Oil has now risen to $142.00 a barrel. Can five dollar a gallon gas be far behind? The Dow Jones Industrial dropped another hundred points today on top of the 360 points dropped yesterday. But in spite of this we still are not in a recession, which definitely puzzles me. It would almost seem as if some of the hysterics we're been hearing about are just that - hysterics. In general people are not worse off. They are not even "cutting back" or spending any less. It's all just some sort of illusion. They say there is a whole two percent point drop in the number of autos on the road. If you're looking out over a traffic that two percent will seem like nothing. There are none of the "major shifts" people keep talking about- - in either moving in mass to rappid transit or in seeking alternative energy sources. There is every indication that the American people will tollerate six or even seven dollars a gallon for gasoline. They are saying this was the worst June in the stock market since the great depression. But it seems as if they say things like that every other month nowadays. If we're all really poor I guess there will be no lines when the I Phones go on sale next month. There shouldn't be, because the product isn't that great. If we are in a recession, have blockbuster movies stopped setting new first week gross records? It is said that ghetto residents in this country live better than middle class people in France. I've heard that in Brittain you get charged fifteen US dollars for a slice of bacon and a bowl of beans for breakfast, and to get any kind of "decent" hotel room by US standards it will cost you five hundred. And of course Europeans still pay a whole lot more for gasoline than we do. To envy them seems a little pointless. None of us would want to live in the average apartment square footage of Tokyo. The people I feel sorry for aren't the jerks that took out all those low interest loans, but rather the people whom the mortgage companies sold these loans to- - all those investment banks or whoever that are all going broke. It's those share holders who are taking a bath. I'll tell you whose been in a recession for two years. Me. I have. I have indeed "cut back" and am spending decidedly less money for things like cigarettes and coffee and snacks and clothes, not to mention movies. But I am the exception. All of this isn't to say that I am voting Republican in November but that this idea of the President being a latter day Santa Clause figure might be more than a little unrealistic. Remember the "National Government" isn't some bottomless font of wealth. As Rush Limbaugh points out, the national government doesn't "produce" anything. That's all done by the private sector. And I agree that personally I'd rather have a democrat steering the economy along rather than a Republican. Since I am a fatalist I believe our economic future is "already baked into the cake" and there isn't much we can do not to insure that things are peachy keen come January. I've heard that no matter who is President that troops are still going to be in Iraq getting killed and maimed for a long time to come. And no matter who is President there will still be a lot of "free" economic handouts for the needy and no so needy.

Johnny Wendell raised the notion that the LA Lakers lost the championships because their fans at the Staples Center really sucked, and didn't get behind their team. I think we as a whole underestamate the power of group energy and group psyche. I think the reason why I was such a failure as a Christian is because the "group psyche" was against me and I was constantly swimming upstream. I think if Obama wants to win in November he better not, for his own sake. do any more things to disillusion his followers. He's disowned his own church, he's attacked absent Black fathers, he's come out for Telcom immunity, he's gone out in favor of guns, he's emphasized how "carefully" he will withdraw troops from Iraq, he's declined to support Impeachment, and he wont even support gas tax relief for motorists. And this is only June. Just imagine the scale of retreat on his policies by November! What other "undesirable" groups will be eased out of publicity photographs? And while we're talking about Iraq, what if we had "pray ins" for success of our troops in Iraq. (as soon as we can define what that consists of) In Star Wars they had the saying "May the Force be with you". Some define God as "The Force". I know "The Force" isn't with me. Let's hope, however, that it remains with our country no matter who is President in January. The last thing I would want would be for Rush Limbaugh's accusations to be true about "The democrats want this country's policies to fail". I hope we aren't so sick that we view every event not for its rightness or wrongness, or for that matter its success or failure, but rather for "how will this play politically in the next election". We know "The Force" was not with the Jews at the end of the first century AD. We know "The Force" was not with Rome at the end of the fifth century. The Bible says that those who gloat over the misfortunes of others, against whom they have no beef, will not go unpunished.