Thanks go to Zach for pointing me to SEIU President Andy Stern's new blog. On last night's State of the Union Address, Stern writes: I like the view from his house. I always preferred ET to reality TV... I just really wish it was true for our under-staffed nurses taking care of our kids in the hospitals; the underpaid nursing home workers taking care of our parents; the document-seeking, hard working, tax paying immigrant janitors; our kids in budget-strapped overcrowded schools; our child welfare workers in revenue-drained states; our homecare workers caring for the disabled being Terminatored in California. Our members view is of a country that, since the President's election, has lost more jobs than during any president's term since Herbert Hoover. All through the Midwest, they see factories shuttered, Wal-Mart forcing out small business, goods pouring in from China, and now learn those new-age jobs in software and telecommunications, engineering and architecture (3 million more) are on their way to India. Every new collective bargaining agreement is about health care. They watch the strike of Safeway workers in LA for their health care and wages and wonder when they are next. They know some of the 43 million Americans without health care, and face rising health care costs that are up nearly 40 percent in just the past two years, while the President sat idly by. Their state and local taxes are up, while their federal taxes are going to those who need it least. Those hard-earned taxes dollars are being spent like druken sailors for tax breaks for wealthy people, and big corporations and their kids are going to be left with a $500 billion a year debt on their parents' credit cards. They wonder why are we going to spend more money to rebuild Iraq or go to Mars than to rebuild New York City or our health care system.