blah blog

I seem to be out of the steam that keeps me chugging along here on the information highway.............well my little dirt road in Red Hill land......actually moved to the urban sprawl of the Classic City, home of the sometimes over rated and sometimes under, Georgia Bulldawgs. Kennel for Uga. My would have been alma mater, had I lasted more than 3 months away from my main squeeze (40 years ago, and still today). Well..
........maybe my grades might have been a small factor in the equation.

Still, I've come far, ("seems far", as Mr J. Johnson said). Can't say I've accumulated much moss on my down hill journey......mainly because I kept banging off bigger rocks and trees. In fact I seem to be like those river rocks as they wash downstream, getting worn more and more smoothly like those red sands you can find in the creeks of N. GA,......... unless you look at them with some magnification you wouldn't know that they were once Garnets of red and purple hue. Not worth anything, just a curiosity now........ something interesting to point out to the younger Grandchildren, who soon find shinier and more interesting things to oooh and aaaah about.

So I prop my wrists on the padding of the keyboard, in an effort to keep the blog from just showing a white page. Finding no motivation to rant at the latest antics of the inmates of the Asylum on the Potomac (AsPo)as they give away the store to the real Powers that Be (PB) the Money Manipulators of the World (MMW) who in their unhurried way, lured us all into more debt than we could pay, for things we mostly did not need, then went whining that we weren't paying them on time and, "OH Woe is Us", we're going to foreclose on the fools and get the government to bail us out at the same time. Does this seem a little bit like double dipping to you?

(well, I might get a little wound up yet)

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving............I'll work and loaf in alternate sequence here at home, since the Family will all get together on Sunday for our festivities. Got to give the hunters a chance to spend as much time in the woods as possible, although they have filled their freezers and are now working on filling the freezers of friends and neighbors. We just might be very, very thankful that they have these skills in the coming year or two.
I've really thankful that we are so blessed. It doesn't take much looking around to see people who have less material goods.......although I don't think we would make too many envious with our lack of marble mansions worth less than is owed on them, or our ten year old vehicles that aren't worth keeping collision on them since replacing a fender would cause the Insurance company to total them.

We're blessed that most everybody is healthy and have all their fingers and toes, although there are a few toenails missing here and there. Those with jobs are, at least for now, still employed. Gasoline is down to the point that I can fill the Dodge Ram for less than $40.00 most days.

So all-in-all we have every bit as much reason as the Pilgrims to celebrate and give thanks to The Creator that we are where we are, for there are some, like my redheaded nephew with the 10th Mountain Division, who might at times wish they were back in Maine.

Take a moment tomorrow, if you are so inclined, to give a little thanks for those who are not here, but wish they were, and petition whatever Deity you might prefer, that they return home, safely, soon.

Seperation

I read on the Drudge Report tonight that New York City is trying to tell churches they can't take in the homeless at night. (Look it up, I'm too lazy to copy and paste and copy and paste)

WTH over?

One might be forgiven for thinking that a city the size of New Frooking York, New Your would have more important things to think about...........like how to keep some of those investment bankers from stealing the silver ware from the restaurants. (Th' Sumbitches...........or how to keep the billionaire who runs the place from screwing it up so bad that the subways begin to smell better than the garbage barges.

I've only been there one time for a very brief trip thru from the airport and then back to the airport. If the Jewish dairy farmer who was picking us up hadn't lived so close we'd have gone somewhere else. (although I really can't think of anyplace north of Virginia I'd want to live be anyway)

If I were a member of a church that would bow down to the Great God of Government (G3) I'd leave after shooting the board of deacons and all the Priests, Pastors, and Reverends. The Golden Rule doesn't say do unto others unless the G3 says you can't.

I surely hope that these Churches are extending the Fickle Finger of Fly Away (FFFA) to any of the minions of G3 which come around spouting that BS. Haven't they ever heard of Separation of Church and State. Oh yeah, I forgot the Bill of Rights is only in effect where permitted or prohibited by law.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Oh well, Just Damn Government. When they forget the true purpose of Law we descend into something that would sicken people like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison and others. It's only by virtue of my strong gag reflex that I keep from painting my monitor.

The Face of Grace

There are those among us who may have a negative opinion of anyone who joins the military, especially in these times. They may think that the only purpose of an army is to shot and blow up things and people. That is not, however, their only mission. Most of the time they have a higher purpose in mind, and the means of accomplishing their goal requires a little 'diplomacy by other means'.

I followed a link from LL and lifted a post from Soldiers Perspective. You can read it below. My sister and her husband currently have a son in Iraq. I know what kind of family he comes from. Service......not destruction...is his goal I'm sure.
Having once been in a similar situation......I know it.

Anyway read.......you won't regret it.



CJ Touching The Face of Grace (Tissue Alert)
November 20th, 2008 by CJ

I found this essay, written by the father of a deployed Soldier, on the American Legion website. It was introduced into the Congressional Record by Frank R. Wolf, R-Va, on September 16th. It's a very touching and inspirational story should be required reading by the defeatists in Congress. Here it is:

“Whatever your political take on the war in Iraq, nothing can alter it more than having a loved one in the midst of it. Nor is anyone’s current perspective balanced until they hear at least some things from a soldier’s point of view.

“My wife and I learned these truths when our son, a 2004 Handley graduate, decided to join the Army in 2006. His reasoning was simple: he wasn’t comfortable knowing that thousands of others his age were sacrificing their own freedoms to protect his. When he signed up to join those thousands, it changed our perspective as well.

“Up to that point, it had always been other people’s sons and daughters doing the fighting. Now it would be our own child. Naturally, no one wants their child to volunteer to go in harm’s way for freedom’s sake. It was something of a conviction, though, when my wife and I had to ask ourselves why it shouldn’t be our own son in the Middle East, why we should be spared the rituals of anxiety, prayer, hope and waiting that tens of thousands of other families over here have already endured.

“In early June, we flew to Fort Hood, Texas, to see our son deploy for a 15-month tour in Iraq. Again, one’s perspective is limited until one attends a deploying ceremony for a unit of soldiers. Spouses, children, parents, siblings and friends, all crowding a gym, all clinging closely to their treasures in uniform, accompanied by flags, prayers, cheers and tears. Our son had joined a ‘band of brothers.’ My wife and I had joined the ‘band of others’ who would be waiting at home. Both those going, and those left behind, carry the war on terror in a personal way.

“Still, those of us left behind need to see something of what our soldiers see, and not only what is offered us in the news. To that end, here is one story our son, Luke, shared with us by phone that must be shared with anyone who claims an interest in what our soldiers are doing in the Middle East.

“Stationed outside a city on the Tigris River, Luke had accompanied his colonel into town as part of a security team, while the colonel spoke with a local sheik. While standing guard, Luke noticed a woman approaching from behind and cautiously turned in her direction, his rifle at the ready.

“An interpreter told our son it was OK – the woman just wanted to touch a soldier. Still uneasy, Luke stood still while the woman reached out her hand and touched his face, tears in her eyes.

“Looking to the interpreter for meaning, our son was told that the woman simply ‘wanted to touch the face of grace.’ It seems this trembling woman, like most of the people in her town, looked upon our soldiers as angels of grace, sent by God to protect her from the violence and oppression her people had come to know up to then. Learning this, our son squeezed and kissed the woman’s hand, and she left, weeping.

“The ‘face of grace.’ How many of us, safe at home debating the politics of the war on terror, have ever seen our soldiers in such a light? How many of us have even read such an uplifting newspaper account of our soldiers?

“To be sure, our soldiers are not virtuous simply by being soldiers. At home in their ‘civvies’ they are as un-angelic as the rest of us. Yet when they voluntarily get into ‘full battle rattle’ (as they call their battle gear) in a hot and hostile land, their job is both protective and sacrificial – as angelic a purpose as humans can take on.

“People like this woman, having suffered years of oppression and fear, have eyes and a heart to see this, and the desire to “‘touch the face of grace.’ Do we have the ability to see our soldiers in the same way? And not merely our soldiers: Can we see the ‘face of grace’ in the police who protect us in every town, day and night? Or in the fire and rescue teams who are ‘soldiers’ in their own right?

“My wife and I obviously pray that our son and his ‘band of brothers’ will come safely home to their personal ‘band of others.’ After listening to our son’s experience, though, we have added the prayer that Americans in every community will be given the eyes and heart to see the ‘Face of Grace’ in all who protect our lives and freedoms – especially in soldiers like our son.”

Posted in Military Perspective

Beware

the stupidity of people in large groups........and each of those individuals also, if you can.




Choices have consequences............even those of whom to associate with.

Kinda makes you want to have a short interview for intelligence before you talk seriously with them. Maybe a 10 question hand out that they have to score at least 70% on before you waste too much time............although now that I think of it, the entertainment value could be pretty high, so if you need a laugh, just jump right in.

Big chested blonds in the bar late at night might be exempt, but only until the next morning.

New day

There's a new day a coming according to all those who want change in the world.

A day where there'll be no more war, no more hunger, no more hatred, all our wants and cares will be attended to..........a day where we'll drink free bubble up and eat that rainbow stew.



Of course there may be some who would ask, "Kudzu, who's gonna pay for all that fine ol' time"?

Now what kinda idjit would ax a stoopid question like that? Why the gubbermint will be taking care of all those sorts of things. All we gotta do is eat, drink, be happy and makin' more babies to be raised at the gubbermint tit, to grow fat, happy and voting the way they are told.

Our elected servants in the asylum on the potomac have just guaranteed the big banks that they have no worries, and will soon do the same for the big three automakers. After all they don't have to worry about the deficit between what they take in and what they shovel out. Why just crank up the printing presses boys.........well sign another couple hundred IOU's to the Central Bankers and money will float down from the sky.

I've been telling a few people (those that still come around. Few and far between nowadays) that the National Debt and Deficits don't matter. The powers that be will just keep on cranking out dollar bills by the bunches and all we have to do is hold our hands out and look up into the sky.

Now our new power that be says the same Thing.

Good times are coming boys, dig up yore Confederate money, they'll be redeeming that next.

Some times words are not needed

I would really love to be able to speak and understand a foreign language.

Unfortunately I have never taken the time, or put enough effort into learning one except for a very few words of Vietnamese, German and Spanish. I really would like to speak Spanish since I'd love to travel around South and Central America. A friend leaving for a week in Spain seems to have sparked this wistful feeling in me.

However there are some things that you understand simply by watching them. Take this example from Youtube for example:



Just Damn! Who knew music could be so much fun?

This is why

We honor Veterans on this day.

Click Here

They don't ask you to honor them..........Just Don't Forget Them

Ruminations on a Saturday afternoon in November

.
As I came across the backyard toward the house this afternoon I noticed that today we jumped past the peak of our leaf season here near the Classic City. While the White Oak leaves are still mostly green, the Tulip Poplars are trading their brilliant yellow for brown, the Hickory leaves, also yellow and gold are beginning to fall more quickly, the Black Gums are still a brilliant red and falling fast, but the maples..
............oh, the Maples are the true stars of the forest. Red, and pink and subtle colors that only an artist could describe.

But the peak is past us, a heavy rain or combination of brisk wind and rain will carpet the lawn with reminders that we need to cut the grass one more time and mulch what leaves I can. I would normally rake and pile them to be placed on the compost pile, but this year I'm gonna leave them in place. The rocky red and yellow soil here can use as much help as it can get.

On another note.......thinking of the lateness of the year, I recently picked up an old clock I'd had in the shop to be tuned up and adjusted.



An Oriole model E. Ingraham, circa 1906, made in Bristol Connecticut. Part of the original label is still affixed to the back. It chimes on the half and top of each hour.

The steady 'tick tock, tick tock' and the chiming reminds one, as do the leaves falling and the grey in my hair, that time marches on, and waits for no man.

Does it work or does it not work

Well, having finally regained my equilibrium after a couple weeks of sinus infection and bronchitis, I once more venture out to continue my yearly quest to drive one and a half times around the world at the equator.

It's a tough job, but someone must do it. Besides...........it gets me out of the house.

Visited a few of my more frequent haunts, up by Commerce, where whispering Bill Anderson penned the long ago hit "City Lights", to Lula, where there was nobody at home, and then down to Jefferson via Gainesville, where I found a temporary cure for my fever.

There was a wide range of emotions about the recent election, ranging from, Gloom & Despair, to mindless Euphoria, and a lot of people just trying to dig their way out from under a huge load of bullshit.

Me............I'm just glad that you can find gasoline @ around $2 bucks a gallon.
Besides............I've out run the devil that we don't know.

I was thinking that there ought to be better solutions for the current problems that polarize so many of us.

Maybe there is............

Lost.........I think not

I've just finished reading this evenings post from SWG. A fine young man and a credit to his parents.

Go and read him.

He expressed many of the feeling I've felt today, and I had to comment on his post.
I'd been thinking of whether to post today or not. I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll post the comment here.

Eric, I'm not as old as the old man you remember, although my hair is becoming more and more grey, and my war was a little later, but still a jungle even though I flew over it. The feeling of loneliness comes to us all after we leave the company of men (and women) who are united in a commitment to freedom and duty to country on a daily basis, but rest assured that the same spirit still lives on today, and not just in the hearts of veterans, but in many good and decent people. They, and we, have a duty to speak of that spirit, to show by our actions that we will stand up for the freedoms, granted by God, protected by our Constitution.. ....sometimes forgotten by our fellows in their desire for safety or security.... never realizing that as ol' Ben Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Thomas Jefferson once said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

And might I add, "of traitors".

I'm not advocating Violence here, but we would do well commit ourselves to the destruction of thought and ideas that are contrary to the concept of Life, Liberty and Property. (Yes, I know the words used were 'pursuit of happiness') We can do that by living so as to show everyone we come in contact with, even those whose who might oppose us, the superiority of right principals over destructive ones. We must never let ourselves be defeated by the Mob of democracy. Rather we must commit ourselves to the rule of Law, which even despots must bow to.

It's easy to forget that while the results of the elections seem to speak ill for the majority of people today.......there were many who did not take advantage of the right to speak up for their rights to Liberty. We have not had in a long time, if ever, the total number of voters exercise their right to vote. If we ever do, we might be more pleasantly surprised.

Regardless, I will not surrender....tempting though it may be. And if it takes my blood to water the Liberty Tree....... so be it, they can have it, if they can take it.

I thank you for your service to our country..
....... not only in the Marines, but as a citizen exercising your franchise in the voting booth.

God Bless America (he will, but only if we do the work first)
Posted by kdzu on November 5, 2008 10:36 PM

Be Afraid..........be very Afraid

Ol' Ben Franklin, a Founding Father of this once great Free Republic, an all round pretty good guy, considered wise by some (less now than then), now residing on the US $100 bill, and a personal favorite of mine, second only to Lady Liberty on St Guadians and American Eagle coins, had this to say:

"Those who would give us ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY."

I wonder what he would think of this little statement made by the NEW MESSIAH?



With the new advantages in technology and surveillance, it may be time to change some of the way we do things.

Me?? I'm gonna start wearing a tinfoil hat and keep my ID, and money in a lead lined wallet.

Be Afraid........be very, very, very Afraid.

Duty done......

........Again.

Finally sucked up my courage and went to the Classic Center here in the Classic City.

Time to gird my loins and put on the softer pair of athletic shoes.

Went to vote in the much talked about (oh, please, why don't they STF up, already) National Election. Voted for almost every libertarian on the ballot. Wished after hitting the vote button I had thought to bring a list of people to write in for those races where there was no competition.

It was much different from my last experience of voting out in the wilds of Redhill at the Flint district polling location. Today my standing in line entailed a wait of 2 1/2 hours before getting to slid my card in the electric voting machine, rather than the typical 2 minutes to get in and have a neighbor look at my license and say, "yep, that's you all right, before letting me have access to the ballot.

That's why they call it a secret ballot........after you've left you wonder if the entries you pressed will really be counted or if the machine has been rigged. Hopefully someone actually goes around and checks on things like that.

The long wait wasn't a total waste as I looked around and tried to judge who people would vote for. Couldn't really get a feel for most of them as they all looked pretty pissed off..........

Well there was this one Goth girl with the black, purple and green hair. She just had a bored look on her face as she attempted through body language let us know she didn't care if we looked at her funny. Only saw her facade drop once as she looked so lonely she wished she were dead. (almost went up to her and just wanted to give her a big hug and say, "it's alright". Hope that's not really what went through her head. I also wonder if the multiple piercings of her left eyebrow and upper lip were painful.

I asked one young college student how the nose stud she was wearing stayed in. Whether it was just hooked or had some sort of clip that had to be inserted up her nose. Welllll excuse me.........I was just curious. Having had a head cold for over two weeks, I wonder how she would have handled having to blow her nose every 10 minutes like I have?

Anyhoo, went and fulfilled my civic duty one more time. I was number 26,211 to have voted in this county. Wonder what next Tuesday will look like. Poll worker says they expect a better than 80% voter turnout. What would it have been if we'd really had someone qualified running for office, I wonder.

Remember........Vote early........vote often.

Can you tell me

Why anyone would want to hear the opinion of this Twat.

As Planned

I was at the VA's door early. Shuffled over to the window and said, "I feel like shit, could the doc take a look at me?".

OH, you should have called to set up an appointment. We'll try to work you in.

I got there at 7:45,I finally got in about 11:45. Left 10 minutes later with script for antibiotics and an inhaler.

I didn't mind the wait too much. As long as I sat very very still and took shallow breaths I didn't cough too much.

So I sat very, very still. There are rumors that I may live

Get a Haircut

I have been getting a little shaggy here lately.

This.....



is just one of the things I've listened to for the last 45 minutes.

Thanks to GuyK.

Most fun I've had this week. Give it a try, bet you wake up singing in the morning.

Still breathing

Someone once told me to just keep breathing in and out.........everything else would take care of it's self.

That may be, but it's hard to drain the swamp when you are in water up over your head.

Still fighting the chest and head congestion. I've now started to hack up the right lung a bit at the time. I'll be at the VA doctors door when they open in the morning..........along with the rest of the old farts, and a sprinkling of more recent Vets.

Speaking of old farts, on my foray into to the wilds last Saturday I stopped alongside an old Ford van that two guys were getting into while wearing blaze orange vests.
I asked if they'd had any luck and was answered in the negative. Turned out to be a Father and Son seeking the elusive white tailed deer. These were two guys that looked to be straight out of the movie Deliverance. Not so surprising as it wasn't too far away from where the movie was filmed. They might have had a mouthful of teeth between them. Instead of a banjo the son was equipped with a nice deer rifle atop which rested a 3X9 scope. Considering the average sight distance in these hills is much less than 100 yards...... a bit of over kill IMHO.

I was under the impression that the older gentleman was at least my age, or older, as he had that rode hard and put away wet look about him. I told him I was having a hard time walking the hills, being as I was so out of shape. Imagine my surprise when he said that he'd soon be 50 and was glad to walk mostly down hill during their hunt. Shit....9 years younger than me. I may not be doing so badly after all.

In other news the amount of doom and gloom combined with premature celebratory victory parties now-a-days is enough to make one wish to become a hermit. Preferably on a hilltop in Nepal or somewhere. Well, maybe back in the jungle on the Island of Yap,( Part of Micronesia)as I prefer the warmer climes myownself.

Damn I'll be glad to see the far side of this election cycle.

Folks, let me tell you something.........either way it goes, we're in a mess, because the Demo-cans want to tax us to death, and the Republi-crats want to spend us to death. If you ain't already figured it out and if you ain't already prepared......them's the breaks. Won't make much of a difference to me.

That may come across as a little callous, and I really don't want to be, but there are certain basic principals that make our time above ground a little easier. The first and foremost is, as John Wayne was reported to have said, "Life is hard....it's harder still if you are stupid". Don't be so stupid.

I've tried in the past to try to lead stupid mules to water, and have always found it to be a tiresome and unrewarding task. The urge is still there but I can fight it better with the advantage of hindsight. Now-a-days I just work on myself, while ranting and raving at the lack of progress I seem to have made.

Shoot me......Shoot me now!

Well.........not really. I've been shot at many times and only ever hit once, and that was not in combat, but in a field of my grandfathers during a dove shoot. Not so bad as it didn't break the skin, having been fired from half way across the field. It was about like being shot with a strong BB gun from 5 feet away. The guy (one of my uncles) didn't even know I was there, but later he picked up a big black snake and it bit him on the thumb. (Poetic justice I thought.) Still # 8 shot packs a sting.

Being shot at with hi-powered rifles and the occasional anti aircraft weapons is some what less fun, but as I think Winston Churchill is supposed to have said......."there is nothing quite like being shot at, and missed".

No, I don't really want to be shot, but I would endure a good spanking by Jessica Alba to be rid of the sinus and chest congestion that I am experiencing. It's getting a little better since I hacked up the rest of my left lung and spit it out yesterday.

I had decided to travel north to the gentle hills we here in Georgia call the Mountains to do a little prospecting in an out of the way spot where many long years ago were several gold mines.

This required a two hour or so ride which included a rugged dirt path where my forward advance was stalled by a river ford I didn't think I'd try with only a 2 wheel drive. So I backed into a turn around and consulted my map and GPS and set off for the creek I was seeking.

Just Damn! Mankinds sway over nature in this area was limited to the sometimes maintained dirt road. Once you started trying to break trail through the thick under growth you wonder how man ever hacked his way across this land. Of course the Forest Service will not use the ol' Indian trick of using controlled burns to clear out this, waiting for the right spark, tinder. This was not helped by the UP and Down terrain. It wasn't bad as long as I was going down hill, but when I started to go up and sideways my heart was pounding like a drum in an African mating ritual. (come to think of it, I've heard a few of those just up the street, coming thru car windows backed by 5 million watt speakers.)

Just damn, I am out of shape. The more my heart pounded the more my lungs labored to get air into me through all the phlegm I keep spitting up. After about an hour and a half I just gave up and used the GPS to plot the straightest line back to the road. That trip in it's self was enough to make one reconsider the wisdom of hiking in the woods. My youngest grand daughter with her short legs would have out done me by a mile. I was just damn glad that no one else was around to see the pitiful husk of the stud I once was. I don't think I'm looking forward to starting middle age here in a few years. When does that start anyway??

Still the lure of the yellow metal does call. Don't ever catch gold fever......it'll likely be with you to the end of your days, and if you try it when out of shape, that won't be long.

Someone has to say it

Click over to Ann’s house

Angry young Blacks

Maybe we need to turn away from the coverage of the election here in the good ol' US of A for a few minutes and let our tempers cool off a bit.

Perhaps reading a little bit of recent history (so recent it's ongoing) might sooth our worried brows.

Lets take a look at the bread basket of Africa, that verdant green oasis formerly known as Rhodesia. The BBC gives us a look at this utopia that has flourished since they rid themselves of all those evil white people who once held their nappy little heads down with their hob-nailed boots and cruel Missionaries.

Living is more easy now that they have a socialist black man running the country.

This year's harvest in Zimbabwe has been the worst in the country's modern history.

In Mashonaland West province, some people are trying to survive by eating wild fruit and digging for roots


If we don't get help now, most of us are going to die. Nearly everyone here is starving

Mashonaland West villager

"It's very very bad. I've got 12 children and it's hard to find anything to give them," says a local village chief. "The whole of my village is struggling. No-one has food.

"There's nothing left here. So there's nothing I can do."

Driving deep into Mashonaland West is a reminder that most Zimbabweans live in rural areas.

The area around Karoi - 200km (124 miles) north of the capital, Harare - provides an illustration of the suffering currently being experienced in the countryside.

Farmers are without seeds, fertiliser and fuel. Next year's harvest is already being written off as a disaster as well.

As the political paralysis over the formation of the new power-sharing government continues, people are experiencing severe food shortages brought on by the catastrophic mismanagement of the economy and the virtual destruction of the country's commercial agricultural sector.

School dropouts

Some Zimbabweans get by on one meal a day if they are lucky, but there is a growing sense of desperation.

A person hold the amount of money needed to buy a loaf of bread in Harare in September 2008

Wads of cash are needed to buy what food is available in towns

One consequence is that thousands of children are said to be dropping out of school to look for food.

"In one district, 10,000 children of a population of 120,000 left school in a period of six months," says Rachel Pounds, country director of UK charity Save the Children.

"There's a lot of lost hope. Zimbabweans put up with things that get worse and worse, but you can see the despair in some of the poorer families in the villages.

"It's causing a breakdown of the community when people have to leave in order to find food," she added.

One villager in Mashonaland West pleaded for help before it was "too late".

"If we don't get help now, most of us are going to die. Nearly everyone here is starving."

Map

He showed me three tins of stored maize, but said that with seven children to feed, the supply would only last for a week.

Earlier this month, the UN World Food Programme appealed for $140m (£86m) to provide vital relief rations over the next six months.

The UN warned that more than five million people (45% of the population) could need assistance by early 2009.

In the meantime however, non-governmental organisations working in Zimbabwe have been hit hard by the economic collapse of this once prosperous country, and the resulting cash crisis stemming from levels of inflation that are now completely out of control.

But it is not just the rural population which is suffering.

Bizarre and depressing

In the towns and cities, food is also in increasingly short supply.

A walk around a suburban supermarket in Harare is a bizarre and depressing experience.


We are distinctly aware that this is a food crisis that is growing

USAid's KarenFreeman



One store I visited looked as though it was in the final stages of a clearance sale.

Only two of the 19 check-out tills were operating, and most shelves were entirely empty.

There was no milk, cheese, margarine or yoghurt.

Some cabbages, onions and limp bunches of spinach were available, along with a few odd packs of frozen meat.

The aisles intended for household goods such as soap and toilet paper were empty and closed off.

The only fresh-looking food items in the shop were a few loaves of bread, priced this week at Z$30,000 a loaf (about $1).

However, Zimbabweans are only permitted to withdraw Z$ 50,000 a day from the banks.
A boy lifts a tin of water from a hole in Harare in September 2008
Residents of Harare are digging holes to find water

Most people often cannot afford what little food is available.

Only those fortunate enough to have access to foreign currency can circumnavigate the shortages.

"We are distinctly aware that this is a food crisis that is growing," says Karen Freeman, the director of USAid in Zimbabwe.

"The issue of urban vulnerability has never really been felt here before.

"You could go to the store and buy food in the past, but now you have no option.

"There's no food in the store and there's no food on the ground. The crisis now is one where you can neither buy food nor grow food."

This is almost entirely a man-made crisis, created by President Robert Mugabe's government, and his administration stands accused of having done nothing to help."


I see on Drudge the Celebration of the new regime has already started in Pittsburgh

No bias from this reporter

they simply report the facts.

Do we have more of this to look forward too??

If I'd only known

How much fun grand children were, we'd have had them first.

I don't guess it works that way, and besides, we like their parents pretty well also.

Nanny picked Callie up at day care this afternoon and she has been a hoot. Of course she had to watch her favorite cartoons and no body better get in her way. But then she came outside where I was working and we swung high in the yard swing, threatened to terminate the dalmatian with extreme prejudice for picking up a vial of gold panned out of the rivers and creeks, while we were checking the metal detector, and ran off with it. (she didn't know how close her brush with death was).
The last 45 minutes or so were spent listening to Shirley Temple sing as a young child actor. Callie sat so still you'd have thought she was asleep. But, she was staring at the monitor with her hands clasped in front of her and her ankles crossed. Of course her Pa Pa used to watch Shirley Temple back in the day, although the films were a couple of decades old at the time. But it never hurts to watch the classics with the grandchildren, and even sing along. (fortunately she doesn't recognize just how badly I maul the lyrics just yet)

Here's a picture of her helping Nanny at the kitchen counter a couple of weeks ago. It suddenly had gotten very quite.



She's our own little Curly Top.

Keep your powder dry!

A phrase I've used many, many times over the years....

ONLY GOVERNMENT COULD DO THIS TO US
by Chip Wood

It must have been quite a meeting.

It began at 3:00 pm this past Monday at the U.S. Treasury’s plush offices
in Washington, D.C. On one side of the table sat U.S. Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson. He was flanked by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair.

On the other side were the chief executives of the nation’s biggest banks.
They were arranged in alphabetical order, with Bank of America’s chairman
on one end and Wells Fargo’s CEO at the other. Between them sat
representatives from the Bank of New York Mellon, Citicorp, Goldman Sachs,
J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and State Street.

Although no reporters were present, journalists later pieced together what
was said. All accounts agree on the following: For over an hour, Paulson
and Bernanke told the assembled bankers just how grave was the situation
threatening not just this country, but all the known world. (All together
now, can you say, “the gravest financial crisis since the Great
Depression”?)

At the end of Paulson’s and Bernanke’s remarks, aides handed each banker a
document. The pages contained the government’s terms for becoming their
partner. It detailed how much money the Treasury would “invest” in each
bank (a total of $125 billion for those present), how much ownership it
expected, what their new dividend policies would be, even the limits that
would be imposed on executive pay. (The top five officers at each
institution could not receive more than $500,000 a year.)

While discussion was permitted, negotiations were not. Paulson explained
the deal was for their own good and the good of the country. Then it was
time to “shut up and sign.” And every banker did.

Any questions, any doubts, any disagreements were blithely ignored. Thus
was born a new age in what was once the land of the free and the home of
brave. Government would “save” capitalism by becoming its partner ... nay,
its boss.

It may not be a Brave New World. But I can guarantee you, folks, it’s
going to be an expensive one. Time will tell how expensive – to our
wallets and to the free-enterprise system.

The ancient Chinese saying, “May you live in interesting times,” wasn’t
meant to be a blessing. No, I’m told that it was always intended as a
curse.

To call the past two weeks “interesting” would be the understatement of
the decade. Whether in the markets, in Washington, or in politics, I can’t
remember a time when we’ve experienced so many startling reversals and
unexpected shocks.

The largest S&L in the country, Washington Mutual...gone. It’s younger
sister, Wachovia, is about to disappear.

The nation’s largest insurer, AIG, will have a new owner when Uncle Sam
steps in with $85 billion (subsequently raised to $120 billion-plus) and
ends up with 80% of the company.

Two of the most venerable (and, as it turned out, most vulnerable) of Wall
Street’s august institutions, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers...gone.
Merrill Lynch, meanwhile, exists in name only. The employees there are
about to call Bank of America “boss.”

Over the past two weeks, the stock market experienced what some have
called a “slow-motion” crash. Many investors felt as though they’d stepped
into a boxing ring against Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Bam!, down 500. Wham!,
down 300. Slam!, down another 400. Then last Friday came the most
incredible day of all. Moments after the opening bell, the market
plummeted over 700 points. The Dow dropped all the way to 7900. Then it
started back up.

What a recovery it staged over the next five hours. Before you could say,
“no mas!,” the Dow gained back all of the 700 points it lost and tacked on
300 more. I wish someone had rung the closing bell then, but no, worried
investors couldn’t leave well enough alone. Mr. Market gave up all of
those gains and a bunch more before the session finally ended at 4:00 pm.

When the dust finally settled, the Dow closed down 128 points last Friday.
Come Monday, a lot of investors decided all that selling was a mistake.
With a weekend to think about it, on Monday morning they became buyers
instead. And buy they did – in record numbers. By the time the final bell
was rung, more than 1.5 trillion shares had changed hands and the Dow had
gained a record 936.42 points.

On Tuesday, volatility returned with a vengeance. First the market soared
400 points. Then it plummeted 700. Like someone tied to a bungee cord, it
bounced back up again. Then it fell again. When the day was finally over,
the Dow finished down 72 points. That’s barely a blip on the radar,
compared to what the past few weeks had seen.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Dow gave back nearly 80% of those record
gains it notched on Monday. I gotta tell you, my tired old ticker can’t
take much more of this. (Not to mention my wallet.)

Are we there yet, mommy? Is the bottom finally behind us? No one knows for
certain. Of course Monday’s explosion to the upside was a delight to see.
It was the biggest one-day point gain ever, and the largest percentage
gain (11.1%) since March 15, 1933.

Still, it was nowhere near enough to bring us back to break-even. The Dow
is still down 34%, or more than 4,775 points, from its record high back on
October 9, 2007. More than $5 trillion in investor assets have gone to
money heaven.

A lot of pundits are predicting the market will hit more lows before it
comes anywhere near its old highs – especially if, as seems likely,
President Barack Obama is greeted by Democratic majorities in both
branches of Congress when he takes office in January.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about the legislation that’s supposed to end all of
this travail. I’m referring, of course, to the $850 billion bank bailout
bill, officially known as the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
2008.” It’s got to be one of the most odious pieces of legislation ever
approved by Congress and signed by the President.

How did a $700 billion bank rescue turn into expenditures of $850 billion?
It’s simple, folks. In the words of an old television show, they socked it
to us. The Senate packed the measure with $150 billion worth of pork. The
so-called “sweeteners” included $397 million for a “domestic production
activities deduction” for the motion-picture industry (hooray for
Hollywood), $33 million for an economic development program in American
Samoa (hey, Samoans vote, too), $100 million in tax breaks for “certain
motor sports racing track facilities” (gotta love those NASCAR fans), and
even a $2 million excise-tax exemption for “certain wooden arrows designed
for use by children” (you aren’t against kids’ toys, are you?).

If there ever was an event where our elected representatives showed their
complete and utter disdain for the numbskulls who elected them, this was
it.

By the way, some of you may have wondered how a spending bill could
originate in the U.S. Senate. Doesn’t the Constitution require that all
appropriation bills begin in the House of Representatives? (Not that
anyone in Washington, on either side of the aisle, pays any attention to
the Constitution anymore.)

Here’s how that particular trick was done. The Senate took a bill that had
been passed in the House some time ago – in this case, the Paul Wellstone
Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 – and voted to replace all
of the text with their spanking-new measure. Presto-chango, a new (but
unconstitutional) spending bill was transformed into an appropriations
bill that originated in the House.

Did I already mention how this measure, more than any other I’ve seen,
shows the total and complete disdain our representatives have for us? I
guess it doesn’t really matter if its origins were strictly
Constitutional, since the measure itself will finance the biggest
government takeover of business we’ve ever seen in this country. Would
someone please show me where the Constitution says that the Treasury can
take taxpayers’ money to buy stock in a bank, an insurance company, or
another financial institution?

But I keep forgetting; we don’t operate under the Constitution any more.
Haven’t for decades.

The authors of this monstrosity call it a “Troubled Asset Relief Program,”
or TARP. I think J.T., one of my Alert Readers, was a lot closer to the
mark when he said it should be called the Special Official Congressional
Institute for Assuring Liquidity In Secure Mortgages. What a perfect
acronym: SOCIALISM!

I’m running out of space for today’s rant. But before I say goodbye for
this week, let me make a few observations.

While everybody and his brother (including a lot of my conservative
colleagues and friends) agree that government had to rescue the financial
system, no one ever said what the alternatives were. What would have
happened if we didn’t allow Uncle Profligate to spend an additional
trillion dollars (which he doesn’t have) to bail out the banks? We’ll
never know.

What will the rescue cost? And will it work? Again, we don’t know the
answers to either question. I think it’s a safe bet that the final cost
will be many times higher than even the worst estimates we’re hearing now.
How can I say that? Because that’s been true about every government
program since FDR wheeled into office.

Whatever the nominal cost of this rescue plan, the hidden costs will be
many, many times worse. The Federal Reserve is about to flood the country
with a tsunami of new money and credit. In 2007, loans from the Fed to our
nation’s banks averaged $10 billion a month. For the first eight months of
this year, they soared to over $100 billion a month.

But listen to this: Last month, the Fed increased its lending to an
astonishing $2.7 trillion. The total for the year is over $3.5 trillion
and climbing. Makes a billion-dollar bank bailout seem puny by comparison,
doesn’t it? No wonder some wags say that FED actually stands for
“frantically expanding dollars.”

At this point, every single helicopter in Ben Bernanke’s fleet is in the
air.

And what happens when tons of new money and credit flood into the economy,
class? Can you spell i-n-f-l-a-t-i-o-n?

The money masters in Washington, aided and abetted by academia and the
media, have fooled the public into believing that “inflation” means rising
prices. You and I know differently, don’t we?

Inflation is an increase in the supply of money and credit. Period. Yes,
it causes higher prices, as people realize their dollars are worth less
and less. But blaming rising prices on inflation is like blaming wet
streets for causing rain.

John Maynard Keynes, the famed economist, understood the process very
well. Nearly a century ago he warned, “By a continuing process of
inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an
important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

That is precisely what our government is doing to us, folks. It is
stealing your wealth – a lot of it through the direct and indirect taxes
you pay. But a lot more through the loss in value of every
dollar-denominated asset you own.

I’ll have a lot more to say about all of this in the future. But for now,
let me conclude by saying that we have just witnessed the greatest
financial heist in all of history.

We should be putting the culprits in jail. Instead, we’re going to elect
them to Congress – and one of them to the White House. Others will be
rewarded with fancy titles and plush offices in Washington and New York.

Truly, we live in a world gone crazy.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

Chip Wood

......and might I just add............your HEAD DOWN

No Mas'

OR ............ARE WE REALLY THIS STUPID?

Do you want pap or can you handle roasted corn kernels and jerky?

Amazing isn't it, Wall Street's Disaster Capitalists screwed up, likely planned or let happen this meltdown and recession. Yet America's clueless taxpayers just reward them by giving the screw-ups massive bailouts, control over more than $2 trillion of tax money, and the power to clean up the mess they made. Oh yes, we are dummies!

This end game was planned for years in secret war rooms on Wall Street, in Corporate America, in Washington and the Forbes 400. Democracy is too cumbersome. It had to be marginalized for Disaster Capitalism to take over. Reagan, Bush and Paulson were Wall Street's "Trojan Horses."

Naomi Klein summarizes the game in "Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism." This "new economy" generates enormous profits feeding off other peoples' misery: Wars, terror attacks, natural catastrophes, poverty, trade sanctions, subprime housing meltdowns and all kinds of economic, financial and political disasters. Natural (Katrina) or manmade (Iraq), either way "disaster capitalism" creates fortunes.

So you, me and the other 300 million better get out of denial. America is no longer a democracy. Voting is irrelevant. Best case scenario: We're a plutocracy, a government ruled by the wealthy, the richest 1%, the Forbes 400, the influential wealthy elite, while the other 99% are their "servants." Meanwhile, the inflation-adjusted income of wage-earners has declined for three decades.

Worst case scenario: America's no democracy and as a result of the meltdown and the surrender of our power to Wall Street's new Disaster Capitalism we are morphing into what one WWII dictator called "corporatism," a "merger of state and corporate power," kind of like what's going on now with Goldman Sachs' ex-boss as de facto president.

Read the rest here

The Last Honest Reporter??

Are there any Honest Reporters out there??

A good question, and Orson Scott Card asks a few questions of the media to try and find out.

Well, I'll give Ann Coulter a while longer.

Anyway click on his name and read what he has to say.

Updated to reflect the accuracy of LL's astute comment. And of course Ann Coulter is also a commentator. Their observations are still worthy of thought.

So long, Farewell

In fashion typical to our family, today we bade adieu to my Beloved Aunt Margret, Matriarch of my direct paternal line. The Reins now pass to Uncle Jim.

As so many times in the past, we gathered at Tommy Wages Funeral Home in Lawrenceville, where the owners have laid to rest the remains of so many of my family over the past 50 years or so.

She struggled to shuffle off this mortal coil for a week after suffering a major stroke. Finally giving a last little sigh last Saturday morning.

We all gathered in the room with her casket and laughed and cried and fellowshipped with each other in a loud and joyful meeting and greeting of all of us who haven't seen each other since the last death. We're a talkative bunch.........always have been. I guess when you grow up close to the earth you know that death is a natural part of life and those that remain have to go on whether the dearly departed can talk or not.

A few funerals back we were gabbing as always with the noise level getting louder and louder, when the funeral director made an, almost fatal to him, effort to shush one of my aunts. He was soon made aware of the fact that this is how we pay our last respects and by damn if he didn't like it he could just go outside. The celebration of life well lived then continued until they shut off the lights for the night. We don't always suffer fools too well. This is our time to see friends and relatives from near and far, to catch up on what's happening in their lives. I'm pretty sure the dead understand. After all, they are part of a huge family, who, even if we don't always call each other up every week or so, still love and appreciate each and every one of the others........in-laws and out-laws alike.

One thing I think Aunt Margaret would have gotten a grand kick out of was my grandson Lee. Soon to be 9, and quick to inform you of same, almost as soon as we got there and he looked around, he started to go up to every one in the room, stuck out his hand and said I'm Lee. Knock me over with a feather..........I was under the impression of him as a shy young man. He claims he wants to be a soldier, but I think he might have a future as either a preacher or politician. Or maybe as a funeral director, as he had a great time helping the morticians lower the casket, take down the winch and fold up the chairs. He had to reach out to touch the vault as it was being lowered. I'm pretty sure his great-great aunt was thanking him for his service as the dirt was pushed in on top of her.

We may not be Kings or Queens in this life, but we know how to honor those who came and go before us.

So Aunt Margaret.........a last farewell to you.

I ain't rich..........

Today was a reflective day.

I soon tired of the talk radio jocks as I drove up and down the highways. At my first stop they were busy as a three legged dog in a rabbit chase. Finally I sat my sorry ass down in a wheel chair outside the door and watched the customers come and go. Smiling every now and then at what people thought something was worth and what others were willing to pay.

I must have brought him good luck..........it was nearly two hours before it slowed down enough to have our little bit of business. The weather was just right for sitting in front of the store, high white clouds scudded across the robins egg blue sky. Rednecks and outlaws went in and out of the restaurant next door and the gas station was selling gas for twenty cents the gallon less than yesterday. I saw one place that dropped forty cents between morning and afternoon.

At the next stop I didn't buy anything but we talked each others ears off for two hours or so. He did have one bauble that was nice. If anybody wants a radiant emerald cut diamond so white and clear that it almost hurts your eyes, for a hell of a good buy, just let me know.

This evening I'm listening to Bob Wills and Asleep at the Wheel on you tube. Faded Love and Amarillo by morning are just a couple.

Enjoy......



...........but Lord I'm free.

Amen

The leaves are falling

For the first time in maybe five months or more I donned a long sleeved shirt today. I'd bought it and 3 others several months ago at a flea market/yard sale sort of place along Hwy 29. All brand new, brand name, still in the original plastic. The guy had maybe a thousand of them and I found 4 that were large (my size).....the rest were XL or bigger. Eight bucks apiece, about one quarter retail, I had been looking forward to the fall when it would be cool enough to wear them.

I look forward to fall each year. The cooler nights, while the days are warm and sunny. You can leave the A/C off and open the windows....let some fresh air in.

We drove west down Hwy 316, toward Lawrenceville, the four lane cutting exactly in half the old dairy farm I was raised on. The old homestead is gone now, the house, barns, trees and gentle hills scrapped flat in anticipation of another great slab of asphalt and concrete with shops and stores built thereon. The once fertile, productive sandy loam gone forever to instead grow monuments to consumption and the service society we have become.

But the trees that are left standing along the creeks and areas not yet ready to be developed are starting to turn here in early mid-October. The dogwood leaves are red, the poplars turning a bright yellow. Soon the mighty oaks and hickories will turn bright red and orange. They are beginning to shed now, but in a few weeks after a light frost followed by some brisk breeze, they'll shower leaves down to carpet the ground, crisp and cracking when it's dry and soft, spongy and quiet when wet.

Our destination is the Gwinnett Medical Center.........not a trip I had looked forward to......my Aunt Margaret is lying there, with an oxygen tube under her nose, he five feet nothing or less height shrunken against the pillow, daughters, brother, sisters, nephews, nieces and in-laws and friends gathering around, speaking quietly, smiling sadly as they remember a life well lived.

She's eighty four years old, she'll not see eighty five in the flesh, and to say she had a good long life seems to diminish her somehow, for she was not just old. She was a daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt and great-aunt to so many nephews and nieces that I can't begin to name even a quarter of them.

Short she may have been.......she shrank even shorter as the years passed by. As long as I can remember her hair has been a beautiful white, like a glittering crown or halo on her head. Which seems appropriate to my memory, for I remember her as full of love........love for her family, not just for her husband (long gone) and her two daughters, but full of love for her extended family. I can never remember a time when she didn't show that love to all who knew her. Unconditional love that was evidenced by a concern for all of us. She seemed to beam when she saw any of us, even if like mine, the visits were not as often as they could have been. She would ask after us, our spouses, children and grandchildren, remembering their names, for she had a capacity for remembering them all.

Our family tree is a massive old white oak, the trunk still sound, the branches spreading widely with many a twig growing wildly, but her leaf will soon fall, to become compost for young oaks that have sprung up around her, who will hopefully stand the straighter and taller for feeding on her love.

I know it's in the order of things, but........

Damn, I hate the fall.

The first comming

Of the Messiah is upon us............ready the young asses and strip off all the palm branches in the country side, for none other than John the Baptist, er that is, Louis Farrakhan has foretold it.

Bow down to the anointed one, for yea and verily his reign will begin in 25 days.



Bow down before our new master and saviour.

Someone should have spilled his seed upon the wall.

The things you can learn

from reading books are many, and sometimes strange.

Tonight I read about and found this piece, albeit not by the original.

Enjoy.

Conspicious Consumption on The Street

As the sun started it inexorable slide down, between the towering sky scrapers standing like walls along the streets on the island of Manhattan, the daily late afternoon ritual began.

Like cattle, making their way down the chute, toward the final thump of the air gun just above and between the eyes, denizens of those same towers exited on the ground and basement floors and moved steadily along their designated routes. No eye to eye contact, no joyous chatter at being freed from their pen ‘til the next day, only a steady, straight ahead movement to the same destination they had every afternoon, the subway turnstile, the Checker Cab stand, the entrance to the parking garage, by the tens and hundreds, by the thousands and tens of thousands they paced patiently to their intermediate destination, to stand in line for something they wouldn’t remember in the morning.

For they were addicted, these chasers of the American Dream, addicted to the pleasures of needle sharp fangs, dripping with narcotic saliva, as they were applied to the inside of their left arms at the way stations along their route home, or to the eateries, theaters, and bars at which they would eat and drink, to replace the precious fluids and nutrients that had been delicately removed from their bodies, removed to satiate the ravening hunger of their overlords.

Mostly delicately that is, except for those occasional times when the hunger could not be satisfied with only a sip, or a mouthful, and the beast within came rampaging to the surface and instead of a slight sting and refreshed forgetfulness, they would be dragged to the ground and fed upon furiously, greedily, by beings with the instincts of packs of hyenas on the plains of Africa, consumed like the herd animals they were, their absence noted, if at all, by only a mild question in the memory of the rest of the herd, when one of their number didn’t show up at the designated time and place on the morning after.


He watched from the tops of the towers, hi-powered glasses at his eyes, just as he watched every evening…………..

Stupid is, as stupid does.

This just doesn't apply to Forrest, but to our Overlords in The Federal Reserve System and their minions, the politicians and appointed officials such as the Secretary of the Treasury.

Go HERE to see what a Professor of Finance has to say about it.

Stock up on Food, Fuel, Firearms and precious metal in .45 ACP, 7.62mm, 00 Buckshot, and hemp ropes for the nooses when we catch one.

The Vice Presidential Debate

My views on politics these days generally go something along this line.....

.....A coalition of the unwilling lead by the incompetent.

Both of the candidates showed up with their shoes shined. Governor Palin's ass was much the nicer in that tight skirt, atop those great legs. After that I lost interest.

Besides, Jon Nadler says that we're fine.

Me worry??...........nah

Bankruptcy, Not Bailout, is the right answer

So far I've hesitated to post anything about the current financial bru-ha-ha.

Politicians are shitting in their shoes because they know that a large part of the responsibility lies squarely on their collective desk. The remainder of the responsibility lies on the heads of the financial institutions that went along with the Ponzi Scheme.

Rather than give you my poor interpretation, and knowing you might not click on a link, I am going to paste in it's entirety a commentary written by a Harvard (let's not hold that against him just yet, shall we)economist. See if it makes as much sense to you as to me.

Editor's note: Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University. A Libertarian, he was one of 166 academic economists who signed a letter to congressional leaders last week opposing the government bailout plan.
Economist Jeffrey Miron says the bailout plan presented to Congress was the wrong solution to the crisis

Economist Jeffrey Miron says the bailout plan presented to Congress was the wrong solution to the crisis

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Congress has balked at the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the "troubled assets" of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.


This bailout was a terrible idea. Here's why.

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.

Once housing prices declined and economic conditions worsened, defaults and delinquencies soared, leaving the industry holding large amounts of severely depreciated mortgage assets.
Don't Miss

* Bailout plan rejected
* Financial rescue 101: the bill
* Commentary: Financial crisis a disaster
* In Depth: Commentaries

The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government.

The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company.

Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.

In contrast, a bailout transfers enormous wealth from taxpayers to those who knowingly engaged in risky subprime lending. Thus, the bailout encourages companies to take large, imprudent risks and count on getting bailed out by government. This "moral hazard" generates enormous distortions in an economy's allocation of its financial resources.

Thoughtful advocates of the bailout might concede this perspective, but they argue that a bailout is necessary to prevent economic collapse. According to this view, lenders are not making loans, even for worthy projects, because they cannot get capital. This view has a grain of truth; if the bailout does not occur, more bankruptcies are possible and credit conditions may worsen for a time.

Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen.

Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents.

The costs of the bailout, moreover, are almost certainly being understated. The administration's claim is that many mortgage assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion.

If these assets are worth something, however, private parties should want to buy them, and they would do so if the owners would accept fair market value. Far more likely is that current owners have brushed under the rug how little their assets are worth.

The bailout has more problems. The final legislation will probably include numerous side conditions and special dealings that reward Washington lobbyists and their clients.

Anticipation of the bailout will engender strategic behavior by Wall Street institutions as they shuffle their assets and position their balance sheets to maximize their take. The bailout will open the door to further federal meddling in financial markets.

So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.

The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Let's burn the house down

The current crisis couldn't have been worse if somebody had planned it.

Crazy???

Running Away

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Think I'll run off".

"Where ya goin'?"

"Where ya wanna go?"

"Aruba"

"Gotta passport?"

Sigh "No".

"Neither do I."

(both) "Damn"

For BANE

Godspeed



For me

Time and old Marines march on

As a youngun I was raised on a 300 acre dairy farm 35 miles from the capitol building in Atlanta Georgia. Today you'd be hard pressed to find a working farm of even a few acres that close. Mostly it's covered in asphalt or concrete and houses.........
......every where you look there are houses, of all stripes and colors. Big and small, until the last year when the house construction industry went tits up, the once fertile land grows only houses.

Still I learned many things there, how to find pecans in the grass of our yard in the fall, how to catch a baseball thrown up on the tin roof of the smoke house, rolling off into my bare hands, or later my first baseball glove. I learned to ride a used 36 inch bicycle even though my legs were too short to reach the ground on either side (I'd lean it over on a terrace row so I could get my leg over to the peddle and push off and peddle like hell till I got to the peach orchard where I'd grab a limb over my head and let the bike wobble on 'til it fell over............then do it over, and over, and over again. Later as my legs stretched out a bit, I'd spend hours and hours riding around the big turn around in front of the milk barn where the tractor trailer with the big milk tank would come to suck up our milk along with other members of the Atlanta Dairy Cooperative, to take back to Atlanta and bottled or made into ice cream and cheese, and sold all over Georgia.

I learned to read, in part, because the Atlanta Constitution newspaper was delivered ever day..........and while my dad and mom read the more important stuff I'd keep up with the adventures of Dick Tracy, Smiling Jack, The Phantom and many other characters on the cartoon page, or multiple pages in the Sunday edition.

Eventually the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution were combined into one paper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which today struggles like many papers around the country to keep readership in an era when many get their news and entertainment from the TV..........and more and more.......the internet.

I long ago stopped subscribing to the paper, because they'd grown fat on the advertising pages to the point that there were almost two pages of advertising to one page of news and business. I now fall into that percentage that gets most of my news from the internet or radio while riding in my Dodge Ram.

So it surprises me a bit to be posting a link Here to an article in the paper. (I did find it online)

It concerns a gift from old Sam Magill, (gone lo these many years) longtime publisher of the paper, to the surviving members of the 1st Marine division, who stormed, and eventually, after six months of fighting and dying, took the island of Guadalcanal during WWII, of an old and expensive bottle of Cognac, to be opened by the last surviving member of the division that actually fought on that terrible bit of rock and sand sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Read the story for yourself, think what you may about it and the members of what some have called our Greatest Generation. Maybe, like me, you'll raise a silent toast, either in your mind, or in fact, to those men, and one newspaper editor and publisher, who made a gift of a lifetime.

Out on a limb................

.......Or The Fix is in.

In 1980 I predicted that Regan would wipe the floor with Jimmy Carter after seeing a photo in the paper with David Rockefeller placing is arm across Regan's shoulders and announce "Regan's My Man".

Today a member of the Rothschild’s empire announced that she's for McCain.
As She was formally a Clinton backer I think this might be telling us something.

But then what do I know??

Call me a conspiracy nut if you must. I wear the banner with pride. If you think that people will spend a half billion dollars and more to elect a President who only makes $400,000.00 a year so that he can be in charge of things your are perhaps deluded..................

Or perhaps it's me. After all they pay me to be crazy.

UPDATE: Today it appears that Donald Trump is getting on the bandwagon.

Passion Fruit

When asked how she was doing today the young Portuguese lovely replied, "Peachy".

My mind was instantly transported to a vision of taking the first bite of the first peach of the season.

For weeks you've watched the young fruit grow from small and green to round and plump, tinted with first yellow, then pinkish, to pinkish red. You've had to restrain yourself from plucking it before it was fully ripe. Oh, they can be eaten while partly green.......but the taste is tart, almost bitter. How much better to wait..
..restraining your urges to indulge before the moment is right. Until that perfect moment, when you take the fruit into your hand, and can feel that it is firm, yet not too much so. With just the right amount of give, that indicates the flesh inside is fully ready........

You brush at the soft fuzz outside,. Not too much, you want the texture of it to remain somewhat on the flesh in order to feel it as you sink you teeth into it, feeling the skin burst, the yellow flesh yielding wetly as you press it into your mouth giving a slight sucking in order not to let any of the sweet syrupy goodness excape. But it does and as the juices run down your chin you take your fingers and wipe it up, not wanting to miss a single drop of it's peachy goodness.

Time is suspended as your senses can only process the smell,that peachy aroma that assaults your sinuses, the slippery texture of the fruit, so fully ripe that it seems to slide down your throat. The cares of the world drop away for that one perfect moment.

Just you and your peach. That's all that matters as you eat it down to the nut inside.

Never underestimate the stupidity.........

.........of people in large groups.

Every time there is the least little problem the news media makes it sound like the end times are here right now.

Yesterday gas in Athens was about $3.53........today over $4.50 and rising. All because the storm in the gulf has temporarily shut down some of the oil wells and a few refineries.

Do people not understand the words temorarily. Bejus, we're like dumb cattle being lead to the slaughter, rolling our eyes wildly and mooing enmasse.

The price of oil fell overnight to lowest price in a while and the pump price goes ballistic.

Oh what fools these mortals be.

Never forget

Never surrender, Never give up.

There will be many remembrances of the attack against America seven years ago today. Many grand and glorious statements honoring those who died. To be true there were many heroes that day. Men like the firemen and police officers who disregarding the danger to themselves, sought valiantly to get as many people out of those towers safely as possible, despite their own fear, despite thoughts of their own families, they did their duty.

I've posted before about Rick Rescorla on this anniversary day. Who knows how many lives he saved at the cost of his own. Even if it were only one, how long would it be before they forgot him ?

Yet that was only the opening skirmish of a larger and longer war than we could at that time imagine. And many people have, it seems, forgotten. We are able to go about our daily lives, most of us safely considering we get there in machines that hurtle us along at 60 to 80% of a hundred miles per hour, and on highways converge at double that speed.

We need to remember, this day especially, and every other day, the unsung heroes who daily volunteer to put their own lives and limbs on the line. Sorta like this guy speaking his heart to a presidential candidate.

Part of a healthy life style

At first when I read the linked story I thought to myself, 'He's clogging his guts up'.

Then I realized that it's just Sad.

I mean after all, a diet of Big Mac's can be a healthy lifestyle choice.........if that's all you eat. You've got your meat, bread, salad, and vegetables all in one gut packing fist full. Not too bad. Probably ought to limit the soft drinks is all. For sure, none of the diet sodas, which are full of Aspartame.

He says he's in love with the burgers, which are the highlights of his days
.

Now, I can identify with him a bit more.

Where's the chocolate bar??

Just too good, it's almost sinful

In fact I've heard that gluttony is one of the 7 chief Deadly sins.........

Not sure just who came up with the first list, but Evagrius Ponticus 4th century monk put Gluttony in first place. And he listed eight.

I'm guilty of all the rest (though not enough of the second) so might as well be perfect in something.

That being said however, is there anything edible more delicious than a warm slice off a loaf of Banana Nut Bread, with real black walnuts mixed liberally in it, real cow butter smeared atop, pinched off with your fingers so you can lick them afterwards??

Right now, I think not..........well except for the second piece which I have to try really, really hard not to go get. Made me have to get out of the slightly too snug khakis, and slip on the bull moose PJ's with the elastic waistband.

Thomas Aquinas took a more expansive view of gluttony, listing 6 way to commit that one sin.

* Praepropere, eating too soon;
* Laute (washedly), eating finely;
* Nimis, eating too much;
* Ardenter, eating burningly;
* Studiose (keenly), eating daintily;
* Forente (boringly), eating wildly.

I'm guilty of all these also.

Maybe I need to concentrate on some of the other sins more, and gluttony less. Whadda ya think?

The hazard of living too long

Whether or not you are a country music fan, this is truly

the work of a deep thinker, and highly intelligent person.

So simple, yet so profound. Words of wisdom from that

famous philosopher Willie Nelson, on his 75th birthday:





''I have outlived my dick.''.

Must of been a bit of bad beef.........

......either that or I missed a pill or two.

I mean when you start dreaming of scooping up 6 wk dead bodies in the bucket of your MF-40 as well as giving rides to what looked like Auschwitz survivors at the end of WWII, but knowing them to be forgotten MIA's........

It'll bring you gasping and clawing out of a deep sleep with a blinding hatred of governments that forgot them....or started conflict that led to it.

I'm glad I gave up on googling pictures to post on here. You don't need to have visuals.

That'll make you fear going back to sleep ever again.

Meow, meow, Grrrrrrrrrrrwwww

You know the housing market in California is going to the dog......er, Cats when a family of Bobcats take over a Foreclosure.

It's also a sign that the invasion from Mexico is slowing down, because the squatters aren't Hispanic.

If you've ever heard a male Bobcat sending out his lovesick calls in the early evening you've missed a treat. Think going into a spook house at Halloween will send chills up your spine............you don't know the half of it. Imagine being on the African Savannah setting up camp along the tree line at dusk, the sun setting in the west with a purple, red and pinkish glow, the porters have unpacked and the cook is stirring beans over the fire. Your are setting in the camp chair in front of your tent when a male panther in the tree over your head announces his displeasure at your intrusion with a loud scream, then leaps to the ground and disappears into the bush. Yeah, kinda like that.

Wildlife experts may try to tell you that we don't have panthers or cougars in the Southeast any more, but 45 years ago on the dairy farm my dad owned near Dacula, GA, we had one in the back 40 that for about a week, announced his presence about 6am every morning. Milkers would be stomped off of teats, if you happened to be washing an udder you'd be kicked and likely a sloppy tail would smack you upside the head, the cows would roll their big black eyes around in their heads and look wildly about. We found tracks in the treeline bigger than any dog in the neighborhood and no toenail prints on them. That's guaran-damn-teed to make you look around like your head is on a wind vane in a tornado. They say it's sorta like a woman screaming.......yeah, that's about right......

....like a London prostitute who sees Jack the Ripper coming.

Whirly Girl

That's a designation I first remember being applied to hurricanes by the late author John_D._MacDonald in one of his Travis McGee novels. A fitting name when the National Weather Service only used feminine names for these late summer and fall storms.

Of course now-a-days we have to be politically correct and also use masculine names.

I reckon that's OK with me.........doesn't seems to really matter. After all I have seen and heard of men who could hold a grudge with most women. I must admit though that the saying "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", does seem to apply more generally to the fairer sex. Most guys will bluster and blow hard for a little while and then with the first rumbling of his stomach will say, "food.......me.......now" and turn his attention to that, sex or television. The more outdoorsy type will go fishing or hunting. Small flare ups may flicker behind his eyes every once in a while, but quickly smolder out as his brain can't retain the necessary focus to keep thinking of it.

It looks like Hannah might bring us a little rain either tomorrow night or maybe Saturday. That'll be OK here in the northern Piedmont of Georgia......maybe not so OK for those closer to the coast or up along the Outer Banks and the Northeastern States..

We had another East Coast brushing storm a few years ago called Hugo who's heavy rain and wind laid waste to much of the lower eastern seaboard. Much of the Damage was due to the flooding caused.

I confess to not having much of an inclination to get too close to a hurricane. I have to admit however that the clear skies both before and after the fact are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. No haze, just crystal clear air through which from an elevation you can see forever it seems.

Even the clouds during the storms passage are impressive as they sweep counter clockwise in bands of gray, and darker almost black, that unleash rain that comes down like you are pouring water out of a rubber boot, or like the old timers used to say "like a cow pissing on a flat rock". Having been around cows most of my life I know exactly what that is like.
My paternal Grandfather once told a visitor to his dairy barn during milking time who asked how he could stand the smell, "Shoot, I've had so much splashed in my mouth I don't even taste it anymore". I come from down to earth country stock. Most of us will speak it like it is. Some better than others of course.

Anyway, I'll watch the skies for the next few days, noticing which way the birds are flying and the wind is blowing.

Hot Damn

Sarah Palin just took it to the obamassiah, spit in his face, stomped on his instep, twisted his nose and bitch slapped him on the back of his socialist head.

I may be an over the hill, over medicated, redneck country boy, but I'd get in a fox hole with her if all we had were a flip and a .22 rifle.

That Gal (as she referred to herself) has great big, shiny, brass balls. How she totes them in high heels is beyond me.

A B-E-A-utiful day in the neighbor hood

I've had my cheezy eggs and crispy bacon, the whole wheat bread smeared with real cow butter, the sky is blue and not much breeze. We'll warm up today but not too bad. It's off the enjoy the outdoors for a bit.

While I'm no deep thinker by any measure, this bit read here, causes me some reflection this morning.

"Few people think much about the Founding Fathers of the United States these days. They would be appalled, even say, I TOLD YOU SO. Thomas Jefferson warned specifically about handing over the power and authority over money to private banks, stating in clear terms that if granted, then in time the nation will lose their homes to bankers"

I do believe I'll ruminate over that one for a while.

So much Hate

Especially for someone she never knew of until a week ago.

I asked in a previous post, what the PUMA’s would do now that Sarah Palin is now the Republican VP pick of John McCain.

I think this Column for a Baltimore Sun writer demonstrates the degree of unreasoning hatred the left has for anyone who doesn't subscribe to their vision of socialist dogma.

What ever happened to the concept of fair play?

Night thoughts

I sat in the yard swing this evening, just at that late twilight time when the color is washed from the sky, when there is not a breath of air that you yourself didn't just exhale.
A rain crow or maybe a Mourning Dove was the only sound I could hear other than the soft squeak of the swing chain as I slowly swung back and forth.

Gracie, the Dalmatian bitch with one blue eye and one brown sat on the ground before me, cadging a rub and scratch on each forward swing. Poor girl, she sheds far too much to be allowed into the house, her domain rather the fenced back yard where she sleeps in one corner of the shop/storage building. In the summer she'll lounge under it in the cool gray dirt, during cooler weather she'll be found stretched out on the front porch soaking up the heat from a feeble winter sun.
When ever it is, she's always right at my side when I'm out there (or in my lap if I'll allow her) rubbing her head against me, keeping her bi-colored eyes fixed upon me, like a lonesome lover, begging me silently never to go away, yet knowing I will, and hoping I'll one day return. I always do............faithfulness should be rewarded.

Then a rice burner with angry exhausts snarls his way around the corner and down the road, disturbing the evening, and, after one last scratch and rub to the pooch, I walk heavily into the house.