Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread (MOT)
We're known as the MOTley Crew and you can find us here every morning at 6:30 Eastern. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanently or just once in awhile. With the auto-publish feature you can set it and forget it. Sometimes the diarist du jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments. You can click on the Morning Open Thread "heart" if you'd like us to show up in your stream every day.
Doing one of these diaries is a good way to get your feet wet if you have been hesitant about writing a diary. You can write as much or as little as you want. The audience here is always supportive.
We have an exciting announcement to make MOTley Crew!
Science Tidbits is moving to new quarters on the intertubes beginnning Monday, January 2nd. Morning Open Thread will have a regular series following the original Science Tidbits format along with the chit and chat already found in MOT. Come join the fun for education, entertainment, and overall expansion of the DKos feeling of community.
Thanks to eeff for the brilliant idea and the "behind the scenes" hard work that convinced diarist possum to merge his Science Tidbits with MOT Monday.
Our new line up will look like this:
Monday possum (Science Tidbits)
Tuesday Fiddlegirl
Wednesday gulfgal
Thursday eeff
Friday JaxDem
Saturday eeff
Sunday JaxDem
Please keep in mind that we'd still love for others to step up and take a day anytime. In fact, some of you have expressed an interest in a once a month or once every few weeks basis. If any of you fall into that category we could set aside one day per week and you guys can work it out among yourselves on who does which week.
For my final TGIF of this year, I thought I would focus on the "Thank" in TGIF. Here are a few things from the year that we can certainly toast.
Our world may not seem it, but it is getting more peaceful. According to data compiled by researchers Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the number of war deaths in this new millennium has averaged 55,000/year which is half the rate of the 90's, one-third the rate during the Cold War and one hundredth the rate during World War II.
The troops are home from Iraq. At it's peak, about 160,000 were posted in Iraq. Not one American troop was in Iraq over the holidays.
We are seeing an upturn in our economy. 1.4 million jobs have been created this year and the unemployment rate has dropped from 9.4% at last year's end to 8.6% in November 2011. The jobless rate declined last month in 43 states. We are still some 6 million jobs below the peak employment level prior to the 2008 meltdown, but these gains are nothing to sneer at given all the GOP obstacles hurled our way.
America's importing of oil has dropped from more than 12 million barrels per day in 2005 to 8.8 million today making us less dependent on imports from unstable or unfriendly nations. Most of the oil imports are now coming from Canada and Mexico! This is one #1 spot we're happy to give up.
The Auto Industry has surged back from near death. Chrysler and GM have mostly paid back their bailout loans. All three manufacturers posted healthy profits in the third quarter and in a shocker, Detroit went from making cars no one wanted to creating vehicles that surpassed Japanese models, outperforming them in JD Power ratings for the first time ever.
Violent crime in the U.S. declined 6.5% last year despite the economic hardships facing Americans. The FBI statistics show a continued decline in violence that began decades ago and has be uninterrupted since 2006. In addition, Canada's murder rate reached a 44 year low and gun crime in Scotland fell to a 32 year low.
There's plenty of good news out there, good news and good people doing good things. Sex and sleeze seems to always grab the headlines, but that's enough about Newt...
Enjoy your final TGIF of the year my friends.