Mississippi & Alabama - Exercises in Irrelivence

We are in marble but I’m not even sure the font will carry into the posting.

Obama Versus Romney

In head-to-head match-ups, Romney and the president are tied at 47 percent among likely voters surveyed. Obama bests former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum by 50 percent to 44 percent, surpasses former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich by 52 percent to 41 percent and Texas Congressman Ron Paul by 48 percent to 43 percent. The survey reveals a potential challenge facing Obama, who won the women’s vote by 56 percent to 43 percent in his 2008 race against Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, according to national exit polls of voters. Obama leads Romney among women, though by 49 percent to 45 percent. Romney leads among men, by 48 percent to 46 percent. Romney wins seniors age 65 and over by 19 points. The two split those between the ages of 35-54, and Obama overwhelmingly wins Americans under the age of 35. Obama also is holding onto college graduates, a group who favored him in 2008, beating Romney by 50 percent to 45 percent in the survey. Romney outruns Obama among those with only some college, high school or less education. As Obama develops a campaign message that centers around economic fairness and draws a policy line between 99 percent of Americans and the top 1 percent in wealth, Romney wins among voters with annual incomes of $100,000 and more by 53 percent to 43 percent. He also leads by four points among voters who earn between $50,000 and $99,000 a year, while Obama wins by 13 points voters earning $50,000 and less.

The Dow Jones Industrials and the S & P 500 are now at their highest point that they’ve been since December of 2007, the month the Bush recession began (though there were signs of trouble well before then)  The DJI is now well into the 13,000’s and the index was up 217 points today.  227,000 jobs were added last month.  Consumer confidence is now at its highest point in four years.  This is all good news.  There is a whole other take on this economy however. According to Rush Limbaugh the whole energy shift thing isn’t working out for this President.  Rush says that 9% of all new jobs have been created in the oil and natural gas sectors.  Of course we know profits in these energy sectors is through the roof now with the higher prices.  But Rush asks the question or makes the observation that none of the other energy alternatives will put one 747 or 767 jet in the air for even ten minutes.  None of the alternative energy sources is able to substitute for petroleum for powering either passenger ships or cargo carriers that ply the international waters.  President Obama’s ratings are sharply down according to a New York Times poll released just today.  Now just 41% of the people approve of the President’s performance in office and 47% disapprove.  Rush says that the President rightly says he has no control over energy prices.  But Rush adds that if the President could take action that would lower the price of a gallon of gasoline to a buck fifty he wouldn’t do it, and if the Administration had its way the price at the pump would be six dollars a gallon because ‘With higher gas prices – more people go on food stamps”, which Rush says is the goal of the Obama Administration.  Rush repeated that there is no such thing as a “jobless recovery” and part and parcel with the concept of a recovery are the creation of jobs.  According to Rush Limbaugh there IS no economic recovery per se.  Even though the economy bottomed out in July of 2009 Rush doesn’t believe we’ve had any growth since then.  Now he’s saying that the experts are predicting a lower GNP for the present quarter, which hasn’t ended yet.  Later Rush contradicts himself by saying that jobs produced in THIS recovery do not reflect economic growth, but offered no statistic to back that up, even though  there are tons of other statistics to contradict it.  Rush turned to women’s issues.  Rush sayd that the President is down 4% with women in terms of popularity but then said women are ignoring the contraception controversy and their concern, like with men, is the economy and gas prices.  But Randy Rhodes said that even if gasoline prices were to rive to five dollars a gallon people would not depart from their new accelerated spending habits.  This is no doubt bad news to the tea party, who are counting on a stalled recovery.  Plain and simply, Rush is trying to wish away this recovery.  As to the charge that fewer people are working now than four years ago it must be noted that businesses are in a constant process of streamlining and cutting costs any way they can and this is proceeding regardless.  Production output, of course, is increasing.

Rush says that among all employers they approve of the whole they are against Obama Care 51% to 40% whereas Religious employers are against Obama care 57% to 36%.  Also – and this is a key statistic, the President apparently lied when he said you could “keep your present plan if you like it” because less than 30% of employers say you will be able to “grandfather in” your old medical health care plan, and the rest are dictated by terms laid down by Obama Care.  Rush says that health care costs for employers is up because of the requirements set forth for even being allowed to issue Insurance now.  Having your kids on the roles is NOT free and the cost of that in addition to covering all those infants with “incurable diseases” has to now be factored in to the overall employer costs of doing business, which will cut into his profits.  By the way just to correct Randy Rhodes n something - -  increased volume of business in Insurance or whatever is NOT the “supply demand curve”.  As we have said - - this curve dictates that as the price for anything goes UP, then so does the supply and as the price comes down, so does the supply.  This whole “maximizing profits through increased volume” is not a supply demand law but rather it’s kind of like buying “predictability insurance”.  You are willing to pay a premium for being able to count on a steady “bottom line” and not have it be a continued source of worry.  Were one strictly out to maximize profits he would gauge everybody for whatever he could get for a product at any time.  But unlike the “socialist” VA, the health insurance purchased by these employers will cost more because the companies themselves are denied the free mark Adam Smith right to get the price DOWN as low as they can drive it through forced competition.  So basically the President is upsetting both the majority of employers and the Catholic Church with his Obama Care.  And personally I think the whole plan is a total mistake both from a pure economics point of view and also from the view of “socialized insurance requirements”.

Finally I made it to Dr. Levy’s class.  They were doing check ins.  Bruce was something really strange.  (not unusual for him)  People seemed to be called on out of order but finally Dr. Levy got to me.  I told him about the starvation portions they have us on now and even Arlene, not known as a big eater, agreed that the portion was really small and that there were no seconds, and many others concurred.  Then Dr. Levy had a couple of “questions to think about” for us.  The first was “My most profound insight of life occurred when - - - “ this sounds like the key line in a Shirlock Holms mystery or something.  Bill Wardell (who showed up in class after a months long absence) said that “it’s the truth that probabilities of events are irrelivent and that nothing occurs by chance”.  Then Bill got a phone ball but he had left an opening for me so I took the lateral and ran with the ball.  I amplified on Bill’s remarks saying that probabilities can be used as a mathematical tool and is useful but in the whole police sense of cause and effect and “nexis” and all of that, probabilities were of no factor.  Everything is predestined.  Arlene began talking about angels and ghosts and UFO apperitions.  There was talk of “other dimensions”, which I reasserted could not be proven.  Physicists have theories about sub matter particles but there is no demonstrable way to locate any other dimension than the ones we know about.  If what they say on Star Trek is true, this may be utterly impossible due to our specific molecular construction.  Someone brought up pergitory to Dr. Levy’s next question about “What lingering mystery have you always wondered about?”  Life after death was a chief topic.  However Dr. Levy had the idea that Pergitory was a place you went to on your way to Hell and I told him that Pergitory was only for people who were Saved but had unconfessed sin, in the spirit of not obeying first John 1:9.  In addition to your unconfessed sin you are also guilty of the additional Sin of lying to God”.  Dr. Levy looked up pertitory on his I Pad and also looked up Sheol and Gehena and Hell on his I Pad, and told what various Jews believe.  I brought how the vast majority of the Bible teaches the doctrine of Soul sleep, but Dr. Levy didn’t agree with that one.  I then brought up the idea of this Jeffersonian “fire wall” between the physical world and the moral world, and strangely Dr. Levy agreed with me on this one.  The closest Christian theologian to my position on this was Marcion.  Paul taught Marcion doctrine and stressed in his writings that Events in the here and now had nothing to do with whether you were Saved or not.  Paul also said to ‘Give Thanks in all things” but I would modify that to say “We can give thanks as a vehicle of mental health.  That it is psychologically healthy for us to take stock of our blessings.  But I would add that we don’t OWE “God” anything since God is not a moral being.  St. Paul would agree with me that there is nothing we can DO to impress God of our worthiness but that Salvation is a “Free Gift”.  It’s something that is given, not earned.  This refuted what Arleen and some others were saying.   What I did NOT get into was the idea that Calvinism taken as a doctrine of “physical determinism” is valid, but Moral things are separated by this Jeffersonian “fire wall” as I said.  I said “I won’t even compare apples and oranges here.  You’ve heard quite enough by now of that expression”.   Karen’s music class wanted the room at one so Dr. Levy agreed to end the class even though we’d gotten off to a late start and reassured me about the records.  I gave him my friend’s number and Dr. Levy said he could call him but he didn’t have time to take the records today.  Then I tuned in the soap opera.  You know I’d like an attorney like E J Di Mira.  He’s smooth as silk with the guile of a serpent.  He possesses that - -  lack of “being able to be intimidated by moral weakness” that is admirable, which makes one able to Lie in court when necessary with the earnest of a door to door salesman –or Newt Gingrich.  I’d like a guy like that.  Lucas was grilling Will about his relation to E J.  Working for someone in shall we say “extra legal terms” is not unheard of and it has its “tax free advantages” if you know what I mean.  One is not “incumbered” by the standard legal impediments to various activities.  However the bottom line is “Can you trust them”.  How long have you known them and what is their track record as a friend and human being.  Is he the sort who if you got into any legal trouble would go your bail money and hire the best attorneys for you.  Would he give you good advice like don’t admit anything to the Cops.  OR is he the type who would throw you to the wolves as the slightest suspicion and when questioned himself say “I confess everything HE”S responsible for everything’ like Oliver North did with Ronald Reagan.  You could tell that E J was enjoying himself verbally torturing Abe Carver, and Abe didn’t have “enough sense to come out of the rain” interactional speaking.  E J is a verbal chess master when it comes to back and forth jousting.  You challenge him in this area at your peril.


The Following can pretty much be considered a work of Tea Party Fiction

Is Joe Biden going to be our interim President

 before the end of this year?

VERY QUIETLY OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME     COURT

(on second thought - never mind)