US vs. Iran

Telegraph: Reports that a US drone that was reported downed by Iran was in fact lost in Afghanistan, the Tehran Regime has threatened to retaliate. One can postulate that the drone was lost over Afghanistan, it either crashed in Iran or was shot down, as Iran faces a international backlash for the storming of the UK Embassy in Tehran the Tehran Regime is playing games, as there are internal divisions in Iran between the Supreme Leader and the President, it can be argued that the extreme Religious elite in Iran want to make Iran isolated and thus push for the bomb. They want to divert public anger form the Tehran Regime to the world community. It would be in the interest of the West not to play this game, in less Tehran does something stupid just say nothing.

Gingrich in Iowa - Poll

Guardian: Reports on a poll in the Des Moines Register, in the poll Gingrich leads by 25%, while his main challenger, Governor Romney is third on 16%. In the poll Ron Paul was second, but he is not in the real race folks, the Romney Campaign must be hoping that the former Speaker self explodes before the Iowa vote in early January, they must hope that Newt Gingrich says or does something that makes Romney the safe pair of hands that Republicans will vote for, not because they want to but because there is no other choice. If Gingrich does win Iowa the Romney Campaign must have a good showing in New Hampshire, after that the race goes South, in South Carolina the Gingrich Campaign is leading. It would be ironic folks if Romney was to lose the race at the last minute, this blog and others had thought that the Speaker in political terms was dead in the water due to disastrous start to his Campaign, but he has come back, so it could be the Gingrich year.

POTUS 51% Job Disapproval - Gallup

Gallup: Reports on its Daily Tracking poll on the Job Performance of POTUS, today President Obama has a 51% Disapproval, while 41% of Approve of the Obama record. Lets see if the fall in the unemployment rate helps the President over the next few days folks. It would be surprising if Oval didn’t get some credit for the fall from 9% to 8.6%. Of course when over three hundred thousand people just give up its not good news, thus they are not counted as looking for jobs. It will be interesting to see the Unemployment rate after the Christmas period, a lot of the jobs were in the service industry, thus will these jobs last beyond the seasonal period, this blog has its doubts. If there is spike back up to 9% or more people think the economy is turning then it could go up beyond that, as those searching for work are counted in the rate, this could be more trouble for the White House. Less than 10 months to go before November folks. Also the Iowa and NH votes, what time to be a political geek, so much fun.

Public Sector Unions and the UK Coalition Government

BBC News: Report that former Labour Cabinet Minister Lord Hutton has stated that due to the grim economic news there needs to be a urgent reform of public sector pensions. The UK Coalition Government should not budge on the deal if offered to the Trade Unions, all aspects of society are going to take a hit due to the recent statement by the Chancellor that that the UK will not get rid of the structural deficit by 2015, in fact it will go on in till 2017, that Unemployment will go up from 8.1% to 8.7% and that the Government will freeze public sector pay increase at 1% after 2012. The next few years are going to be hard folks, the Unions will just have to take the hit, the private sector just cant afford to fund the gold plated pensions of the public sector, the good days are over folks.