Walter Patterson Herald ColumnistLast fall, I began to suffer almost unbearable pain in my right shoulder.  Each day, it seemed, the pain intensified.
Soon, I began to feel numbness in by right hand, and I knew it was time that I consult a doctor.  I went to see my family doctor, and after he had examined me and listened to my sad story, he recommended an MRI.  The results of the MRI were not good, so my family doctor referred me to a neurosurgeon.
For most of my life, I have been a healthy person.  Up to the point where I consulted the neurosurgeon, I had never had any major surgery.  But I was ready to do anything to get rid of the pain.
I will never forget that first meeting with the neurosurgeon.  He put me through a series of tests, and then he said, “I’ll be back in a minute.  I want to take a look at your MRI.”
Time moved in slow motion.  It seemed to me that the doctor was taking too long.  Something bad had to be wrong with me, and he was back there somewhere figuring out how to break the bad news to me.
When he returned to the examination room, he pulled up a chair, looked at me with that serious look that doctors can portray, and finally said, “I’ve got some bad news for you, and I’ve got some good news for you.  Which do you want to hear first?”
“Give me the bad news first,” I replied, holding my breath and praying that whatever was afflicting me was not terminal.
“The bad news is that you have two herniated discs in your neck.  That’s what causing the pain.” He paused for a moment to let this sink into my anxious brain.
“The good news is that I can fix it.”
Today, I have some good news and bad news for you.  I will start with the bad news first. The Super Committee in Congress has failed to act.  This committee was supposed to come up with ways to cut the federal budget and set our economy on a sound fiscal course.
Those of us who follow politics knew when this committee was formed that it was a “do-nothing” committee.  The liberal Democrats on the committee refused to compromise because they want Barack Obama to run against a “do-nothing” Congress and blame the Republicans for not reaching some kind of deal.  A deal was never in the works.  
This whole thing was an exercise in futility – a sham.  Can Obama pull this off?  Who knows, but in the meantime, the economy will grow worse and worse, unemployment will rise, and our standard of living will continue to fall.
The European Union has ruled that “water cannot prevent dehydration.”  Can any rational person believe this?  
But, there is a simple explanation for this insanity.  The socialists who run the European Union have decided that companies who bottle water for human consumption are making too much money.  Their goal is to have water available only through public sources and to heck with private industry.  The EU is committing economic suicide, but that is what socialists do.
Now to the good news.  Spain has thrown out the socialists.  The election last week changed the politics in Spain from a socialist agenda to a conservative mandate.  
It took the socialists nearly 7 years to ruin the economy of Spain, and the people have had enough. The socialist leadership wanted to turn the country into a “green energy” state, but all they did was create an unemployment rate of 21 percent.  Windmills are coming down.  Spain has proved beyond any doubt that “green energy” will not and cannot work.  Expect Spain’s economy to improve dramatically over the next few months.
Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, both Democrat operatives, have published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that says, “When Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they were re-elected…both men took the high moral ground and decided against running for a new term as president.  President Obama is facing a similar reality, and he must reach the same conclusion.”  
The only bad news I find with this advice is that they are recommending that the reins of the Democrat Party be turned over to Hillary Clinton.
Did I mention that the Democrat Party is in serious trouble?