It's always dangerous to bring up politics as people tend to be vehemently committed to their personal views.  However, did anyone else find it strange that week after week we have new jobless claims and yet on Friday the unemployment rate somehow fell to 9.7%?  Now we all know the government would never manipulate numbers for political gain (insert your own desired level of sarcasm), but is it possible that Massachussets has the Democratic Party in panic mode?  Anyone doing any research knows that the actual unemployment rate is closer to 17.3% so the number isn't believeabl