Oct. 06, 2004 - 19:55 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

The Scoop ?

Sometimes it seems to me that different sections of the media tell tales diametrically opposite to each other.

In the Business section of today's Rocky Mountain News there is a short article. In full:

Layoffs in September increase 45 percent

"Layoffs announced in September jumped 45 percent from August, to 107,863, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Tuesday."

"The September job cuts were 41 percent higher than those reported in September 2003, Challenger said."

"The computer, transportation, telecommunications and consumer products industries posted the greatest number of layoffs."

"The number of announced hirings in September was 16,166, compared with 132,105 in August."

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I'm beginning to see how the Great Debate works to the advantage of both sides. No matter what is said in them, no matter who actually shows up the worst. The mills of the political gods are grinding at hyper-speed claiming a flat-out win -- for both sides. So what was the actual profit of the debate ? Damn little I think.

The article I just quoted -- yet the administration is claiming that they have made great progress in creating jobs. Even if they were, I hear no mention of what the income of the new hires is compared to what they WERE making before they got laid off. So I guess everybody is supposed to get "real" except politicians and CEOs. Many of the homeless now have bit the bullet until it is in two pieces and find little nourishment in what they have to swallow.

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TEXAS - Man executed despite doubts about evidence

Huntsville -"A man convicted of murder in part because of evidence analyzed by Houston's embattled police crime lab was executed Tuesday night, despite calls by the police chief and two legislators for executions connected to the lab to be put on hold."

"Edward Green III was convicted of killing two people in a 1992 robbery. His lawyers asked that the execution be delayed until authorities could review some 280 recently discovered boxes of evidence that had been mislabeled and improperly stored at the crime lab."

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Following in the footsteps of the Shrub ? I keep thinking of the cartoon by Gary Larson (I think it was) A posse on horseback, with a man on horseback having a noose around his neck, the end of the noose over a tree branch. The leader of the posse saying to the effect, "Ya wanta trial ? Okay, after this we'll have a trial."

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Heather and I heaved a huge sigh of relief because we had already had our shots. We read this morning that, "The nation's flu vaccine supply has been cut in half due to contamination found in huge batches made at a lab in northern England raising the specter of a "severe shortage" this flu season." She and I are "at risk, aged, health problem related folks" - so we got ours the minute they became available at our HMO. But we grieve that so many folks won't even have a chance of getting a flu shot.

It seems that every year for some years now the flu vaccine has been in short supply due to some doofloppy reason or another. Most of which are probably connected with money I think. This year, "For the first time, healthy U.S. residents will be asked to forgo flu shots all together." What the heck, seems that our healthy, young folk are now in danger of death due to flu. And flu can kill, read about the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic if any doubt is in your mind. Nothing saying that the severity of flu this year will be less than that of 1918.

From all sides our population is beset with problems we can't do a thing to solve. What is going on ? what's The Scoop ? . . . . . . . . . .

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