By Patricia L Johnson

Captain Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was several hours into a seven-hour space walk when a grease gun exploded in her tool bag.

Now I may be wrong, but I think if a grease gun exploded in a man's tool bag, he would just let it go while he focused on the job at hand, which was to clean and grease a rotary joint.

Not Piper, instead of finishing the job at hand, she attempted to clean the greasy mess off her gloves and a camera, while her $100,000.00 tool bag slipped from its tether and is now floating around in outer space.

The tool bag contained two grease guns, a putty knife and some cleaning wipes that are required to complete work on a broken joint on the solar array.  The tools are critical to the mission and are now floating around in space.

NASA is tracking the tool bag in an effort to make sure it doesn't cause more damage by crashing into the International Space Station. 

By Richard E Walrath

Thoughts for the Day...

Between the pillars of national health care and a tax-cut for the middle class,  President-elect Obama needs to sandwich in food stamps for the hungry, expanded and extended unemployment compensation, public works programs to create jobs, refinancing of mortgages for those who are about to lose their homes, and a bail-out of the auto industry to save jobs.

One mother facing bankruptcy put it this way--we have to have food and diapers.

We need to get more money into the economy from the bottom and let it rise to the top.  They've been pouring it in from the top forever and you see what the results are. When working men and women have money in their pockets, everybody has money in their pockets.  Take a good look at the word, worKING--when everybody can find work, we can all be kings.

The other day I was listening to a religious station on the radio.  I'm not sure what religion it was because I normally don't listen to the radio and the speaker made the comment that voters in this country put money ahead of life, by choosing Obama over McCain.

It was impossible for me to believe a normal, sane person would make such a statement.  In my mind, voters voted for Obama in part due to the brainwashing they were given by the MSM, but mostly due to his looks and charismatic personality.  The question did stay in my mind however;  did voters really believe what the minister was saying?

This morning AP published the following so at least one person believes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27705755/?gt1=43001

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

His parishioners shouldn't be told they cannot receive Holy Communion, until they do penance, if they voted for President-elect Obama.  If his parishioners had abortions, then surely he could say they committed a sin but if their only crime is voting - it would seem this guy is way out of line.

National exit polls indicated 54% of Catholics voted for Obama - does that mean all of them are in favor of abortion? 

The Catholic religion should spend more time worrying about what goes on behind closed doors in their churches, and less time judging parishioners. 

By Patricia L Johnson

The unemployment insurance weekly claims report for the week ending November 8, 2008 has an advance seasonally adjusted figure of 516,000, indicating an increase of 32,000 from the previous week. The four-week moving average hit 491,000, an increase of 13,250 from the previous month.  The last time seasonally adjusted weekly claims hit half a million was during the week ending September 29, 2001, when 517,000 claims were filed.

During the week ending 11/01/2008 [latest data available] six states, Arizona (1,692), Arkansas (1,360), Washington (1,202), Texas (1,201), Alabama (1,088)and Tennessee (1,018) all had increases in first time unadjusted unemployment claims of more than 1,000. 

Three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all had an increase, in unadjusted initial claims, of more than 2,000 during the week.  Ohio came out the real loser with an increase of almost 4,000 layoffs.

Click chart for larger version.

Ohio and Michigan attributed their job losses to layoffs in the automobile industry, while Pennsylvania losses were  in the mining, construction, service, and printing/publishing industries.  Wisconsin layoffs were also diversified with losses in the construction, trade, service, transportation, and warehousing industries.

The report is not all bad news as both California, (-3,603) and Florida, (-2,327) came in with fewer layoffs compared to the previous week. 

The report for U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services for the month of September 2008 was also released today and it's not difficult to figure out why the automobile manufacturers are having so many layoffs.  September 2008 to date we have only exported $11 billion in motor vehicles and parts, while we have imported $18 billion [not seasonally adjusted].

The import/export figures include passenger cars, trucks, buses, special purpose vehicles and parts.

The pundits thought we hit the bottom yesterday on the DJIA, but we're not even close when you look at the total picture.  We have a long way to go.