infringement on our 2nd Amendment rights. I’m not even paying attention to the first part of it concerning militias, because my reading of it says that is the reason for the right, not the path through which we get it.

The “gimme an assault rifle and ten bazookas” crowd takes the interpretation that limiting the weaponry people can have in any way is unconstitutional. The problem is that if you interpret it that way, then all kinds of things would be unconstitutional. Censorship, public indecency laws, requiring people to get permission before protesting, all these things would violate the 1st amendment.

Don’t even get me started on the 4th. The same people who argue against a “liberal interpretation” of the 2nd amendment seem to love a liberal interpretation of the 4th, arguing that wiretapping isn’t really a search or seizure, amongst other things.

But back to the main point: I agree that a handgun ban is dumb, but dammit Scalia, why ya gotta be a dick about it?