Be proud of your roots! Or something.

Sunny, mild and temperate AGAIN

How does one deal with this?

This morning, talking with Jan the Fabulous, I was again reminded that one needs to have a goal or a "want" that is bigger than the thoughts and worries that plague each of us every day. I looked back through my little notebook that I keep the wants and dreams in, and there they were - and still valid. Apparently, either they aren't "big" enough or they keep sliding back into obscurity.

Someone has put up a "McCain/Palin" poster in an office window a block away. It may be the only one in the city.

Jackie (the dog) is not eating, and may be really rattled with the huge change in environment and routine. I'm going to go over to the Dog Palace today (probably taking her with me) and see if they have anything that piques her interest. I've tried some psychology with her (lifted from the movie "To Live and Die in Beverly Hills,") and that generated a modicum of interest on her part, but no consumption.

Last night, I spent my Friday night doing a bunch of geekazoid research to disprove something in a Wikipedia article about Potrero Hill - this involved looking into the chronology and build locations of US Navy Battleships going back to the 1880s. WHOO! It was kind of fun, which tells you just what it is that trips my trigger.

Been contemplating what comes next for the last few days. I have some more work to do, but first, I have to do some actual WORK. I've done some cleaning around here today, but now it's time to crack the work product open.

all this and very funny, too!

Ask yourself .. why?

Prop 8 ads - great stuff!

Reactions:

(Swiped directly from Pam's House Blend)


ABC News: Sen. Obama also gets specific right away -- looking right to the camera with his bailout package for the middle class. And if you're looking for the first candidate to draw a distinction tonight, it's Obama, not McCain. LINK


Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): Obama is ON message. A question about campaign finance and nasty campaigning becomes an economic answer. LINK


TIME: "Jobs." And the dial lines go WHANGO! Obama should work "jobs" into every answer, including any about Bill Ayers. LINK

CNN (Bill Schneider): Obama's answers during this first line of questioning appear crisp and clear, while McCain's sound disconnected and rambling. LINK


ABC News: …McCain is still saying he'd balance the budget within four years? This is silliness, and I think McCain knows it. I look forward to his campaign explaining how, exactly, he'll do this while extending the Bush tax cuts and funding bailouts. LINK


Washington Post Fact Check (Michael Dobbs):Joe the Plumber - John McCain raised the story of "Joe the Plumber" who ran into Barack Obama at a political rally in Toledo, Ohio, earlier this week. He depicted the plumber as an average American who will end up paying more taxes under the Obama plan. In fact, the plumber told Obama that he had plans to buy a company that would make more than $250,000 a year. Obama has conceded that his proposal to phase out the Bush tax cuts for high-income groups will lead to higher taxes for people making more than $250,000 a year. Obama told the plumber that he would face an increase in his marginal tax rate from 36 to 39 per cent, but Americans earning less than $250,000 a year would stand to gain under his proposal. LINK


NBC News (Mark Murray): McCain was wrong, however, when he said that 100% of his ads weren't negative. According to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, 100% of McCain's ads have been negative. LINK


Washington Post Fact Check (Michael Dobbs): McCain exaggerated the closeness of the relationship between Obama and former Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers in claiming that his rival had "launched his political career" in Ayers' living room. It is true that Obama attended a coffee meeting at Ayers' home after he announced his intention to run for the state senate in September 2005. But according to Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, who has tracked Obama's political career closely, the Ayers' event was only one of a series of coffees in the Hyde Park community where he lived. The kickoff for Obama's Senate run came at a meeting in the Hyde Park Ramada Inn on Sept. 19, 1995. LINK


TIME: McCain is flat-out lying about Obama's health care plan. It is not government-run health care, and looks nothing like the Canadian system. LINK


Washington Post Fact Check (Glenn Kessler): John McCain made two assertions on corporate taxes, one that small businesses pay 50 percent of the taxes and the other that U.S. corporations are among the highest taxed in the world. Both are wrong. LINK


Washington Post Fact Check (Alec MacGillis): McCain said that ACORN, the large anti-poverty and affordable housing organization, is perpetrating one of the greatest voter frauds in the history of the country. This is greatly overstating the allegations that have been brought against the group in recent weeks. LINK
Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): The Fix- Again, lots of different attacks from McCain...hard for the average viewer to know what to take from debate. LINK

Amusements and information some will find helpful

This is a cute, cute quip about Sarah Palin as president - move your mouse around the page and click on anything that the cursor will open.

Here is a calculator for how Obama's proposed tax plan would work for you specifically.

Have to get over to "work" now.

Has the danger passed?

So, something has been done and on a broad scale. This article sums up what has happened and what is likely better than anything I could write.

Working at the dog wash, yeah

Just down the hill a bit is an adorable, well stocked dog and cat store - they don't sell dogs and cats, they sell to dog and cat owners. In the back, they have a double tub self-grooming area, which is so easy to use and CHEAP! Only $15, and they supply the water, the shampoo, big yellow rubber aprons, grooming tools, towels, and a blow dryer, which we didn't try. I didn't try the nail clippers, either. Only so much could be endured at once.

Jackie was remarkably more calm in this environment than she was in the bathtub. Having the spray nozzle on a flexible hose was also a big plus.

Why don't we have these in Texas?

Fleet week

Sunny and 61 degrees. Windy. Clear skies. Wow.

Jackie keeps walking to the front window and looking out wistfully. There's no balcony there, so her interest is unrewarded. She still hasn't been eating, but David's fraidy-cats have been enjoying her food lying in a dish on the kitchen floor.

We're going to run to the Container Store today, and to the office, so I can retrieve my teakettle.

a few things you won't read in your local paper..

Paul Krugman's columns today, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin and below; also, Salon's revelation that international grain shipments have come to a standstill http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/10/10/real_economy_paralysis/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/htww


Faustian bargains
I’ve lately become a reader of Across the Curve, the blog of the bond trader John Jansen. It’s jargon-heavy — sometimes even I have to look up the terms he uses — but in a time of disordered markets (does anyone actually manage to borrow at Libor these days) it’s really helpful to have reports from a “tone and feel of the markets” guy who can tell you what the numbers can’t.

And his opening comment this morning is a shocker. After describing some of the weird action in Treasuries, he says:

Is this the beginning of the end for the dollar and the Treasury market? Is this the first sign of the bursting of the bubble in Treasury securities? That market, in a sense, represents the ultimate bubble as it exists at the whim and caprice of foreign investors, who have as participants in a Faustian bargain, financed our war(s) and our lifestyle so generously over the last decade. Maybe even that bizarre construct is crashing about us as we speak.

Maybe I should be drinking something a bit more … calming .. than coffee right now.

City by the Bay

After a consultation with Kay Bailey's office, I decided that trying to enter Canada before next year was a bust, so I spoke to David (my best friend from college,) and asked him if he had any work he needed done at his company.

Interestingly, I'd been wanting to help him in his business for months and months, but couldn't really do anything when I was in Houston and not there to see what I was working on. Working remotely can be really challenging when you're just starting out, unless it's a simple matter. He invited me to come down for a month, and I got here last night after driving two days through beautiful Oregon and Washington landscapes. I drove past signs for Mount Hood, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Shasta and wanted to stop, but felt impelled to keep going.

Coming through Redding, I missed the 505 bypass that would have had me go around Sacramento. There was a huge grass fire just south of Redding, and I was paying so much attention to it that I missed the 505. I ended up driving through downtown Sacramento (twice) because I was looking for said 505.

Came down through Oakland and Contra Costa county and then across the Bay Bridge, through seriously heavy 5:30 p.m. traffic. It was about 70 degrees, and sunny. Arrived at David's business, and he helped me unload the car (the stuff that didn't need to come to his house,) and then we came back to his place which has a floor to ceiling view of the financial district. Jackie is enlivened by the new environment, and David's three cats are hiding out.

He took me to an amazing Chinese restaurant two blocks up the hill/street, and we chatted a while. I have filled his media room with bags of clothing, and have to work on organizing all of that today. Jackie also needs a bath, which she's about to get.

Vancouver bound and gagged

I began to think I had the only red car in the reddest of all of the states.

I don't mean dark red, or maroon, or claret, or merlot - I mean "push me down and do me" red. Blood red. Screaming for attention red. Red like my car, my phone (that matches the paint on my car, thank you very much. Like the bags things are packed in that ride in the car. Like Jackie the dog.)

I drove straight up US 287 from Ennis (south of Dallas) through Waxahachie, Wichita Falls (failing to stop in Anarene for lunch), Amarillo, Dumas, and then through endless, nameless towns in the Oklahoma panhandle, and through southeastern Colorado until I connected with the interstate system near Denver.

From there, I took I-25 to Cheyenne, then west on I-80 through all of Wyoming, into Utah, skipped Salt Lake City, clipped the edge of Ogden, and headed for the Oregon border.

Oregon started off very high, and almost as curvy as Utah. Oregon is amazing and beautiful. It was in eastern Oregon that I saw the first red car on the road since leaving Texas.

As I was trying to negotiate sharp curves and transiting from 6% uphill grades to 6% downhill grades in the rain, I had someone in a bright red Pontiac G6 chase up my bumper moments after developing the thought "I haven't seen a red car in three days."

They were at least polite - no tailgating, and they moved along quickly.

Only a few minutes later, a young woman in a bright red Chevy Cobalt came running up behind me. I was passing a truck, something that one does a lot of in the mountains, and had the cruise control set for the state speed limit of 65.

Apparently, I was causing her some difficulty, because she ran right up behind my rear bumper such that I couldn't see her headlights. Once I finished passing the truck, I moved into the right lane. She gunned her little motor and went past me.

Her car was equipped with a "fart pipe". That's one of those large diameter exhaust pipes that one usually sees on more ethnically connected and older Japanese cars, which makes a loud noise akin to a very long fart.

I still haven't seen very many red cars.

I've seen some amazing things, though. An early 80's Plymouth Reliant that still runs. A Datsun (By Nissan) B210 (second generation) that isn't completely rusted out. A Chevy Celebrity wagon that still runs.

Lots of older cars in use here in the Pacific Northwest.

Some notes:

* Wyoming has some of the best pavement I've ever driven on. Oklahoma, hands down, the worst.

* Construction zones on Interstate freeways should be much better marked than they are.

* Wyoming saves money on signage and uses it on freeways - meaning, their signs SUCK, and there aren't enough of them.

* Oregon has the best speed limit signs. HUGE, with ENORMOUS letters "65". No uncertainty.

* Utah didn't post a speed limit sign for nearly seven miles into the state.

* Texas excels in small towns with lower speed limits without any prior warning.

* Oklahoma is the gold medal standard in such speed traps. Fortunately, they have no people living in the panhandle, therefore no police officers to nab anyone.

* Colorado's rustic visual imagery seems engineered and a facade. Wyoming's is because that's how they live.

* Oregon smells great

* Mountain roads, twisty curves, steady rain, falling temperatures nearing freezing, heavy traffic, summer performance tires, at night on roads you've never driven is a great recipe for paying close attention through adrenaline.

* Canada customs officers are mostly movie-star handsome.

* US customs officers look like country sheriff charactures, with consistent personalities

* Motel 6 quality is widely varied from property to property. The towels are all the same, as is the decor.

* A dog, laying on the floor of the car for three days, produces an astonishing amount of particulate trash and a noisome odor.

* How did I live so long without XM radio? The sheer reliability and clarity of non-stop signal for the stations which you wish to listen to is a blessing.

I haven't really seen all that much of Washington state. Seattle (which I passed through at night and in the rain) looks awesome. Washington roads are beautifully built, well signed, clear, and much like riding a wooden roller coaster.

Sunday morning funnies

Corporate welfare and taxpayer bribes

Read this

This is another example of why it is wrong-headed to give tax dollars to private enterprise. San Antonio, which never got the jobs that were promised, is out the $1M, and the State is out the $15M. These are direct payments, not just tax waivers.

In Minnesota, Northwest is bailing out of their huge facilities that the State helped pay for to "keep jobs in Minnesota." Now, those jobs are gone forever.

In each of these cases, the defense is that the private enterprise needs the flexibility to make competitive choices.

Fine, do it with your own money. Stop taking money out of my pocket.

The executives at WaMu were taking out more money each year in salary, bonus and other compensation than this amount that our cash-strapped state and nearly destitute San Antonio put in. Why didn't the State tell WaMu "hey, I've got a great idea - cut your executive's pay package for ONE YEAR and you'll have the capital that you need."

Why are we doing this? Are we collectively insane?

Decisions like this aren't even taxpayer bribes to corporate enterprise - this is welfare.

How much money was spent on AFDC and WIC in Texas as compared to this huge gift to a company that didn't keep its contract for the money? Why cannot the State and San Antonio demand repayment of the money from Chase as a condition of the takeover?

Because they're blocked from doing so. Because this is WELFARE - this is transferring money raised from people struggling to get by shopping and working at Wal-Mart to multi-multi-millionaires.

Questions on the anniversary of 9/11

Lifted directly from "Bill in Portland, Maine," on DailyKos

hu Sep 11, 2008 at 04:12:53 AM PDT

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Questions

When he was warned in the August 6, 2001 PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US", why did the president do nothing except tell the guy who delivered it to him, "All right, you've covered your ass, now"?
Why did Rudy Giuliani put the anti-terrorism command center in the World Trade Center against the advice of experts who knew better?
Why did the president sit in that Florida classroom for several minutes after being told "America is under attack"?
Why were members of the bin Laden family allowed to fly out of the country when all planes were grounded?
Could there be any greater examples of heroism than the passengers who fought back on Flight 93, the rescue teams at the Pentagon, or the NYPD and NYFD responders who ran into the towers without hesitation?
Father Mychal Judge: Saint...or Supersaint?
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Why did firefighters have faulty radios instead of dependable ones, Mr. Giuliani?
Was it really necessary for the president to tell us to go shopping?
Why were rescue workers at Ground Zero told by the EPA director that the air was safe to breathe when it wasn't?
When rescue workers got horribly sick from breathing contaminated air, why were so many given perfunctory treatment and then left to fend for themselves?
Why did Rudy Giuliani say he "was at the site as often, if not more, than most of the workers," when he only visited the site for 29 hours over a span of 41 visits?
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When Glenn Beck---one of the most respected figures in the Republican party---said, "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining," why wasn't he banished into obscurity?
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When the president stressed the importance of safeguarding our ports and vital infrastructure, why did he take so long actually safeguarding them? Are they much safer today?
When the president called for greater security at airports, why was there such a lopsided focus on passengers and very little on cargo until recently?
When we found out that most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, why did the president continue holding hands with their leaders?
Why were habeas corpus rights suspended years after the attacks of 9/11, when the country wasn't in a state of rebellion or invasion?
When Congress found out the president had broken the law before 9/11 by snooping on American citizens without warrants, why did they patch up the law to make his---and the phone companies'---illegal activities retroactively legal?
The president nominated Bernard Kerik to be the head of Homeland Security...and he wasn't joking???
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When Ann Coulter---one of the most respected figures in the Republican party---said, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," why wasn't she banished into obscurity?
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When Bush had bin Laden in his sights at Tora Bora, why didn’t he take the shot?
Why were we told repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attacks when he had nothing to do with them?
When we needed more troops to vanquish the Taliban in Afghanistan, why did we invade Iraq?
If we're winning the "War on terror," why hasn't the color-coded terror alert level changed from Yellow to Green or Blue in 2,382 days?
How unspeakably crude was it for the Republican party to exploit the 9/11 attacks in a promotional video during their convention in St. Paul?
Why hasn't the president caught Osama bin Laden?
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When Jerry Falwell---one of the most respected figures in the Republican party---got on TV and said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'," why wasn't he defrocked and sent to work in soup kitchens for the rest of his life?
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Why is there still a giant hole in the ground in Lower Manhattan?
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Are terrorists pricks, or what?
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Are politicians who use fear to scare citizens into submission pricks, or what?
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Will the shock ever wear off?

Too bad it's not really satire