I'm gonna be in such deep trouble...

Not just because of  Canada's largest broadcaster...

I was interviewed for the UK last night/this morning, too.  I wish I had a picture of the faces of Gill and Katie as they listened to BBC World Service and heard my voice -- especially since the final answer was me talking about them.

Happy Leap Second everyone!

Happy New Year!

who do you trust, and why?

At UCO/Lick I oversee two sets of secure web pages -- those are the ones where the URL begins with https://, where the 's' indicates that the communications are secured by cryptographic means.  Have a look at the portal page for slit mask submission.  As it says in the lower paragraph, you won't be able to go to the secure page itself (we have multiple levels of security), but the focus here is on the upper paragraph.

I added the first paragraph because of e-mail from users who were alarmed by the message that Firefox 3 gave them.  Previous versions of Firefox had not been so in-your-face about the fact that our web server SSL certificate is "self-signed".  Self-signed is basically a way of saying that we did not pay a "Certificate Authority" (CA) for our certificate.  My paragraph of text is about how I considered the whole CA scheme to be a protection racket.

In today's news is a story of the presentation in Berlin which demonstrated that it's also an ineffective protection racket.  The authors showed the Chaos Communication Congress that they could create a SSL CA certificate which would let them manufacture more SSL certificates that all browsers would believe were valid.

That is to say, your web browser may say that it trusts a site and believes it to be the entity you intended to contact, but that may no longer be a statement with any meaning.

So, if you are accustomed to doing internet banking, or stock trading, or anything else where it is essential that your communications are known only to you and the official entity on the other side of your web browser, you may be in deep trouble.  

Ski Instructor Bailout

My fellow ski instructors and I are planning to make a case for a ski instructors' bailout from the federal government. We think our case is very solid. We provide an essential public service and help to stimulate the economy. Our studies show that the skiing business affects 1 in every 15 jobs in the United States, and that there could be massive increases in unemployment if we go under. And we'll all have to go on welfare if we don't get some money soon. In consideration for a bailout, we are willing to engage in some trail maintenance in order to improve the nation's infrastructure, and to accept pension payments equal to a mere half pay after 20 years. (We'll go to 21 years if pushed.) Please support our position. If we get a bailout, we'll publish newspaper ads saying "thank you, America," just like Chrysler did.

GM and lemons

If I've got the date right (1993-04-04) it was over 15 years ago that Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes used lemonade to demonstrate what GM just got today from the federal government.

There's a copy of that Sunday comic here.

7 PM Eastern, 6 Central, 5 Mountain, 4 PM Pacific

On New Year's Eve there will be a leap second.  I'm already planning to be sitting with the girls and two short wave radios (reception can be spotty, and I want to use two frequencies to be sure).

I've been called a leap second chronicler, or things like that, because I've been tracking the international process of considering abandoning leap seconds for over 6 years.

This leap second is unique for us in the US -- as shown on my other (live, ticking) web page it's the first leap second which will legally happen in the US.  All the others happened officially, but not legally.

Over here it happens before sunset, before evening festivities.  That means we can listen to it on the radio, and also watch it on the web, and still have a life.

Happy New Year!

wanna live by the Monterey Bay?

The property tax deadline in Santa Cruz is December.  The headline news says 10% of the homes in the county became delinquent on their taxes this month.  It looks like 2009 may be the year to get a (relatively) cheap house in a really nice place.  However, the governator prepared to slash all the state services to the bone, so if you come, be prepared to live independently.

ice, but only a little

There's high pressure heading for northern California, and that means a north wind.  North of Santa Cruz are the eponymous mountains, and south is the Monterey Bay.  Both are the sources of our air conditioning, depending on the season, because both can be the source of temperature inversions.  In this season the mountains are the cool source, for the air at the summit gets pushed gently down the gulches until it slides under the ocean air.  Where the gulches hit the coastal flats we can have frost from mid-October through mid-May.

The iciest winter in recent memory was December of 1990, where for 5 days the arctic wind blew at us.  Every succulent plant died, and many citrus even far south of us.  The street next to the post office was covered in ice after a water main froze.  Puddles of water in parking lots stayed frozen for five days.

Today was mild by comparison even to this year, but there was a skin of ice in the buckets against the back porch until 09:00, and the frost remained on roofs another half hour after that despite the bright shining sun.  

Happy Boxing Day

Ken Starr loves sex

Ken Starr really loves to talk about sex, especially when it involves doing it in the public spaces of courts and laws.

First it was Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

Now it's 18000 couples in California.

The position in the argument engages with the full faith and credit clause of the federal constitution as well as the 14th amendment and the defense of marriage act.

I get the impression that Starr wants to argue all this in front of SCOTUS.

But that won't happen until this gets through the state level.  

Strangely enough, as a direct result of the passage of proposition 8 a self-consistent interpretation of the current law in California is that the state cannot recognize marriage at all. The position Starr took today is consistent with that interpretation.

Disorder in Detroit

A couple of interesting comments keep coming up in the Detroit bailout saga. This morning Bush repeated the "disorderly bankruptcy" line we've been hearing. But he said something else. He also said that the automakers had failed to "make the proper legal and financial preparations necessary" for an orderly bankruptcy (I'm paraphrasing). He also said that the short term of the newly announced loans will give the Big 3 "time to prepare for an orderly bankruptcy" and that the US taxpayers' loans will be repaid in 2009 if those terms were not met.

All of this raises for me a question that indicates the mismanagement of these companies may have been even worse than we know: What is wrong with the structuring of the automakers' secured obligations that a Chapter 11 proceeding would be "disorderly?" Are bondholders' priorities a legal mess for some reason?

The Supreme Court and Tort Reform

When the Supreme Court renders a controversial decision, I learned long ago not to get too opinionated about it until I'd read the written opinions. When a decision is a 6 to 3 one or a 5 to 4 one, I know it's likely a close call, and both sides are going to have cogent reasons for their positions.

This week the Court rendered a decision involving the doctrine known as pre-emption. It was 5 to 4, so I know there probably isn't a right side and a wrong side, even before reading the written opinions. But it's unfortunate that it came when the trial lawyers party (otherwise known as the democrats) is about to take over Washington.

It's hard to justify the existence of the trial lawyer bar. They not only do nothing productive, they significantly diminish productivity, sucking out a portion of gross domestic product for themselves in the process.

When the trial lawyers move into a new field (asbestos claims, tobacco claims, pharma claims, whatever), they look for a state or states that are most receptive to their latest scam. Since most deep pocket defendants operate in all 50 states, it's easy to get jurisdiction in some really enlightened state, such as Mississippi, whose juries and judges love to spread the wealth around. They rarely go to the federal courts, because federal judges are tougher to convince that, for example, coffee cups should bear warning labels and if they don't the culprits should pay very large damage amounts, a big chunk of which goes to the lawyers.

Pre-emption says that if there's a federal law that seems intended to completely regulate a matter, the states can't impose their own inconsistent regulatory schemes. So if, for example, the feds impose comprehensive labeling requirements and insulate companies from liability if they comply, the states can't override that. The doctrine obviously makes eminent sense. The trial lawyers hate it. Alas, any time an exception to the doctrine is created, the floodgates open a bit to the kind of mischief the trial lawyers do. This latest Supreme Court case will have that effect.

I don't blame the Supreme Court for doing its job. What is required is for Congress to rein in the trial lawyers by enacting meaningful tort reform laws. That is highly unlikely with the democrats taking power, especially with a leader who apparently thinks redistribution of wealth is an admirable thing.

Feeling Pretty Good

OK, now I've beaten Keith.


I haven't been following this blog very closely, but it seems like a lot of complaining goes on, mostly about politics and economics. I know I'll probably be roundly ridiculed, and no doubt lectured on my ignorance, but I have to say I am feeling pretty good about everything. In my insular little world, things are good. I do read the papers and I know what's going on in the world and with the economy, but I really don't feel any of it. I haven't curtailed my spending at all (of course, being a Christen, I have always been extremely frugal, to put it nicely). I read my monthly financial statements and yes, my assets are worth less than they were 6 months ago, but since I don't plan on selling, so what? I have every confidence that things will pick up, and until then, I'll just continue on my merry way. Am I deluding myself? Maybe, but I don't care. I've got enough to worry about with child care, house work. volunteering (I know, what a hard life!) . I don't need to stay up nights worrying about things that are out of my control. So, I don't.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everybody!

- Amanda

Obama Energy/Environmental Team

I've often told people that one of my state's senators, Teddy Kennedy, seems to be stuck in the past, say about 1975. He seems to still view the world as if it were that year.

The same may hold true for Obama's newly-named energy and environmental team. Those folks are similar to the ones I knew back when I was an active environmentalist. (In fact, I know Carol Browner, albeit not well, from those days.) I wonder if we're in a time warp, trying to return to those "halycon" 60s. (The continuing impact of the 60s has caused more grief and problems for American society than any other period during my lifetime.)

I hope those newly-appointed idealists have some new, and a bit more practical, ideas. But I'm not optomistic. During their announcements, there was not one mention of two things that are pretty critical to dealing with today's energy/environmental world: nuclear plants to supply electricity; and domestic drilling to supply fuel.

If we seriously want to cut hydrocarbon consumption and/or encourage domestic production and/or put Detroit into a position where they can more effectively compete with the offshore car companies, there's a step we can take that's tried and true: Drop CAFE, drop government subsidies and put a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline. But neither the democrats nor the republicans have the guts to do that.

pants check?

Given the weather elsewhere I'm not even sure that many of us have power, but it's relatively nice here in California, at least for near solstice.  We might even get snow on the peaks of Santa Cruz.

But there are other concerns in Santa Cruz and California as a result of the election.  Early in the year a ballot initiative was prepared for November with the aim of modifying the constitution. Right after the prohibition against slavery and the assertion of equal protection, and right before the prohibition of discrimination, it proposed that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California.  The wording of the initiative was in place before the California supreme court ruled that same sex marriage could happen.  The counties modified the marriage licenses to add boxes for "spouse" to go alongside "husband" and "wife".  Many such marriages happened in California, as well as in other states, before proposition 8 passed in November.

Almost immediately the county of San Francisco filed suit to stop the law.  Within two weeks the county of Santa Cruz joined that suit.  There are all sorts of arguments about why a county would want to do this, and many have been given openly, but one remains rather less talked about by the county officials.

If it is incumbent on the county officials to uphold the constitution, then in order to verify that the couple applying for a marriage is a man and a woman, the county basically has to ask them to drop their pants.  (Recall that California dropped the requirement for a pre-marital blood test in 1995.)  The county workers really don't want to have to do this.  The counties do not want to be mandated to have a medical professional on hand in order to comply with this change to the constitution.

Illinois Politics

I think all politicians are potentially dangerous, but Illinois seems to have far more than its share of the seriously dangerous ones. First: Blagojevich may or may not be guilty of sins; the quotes released so far by Fitzgerald don't mention money, only favors and trades and other quid pro quos that politicians deal in all the time, usually without objection. And prosecutorial zeal often isn't supported by hard evidence. So I think it's a little early to judge the Gov guilty, and I thought we had a rule in this country about presumption of innocence. Time will tell, and I don't see any reason here to be rushing to judgment.

But let's assume that Blagojevich is absolutely guilty as charged. Why does that give the lieutenant governor the right to force his ouster? Talk about self interest! And why does the Illinois attorney general have the right to ask the state supreme court to oust a public official elected by the people? What happened to separation of powers? That doctrine is especially important in situations precisely like this one. Finally, if the legislature can change the rules of the game after an official is elected - calling a special election just because they don't like the occupant of the office - we have all the elements of tyranny. Looks to me like there are multiple star chambers in Illinois.

So my concern isn't Blagojevich. If he's guilty, he'll eventually get his just desserts. My concern is all those other greedy Illinois politicians who are just leaping at the chance to move up the ladder by changing or ignoring the basic rules, rules that were designed to prevent arbitrary and hasty action exactly when the temptation is greatest to do so.

If people who really care about these things - I'd call them the true patriots - don't speak up when ill advised (or worse) jerks are threatening to change fundamental protections, there's no telling what evil will transpire. Speak up!!

what time is it?

The facts are that all of us are descendants of Hoosiers.  Although our patriarch and his brothers were born in Chicagoland, both their parents were Hoosiers, and all those boys married Hoosier women.

You may have noticed that I chose the Central time zone when I set up this blog.  That seemed appropriate for the name of the blog, but it relates to a big issue in Indiana:  What time is it?

I remember the confusion about calling maternal grandparents while I was growing up, and I knew that for all of my life lots of Hoosiers have had issues with daylight saving time, but the full glory of the history of time in Indiana didn't become apparent to me until this week.

I read the wikipedia article on Time in Indiana.

Disagreements about the nature of conventional reality don't get much more surreal than that.

The Capitol, Truth, and the Dreaded "R" Word

The new Capitol Visitor’s Center opened in Washington, DC this week, splashed in controversy.

As usual for a government project it was making its debut behind schedule (the original date for completion was January of 2004) and grossly over-budget ($621-million versus a promised $71-million), but those were not the root of the dissension.

The epicenter of the tumult was one of those subjects you supposedly don’t initiate in polite company: religion. According to a number of those who previewed the grand new digs, designed to give dear leaders like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid relief from the “offensive body odor” of tourists, the place of religion in America’s foundation is nearly invisible.

But I submit the charge isn’t entirely true.

Upon entering, you are confronted with a religious quote—etched in marble—from that towering giant of American history, Rufus Choate.

Yes, the esteemed Rufus.

You say you’ve never heard of him? Well, if you were from the great State of Massachusetts you might have.

Might.

You see, ol’ Rufus was a Congressman, and then Senator, from today’s State of the Walking Brain Dead (present company on this blog excluded, of course) beginning back in the 1830’s. I will leave aside for a moment the question of why we would choose such a prominent location for a statement from such an unknown and unremarkable figure to focus on the religious content of the quote itself.

Here’s what the words etched in stone say: We have built no national temple but the Capitol; We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

I’m going to do something very un-post-modern here for a moment and actually try to do a simple analysis of what Mr. Choate’s statement communicates. (Yes, I’m one of those archaic people who believes people of the past—for example the writers of the Constitution itself—meant to communicate something specific when they wrote, not just ideas to be reshaped like Gumby when they say something we don’t like.)

Phrase One: We have built no national temple but the Capitol;

Who resides, or is sought, in a temple? If you answered: A God or gods, you show a promising level of intellectual ability.

So in very simple terms, Mr. Choate is apparently communicating a belief that those who reside inside the Capitol are the nation’s gods. Doesn’t that begin to explain a lot of what we’re seeing in America these days; why our Congress-people consider themselves above the law—to BE the law?

Phrase Two: We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

Ooh, now that’s a delicious irony.

What’s an oracle? One definition is: A command or revelation from God. There we are again. The Constitution, in this man’s view, was a Divine command; the revealed will of gods. Who wrote it: men. The Founders. Those who sat in the halls of power. Men just like Rufus (at least in his own mind, I’m sure).

Apparently Rufus saw himself as some kind of exalted being who should be termed homo-deitus. (At this moment I prefer homo-dufus-Rufus, but that would be unprofessional, even if true.) When I see many of our current leaders on TV I believe the same infection endures on Capitol Hill.

As for the ‘irony,’ when was the last time a Congressman or Senator actually considered the Constitution when producing legislation? More specifically, when was the last time almost any of them contemplated what the Founders themselves intended to communicate in that document?

Back to the religion thing.

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina was one of those who protested the skewed history depicted in the new Visitor’s Center. In a statement this week he said:

“The Capitol Visitor Center is designed to tell the history and purpose of our nation's Capitol, but it fails to appropriately honor our religious heritage that has been critical to America’s success. While the Architect of the Capitol has pledged to include some references to faith, more needs to be done. You cannot accurately tell the history of America or its Capitol by ignoring the religious heritage of our Founders and the generations since who relied on their faith for strength and guidance. The millions of visitors that will visit the CVC each year should get a true portrayal of the motivations and inspirations of those who have served in Congress since its establishment.

Dr. John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis and best-selling author of countless Christian books, said the issue is not one of Christian advocacy. “The point is truth. Caring about that is one of the biggest differences between 1787, when our constitution was written, and now.”

For many it is an inconvenient truth, indeed, that the American experience began as a Church-relocation project when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Any unbiased reading of history easily demonstrates that those who initiated the Great Experiment in Liberty did so as an outworking of their belief in the God of the Bible, something now generally seen by the elite of this land an outdated collection of fables.

But…

“Historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.” Obviously a statement like that came from some right-wing, religious nutcase, correct? Nope. Newsweek Magazine. (Yeah, you know, that noted pro-Christian publication.)

“The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” Who said that? Another source who couldn’t know much: John Adams, Second President of the United States.

One more:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.“

Apparently the author of these words would differ with a decision to delete reference to the religious nature of America’s founding from a new Capitol Visitor’s Center. In fact, this obviously ignorant, bigoted individual says the person who makes or supports such a decision is not a patriot. How dare he!

Who was this bigot?

George Washington, First President of the United States, and the man widely known as the “Father of the Country.”

Of course, what did he know?

Obviously Rufus Choate was a better choice to highlight in the Capital Visitor’s Center.

Right?

Timing Detroit

Today’s argument by the Big 3 (2 ½?) seems to have morphed into an issue of timing: even if one thinks the auto industry should go under, now is not the time. The recession having been declared since the last failed attempt to wring taxpayer money out of Congress, the auto makers argue that if they go down now, economic Armageddon will ensue.

Aside from other criticisms of this plea, it begs the question at issue. If now is not the time to let GM go bankrupt, when is? Is it Q4 09, when the recession has (hopefully) abated? Or when the jobs market recovers (and is the present measure of that believable)? And why should the taxpayers give them 30 billion dollars while we wait for their deaths?

The arrogance of the Big 3 is appalling. But the issue of timing is not without substance. The timing being discussed, however, is, like virtually all of the issues discussed in America today, wholly off the mark. The timing truly at issue is that of the deleveraging of the American consumer. And that timing is now.

The Big 3 are indirect victims of the credit crisis. American consumers are badly overleveraged. They have too much debt, especially mortgage and consumer debt. The widespread and heavily encouraged trading of home equity for consumption debt over the last decade is especially illustrative of the problem. Yet the household-by-household deleveraging of the US consumer is now underway; foreclosure and deprivation of consumer credit are the fastest routes to ending further household debt imaginable.

Part of the Big 3’s problem, however, is the nature of the housing bubble. Virtually all of the housing orgy of the last 10 years took place in the suburbs. The six-ton, three-car household is the Siamese twin of the housing boom. While toasting on the Kool-Aid served up at their new home and mortgage closings, these new suburbanites borrowed to buy the cars and SUVs they needed for their new, auto-centered lifestyle. The single-station wagon family gave way to the one-sedan, two-SUV family, complete with three-car heated and enclosed attached garage. Detroit drank this Kool-Aid along with US consumers. The GM model for US sales sustainability was similar to their profitable Chinese operation: as long as more housing is being built, and cash is available to finance auto purchases, they can continue selling automobiles without structural change.

The overleveraged-Kool-Aid fest is not limited to US households. Investment banks (remember them?) had absurd leverage ratios, with overconcentrations of the sugar in the Kool-Aid -- housing-based derivative securities. Banks extended credit to consumers based on insufficient collateral (their homes) so they could consume discretionary goods like electronics and second and third automobiles. Then, there’s the big daddy of leveraged finance, Uncle Sam. Accumulating an enormous federal debt and ballooning deficits, the US borrowed huge sums from China (and other nations) to balance its current account, all the while maintaining a weak enough dollar for Chinese imports to offset the debt racked up by US consumers, business and government.

And that’s the tie that binds the whole affair. US consumers are going to consume fewer discretionary goods and services in the future, because they have to. Permanently higher commodities prices – primarily gas and food -- drive higher household budgetary anxiety and result in lower discretionary household spending. Combined with substantially higher health care costs, an aging population and a contraction of credit to fund any household expenses, a long-term trend toward lower discretionary consumption emerges.

Indeed, they already have. Consumer spending, as reflected in retail sales, consumer confidence and the US savings rate, all point to household spending contraction on everything other than necessities. The Bush economic stimulus checks were not spent by consumers, they were hoarded by households or used to pay down household debt – to deleverage (like the TARP funds given to banks).

The implications are enormous. The model of a global economy that has arisen is one of the US borrowing, through household and government credit, to fund imports from overseas. Imports in turn create wealth for households and private business in China, and elsewhere. That wealth creation is the true definition of “emerging markets.” (Last October when the People’s Republic of China cut central bank interest rates in concert with the US and ECB was the final death knell of Chairman Mao.) If US consumers consume less – if they consume some amount that is in fact sustainable given the actual, non-inflated value of their collateral assets -- the global model gives way to global crisis.

Which brings us back to Detroit. The issue is not whether the Big 3 can be allowed to fail at this time -- during recession. Nor is it how long before they will begin making green (and unprofitable) cars. That is the same as asking what month of 2009 they should be allowed to go bankrupt. The real question is: How will they structure themselves to profit from deleveraged US households that can only afford one-ton of auto each? If the time has now come where consumers buy fewer cars as a matter of household finance, how will the Big 3 shrink to meet this demand?

I Had a Dream

I had a dream.

No, really. It was a dream.

Well, sort of.

I was in bed anyway, and I was supposed to be sleeping, but because of this wonderful, life-stopping illness I've been enjoying for the past few days I was hacking and coughing while closing my eyes and praying that I could sleep.

But then... there was the dream.

Or was it a dream? (OK, OK, I told you I've been sick. Some people would undoubtedly say for a very long time, after reading this post!)

I had apparently been elected to Congress, and was making my very first floor speech. Let's just say if ol' Dale what's-his-name who wrote "How to Win Friends and Influence People" were still alive, he might be asking to provide me with a few pointers.

I won't bore you with the whole thing (not that I can remember it anyway... but I never remember my dreams, so this is quite remarkable that I'm remembering any of it... if it was a dream... Ooooh... back to the story)

I said something like:

In my oath of office, I promised to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. From what I've seen over the past few decades, apparently I've taken an oath to defend the country against most of you! Yes, you, and all your little lobbyist friends too, Toto. (Hey, it was a dream... don't accuse me of plagiarism... or was it a dream?)

I said, while I would like to be friends with everyone in the room, given my oath, and my duty to the people of this country, the only ones in the room who deserve my friendship are those who actually support the Constitution.

Since that eliminates about 433 of us (you can breathe easy, Ron Paul), that means if the Founding Fathers could rise from the grave today and give Congress what it deserves they would probably bestow each of you with a little gift; a small token of their esteem for the way you've ruined the Great Experiment in Liberty.

What kind of tiny remembrance, you might be wondering: A musket-ball between the eyes!

OK, enough of the dream (if it was a dream), I think you get the picture.

I do think it's high time the citizens of this country quit playing buddy-buddy with those who are destroying what was set up to be the greatest, most prosperous land on earth.

If this were France, I would vote Henry Paulson--the traitor-in-chief--as first in line to meet Lady Blade. Next, each and every member of Congress who voted to steal the People's money to bail out the richest, most vile scoundrels who have cursed the ground of this once free land.

Now that the bailouts have begun, there will be no end to the madness. And now that they've begun--if the country survives this round of economic collapse--we have ensured that it will happen again, because we've sought to remove the pain of criminality and stupidity, which should never be removed for the sake of people learning what not to do.

We are victims of men practicing "Economic Universalism."

Just as so many have attempted to deny the reality of Hell, for their own treasonous deeds against the Creator and Giver of life, so we attempt to forestall and/or eliminate pain for those who will not work (What do you mean the government doesn't owe me a check for existing?), those who will not follow directions (Gee, hot coffee is hot?!? Who woulda known?), and those whose economic understanding is beneath the level of a turnip (You mean deficits do matter, and bills have to be paid back someday? C'mon, if we throw enough trillions at this thing we can whip it!)

Believers in Economic Universalism are destined for a foretaste of the pain that awaits followers of Metaphysical Universalism: 404 - Sorry, the destination you planned to reach does not exist.

Do not pass go.

Do not collect $200 (Oh, I'm sorry... with the inflation that's now in the pipeline Monopoly will have to raise that to $20,000).

Here's your musket-ball.

Next.

But, hey, it's only a dream. Right?

Someone please let me know when it's safe to wake up.

Nancy Pelosi

I'm watching her babbling about Detroit on TV. Is she from this planet?

Bailing Out Detroit

I'll try to stay calm while warching the new hearings this week. I don't blame the car companies or the unions for trying to get a place at the trough. They'll make their pitch and I'll disagree with them, but I won't get excited. But I'll go bonkers when the congresspeople, especially the ones from California, start asking their inane questions. WE NEED TERM LIMITS!!

Let's talk turkey

I was recently invited to a friend's home for Thanksgiving dinner. Since I could not be with my family, I eagerly agreed. As we sat in the living room waiting for dinner, I could not wait for my favorite dish - the stuffing. As my hostess was taking the turkey out of the oven, of course I volunteered to help hoping to get the first crusty bites of stuffing. The turkey was out of the oven and I said "Where is the bowl for the stuffing?" I was shocked and dismayed to hear, "Oh the stuffing is still in the oven". How could this be??? I said, "The stuffing is not in the turkey?" A collective gasp went out from the gathered guests. "You can't put stuffing in a turkey - it isn't safe" was the reply.

Are you kidding me? Apparently the USDA or FDA or some oversized government agency has decided and published articles and warnings to terrify the American public that putting stuffing in a turkey is "potentially dangerous". Some nonsense about possible bacteria. What has happened to tradition? The stuffing has been IN the turkey since the pilgrims. What has happened to common sense? Where did this propaganda originate? Was it the West Coast alfalfa lovers who lobbied to have the stuffing taken out of the turkey? Or the East Coast liberals that decided government does not have their fingers in enough pies and that the American public needs government to tell us what and how to eat? When is enough enough?

Grandma Allen (the impetus for this blog) would turn over in her grave. While she was a survivor of the Depression and possibly the originator of Stone soup (boiling water and a potato CAN be a meal in desperate times), she was also a wonderful cook. She cooked like an American. The grease from bacon was considered valuable and to be saved! Her crescent rolls were made with lots of butter. And no sane person ever turned down one of her crescent rolls. Eggs were a hearty breakfast and it was never necessary to limit the number consumed. She and others from her generation lived well into their 80's and 90's.

So when did we as Americans decide to turn our diets over to the government? When did we lose our ability to make our own choices? When did we stop to think for ourselves? And for the love of God, when did we decide to let them tell us to take the stuffing out of the turkey????