Insomnia post #6.  Was headed to shut down when this popped up on my home page.

"New jobless benefit claims rise unexpectedly"

By the third paragraph, the spinning is in full speed.  "Unemployment claims have been on a downward trend since this summer. That improvement is seen as a sign that jobs cuts are slowing and hiring could pick up as soon as early next year."  Stop reading if you prefer to remain delusional.

"claims need to fall to about 425,000 for several weeks to signal the economy is actually beginning to add jobs"  I'm not sure how adding 425,000 unemployed per week means there are new jobs but I'll sorta take their word for it for a moment.  Last week, the claims at 480,000, up 7,000 from the week before (think that means the week before was 473,000).  The 4 week average was 467,500; down for the 15th week in a row.  Whew.  That MUST be good news.

"The people receiving extended benefits jumped to 4.73 million for the week ending Nov. 28, an increase of 143,759 from the previous week. That big rise reflected the fact that a total of 17 states are now processing claims for the extension of benefits that Congress approved last month."  Oh, and there is that little statistical problem that, when people just plain run out of benefits, still don't have a job, and give up; they don't get included in the stats at all which makes it look like things are improving even when they aren't.  I have no doubt that little extension by the feds is exactly what kept if from looking better even though it wasn't.

"unless unemployment starts to come down in a sustained way, consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, will begin to falter"  DUH.  Ya think?  More and more unemployed and maxing out their unemployment.  Ya think they might not be able to keep buying and buying?

15 week downward trend and we're no where near that target number of 425,000; let alone "several weeks" at or below it!  They can spin and circle all they want but it doesn't change the hard facts that these unemployment claims are on the rise again, 2 weeks running now instead of the 1 week alleged fluke of last week.  If we do reach that 425,000 target, I'm likely to think we've just got a whole lot of people who are unemployed and have given up unless there's some persuasive evidence to the contrary!

Don't tell me the sky is clearing when I can see the storm clouds rolling in just by refusing to look through those pretty, rosy glasses you keep offering me!

And darn it all to heck.  Tiger Woods has had/is having affairs with oh, well, maybe, who knows... 'round about a dozen women other than his wife and might be doing drugs.  Oh, my!  Oh, what was I thinking.  He's an "athlete" so we're not at all surprised about any of that, are we?  Ya gotta give those LEOs credit for trying to muddy the waters between those things and his accident though.  That's a mighty broad brush they use to apply the Super Dooper Ultra Clean Hands Doctrine with.  In reality, it's just another day in sports.  Another athlete we built up and all allowed privacy until we were ready to tear him down.  Here come the apologies, weeping, and rebuilding and rehab...

Wonder what the chances are of getting that Super Dooper Ultra Clean Hands Doctrine brush to law enforcement?  NOT!