Wake Up And Smell the Coffee

Well the question is when is everybody going to wake up and smell the coffee and realize this economy really is picking up.  Unemployment claims were down to 375,000 and they say anything below 400,000 is good and the unemployment rate itself is expected to dip tomorrow according to Randy Rhodes.  New car sales are up 325,000 which is the best since 2008.  At the current rate of decline in the unemployment rate there is no reason to believe we won't be below eight percent by June.  Sales are up ten percent in the past year.  This is a good thing.  Our exports as a nation are second in the world.  Apparently we have gone from 800 Billion dollars from the bottom of the recession to 1.2 Trillion dollars now.  Of course most job gains have been in the private production sector, which should make the republicans happy.  However we are reminded by Jerry Brown's actions today in California that government cuts are still being made and layoffs in government are continuing.  However the government may reassess as the economy continues to improve. We as Americans can be proud of this and that we do actually produce things here.  I’m not going to write these things to Dr. Levy in a letter because I’m afraid he’ll be among the ones saying it’s all just a vast media conspiracy to make President Obama look good.  But nobody is advocating that we have either a totalitarian or a socialist nation.  President Obama in actuality has been the best friend big business could have.  As Randy Rhodes put it, what we want is Keynsian regulated Capitalism.  Even Ronald Reagan’s success can be attributed to successfully employing Keynsianism.  There are also ample recorded instances of Ronald Reagan comprimizing and back-tracking from his own positions in the name of functional expediency.  There are films where Reagan urged both the closing of business loopholes and raising the debt ceiling.  If Santorum’s grandfather came here from Italy they he knew that Italy in 1925 was the farthest thing from a - - socialist country.  It’s even likely that if Santorum’s grandfather was a coal miner, then he was the member of a labor union, something I don’t believe you’d be able to join had he stayed in Italy.  Santorum should really get his terms correct.  I know people get caught up in emotions defending their own side.  This is a human reality that psychologists alert us too all of the time - - but the thing is when someone gets into a habit of lapsing into inaccurate statements, it’s a habit that only tends to grow with the passage of time, and eventually it catches up with you.  (Selah)

In terms of this whole Santorum fetus tragedy it is really a case where they had an unwanted death of a fetus.  Santorum’s wife was deathly ill and the doctors told her that her fetus was infected and had to be aborted because if it wasn’t, the infected fetus would spread to the mother’s whole body and kill her.  I didn’t know that the Santorum family was another of these “fetus in a jar” cases.  I don’t know what customs they have in other parts of the country but it’s certainly strange behavior around here.  Santorum and wife made young children as young as two and four touch the dead fetus and say good-bye to it.  And they transported it to their grandmother’s where they held a funeral ceremony for the fetus.  I fear is this story becomes general knowledge, which it probably already is, that it won’t bode well for Santorum’s Presidential chances.  Liberal New Hampshire is a real test of metal for any republican candidate and Santorum is no exception.  I’m sure everybody has already written off Mitt Romney as the winner of New Hampshire.  So South Carolina will be the next real battle ground.  The only thing is here it will be Mitt Romney facing three conservatives,  Santorum, Gingrich and Perry, all splitting the conservative vote.  We don’t know if Romney made any slightly shady deals with Perry about staying in the race.  We know that Perry was ready to quit the race Tuesday but after he went back to Texas and he was talked out of it, presumably by Big Money.  But I don’t see why Santorum can’t just say to Gingrich, “Look, I got more of the votes in Iowa but you are the better candidate so for the sake of the Party and our chances this year, I’m bowing out of the race and endorsing you”.  After all Mitt Romney reached an accord with John Mc Cain.  Some are skeptical of that partnership but none the less it’s a reality, and a major leg up for Romney.  At some point somewhere there is going to have to be a major tide in actual votes for some candidate other than Romney, is Romney is to be denied.

President Obama announced his new and slimmed down defense budget today. However one must do a reality check here and keep in mind that US defense spending actually is greater than the next top ten spenders.  Of course we should have that peace dividend now that the Iraq war has been brought to a successful conclusion and the Afghan war is winding down.  The idea of not being able to conduct two simotanious ground wars at once is understandably considered too risky to even contemplate, for some.  There will also be an according cut back in the troops that the military will need, which means more troops will be seeing their last assignments and coming home soon.  Also the President wants to bring the military into the 21^st tentury with modern fighting practices, which will no doubt include things like improved killer drones and perhaps lasers.  Someone pointed out that virtually every speech at the Iowa caucus meetings was kicked off not by talk of unemployment or the debt, but rather the professed hopes for some war with Iran.  People wouldn’t even be thinking in terms of starting a new war if they didn’t think we had the money.  At least that’s what Randy Rhodes says.  Personally I don’t thinks candidates should talk too much about what they either will or won’t do in Iran.  I don’t see why the enemy should be tipped off.  Santorum says the President should have supported the democratic movement in Iran in June of 2009 because they are the good guys.  But Santorum also says that we should have opposed the democratic movements in Egypt because Muberek is our trusted ally and the leaders of the democratic movement are stealth pawns for the Moslem Brotherhood, or some such thing.

Dick Chaney made a deal with these oil frackers in Ohio because tword the end of his Vice Presidential term Chaney issued an executive order allowing industrial poisons such as hexane and benzine to be used as "lubricants" to be pumped into the ground to facilitate natural gas extraction.  Formerly these substances had to be eliminated in high heat furnaces but this costs a lot more money.  Clearly the climate in the nation now is to allow energy production under riskier circumstances because we are in such desperate need of domestic energy.  The problem here of course is pollution, such as tap water catching fire.  Nonetheless natural gas production should continue to rise domestically, exerting a downward force on energy prices generally.

Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the auto imune system attacking its own muscles.  Women tend to sudder from this disease more than do men.  But now to do MRI's and other extensive research there is considerable more hope of being cured today than there was.  They FDA has recently approved eight new drugs for the treatment of this disease.  One woman was blind in one eye and highly impaired and after taking one of these new drugs, experianced an amazing turn-around and is much more functional.

Here are three animal stories.  One cat was euthanized in one of these chambers where they pump the air out- - twice.  And yet the car survived and was rubbing up against one of the attendents in perhaps misplaced gratitude.  There was a horse who fell into a pit and there was despair of it getting out, but the horse mustered up all of its strength and made it.  And there was a dog named "ghetto" that was owned by a family in Downey, California.  Somehow it escaped and made it all the way to Merina Del Ray, and the family saw the dog on TV and of course stepped forward to claim it.

I am blogging this tonight because my mother board may be going completely out.  In two previous boots the keyboard driver failed to load, and it most likely will happen with increased frequency, if I can get the driver to load at all.  So if I’m going to E mail anybody with any last minute messages it better be today.  Because the day of my getting a new computer seem to almost be continually put off, on a regular basis.  I will be watching the Saturday night Republican debate, of course.  Perhaps Newt Gingrich will explain to us just what these horrible lies are that Romney is alleged to have told in these attack adds.  We would all like to be informed.   On the radio they say that Mitt Romney has faced increasingly hostile crowds, who don’t like his economic message.  To answer Romney’s question, there are now eleven countries with a greater per capita income than the United States.  However I will say in Romney’s defense that most European nations are just slightly below the United States in per capita income.  Back in 1992 during the Rodney King riots, French people marveled that in this country ghetto people live better than middle class Frenchmen.  If you’ve seen “The Tennant” you know what I mean, where you have to use a common bathroom down the hall.  I guess what a lot of us are just saying is that the United States is a blessed nation, but we can still do better.  It’s the nature of human beings to have rising expectations.  Not to have expectations of a better future could indeed be seen as a sign of poor mental health.  Sometimes I worry about my own mental health.  I too by necessity need to think in positive terms.  Some say that 2012 will be some kind of a pivotal crisis year for the United States that may well determine our direction and destiny for decades to come.