Just answer the five questions

When the numbers don't add up

The Treasury Department sends a surprising letter to Congress:

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday said the United States may be unable to pay its bills this fall unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $8.965 trillion.

Paulson, in a letter to lawmakers, estimated the government is likely to bump into the statutory debt limit in early October.

And the reason it's surprising is that the government has been giving us different numbers as of late:

WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The White House cut Wednesday its forecast of the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year ending September to 205 billion US dollars, saying an expanding economy will boost tax revenues.

So Bush's numbers show that the federal deficit will be about $200 billion (200 thousand thousand thousand) for the year ending in September, or a $300b rate for 18 months. Yet the actual debt, as measured by real dollars being borrowed into existence, worked out to almost $800b in 18 months. That's an overage of better than 150%.

So is the real deficit around $200 billion for the year, or is it closer to $500 or 600 billion*? And to what does one ascribe this more than 100% discrepancy between published numbers and real ones?

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that a group of feminist economists - famous for their disrespect for the integrity of numbers - was in charge of the budget process. But as this is a GOP administration, I guess it just goes to prove that anything a woman can do, a Republican can do worse.

* And have you set aside your childrens' portion, which will be roughly 2 grand for every person in your household just for this year?

irony

(hat tip: MikeT)

Inquiring minds want to know

Jeff asks a fair question:

when will you quit telling us what has and is happening, and tell us WHEN this will happen? your statement could have been posted in 1980,1990,2000! it would still be accurate. show me some real insight.

I'll never tell you when, because I don't know. I'm just a dime-a-dozen internet noise merchant: I have no crystal ball, no genii, no direct line to the divine. But let me ask this: does *when* really matter?

"If you smoke in bed, you'll burn your house down." "When?"

The purpose here is *not* to tell the future so one can duck out at the last moment. It is to illustrate and illuminate actions and their consequences. What you do with it and when you do that is your concern. For example, I had very little idea when subprime would blow up*, but if anyone insisted on riding the that market, I hope that they got out in time, even if they missed the last good year of 15% capital gains. If they looked at what I wrote and decided that trouble was far enough off to ride another year, they may have done very well. All the better for them. But at least they would have been paying attention.

"If you drink and drive, you'll crash your car." "When?"

The purpose here is certainly not to be a perma-bear. My readers will probably note the complete lack of Dow commentary - I don't post "updates" every time it drops 300 points, and I haven't said what my target for buying the Dow is** . I haven't posted on interest rates, other than to explain how they affect other instruments. I don't cheer the rise of gold, though I may note the price of oil - and then only because I have set certain benchmarks for things I believe must happen. My goal is simply to illustrate and explain what is happening and why, and what the probable effects will be eventually. Changes themselves are neither good nor bad except in how one plans for them.

"If you spend your paychecks at the tracks, your kids will go hungry." "When?"

No reader here should have been surprised to see what happened in subprime, nor will they be surprised when hedge and bond funds imploded because of it, nor when the Fed pumps up the money supply to deal with that, nor when the price of apples rises because of it. They may be surprised at when it happens, and I may be as well, because I simply do not know when it will happen. Any insight I possess does not seem to cover that subject. Ergo I rely on milemarkers and not calendars.

Asking "When?" is like the kids asking, "Dad, are we there yet? How much longer?" Even if the drivers knows, telling them does not make the trip seem any shorter, and it's not until you pull in that they have to put their shoes on anyway. All I can say is that this is the road that goes to Grandma's. Have your shoes ready and don't be surprised if she pinches your cheeks when you get there.

* THAT it would blow was a foregone conclusion.

** And I not only have a target, I have two retirement accounts dedicated to the eventuality. I'm a believer in stocks, but I am not buying the vast majority of them at these prices.

You'd think I would have anticipated this moment

---

Countrywide makes a startling admission:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The subprime mortgage meltdown has begun to spread to prime-rate loans as even credit-worthy borrowers have started to fall behind on payments.

On Tuesday, Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, attributed a big drop in profits to a spike in delinquencies among prime borrowers of "second-lien loans," including home equity loans and home equity lines of credit.

Mortgage, mortgage, blah, blah, blah we know already, ok*? So this post is not about mortgages but about a really cool page I found on Countrywide's website: a list of all the homes they have for sale in Kansas.

Of course, those of you who already live in Kansas probably aren't looking for another home here and those of you who don't live in Kansas, well let's just say there's probably a reason for that, but you still might be interested to see what is happening to prices here**.

A beautiful (it doesn't say that, but I'm just sure it is) home in Bonner Springs, originally listed at $173k, now just $145k, a reduction of about 16%. Here's one in Burlington: was $58k, now $46k (-21%). Here's one in Cassoday: was $58k, now (ouch!) $17k (-70%). What? Did they have a fire?

Those aren't the big three, they are the first three.

There are some even nicer homes on the list. In Lenexa, that used-to-be $750k mansion is unsold at 2/3 off. In Subblette there's a duplex more than half off***. One third off the price is not uncommon, 20% off the asking price seems to be normal. And this is before a smart buyer lowballs frantic sellers an offer.

Now this is not to say that ALL prices in Countrywide's list - or across the nation - are falling. They are not, or at least not this much. And this is not to say that these are "usual" homes. They may not be, and that may be why they are unsold. But it is to say that this is a market where there are a lot of assets on a lot of books that are not worth near what people say they are worth.

So here's the depressing question of the day: when your money is debt, what happens to that money when the assets it is borrowed into existence against can no longer support that debt? Hey, I'm just askin'.

* I can hear you saying it, and I don't blame you - I promised no more mortgage posts back when the Congress decided to solve the problem. How's that coming, by the way?

** I didn't just choose "here" because I'm here - though I'll admit that such is why I looked here first - but because Kansas did not take much part in the bubble and because there are a very manageable number of properties to wade thru. I suspect that if you picked somewhere like Florida or Massachusetts the post, like the problem, would be thoroughly unmanageable.

*** There's a joke in there somewhere...

For MikeT

A little picture to go along with his commentary.

Victory, at long last

After about 15 attempts at the final battle, I finally completed Icewind Dale II tonight. Whew! What a relief.

Isair and Medai turned out to be a tough pair of half dragon twins, and their uber-criminal Legion of the Chimera stole off with a few hours of nearly every night since my last class ended June 29th. So now I've got about 3 weeks (and 4 1/2 books) until HIST 700 (American Revolution) starts up in earnest*.

Dare I start Neverwinter Nights 2 in the interim? While I don't even own it, I do have a birthday coming up in a week or so...

* My other class will be Witch Hazel's "Ireland," which demands no homework other than 2 book reviews, one of which I've already written.

Holding the strikes Americans won't hold

Apparently some outsourcing is just fine by the union:

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now."

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison...

Funny, I thought non-union workers were called "scabs." Or is that only when they do the work that is not beneath the dignity of union workers, like picketing for higher wages for union workers?

Hmm, low wages and no benefits. It is the very definition of hypocrisy for the union to do to its "hired feet" exactly what they complain companies are doing to the workers who voluntarily work for them. But it's also indicative of the rot of late-stage corporate capitalism that the government forces people to join the union, ensuring that money comes out of their paychecks to pay people to complain that not enough money goes into the same paychecks. The end result of laws that 'protect' workers is that not only are the lowest workers paid to do nothing, they still don't receive the alleged protection that was the main issue in the first place. Unions remain what they have been since their creation: a guild that protects the wages of skilled workers from the competition of the unskilled.

But even more ironic is the reaction of the "activists" for the homeless, who seem to be upset that they are making money:

Some activists for the homeless are unhappy with the practice of paid picketing. They say it amounts to using people down on their luck rather than giving them a hand up. Ingrid Reed, who coordinates job placement and housing at the Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter, said the money the unions pay picketers would be better spent on training or apprentice programs that teach skills.

"These jobs won't pay the rent," Reed said. "If they're out there every day Monday through Friday, when are they looking for a job?"

Well, since they union only hires these folks for 10-20 hours a week, there's plenty of time to go look for a job. But hey, if they really were out there every day Monday thru Friday and getting paid for it, why would they need to look for a job? All seriousness aside, Reed's complaint is typical of the moonbat mentality: paying people to work for you is "using them" - as if the homeless are being tricked out of personally-fulfilling jobs designing bridges or flying airliners to picket instead.

But there is one success story: Wiliam R. Strange, who makes $12 an hour because he's moved up to playing the bucket drums at the demonstrations. He also filled out an application for a job near a place where he was picketing one day, and now he loads trucks at night.

No word, however, on whether he belongs to the union.

* whether it's worthwhile is questionable, whether it's legitimate is not.

Dog Found

The Silver Bullet

Huck gets a question that shoots to the heart of our werewolf-like problem:

4. Given the power to enact, redact, or remove any legislation, or group(s) of legislation, what would you do? Pretend the spirit of what you write would be enacted perfectly.

Ah, yes, the silver bullet question. Huck answers it admirably by proposing the peaceful dissolution of the American Empire: in short, the solution would be along the lines of Joel Gerreau's "Nine Nations of North America," wherein each region would be freed to pursue the interests particular to that place. In short, America is too big to be run from a swamp on the Potomac and his solution is to end our political divisions by allowing them to occur legally and peacefully. Not only do I have no argument with that, I think it's inevitable. I only hope it's as peaceful as the dissolution of the USSR was.

That said, I do have a different answer, one that might possibly make it happen anyway and one that illustrates how truly far libertarians (or at least Austrian economists) are from the political mainstream: the imposition of full reserve banking - no bank would be able to lend money it did not have on deposit. Most people would be surprised to learn that it doesn't already exist - in fact, it just seems like common sense - but only because they have never asked the question, "Why does the bank pay me interest on my deposits?"

Most people, when they deposit $100 in the bank, imagine that the bank keeps their $100 in the vault or in a little box with their name on it*. After all, they have $100 on their bank statement, and if they go to the bank they can demand their money. How, then, can the bank afford to pay them interest? It can only afford to pay them interest by lending it out to someone else (say, a person buying a home) at higher interest and living off the difference. That's a fair service and one for which the bank should be paid. But if the money is lent out, how can it be available to you on demand? It can't. The current (fractional-reserve) system is a fraud because it both lends the money out and promises that it is available on demand.

Let's say the bank has a 10% reserve ratio, meaning that by law they can lend 90% of the money they have on deposit and must keep 10% in reserve. That means they can lend $90, right? That would be bad enough, as your $100 would be on your bank statement and $90 of it might be in someone else's pocket, making $190 available to spend (remember, the promise is that you can have your money, too). In actuality, the bank deposits your $100 (this is simplified, of course) with the Federal Reserve Bank, which gives them the ability to lend out 9x the reserve, or $900. Your $100 has become $1000 in spending power. That's inflation. But if the borrower spends $800 and deposits $100 in his own account, that becomes another $900 in loans. So now we have $1900 in "money" based on the $100 you deposited. In theory, the cycle can be perpetuated so long as people are willing to borrow (i.e. go into debt). In fact, the entire system is designed to promote debt. Is it any wonder Americans are the most indebted people the world has ever seen? Our money IS debt, nothing more. It is no longer an asset but a leg iron covered in green ink.

That would be bad enough if not for another fact: this perpetual creation of money from nothing provides free money for the biggest borrower of them all: Uncle Sam. He is able to go nearly perpetually into debt by spending the free money, created from nothing, on anything he wishes. If he needs a trillion for war, no sweat, it's created from nothing. If he needs $2t for poverty programs, no problem, it's created from nothing. When money is created from nothing, there is literally no limit on the debt with which Uncle Sam can shackle the taxpayers. If we wonder why Uncle Sam can't stop spending, the answer is easy: money is no object. It is created from nothing specifically for his use.

Of course, that has bad effects, the worst of which is that eventually the value of the dollars created from nothing becomes nothing. We don't notice it in the short term because it's only a few percent a year, but over the course of a lifetime it reduces the entire nation to debtors because they must pay real interest to the bankers on the money created by the bankers. The borrower is servant to the lender, and therefore the nation is servant to its banks.

So what would full reserve banking mean?

1. It would mean the money avilable for loans would be limited. Interest rates paid to savers would be higher, high enough to induce them to completely give up the use of their money for a designated time.

2. They would have to give up the use of their money because were it loaned out, it would not be available on demand. In fact, the bank would be merely a loan broker, a middleman between borrower and lender, not a creator of money.

3. It would mean that government would be truly expensive. The government would have to make choices between guns and butter, and if it spent too much, no money would be available to build houses, for example. Government would necessarily shrink - and probably by huge margins - because people would bear the full cost of it rather than passing it on to their children.

4. But finally, prices, rather than rising year after year, would gently fall year after year. With a steady supply of money and increasing productivity (the great promise of capitalism) the amount of goods (supply) would rise while demand (measured in a static money supply) would remain the same. Ergo, prices would remain steady or fall** as productivity rose. Your standard of living would naturally increase every year, rather than falling as it does today.

Government would hate it - which is why we have fractional reserve banking in the first place - because there would be less government. It would simply be too expensive a luxury to waste on frivolity.

If one wonders why not only has the size of government exploded since 1932 but the prices of everything has risen 30-fold in the same period, one needs to look no further than the creation of money from nothing empowering government and destroying money itself.

The only solution - and the one ignored by Democrats and Republicans alike - is to eliminate the engine of this inflation, the ability of the banking system, anchored by the Federal Reserve, to buy your labor for nothing by creating the money in which you are paid out of thin air.

None of this, of course, even posits the question, "What will we use for money?" Because the fact is that so long as money is created from nothing, we will use "nothing" for money, no matter what the other laws say.

* if they did, it would be of no use to them and you would have to pay THEM interest for holding it. That's not a bad deal if you think about it - you probably do the same thing for your boat or those boxes of crap you have in storage.

** One can test this by measuring prices in something other than money, like gallons of milk or acres of land. A car costs no more today when measured in those things than it did 30 years ago. it is only in dollars that a car today costs 5-10 times what a house cost in your grandparents' day.

They don't teach punctuation at drama queen school

Another whisper in the theater

Bloomberg points out the obvious (or an obvious headfake):

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.

Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world's biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production*, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.

``We're only a headline of significance away from $100 oil,'' said John Kilduff, an analyst in the New York office of futures broker Man Financial Inc. ``The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.'' New disruptions of Nigerian or Iraqi supplies, or any military strike against Iran, might trigger the rise, Kilduff said in a July 20 interview.

There is no such thing as "news from the future," and with the literally hundreds of market analysts available, any writer can find and handful who will say anything. And even if the analysts believe $100 oil is just around the corner, it's no guarantee that they are correct - obvious numbers (like 80 on the dollar chart, which broke briefly yesterday, and $100 oil) are easy spots for market manipulations to occur because everyone looks at the same charts and lines their trades up the same way.

All that said, the supply/demand case is compelling even without the bottom dropping out of the dollar - which just exacerbates the nasty trend. It will come at some point because we have not stopped increasing the number of dollars in circulation by better than 10% a year, year after year. What did they think would happen?

But hey, the good news is that Peak Oil** solves the Climate Progress problem, and nothing will spur alternative energy research like $7 a gallon diesel. The market will solve the problems that government not only can't solve, but creates in the first place.

But that does not mean it will be fun. Or easy.

* Count me as one of those paranoids who think that last year's announced "cuts" were simply an acknowledgment that OPEC would not be able to pump its quota. I do not expect (by definition, I guess) any unexpected increases in actual production. They may announce increases, but that's not the same thing except in the newspaper.

** Whenever that is.

But what if you really smell smoke?

It's almost a byword that one should never yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre. After all, the problem of fire is not one that can't be handled* by an orderly exit. The real problem comes in when everyone tries to head for the exists at once, a situation that results, like that pair of Bear Stearns hedge funds that imploded, with the doors being padlocked and the flat-footed perishing in the conflagration. It is far better to make your own way quietly to the exit, whispering to your friends that it might be time to leave.

Here's a whisper from April of last year:

When I wrote Second Opinions, I wrote it to a downtrodden audience of gold investors who knew the nomenclature and perceived the parable. I'm going to re-publish a few of the articles here, because what was then in the future is now: with gold crossing $600 today and silver just under $13 we are on the cusp of complete monetary chaos. All it will take is oil at $90 (it's at $70) and a US dollar under 80 on the USD index (it's at 89 today), and we are in some serious do-do. GWB had a chance to change our fate five years ago. Now I truly believe it is sealed: only time stands between us and a Weimar-style inflationary depression.

I have seen little in the past year to change that conclusion, and as of today there is one whiff of smoke in the air. The dollar chart, which was at 89 when I wrote the above, has fallen 10% in the meantime and sits right now at 80.12, one tenth of one percent from that red line in the chart that keeps me awake at night. Gold has risen 10% during that year (not really a coincidence if you think about it) and oil is up 10% and near a record at $75-78 depending upon what weight you are looking at. We have not touched all the danger points, but I think we are sitting atop the most dangerous one, for if you look at the dollar chart above, 80 has been rock bottom, the crisis, the turning point, every time for the last 30 years.

And it may prove so again. The dollar may bounce off 80 here and old El B's worries might just dissipate in a puff of paranoia. I can live with that. My investments are fine either way, balanced as they are between oil, gold, and cash. I'm not hoping for a dollar collapse: I have kids to feed, too.

But it may not bounce this time, either:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar fell to a 12-year low on Friday on concerns the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage sector will have an impact on consumer spending and the wider economy.

Traders and analysts said the ongoing fear surrounding the subprime market pushed the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, to a 12-year low and pushed bond yields and stocks lower...

"It's just a story of general dollar weakness, and though nothing has really changed on housing, that's being used as a catalyst to sell," said Dixon Fung, currency strategist at MG Financial in New York. "Also, oil prices remain high, causing lots of concern about food and energy prices...

The dollar index fell to 80.117.

Ignoring the mix of cause and effect here**, the important point is that the dollar is not really at a decade low: it's within 1% or so of as low as it has ever been. And subprime is just beginning to be felt.

There are good things happening, too. The stock market remains at a record high, not at all as it was in the late 70s. Inflation, at least government-published estimates of inflation, remain low. People are not concerned about the future like they were in the late 70s and the president has yet to utter the word 'malaise.' 99% of investors neither know nor care about the international value of the dollar. Those are good things for everyone who needs a job to survive, we are by no means in a depression. But neither are they indicative of a bottom.

80 has always held. Maybe it will hold again. So long as oil does not cross $90, I don't think we are close to panic time. Rather, we are in watchful time, save your pennies time, take profits time. No need to panic, but plenty of need to sniff the air occasionally and to be aware of the lighted exit signs. When someone finally screams 'fire' - and they will - the aisles will be crowed, the weak trampled underfoot. Best to be through those exits when that happens.

Until then, enjoy the show.

* not that there will be no damage, but that the least number of people hypothetically possible, given the situation, will die.

** oil and food, being priced in dollars, are high because the dollar's low, not verse-vica.

Jaley

Grover '08

Huck proposes a novel solution to a serious problem:

I was planning to sit out the upcoming presidential election, because all of the candidates suck ass through a Dixie straw.

Then it hit me. We need to draft a candidate. Preferably, someone with experience.

Who better than "Silent Cal" Calvin Coolidge? He was one of the painfully few chief executives who did a good job, abided by the Constitution, adhered to a doctrine of minimal federal involvement (in anything) and he left office a more popular figure than when he entered.

Sure, his down side now is that he's dead. But I reckon his 74-year-old corpse is a far sight better than the current crop of thieves and philanderers.

Stay Cool With Coolidge in '08!

Silent Cal is a great choice, but if death is no object*, I'm going to roll with a Democrat in '08: Grover Cleveland, the last great Democrat president.

The only Democrat elected during the period of post-Civil War GOP domination, he took the constitution as literally as possible** and was a man who believed that the most important part of his job was to keep other people's bad ideas from becoming law. He vetoed any law that did not have obvious constitutional authority, including federal seed subsidies for Texas farmers and veteran's health care for non-combat-related disabilities - his argument was that Federal aid in such cases wouls cause people to rely on the government rather than themselves when faced with acts of nature, a prophecy fully borne out in the wake of Katrina. In fact, he vetoed more bills than any other President. Plus, Susan B. Anthony hated his guts***.

After his first term, the GOP regained**** the presidency, but he was back four years later. And while his second term was not as successful as his first, I think he was just in a slump. I mean, how was he supposed to know Queen Liliuokalani was going to be overthrown? We all know he's just the man for the job now that those troublesome Hawaiians are in line.

Limited government, gold standard, free trade, separation of powers, and a vice president that even most American History majors have never heard of. I see your Silent Cal, Huck, and raise you a Buffalo Hangman.

"Ma, Ma, where's my pa?"

"Gone to the White House - again - ha, ha, ha!"

* We'll have to ignore the 22nd Amendment as well as it is not sufficiently retroactive, but I'm in favor of rolling them back to about the 13th anyway.

** "In the discharge of my official duty I shall endeavor to be guided by a just and unstrained construction of the Constitution, a careful observance of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people, and by a cautious appreciation of those functions which by the Constitution and laws have been especially assigned to the executive branch of the Government." - from his first inaugural address.

*** Bonus!

**** Stole, probably. See the "Blocks of Five" scandal.

In honor of the 38th anniversary of the moon landing

What is it with naked moonbats?

Here they go again:

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Wanted: volunteers willing to take their clothes off and have their picture taken on a freezing cold Alpine glacier.

The appeal by New York artist Spencer Tunick, famous for taking pictures of thousands of naked people in public settings worldwide, is intended for a photo shoot to highlight the effects of climate change on Switzerland's shrinking glaciers, environmental group Greenpeace said on its Web site Wednesday.

It seems that every time there's a left-wing protest about something, whether war or global warming or whetever the cause-du-jour is, there's a bunch of moonbats who want to draw attention to it* by taking their clothes off and getting their picture taken. Sometimes there's a parade to accompany the photo shoot, but whether or no, moonbats apparently believe that their moon magic will be more effective if they are sans clothing.

It's not sexual, I know that, because (not to be an jerk** or anything) moonbats, generally being recycled hippies, are among the least sexually appealing creatures on the planet. The image of some 70-year-old, grey-haired broomrider displaying her shrivelies for the cause does not make me want to join. To be completely crass***, glaciers aren't only things that shrink in such an environment.

So what is it? Is it no more than a desire to be free from the most visible constraints of civilization? Color me confusticated, if not particularly bebothered.

* "raising awareness" in the vernacular.

** Hat tip to Joel, who, being a duly-vested member of the press, is nearly always at the forefront of all such verbal exculpations.

*** and to make a down payment on my 'R' rating.

(hat tip: Rebel Mum)

Oh no, there goes Tokyo

(hat tip: Bethie)

A milestone

The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter just hit 100.

Let the bodies hit the floor

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
-MT 7:15

Moonbatta non grata

Humane Society International calls out the Global Warming Guy:

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills.

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks...

It must be admitted up front that any time an environmentalist says "arguably," it means "not really but it would make a really good argument if it were true." And in Gore's defense, the Chilean Seas Bass can be purchased in grocery stores nationwide and its popularity is on the rise. It's a fad fish, served up by a fashionable, faddish guy.

But you would think that a guy who flies all over the world preaching about how air travel is killing us all would be a little more conscious of the brittle feelings of his fellow environmentalists. I mean, you know they are bound to be offended when you serve a meal that both the WWF and TRAFFIC have condemned.

Besides, I would have thought the largemouth bass would have been more his style anyway.

UPDATE: It turns out there is a controlling legal authority after all:

But the fish enjoyed by the Gores were not endangered or illegally caught.

Rather, the restaurant later confirmed, they had come from one of the world's few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations. The Gores' spokesman, Kalee Kreider, admitted that the fish has been on the menu, but said: "The Gores absolutely agree with this humane society and the rest of the environmental community about illegally caught Chilean sea bass.

Of course, the Humane Society's complaint was never that Gore's fish were illegally caught, it was that since the Chilean Sea Bass IS being illegally harvested, the Gores should have chosen something else in a display of Moonbat Solidarity(tm). Gore was wise to ignore that complaint*.

But the Humane Society is well within the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court here, which recently said that marijuana grown for personal consumption can still be controlled via the Interstate Commerce Clause because, "Drugs like marijuana are fungible commodities. As the Court explains, marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal use is never more than an instant from the interstate market—and this is so whether or not the possession is for medicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular State."

In the same way, Chilean Sea Bass are fungible commodities. Gore's eating of legal sea bass simply opens a spot for illegal sea bass to be eaten by the person who might have eaten Gore's had he not eaten it. If that makes little sense to you, I agree, actually. But you'll have to take that up with the Supreme Court.

* the correct response, should Gore feel the need to give one, is "Piss off."

But they look so happy...

Stinky Fingers

OK, here's something to never do. When you're filling up your car at the gas station, if you're reaching for the squeegie and accidentally drop a piece of paper into the washer fluid container instead of the trash can that's right above it, never reach into the water to grab it. Just let it be. It's not worth it.

That water has been sitting there, in 100 degree weather, festering with the remains of the dead bugs scraped from hundreds of cars for who knows how long. It will make your fingers stink. Bad.

Trust me on this one.

It's not really about the children

It's about killing an industry:

The federal government has proposed raising taxes on premium cigars, the kind Newman's family has been rolling for decades in Ybor City, by as much as 20,000 percent.

As part of an increase in tobacco taxes designed to pay for children's health insurance, the nickel-per-cigar tax that has ruled the industry could rise to as much as $10 per cigar.

But while this poor fellow worries about his family-owned company and the thousand workers he employs, he needs to realize that he's part of an evil industry*. And therefore it doesn't really matter how much he's hurt; he's going to be taxed out of existence. The era of Democrat taxes-as-punishment is just getting re-started. Of course, that just means that cigars will soon join cocaine and Kalishnikovs as completely untaxed (i.e. free market) imports.

But people don't realize what a long and glorious tradition smuggling has in America**, and that the colonists got around most of the worst British laws by simply ignoring them and importing whatever they wanted. It is instructive that the way the British finally minimized the smuggling of molasses (for example) was by cutting the import tax in half. It is ironic that by doing so, they increased the revenue they collected.

We've got a long way to go before our new leaders re-learn that lesson.

* "A good wine. A good scotch. A good bourbon. A good cigar. It all enhances the quality of life," Newman said. "We're in the relaxation business."

** It is unfortunate that the free import market is today pretty much limited to illicit products. The reputation of those who provide goods to consumers for the best price with the least government interference is certainly besmirched by that. However, given the Democrats' obsession with social control thru taxation, I suspect it will not be too many more years before the average American will have the same attitude toward free market imports as his forefathers of 1770 did.

It hardly seems fair to comment

So I'll follow the Iraqis' lead*:

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured a police lieutenant accused of leading an Iranian-backed militia cell, the military said...

A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which controls the police, said he had no immediate information on the clash and refused to comment.

* other than to say that I can only hope this is a definition of "controls" with which I was heretofore unfamiliar.

I probably got Delaware wong

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and your opinions are probably well informed. Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

To be honest, I don't know the first state of the Union, though I guessed Delaware. I just wished they had picked someone other than Lincoln to represent "smart" Americans. How smart is it to cast the USA into a civil war that killed half a million Americans, destroyed and then subjugated half the nation, and resulted in a multi-year suspension of the very document that protects the rights of Americans not to be jailed without trial because they happened to be political opponents of the President?

(hat tip: Cup O' Joel)

It's the throwaway details that are important

The Telegraph provides one more:

The sound of unbridled joy seldom breaks the quiet of the British Museum's great Arched Room, which holds its collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years.

But Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered - Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name - Nebo-Sarsekim.

Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city...

This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find*," Dr Finkel said yesterday. "If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power."

Little discoveries do far more for our confidence in biblical historicity than big findings, and the reason for that is that the big things are well-known - and should be expected to be incorporated into any accounts of the period no matter their historical value. We don't use the Bible to prove the existence of Augustus or of Pharaohs or of Sardinia or Syria. We have plenty of proof of their existence outside the scriptures, and the fact that the scriptures mention them does not make them historical or accurate.

But when you find the things that no one knows (or that everyone believes to be otherwise) and it turns out that they match the small details, that is the where you can judge the true historical value of the document. If Jeremiah claimed he was personally captured by a Nebuchadnezzar's Captain of the Guard** and gave us the name, and we can prove the name existed when Jeremiah wrote and was probably lost shortly after***, that means that what Jeremiah was where he said he was and what we are reading is eyewitness testimony.

* Assuming that this discovery turns out to be valid, of course, and there's little reason to imagine it won't. There's nothing magical about finding the name of Nebuchadnezzar II's right-hand man.

** Young's Literal Translation makes his title "Chief Executioner." That had to make Jeremiah feel good.

*** The fact that it is nowhere else mentioned in literature (except 2Kings, where he is mentioned twice but which may be based on Jeremiah) attests to that, though I'm certain it'll turn up again in this pile - maybe many more times - now that it's been found once.

A newsman who works hard for the money

Bad at math but good for me

Diane Holcomb, of Partners in Ending Hunger, shows how to fix the numbers real good:

Statewide, more than 50,000 children are unable to access Summer Food Program meals because of lack of sponsored sites and rural obstacles like transportation. What happens with these children in the summer? Many families rely on the school nutrition program to stretch dollars. Food budgets are burdened by the extra cost of meals during the summer. It can be very difficult. It can mean going to bed hungry.

And how are the children in Portland?

At the East End Community School in Portland, 85 percent of the students live in households with incomes 185 percent below the federal poverty level. At Reiche School in Portland, the percentage is 83.43.

Setting aside the complaint that it's hard on parents to live up to their responsibilities without the government day cares to bail them out, how does one get to be 185% below the federal poverty level?

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal poverty level for a family of 4 in Oregon is $20,650. 185% below that* would have that family earning a negative $17,582.50 a year. With one breadwinner, it means that person is paying an employer nearly $9 an hour for the privelege of working. And while I applaud the persistence of anyone who stays with a job they don't like, I can hardly beleive that 85% of the students in East End Portland have parents who are willing to put up with such.

But if it turns out to be true, I'm moving to Portland, not to work myself but to hire such workers. Maybe I'll hire all of them. There's no excuse for any unemployment if workers are paying so well to stay off the unemployment lines.

* according to my own bad math.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Journey to the Center of the Mime brand silencing caps for deep thought. Tinfoil-lined to keep the bad voices out*
*Tinfoil must be applied shiny side out to avoid echoes...echoes...echoes

I don't think he's gonna make it

Then they came for the libertarians...

In a post on a guy held for trying to avoid jury duty, Vox noted that mentioning that you believe in jury nullification is a great way to get out your call, which while true, was followed by a rather alarming trend in the comments - a couple dozen people who consistently bitch about what the government does sharing their secrets for getting out of serving. Atheist Al calls them on the carpet:

Better yet, GET ON JURY DUTY!!!

Then when someone (or someone's dad) gets hauled in on tax evasion charges, you can be the one guy who refuses to CONVICT him on the grounds that the charges are bogus.

I'm amazed the number of guys who blather about duty to vote, yet they will avoid jury duty, where they can actually contribute something tangible.

He's absolutely correct. There's something cosmically absurd about a group of people who would use the fact that they, as jurors, have the legal power to ensure that justice is done to purposely eliminate themselves from a position where they could actually do that. I'm no fan of the jury as presently constituted, and I agree that it's a pain in the arse to be on one, but that doesn't change the fact that those who bitch about rampant prosecutorial malfeasance are simply blowhards if they refuse to fix the problem when given the chance.

So what if it's boring? So what if your employer doesn't pay you*? So what if you you can find an hundred things you'd rather be doing than sitting in a box while the tragedy that is our modern justice system is played out before your eyes? If you know how to fix it, even in a small way, and you refuse to do it, doesn't that make you a co-conspirator in whatever injustice takes place in your absense?

I'll be the first to admit that I've never sat on a jury (not by my own choice - many are called, but few are chosen), so maybe I have no clue what I'm on about here. I'm willing to live with that and to be educated. But I'm hardly willing to put up with know-it-alls whose proper understanding of the purpose of the jury - the protection of the defendant from government zealotry - serves not as an opportunity to do something about it but as an excuse to turn their backs on their fellow citizens.

May each of them be falsely indicted and awarded with a jury of those who care as little about their peers as they do.

* Most do, you just have to turn in your pittances from the county.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Happy Leech brand home phlebotomy kits. Due to strict anti-cannibalism laws, this product not available to trial lawyers or disciples of Margaret Sanger.

Free WiFi Hotspots in Kansas

Atchison (1) Atwood (1) Baldwin City (1) DeSoto (1) Derby (1) Dodge City (3) Elkhart (4) Fairway (1) Garnett (1) Goodland (2) Hays (1) Hutchinson (1) Independence (2) Kansas City (3) Lawrence (27) Leavenworth (2) Leawood (1) Lenexa (3) Liberal (2) Louisburg (1) Manhattan (2) McPherson (1) Merriam (2) Mission (1) Newton (3) Olathe (5) Ottawa (2) Overland Park (16) Park City (1) Pittsburg (2) Prairie Village (2) Roeland Park (1) Tonganoxie (1) Topeka (3) Wamego (1) Wichita (27)

Good thing it's not spreading

The Financial Times points out another place to which subprime and hedge fund woes are not spreading*:

An Australian hedge fund manager with $1bn in structured credits and junk-rated loans warned investors yesterday it could restrict withdrawals to ensure its survival as it reported losses of 14 per cent in one fund in June.

Basis Capital, based in Sydney, said in a letter to investors it had been hit by “indiscriminate” repricing of “otherwise fundamentally sound collateral” amid the crisis in US home loans to less creditworthy investors. It said it had deliberately avoided the worst-hit 2006 subprime loans.

The warning that redemptions can be restricted comes as a series of hedge funds in the US and UK have run into trouble from the collapse in price of illiquid, or hard-to-trade, securities linked to subprime loans.

It's pretty amusing to watch a hedge fund manager describe his junk-rated loans to people who aren't good credit risks borrowing against overpriced homes on fraudulently-stated income as "fundamentally sound collateral." I didn't realize Baghdad Bob had gone into finance.

These assets are being "indiscriminately" repriced because - now that they are defaulting in record numbers - bond rating agencies are finally downgrading them to the crapola levels that they deserve. It is also occurring because US long-bond rates are rising, which makes all bond values drop. It is also happening because there are thousands of hedge funds doing exactly the same thing, which magnifies every trend. It is also happening because they are leveraged, which makes even small problems become big ones. And each of these problems feeds off the others.

But it's not amusing** to watch it unfold because every one of these problems was not only foreseeable, but inevitable. But at least we have regulators to tell Congress this sort of thing is not spreading. In the words of one wag, the US suprime mess is now successfully contained to three continents. Nicely done, boys!

(hat tip: Mish)

* To quote CNN from yesterday.

** Yes, it is, come to think of it.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Deny, Deny, Deny brand home affidavit kits. “I (your name here) did not (your felony here) with that president, (your president here), not one single time”. Wagging finger sold separately.

There can be only one

No noose is good noose

CNNMoney is full of good noose today:

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Financial markets have weathered the recent meltdown of two hedge funds at Bear Stearns but it's unclear what impact these sorts of blowups will have on the broader market when economic conditions shift, regulators told lawmakers Wednesday...

Two hedge funds at Bear Stearns imploded after they made bad bets on securities backed by subprime mortgages....Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said problems in the subprime mortgage market were not leading to any "immediate systemic risk issues."

While it's a very good thing that there are no "immediate systemic risk issues*," CNN's heading - not the headline of the article but the heading of the page on which it appears - is even better noose: "Subprime, Hedge Fund Woes Not Spreading." So we've got that going for us. And to think I was worried that the subprime loan mess might spread to something like hedge funds. Silly me.

We've also got going for us that bankers are not going to scare us with the details of the aforementioned Bear Stearns implosion, especially when precisely those same problems will likely* appear in other hedge funds. This stuff is not meant to see the light of day:

When creditors led by Merrill Lynch forced a fire-sale of assets, they inadvertently revealed that up to $2 trillion of debt linked to the crumbling US sub-prime and "Alt A" property market was falsely priced on books. Even A-rated securities fetched just 85pc of face value. B-grades fell off a cliff.

The banks halted the sale before "price discovery" set off a wider chain-reaction.

If there's no accounting for how little the assets are worth, then others who have mispriced the same assets (then borrowed against them from those banks) don't have a problem. And no one has to know that:

Investors in the worse-hit of two stricken Bear Stearns hedge funds are offering to sell their holdings for as little as 11 cents on the dollar but still finding no buyers...

or that:

The Enhanced Leverage Fund's net assets of $638m were more than 10 times geared in March, meaning a drop of just 10 per cent in the value of its holdings would wipe out investors.

Just for the record, the Implode-O-Meter sits at at 97. They really should design a java applet that can be used in Blogger. Now that would be something cool. So what time does American Idol come on?

* meaning that the financial world is not going to completely implode today.

** because they've made precisely the same leveraged bets in the same falling markets. Who do we think owns all this overpriced, over-leveraged crap? It ain't Wendell Wilke. But we have CNN's word that no matter how many funds flounder and fail, at least nothing bad is spreading.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc, makers of Smoke if You Got Him brand electric chairs. No noose really is good news.

I wasn't sure if I should post this

Stolen wholesale from Best of the Web.

Reader Richard Bennett . . . offers another perspective on global warmism:

You missed the real pearl at the end of Al Gore's diatribe:

But there's something even more precious to be gained if we do the right thing. The climate crisis offers us the chance to experience what few generations in history have had the privilege of experiencing: a generational mission; a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and to embrace a genuine moral and spiritual challenge.

Mr. Gore clearly lays out his driving force and what he offers to the world: "a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and . . . a genuine moral and spiritual challenge." The entire man-caused climate change racket is a new secular religion that is used to help a drifting generation feel better about itself. Feeling guilty about their prosperity, confused by a world that seems to resent them, and perplexingly empty after having jettisoned the religion of their parents, the Climatists search for something to make them feel better.

But here is the irony: nearly 500 years after Copernicus took man out of the center of the universe and placed the sun firmly at the center of our little planetary system, the new secular religionists are trying to put man back at the center as the cause of everything. In order to feel good about themselves, they need to feel that man is causing all negative change and only Enlightened Man (Homo goriens) can make it right. Only by listening to, and following, our modern Moses in form of Al Gore can we reach the Promised Land. Welcome to the new Middle Ages, all you have to do is believe!

It is a truly stupefying feat of reactionary ignorance and vanity.

What separates man from the animals is not logic or rationality, but religion.

When Historians forget

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
(Hat tip: Vox Day)

---

History Professor Eric Foner grades the best and the worst:

...the rankings display a remarkable year-to-year uniformity. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt always figure in the "great" category. Most presidents are ranked "average" or, to put it less charitably, mediocre.

So far, so good, because it's a true statement, though I believe that of the three only Washington deserves to be in the top category. However, it's not long before our professor forgets the lessons he teaches about the changing perspectives in ranking as the generations pass and the politics change:

It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

This is, of course, a perfect example of the silly short-sightedness of leftward-leaning academics - illustrative mostly because, like most of their blatherings, it lacks the objective measurements necessary to separate a political opinion from an historical conclusion. That being the case, it would be interesting to see, objectively*, how Bush fares against the "great" Abraham Lincoln.

Foner's most damning charge** is Bush's use of military courts, unconstitutional detentions, and the like, basically that "He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them."

The stuff he accuses Bush of is right on and you'll not find me defending it: I have been against any of Bush's pseudo-legal shenanigans that deny people, especially citizens, a speedy and public trial. They are a ghoulish resurrection of the Vice Admiralty Court system so hated by the American colonists. Then, as now, the executive abolishes juries because it wants convictions rather than justice.

The "great" FDR was certainly no respecter of such rights, interning 120,000 Japanese, most of them American citizens, during WWII, a policy that, I note, was upheld by the Supreme Court. Lincoln, for his part, did one better***, as once the Congress was out of session in 1861, he instituted martial law and had 13,000 "copperheads" (peace Democrats) arrested and held without trial. Anyone, newspapers included, who dissuaded people from enlisting or who engaged in "disloyal practices" (and Lincoln assumed the responsibility to decide what practices were disloyal) was in danger of military harassment, arrest, and detention.

That being the case, it's interesting to note Foner's charge against Bush in regards to the courts - note especially the word "unprecedented": "The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law."

Where I said "interesting" I should have said "embarassing," as no professor of history should ever be allowed to get away with such a howler. In 1861, secessionist John Merryman was arrested, and his case - but not him, he was in a military detention center - went before Chief Justice Roger Taney. Taney, in one of the few times the court has ever stood up to such executive power, ordered that Merryman be produced (the concept is habeas corpus, the case ex parte Merryman). Lincoln abjectly refused, upon which Taney declared Lincoln's suspension of civil rights protections unconstitutional. Lincoln simply ignored the order, and habeas corpus was not restored to the citizens of the US until 1866 (ex parte Milligan).

I've noted before that Bush was not even close to Woodrow Wilson's league so far as violation of Civil Rights is concerned. He is a complete piker compared to Lincoln, one of the historians' "greats." Bush detained one American, Lincoln 13,000. Bush obeyed the courts once they ruled against him, Lincoln simply ignored them. If we are measuring objectively, and if trampling on the constitutional rights of American citizens is an objective measurement that can move you to the bottom of the pile, then Lincoln, not Bush, holds that hallowed position. And he probably always will****.

But it is quite illuminating to see how historians, who should know better, are able to ignore history to reach a conclusion that perfectly conforms to their politics of the moment. But I'm sure that's just one of those coincidences of history.

* by that I mean actually counting numbers, not simply speaking generalities.

** It's far worse than that "shap(-ing) ... policies to appeal to retrogressive political forces" - i.e. not being a liberal. The President's major professional responsibility is to uphold the Constitution, not to solve the world's problems. Those who ignore that deserve to be at the bottom of the list (cough, Wilson, cough).

*** It was one better because, while FDR's numbers were higher, he at least had an objective measurement: we were at war with Japan and these people were Japanese. Lincoln simply arrested his political opponents, a charge no one laid against FDR, not to mention Bush.

**** No, I'm not afraid to make a stupid prediction. Bush will end up at the lower end of mediocre, below both his father and his predecessor, who hand-in-hand anchor the "mostly harmless" category. Hillary? Let's just say Abe might be looking at a bunkmate in a few years.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Stinkin’ Logs brand malodorous construction sets. For the fecal foreman in your family.

Head Man's Mess

Vacation Chronicles, Part I

So our flight landed in KCI about 10:30 this morning after a 9:00 transfer at O'Hare from a 6am (et) flight out of Hartford, CT. Which meant that we had driven thru parts of CT, MA, VT, and NH starting at 2 this morning*, and since the wedding reception ran pretty late into last evening, it was a bleary-eyed El B who pulled into the ranch early this afternoon. But I was pretty thankful, because it almost never happened.

The yellow "coolant level low" warning light came on in the Impala the night before we left, so when I was doing a last-minute fluids check on the car, I was sure to fill the coolant as well. But when we left in the morning, it wasn't 5 miles before that yellow light (which had gone away on my filling the radiator) was replaced by a red one, an alarm, and an overheating engine. So it's 4am on July 3, we have an 8am flight 100 miles away, and the car will not cooperate.

But Sam Walton will, bless his dearly departed soul. Given that Wal Mart is the only store open 24hrs in FS, and given that it is within a couple miles of the appearance of the Red Alarm of Vacational Obliteration, we pulled in there and I got some more coolant, and we turned around and headed for home to switch cars. After some fits and starts (and earnest - if transparently selfish - prayer on my part) the Impala grudgingly crawled to the ranch**. Switch the luggage to the Jeep and let's go. Kids are groggy; I'm checking my watch every 30 seconds, because though we gave ourselves an additional 2 hours to get to KCI, we are not exactly off to an auspicious beginning.

Descending a hill about a half an hour north of home, I notice some more flashing lights - these ones safely outside the car - and figured someone's just busted for attempting to make up lost time (not unlike yours truly). But as we get closer I notice a profound lack of blues and reds in the lights: these are all yellows and belong to the highway department, not the highway patrol. Apparently there have been some rains to the west overnight which resulted in a rise of our already swollen rivers. Short version: your road to the airport is closed, drive west old man.

So we drove west thru Mound City and caught 7 North - hey, what's a few more miles of winding, 2-lane highway when you're in a hurry, anyway? - hoping to get back onto the US hiway about La Cygne. No chance, English bedwetting type: all roads into La Cygne are closed, so we're going to have to find a new way to the airport. The unforgiving clock continues to tick off the seconds until 5 of us miss our flight and spend Independence Day in the KC International*** Airport on standby...

Hiway 7 joins eventually with US169, which goes thru (over, actually) Osawatomie, Kansas, lately featured on the Weather Channel as being "That really screwed city in Kansas that's underwater." We waved as we went by. It was still underwater.

US169 goes into Olathe where it joins I35, which joins I435, which goes to KCI, which according to our rough schedule will put a certain plane in the air about 15 minutes after we arrive. It's still questionable whether we'll make it. But all is well that ends well: I drop the wife and kids at the terminal, park the jeep and take the blue bus back, arriving literally as my plane is completing boarding, and I am unbelievably thankful to report that there was not a single problem in security or with the busses, and so I made my flight and everything was great with vacation.

Until day 2 when we climbed Mount Sunnapee the wrong way, my wife got food poisoning at a party, and Austin lost a fight with 3 plates of beef stroganoff****. But those are stories for another day...

* It feels pretty wierd having been in 7 states by noon of any day.

** thereby promoting it to the top of the "next car I'll get $500 in tradein for" list.

*** A joke for which I have never been told the punchline.

**** All over Aunt Joyce's beautiful Persian rug.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Lyin' Your Bass Off brand photogenic rubber game fish. When you need a picture of 'the one that got away', try Lyin' Your Bass Off!

Freedom is the only way, yeah

Sometimes a fish needs a bicycle

Men are required, but not allowed:

On the Italian Adriatic coast, where romance reigns and beachcombers bask in the sun, the notorious Latin lover looks for his prey and he hunts his conquest with chat-up lines. The women are fed up...

Known as "Pink Beach," the area opened a week ago and is complete with exercise classes, water aerobics and makeup and manicure tips. It greets men with a pink sign that reads: "No Men." ...

The beach does have one man.

"The lifeguard must be a man," Ravaglio said in a foreign newspaper interview. "You clearly need a man to save women in the sea. It's a question of muscles."

Fred Reed said is best: a civilization without men would run just fine until the oil needed changing.