Day: July 16, 2009

Is This Economic Good News?

As reported by AP on the newest unemployment figures.

The Labor Department said new applications for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally adjusted 47,000 to 522,000, the lowest level since early January. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected claims to rise to around 575,000.

A department analyst said the drop in new claims didn’t point to improvements in economic conditions. The second straight weekly decline reflected problems adjusting layoffs for temporary shutdowns at General Motors and Chrysler plants to retool for new models.

But then this news was dropped into the report:

The unadjusted figures actually showed that new claims rose by 86,389 last week, which would push the total to 667,534.

That blew a huge hole into the statement that this was the second week in a row with declines.  There are other things that seem to be overlooked when figuring the unemployment stats.  Right now the reports say that we are at 9.5% unemployment, but if you figure in those that are not counted we are not doing so well as 9.5%.  If one figures in the marginally unemployed, temp workers ands those who have ceased looking for a job…the reality is that the unemployment rate would be close to 20%….and that is a real figure not some trumped up stat to make the investors happy.

2009 Anal-Ocity

Just when you had thought that idiots had run their course with moronic statements….BAM!……up pops yet another anal statement that needs to be brought to everyone’s attention.

This one is from a Southern Baptist preacher from Buena Park in California.

On a conservative talk radio show when asked:

“You would like for the president of the United States to die?”

To which Rev. Wylie Drake answered:

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

Is this the type of thinking that you would want from your religious leader?

A Coward’s Way Out

Just when you thought you had heard it all…there will always be a moron….a coward that can prove you wrong.  I read this piece on-line while I was researching another piece.  This is silliness and a waste of valuable time….this person is a COWARD!  And a disgrace to the uniform and the country.

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, set to deploy to Afghanistan, says he shouldn’t have to go.

His reason?

Barack Obama was never eligible to be president because he wasn’t born in the United States.

Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for her client.

In the 20-page document — filed July 8 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — the California-based Taitz asks the court to consider granting his client’s request based upon Cook’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Cook further states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. … simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”

Cook, a reservist, received the orders mobilizing him to active duty on June 9.

This piece of right wing nutiness was proven to be an out right lie…Obama is an American citizen…..I guess they do not get that info on the COWARDS channel.

Take Iraq Out To The Ballgame

This is a heart warming story and at the same time a gut wrenching story.

Recently the McClatchy Report ran a great story:

They’ve only got a five year-old softball bat, a threadbare cap, three scuffed balls and nine second-hand gloves from a flea market. They train on a college soccer field. And there’s not a uniform among them. However, they love America’s pastime as much as Crash Davis of “Bull Durham” ever did.Meet Iraq’s national baseball team.

Striker or batter, coach Hamza Madlool, 26, formed the current team after an earlier team had to be disbanded at the height of the country’s civil unrest. Players on that club and the baseball federation president, Isma’eel Khallel, got e-mail and telephone threats from Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaida Iraq. The insurgents accused them of playing “an occupation game.”

Both coaches receive the equivalent of $106 a month. None of the players makes a dinar — an amateur status the NCAA would endorse. The real problem is equipment. One time the federation gave them a Chinese-made aluminum bat, but it bent after the first batter connected. Assistant coach Hasan scoured a book fair at Baghdad University for a baseball rulebook, but struck out.

Can you see an American MLB player training under those conditions?  They would pout and go home and pout some more.

This is a great report and I feel for them , just as I felt for the Iraqi soccer team, which has recently played its first home game in 7 years.

These athletes need so much that can be easily fixed.  Why do not those overpaid, steroid infusion MLB players donate some of their massive wealth to help the club out?  For once why not give something back to the sport that has given them EVERYTHING?

My hat goes off to these guys, they are true athletes that are doing what they are doing for the love of the sport.  And then you have the so called “athletes” in the US they spend all their time injecting ‘roids or hanging out in strip clubs or a wealth of other self-indulgent activities—you decide who are the true athletes between the two and who represents the sport of baseball better.  For me it is a no brainer…I have little use for spoiled little pricks that think I somehow owe them something because they wear a uniform.

Could Public Option Actually Save Money?

A Professor’s Classroom

I try to find info for the reader that is not commonly out there to help in the understanding of the issue of health care and the debate.

While doing some research I found an article in Reuters about this subject.

Opponents say a cheaper, government plan will make it impossible for private plans to compete and may drive some out of business. It could also encourage employers to drop coverage and make employees buy a government-backed plan, they say.

Overall, an exchange with a Medicare-like plan will save nearly $3 trillion through 2020, saving consumers up to $2,200 per household, Commonwealth found. About $2 trillion of that would come after about five to six years, it said.

In comparison, an exchange including a government plan with higher rates would save $1.97 trillion and a private plan-only exchange would save almost $1.2 trillion. Both options would save a household $1,600.

Still, an exchange won’t keep health costs from rising, the report added.

The increase in federal budget costs from 2010 to 2020 with the Medicare-like public plan would be $112 billion, it found. That is compared to $232 billion under the public plan with somewhat higher rates and $360 billion under a private plan-only exchange.

All three options would help insure nearly all Americans, it said, with the number of uninsured dropping to about 4 million people by 2012.

The group’s analysis assumed other changes would also be made to the U.S. healthcare market. These include payment reforms to the Medicare program, an expansion of existing government coverage and new regulations that would require insurers to cover a wider range of consumers.

These figures should appear in the debate somewhere.  Repubs will most likely avoid using or mentioning this report in any way for it would crap all over their “cost too much” argument.

But there is a desparate need for ALL the information to be given to the people….that is assuning the Congress is truly listening to the people they say are contacting them on the subject….personally, I think it is not all that true….the opinions are being bought.