Today's new word is--amazing

Voice technology is certainly improving. http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal

I typed in "Today's new word is. . ." and couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, most women don't have voices this good. Then when I clicked on the same phrase in Finnish, "Marko" came up. It's called Site Pal, text to speech. Actually, I really wouldn't want it on every site I visit, but it's fun to play with.

Home made soup

As soon as I read her blog about pea soup (and said yuk) I went to the kitchen and made a big pot of broccoli soup, one of my favorites. I didn't know e-Bay had blogs, but that's where I found these wonderful tips on making money, instead of spending money, with children. She's primarily a seller, not a blogger (once a month? what's that?)

I didn't breastfeed, or make my own baby food, but in the 1960s-1970s, we lived on one income, with one car, had play groups, washed diapers and did most of the other tips that this one-income family does. Snacks at our house were sliced vegetables or fruit. Oh, and we didn't have e-Bay in those days, but we had lots of fun at garage sales, which must be falling on hard times these days with everyone selling on-line. I could give the kids a quarter and they could "shop."

I think I saw her name at a discussion on coupons (I don't believe in them--in the long run they don't save you money because they are a marketing device and lull you into the something for nothing mentality).

The IRS gives wonderful tax incentives to those who have children. We got a child tax credit of $1000 this year, plus a tax deduction worth a fair amount of money by having an extra person in the family. For my family, if we can spend less than $1500 per year on our child, we are making money. Here's how to spend less than $1500. [Note: the family of the 1960s and 1970s got a much higher percentage of income personal deduction. I think it was around $500 per person in 1961 or about 10% of our income.]

1. Breastfeed.

2. Line dry cloth diapers and reusable baby wipes (cheap dishrags or cut-up old towels make great wipes). If you think you might like to use cloth diapers, think ahead. This summer, when you go to garage sales, ask proprietors of sales that have a lot of baby items if they have cloth diapers. Many people have at least a couple that they thought weren't worth putting out. These can be gotten for $.05-$.25 each, and are usually better quality than the Gerber 12-packs regular stores sell (for about $13). Plan on at least 30 diapers. Also, read prior post about how to save on costs of laundry, because this will be important to you if you use cloth diapers.

3. Never, ever buy prepared baby food. We have a pressure cooker in which we cooked veggies or fruit (just add a tiny bit of water to the bottom, and cook for a little while, and they'll be steamed). Run the stuff through the blender and put in freezer containers (or an ice cube tray, then bag the frozen food cubes). It's not difficult at all. If you don't have a pressure cooker, just use a regular pan; however, pressure cookers can be found at garage sales, and they save energy because stuff cooks a lot faster in them. Also, we found that our son would eat anything, even pureed asparagus, if we added applesauce to it.

4. Don't buy snacks, except Cheerios. Those Gerber snacks are overpriced, even with a good sale. A large box of Cheerios doesn't cost much, and they'll last a while; moreover, they are not yummy enough that parents or siblings will be tempted by them.

5. Skip preschool. Sure, kids need some socialization. Join a church mom's group which has kids activities (Coffee Break, MOPS, etc). If you can find a group or two that meets weekly, your kid will get socialization, and you might find some new friends, too. This could save $1000/year.

6. Quit your job if someone else in your family has an income, and save money on child care. To do this, you'll need to find other ways to save money. For wonderful ideas, read "The Tightwad Gazette", by Amy Dacyczyn (available at the library). Creative ways of hanging onto the money you already do have are as good as earning more.

7. Use the library instead of buying books.

8. Use the playground instead of Chuck E. Cheese.

9. Don't buy unnecessary things (such as shoes for babies who aren't walking yet, cute little impractical outfits, etc.).

10. Anticipate baby's needs. You know he'll eventually need size 10 shoes, so don't wait to buy them until he grows out of his size 9.5's. If you wait, you'll find yourself at Wal-mart paying $6, when a $.50 used pair would be far better quality. You know he'll eventually like to have Legos, so don't wait until Christmas to buy them new. Pick them up at the garage sale where they're $1. Kids don't care if stuff is used unless you condition them to care. (You condition them to care by acting like new stuff is superior. Ever say, "It's brand new!"? Phrases like that condition them to think of used items as inferior.)

11. Hit the end of church or school 2nd Best sales. Often they'll have a bag sale, where you can fill a bag with anything you want for $1-$4. This is your opportunity to stock up on whatever you need. If you need it right away, don't be too picky, but if it's something you'll need two years from now, only take the really good or hard-to-find stuff. These sales usually occur in the spring and fall, so watch the newspaper classifieds or Craigslist.

11. When we acquire something, we make it our goal to be able to sell the item for a profit when we're done with it. For instance, we found a very nice stroller free on trash day which we used for a few years, then sold it for $12 when we were finished with it. We bought a newer, but dirty, baby carrier for $.50, cleaned it up nicely and laundered the pad, and were able to sell it for $5 when we were done with it. We trash-picked a crib, gave it a paint-job, and sold it for $40 when we were finished with it. We have routinely sold toys, and even clothes, for a profit at our garage sales. I know there are those who say you shouldn't buy a used car seat, but talk to the person you're buying it from to see if it's been in an accident, call the manufacturer to see if it's been recalled, see if it's not too old, and use your common sense. And with cribs, you have to make sure a used one meets current safety standards. That information is easy enough to find online. But generally, used things should do just fine. I'll write an email in the spring about how to hold a successful garage sale.

12. Have patience. If we feel like we need something for our child, we try to wait. Needs have a way of either going away, or being met cheaply if only one has sufficient patience. Go to those garage sales (but stay on task, don't buy a bunch of junk that will just sit around your house), see if anyone will loan you what you need, keep yours eyes open for discards on trash day--you'll be surprised at what very nice things you can get free or for pocket change.

13. Because you'll essentially be earning money on this baby, check out savings accounts for kids. Often these are better deals than the adult ones (no fees or minimum balance), and the parents' names can be on the account. Just putting the kid's name on the account helps, even if only the adults use the account.

She has some wonderful tips; but isn't old enough or experienced enough to know this frugality will make no difference at all once her children get a hold of a credit card. And btw, don't ever put your child's savings account under her/his own name and social security number. They'll know more at 25 than 18.

Congress has promised

AMTRAK schedules for the automobile industry and converter box guidance for the healthcare industry.

General Motors and Chrysler raced to save their place in the American auto industry yesterday, putting the final touches on plans to curb production, cut jobs and pare brands in hopes of securing billions of dollars in additional federal aid. WaPo Feb. 17, 2009

Embracing socialism

And Obama. I'm watching a socialist Brian Moore argue the case for socialism with a Brit subbing on Cavuto's show. No contest. What idiots. 'scuse me. That's not nice. How uninformed, ignorant, pie in the sky and stepping into the doorway to marxism. But wow, are these guys thrilled with Obama!

Air travel has never been safer, but . . .

We can count on more regulations. It is a tragedy that 50 people died in last week's crash near Buffalo, NY. And yet thousands die every year on the highways. . . many because we don't have the will to raise the legal driving age even two years. Auto collisions are the leading cause of death among teens, killing about 4,000 a year. And it isn't just teens. Any person in a car with a teen driver is in much more danger than from birds sucked into airplane engines or ice on the wings. If we did nothing else but forbid teen drivers to have passengers, thousands of lives could be saved. Do those families not grieve? Are those people less important than people who boarded a commuter plane?

"The AAA Foundation analysis shows that from 1995 through 2004 crashes involving 15, 16, and 17-year-old drivers claimed the lives of 30,917 people nationwide, of which only 11,177 (36.2%) were the teen drivers themselves. The remaining 19,740 (63.6%) included 9,847 passengers of the teen drivers, 7,477 occupants of other vehicles operated by drivers at least 18 years of age, 2,323 non-motorists. The analysis also shows that 12,413 of these fatalities occurred in single vehicle crashes involving only the vehicle operated by the teenage driver.

In 1999, 16- and 17-year-old teens driving with no passengers were involved in 1.6 accidents per 10,000 trips, yet the rate rises to 2.3 accidents with one passenger, 3.3 accidents with two passengers, and sharply rises to 6.3 accidents with three or more passengers in the car." More statistics on teen drivers here.

During the last ice storm a teenager wrecked his dad's new red sports car by slamming into the light pole at our condo entrance (it's a 35 mph street but I'm guessing from the damage he was speeding). I think the car was totaled, and it was weeks before the red pieces were cleaned up because the snow plows had buried much of the debris. I hope daddy has learned a lesson, because fortunately the boy survived without serious injuries. The car can be replaced; the child can't be. He will live to drive again--much wiser I hope.

1,073 Pages

No time to read it, yet the President had time to dawdle over signing it. Took the Mrs. out for dinner to a swanky Chicago restaurant for Valentines Day. That was nice, a good example for men everywhere, but just what was the rush for not allowing the "transparency" we were promised? Why the black hole when it comes to nationalizing so much of the economy? The Democrats, who later cried "Bush lied," knew exactly what was what going into the Iraq War--it was their intelligence and rhetoric on WMD that Bush used. And that took months of negotiating, going over Saddam's failed promises, over the intelligence, over agreements with our allies, consulting with Senators like Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy and Edwards. But for this, which is far more serious--no, no. In Iraq, we were attempting to impose a democracy on a country that had been under a dictatorship. Now we're destroying our own democracy with a petty tyrant who stamps his dainty foot and says, "Never you mind, I won the election. No time to read it. No time for representative government." Just a take over of the economy by our government with complete compliance of the "free press" and our Congress. What's the big deal? And nary a gun was even pointed to anyone's head.

What you can do with a degree in literature

Or theater. Or art history. Or psychology. First find a job to pay the rent with the government in a field that will not die--like sexually transmitted diseases, then follow the money.

Thomas E. Getzen is Professor of Risk, Insurance and Health Management at Temple University and the founder and Executive Director of iHEA, the International Health Economics Association. After receiving an undergraduate degree in literature from Yale University, he worked for the U.S.P.H.S. Centers for Disease Control Venereal Disease program in New York and Los Angeles, and then obtained an MHA degree in Medical Care Organization and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Washington. Dr. Getzen’s main research contributions have been in the areas of contracting, price indexes and forecasting of health care spending. His consulting work has included employee benefit negotiations, laboratory diagnostics, risk assessment, and capital financing for managed care. Dr. Getzen has been a visiting professor at the University of York (U.K.), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Center for Health and Wellbeing of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has served on the boards of Covenant House, a local community health center in Northwest Philadelphia, MSI Inc, a venture-capital financed managed behavioral health care corporation, Catholic Health East (CHE), a multi-institutional health provider system with over 60 hospitals and nursing homes. Dr. Getzen has written more than 80 papers in the field and serves on the editorial board of the journal Health Economics.

Elderly hardest hit by Katrina

Why Mayor Nagin was never brought up on charges of criminal negligence I don't know; the people of New Orleans rewarded him with reelection. There's an interesting report In Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, December 2008 , which was probably ignored by the media because you couldn't make a racial case for the victims. New Orleans was over 65% black, but the deaths were 51% black. So who suffered the most in proportion to their population count--the elderly. That's probably not too surprising, because when you think about it, even if the warning system and the bus transportation had worked, they might have been left behind. Although I don't think Governor Jindahl left them during Hurricane Ike. This report hadn't been published yet, but someone on his staff was probably smart enough to figure it out. It's really unfortunate that in 2005 the mayor and governor performed so poorly during that disaster.

Results: We identified 971 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana and 15 deaths among Katrina evacuees in other states. Drowning (40%), injury and trauma (25%), and heart conditions (11%) were the major causes of death among Louisiana victims. Forty-nine percent of victims were people 75 years old and older. Fifty-three percent of victims were men; 51% were black; and 42% were white. In Orleans Parish, the mortality rate among blacks was 1.7 to 4 times higher than that among whites for all people 18 years old and older. People 75 years old and older were significantly more likely to be storm victims (P < .0001).

Conclusions: Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest hurricane to strike the US Gulf Coast since 1928. Drowning was the major cause of death and people 75 years old and older were the most affected population cohort. Future disaster preparedness efforts must focus on evacuating and caring for vulnerable populations, including those in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and personal residences. Improving mortality reporting timeliness will enable response teams to provide appropriate interventions to these populations and to prepare and implement preventive measures before the next disaster.

A new roof for my son

You may remember that Hurricane Ike blew through Columbus in September. It took a large part of my son's roof. He had purchased the home from us in July, and although we had a local bank (Arlington Bank), a lawyer, a title company, and assurances from our home owner's insurance company that everything was taken care of with the bank, when he went to make a claim, he had no home owner's insurance--it was still in our name. Needless to say, we were outraged, but the bank eventually settled by giving him enough cash to get it repaired, but not replaced. And he found a new bank (he had been banking there since he was a child) and a new insurance company. Columbus and central Ohio had 60 mph winds last Thursday, and the repaired part of his roof held, but the rest of it went. He called today to say the new insurance company will replace his roof. Although I won't hold my breath. Remember, the government has sent him a letter demanding fifty cents of unpaid back taxes. If you can't find Daschle or Geithner, go after that guy in Columbus who fixes cars for a living.

He told me a funny story today. Someone called his repair shop to report that the battery had died on his remote key control and he couldn't get in his car. "Have you tried the key?" my son asked. It's funnier when he tells it.

Caterpillar employees are not fooled by Obama

Elizabeth Meinecke reports that Obama tried to cajole Illinois Republican Aaron Schock into voting for the stimulus package in front of the Caterpillar employees during his speech to hustle votes last week. Schock waited around afterwards to talk to them. No takers.

“In fact, I have received over 1,400 phone calls, e-mails and letters from Caterpillar employees alone asking me to oppose this legislation,” Schock said on the House floor Friday. “Why? Because they get it. They know this bill is not stimulus.”

Schock urged a no vote and followed through this afternoon. He’s clearly in touch with his constituents. Can Obama say the same?"

Well, Elizabeth, Obama IS in touch with his star struck fans--in a few months when they realize what he's done, the story may be a bit different. Although it's terribly hard to make a Democrat escape from the plantation. Freedom is so darn scary.

HT Soapbox Jill

Late for church twice in one day!

We have a prayer team that meets with the pastors at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning. This is perfect for me--I'm an early riser. It's about 6 minutes from my garage, to the parking lot, to the sanctuary. However, today I was to drive my husband's car to church so he can pick it up at midnight when he returns from a mission week in Haiti. I jumped (literally since it sits higher than my van) in his SUV which I hadn't driven in about 6 months, and had to find the seat lever to adjust for my short legs, the seat belt, key hole and garage door opener in the dark. Then I had to relearn a stick shift. In the parking lot I had to find the little switch (again in the dark) that lets you remove the key. I was late for prayer!

Then at 7:30 after prayer I went into the church library to read, because first service doesn't start until 8:15. I was reading about 18th and 19th century ethnic Lutherans in the USA (didn't get along, didn't like each others' music or liturgy and once they learned English they started getting cosy with Episcopalians and Reformed), when a woman who also used to live in Mt. Morris, IL came in and sat down. So as women do, we got to chatting, and before I knew it, it was 8:25 and I was late for church--again!

Our church has 9 services at 3 locations (Lytham Rd., Upper Arlington; Mill Run, Hilliard; Hilltop, Columbus) to which you can be late. Check out UALC.

Good politics is bad history and bad economics

It's a toss up. The demeaning and foot shuffling dance of the United States abroad by Biden-Obama, or Obama's negative rhetoric at home to completely gut the spirit of the American people. What is he up to? Certainly there's no hope, no change in the constant barrage of negativism we've heard since November 4. He gets his stimulus package through duplicity and lies, and before it even gets to his desk tells us it won't work and there will be more! I don't know if a positive attitude helps cancer patients, but if I had stage one cancer, I certainly wouldn't be encouraged by being knocked to the floor with the stats and treatment regimen for stage four.

[Obama’s] fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That's a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost -- fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82. Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'

If she pays her taxes can she join the cabinet?

"2001 Stanford Law Grad Cristina Schultz (now Cristina Warthen after her marriage to David Warthen, co-founder of the online search engine Ask Jeeves, now known as Ask.com) was indicted in San Jose federal court yesterday for allegedly failing to pay taxes on $133,717 she earned as a prostitute in 2003. From the Information (United States v. Warthen, No. CR-08-682) . . .see link TaxProfBlog. Now her husband has filed for divorce. Surely he knew! Two California newspapers I checked have pulled the story, but they had been copied into blogs.

Another Bridge to Nowhere

"Muzzammil Hassan came to America from Pakistan 25 years ago. He became a successful banker in Buffalo, New York, near the famed Niagara Falls. While he and his wife were happy to be in the United States, they were upset by the negative perceptions of Muslims, and particularly how this perception might affect their children. That is how they came up with the idea of Bridges TV. Mr. Hassan's wife challenged him to start it." VOA 2004

Thursday he beheaded his wife, Aasiya. Buffalo News.

The killing apparently occurred some time late Thursday afternoon. Detectives still are looking for the murder weapon.

"Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband.

"She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.

Muzzammil Hassan was arraigned before Village Justice Deborah Chimes and sent to the Erie County Holding Center.

Clinton's legacy--welfare reform of 1996

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was more successful than anyone hoped. Even Democrats acknowledged it while in the next breath noting it didn't end poverty or illegitimacy or hang the moon. The new Obama plan will undo most of what's left of it. The old programs and expenses crept back over the years under new names and acronyms without the stigma of welfare--SCHIP, EITC, TANF expanded child care, more money for school feeding programs. I think even food stamps got a new name.

We "imported" more poor people through the sieve of our borders and broadened the definition of poverty. Too many well paid jobs depend on the poor--poverty will never go away. Although the welfare case loads went down, it's still really tough for a single mom with limited education and few skills to compete economically with two income, college educated married couples. Do the math. It's easy for her children to slip back into "let the government take care of me" mentality ala Henrietta the Homeless in Florida. Even so, my 1996 letter to Ellen Goodman, the columnist, who was extremely negative then about the Act, shows Democrats differed. At that time I was still a Democrat, therefore my criticism of her column is a criticism of the programs I myself had supported and even then viewed as failures. (I supported the PRWORA, however, with reservations about where former welfare recipients would work.)

You may have a point, childhood or children, have indeed become expendable. But wasn't it we, the Democrats, who put that all in place long before the welfare reform? Who is it that first made unborn children less than human--when we undercut (chopped up might be a better term) the weakest and most vulnerable in our society at the rate of a million a year? We made an inconvenient pregnancy a tragedy and labeled it the "right to choose." Did we really think that this concept wouldn't start creeping up the age charts? And remember when we liberals thought the mentally ill and retarded should be out on the streets enjoying all those civil rights the rest of us have and we closed all their safe havens? And what about the tax structure that clobbers families with children and makes it more advantageous for men and women to just live together? And who was it that made it more financially viable for a woman to be married to Uncle Sam than to a man? Who was it that made being totally unproductive an entitlement? Wasn't it you and me?

I'm older than you, Ms. Goodman, and I remember when the "War on Poverty" began. I've seen 30+ years of billions of dollars being thrown at a problem, dollars that often go to pay the salaries of social workers, government bureaucrats and careerist do-gooders just so we can feel like we're doing something. I myself once worked for the JTPA--and I worked very hard, but I fear most of the money didn't really make it to the people who needed the help. Many have left poverty behind and for that I am grateful--but I doubt that public assistance helped as much as their families' assistance, or their churches' assistance, or the tremendous economic growth of the 1980s, the years we Democrats love to lie about. The problem with poverty graph lines and figures is it doesn't show what happens to individuals. Even with the horrors of welfare, my guess is the chances of moving up are still far better in the USA than anywhere else in the world.

Frankly, I'm concerned about where these folks currently on welfare are going to find this "work opportunity." Do I really want someone who has never had a parental example of working for a living serving my food, plumbing my pipes or inserting my IVs? Can you think of any jobs for someone trained in a 6 or 8 week program who dropped out of high school or doesn't have transportation? We all know that initially it will be more expensive to put people to work than to let them live on subsistence.

We encouraged women to get abortions; we encouraged them to go to work leaving the childcare to poor women; we encouraged them to ignore marriage vows. We shouldn't be surprised if the children are "sold and eaten."

And to think I remained a Democrat for another four years! The Democrats are now Socialists and the Republicans are now what the Democrats were in the 1970s and 1980s. Anyone for a new party?

Yummy cupcakes and other good things

Alisha and Angie have a cupcake business. If I lived near them in Utah, I would certainly buy a box for Valentines Day. But since I'm in Ohio, I'll just browse their interesting, delicious website and admire their plan to have their own business.

Soapbox Jill is a rare breed. She's a conservative librarian! Way outnumbered, but blogging anyway. She's also a mom, a Christian, a poet and a writer.

Mike and Judy are on the road with their RV (in Texas right now), but live in Michigan. They are both very good writers with an observant eye, and Mike was the president of my high school class and I've known him since . . . well, I can't remember when I didn't know him, but it's a long time.

Bookish is the title of Deborah's current blog. She's also a conservative librarian, so go visit and say HI. She's tried a few times to quit blogging, but she was born to blog.

Billoblog is my go to blog for things medical and technical. I "met" him over 10 years ago on line and just keep bumping into him. I think he's a pathologist. He can really dissect what's in the President's plan for us. It's sort of like making sausage--you probably don't want to know.

Karen Hall is a Catholic soccer mom of four who writes at Some Have Hats, and doesn't pull any punches. I like her style, even if I don't always understand the issues.

I've told you this before, but if you need to know anything about food allergies go visit Janeen's family blog. She also posts recipes and current news stories about food safety, etc. Her two boys both have food allergies. We never had those problems, but I just like her blog.

Two information/news sources I've recently added to my links are Black Informant, for news specifically of interest to African Americans, and Cybercast News Service, which picks up some of the news services like AP and Reuters, but is not as biased as what we usually get from the bootlickin' fanny wipin' journalists who will probably soon be out of a job because how many clones in an echo chamber does one president need?

Bush spent a lot, now it's my turn

What is this? Anything you can do I can do better? Obama says not to criticize him for his outrageous spending package because Bush spent too much getting us into trouble. So he spends more.

The Bush administration is certainly vulnerable to the charge that it spent way too much. Unfortunately for the always-campaigning President Obama, however, this is not a valid response to the question of whether he should spend more now. Link.

Bush lost a lot of support among Republicans for his profligate spending on domestic problems, especially those passed with "bi-partisan efforts." Republicans totally pulled away from him on the illegal alien issue. The difference here is the more Obama spends, the more the Democrats love him.

So this plan is the worst of all worlds — unless you are a once-closet socialist trained in the grand academic tradition of Chicago street organizing who finally sees an opportunity to "come out" and work your wonders on the poster nation for greedy and decadent capitalism, the United States of America. It involves incomprehensible spending in aggravation of an already dangerous national debt load; a possible net retardant effect on economic recovery; greater government control over the economy, with a consequent diminution of our liberties; and a necessary reduction of essential government services. Link

Australian bush fires

Australia is a continent--it's huge. All of Europe would fit within its borders with room to spare, and it's about the size of the U.S. without Alaska. So it's hard to generalize what's happening, since parts of that country are flooding, others having fires. Our hearts go out to all who've lost family and property in the terrible fires. Americans and Australians share Ireland as, if not our mother, at least a motherly aunt. Possibly 300 have lost their lives and 7,000 have been displaced. But we all know global warming will be blamed for either extreme--fires or flood--because, well, there's never been temperature extremes before right? It's only humans that are the problem. The little greens will blame people for wanting to live away from the city in areas with lots of trees (only movie stars and politicians should be allowed to do this) and the big greens will blame lack of action in capitalist countries to shut down production and let their people all return to 19th century levels of poverty.

I'm guessing that the most fire prone areas of Australia have regulations like ours in the SW U.S., with the best intentions, but aggrevating the fire and loss of life problems. When we were in Arizona and southern California in 2006 our guides were able to show us huge stretches of ugly tender-box forests, where neither the state or private owners were allowed to remove diseased, dead and trash vegetation. Some of the regulations are not even well-intentioned. They are intended to keep people from living there because it would be too dangerous and the "greenies" don't want the habitat desturbed.

This is Americana?

While flitting around this morning cleaning, I decided to listen to on some music, so turned on the cable to "Americana." My husband has been in Haiti for a construction and teaching short term mission, so I thought it might be nice to have things tidy when he got home. Americana seems to be an offspring of country and western, but 21st century. What ever happened to "somebody done me wrong" songs, or "honky tonk women," or "who left the chewing gum on the bedpost overnight?" This stuff is so pop-psych I almost can't take it. When did country go to college?

Obama Democrats by the numbers

I can't vouch for all of them. I knew about Chris Dodd and Tom Daschle. But that Maxine Waters benefiting from the TARP bank thing had completely slipped past me. But the last one is sure big, isn't it? Why does anyone in today's global economy, who claims to have lived abroad and experienced other cultures, who attended over-priced Ivy League colleges, think you can stop trade only on one end? What were they teaching in the 1980s?

"$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion):

the approximate amount of annual United States exports endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy American" stricture. According to international trade experts, a "US-EU trade war looms", which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act."

Obviously, the days of the "rich Republicans" are long gone.

Update: If the protectionism has been "softened" in this package, apparently Europe didn't get the news. FT Weekend "Berlin fears repeat of 1930s mistakes," and this from Forbes on the 13th:

ROME, Feb 13 (Reuters) - G7 finance ministers converged on Rome to discuss the economic crisis amid warnings from Germany and Britain on Friday that the world could revert to the dark days of the 1930s if governments resorted to protectionism.